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Lo! Peninsula: AKA Lo Peninsula
https://lopeninsula.bandcamp.com/album/aka-lo-peninsula
There’s always an existential crisis when it comes to music, and musicians. Which is, what is it about me that makes me want to create music? What drives me to do this? Why can’t I just be a music fan? What is it that separates me, from the average person, who just listens to music?
After all it isn’t cheap. The gear, the promotion of your music, the recording studio fees, the amount of time trying to perfect that one take, etc. It’s essentially a large money pit, that requires you to learn as you go, any mistake is costly, and that’s not even the half of it. There’s an extremely high percentage that most people won’t listen to your music, and it’s not even a question of whether your music is good or not. It’s up to fate, and nothing is more existentially terrifying than leaving something up to fate.
So when Lo! Peninsula writes that, “Our debut EP, AKA Lo Peninsula, is a catharsis of the existential crisis that we have been facing since the band was formed. This is our response to all the trials and tribulations that we had endured since we took our baby steps as a band.” Anybody who makes music immediately understands what they mean.
To begin with Lo! Peninsula’s AKA Lo Peninsula is an amazing album. For anybody who says rock n’ roll is dead, or has quit innovating, I would encourage them to listen to this album. The vocals innovate on the best of indie rock. With it’s production makes it sound like not just a rock singer, but like a voice high up in the mountains singing lyrics that peers out to the horizon–that sees all struggling artists–then articulates everything that they’ve been felt and experienced. For example take the lyrics in Quicksand (Nuffin).
“Drowning in quicksand everyday
Locked in a dreamy haze again
Look how we anticipate
A blizzard in the midst of a sunny day
To celebrate our own defeat”
It’s a song that encapsulates that natures of dreamers and artists–who in spite of all odds–strive for something greater. Something that is so exceptionally different from the regular person who is just solely focused on what’s in front of them, that they forget to look up at the stars. Yet as an artist knows, that no matter how long you stare up at the stars, at the end of the day you still need to pay the bills.
The psychedelic guitars even further illustrate this point. Psychedelia was originally started from artists who were pushing boundaries, expanding their consciousness, and changing the status quo. So what better sound is there to encapsulate the archetypal spirit of the artist than psychedelia? The guitar with it’s psychedelic tones, creates a sound that is not only unique but also celebrates everything that preceded it. Take Sleight of Hand with it’s thundering bass, spaced out guitars, and cool laid back drumming. It not only creates music that is expansive, and conceptual but also music that has a groove; a sound that you could dance to, or just listen to in your room. Regardless of which you choose it’s music that you can lose yourself in.
Yet even if you create the best art in the world and nobody listens to it. Take Evil Favours a song that begins with a melancholy sample of a thunderstorm. With a reflective and introspective sound, it asks questions that most artists themselves. Is it all worth it? Lo! Peninsula reflects on these questions that artists often ask of themselves, and provides an answer.
We broke all the rules
To spend a lonely lifetime together
And tiptoeing down memory lane
To find another spark of love to treasure
Should we be counting on evil favours forever?
We sailed across the ocean
To play our parts along and undefeated
And crushing down the castles in the sand
Oftentimes musicians take for granted that we even have the ability to create. Many people waste their whole lives wondering, “What if?” Yet Lo! Peninsula offers us a hand and provides us with the context that so many artists desperately need, that often it’s not the destination that matters, rather, it’s the journey.
Take the only track that does not feature any lyrics, Flashback Kid. With it’s reflective soundscape, and hopeful upbeat tone; it recalls a period in time when every musician picked up that six string guitar and started strumming away. Each section of the song feels like a discovery, of that time when you found a new chord, bought a microphone, recorded your first song, or bought a new guitar pedal; that feeling you get when you can finally start expressing yourself in a way, that words just can’t.
Finally Final Roar brings the album to it’s conclusion. The track has a false start, then you hear what sounds like a cassette being popped out of a cassette player, like a musician reminiscing on his music, the music that failed to provide a living, the music that cost so much, the music that they poured so much of themselves into, only to get nothing in return. Then the music returns with a reinvigorated energy that sounds uplifting and focused. No, they aren’t going to stop. Because like Lo! Peninsula says,
“Because it’s time for the final roar
To be awake forevermore
Well it’s time for the final roar
Lo! Peninsula created this album as an expression of the existential questions they faced as a band. Yet, this album not only expresses the indomitable spirit of the artist but that of all humanity. That challenges we face when we no longer tread the beaten path, but blaze our own path; and the triumph of the individual overcoming all obstacles in their path.
For it’s amazing psychedelic sounds, celebration of the human spirit, and everything else that this album has to offer, I give it my full recc.
Author fatherartoisPosted on March 16, 2019 March 16, 2019 Categories ReccsTags India, indie, Lo! Peninsula, psychedelic, shoegaze, Three piece rock band
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Partner Guides
Bekker's Blog
Microsoft PowerApps and Flow Hit Prime Time
After a six-month public beta period, Microsoft's PowerApps and Flow developer services are now commercially available.
The two services, which give organizations simplified tools for building applications and workflows, became generally available on Tuesday after being in public preview since April.
General availability technically means that they can be used by organizations in production environments. However, Microsoft clarified that "PowerApps and Microsoft Flow will be enabled automatically for most Office 365 commercial plans in November 2016," according to another announcement regarding SharePoint.
PowerApps and Flow are not just designed for developers and IT pros, but also are billed by Microsoft as being user-friendly enough such that business personnel can compose solutions. Microsoft also is marketing Power BI, its data visualization solution, as a sort of third leg of this so-called "power trio."
Both services have built-in connectors to Microsoft's cloud-enabled Office 365 and Dynamics 365 applications, and it's possible to create "custom API" data connections, as well. Organizations also can use PowerApps and Flow to connect with premises-based applications and data using an "on-premises data gateway," according to Microsoft's announcement. Microsoft is also supporting its developer partner community with "a new solution catalog" for PowerApps that was launched Monday.
The SharePoint Connection
Microsoft's SharePoint development team seems to have embraced PowerApps and Flow in a big way. For instance, Microsoft's SharePoint announcement on Monday explained that PowerApps and Flow "are the successors to InfoPath and SharePoint Designer for many common business scenarios, especially custom forms used on SharePoint lists."
Perhaps this detail was mentioned during Microsoft's Ignite event at some point. However, generally speaking, Microsoft hadn't really explained (until this week) exactly what alternatives it would offer after telling SharePoint users that it was planning to deprecate InfoPath (typically used to create SharePoint forms) as well as SharePoint Designer.
InfoPath 2013 and SharePoint Designer 2013 are the latest and the last products of their line, although both will be available throughout the product lifecycle of SharePoint Server 2016. They'll be around till 2026, Microsoft's SharePoint announcement clarified. InfoPath Forms Services also will have a similar product-lifecycle shelf life.
Meanwhile, PowerApps and Flow will be getting "deeper integration" into SharePoint. They are getting "fully integrated into the SharePoint web experience," Microsoft indicated, as well as with mobile apps. It soon will be possible to connect PowerApps to the data stored in SharePoint's Modern Lists, Microsoft promised. PowerApps and Flow both will be capable of connecting with Modern Document Libraries as a data source. In addition, organizations will be able to use the new data gateway on premises to connect PowerApps and Flow with SQL Server and SharePoint Server data "as simply as cloud-based data," Microsoft indicated.
Microsoft also mentioned on Monday that Power BI is getting deeper integration with SharePoint Online. When that capability rolls out, it'll be possible to "embed visualizations and charts from Power BI directly into a SharePoint team site."
Microsoft will be including the PowerApps and Flow services in some of its Dynamics 365 subscription plans, but they also will be sold separately. PowerApps and Flow will included as part of some Office 365 Enterprise, Office 365 Business Premium and Office 365 Business Essentials plans, but nuances are involved.
For instance, there are Plan 1 and Plan 2 options, which are listed under PowerApps pricing and Flow pricing. The two plans have different capabilities. An organization's subscription type determines which plan is included. Alternatively, Plan 1 and Plan 2 can be bought separately, billed at a fixed rate per user per month.
On the PowerApps side, Plan 1 and Plan 2 are only included when an organization buys the Dynamics 365 Enterprise edition. However, they can be purchased separately, at $7 per user per month or $40 per user per month, respectively. Clearly, there's a whopping cost disparity between Plan 1 and Plan 2. Microsoft prices them based on limits for "flow runs," "data storage" and "file storage" used on a per-user basis. Plan 1 and Plan 2 are the only ones that have access to the so-called "Common Data Service," which is an Azure storage space that arranges data into a "standardized but extensible" form. For instance, the data are sorted into common categories, such as "customer," "product" and "inventory item," among others, for easy access when building applications. PowerApps Plan 2 is also notable for having "enterprise-grade administration of environments and user policies," a feature that isn't shown for Plan 1.
On the Flow side, Plan 1 is an extra option priced at $5 per user per month. Plan 2 is an optional item priced at $15 per user per month, or it's included in three Dynamics 365 subscription plans: Enterprise Plan 1, Enterprise Plan 2 and the Business edition. Once again, access to the Common Data Service is just available to Plan 1 and Plan 2 subscribers. There are management differences between the two plans. For instance, only Plan 2 has the ability to "establish company policies regarding the usage of different connections and flows."
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You are here: Home > Products > Books > Standing at the Crossroads
Standing at the Crossroads
Standing at the Crossroads: Dialectics of the Witching-Other
By Peter Hamilton-Giles
Limited to 333 copies. All copies signed by author
Cover: Burgundy Buckram on 3000 mike board.
Design: Two colour foil block to front and back, with single colour foil block to spine.
Endpapers: Napura Wipalin Marine.
Paper: Munken Cream 100gsm.
Bookmark Ribbon.
Head and Tail bands.
Truth is based on censoring that which might undermine alternative rationales, and so it is with how the existential witch has been accommodated by practitioners as the icon for folk based practices. Typically this stereotypical inclusion has up to now involved the appropriation of the most revered historical opposition to Christian patriarchy i.e. the witch, so that he or she might become a conduit for justifying rationales for qualifying alternative occult belief systems. Challenging the common consensus on engagement, we find Peter Hamilton-Giles in “Standing at the Crossroads: Dialectics of the Witching-Other” addressing ongoing silences embedded within the connectivity being felt towards the existential witch. Appealing to novices and experienced veterans of witchcraft alike this work casts a new light on the conditions informing how we come to embrace the witch.
At the same time this work should not be regarded as offering a simple explanation, for this most insightful book adopts an advisory position on how practitioners should engage with the witch. It goes about achieving this by addressing how interaction, based on apprehension and perception, informs the understanding of the subject by interjecting the motif of Otherness. As a result, “Standing at the Crossroads” looks to liberate practitioners from the shackles of inexplicable constructs, while at the same time suggesting an altogether more promising alternative on how to successfully accept the existential witch. But the reader must be made aware this is no simple or straight A to Z on what to do, for the narrative invites the reader to act as the iconoclast to any taken for granted notions that he or she may being holding onto. Consequently, the text contains within it the insightful principle of deviation, making Standing at the Crossroads: Dialectics of the Witching-Other an instructive platform for engaging with the metaphysical. Moreover, comprehending the important role the witching-other has to play in developing witchcraft discourses has a further ramification in developing contemporary occult philosophy, for it is from this intellectual discipline that the flow of consciousness is unleashed, this being a valid and vital contributing aspect to all witching activities.
An added aspect to Standing at the Crossroads comes with the inclusion of more than fifteen evocative colour illustrations by Carolyn Hamilton-Giles. These act as a counterpoint to the text and yet reveal a reverential aspect towards the metaphysical emplacement of the witch.
Standing at the Crossroads quantity
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The Baron Citadel
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Galactic Terran Alliance Triton Class Freighter
Atton Rand (Human Jedi)
The Valkyrie (Re-imagined Series)
Galactic Terran Alliance Ares Class Fighter
Name: Flint (The Dark Lord of Belderone)
Homeworld: Belderone
Died: c.14 ABY (49), Belderone
Skin color: Light
MOVE - 10
DEXTERITY: 3D+2
Blaster: 5D
Brawling Parry: 5D+1
Dodge: 8D
Lightsaber: 8D
Melee Combat: 6D
Melee Parry: 5D
PERCEPTION: 3D
Bargain: 5D
Command: 5D
Hide: 4D
Persuasion: 4D+1
Search: 4D+1
Sneak: 4D+2
KNOWLEDGE: 2D+2
Intimidation: 3D+2
Languages: 3D+2
Planetary Systems: 4D+1
Scholar (Jedi Lore): 4D+1
Scholar (Sith Lore): 6D
Streetwise: 3D+2
Survival: 4D+2
Tactics: 5D+2
Willpower: 5D
STRENGTH: 3D
Brawling: 5D+1
Climbing/Jumping: 4D
MECHANICAL: 2D+2
Repulsorlift Operation: 6D+1
TECHNICAL: 2D+1
First Aid: 4D
Lightsaber Repair: 5D+1
Repulsorlift Repair: 4D+2
Security: 5D+1
Walker Repair: 5D+2
Control: 6D
Sense: 5D+1
Alter: 6D+2
Force Powers:- Absorb/Dissipate Energy, Accelerate Healing, Control Pain, Detoxify Poison, Reduce Injury, Remain Conscious, Resist Stun, Life Detection, Life Sense, Magnify Senses, Telekinesis, Lightsaber Combat, Affect Mind, Enhance Attribute, Rage, Combat Sense, Danger Sense.
EQUIPMENT Credits (500)
Red Bladed Light Saber (5D), Sith Armour (+2 Vs Energy Damage, +1D Vs Physical Damage), Commlink, Datapad,
FORCE SENSITIVE - Y
FORCE POINTS 8
DARK SIDE POINTS 9
CHARACTER POINTS 9
Flint was a male Human native from Belderone who was the son of Clone Wars-era Jedi Knight Flint Torul. During the Imperial period, Flint was chosen by Darth Vader as his fourth pupil, following the destruction of his home and death of his mother, Zana. While Flint was in service as a stormtrooper, he received personal training from Vader so that he would eventually face Vader's other pupil, Lumiya, for the honor to be Vader's Shadow Hand. However, after Vader's death, the showdown took place prematurely, and resulted in Flint becoming the apprentice to the new Dark Lady of the Sith, Lumiya.
Flint served under Lumiya as she prepared for the Nagai-Tof War and was sent to subjugate the Phelleem sector. He was also ordered to avenge Vader's death at Endor by confronting and killing the Sith Lord's own son, Luke Skywalker. Flint finally had a showdown with Skywalker on the planet of Naldar, but was unable to bring himself to overcome or kill the Jedi. In the end, his childhood friend, Barney, helped redeem Flint from the dark side of the Force, and he turned on his Imperial allies. After residing in prison for a time, Flint took to helping displaced peoples from the Galactic Civil War. This work continued until he was finally murdered by his old master Lumiya for his ultimate betrayal.
Flint was the son of a Jedi Knight, Flint Torul and a woman named Zana. Flint's father was killed during the Clone Wars by General Grievous near the end of the Outer Rim Sieges. Whether the Jedi knew of his son or if he was a legitimate child is unknown, but Zana was forced to raise her young son alone. To support their small family, Flint had to begin work at a young age. Zana worked the evening shift as a waitress in a cantina while Flint worked in a localized Imperial factory that was specializing in the production of AT-ATs.
Although shifts at the factory were strictly enforced by the Empire, Flint constantly had his head in the clouds and dreamed of becoming a Jedi Knight like his father. Zana was in constant worry that Flint might miss his shifts at the factory, but her son's skill as a landspeeder pilot made sure that he was always on time. Flint's idealism also got on the nerves of his best friend Barney. While Flint became excited at any change of scenery, even the occasional spacecraft that landed in the Belderone spaceport, Barney always had to be dragged along, not sharing the enthusiasm that Flint possessed.
During the height of the Galactic Civil War, the rebel heroes Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Lando Calrissian, and Chewbacca arrived on Belderone in the Millennium Falcon. As was their custom, Flint and Barney went to see the craft's arrival. Flint became ecstatic when he saw that Skywalker had a lightsaber clipped to his belt. Although Flint was sure that Skywalker and he had something in common with both of their fathers being Jedi, Skywalker denied it, in part because he had just recently discovered his father's true identity as Darth Vader.
Although Skywalker refused to acknowledge that he was a Jedi, Flint was confident that Skywalker would be the one to teach him to use the Force, and he led the rebels into the main city. Flint continued to follow Skywalker around, trying to work up the courage to ask the Jedi to train him. As Barney and Flint tried to casually spy on Skywalker a trio of Imperial assassins attempted to eliminate the rebel crew. The two friends watched as Skywalker's skills helped him easily eliminate the threat.
Now confident that Skywalker was a Jedi, Flint decided to show the rebels the AT-AT factory on the world, knowing that they would want to eliminate it to weaken the Imperials' hold on the planet. However, when the group finally arrived at the factory they found it swarming with troops, including several active AT-ATs that were making their way towards Flint's hometown. As the rebels signaled their allies to attack the monstrous machines, Flint and Barney jumped in a landspeeder and sped towards town in hopes of warning the general populace, especially Flint's unaware mother. Unfortunately, Flint's piloting skills failed him and he crashed the craft just on the outskirts of the city. Flint and Barney were both knocked unconscious.
Waking up the next morning, Flint found Barney still unconscious and believed him to be dead. One of the AT-ATs had managed to escape the rebel assault and had destroyed Flint's town. As Flint looked at his destroyed home, he realized that he had not been able to warn his mother in time, and sprinted into the city. Seeing his mother's cantina completely destroyed, he expected the worst. Among the wreckage Flint found his mother's lifeless body and broke down into a state of despair. He had not known how serious the situation was and blamed the rebels for allowing him to believe that he could make a difference.
Flint promised himself that he would become someone who mattered, someone who would show everyone that he was not worthless. As Flint spoke his promises out loud, Darth Vader arrived and recognized the power within Flint. He told the young man that he could make Flint someone of great importance and offered him a place by his side. Flint happily agreed and decided to join the Empire. Vader immediately made Flint into one of his many stormtroopers, promising that in time he would train him to use the Force.
Before long, Flint began to receive personal training from Darth Vader. Just as with Vader’s other illegitimate apprentices such as Lumiya, and Galen Marek, Flint was kept secret from Emperor Palpatine. Flint slowly developed his Force powers eventually mastering the art of telekinesis and was able to sail boulders through the air with ease. Unknown to Flint, Vader was preparing him for a showdown with Lumiya to determine who would become his Shadow Hand when he decided to overthrow Palpatine.
However, before this could take place, Vader died along with Palpatine at the Battle of Endor. Vader’s death affected Flint greatly. He had grown to love Vader and saw him as the father he never had. With his beloved mentor's death, Flint retreated to the planet Vjun to grieve, eventually making his way to Bast Castle. In a state of despair, Flint was disturbed in his mourning by the arrival of Lumiya. After a fierce confrontation, Flint was defeated and taken on as Lumiya's first apprentice.
With the roles of master and apprentice decided, Lumiya ordered Flint to subjugate the Phelleem sector while she prepared for the arrival of the Nagai and their imminent invasion. Flint was also given one final task, one which he was more than happy to accept: a mission to kill Luke Skywalker. Flint knew that Skywalker would eventually come to him as he and his men slowly conquered the Phelleem sector. Flint’s reputation eventually led to an identity as the Dark Lord of Belderone in which he wore extravagant armor and wielded a red-bladed lightsaber.
Flint's campaign in the Phelleem sector eventually led to the planet Naldar and a series of brutal battles took place. The entire royal family of Naldar was wiped out except for young Princess Vila who left to find help from the Rebellion. Her starfighter landed on the forest moon of Endor, and Vila requested to be trained as a Jedi by Luke to save her people from Flint's forces. Luke, Leia, and Barney decided to accompany her to Naldar. During the trip, Luke Skywalker was warned by the Force ghosts of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, and Anakin Skywalker that only he could redeem Flint. Anakin pleaded with Luke to undo the damage to Flint that he had done as Vader and was now unable to undo himself.
Meanwhile, Flint waited for the rebel's return, preparing an ambush for anyone that decided to rescue Naldar. Eventually Flint’s forces witnessed the arrival of the Millennium Falcon and surrounded the rebels. Flint told his men to stand down, and he personally confronted Luke, igniting his lightsaber. Luke and Flint engaged in a furious duel, matching each other blow for blow. Luke tried to reach out to Flint and convince him to turn away from the dark side, but Flint refused to listen. Eventually, one of Flint's stormtroopers was able to hit Luke in the arm with a carefully placed blaster shot, ending the fight. Now with the upper hand, Flint revealed to the rest of the rebels that he and his forces had prepared an enormous energy cannon to destroy the rest of the city and that it was too late to stop its activation.
However, before Flint could signal his troops, his old friend Barney confronted him. Flint was shocked to see Barney still alive, and his resolve weakened. Barney asked Flint to turn away from the Empire and reexamine the atrocities that he had committed. The Dark Lord of Belderone found that he could not continue in his actions any longer and began to repent. One of Flint's stormtroopers witnessed his betrayal and prepared to execute his commander for his treason. However, the Imperial blaster bolt meant for Flint was intercepted by Vila, mortally wounding her. With another death on his conscience, Flint could no longer serve the Empire, and in his last act as a Dark Lord, he self-destructed the energy cannon, killing his Imperial allies and winning the day for the Rebellion.
After his defection and capture, Flint was kept in a cell of Mandalorian iron on an Alliance safe-world for many years, in order to overcome his traumatic experiences as a darksider. He was eventually reformed and returned to Belderone to live out a simple life.
After the destruction of the Crystal Star in the Crseih system, the New Republic sought to find a new home for the dislocated and enslaved Firrerreo freed by Leia and Rillao. With a passionate plea, Flint persuaded the Belderonian people to accept the Firrerreos to their world, although the two groups would later develop a rivalry which the Yuuzhan Vong manipulated to lead to the mutual extinction of both peoples.
Following the fall of the Disciples of Ragnos, Flint's body was found on Belderone, having apparently been stabbed through the throat by a lightsaber or a lightwhip. It appeared that Lumiya had taken revenge on her former pupil, after having vowed to deal with his treachery many years before. Flint was replaced by Carnor Jax, who almost took Palpatine's place on the throne.
Personality and traits
Flint was an enthusiastic and compassionate individual during his early life. Much the same as Luke Skywalker, he had a dream to go off-world and become a Jedi like his father before him. However, when Flint finally thought that he had found someone just like him when Skywalker visited the world, the Jedi denied it, pushing Flint away. Although Flint's dream to be trained as a Jedi was hurt by Skywalker's refusal, he still maintained a positive attitude, trying to impress Skywalker enough to change his mind. This came to a crashing halt following the Empire's attack on his home town. He became a bitter and cynical individual, coming to an understanding that rising up against the status quo was a foolish idea.
After his recruitment into the stormtrooper corps, Flint still kept a picture of his mother with him to remind him of his former life. However, his training under Vader completely warped his view toward events of the past, and he blamed Skywalker for his mother's death and the destruction of his town. When Flint finally came under Dark Lady Lumiya's influence, he was enveloped in hatred for the Jedi and was eager to track him down and punish him. When Flint finally faced Skywalker in a duel, he stated that he had purged himself of fear. The fight proved otherwise, and Flint's offensive was battered aside. He was only saved by a loyal stormtrooper hitting Skywalker with a blaster shot.
Flint's hatred was finally broken by his friend Barney who finally reached Flint and reminded him of the truth about his mother's death. With his head finally clear, Flint was able to realize the evil he was perpetuating. He turned on his Imperial allies and repented, submitting to New Republic authority. Flint was obviously reformed during his imprisonment, and he was soon back to his compassionate ways, using his enthusiasm to help persons recover from the war. Flint died as a hero of the peace and a lesson to the dangers of the dark side.
Flint had an exceptional skill at controlling the landspeeder, which allowed him not to miss his shifts at the AT-TE factory. Although Flint was confident in his skill, it failed him when he rushed to warn his mother. Flint had enough Force potential to be chosen as Darth Vader's apprentice, but not enough to defeat Lumiya. After his training under Vader and Lumiya, Flint became adept at telekinesis, being able to push aside one of the stormtroopers on Naldar and to manipulate a boulder behind Skywalker's back. Flint was also skilled with the lightsaber and successfully utilized it against Skywalker. The latter himself acknowledged that Flint almost matched him in physical prowess and strength.
Stats by FreddyB, descriptive text from WookiePedia
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Russell T Davies celebrates his TV career with RTS Wales
RTS Cymru Wales Chair Judith Winnan made the award at the end of a sold-out event at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama to mark the RTS Centre’s 60th anniversary.
The multi-award-winning writer and regenerator of Doctor Who had been discussing his career with Gethin Jones. The TV presenter met Davies when he was working on Blue Peter 15 years ago – and went on to appear in Doctor Who, albeit as a Dalek and Cyberman.
RTS Wales
RTS Cymru
RTS Fellowship
Sarah Jane’s Adventures
Children’s Ward
Read more about Russell T Davies celebrates his TV career with RTS Wales
Kickstarting the next generation of kids' TV
In March 2018, CBeebies pulled off a spectacular staging of The Tempest, a pacy version that preserved all the best “O brave new world” lines, while gripping its audience of under-sevens.
RTS Programme Awards
Read more about Kickstarting the next generation of kids' TV
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Enhancing Governance, Advocacy, Growth, And Energy In Dedza (Engaged) Programme District Energy Audit
Eales, Aran (Principal Investigator)
Electronic And Electrical Engineering
Project: Consultancy by University
Concern Universal secured funding through Irish Aid to implement the Enhancing Governance, Advocacy, Growth, and Energy in Dedza (ENGAGED) Programme, which aims to contribute to attainment of a strong evidence-based foundation for future programming and increased resilience and improved wellbeing in Dedza district, Malawi. The energy audit contained in this report is one of the specific objectives of ENGAGED to undertake a wide range of TA and district-level social, economic, livelihood and vulnerability assessments. A multidisciplinary research methodology was employed utilising a variety of data collection and analysis tools including a literature review, surveys conducted for household, business and facilities in 4 TAs across Dedza, focus group discussions and expert interviews. Recommendations have been given for interventions CU can undertake to achieve low carbon energy access across the district of Dedza.
Layman's description
An energy audit of a district in Malawi has been undertaken to give recommendations for NGO interventions to reduce poverty through implementation of renewable energy projects.
Context: Energy Access in Malawi
Energy access is an enabling factor for human development (UNDP), however access to national electricity grid in Malawi is currently just 9.8% and only 7.2% of the population has access to modern cooking fuel (SE4All, 2016). Lighting and cooking needs of most Malawians are served by traditional, carbon-based sources of energy such as charcoal and wood for cooking and paraffin, candles and non-rechargeable batteries for lighting. The Malawi National Energy Policy acknowledge these facts and contain policies to tackle the challenges. Emphasis to date has been on grid extension with little focus on the fact that 98% of the country’s energy supply come from biomass. Major donors such as DFID and Irish Aid are conducting nationwide initiatives to increase energy access in a low carbon manor, the ENGAGED program is one of these.
Dedza: Overview
Poverty levels in Dedza range between 70% - 99% of the population living under $2/day, it has a low life expectancy (45.4) and very high fertility rate (5.8). The majority of household incomes are below 20,000 MKW per month and most businesses earn a monthly income of less than 500,000 MKW per month. Although not mentioned specifically in the Dedza District Development Plan, energy links in to each of the key development issues outlined in the District Development Planning Framework (DDPF). The main challenges affecting communities in Dedza include lack of capital to start businesses, lack of good sources of drinking water, lack of infrastructure, and availability and affordability of agricultural inputs. Unpredictable rainfall patterns and lack of agricultural extension workers are resulting in communities realizing little agricultural produce, and selling them at low prices. Energy issues although relevant, are not as high priority compared with the issues described above.
Energy Use in Dedza Overview
Household Rural Businesses Facility
Average Income below 20,000 MKW/m below 500,000 MKW/m N/A
Primary Energy Use (ordered) Firewood, Dry cell batteries, candles, charcoal, paraffin Dry cell batteries, Firewood, candles, charcoal, paraffin Grid, SHS, batteries
PSP ownership 5% 18% 2%
SHS ownership 2.5% 13% 24%
12V Battery ownership 3.5% 16% 2%
Main appliances (ordered) Radios, stereo, TV Radio, TV, Stereo, computer, fridge Radio, water pump, fridge, TV
• Batteries and candles are the most common energy source for lighting, paraffin use and diesel generator use is low in the district
• Ownerships of appliances is low although radios are common
• The main fuel type for cooking is wood, followed by crop residue and plant biomass, charcoal, straw, shrubs and grass.
• Facilities struggle to pay for maintenance of energy systems, suggesting that energy interventions should focus on income generating activities to create maintenance funds to ensure system sustainability.
• At facilities, “energy”, “power” or “solar energy” were mentioned as the second highest priority that needs urgent funding, the highest being Infrastructure. 42 % of the facilities indicated that their current level of electricity limits the services which they offer.
• A variety of energy interventions have been carried out in Dedza by a number of NGOs including: PSP distribution, stove dissemination, co-management approach to forestry, various forestry management programs and a briquette making operation.
MAREP is currently implementing phase 8 of their electrification program, and as part of it Dedza will get 4 new trading centre electrified, with other potential customers or trading centres connected if they are in the vicinity and can afford the connection cost. Only a small proportion of the district is currently served by the grid, with the plains to the West and the mountains to the North unlikely to gain a grid connection in the near future. Even areas in the vicinity of the grid lines have high populations that are not connected to the grid due to lack of purchasing power to afford the initial connection.
Solar Energy use in Dedza
• Solar PV Equipment being used but not widespread (See figures in table above)
• 13% of businesses interviewed are selling solar products, 31% indicated they would be interested in selling RE equipment, and 28% said customers had been asking about them.
• A variety of solar PV products are available in Dedza town from shop keepers, mostly cheap products with no certification or no warrantee.
• Solar products are unaffordable for most communities, however they’re perceived to help improve performance of school children, and deemed economical with no ongoing costs
• Different business models for deploying PSP have been used in Malawi and could be replicated in Dedza, including direct sales, rental or Rent to Own and Pay as You Go, The main challenges are in access to capital and finding entrepreneurs willing to take a risk on upfront purchasing. PSP projects are more likely to be successful if initial training is conducted in the villages
Charcoal, Firewood, and Stoves
• There are a large number of charcoal producers operating in Dedza. With little regulation on charcoal trade, producers operate in the forests and hills around the communities, and charcoal is sold at the trading centers.
• Firewood is sold in communities at a price of 500 MWK a bundle, which has been increasing due to increased travel distances to source it.
• Poverty forces communities into charcoal and firewood production, as it does not require starting capital. People would be willing to engage in other businesses if opportunities were available.
• The Chitetezo Mbaula is the most common improved cook stove (ICS) manufactured in Dedza which has advantages which include simple manufacturing, using less fire wood compared to alternatives, helping to keep food warm, producing less smoke and saving time.
• Learning how to make ICS has improved producer’s lives, as they are able to earn an income and spend more time with their families.
• It is mostly women in groups who are involved in the manufacturing of the ICS, however the community (especially men) have received these stoves well and they can now help women with cooking.
• Woodlots were highlighted as a viable business in Dedza, more so for selling timber than firewood, and that lives have improved economically as a result woodlots.
• There is an identified need for government and NGOs to be involved with such woodlot groups, especially to provide training and advice.
• The responsibility of forestry lies both at the district (through forestry officers) and local level (through Village Development Committees).
• Forestry challenges identified included: water shortages, lack of bylaws, lake of stakeholder coordination, lack of awareness or engagement by communities, and lack of ownership, co-management, and the willingness of the communities to protect the forest and limits in the capacity of the local structures and capacity of extension services/workers.
Influencing Parameters on Energy Interventions
There are Local Capacity gaps in RE knowledge and experience limiting the development of RE, and there is a need for training courses to happen in rural villages to build local capacity. Perception and Awareness and general knowledge of RE is very low, and there is a big need to sensitize rural people on the use of new technologies. Challenges for previous RE Projects were identified as: Technical (poor quality products and transport network), financial (a lack of purchasing power or loans, inflation, devaluation of Kwatcha) and institutional (lack of collaboration between regulators, government, and NGO’s). Examples of Good Projects included ownership being key and a requirement for sufficient plans for maintenance of systems
Energy Resources in Dedza
The wind resource is generally low in the East and West of the district (2-3 m/s at 12m, 3m/s at 30m), but is slightly higher in the centre of the district to the West of the Dedza escarpment (3-4 m/s at 12m, 4-5m/s at 30m). Seasonally, the solar and wind resources follow a similar pattern, further reducing the argument for including wind turbines as part of solar/wind hybrid systems. Due to the high variability and small areas of worthwhile resource, wind power is less viable as a technology in Dedza
There is generally a good solar resource in Dedza, with Global Horizontal Irradiance values ranging from 4.5 – 6 kWh/m2/day across the district. The lowest solar resource can be found to the East and West of Dedza town whereas the highest is found in TA Kachindamoto close to Lake Malawi. Seasonal analysis found that the resource is lower in the winter months (May to July) and highest in November. Solar technology is suitable for Dedza, although the investigation of seasonal load profiles are recommended.
Of the land cover In Dedza, 30% is currently forested, 48% is Agriculture and 22% is settlement and lake, and land tenure systems are either customary land, private land (leasehold) or government/public land. Forest reserves cover an estimated area of 92,740 ha (26% of total land area) and include: Dedza Mountain, Mua-livulezi, Changoni, and Dzalanyama forestry reserves, while customary land forests cover an estimated area of 34,421 ha (9% of total land area). A map outlining tree cover extent, loss and gain for 2000 -2013 shows that Dedza is experiencing high deforestation at an estimated rate of 2.8%, highest in 2012 in Chongoini (48.4 ha) Mua-Livulezi (49.3 ha) and Dzalanyama (39.7 ha) due to their respective locations close to the M1, attributed to charcoal manufacturers travelling from Lilongwe setting up illegal charcoal kilns. The government and implementing partners embarked on Afforestation programmes with a total of 3,876,828 trees planted in 2011/12, the highest by Village Natural Resource Committees (1,743,559 trees) and Forestry Clubs (1,488,000 trees). Some signs of tree planting resulting in the regeneration of forests is visible from the loss/gain map, in the Changoni reserve, however this is extremely small compared to the reported loss of forest.
Dedza is awarded an average of 1109.8 mm of rainfall per year, with the driest weather in August and the wettest weather in January. There has been high rainfall variability over the past three decades, with periods of excessively high rainfall as well as extremely little rainfall. Both excess and limited rainfall can affect hydro systems negatively, as they depend on reliable rainfall throughout the year based on design resource assessment of the river flow, which is directly affected by rainfall. GIS mapping of all perennial rivers in Dedza was performed. For each river a slope analysis was conducted to determine the slope as a % for each section of river, and a visual inspection of the vicinity of settlements to the perennial rivers. Areas with high slope in the vicinity to settlements were selected, and for each river selected a profile analysis was completed, charting the slope over the distance, from which the head can be estimated. Indicative results show that there exists a head resource in Dedza (the largest being 900m over 30km), but that there are very few settlements close to the rivers present. It is likely that flow resources exist to power small micro-hydro schemes, but more research is required to quantify the exact flow and associated energy available. An identified risk relates to flow resources being erratic due to climate change and likely to reduce in the future due to deforestation and siltation of the rivers.
Key Recommendations
Technology choice recommendations given based on scoring system ratings on Scalability, Appropriateness to local resource, Affordability, Level of access offered, and CU capacity to implement. Based on this methodology, it is recommended that CU focus their primary implementation programmes on ICS and PSP, with secondary implementation advised to be in Forestry Interventions, Institutional Solar, and Solar Irrigation. Pilot projects should be conducted, primarily in Solar Home Systems and Productive Uses of Solar, secondarily in Solar Cooking and Solar Kiosks. Primary feasibility studies are recommended in Briquette Making, Sustainable Charcoal Kilns, Micro Hydro power and Solar Minigrids, with secondary feasibility studies conducted in Thermal Electric Generators, Biogas, and Wind Turbines. The technologies below have been listed in order of priority for interventions. Technology overview, SWOT analysis and specific recommendations for each are given in full in report.
Improved Cook Stoves
Pico Solar Products
Forestry Interventions
Institutional Solar
Solar Irrigation
Productive Use of Solar PV
Solar Kiosks
Sustainable Charcoal Kilns
Solar Minigrids
Thermal Electric Generators
Energy Audit of Dedza District, Malawi
Access Project
ENGAGED Energy Audit Final August 2016
File: application/pdf, 5 MB
ENGAGED Dedza Energy Audit Presentation
File: application/octet-stream, 47 MB
Type: Audiovisual
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hyderabad amazon
flipkart amazon
Amazon may double office portfolio, Hyderabad to gain big
Amazon doubling down could be a good signal for business park developers after they saw internet startups dramatically cut back on expansion plans when faced with a funding crunch. Avik Das&Digbijay Mishra | TNN | September 12, 2017, 07:44 IST
BENGALURU: Amazon may nearly double its office footprint in India over the next one year as part of an aggressive ramp up in Asia's third largest economy . The new office space absorption across Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai and NCR will serve its local and global customers.
The Seattle-based giant, in the midst of a high-decibel war with Flipkart for Indian e-commerce leadership, plans to lease another 2.5 million sqft, up from its already existing 3.1 million sqft across the country , people directly familiar with the matter said. Hyderabad is likely to benefit the most from Amazon's latest expansion drive.
Amazon's association with Hyderabad goes way back, with the company setting up its operations in the city more than a decade ago. Amazon is looking for an additional 0.9-million-sqft space either in the financial district of Gachibowli or Raidurgam, sources added, besides the 1.5 million sqft it already occupies in five buildings spread across the city . These plans are separate from a 3-million-sqft campus that Amazon is building in Hyderabad. “We do not comment on our future plans,“ an Amazon spokesperson said in an emailed response.
Besides Hyderabad, Amazon is also looking to expand in Bengaluru, looking for an additional 0.6 million sqft eit her in Outer Ring Road or the northern part of the IT city . It already has an existing office portfolio of 1.6 million sqft spread over two centres.
Amazon doubling down could be a good signal for business park developers after they saw internet startups dramatically cut back on expansion plans when faced with a funding crunch.
With Paytm and Flipkart completing multi-billion-dollar fund-raises, these companies are expected to be in expansion mode once again. Sources said Paytm is looking to take up more office in Bengaluru in the coming months.
Two years ago, at the height of the funding boom, companies like Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal were closing landmark deals in securing office space with real estate developers. However, they had to halt their ambitious expansion plans in recent quarters.
Tags : E-commerce, E-tailing, amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, hyderabad amazon, flipkart amazon
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Tag Archives: Dominic Burgess
Cinema Dispatch: Ma
Ma and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions
Directed by Tate Taylor
The only reason this movie has gotten on anyone’s radar is because of Octavia Spencer, and frankly it did its job quite well. Sure, sometimes a horror film will pick up some serious talent like the new IT movie coming up or when Helen Mirren was in that crappy Winchester movie, but somehow this feels even MORE of a surprise and a genuine selling point. IT’s gonna sell itself no matter what, but by having one of the most popular actors of the moment (and in the prime of their career) showing up and starring in your crappy horror movie is a coup that very few films can boast, and yet somehow there she is; on all the posters, in all the trailers, and even having an Executive Producer credit to boot! What was it about this movie that convinced such a great actor to whole heartedly come on board, and was worth her immense talent and valuable time to do so? Let’s find out!!
Sue Ann Ellington (Octavia Spencer) is just your typical small town citizen. She works as a vet, she walks her dog, and on occasion it seems that she can be convinced to buy alcohol for the local high school kids. At least that’s what Maggie (Diana Silvers) finds out when she asks her to do it as she walks by the liquor store, and being the new kid in town she needs to deliver on the goods if she wants to get in with the popular kids. One of the popular kids is Andy (Corey Fogelmanis) who Sue Ann seems to recognize, and after a moment’s consideration decides to get them the booze they need. Not only that, she ends up opening her basement to them and other kids in the neighborhood as a safe and secluded area to drink where they won’t have to worry about cops and where Sue Ann will make sure no one gets their keys back if they can’t drive. In fact, everyone seems to be so enamored with her that they start to call her Ma and everyone wants to hang out at her house! However, things are not as rosy as they seem which Maggie picks up on after a while and she seems to have a dark side to her that’s just barely hidden beneath the surface. Perhaps it has to do with Andy’s dad (Luke Evans) who she knows from years ago? Maybe even Maggie’s mom (Juliette Lewis) who used to live here but moved away many years ago before returning? Well they’re all gonna find out eventually because Ma’s house seems to slowly turned from party central to a house of horrors! Will these kids learn of the terrible secrets lurking in Ma’s house as well as her tragic backstory? What is Ma planning now that she has the children of this town wrapped around her finger, and can she somehow realize what she’s doing is wrong before it’s too late? Okay, seriously. Did Octavia Spencer lose a bet or something to be in this movie?
“RELEASE ME!!” “Not until we make thirty million on opening weekend.”
This entry was posted in Cinema Dispatch and tagged Allison Janney, Andrew Matthew Welch, Blumhouse Productions, Corey Fogelmanis, Dante Brown, Diana Silvers, Dominic Burgess, Gianni Paolo, Heather Marie Pate, Horror, Juliette Lewis, Kyanna Simone, Luke Evans, Margaret Fegan, McKaley Miller, Missi Pyle, Movie Review, Nicole Carpenter, Octavia Spencer, Skyler Joy, Tanyell Waivers, Tate Taylor, Universal Pictures on June 3, 2019 by Matt Vetrano.
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Cocaine Sex
Renegade Soundwave “Cocaine Sex” 1987
March 13, 2015 August 11, 2017 ricoconningLeave a comment
Mute Records launched a new subsidiary called Rhythm King, a label that was to make a lot of noise over the next couple of years. Their message was loud and clear: DJs are making hit records now and they’re here to stay. As a longtime Jeremy Healy collaborator I was of course down with that.
The first signing was this trio of post punk refugees, three of the funniest and most talented characters I ever worked with: Gary Asquith, Danny Briottet and Carl Bonnie. Their song Cocaine Sex really blew the cobwebs out when I first heard it and I couldn’t wait to work on it. It had already been masterfully recorded by Paul Kendall but a bass sound courtesy of the Roland Juno 106 pulled things into focus.
Mix, Overdubs1987, Carl Bonnie, Cocaine Sex, Danny Briottet, Gary Asquith, Jeremy Healy, Mute Records, Paul Kendall, Renegade Soundwave, Rhythm King, Roland Juno 106
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Deskera joins hands with Visa to provide SaaS to SMBs
The tie-up would help 12-15 million SMBs access the SaaS platform
Muqbil Ahmar | February 16, 2017 | SME
Deskera and Visa Inc., the digital payments company, have joined hands to provide Software as a Service (Saas) to small and medium businesses (SMBs) in Asia and Europe. This will be done through the Visa Business Hub (VBH)—a portal for SaaS applications in Singapore. The development comes on the back of recent trends where innovative SMBs, particularly in Asia, have increasingly been deploying SaaS applications in order to reduce costs, improve customer service as well as increase productivity.
SMBs form a key segment in Singapore and contribute to around 50 percent of the nation’s GDP and around 70 percent of the country’s workforce. The tie-up would help around 12-15 million enterprises and SMBs Visa cardholders in Asia access the SaaS platform.
“I am encouraged that international brands like Visa are providing a platform to serve SMBs better and we look forward to working with them in Singapore and other countries in the region,” said Shashank Dixit, CEO, Deskera, a global provider of cloud software.
The partnership is part of the two companies’ “commitment to empower businesses to leverage on innovative technologies through cost effective SaaS platforms.”
“We are happy to have Deskera on board. Modern businesses face increased demands from their stakeholders to be digitally enabled and this is often daunting. We look forward to serving the SMB sector with the Deskera business suite,” said Vikram Kshettry, Head of Small Business Products—Asia-Pacific.
The VBH includes resources related to diverse areas including accounting, sales and marketing, project management and customer relationship management (CRM), and human resources. According to Visa, the VBH can aid enterprises save around 25% of IT expenses.
Deskera’s SaaS platform is expected to be accessed by about 12–15 million commercial Visa cardholder SMBs in Asia and Europe. Moreover, the development is also proof of the company witnessing whopping growth in revenues, around 100%, on a year-on-year basis since 2013. It is expected that the tie-up would lead to greater synergy between the two companies and help the small and medium business segment. Going by the leaps Deskera has been taking, more such developments may be expected as the company pushes the acceleration pedal hard.
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Home News Government OLA Announces $100,000 Matching Grant From Anonymous Couple
OLA Announces $100,000 Matching Grant From Anonymous Couple
Rachel Valdespino
OLA announces matching grant up to $100,000 ending Tuesday, December 31.
The Organización Latino-Americana of Eastern Long Island, or OLA, recently announced that it had received a $100,000 matching grant from an anonymous couple, meaning that all donations to the organization will be matched dollar-for-dollar through the end of the year.
OLA, founded in 2002, is a nonprofit agency that supports and helps develop the Latino communities on the East End.
The anonymous couple that offered to make the donation learned about OLA and what it does through fellow area residents. They met with officials from the organization and came to the conclusion that the work the organization does is very much needed. Neither of them is Latino, but they do have a strong connection with Latin America — one of the two grew up in Peru.
“He and his wife helped us to start a college education fund — we’ve already given out six scholarships, and many of them are multi-year scholarships,” said OLA Executive Director Minerva Perez.
OLA was in need of establishing legal strength for a while, and thanks to the anonymous couple, OLA was able to hire a full-time human rights attorney, Andrew Strong.
“I was just stunned with delight when I heard about the matching grant — it’s just amazing to feel that support from the community and understand that people really believe in the work that we do,” said Mr. Strong. “This means that people are willing to put their money where their mouth is.
“Everybody is saying that what is happening is wrong, that there are human rights violations occurring daily. And people are willing to step up, and I think that’s really inspiring,” he said.
The matching grant will help fund many of OLA’s endeavors, including advocacy for assault and rape victims, fair access to school enrollment, including special needs students, and program expansion.
“This matching grant is a way to jump start a whole other level of giving,” said Ms. Perez.“This could be a great way for OLA to start securing some other funding from new sources — it’s all a matter of connecting with other people.”
The idea of a matching grant is appealing to a lot of people, and one of this size has a lot of potential for the growth of OLA. Donors like to see that someone else is invested and the anonymous couple understands that.
“This is a marathon mission,” explained Ms. Perez. “This is not something that we clear up in an election cycle. There’s stuff that has been going on in our community for a while that has gotten so bad that right now we need time to build back the pieces to build trust, to look at our systems with a fresh eye and to acknowledge that this is our community.”
Minerva Perez
Organización Latino-Americana of Eastern Long Island
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Columns Annette Hinkle - January 20, 2020
“There’s no food in this house!” So came the plaintive wails of our daughter as she perused the kitchen shelves in late December, having newly arrived from completion of her first semester of college. "Really?" I thought. "Is that possible? No food at all?"
Elections & Politics Kathryn G. Menu - January 17, 2020
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Independent Q&A
Wicomico schools seek more spending, support
Feb 14th, 2018 · by Susan Canfora · Comments:
The Wicomico County Board of Education will begin grappling with a $9.2 million gap between requests that total $194.4 million in the FY19 budget and funding that would convert those desires into realities.
“Some schools’ wish lists might not get fulfilled,” school board President Don Fitzgerald told the Salisbury Independent this week.
“We’ll be looking at some things we can do. It doesn’t look like we will get a lot more funding from the state this year than we did last year. If we stay where we are, with only Maintenance of Effort, and we don’t get any more, we will get only $4 more per student,” Fitzgerald said.
A budget will be approved at the March 13 school board meeting and then sent to County Executive Bob Culver by March 15.
Among requests are those from schools Superintendent Dr. Donna Hanlin, who is asking for funding to hire and keep qualified teachers, as well as launch programs including universal pre-kindergarten.
Bruce Ford, the school board’s Chief Finance and Operations Officer, offered an overview of the annual budget process.
“Every year that the school system puts together it’s budget, there initially is a budget gap between what our schools’, department heads’ and budget managers’ request as articulated need for the operation of the school system for the coming year.
“That includes instructional programs, teacher’s salaries, operation and maintenance of plant, transportation, administration, student health and pupil services, food services, not to mention new initiatives, programs, and requests from department heads for new equipment, materials, training, staff, etc.,” Ford told the Salisbury Independent.
“The amount of new revenues to be received from the county, the state, and other sources are projected and the difference between the two numbers is the budget gap. Currently, that gap is $9.2 million.
“What happens next is Dr. Hanlin and staff meet with the Board of Education in budget work sessions to review all of the articulated needs from the schools, department heads and budget managers and commences to prioritize those needs. Priorities are established by the Board of Ed based upon recommendations from the Superintendent and staff as well input from the Community,” he said.
“We can only hope that through the legislative process in Annapolis, that additional state aid could be forthcoming, such as perhaps a recognition of a need to provide funding for pre-K, a hot-topic in the legislature this year,” Ford said.
Eventually, the funding gap will be solved through compromise, he said.
Fitzgerald said it upsets him that the county budget has $30 million in the unrestricted category but none of it is being used to fund schools.
He said he has asked the last two County Executives — Rick Pollitt and Bob Culver — how much the county must keep in that category to assure a high bond rating, but he never received an answer.
“I’m not saying education gets it all. We have roads and we have other needs, too,” Fitzgerald said.
On Feb. 6, the school board hosted its first public hearing to receive input from residents about the budget. A video is available at wcboe.org.
There will be a second public hearing for county residents’ input. Comments are also being accepted at comments@wcboe.org, through Messenger or on the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/wcboe.
Reach Susan Canfora at scanfora@newszap.com.
Tags:Featured · School board · Schools
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Military Mom Talk Radio hosted by Sandra Beck and Robin Boyd welcome Sydney Knott of Horses4Heroes, Karen Jeffries of Veterans Moving Forward, and Dr. Rus Jeffrey from General Sarge, October 15
Since 2006, Horses4Heroes, a Las Vegas-based non-profit, has introduced more than 5,000 service men and women to horses and horseback riding, simply because of their sacrifice and service to our country. Horses4Heroes serves all active duty military personnel, veterans, First Responders and their families. Their growing national network of 190 kid-friendly, family friendly equestrian facilities in 43 states plus Canada provide affordable (sometimes free) recreational, instructional and health & wellness programs for all ages, all riding levels and all disciplines. The host facilities provide equestrian programs that emphasize fun and safe activities with horses, mounted and un-mounted for all ages. Participants learn valuable leadership and teamwork skills, make new friends, and develop a lifelong love of horses! Many of the facilities are equine rescues and others offer free programs to all veterans and their families!
Sydney Knott, Founder/President/Executive Director of Horses4Heroes, Inc. is a Santa Barbara-native. She grew up on a steady diet of John Wayne movies, “Gunsmoke,” “Bonanza,” and her favorite books were by Marguerite Henry. Although horses weren’t part of her life, they were her passion since she was a little girl. A public relations professional for the past 30 years, Syd won her industry’s highest honor, The Silver Anvil, for a public relations campaign promoting the Resolution Trust Corporation. In 1999, she fulfilled a lifelong dream to finally own a horse. Her first horse, like her favorite book, was named Misty! It was, however, her father’s diagnosis of terminal lung cancer, that became the catalyst for the creation of Horses4Heroes, a national non-profit dedicated to providing affordable horseback riding programs to the heroes and their families in our communities.
For more information, visit www.horses4heroes.org
Veterans Moving Forward is committed to transforming the lives of physically and mentally challenged veterans, helping them assimilate into society and lead productive and fulfilling lives. Veterans Moving Forward has a unique plan to serve this deserving community – to provide “service” dogs to those who have served our country and who are now in need.
Over 750,000 veterans either currently need or could benefit dramatically from having an assistance/service dog to mitigate his/her disability, and this number will grow. Additionally, strong evidence points to a significant reduction in therapy time, effort and money when dogs are introduced into therapy during recovery and rehabilitation.
Training an assistance/service dog starting today means the dog will be ready for assignment in about two years. Veterans Moving Forward trains dogs to the highest possible level (to serve as either a service, facility, therapy or comfort dog) and then assigns it to a veteran based on the dog’s aptitude and training and on and the veteran’s degree of need at the time of placement or engagement.
Veterans who have partnered successfully with a service dog and recover to greater functionality will be offered an opportunity to work for VMF to serve other veterans in need.
Karen D. Jeffries, president and co-founder of the non-profit Veterans Moving Forward, Inc., is also a management consultant with more than 25 years experience working directly for senior leaders of the federal government and chief executives of commercial corporations in the Washington, DC area. Ms. Jeffries is a retired naval officer and owner of Jeffries Communications Group LLC, a Service-Disabled, Veteran-Owned, Small Business (SDVOSB) specializing in marketing, business development and communications
For information on how you can help, visit www.vetsfwd.org
General Sarge “Comforting Military Families One Furry Friend At A Time”
Dr. Rus Jeffrey and his wife Sandra’s son, SPC Benjamin Jeffrey, is currently serving in the U.S. Army stationed at Fort Lewis, WA as part of 11B Infantry, 2nd Infantry Division, 2nd Brigade, 2nd Battalion. He is currently deployed to Afghanistan.
At the age of 10 they gave Benjamin a Christmas Gift Certificate for Build-A-Bear Workshop. For as long as they can remember Ben has always wanted to join the Army. So, it really came as no surprise that he named his bear Sarge and dressed him in an Army uniform. On his 18th birthday in August 2010 Ben joined the Army as an active duty soldier.
Before heading for Basic Training at Fort Benning, GA they gave Sarge a new uniform. Ben instantly recognized that Sarge was promoted to General Sarge. Dr. Rus started taking daily pictures of things General Sarge was doing each day and it has now grown into an organization that “deploys” Build-A-Bear Workshop teddy bears to military children.
General Sarge’s mission has grown beyond the Jeffrey’s living room to a website serving hundreds of military families. Weekly and monthly salutes go out to honor military children, the Gift-A-Bear Campaign including the Fallen Hero Bear and Deployment Bear Mascot programs. Operation B.E.A.R. recruits individuals, businesses and organizations to Bring Encouragement And Recognition as sponsors. Additionally, General Sarge’s Families First Campaign partners with the Fresh Wind Ministries to help offset the traveling expense to a family member so they are able to attend the graduation of their troop from Basic Training.
For information, visit www.generalsarge.com
Military Mom Talk Radio is co-hosted by Sandra Beck and Robin Boyd, hosted by Toginet Radio and powered by Motherhood Incorporated. Military Mom Talk Radio supports and helps bring information to the families, moms and wives of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard and is dedicated to serving our friends and family in the Armed Service. We are proud supporters and members of the Military Writers Society of America as well as proud supporters of Operation Gratitude, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), Shining Service Worldwide, Fisher House and the Girl Scouts of the USA and Boy Scouts of America.
This entry was posted on October 15, 2012, in Coping with deployment, Military Families, Military Spouses, Raising a military family, Reintegration, Resources for military families, Service animals, Support for military families, Veteran support, Wounded warriors and tagged Air Force Moms, Air Force Talk Radio, Air Force Wives, Armed Services Talk Radio, ArmWives, Army Mom Talk Radio, Army Moms, Army Talk Radio, Boy Scouts, Coast Guard Talk Radio, Facebook, Facebook Military Mom, Fisher House, Girls Scouts, Go Army Homes, Itunes, Itunes Military Mom, Marine Mom Talk Radio, Marine Moms, Marine Talk Radio, Marine Wives, Military Family Radio Show, Military Mom Talk Radio, Military Radio Show, Military Writers Society of America, Navy Mom Talk Radio, Navy Moms, Navy Talk Radio, Navy Wives, Operation Gratitude, PODS, Robin Boyd, Sandra Beck, Shining Service Worldwide, Toginet, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), Twitter, Twitter Military Mom, VA Hospitals, VAMBOA, World of Children, Wounded Warriors More stats. 1 Comment
Military Mom Talk Radio hosted by Sandra Beck and Robin Boyd welcome business coach Bubba Mills, author Janie DeVos, and Joyce Faulkner of Military Writers Society of America
Corcoran Consulting and Coaching is a real estate broker consulting and coaching company focused on growing your business. Corcoran Consulting and Coaching was founded by Bob Corcoran. Bubba Mills, chief operating officer and managing partner, joined Corcoran in February 2011.
“Bubba has been instrumental in the growth of our company since he joined us several years ago to head up our REO coaching division and business development,” says Bob Corcoran, whose clients include 43 of the Top 250 real estate professionals in the country according to the Wall Street Journal and REAL Trends.
Prior to joining Corcoran Consulting & Coaching, Mills was Bubba was the former REO Operations Manager for Financial Asset Services; and has also held the positions as the High Risk Loss Mitigation Manager for Option One Mortgage, Mergers and Acquisitions for WJ Bradley, Wholesale and Retail Origination for First Magnus/Charter Funding and Pool Sales Departments for four major companies.
Corcoran Consulting & CoachingSM is internationally renown for performance coaching and the implementation of sound business systems into the broker or agent’s existing practice.
For more information, visit www.corcorancoaching.com.
Janie DeVos entered How High Can You Fly?, in a national poetry contest, where it received a third place award. She was then invited by River Road Press to have the poem made into a children’s book, and was paired up with illustrator Renee Rejent from Boston, MA. Their combined efforts resulted in the hard-cover picture book, How High Can You Fly?, which is now available in major bookstores, and is also found in libraries and schools throughout the United States and abroad.
In 2003, Janie teamed up with Ms. Nancy Marsh, a South Florida art teacher, to create a second hard-cover children’s picture book; The Path Winds Home. Both books grabbed the attention of a New York publisher, East End Publishing, and in 2006 Janie and East End joined forces to began work on her third and best-selling book to date; Barthello’s Wing. Scholastic Books was interested in including Barthello’s Wing in their American and North American Book Fairs, and asked that it be produced in soft-cover. It was, and to date it has sold over 80,000 copies from its debut in January, 2007.
Janie’s stories teach gentle lessons about love, tolerance and acceptance and appreciation of people’s differences, and recognizing the special gifts that each one of us possesses. They vary in age appropriatness for 3-7 yr. olds. Herby Hoyt and the Tin Can Trees will be coming out next spring; a story about littering and learning to recycle.
Additionally her first adult novel, The Wart Buyer, is coming out in 2013. It is an historical fiction which takes place at the turn of the 20th century in the Blue Ridge Mtns. of North Carolina which is where Janie calls home.
Learn more about Janie at www.janiedevos.com.
Joyce Faulkner returns this week with another segment of our series, Authors’ Corner. Joyce, president of the Military Writers Society of America, lives in Pittsburgh, PA. She published her first article in high school back in 1965. Her writing credentials include many magazine, newspaper & web articles. She also wrote columns – “The History of Aerial Applications” for AG Pilot International and one on writing topics for webzine “Scribe & Quill.” She is a ghostwriter, an editor and a web, newspaper & book designer.
She has been a member of MWSA since 2006 and has served as Secretary and MWSA Webmaster since January of 2008. Her skills include Management, Project Management, Web Site Design, Writing and Layout. She volunteered for the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center for several years and has led various corporate, community and volunteer committees & organizations. Her goal is to help veterans record their piece of history – for themselves, their families, their communities – and our country.
For more information about Joyce and her organization, visit www.mwsadispatches.com.
Military Mom Talk Radio on airs on Mondays at 2pm Pacific Standard Time on Toginet Radio and can be downloaded directly from Itunes and MilitaryMomTalkRadio.com. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Watch us on Youtube and connect with us on Linked in.
This entry was posted on September 10, 2012, in Authors of military stories, Consulting, Entrepreneurs, Military Families, Military Spouses, Military Writers, Reintegration, Resources for military families, Support for military families and tagged Air Force Moms, Air Force Talk Radio, Air Force Wives, Armed Services Talk Radio, ArmWives, Army Mom Talk Radio, Army Moms, Army Talk Radio, Boy Scouts, Coast Guard Talk Radio, Facebook, Facebook Military Mom, Fisher House, Girls Scouts, Go Army Homes, Itunes, Itunes Military Mom, Marine Mom Talk Radio, Marine Moms, Marine Talk Radio, Marine Wives, Military Family Radio Show, Military Mom Talk Radio, Military Radio Show, Military Writers Society of America, Navy Mom Talk Radio, Navy Moms, Navy Talk Radio, Navy Wives, Operation Gratitude, PODS, Robin Boyd, Sandra Beck, Shining Service Worldwide, Toginet, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), Twitter, Twitter Military Mom, VA Hospitals, VAMBOA, World of Children, Wounded Warriors More stats. Leave a comment
Military Mom Talk Radio welcomes Michael Russer of Live Outrageously, Chris Kerney of Military Vet Jobs, and Author Nancy B. Kennedy
Michael J. Russer continues his series with Military Mom Talk Radio regarding “Change”.
Michael is an author, coach and speaker for the Live Outrageously movement. He strives to help military families and their friends navigate through change, transition and adjusting to a new normal.
With 40 years of corporate, entrepreneurial and life skills experience, he can shed new light onto one of the most common aspects of military life: change.
Chris Kerney of MilitaryVetJobs.com shares their suite of services that help companies nationwide connect with Military Veterans.
MilitaryVetJobs.com acknowledges the value of the technical skill, leadership, and diversity that represent Military Veterans. As a veteran owned organization, we know the unique work experience and qualifications veterans can bring to the workplace. We offer job seekers a community of support and connections to employers seeking qualified, veteran candidates. Our site is free to all members of the military in every branch of the service. Qualified candidates can even sign up using their Facebook logins. We work to connect employers to Military Veterans and their families.
To learn more about our site, please visit www.MilitaryVetJobs.com.
Nancy B. Kennedy worked in newspapers for many years, including a stint as an editor for Dow Jones’s pioneering computer news service in the 1980s. As a financial writer, she worked for many newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times and the online Wall Street Journal, and for the financial services firm Merrill Lynch. As an editor she has worked for such well-respected publishing houses as Princeton University Press and Ecco Press.
Nancy is the author of Miracles and Moments of Grace which brings together fifty heartfelt and inspiring first-person stories from our nation’s military chaplains.
These faith-filled men and women cherish their role as spiritual advisers to our country’s three million active and reserve duty military personnel. Whether fulfilling their military calling in combat situations or in humanitarian missions, deployed or stateside, military chaplains are eyewitnesses to amazing displays of divine intervention, both in small moments of grace and through miracles of breathtaking wonder.
The chaplains’ stories come straight from the headlines: Military chaplains were in Beirut when a truck bomb leveled a military barracks in 1983. They were at the bombing of the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia in 1996. They were in Mosul, Iraq, when a dining tent filled to capacity with soldiers was bombed in 2004. They were at the Pentagon and the Twin Towers during the 9/11 attacks.
In telling these stories from military chaplains—stories that speak of everything from the loneliness of a Christmas spent far from home to the terror of facing an armed homicidal soldier—this book makes it clear: Military chaplains face some of the darkest moments of the human experience and bring the light of faith with them.
You can read more of Nancy’s work and reach her through e-mail at her website: www.nancybkennedy.com
Military Mom Talk Radio is co-hosted by Sandra Beck and Robin Boyd,hosted by Toginet Radio and powered by Motherhood Incorporated. Military Mom Talk Radio supports and helps bring information to the families, moms and wives of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard and is dedicated to serving our friends and family in the Armed Service. We are proud supporters and members of the Military Writers Society of America as well as proud supporters of Operation Gratitude, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), Shining Service Worldwide, Fisher House and the Girl Scouts of the USA and Boy Scouts of America.
This entry was posted on April 30, 2012, in Emmployment opportunities, Military Chaplains, Military Spouses, Military Writers, Reintegration, Resources for military families, Support for military families, Veteran support and tagged Air Force Mom Talk Radio, Air Force Moms, Air Force Talk Radio, Air Force Wives, Armed Services Talk Radio, Army Mom Talk Radio, Army Moms, Army Talk Radio, Army Wives, Boy Scouts, Chris Kerney, Coast Guard Talk Radio, Facebook, Facebook Military Mom, Fisher House, Girls Scouts, Itunes, Itunes Military Mom, Marine Mom Talk Radio, Marine Moms, Marine Talk Radio, Marine Wives, Michael Russer, Military Family Radio Show, Military Mom Talk Radio, Military Radio Show, Military Writers Society of America, Nancy B. Kennedy, Navy Mom Talk Radio, Navy Moms, Navy Talk Radio, Navy Wives, Operation Gratitude, Robin Boyd, Sandra Beck, Shining Service Worldwide, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), Twitter, Twitter Military Mom. Leave a comment
Military Mom Talk Radio welcomes Linda Franklin of Shining Service Worldwide, Suzy Manning of Sizzzl.com, and Valerie Maine, researcher of post-deployment adjustment issues
Linda Franklin created Shining Service Worldwide™ in November 2010. She says, “it was destiny” The whole idea started to germinate when women serving in Afghanistan emailed her saying that they read Linda’s The Real Cougar Woman blog every day and how powerful they felt when they did. Shining Service Worldwide’s mission is to show appreciation and support to women currently serving in the military, military vets and military spouses. Too often our females in service fall through the cracks and don’t get the attention they deserve, or more importantly, they need.
Linda is visiting Military Mom Talk Radio this week to share new initiatives on the horizon for Shining Service Worldwide, specifically for transitioning women veterans.
Visit Linda at www.shiningserviceworldwide.com.
Suzy Manning has lived into her description at birth from her parents – “tiny, but mighty”. For over 30 years, she has dedicated her life to transforming women’s lives. She believes that life is a journey of personal evolution. Every day we have choice to ask powerful questions to overcome limiting beliefs to create the life we deserve. When a woman pursues her passion, she becomes ageless. Abundance flows into her life as creativity, happiness, relationships, optimal health, and financial freedom!
She has inspired women to feel good in their bodies with her own fitness program. She has facilitated seminars and retreats for women to renew, to re-energize, and to reward themselves for their uniqueness. Her articles on women’s wisdom have appeared in Healing Garden Journal and phenomeNEWS. Wise Women – Circle of Wisdom is her international selling inspirational gift book.
Suzy holds a Masters degree in Agency Counseling from Siena Heights University. Continual immersion in her own self-growth and evolution allows her to connect with others with authenticity and impeccability. Her studies have included shamanism, reiki, massage, enlightened warrior training, train the trainer, millionaire mind intensive, investment and business building, and 4T prosperity. Her motivation comes from her own life’s challenges and realization that all of our stories overlap.
Her personal intent is to empower women to own their magnificence, to ignite their dreams, and to illuminate their beauty, power, wisdom, and leadership in their Sizzzl years of 50+. There is powerful energy at a cellular level in women as we embrace our 60′s, 70′s, and 80′s. It is not a time to be invisible, but a time to be seen and heard. We are the change agents.
Visit Suzy at www.sizzzl.com
Valerie Maine is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at Antioch University New England. Valerie received her bachelor’s degree in biopsychology from Oberlin College in 2003 and her master’s of science in clinical psychology from Antioch University New England in 2010. She has worked with veteran and active duty military populations at the United States Coast Guard Academy, the Providence VA hospital, and is currently in training at the William S. Middleton Memorial Hospital (Madison, WI) in the Addictions Disorders Treatment Program, where she works with veterans with a dual diagnosis of PTSD and substance use disorders. Valerie is currently working on her dissertation entitled “The Questionnaire of Post-Combat Couple Adjustment – A Preliminary Validation.” Her research focuses on the experience of couples coping with post-deployment and post-combat adjustment issues.
Valerie is the daughter of a Navy veteran and former United Nations staffer. Because of her father’s work, Valerie grew up in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Italy. Her father traveled often throughout her childhood and her family experienced many of the challenges and joys associated with this kind of lifestyle. These early experiences have shaped Valerie’s interest in post-deployment adjustment issues and are the inspiration behind her current research interests.
Participate in Valerie’s surveys:
Veteran survey: www.surveymonkey.com/s/veteran1
Partner survey: www.surveymonkey.com/s/partner2
Military Mom Talk Radio is co-hosted by Sandra Beck and Robin Boyd with contribution by Doris Rivas-Brekke, hosted by Toginet Radio and powered by Motherhood Incorporated. Military Mom Talk Radio supports and helps bring information to the families, moms and wives of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard and is dedicated to serving our friends and family in the Armed Service. We are proud supporters and members of the Military Writers Society of America as well as proud supporters of Operation Gratitude, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), Shining Service Worldwide, Fisher House and the Girl Scouts of the USA and Boy Scouts of America.
This entry was posted on April 22, 2012, in Business Owners, Coping with deployment, Military Families, Military Spouses, PTSD, Raising a military family, Recovery, Reintegration, Resources for military families, Support for military families, Veteran support and tagged Air Force Mom Talk Radio, Air Force Moms, Air Force Talk Radio, Air Force Wives, Armed Services Talk Radio, Army Mom Talk Radio, Army Moms, Army Talk Radio, Army Wives, Boy Scouts, Coast Guard Talk Radio, Debbie Gregory, Facebook, Facebook Military Mom, Fisher House, Girls Scouts, Itunes, Itunes Military Mom, Jody Bremer, Linda Jefferson, Marine Mom Talk Radio, Marine Moms, Marine Talk Radio, Marine Wives, Military Family Radio Show, Military Mom Talk Radio, Military Radio Show, Military Writers Society of America, Navy Mom Talk Radio, Navy Moms, Navy Talk Radio, Navy Wives, Operation Gratitude, Robin Boyd, Sandra Beck, Shining Service Worldwide, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), Twitter, Twitter Military Mom. Leave a comment
Military Mom Talk Radio welcomes Dr. Jody Bremer, Author Michael “Moon” Mullins, and Authors’ Corner with Joyce Faulkner
Dr. Jody Bremer, licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, stops in to visit Military Mom Talk radio. In her words, Jody appreciates all she has in life: “I have experienced a vast array of life’s challenges, including a life-threatening childhood illness, a stint as a Marine Corps wife, mother to two fabulous children who, thankfully, are well into and almost past their teen years, and completing my Master’s Degree a full 20 years after graduating from high school. During that time, I served a s everything from a karate and self-defense instructor (yes, I have a black belt and 2 brown belts!), a personal trainer, a couples/honeymoon/family cruise and vacation travel company owner. Throughout all of my life, one thing has tied everything together– my love of working with people, and doing what I could to help them achieve their goals. Karate, self-defense, personal training, even travel… all of those career paths prepared me for my eventual road in marriage and family therapy. Helping others. Making people happier than they were, more secure, more confident, more capable.”
For more information, visit www.jodybremer.com
Michael D. “Moon” Mullins, multiple award winning author of “Vietnam in Verse, poetry for beer drinkers”, co-author of “Kings of the Green Jelly Moon, the Book”, and author of new novel “Out of the Mist: Memories of War.” Please contact me at this e-mail address; mullins.m.1@ comcast.net. Vietnam Veteran, Delta 3/7, 199th Light Infantry, ’68-’69. Vice President of MWSA. Supporter of the Wounded Warrior Project.
Contact Michael at mullins.m.1@comcast.net
For more information about Joyce and her organization, visit www.mwsadispatches.com
This entry was posted on April 2, 2012, in Communicating, Family Matters, Family Therapist, Marriage Counselor, Military Families, Military Spouses, Military Writers, PTSD, Raising a military family, Reintegration, Resources for military families, Support for military families, Veteran support and tagged Air Force Mom Talk Radio, Air Force Moms, Air Force Talk Radio, Air Force Wives, Armed Services Talk Radio, Army Mom Talk Radio, Army Moms, Army Talk Radio, Army Wives, Boy Scouts, Coast Guard Talk Radio, Debbie Gregory, Doris Rivas-Brekke, Facebook, Facebook Military Mom, Fisher House, Girls Scouts, Itunes, Itunes Military Mom, Jody Bremer, Linda Jefferson, Marine Mom Talk Radio, Marine Moms, Marine Talk Radio, Marine Wives, Military Family Radio Show, Military Mom Talk Radio, Military Radio Show, Military Writers Society of America, Navy Mom Talk Radio, Navy Moms, Navy Talk Radio, Navy Wives, Operation Gratitude, Robin Boyd, Sandra Beck, Shining Service Worldwide, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), Twitter, Twitter Military Mom. Leave a comment
2012 Camp Pendleton, CA Career Expo Information sponsored by Military.com and the NCOA by Doris Rivas-Brekke
I am excited to share with you more important career opportunities from the 2012 Camp Pendleton, Calif. Career Expo Information sponsored by Military.com and the NCOA (Non-commissioned Officers Association)! These companies want to talk to military active duty and veterans about career and educational options.
1. The Lotter Group, www.lottergroup.com, a veteran owned company, focuses on family finance issues. This company loves military people because they follow protocols. Phone 949-253-8500
2. www.uscourts.gov – many jobs available at this site!
3. www.StrategicOperations.com – they actually advertise at their web site for wounded veterans to apply for positions!
1. Pepperdine University- very big name university! These people told me to pass along to our listeners to “not be afraid” to apply here. This university welcomes military people! Ask for Barbara Moore; email: Barbara.moore@pepperdine.edu 310 568-5744. Tell her Military Mom Talk Radio sent you!
2. Southern New Hampshire University- brocheure states the university “ designed to help you advance your military or past service career…has been serving veterans and active duty military members for nearly 80 years…” Reach out to: Gary Pounder, MPA, Major, USAF(Ret.), Director of Military Initiatives; email: g.pounder@snhu.edu
I’ll have more career information in my next article.
Military Mom Talk Radio is co-hosted by Sandra Beck and Robin Boyd with contributions by Doris Rivas-Brekke, hosted by Toginet Radio and powered by Motherhood Incorporated. Military Mom Talk Radio supports and helps bring information to the families, moms and wives of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard and is dedicated to serving our friends and family in the Armed Service. We are proud supporters and members of the Military Writers Society of America as well as proud supporters of Operation Gratitude, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), Shining Service Worldwide, Fisher House and the Girl Scouts of the USA and Boy Scouts of America.
This entry was posted on March 7, 2012, in Job Fairs, Military Families, Reintegration, Resources for military families, Support for military families, Veteran support and tagged Air Force Mom Talk Radio, Air Force Moms, Air Force Talk Radio, Air Force Wives, Armed Services Talk Radio, Army Mom Talk Radio, Army Moms, Army Talk Radio, Army Wives, Boy Scouts, Camp Pendleton Career Fair, Coast Guard Talk Radio, Doris Rivas-Brekke, Facebook, Facebook Military Mom, Fisher House, Girls Scouts, Itunes, Itunes Military Mom, Marine Mom Talk Radio, Marine Moms, Marine Talk Radio, Marine Wives, Military Family Radio Show, Military Mom Talk Radio, Military Radio Show, Military Writers Society of America, Navy Mom Talk Radio, Navy Moms, Navy Talk Radio, Navy Wives, Operation Gratitude, Robin Boyd, Sandra Beck, Shining Service Worldwide, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), Twitter, Twitter Military Mom. Leave a comment
Military Mom Talk Radio welcomes Linda Franklin of Shining Service Worldwide, Michael J. Russer of Live Outrageously, and Author Randy Mixter
By Sandra Beck, Robin Boyd
Michael J. Russer is an author, coach and speaker for the Live Outrageously movement. He is going to help military families and their friends navigate through change, transition and adjusting to a new normal. With 40 years of corporate, entrepreneurial and life skills experience, he can shed new light onto one of the most common aspects of military life: change.
Linda is visiting Military Mom Talk Radio this week to share new initiatives on the horizon for Shining Service Worldwide, specifically for transitioning women veterans. Visit Linda at www.shiningserviceworldwide.com.
Randy Mixter is the author of Letters From Long Binh: Memoirs of a Military Policeman in Vietnam, based on the letters he wrote home to his wife while an MP in Vietnam. The stories found in the book are sometimes humorous, sometimes sad, and sometimes poignant. They tell the tale of a 19-year-old MP in a dangerous place on the other side of the world.
Look for this and Randy’s other books on Amazon, or his website at https://sites.google.com/site/randymixtersbooksite/
Military Mom Talk Radio airs on Mondays at 2pm Pacific Standard Time on Toginet Radio and can be downloaded directly from Itunes and MilitaryMomTalkRadio.com. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Watch us on Youtube and connect with us on Linked in.
This entry was posted on February 26, 2012, in Authors of military stories, Blogs for MilSpouses, Celebrating heroes, Military Families, Military Spouses, Military Writers, Reintegration, Resources for military families, Support for military families, Veteran support and tagged Air Force Mom Talk Radio, Air Force Moms, Air Force Talk Radio, Air Force Wives, Armed Services Talk Radio, Army Mom Talk Radio, Army Moms, Army Talk Radio, Army Wives, Boy Scouts, Coast Guard Talk Radio, Doris Rivas-Brekke, Facebook, Facebook Military Mom, Fisher House, Girls Scouts, Itunes, Itunes Military Mom, Linda Franklin, Marine Mom Talk Radio, Marine Moms, Marine Talk Radio, Marine Wives, Michael Russer, Military Family Radio Show, Military Mom Talk Radio, Military Radio Show, Military Writers Society of America, Navy Mom Talk Radio, Navy Moms, Navy Talk Radio, Navy Wives, Operation Gratitude, Randy Mixter, Robin Boyd, Sandra Beck, Shining Service Worldwide, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), Twitter, Twitter Military Mom. Leave a comment
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West Lake Energy Corp.
OneStop Integrated application
Approved 308
Withdrawn 20
W4M 319 W5M 9
Results : 1 - 10 of 328
364781 - West Lake Energy Corp.
Application under the provisions of the Pipeline Act to construct and operate a pipeline carrying Oil-Well Effluent with 0 mol\kmol hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in the following location:
Application under the provisions of the Pipeline Act to amend an existing licence for Oil-Well Effluent pipeline with 0 mol\kmol hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in the following location:
Application under the provisions of the Pipeline Act to construct and operate a pipeline carrying Oil-Well Effluent with 20 mol\kmol hydrogen sulphide (H2S). Application under the provisions of the Pipeline Act to construct and operate a pipeline carrying Natural Gas with 0 mol\kmol hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in the following locations:
Application under the provisions of the Pipeline Act to construct and operate a pipeline carrying Oil-Well Effluent with 0 mol\kmol hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in the following locations:
Application under the provisions of the Pipeline Act to construct and operate a pipeline carrying Natural Gas with 0 mol\kmol hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in the following location:
Application under the provisions of the Pipeline Act to construct and operate a pipeline carrying Natural Gas with 0 mol\kmol hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in the following locations:
Application under the provisions of the Pipeline Act to amend an existing licence for Natural Gas pipeline with 0 mol\kmol hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in the following locations:
Application under the provisions of the Pipeline Act to amend an existing licence for Salt Water pipeline with 0 mol\kmol hydrogen sulphide (H2S) in the following location:
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Data center purchasing survey 2009: Budgets flatten, clampdown on costs
As IT shops wrestle with the economic downturn, some have bought new servers to enhance virtualization deployments but have clamped down on other IT costs.
Matt Stansberry, TechTarget
Compared with last summer, data center budget growth screeched to a halt this year. In 2008, 30% of IT shops said they were increasing budget 5% to 10%, and 26% said they planned to increase budget more than 10%. Less than 15% of respondents were decreasing budget at all.
For more on the Data Center Decisions survey:
Blade server popularity cools
Hot-aisle/cold-aisle containment takes hold
Linux fans see opportunity in Windows 7 changeover
VM deployments on the rise
Linux enthusiasm wanes
This year, most respondents said their budgets were flat, and 31% are decreasing spending. In fact, 14% are cutting budgets by more than 10%. SearchDataCenter.com advisory board member Robert Rosen, the CIO of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, wasn't surprised by the results.
"IT budgets lag [behind the overall economy] a little bit since they tend to commit to things that have to finish," Rosen said. "It's the new project starts that get canceled; hence the budget decrease now."
IT shops buying server hardware to enhance virtualization deployments
For IT shops that are actually spending on new servers, they're doing so as part of server virtualization deployments. For the past few years, the top three responses to the question "What are the top three drivers for purchasing new servers?" has been: Normal demand for increased capacity, end of lease/life of the servers, and new applications.
Many computer rooms just don't have enough cooling for a rack of blades.
Robert Rosen,
CIONational Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, National Institutes of Health
Last year a few respondents wrote in "Virtualization" as a driver. This year it has become the No. 1 factor for those buying servers. Nearly half the respondents said they planned to purchase hardware to enhance virtualization deployments.
In a related statistic, the amount of RAM respondents are provisioning for commodity servers has increased incrementally. Most folks said they were provisioning 8 GB to 16 GB in 2008. This year the majority of respondents are provisioning 17 GB to 32 GB, increasing server memory to help commodity servers deal with server virtualization workloads.
Is the bloom off the rose for blades?
Only 7% of respondents in 2008 said they planned to spend less on blades, whereas in 2009, 13% plan to reduce blade spending. In both 2008 and this year's survey, the same percentage of respondents don't use blades (40%). So the reduction in blade server spending comes from respondents who spent on these servers last year.
According to Rosen, more IT managers have discovered the hidden cost of blades. "Many computer rooms just don't have enough cooling for a rack of blades," he said. "In scale-out versus scale-up [with virtualization], I think scaling up [to a larger server] is just a better solution at this time."
See the full article for more info on this tepid blade server spending.
OS landscape shifts; enter Windows Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 saw a significant increase in general installations – from 23% to 45% -- to the No. 2 spot behind Windows Server 2003. The rest of the lineup stayed the same: Red Hat Enterprise Linux, followed by the Unixes: Solaris, HP-UX and AIX, respectively. Not surprisingly, data center installs of Ubuntu Linux increased somewhat substantially, from 9% to 14%.
The real cost of software is in the support, not the purchase price.
But when we asked about mission-critical workloads, Windows 2003 stayed in the No. 1 position, Windows 2008 dropped back in the pack, and Red Hat Linux jumped to No. 2. The three Unix variants stayed in the middle, but the combined Unix footprint is double the Linux market share on mission-critical applications, and it's nearly as large as Windows Server 2003.
The survey showed a decline in the number of shops considering or using Linux. In response to the question, "Does your company use or plan to evaluate Linux on servers this year?," fifty-four percent said no last year; 60% said no this year. Despite tight budgets and a down economy, Linux adoption declined rather than grew. And, in fact, respondents may view Linux adoption as risky in tough times
"The real cost of software is in the support, not the purchase price," Rosen said. "No one is going to jump into the unknown cost of support pool when they're just trying to survive."
More than a quarter (27%) of respondents said they would not dump Windows for Linux, versus 34% this year. The results seem to indicate that the Linux-to-Windows migration is over. The percentage of shops considering migrating from Unix to Linux is the same as last year.
Speaking of Unix-to-Linux migration, Sun Microsystems customers are sticking with it out for now. Asked whether the impending Oracle acquisition would change their plans, Sun customers 85% or respondents said they would not dump Sun hardware; 81% say they won't discard Solaris.
Data center facilities reducing data center power
According to the survey, data center power consumption is getting more important. The percentage of folks who said this was a major concern increased from 48% to 55% this year. While these numbers are unsurprising given the downturn in the economy and high energy costs, what is surprising is that the behavior concerning power consumption has begun to change: There was a major increase in the number of respondents whose business unit actually pays the power bill, from 37% to 53%. This is important – it's one of the energy-conscious approaches SearchData.Center.com has encouraged its readers to adopt for quite some time.
The behavior concerning power consumption has begun to change.
"When the power bill gets really significant, it ends up on the CEO's desk," Rosen said "When he sees that the biggest user is IT, IT has to deal with it." Still 28% of survey respondents don't know whether their power bill has increased or decreased – though this is an improvement over the 36% who didn't know last year. For the respondents who are paying attention, a majority see major increases in the power bill for their data centers. 44% have seen an increase, and 19% say the increase is greater than 10%.
Hot-aisle/cold aisle containment -- the practice of sealing hot aisles and cold aisles in a data center –gained traction in 2009. Some data centers do hot-aisle and cold-aisle containment themselves, and some buy a system from a provider, such as Wrightline, APC and Liebert. This really wasn't on the radar until late last year, but already 30% of respondents have implemented it, and an additional 15% plan to next year. Data center infrastructure vendors such as APC and Liebert have differing strategies on how this should be done. The cold-aisle containment strategy (encouraged by Liebert) is slightly more popular with respondents than is hot-aisle or plenum containment.
Server virtualization spending continues, but at a sober rate
Virtualization budgets shrank only slightly. Last year 56% of respondents planned to increase spending on virtualization, and only 2% planned a decrease. This year 54% still plan to increase spending, but 5% plan to cut server virtualization budgets.
The focus on justifying spending has shifted from the nice-to-have ("Modernizing infrastructure" was the No. 1 reason for increasing virtualization budget last year) to the need-to-have: saving on hardware and power and cooling costs. VMware ESX 3.5 and VMware Server remain the dominant server virtualization platforms. Microsoft Hyper-V and Virtual Server have at least edged out prior versions of VMware, taking the No. 3 and No. 4 spots, with about 5% adoption each. Respondents were asked which hypervisors they planned to implement over the next 12 months, and Microsoft Hyper-V jumped from 13% last year to 22% this year; Citrix Systems' Xen jumped from 7% to 13%.
The number of virtual machines provisioned per physical server stayed the same. Most people say less than 10. And most respondents will not standardize the hardware platforms on which they deploy VMs. But for those that do, blade servers are the preferred form factor.
Systems management spending slumps
Systems management spending continues to decline .Thirty-five percent of respondents said they planned to increase spending on systems management software last year – that declined to 27% this year. And respondents planning to decrease systems management spending jumped from 3% to 8%.
Mainframe systems programmer Robert Crawford is not surprised that enterprises are spending less on systems management now. "There are a lot of nifty tools out there, but they tend to be expensive," he said. "Sure, this software can ease pain and boost productivity, but with a bad economy an organization may decide it can live with the difficulties just a little bit longer until things start looking up."
There are a lot of nifty [systems management] tools out there, but they tend to be expensive.
Robert Crawford,
mainframe systems programmer
On the other hand, if administrators have the time, an organization can build its own systems management tools. "The homegrown stuff may not be as snazzy or comprehensive as a store-bought tool, but it would do for now," Crawford said. The main reasons respondents have turned to systems management is to improve employee productivity, introduce automation, contain costs and fill staffing gaps. People are far more price-sensitive about systems management software. Nearly half (47%) said it was a major purchasing criteria last year, compared with 57% this year.
Interest in the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) seems to have waned : The number of shops saying they've implemented ITIL shrunk year over year since 2007. Only 21% of the audience has implemented ITIL (a decline from 30% last year).Of those that have deployed it, half have implemented the latest version: ITIL v3. And far fewer respondents use ITIL as a purchasing criterion for software: 70% did last year, compared with only 58% this year. The adoption of configuration management databases (CMDBs) software rose – from 55% to 64% HP, BMC, IBM lead the pack of CMDB vendors. And several respondents named Microsoft as their CMDB vendor, although the company doesn't have a CMDB product.
IT job advancement situation grim
Nearly half of respondents(49%) don't expect a raise or bonus this year, compared with 23% last year.
Technical certifications continue to lose merit with respondents: 55% don't have any certification, versus 46% last year. The number of respondents who say certification doesn't matter in their raise or bonus structure increased from 77% last year to practically 90%.
ABOUT SURVEY METHODLOGY AND RESPONDENTS
Between June and September of 2009, SearchDataCenter.com conducted the Data Center Decisions 2009 Purchasing Intentions Survey. Subscribers were contacted by email and invited to participate. For this survey, we had a total of 920 respondents. The respondents identify themselves as IT managers, IT administrators, data center facility managers and IT executives. Respondents were primarily U.S.-based (43%), but the survey also included participants from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. More than half of respondents' organizations employ more than 1,000 workers, and more than 25% of the companies have more than 10,000 employees. Thank you to everyone who participated in this survey. Follow this link to the 2008 data center purchasing intentions survey.
Matt Stansberry is Executive Editor of SearchDataCenter.com. Let us know what you think about the data center purchasing survey; email Matt Stansberry.
Facebook tour reveals Open Compute Project in action
By: Meredith Courtemanche
How to reduce, supplement data center power: Advisory Board Q&A
State of data center facilities: 2011
Data Center Decisions 2010 survey: Virtualization drives budget rebound
By: Matt Stansberry
Users buying, configuring servers for virtualization – SearchDataCenter
Hot-aisle/cold-aisle containment takes hold – SearchDataCenter
Data center managers plan for power density jumps – SearchDataCenter
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Jim Wilson - S/T
“Mr. Penfold, Mr. Corporate will see you now.”
“Thank you ma’am. I’ll see myself in.” I stood up, lifted my briefcase, and marched into the businessman’s office prepared for battle.
“Penfold, what took you so long? I left that message on Jim’s phone three days ago. You’re his representative. What gives?”
“Mr. Wilson informed me of your message later that day Mr. Corporate.”
“Then you know we have some problems.”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
“Well did he tell you what the name of his album is going to be? The president of my company, my boss, won’t authorize the production of this album without knowing the title ahead of time.”
“Mr. Wilson would like this album to be self-titled.”
“Not possible. I can’t sell five million units to the jaded masses without a provocative title. Did he give you any other options?”
“As a matter of fact, Mr. Wilson provided me with a couple of other titles to choose from.”
“And they are?”
“First, ‘It Sounds Like Old Music But I Just Wrote It’.”
“No can do. It’s not sexy enough. What else?”
“How about ‘Book Of James’?”
“Nope. The only way I can sell a title like that is if it’s slapped on top of a contemporary Christian release. Anything else?”
“He gave me one last title. ‘If You Don’t Like It, I Don’t Care What You Think’.”
“All right, all right. I get the point. I’ll try to sell the whole self-titled thing to my boss when I speak to him this afternoon. Now, about the production method…”
“Mr. Wilson understands the need to release this album on CD and through digital distribution, but he demands that his album be released on vinyl as well.”
“That’s preposterous!”
“Yes! Yes it is! Penfold, do you have any idea what kind of people use turntables nowadays?”
“Yes Mr. Corporate. Those are the music lovers who will absolutely flip their lid over this album.”
“Baloney! Why would anyone buy a vinyl copy of this album over a CD or MP3?”
“I can offer a few compelling reasons. But if you need something concrete, how about because the vinyl will have an extra song.”
“An extra song?!? You’ve got to be kidding?!”
“Not at all. Oh by the way, Mr. Wilson also recorded three more songs that he would like to be included with the vinyl. They’re intended to go on a separate 7” 45.”
“All right Penfold…alright. I surrender. Now I need you to tell me which of these ridiculous demands Mr. Wilson is willing to negotiate.”
“I’m sorry. Negotiate?”
“Yeah, what will Mr. Wilson give up in order to get us to put out his album? Please tell me it’s the 45.”
“Mr. Corporate, there will be no negotiations. You can either put out this album as Mr. Wilson requests, or he will do so himself.”
“Now that is an empty threat if I’ve ever heard one Penfold. I mean really, put it out himself?”
“Ha! Penfold, you kill me. Listen I’ll run this whole thing by the boss, but I think we both know what the answer is going to be.”
“Fair enough. Just remember. You had the chance to put out this amazing album, and you passed. Have a nice day.”
Greetings waveriders. Today I’m going to talk about a musician near and dear to my music worshipping heart. His name is Jim Wilson and his music has been a constant companion in my listening life for a little more than a decade at this point. As you might have surmised, I kind of like this guy’s work. Just a little bit.
My listening relationship with Mr. Wilson began back in the year 2000 or 2001 when I first got into Rollins Band. A good friend of mine had exposed me to their Get Some Go Again album, and I was hooked! Well it turns out that this version of the Rollins Band was composed of Henry Rollins doing his thing in front of a band named Mother Superior. Jim Wilson is the guitarist/vocalist in Mother Superior. For reasons lost to time (this was before I began regularly attending concerts), I decided to go see Mother Superior when they came to town supporting Wayne Kramer of the MC5. Boy was that the right decision! Mother Superior played their guts out to a sparsely populated club with only me, a friend of mine who I dragged to the show, and their merch guy standing in front of the stage. Let’s just say that I was extremely impressed! After the show I purchased two of their albums (one of which is a member of my top five albums list located on the ‘Who We Be’ page of this website) and my personal music universe was forever changed.
In the years following that fateful day I have obtained almost everything by and associated with the members of MS. Studio albums, bootlegs, side projects, demos, one-off home recordings, Christmas compilations…you name it, I’ve got it. Unfortunately the last MS studio album came out back in 2008. So when I discovered that Jim Wilson was putting out a solo album last year I became very excited, and very anxious. Fanatics like me need our fix! Happily I can report that Jim Wilson’s new self-titled release easily lives up to any and all expectations.
Now comes the hard part. Trying to nail down this album’s overall sound is nearly impossible. Don’t get me wrong, there are constants. Jim Wilson’s soulful, earnest vocals and wonderful guitar playing make their presence known on every track. No, the difficulties lie elsewhere. You see, this is music made by a music fanatic. These songs are the result of someone with a vast array of likes and influences, and the musical chops to follow his muse. That means that the music gleefully jumps genres from song to song. For instance “Bleeding” begins the album with some rock solid, mid-tempo rock and roll with soaring vocal choruses. If you thought the next song would offer more of the same, you’re in for a surprise. “Honest Mistake” is a stunningly beautiful country-tinged ballad featuring Daniel Lanois on pedal steel guitar. What follows? Obviously the buoyantly funky “Things Are Looking Up”. Believe me waveriders; the variety doesn’t stop at track three. Jim Wilson has created an album which provides a kaleidoscope of rock and roll sounds in one splendid package. There is the barn-burner “Holding Out For Love”, the slithery “Killer”, and the evangelical “Let It Run Through You”. “Bus 27” features a stupendously filthy main riff that stomps along with the weight of a giant, and “Cry Now (Pay Later)” featuring Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks is an almost purely synthesizer driven affair barring its elegant guitar solo. You want variety? You demand music of the highest quality? Jim Wilson’s got what you need.
Waveriders if you are already familiar with Jim Wilson’s work you most likely own a copy of this album. If on the other hand you have never heard of Jim Wilson before now you are in for a real treat. The music that he creates is nothing short of magical! If you like genuine rock and roll, you simply cannot go wrong. Buy this album!
P.S.: There are multiple ways to obtain this album. You can download it off of iTunes, Amazon, or Rhapsody. If you want a physical copy you can buy either the CD or the vinyl version from http://jimwilsonmusic.blogspot.com/ . I recommend the vinyl as it does come with the bonus song and three song 7” 45 along with a download card!
--Penfold
Sample Here- http://www.amazon.com/Jim-Wilson/dp/B005ZS8798/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1325537634&sr=8-2
Posted by The Ripple Effect at 12:57 PM
Labels: album review, free album, Jim Wilson, new CD
Primal Fear – Unbreakable
I’m an old fart, so when I was in junior high and high school, it was prime time for bands like Judas Priest, and I was barely out of high school when the classic Dio albums came out. Back then, those bands were considered heavy metal, and when you think about what they were up against, they made some pretty heavy music at the time.
The current label for this type of music is traditional metal, and the new album from Primal Fear is a great example of the genre. I put this thing on and it took me back in time, and that is a very good thing. There are a lot of bands that try their hand at the traditional stuff but they don’t always nail it. “Unbreakable” by Primal Fear knocks it out of the park.
First off, as a drummer myself, I’ve gotta give mad props to the drums on this album. Dude is all over it with some very tasty playing, never going over the top, but always playing exactly what the song calls for. I really dig the drums on this. The other thing I really appreciate about these “traditional” releases is that the production values are high and you can hear each instrument. It’s a nice touch that makes the album better to listen to.
There are some very good tracks on this release. Do you like the high energy, high powered stuff? No worries, you can check out “Strike”, “Give ‘Em Hell”, or “And Then There Was Silence”. I personally guarantee that any of those 3 numbers will get your blood pumping. Or perhaps you’re in the mood for something a little more on the prog rock side of things. Then take a listen to “Where Angels Die”. It’s a great example of some solid rock with some prog leanings. It won’t make you a Yes or King Crimson fan, but it provides some really good balance and variety to the album.
Maybe you don’t want to admit it, but you’re just a fool for the power ballad. Well there’s one of those, too, and it’s actually quite good. “Born Again” is the track you’ll want to listen to. Honestly, though, there’s not a band song on the album and this is one I’ll be listening to many times over. I have to share chuckle I had. There is a song called “Blaze Of Glory”, which made me cringe momentarily in fear that it might be a cover of the Bon Jovi song of the same name, but fear not, it is an original and only shares the name.
For those of you really into your metal, you may remember a band called Sinner, with Mat Sinner as the main man. He is the bass player and seems to be the primary song writer in Primal Fear, so if you enjoyed his previous output you’re gonna love this.
This is a release well worth checking out, especially if you’ve ever been a fan of 70’s and 80’s metal. Not the hair metal stuff, just the traditional metal, formerly known as heavy metal.
– ODIN
Labels: free download, free mp3, heavy metal, power metal, Primal Fear, Unbreakable, zip
Ripple Music Announces Sponsorship and Grand Prize Recording Contract for TBFM Factor 2012
Ripple Music, home of the "Best retro-rock and metal on the planet" is thrilled to announce it's sponsorship of TBFM Factor 2012 - the biggest "on-air" battle of the bands ever!
TBFM Factor 2012 is presented by internet radio station Total Biker FM, home of hard-driving rock n' roll. This is the second time the station has presented this competition. With so much talent out there TBFM wanted to help promote the top bands and hopefully give them the boost up the ladder that they deserve by setting up a fan voted competition.
In 2010, the station was not fully prepared for what turned out to be an amazing competition with over 4 million hits during the final week which crashed the servers TWICE! The competition was such a great success, they decided to bring it back in 2012, bigger, better and more prepared!
The competition is set over 15 weekly knockout weeks. Music from 10 bands each week will get airplay on the Sunday Show on Total Biker FM and then fans get to vote for one week on which band deserves a place in the final. After 15 weeks, a final place is given to a wildcard, which will be the highest voted for runner up from all the knockout stages.
On week 16 the epic final takes place. All 16 bands get featured on air on a special 4 hour show and then all week during all regular shows while fans vote again for the best band of the competition. The winning band will receive some great prizes including the top prize of an exclusive one album record deal with American label Ripple Music.
This is one lucky band's opportunity to join with Ripple Music and become a label-mate of such roaring artists as Mos Generator, Trucker Diablo, Stone Axe, Iron Claw, Grifter, Poobah, JPT Scare Band and Fen.
More prizes are on offer for the finalists ranging from musical equipment to website memberships to free record mastering. Registration closes on 31st March, 2012 and the competition gets under way on June 10th, 2012 with the grand final in September.
More information on the bands taking part, how to register, prizes and sponsors can be found at www.tbfmfactor.com
150 bands take part over 16 weeks… only one winner!
And a Ripple record contract is the Grand Prize!
Important dates are as follows:
Registration closes 31st March 2012
Qualifying Bands Line-Up announced 13th May 2012
Competition starts 10th June 2012 for 15 weeks
The final will be on 23rd September 2012
Winner announced 30th September 2012
Labels: contest, free album deal, grand prize, radio show, recording contract, ripple Music, tbfm factor, total biker fm
The Single Life: Tuber - Smoked Up Notes
This was a sweet surprise. Thanks Racer.
I first discovered Tuber while Bandcamp browsing last year and I immediately downloaded their free, self-titled ep after streaming their four tracks of superb instrumental desert-rock music. This power trio from Greece offer up a touch of trippy with plenty of heavy guitars and pounding grooves, believe me.
I was more than happy to learn in Racer's email that Tuber have recently added a new single, "Smoked Up Notes", to their free digital catalog.
Nice. I love that title. It's perfect, especially for someone who calls himself 'Heddbuzz', right?
The song itself is excellent, too. "Smoked Up Notes" sounds amazing and it's almost seven minutes long. It starts out with hypnotic guitars and and a steady swagger but the heavy is just around the bend. And heavy it is. Uber-heavy. Tuber-heavy...and all smoked-up.
Yeah, man, I'll recommend Tuber to anyone who enjoys instrumental desert-rock. Check 'em out and download some free music already. Damn.
--Heddbuzz
http://www.tuber.bandcamp.com/
http://www.facebook.com/tuberband
http://www.last.fm/music/Tuber?ac=tuber
Labels: Smoked Up Notes, Tuber
The Single Life - Featuring The Enthusiasts, Mondo Ray, The Penetrators, PIle, and Acid FM/Space Mirrors
The Enthusiasts –Sinkin/Risin’ b/w Joanne
Mutated garage fuzz with a mean and beefy bottom end. The Enthusiasts know how to bring the rock into the garage rock vein. Not content to settle on the fuzz and tin can vocals, the lads drop some big, near-stoner riffs, a nifty breakdown and a blur of a guitar solo into "Sinkin’/Risin’". "Joanne" follow suit with a tasty, psychedelic guitar/vocal intro.
Coming from a “small town north of NYC”, this is the Enthusiasts second 7” platter. Toss in a handcrafted, self-stapled sleeve and we got ourselves one tasty vinyl treat released on the band’s own Magic Sleeve Records. Recommended for fans of Baby Woodrose and Dolly Rocker Movement.
www.facebook.com/enthusiastsny
Mondo Ray - Hypnotized b/w Nothing
Another blast of garage fuzz this time courtesy of Windian Records. What we got here is very simple. “Hypnotized” is about 2 minutes of absolute garage pop perfection. Swirling organs form the background for a guitar, bass and drum attack. Toss in a melody worthy of the best of Baby Woodrose and we got ourselves another winner. Big time. Flipside “Nothing” runs out on a sixties melody over a choppy, stuttering beat, and some nifty guitar work. Seems to me that Mondo Ray are a couple of brothers, David Da Cruz on guitar, bass, and vox and Hugo Da Cruz on drums, organ and vox. Don’t know what growing up was like in their house, but I’ll tell you, their parents certainly raised them right. Also recommended for Baby Woodrose and Lorenzo Woodrose fans.
http://windianrecords.wordpress.com/
The Penetrators – Gotta Have Her b/w Baby, Dontcha Tell Me
Also sent in from Windian Records, The Penetrators took their music tutelage in a different garage. No psychedelic flourishes here, these chaps trained under the watchful eye of headmaster The Sonics. Fuzzed and amped, distorto R&B rains all over “Gotta Have Her,” making it sound like a lost, treasured gem from the 1960’s. This song simply rocks in a sock-hop kinda way with some killer surf-guitar licks and barely-hangin-in-there vocals. Great fun. Flipside, “Baby, Dontcha Tell Me,” brims with a nascent rock fury, again bring on the Sonics, the Outsiders, the Standells. You name it. If it’s old school garage your looking for, the Penetratos deliver in spades. Another winner from Windian.
Pile – Big Web b/w Afraid of Scissors
I’d not heard of Pile until Ripple’s good friend Dan Goldin of Exploding in Sound wrote to tell me that they were the first signing to his new record label, Exploding in Sound Records. Well, Dan had already proven his good taste in music with Exploding in Sound’s killer comps, so of course, I had to check this band out. What we have here is the band’s earlier 7” (on gleaming swirled green vinyl) originally released in 2010 (or 2011). “Big Web” is a dirge of Velvet Underground inspiration in a post-hardcore kinda way. Claustrophobic walls of guitar create sheets of sound as the tension and melody build. Flipside, “Afraid of Home” lays down a similar vein with a pulsating bass line that literally drives the song. I’m usually a bit leary of post-emo-hardcore-punk like this because it just becomes too whiny. Thankfully, none of that happens here. Soundscapes rather than songs are the story of the day, with vocals that build to a grind, not a whine. Definitely, caught my attention to see what Exploding in Sound does next.
Acid FM/Space Mirrors - Split 7"
This split comes as a nice looking package from Monster Fuzz Records and Acid Fuzz (Monster Records’s own Sparky Simmons) leads of right into a cosmic journey of space rock proportions. Perhaps it’s a good thing that I was playing some Hawkwind last week, because Acid FM take us right back into that galaxy with gleaming guitars, black-hole sized bass and nebulous riffs. “Space Beyond Space,” is just what the title says, a rocket adventure into the cosmos of mid 80’s Huw Lloyd Langton solo material. The track rocks, though, it never slags, with its up-tempo pace, nice star-shattering lead guitar work and spacey vocals. Flip over and we get Space Mirrors’ odyssey of a psychedelic inner cosmos exploring “Dreams of Area 51.” Just when the song seems like it’s settled into a pleasant mid-tempo vibe, a mean riff explodes throughout the chorus elevating this to true headbanging galaxies. Lyrics of governmental conspiracies, terrifying secrets, and lurking darkness, and sung-spoken by Martyr Lucifer round out this mind-blowing platter. Cool limited edition 7” on red vinyl in 300 copies
http://www.spacemirrors.com
http://www.monsterfuzzrecords.com
http://www.acidfm.com
--Racer
Labels: Acid FM/Space Mirrors, Mondo Ray, Pile, The Enthusiasts, The Penetrators
Hard Riot - Living On A Fast Lane
OK, a show of hands please! How many remember these lyrics - “Get cha motor runnin’. Head out on the highway! Lookin’ for adventure. And whatever comes our way…” If you guessed Frankie Vali and the Four Seasons you’re wrong, as bad ass as they were. But if that image of a custom chopper roaring down a backroad is stuck in your cranium then you’re in the right place. First there was Riot. Then along came Quiet Riot. And RiotGod! Now there’s Hard Riot. None of them have much to do with each other but it sounds pretty fuckin’ cool for an intro anyway… eh? Like I’ve done my homework.
Here’s the straight goods with German rock’n’roll outfit Hard Riot on the Pitch Black label. They’re not going to find a cure for cancer or solve world hunger anytime soon, but like many hard rockin’, straight shootin’ rock’n’roll bands before them they are making an impact. People eat this fundamental shit up! You heard it here first. To start with, they’re redefining life on the road with their debut album by “Living On A Fast Lane”. I’ve heard of living IN the fast lane, but never ON. I commend them for their machismo and bravery but you have to admit, it must be difficult dodging traffic. Especially with a full compliment of furniture and dishware. And I’m guessing they actually came up with a way cool German name for the band, but Hard Riot was the genius that Google translator spat out.
Nevertheless, this fearless Teutonic four piece kicks it into gear, pulls the throttle back and thrusts the rock’n’roll carburetors wide open on this release. It’s essentially a collection of infectious, high octane rockers and “hoist your lighters (and/or mobile devices) in the air” anthems. If you like the big crunchy riffs and searing vox all underscored by a thundering rhythm section, you’ve come to the right place. Buckle up!
The lads kick off the top of the disc with a straight up, no bullshit, balls out rocker called GET READY. Like I said, they’re not reinventing the wheel here but the song still boasts gritty, in your face vocals, a solid bridge and chorus. Get ready? Get ready for what? HELLFIRE ROCK, that’s what! This smokin’ little ditty has a “call to arms” style verse along the same lines as what you often hear from Ireland’s The Answer. The 60 watt incandescent over your melon will flicker on when the AC/DC “Whole Lotta Rosie” scent wafts in on the stop riff during the reprieve. The ghost of “Riff Raff” also haunts some of the chord choices. They offer up a solid, but not surprising chorus, and studied guitarist Andreas Rockrohr (Rock Roar?!... cool name) peels off the first of many tight, tidy solos on the album! Good, hard edged guitar tones abound on this number.
Just when you thought you were in like flint staring down a backstage laminate, the boys come roaring (Rockrohr-ing?) back with the lumbering, gutsy rock anthem DON’T NEED YOU! Is that so? Well, guess what guys? I don’t need you… oh, wait – the boys seem to attract an uber abundance of Claudia Schiffer/Heidi Klum-like supermodels to their electric live shows (could it be the Hai Karate aftershave?!...). I take it back! I DO need you guys. And all your contagious, up front, fist pumping vocals backed by heart wrenching harmonies that genetically perfect women quiver over.
The ol’ stylus then hops over to the powerful NO SURRENDER complete with duel leads at the beginning distantly reminiscent of the infamous Iron Maiden sonic attack. It houses another “call to action” chorus soaked in a beer blasted, blue collar sensibility and garnished with yet another tasteful solo that fits nicely within the framework of the song.
TEARS IN THE RAIN is one of my favourite tunes on the entire album. It’s houses a simple but great, plodding, memorable riff. The song is ripe with smokin’, pulverant guitar tones, up front primal vocals and fist pumping crowd participation. When I initially saw the song title my first thought was it was going to be a sappy ballad, but it was anything but! The Scorpions influence is abundant here, but the Hard Riot boys draw it out, open it up and make it their own. They do what many bands are afraid to do nowadays. They give the almighty riff some breathing room and allow it to resonate. There’s a reflective reprieve in the middle instrumentally, but the guttural vocals don’t quit. Vocalist Michael Gildner simply refuses to back down. And like true blue, bonafide rockers, they liberate the rock’n’roll carburetors once again near the end, drop it down a gear and throw the throttle wide open!
TURN ON THE LIGHTS (I dropped the KY) is a solid, chugging rocker with lots of meat on the bone. More kick ass solos abound, pooled with a nice reflective reprieve in the middle.
NOTHING BUT YOU is a well constructed acoustic ballad. Definitely one for the mass of Bic lighters at a live show. The Germanic linguistic influence leaks through here and there in the vocals but not to the point where it’s distracting. There’s also some pleasant vocal harmonies in this number. Essentially, it’s a great song to seal that illusive first date with, if ya know what I mean (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).
TAKE ME DOWN boasts a great dirty riff! And yet another SA-WEET solo! Tasty chord transition too. HARD WAY DOWN is a no bullshit, straight shootin’ rocker. BLACK WIDOW offers up a delectable drawn out, crunching riff tied to a great bridge. What’s this? ANOTHER crisp solo in a long line of them from Mr. Rockrohr! This beast is a total live, in unison fist pumper. The finisher ROCK’N’ROLL OUTLAW is a peppy little rocker that captures a Four Horsemen/Ramones-esque (odd combo, I know) flavour along the lines of my favourite band’s killer tune “Can’t Stop Rockin’”.
I have to tip my hat to Producer Vagelis Maranis at Maranis Studios in Backnang, Germany for doing a solid job on the recording, production and mix. The vocals and guitar sit way out front through most of the tracks, but there’s still some nice instrumental separation. It feels very clean despite all the brash guitar and vocal tones.
Hard Riot are the kind of band that would get everybody’s attention if they played the side stage at Wacken. Folks would haul ass to find out who’s tearing it up. As a good buddy of mine once said, “AC/DC is the small block Chevy of kick ass rock’n’roll”. If that’s true, then Hard Riot is the dual piston V-Twin of rock’n’roll! Hard Riot is Michael Gildner on vocals, Andreas Rockrohr on guitars, Mario Kleindienst on bass and Carmine Jaucci on drums.
--Teeder
Free track download at http://www.pitchblackrecords.com
Labels: 70's hard rock, free download, free mp3, German metal, Hard Riot, Living On A Fast Lane, power metal, zip
Eddie Grey - The Love Thief Sessions
If I told you you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me? Was that an earthquake or did you just rock my world? Hello, I’m a thief and I’m here to steal your heart.
Eddie Grey loves women. Eddie Grey loves sex. It is his inspiration. He writes chick seduction music and he is not bashful about it. He’s good at it, the writing and playing I mean, not the sex. I have no idea about the sex. His latest babe magnet is The Love Thief Sessions, eleven creative attempts to get a woman in Eddie’s pants. It is all part of his marketing. The CD even includes a passionate red card that describes each one of his musical womanly enticements. Here, let Eddie tell you about the album -
So, ladies, I hope the day is as radiant as your smile. What does it feel like to be the most beautiful girl in the room? If beauty were sunlight, you'd shine from a million light-years away. My place or yours?
Labels: Eddie Grey, The Love Thief Sessions
Gotye- Making Mirrors
Unlike movies, it’s possible to make a solid or even a great third album. As a matter of fact, several of my all time favorite albums happen to be the third record in certain artists’ discography like Bruce Springsteen Born to Run, Green Day Dookie (the third studio album), Def Leppard Pyromania, The Ramones Rocket to Russia, The Clash London Calling and Iggy and the Stooges Raw Power. After careful thinking, I realized my favorite album for several artists in their entire catalog turned out to be their “third” album and included Metallica Master of Puppets, Radiohead OK Computer, Arcade Fire The Suburbs and The Smiths The Queen is Dead.
Before I even started composing this review I brainstormed what would work as the perfect label to call a third album, but to no avail. Even my extensive research proved inconclusive. As you can imagine, labeling albums beyond “debut” and “sophomore” became frustrating. The possible vocabulary to describe subsequent albums proved preposterous. Personally, I wish there was an accurate term to describe a tremendous third album.
This is the case with Gotye’s latest release, Making Mirrors. Gotye has released two previous indie rock albums Boardface and Like Drawing Blood and is one-third of indie-pop band The Basics. For almost the past decade, this award winning singer-songwriter has been a force to reckon with and there are no signs of him wearing down. Gotye is here to stay.
An ingenious introspective album, Making Mirrors marks the beginning to a great new year. When the album initially came out late last year, Making Mirrors was only available as an import. When it comes to music, the word import is both my best friend and worst enemy. I prefer physically purchasing an item specifically made for my own region rather than owning an “overpriced album” just so I could possess an album earlier than everyone else. Now you know why I delayed writing this review.
In recent years, it seems the first track for certain albums, particularly for indie and alternative artists, will have “opening tracks” that act as a precursor and intro to the actual album like “Swords” off Zola Jesus’ Conatus. However, some mainstream artists use this gimmick of an “opening track” as a fun warm up like LMFAO “Rock the Beat II” off Sorry For Party Rocking. In either case I think it’s a great way to ignite interest in your fans and the anticipation is awesome. The titular track “Making Mirrors” is one such song. It’s a nice mellow tune easing you into the first great album of 2012.
The musical genius Gotye unleashes the unique “Easy Way Out” as his second track and it sounds like an acid infused, psychedelic-like version of The Beatles “Day Tripper.” For two minutes, this song will hook you immediately and just as quickly the tune abruptly ends without reaching a climax. Don’t make this song a “distant memory” because the album is just starting.
The lead single and third track featured on Making Mirrors is the critically acclaimed and extremely popular “Somebody That I Used to Know.” Maybe I’m a sucker with songs about bad breakups and relationships, but this song is catchy on so many levels it’s not even funny. “Somebody That I Used to Know” is the first Gotye song to chart in the United States. As of this review, it’s steadily moving up the charts and is currently a Top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.
“Somebody That I Used to Know” starts off with Gotye singing as someone reminiscing about his past flame in a caring and reflective manner, but bursts through as a classic 80s pop song as though it were Sting during his days with The Police. One can even argue Gotye sounds like Phil Collins when he was the lead singer of Genesis once the chorus starts.
“But you didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened
And that we were nothing
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough.”
Kimbra’s collaboration on “Somebody That I Used to Know” enhances each single syllable she utters and makes me remember all my past relationships. This New Zealand vocalist oozes the emotional rollercoaster side of relationships and takes this song to a whole new level. Kimbra is another artist worth discovering if you don’t already know her.
“Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believing it was always something that I’d done
And I don’t wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn’t catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know”
There absolutely needs to be more songs with these two outstanding, outspoken sensational singers. I honestly could keep describing “Somebody That I Used to Know,” but I rather not bore you. By the way, Natasha Pincus needs a shout out and some recognition for directing a stunning modern masterpiece music video for “Somebody That I Used to Know.”
Gotye once again sounds like Sting on “Eyes Wide Open” and his luminous lyrics “So this is the end of the story/ Everything we had, everything we did…” are remarkable throughout the song. Somehow Gotye utilizes the best of the 80s pop scene by creating intelligent, inspiring tunes that transcends generations with its relevant adult themes such as hard breakups. As Wayne and Garth proclaimed to Alice Cooper in Wayne’s World, “I’m not worthy.”
Making Mirrors continues to stun listeners with its wide range of compelling compositions, but nothing seems too random. The retro “I Feel Better” seems similar to Fitz and The Tantrums with its infectious soulful sound, while “In Your Light” has an acoustic guitar intro similar to George Michael’s “Faith.” Other notable songs include “Bronte,” “Giving Me a Chance,” “State of the Art” and “Don't Worry, We'll Be Watching You” on this terrific 12 track album.
There are also additional tracks available for individuals who pre-ordered the album on iTunes, including a remix of Gotye’s hit song “Somebody I Used to Know” by Faux Pas, "Dig Your Own Hole" and “Showdown Below My Sombrero" (only if you pre-ordered the CD/DVD version). Regardless of what version of the album you own or want to own, Making Mirrors exists as one of the Top 10 albums of 2012. Yes, I said it. Rest assured when it comes to compiling my “Best of List,” Making Mirrors will without a doubt be on that list.
--Mr Brownstone
Labels: album review, free mp3, free download, Gotye, Making Mirrors, new CD, zip
Deadstar Assembly.
Where oh where do I start with this band? They're certainly one of my favorites. I found them, how all great discoveries are made, by accident a few years ago when I was eleven. The Youtube player was on shuffle and they popped up right after Spectrum-X. The video was for "Breathe For Me" off of their self-titled debut. It was moving, wonderful, and totally captured that helpless, I-just-need-something-to-believe-in angst. I was instantly captured by how rough, and yet melodic their sound was. Deadstar Assembly's second album Unsaved came out shortly after that, and you best believe I went right out, bought it, plunked myself down in my room, and didn't take those headphones off for days.
Deadstar Assembly is a strange culmination of all that's great about industrial metal, with touches of goth rock thrown in to create this hard-edged, enigmatic wall of sound that roars (quite literally) listeners down from the first notes of the album to the last verse of the last track. Their sound is completely unique, you know instantly when you are listening to a DSA song. I challenge anyone to find another band that is as innovative in the industrial metal scene today, or that has a better relationship with their fans.
I meet people all over that see my DSA buttons and go on and on about how they went to a concert, met the guys and they were so cool, and down-to-earth. In my personal experience, I asked them on Facebook if I could do a review, and I wasn't expecting to hear back for a few days, if at all, and they got back to me within an hour. From someone who has had her fair share of being disappointed and/or ignored by rockstars, that's pretty cool.
Their third album, Coat of Arms, is easily one of my favorite albums of all time. It's brash, it's completely different than anything else I've heard, it's in-your-face, it's "D"-all-of-the-above on the freakin' awesome scale. To list all the great songs from the album, I'd have to list them all. The first song I ever heard from DSA, "Breathe For Me" is on this album too, which is sort of confusing, but enjoyable all the same. My favorite track off of the album has got to be "F.Y.G." standing for, "Fuck Your God." This song does make me laugh, because, come on, when is the last time there was a band with enough guts to be like, "Yeah, we just said that, this is what we think, it doesn't matter what you think!" so blatently in a song? Now, before you jump on the "they hate christianity, attack!" bandwagon, from the band themselves, "FYG is about celebrity worship, nothing to do with religion. It pokes fun at the media making celebrities out of people that have no merit and contribute nothing. The prerequisite being money, beauty and a scandalous sex tape. Fascinating how people find Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian interesting."
Mid-January, Deadstar Assembly released a clip of a brand new song, "Blame It On the Devil." Holy fuck, hell was just unleashed through my speakers. It sounds fresh, different, and like it moves in a slightly different direction than past albums, but still has that innate DSA feel. Deadstar Assembly is still in the writing and recording stage of their fourth album, Adorned In Thorns. There is no specific release date right now, but according to the band's Facebook page, the album will be out sometime in 2012.
I really don't know what else I can say about this band besides they are phenomenal at what they do, and they are very special to me. Their music has helped me out in hard times, and still there to rock out to when I'm happy. I keep trying to think of bands that sound like DSA, but there really aren't any. If you like music that is brutal, hard-hitting, with goth overtones, and a strong backbone of electronic, this is definitely a band you will love, just like I do.
--Gorgeous Nightmare
Labels: album review, Deadstar Assembly, interview, new CD, new song, new video, zip
NAPALM DEATH streams new album, "Utilitarian", online
In anticipation of the release of their new album, Utilitarian , on February 27th in Europe and February 28th in North America, the legendary NAPALM DEATH is now giving fans the chance to listen to their grindcore masterpiece online in its entirety! To join the album listening party, head here:
http://www.cmdistro.de/
Labels: . new album, death metal, Forest Stream, free, grindcore, napalm death, new CD, ulitarian, zip
Tom Waits - Nighthawks at the Diner
I found Waits via his readings of Bukowski's works (to me Waits sounds exactly like Hank's poems were meant to sound when read aloud, versus the author's own readings, which to me just absolutely fail).
--and also via the Bulletboys' "Hang on St. Christopher," if we're being honest--
And though I really like several, this if by far my fave Waits album.
It's a live set, from 1975. Each song has an intro (meaning badinage with the audience before the actual song commences) and then the song itself.
This is the near-perfect intersection of poetry and music-- Waits essentially talks through many of these songs/tales, and the primary reason to keep listening is not the song, nor the melody (though those are good)-- but the narrative. See, in particular, "Big Joe and Phantom 309," with its ghost-storied tale, not unlike the tale of Large Marge from "Pee Wee's Big Adventure."
Think of it as a boozy "Prairie Home Companion."
It's a lounge act --but not in the derogatory, Bill Murray's SNL "Nick Winters the Lounge Singer" variety-- but in the most entertaining/ yet still sleazy version possible. If Waits isn't drunk while performing these tunes he's doing a great impersonation of it: witness his slurred and sung discussions of the local Los Angeles eateries, which, judging by the audience's response, are accurate and witty regardless.
It's a very relaxing, intimate, late-night piece of work.
Opening intro is all sax and piano and slurred speech-- and though there's an alto sax, it's not particularly "jazzy"-- the horn is just used to exaggerate the late-night atmosphere for the stories contained within the tunes.
This is background music (a term I hate; no music should be meant for the background), but in the best sense. Put this on and you'll drift off to sleep in the absolute best company.
And your subconscious will be absolutely laden with interesting tales.
Enjoy your luscious dreams.
--Horn
Labels: Nighthawks at the Diner, Tom Waits
Man, I am stoked that this new Corrosion of Conformity album is so good! They were one of the first hardcore punk bands that I discovered on my own, thanks to the recommendation of Bob Muldowney in the pages of his Kick Ass fanzine in 1984. When Animosity came out a year later it was blasting on my stereo pretty much non-stop and I even interviewed drummer Reed Mullin for my high school newspaper. It was also one of the first "hardcore" tapes my friends who were into Ozzy/Dio/Priest/Scorps could tolerate. Well, at least most of it. Side two was a bit much for them but I loved it. So when it was announced that C.O.C.'s ever changing line up was reverting back to the Animosity trio of bassist/vocalist Mike Dean, guitarist Woody Weatherman and Mullin I was very excited. I missed their NY show on the first go round but heard they were great. When it was announced that they were going to do a new record I really didn't know what to expect. I think the last C.O.C. album I heard all the way through was Blind and that was about 20 years ago.
Album opener "Psychic Vampire" starts off with a heavy groove before switching up with a fast punk part before returning to the groove. A very nice Bad Brains via Mahvishnu Orchestra way to begin. "River Of Stone" and the instrumental "El Lamento de las Cabras" are slower and moodier and make a fast thrasher like "Leeches" sound even faster and heavier. "Leeches" (sung by Reed) is really the only song similar to their vintage thrash era. Unsurprisingly, "The Doom" is slow and heavy but has some fast parts, too. C.O.C. was heavily into the first 2 Trouble albums when they came out when at a time when most metal fans were not into them. I always thought it was funny how a hardcore band got a lot of metallers into bands like Trouble and Saint Vitus because they'd wear their t-shirts.
The rest of the album is just kick ass heavy rock. Not fully metal, not punk, not classic rock. These guys always liked to play in the "beyond category" vein and that's what I really like about this album. The production is great, too. Woody's guitar tone is hard n heavy and blends well with Mike's booming bass. Reed's drumming is top notch. He throws in a lot of cool Clive Burr drum fills mixed in with some Earl from Bad Brains high hat work. There's even some "Pay To Cum" style cowbell!
I hope this album finds an audience. I know a lot of their fans are skeptical because Pepper Keenan isn't in the band right now and they probably never liked early C.O.C. They lost many their original hardcore fans after the Technocracy EP and this album might not win them back if all they like is punk rock. Their loss is my gain, I guess. I got my ticket for the NYC show on March 1 and I can't wait to see these guys rage the stage again.
--Woody
Labels: CD Review, corrosion of conformity, hardcore crossover, Mike Dean, new album, Reed Mullin, stoner rock, Woody Weatherman
Smart Music Presents Lesson One
First attempt at teaching middle school age children history through song:
“Mr. Penfold, why are you wearing that ridiculous wig? And why are you wearing what appears to be a frilly long sleeved shirt that is at least two sizes too big for you along with some ancient looking flood pants and tights?”
“Excellent questions Billy! I’m wearing clothing similar to what was fashionable back when Christopher Columbus set out to reach the East Indies.”
“What’s with the weird looking piano?”
“This isn’t a piano Chris. It’s a harpsichord. I’m going to play a song on it that will help you remember what we’re learning today.”
Subsequent Test Results – 64% Pass, 46% Fail
Second attempt at teaching middle school age children history through song:
“Mr. Penfold, why are you wearing frayed overalls and a straw hat?”
“Well Patrick, today we are going to learn about America’s transition away from agriculture during the industrial revolution. I’m going to play you all a song on my friend ‘Mr. Banjo’ here that I think you’ll find quite memorable.”
Third attempt at teaching middle school age children history through song:
“May I ask what is so funny Ms. Jones?”
“You look ridiculous!”
“I’ll have you know that tie-dye shirts and bell bottom jeans were extremely popular in the late 1960s, the period of US history we are discussing today. I’m going to play a flower-power classic on my guitar that should convey all the information you need to learn today.”
Aftermath:
“Okay class. I give up. My thinking was that I could use music as an effective teaching tool. Your test scores however tell a much different story. Do you all even like music?”
“Of course we like music Mr. Penfold. But that music you’ve been playing for us is totally lame.”
“Lame, huh? All right then. What kind of music do you like then?”
“Hip-hop.”
A few days later:
“Class, I’d like for you to welcome a special guest who has joined us today. His name is Lak and he is here to bust rhymes and teach you some history.”
Subsequent Test Results – 100% Pass
Waveriders it has been quite a while since I was last inside a public school classroom. Years have gone by, but the passage of time has not changed two important facts. First off, history was my favorite subject. I love reading up on history! Second, with the notable exception of a song used to remember the names and capital cities of Central and South American countries, the majority of educational music I’ve been subjected to has been terrible. Okay maybe the word terrible is a bit harsh, but this music is definitely not geared for anyone over the age of eight.
With that in mind, perhaps you can understand my reluctance to listen to what is openly billed as an educational hip hop album. In my mind I pictured a couple of guys dressed up in labcoats rapping poorly with high pitched voices about the alphabet and basic math. Thankfully, my journalistic integrity got the best of me and I decided to give Lesson One a shot. It’s my sworn duty as a Ripple Effect writer to stay open minded after all. I hit play on my CD player and the first song, appropriately titled “Intro” began. The music sounded solid from the start and then the first lyrical content hit my ears.
SmartMusic entertainment / Dis da movement / We aim to elevate your mindstate through music / We want to teach and inspire you to learn more / We know the classroom for some is a straight bore / We know the hood’s at the bottom of the money list / We know the block’s full of negative influences / We know some teachers care / We know some teachers don’t / We know some families provide strength when others won’t / We know it’s never fair / Some parents never there / We know some show love then act like they never cared / The world’s cold in the middle of the summer / And if you don’t elevate your mind you never come up / We make it easier to grasp your potential and get you to understand the battle you’re fighting is mental / It’s nothing when you think about it and give it attention / And you get it poppin’ while memorizin’ the lesson / You can steer your life in a whole different direction / You can put yourself where you want to be, no question / If you can comprehend what I’m saying you can do anything / This is Smart Music, we teach and entertain.
Okay then. That was NOT what I was expecting! I could get behind that sentiment one hundred percent! Time for a little research. Smart Music Entertainment is the brainchild of Larry ‘Lak’ Henderson. Lak has been involved in making hip hop music for several years, but Lesson One is a new venture. He surveyed the educational music landscape and saw the same thing I had. Most of this music was completely childish or just plain bad. Believing that hip hop music can be a very effective teaching tool, he took it upon himself to right the wrong and made this album. The beauty of this music is that it will appeal to adult hip hop heads just as much as its teenage target market.
Lesson One is made up of ten songs and two bonus tracks. These songs can be broken down into three different categories. Songs like “First 25 Presidents” and “50 States” are purely informational. “Cash Flow”, “It’s A War”, and “Drugs” reflect on issues currently facing the youth of America. The other songs all deal with African American history. “Slavery” features an emcee named Nyce who together with Lak lays out the vile institutions history in an aggressive, hard hitting manner. “Kings & Queens” and “Moors” together provide a fleshed out genealogy that will prevent any African American child from feeling inferior to anyone else. “Invent” and “Congress Women” each offer compelling examples of African American accomplishments that should provide plenty of motivation for kids striving to achieve greatness.
The bottom line here waveriders is that this album is good. Very good! If you like your hip hop to have a positive or meaningful message look no further than Smart Music’s Lesson One. This is a solid album that you can buy for your child with full confidence in the lyrical content contained within. If you don’t tell them it is an educational album, they’ll never know its true purpose! They’ll just call it ‘dope’. If that term is not cool anymore I apologize. I am far from hip. Worst case scenario, they don’t like the album and you get to keep it yourself!
Labels: Smart Music Presents Lesson One
EAGLE ROCK ENTERTAINMENT TO RELEASE SANTANA LIVE AT MONTREUX 2011 ~ 2DVD SET AND BLU-RAY~ Santana Lands February 21 in a Captivating Set of Greatest Hits!
Eagle Rock Entertainment will release Santana Live At Montreux 2011 on a 2DVD set & Blu-ray in a exhilarating set of jazz, Latin, funk, soul and rock 'n' roll. The 23-song show weighs heavily on the side of the songs that fans of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist (inducted in 1998) have loved over the years.
Filmed in high-definition and recorded in DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby Digital 5.1 and LPCM Stereo, it's a total jam-packed evening of percolating percussion, soaring lead guitar solos and the kind of funky bass/drum action that has kept this band in the forefront of popular music for over 40 years.
Live At Montreux 2011 is a career-spanning show that covers all the bases: from Tito Puente's "Oye Como Va," Fleetwood Mac's "Black Magic Woman," Babatunde Olatunji's "Jingo" and Willie Bobo's "Evil Ways" to John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme." Carlos Santana has always had a knack for making his cover versions become spectacularly his own. His interpretive flair reached its zenith with 2010's Guitar Heaven which contains his scintillating take on Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love." Add his numerous originals, including "Smooth" and "Maria Maria," his signature style of inspired and spiritual guitar playing and you have the kind of DVD that burns with intensity.
Extras include interviews with Carlos and Cindy Blackman Santana, and a very special peek behind-the-scenes. Guest artists include the husband/wife guitar team of Susan Tedeschi and Allman Brother Derek Trucks as well as drummer/wife Cindy Blackman Santana. Over three hours long, this is the Santana concert his fans have been waiting for!
For forty years and as many albums later, Santana has sold more than 90 million records and reached more than 100 million fans at concerts worldwide. To date, Santana has won ten Grammy® Awards, including a record-tying nine for a single project, 1999's Supernatural (including Album of the Year and Record of the Year for "Smooth"). In 1998, the group was ushered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, whose web page on their induction notes, "Guitarist Carlos Santana is one of rock's true virtuosos and guiding lights." Among many other honors, Carlos Santana has also been cited by Rolling Stone as #15 on their list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time." His last CD, Guitar Heaven... The Greatest Guitar Classics of All Time (Arista) was released in 2010. Celebrating that chart debut, Santana joined the ranks of the Rolling Stones as the only musical act in chart history to score at least one Top 10 album in every decade beginning with the 1960s. "Guitar Heaven" was Santana's 29th Billboard Top 200 charting release, 12th Top 10 album debut and third Top 10 debut in the past 7 years.
1) Spark Of The Divine
2) SOCC
3) Back In Black
4) Singing Winds, Crying Beasts
5) Black Magic Woman / Gypsy Queen
6) Oye Como Va
7) Maria Maria
8) Foo Foo
9) Corazon Espinado / Guajira
10) Benny & Cindy Solo
11) Jingo
12) Carlos Speaks / Novus
13) Europa (Earth's Cry, Heaven's Smile) / I Want You
14) Batuka / No One To Depend On
1) Duende / Open Invitation
2) Make Somebody Happy / Right On Be Free
3) Evil Ways / A Love Supreme
4) Sunshine Of Your Love
5) Smooth / Dame Tu Amor
6) Soul Sacrifice / Dennis Drum Solo
7) Samba Pa Ti
8) Into The Night
9) Love, Peace And Happiness / Freedom
Posted by The Ripple Effect at 9:18 PM
Labels: Carlos Santana, free download, free mp3, greatest hits, live at montreux 2011, new DVD, Santana, zip
Fuzz Manta - Opus II
Heavy, hippie hard rock. Right on.
There are a lot of great female-fronted rock bands emerging from the underground lately and one of my favorites is Denmark's Fuzz Manta, who add plenty of heavy blues and 70s psychedelia into the mix.
If Opus II hasn't been covered at the Ripple Effect already, then I apologize. First, it's a spectacular hard rock album by a solid band, and second, it was released early last year and Fuzz Manta already have a new one out. Hey, I can only work with what I have.
Now that I do have a promotional copy, it's time to finally show some love. On Opus II, Fuzz Manta promptly deliver eight tracks and 45 minutes of excellent hard rock goods.
"Motumann" kicks things off with fuzzy riffs and a hip-shaking groove. Sultry vocals. About halfway through the band break down into the psychedelic realm of rock before a blistering solo. Much of "Man With No Face" is up-tempo, with a Deep Purple feel, thanks to some well placed organ riffs, and the acoustic "Quiet Monday" immediately brings to mind ELP, and perhaps Led Zeppelin. This is one of my favorites, even though it's the most mellow.
It's too bad that "Lithia's Box" is only available on the cd and download versions. Not only is it one of the longest songs on Opus II, but it has some one of the heaviest, bluesy-ass riffs and I think it's one of the band's best, with killer breakdowns about five minutes in. I had thought about getting the vinyl but without this song...I don't know.
"Turn Around" just might be 'the one' for me, though. Super-heavy riffage here, man. I think Fuzz Manta bring it with best of them.
I've included a live performance of the last track, "Let Me Walk", so you can get a sense of the electricity generated by this band. The sounds quality isn't the greatest, but you can still feel the buzz throughout. I know I can.
Lene (vocals) has a captivating stage presence and reminds me of a young Grace Slick or Janis Joplin. She's as sexy as her voice, too. Pelle (drums) doesn't even use his sticks during part of his incredible solo, about four minutes into the song. Check it out. He lays them down for a few and just uses his bare hands. Awesome. Freddy (guitar), sporting his YES shirt, and Morten (bass), with his hair flying all over, both give spectacular performances.
After the live video, listen to a few more tracks from Opus II here: http://soundcloud.com/fuzzmanta/sets/opus-ii-promo/ Or check out the band's website and Facebook page. Then get your cd or vinyl copy from Kozmik Artifactz, if you don't already have it. I sure hope to be writing about the latest release by Fuzz Manta in the near future.
Peace and love.
http://www.fuzzmanta.com/
https://www.facebook.com/fuzzmanta
http://www.kozmik-artifactz.com/
Labels: free download, free mp3, fuzz manta, Opus II, psychedelic rock, stoner rock, zip
Christian Mistress - Possession
(Re-presenting a Horn review originally published on The Soda Shop)
Very like The Devil's Blood (i.e., highly capable female singer with traditional doom metal/ rock music background), but more 70s rock/metal, less 70s rock/pop. If that made any sense.
Shut up. You read this site. You knew very well what I meant.
"Over and over," a satanic T-rex, a heavier Kansas... "Pentagram and Crucifix," almost like a track from Danzig's eponymous debut (and very nearly as sweet) with its alternating time (i.e., downbeat to forebeat in the verse)... "Conviction" is an (improbably) Y&T-like ripper....
"The Way Beyond" fires up a lap steel-laced acoustic intro and slows things down for a minute or two, before igniting a "Children of the Grave"-esque riff--
seriously, if you're reading this site, you love stoner/doom riffs. This track alone would complete you sexually:
Guys: you could poke holes in a board with your dick after this one; girls, you could drown a toddler in your panties/knickers.
"Possession" has a great slinky riff not unlike (ironically) Danzig's "Possession," (though it's only reminiscent of it, at best), "Back to Gold" rocks and sways its hips like the best delta blues (Albert King, whaddya think of this?); "There is Nowhere" opens like a continuation of the end of "Symptom of the Universe" (funky, semi-tribal acoustics), "Haunted Hunted" has some freakin sweet twin lead harmonies, and closer "All Abandon" just rocks all-out, NWOBHM-ishly, then closes out this badass baby of a satanicish rock/ metal record with a dissonant, diabolus in musica of a final melody/riff.
All tracks, too, are nicely concise and brief (almost like they were radio-ready! ha! remember that?). No self-indulgent 10-minute tracks here. They can write songs and they do. It's a nice change from most doom/ metal acts.
All in all: this is really fun doom/stoner/tradition metal. And I'm sober as a nun right now.* Imagine if you were otherwise.
*He said, despairingly.
here's the original article: http://thesodashop.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/review-christian-mistress-possession/
<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://christianmistress.bandcamp.com/album/possession"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Possession by Christian Mistress&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>
Labels: album review, Christian Mistress, free download, heavy metal, Possession, zip
Billy Joel - Piano Man (2 CD Legacy Edition)
There's no doubt about it. Billy Joel deserves his place in the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame. Just the work over his pivotal 3 albums, The Stranger, 52nd Street, and Glass Houses cements this. But prior to those albums,in late 1973, Columbia Records released Billy Joel's first major album, Piano Man. The album went on to sell more than 4-times RIAA platinum to date, and is one of the corner-stones of Billy Joel's Columbia catalog of nearly 20 studio and live albums.
Still, back in the day, I could never get into Piano Man. Yes, I loved the title track (more on that later) but the rest of album left me flat. It is a strange album after all, not utilizing the Billy Joel band, but a bunch of California studio musicians. Plus, there's this inexplicable country-western vibe to the album, so different from the NY street level storytelling of The Stranger. Perhaps it was this bluegrass feel that turned me off. Or the muddied production. Or the lack of a "Just the Way You Are." Whatever, I couldn't get into it like the following three.
Almost four decades later, Piano Man (Legacy Edition) brings the 10-song album back in the spotlight. Completely re-mastered, the album finally clicks for me. Finally, the sound is where it's supposed to be, vibrant and clear and full of punch. The bluegrass vibe of "Travelin' Prayer," works this time, sounding rousing and hopeful, as does the rest of the album. Still, not as developed as Joel's later work, and not as important as the following three albums, Piano Man finally sounds like a fitting introduction to a man who had a major impact on American music.
Then of course, there's the title track, "Piano Man," still one of my favorite songs of Joel's ever. The Lonliness and despair he brings forth in his observations about the regulars at the bar in LA where he had a piano-bar residency for 6 months are spot on. The emptiness is clear. The longing is palpable. When he sings in the voice of the bartender, "Bill, I believe this is killing me, as the smile ran away from his face." it's one of those transcendent moments in music for me (like Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle") where I actually feel moved to the brink of tears. He evokes that kind of emotion. Amazing stuff.
But don't buy Piano Man for the remastered version of the album (even though it sounds better than ever before.) If you're a Billy Joel fan, buy the Legacy Edition for the second CD, an entire previously unreleased 1972 live radio concert (predating Joel's Columbia signing by a year).
This concert is legendary in Joel's fans hearts, and launched his career. Early support for Joel came from Philadelphia, specifically the top-rated FM station WMMR, which programmed a live concert series taped in the intimate Sigma Sound Studios. Billy recorded a concert for the series on April 15, 1972. Three of the 12 songs that he performed were destined for inclusion on his next album (more than a year and a half away) Piano Man: "Travelin Prayer," the Aaron Copland-esque "The Ballad Of Billy The Kid," and the notorious "Captain Jack." Tapes of the 'MMR concert made the rounds, with "Captain Jack" turning into an "underground" FM favorite. Some of those listeners happened to work for Columbia Records, and soon the groundwork was being laid for Billy Joel to come to New York and audition for the label. The rest is history.
But what fascinates me most about this show are how fully developed a talent Joel was at that early point in his career and how positively awkward he was as a performer.
Musically, his songs shine bright. His playing was impeccable, his voice superb. And his early rendition of "She's Got a Way," is breathtaking -- still one of his best melodies ever. Yet, as a performer, this awkward kid from New York was a hilarious mess. His between song banter is reduced to horribly, ill-fated jokes, stutters, awkwardness, and loud slurps from his mug of beer. And I mean loud slurps. May even be a burp or two in there. Truthfully, his banter was so bad, it would be painful to listen to if I didn't know how it was going to all turn out for him years later. Still, as a snapshot of a young artist, it's priceless.
Piano Man, will never be The Stranger to me, but in this version it's an album worthy of the space it takes up on my Billy Joel shelf.
Labels: Billy Joel, brit rock download, CD Review, legacy edition, Live Cd, new CD, piano man, sigma sound concert, zip
Crosses ††† - EP ††
For those you living under a rock and have yet to hear about Crosses †††, go read my review for their first EP released last year. Go on...I'll be here when you get back. (Cicatriz makes a turkey sandwich). Oh back already? (swallows last bite of sandwich). Crosses †††, they're awesome, right? Why yes, that is Chino Moreno of the Deftones on vocals. What is that you say, you want more Crosses †††. Well you're in luck. On January 24th they released their second EP entitled EP ††. Yes it is as good as the last.
What can I say about Crosses ††† that I haven't already said? This side project consists crooner Chino Moreno of Deftones/Team Sleep fame and Shaun Lopez of Far. Chino's vocals sooth the soul track by track over atmospheric electronics, amazing guitar riffs and funky bass lines.
The song "Fron†iers" starts things off. This is one of my favorite tracks off the album. Crosses ††† picks right up where they left of on EP †.
"from the haze in your chambers
to your legs on the stage
I'm consumed by your danger
i can lose my restraint yea
i can take you even further
Oh yeah I
I'll let you enter
from the stage we shoot our guns
then we sail off into the sun
while the cold world freezes on."
The final track on the album, "1987" ends hings nicely. Chalked full of distortion and drone style vocals. Short but sweet...well actually kind of depressing...but in a good way.
"In the waves a shoebox of ashes,
a silver casket,
a mother dressed for eternities breath."
All in all, I would say this was a good follow up to last year's Crosses ††† EP. I can only hope they release a third before the end of the year.
-Cicatriz
Crosses ††† goes good with: Deftones, Team Sleep, Depeche Mode, The Smiths, Echo and the Bunnymen, Junius, Will Haven, Glassjaw, Far
Buy this album here: http://www.crossesmusic.com/
Labels: album review, crosses, deftones, depeche mode, Echo and the Bunnymen, ep, free download, new CD, post punk, team sleep, the smiths, zip
The Naked and Famous - Passive Me Aggresive You
Never believe the hype unless you’re a sucker. Hype only exists for bands that are merely trendy and not necessarily talented. They are a band of the moment and nothing else. Luckily for us, one highly publicized band doesn’t fall into that category. They are the hottest band to emerge from New Zealand since Flight of the Conchords (Okay, they are a comedy duo, but music is a huge part of their act so cut me some slack, gosh). After releasing two EPs, This Machine and No Light, The Naked and Famous released their debut album Passive Me, Aggressive You.
Even though some of their songs are extremely popular and have been featured on hit shows like The Vampire Diaries and Chuck, not too many people actually know the name The Naked and Famous. Besides possessing a cool creative name, this awesome alternative band boasts an impressive lineup dedicated to creating compelling catchy tunes. The Naked and Famous are absolutely addicting and are similar to bands like Cults, Foster the People, Grouplove, Joy Formidable, Passion Pit, Phantogram, Too Door Cinema Club, The Vaccines, and Young the Giant.
Recently, the band won several New Zealand Music Awards including Best Group, Single of the Year and Breakthrough Artist while their album Passive Me, Aggressive You won Album of the Year and Best Alternative Album. Needless to say, if that’s not worthy of your attention than you’re really missing out.
The Naked and Famous are comprised of Aaron Short (electronics), Alisa Xayalith (vocals and keyboards), David Beadle (bass), Jesse Wood (drums) and Thom Powers (vocals and guitars). Scattered throughout Passive Me, Aggressive You there are various genres represented with dance punk, shoegaze, sythnpop, pure psychedelic and alternative all making an appearance on this indie rock album. The variety of music styles featured on Passive Me, Aggressive You showcase the immense talent by this unique group.
Passive Me, Aggressive You kicks off with “All of This.” The dual vocals accompanied by the infectious drum beats are more than enough to ignite this delightful debut. The third single and second track, “Punching In A Dream” oozes dream pop with the sweet, sensual voice of Alisa Xayalith and really reminds me of MGMT. Cute, catchy lyrics set against a romantic background make this song a must listen.
The mentally anguished “Frayed” is followed up by the equally creepy and paranoid “The Sun,” which sounds similar to The xx rather than a synthpop band. However, the 80s synthpop sound comes back with the retro sounding “Eyes.”
Once “Young Blood” starts playing, the album truly hits its stride. “Young Blood” is the perfect electropop track and immediately grabs your attention. In the vein of MGMT, this uplifting magnificent and mesmerizing song captivates you from beginning to end. Xayalith’s surreal, sensual voice intensifies with each lyric only to create unforgettable vocals showcased on this song. Even casual music listeners can testify to its catchiness. Before writing this review I have listened to “Young Blood” approximately 25 times and it becomes better with each subsequent listen.
The mellower “No Way” is a 5 ½ minute sublime shoegaze song stuck between the electropop “Young Blood” and the feedback-filled “Spank.” Each of these distinct songs contains something unique that transcends genres in this mind-numbing alternative album. For example, “Spank” describes a pandemic and even possible a zombie infestation amongst other songs that could have been featured in a John Hughes movie or even heard on a 80s film soundtrack.
“Jilted Lovers” features psychotic feelings “I'm not hearing/Any other way/Shut my eyes/Head rests on my hands,” yet remains remarkable with a dazzling mix of manufactured music. The static noise somehow enhances this eerie experience. “A Wolf In Geek’s Clothing” starts off sounding like Guns N’ Roses’ “Shackler’s Revenge,” but evolves into a dreamy drum-machine, electronic and static mashup sung as a duet by Alisa Xayalith and Thom Powers. “The Ends” acts as a precursor and even uses the lyrical refrain “It's all about to end at last,” throughout as a signifier, but to be honest, I don’t want this amazing album to end.
The low key vocals of Thom Powers with a steady dubstep and post punk bassline, fuzzy background noise and the backing vocals of Xayalith is a fitting end to finish with “Girls Like You.” Needless to say if you are interested in a band that could be part Ting Tings, Sleigh Bells, Coldplay, Crowded House, MGMT and remain completely original than The Naked and Famous is an indie rock band you should know and love.
--Mr. Brownstone
Labels: album review, cults, download, Foster the People, free mp3, Grouplove, Joy Formidable, Passion Pit, Passive Me Aggresive You, Phantogram, The Naked and Famous, Too Door Cinema Club, zip
The Brothers Goldman - fOnkOlOgy
Waveriders, I come to you here with contrition I beg your forgiveness. I just listened to The Brothers Goldman 2011 release fOnkOlOgy. Not only should I have brought it to your attention earlier, I should have known this off-the-charts masterpiece was coming.
Here’s why -
Bill Phillippe, a master composer and producer, as well as singer and guitarist, fronts Joe O’Loughlin on drums. Together they are The Brothers Goldman. For fOnkOlOgy they augmented the band and this is why I should have known this was coming. The Brothers Goldman used some of San Francisco’s best funk, jazz and afro-pop artists on fOnkOlOgy. Wil Blades (Stanton Moore Trio) plays the Hammond B-3. Joe Cohen (The Brass Mafia) plays the tenor sax. Joel Behrman (Lavay Smith) plays trumpet and trombone. Will Magid (Afrolicious) plays trumpet. Tim Wagar (Marc Hummel) plays the bass. With all of that top Bay Area talent as sidemen you would think I would have heard of this project. Look, I purport to be a music reviewer in the Bay Area. One would at least hope I have my ear on the beat of the local music community, right? I never heard of fOnkOlOgy until the CD and press materials showed up in my mailbox.
In fact, until that day I had never heard of “Tantric fOnk.” That is what The Brothers Goldman call their style. I call it incredible fun. It is cutting edge New Orleans funk, shuffle, blues and acid jazz. It is unique, innovative, exciting and familiar. Here’s my best descriptions of the eleven tracks:
1. Brahma fOnk: This is the juke joint jam instrumental track of all juke joint jam tracks with a funky red beans and rice a’ roni finish.
2. Squeezin’ Lemons: The blues meet funk and soul as The Brothers be squeezin’ lemons to make lemonade. James Brown is slow-dancing in his grave and Phillippe’s vocals makes him wink and smile.
3. Nuts On The GO!: Holy Filmore District! We go from fascinating Stan Kenton big band jazz syncopation to hot B.B. King-like big band blues and back again.
4. Sticks & Stones: Heavy drag blues that leads to a high energy free for all and then back down. Phillippe again is our reassuring vocal travel guide.
5. Where’s Houseman?: This one is like a great Robben Ford piece. It has an intricate driving beat covered by a great guitar line with an effective use of a wah wah pedal. The horns also get a chance to wail. The Hammond doubles and provides a bass note.
6. Muffin Top: Competes with Larry Carlton’s work on his album Sapphire Blue. It is progressive jazz and blues and aural mastery. O’Loughlin’s drums amaze and here they shine.
7. Zig & Leo: Funky! I mean real fOnky. Think “dance floor bump and grind dancing” funky. The Hammond gets to let loose and so does Phillippe’s guitar. Phillippe adds just the right taste of sparse vocals to keep it on track.
8. fOnky Bottom: Move on out to the disco dance floor with this one’s double entendre repetition and obsession with a girl’s “fOnky bottom.” The horns get a work out and Joe Cohen takes us on a tenor sax tour of the nightclub. Still, you can’t stop moving.
9. Monkey: A soul blues - The sound of Stax/Volt in 1965 updated to 2011. (Go ahead Phillippe. Tell us not to monkey.)
10. Let the fOnk: A dance tune. Like The Twist, The Watusi, The Swim. This one’s the
“fOnk”.
11. Goin’ To Be fOnky From Now On: This is a lo-fi outro that has The Brothers affirming their desire to stay fOnky.
So again, waveriders, I apologize. I should have known of The Brothers Goldman and this Bay Area project. Here, I’ll make it up to you. You can freely download a track and listen to several others over at The Brothers Goldman’s website. So hurry on over there, listen ,buy the album. Get fOnked!!!
Labels: fOnkOlOgy, The Brothers Goldman
Nightchild - Dreammaster (single review)
When listening to Nightchild's new single, "Dreammaster" I liked the music right away, but the vocals didn't grab me right away. I'm very glad I kept listening, because by the chorus, I was dancing along! The chorus is broad, and blasting, and I loved every note of it and the rest of the song! And when I started the song all over, I loved the begining too!
"Dreammaster" is ghostly goth, but still has a technoey base that keeps it moving, not letting it lay back. I loved the track because it combines haunting organ playing with industrial keyboards, Clash-like vocals, driving bass, and drum machine.
There is great crossover appeal with this band, from horror punks, to some cyber-goths, and still be able to catch some old-school goths as well. It's not harsh like a lot of oontz-oontz style EBM, it takes slightly softer beats and pairs them stunningly with sorrowful vocals.
Nightchild simply are not comparable to any other DarkWave, or EBM band out there today, or from the past. It's a very beautiful listening experience. I found myself not able to sit still while listening to "Dreammaster," and had to get up and dance around the room.
I was afraid this would be yet another monotonous droning vocals with recycled guitar riffs, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The other two tracks I recieved with "Dreammaster", "We Are Freaks", and the "Dreammaster (EGOamp Remix)" further impressed me.
Now, I haven't heard any other songs by Nightchild, but just from those two songs (I'm not counting the remix) I would describe Nightchild's sound as swirling vocals mixed with pleasant guitars, and dark bouncing beats. I definitely will be looking for more from this band in the future.
Link to the band's BandCamp page to listen to Dreammaster by Nightchild:
Labels: darkwave, dreammaster, free download, free mp3, goth rock, night child
Ripple Music Announces Sponsorship and Grand Prize...
The Single Life - Featuring The Enthusiasts, Mondo...
NAPALM DEATH streams new album, "Utilitarian", onl...
EAGLE ROCK ENTERTAINMENT TO RELEASE SANTANA LIVE A...
Lana del Rey -Born to Die
Federale - Not Your Vessel
Great interview with Rising Star, Trucker Diablo f...
The Big Wheel Stunt Show – Cheetah Milque
Shorties II featuring The Curly Wolf and K-Murdo...
The Single Life - Pilgrim - "Quest"
Ripple Field Trip - Live Review: Goatwhore, 2-6-12...
Amy Hart - Congratulations
Grouplove- Never Trust A Happy Song
Nephelium - Coils of Entropy
Stanley Turrentine - Up at Minton's
Stone Axe/Mos Generator Main Man Signs Endorsement...
Ripple Library - Glenn Hughes - The Autobiography
Terrordome – We’ll Show You Mosh, Bitch!
What Cheer? Brigade - We Blow You Suck
Loincloth - Iron Balls Of Steel
Revenge of the Quick Ripple Bursts - Featuring Bab...
Rock's Come Back of the Year - Interview With Jimm...
EAGLE ROCK ENTERTAINMENT TO RELEASE STYX: THE GRAN...
Brutal Truth - Walking Corpse 2112 (Digital EP)
Andy Poxon Band - Red Roots
The Single Life - Fun, Butch Walker, The Dirty Pea...
Waveriders - Here's what the Ripple has in store f...
Shear - In Solitude
Goatwhore - Carving out the eyes of God
Hawkwind - Leave No Star Unturned
Stormzone – Zero To Rage
Monobrow - S/T
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Shark Attack Survivors News Archive
https://sharkattacksurvivors.com/shark_attack/
09/20/2015 - Filippo Schiavo - Florida
https://sharkattacksurvivors.com/shark_attack/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=2004
by alb
16-year-old bitten by shark in one of four attacks in four days
A teen who was bitten on his hand and wrist over the weekend is expected to be OK.
Filippo Schiavo was out in the water at Vilano Beach Sunday morning taking pictures of the waves.
He said he was near the jetties and went to duck under a wave when he felt something grab his arm.
At first he thought he may have hit a rock near the jetty, but then caught a glimpse of his wrist.
“I come up and there was a big gash on the side of my wrist,” Schiavo said.
There was a gash on top and the impression of teeth cut into the bottom of his wrist.
“It broke these three tendons, causing me loss of movement (of) my wrist,” Schiavo said.
A woman at the same beach as Schiavo snapped a photo Sunday morning appearing to show a shark in the waves.
Schiavo is one of four people who have been attacked by sharks in our area in a four-day period.
A man was attacked in Jacksonville Beach Thursday, then another man was bitten at Big Talbot Island Friday. A 12-year-old was bitten on his knee Sunday afternoon just hours after Schiavo’s attack.
- See more at: http://m.actionnewsjax.com/
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Silhavy, Thomas J. “State of the Journal.”. J Bacteriol 199.1 (2017). Web.
Silhavy, Thomas J. “2015 Jack Kenney Award for Outstanding Service.”. J Bacteriol 198.1 (2016): , 198, 1, 4. Web.
Soltes, Garner R, et al. “The Activity of Escherichia coli Chaperone SurA Is Regulated by Conformational Changes Involving a Parvulin Domain.”. J Bacteriol 198.6 (2016): , 198, 6, 921-9. Web.Abstract
UNLABELLED: The periplasmic chaperone SurA is critical for the biogenesis of outer membrane proteins (OMPs) and, thus, the maintenance of membrane integrity in Escherichia coli. The activity of this modular chaperone has been attributed to a core chaperone module, with only minor importance assigned to the two SurA peptidyl-prolyl isomerase (PPIase) domains. In this work, we used synthetic phenotypes and covalent tethering to demonstrate that the activity of SurA is regulated by its PPIase domains and, furthermore, that its activity is correlated with the conformational state of the chaperone. When combined with mutations in the β-barrel assembly machine (BAM), SurA mutations resulting in deletion of the second parvulin domain (P2) inhibit OMP assembly, suggesting that P2 is involved in the regulation of SurA. The first parvulin domain (P1) potentiates this autoinhibition, as mutations that covalently tether the P1 domain to the core chaperone module severely impair OMP assembly. Furthermore, these inhibitory mutations negate the suppression of and biochemically stabilize the protein specified by a well-characterized gain-of-function mutation in P1, demonstrating that SurA cycles between distinct conformational and functional states during the OMP assembly process. IMPORTANCE: This work reveals the reversible autoinhibition of the SurA chaperone imposed by a heretofore underappreciated parvulin domain. Many β-barrel-associated outer membrane (OM) virulence factors, including the P-pilus and type I fimbriae, rely on SurA for proper assembly; thus, a mechanistic understanding of SurA function and inhibition may facilitate antibiotic intervention against Gram-negative pathogens, such as uropathogenic Escherichia coli, E. coli O157:H7, Shigella, and Salmonella. In addition, SurA is important for the assembly of critical OM biogenesis factors, such as the lipopolysaccharide (LPS) transport machine, suggesting that specific targeting of SurA may provide a useful means to subvert the OM barrier.
Silhavy, Thomas J. “Classic Spotlight: a Very Pleiotropic Mutant.”. J Bacteriol 198.3 (2016): , 198, 3, 371. Web.
Silhavy, Thomas J. “Classic Spotlight: Gram-Negative Bacteria Have Two Membranes.”. J Bacteriol 198.2 (2016): , 198, 2, 201. Web.
Silhavy, Thomas J. “Classic Spotlight: the Birth of the Transcriptional Activator.”. J Bacteriol 198.5 (2016): , 198, 5, 744. Web.
Grabowicz, Marcin, Daria Koren, and Thomas J Silhavy. “The CpxQ sRNA Negatively Regulates Skp To Prevent Mistargeting of β-Barrel Outer Membrane Proteins into the Cytoplasmic Membrane.”. MBio 72 (2016): , 7, 2, e00312-16. Web.Abstract
UNLABELLED: The promoter most strongly induced upon activation of the Cpx two-component envelope stress response is the cpxP promoter. The 3' untranscribed region (UTR) of the cpxP transcript is shown to produce a small RNA (sRNA), CpxQ. We investigated the role of CpxQ in combating envelope stress. Remarkably, the two effectors specified by the transcript are deployed to combat distinct stresses in different cellular compartments. CpxP acts in both a regulatory negative-feedback loop and as an effector that combats periplasmic protein misfolding. We find that CpxQ combats toxicity at the inner membrane (IM) by downregulating the synthesis of the periplasmic chaperone Skp. Our data indicate that this regulation prevents Skp from inserting β-barrel outer membrane proteins (OMPs) into the IM, a lethal event that likely collapses the proton motive force. Our findings suggest that Skp can fold and directly insert OMPs into a lipid bilayer in vivo without the aid of the Bam complex. IMPORTANCE: Skp is a well-characterized periplasmic chaperone that binds unfolded OMPs. Surprisingly, we find that Skp can catalyze the folding and mistargeting of OMPs into the inner membrane without the aid of the other cellular proteins that normally assemble OMPs. Several OMPs function as diffusion pores. Accordingly, their mistargeting is lethal because it depolarizes the inner membrane. We show that the most highly expressed transcript of the Cpx stress response produces an sRNA from the 3' UTR, CpxQ, which combats this potential toxicity by downregulating Skp production. Defects in OMP assembly trigger the σ(E)response to upregulate factors, including Skp, that promote OMP folding. The Cpx response downregulates σ(E) Our findings reveal that this heretofore puzzling hierarchy exists to protect the inner membrane.
Sutterlin, Holly A, et al. “Disruption of lipid homeostasis in the Gram-negative cell envelope activates a novel cell death pathway.”. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 113.11 (2016): , 113, 11, E1565-74. Web.Abstract
Gram-negative bacteria balance synthesis of the outer membrane (OM), cell wall, and cytoplasmic contents during growth via unknown mechanisms. Here, we show that a dominant mutation (designated mlaA*, maintenance of lipid asymmetry) that alters MlaA, a lipoprotein that removes phospholipids from the outer leaflet of the OM of Escherichia coli, increases OM permeability, lipopolysaccharide levels, drug sensitivity, and cell death in stationary phase. Surprisingly, single-cell imaging revealed that death occurs after protracted loss of OM material through vesiculation and blebbing at cell-division sites and compensatory shrinkage of the inner membrane, eventually resulting in rupture and slow leakage of cytoplasmic contents. The death of mlaA* cells was linked to fatty acid depletion and was not affected by membrane depolarization, suggesting that lipids flow from the inner membrane to the OM in an energy-independent manner. Suppressor analysis suggested that the dominant mlaA* mutation activates phospholipase A, resulting in increased levels of lipopolysaccharide and OM vesiculation that ultimately undermine the integrity of the cell envelope by depleting the inner membrane of phospholipids. This novel cell-death pathway suggests that balanced synthesis across both membranes is key to the mechanical integrity of the Gram-negative cell envelope.
Okuda, Suguru, et al. “Lipopolysaccharide transport and assembly at the outer membrane: the PEZ model.”. Nat Rev Microbiol 14.6 (2016): , 14, 6, 337-45. Web.Abstract
Gram-negative bacteria have a double-membrane cellular envelope that enables them to colonize harsh environments and prevents the entry of many clinically available antibiotics. A main component of most outer membranes is lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a glycolipid containing several fatty acyl chains and up to hundreds of sugars that is synthesized in the cytoplasm. In the past two decades, the proteins that are responsible for transporting LPS across the cellular envelope and assembling it at the cell surface in Escherichia coli have been identified, but it remains unclear how they function. In this Review, we discuss recent advances in this area and present a model that explains how energy from the cytoplasm is used to power LPS transport across the cellular envelope to the cell surface.
Lee, James, et al. “Characterization of a stalled complex on the β-barrel assembly machine.”. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 113.31 (2016): , 113, 31, 8717-22. Web.Abstract
The assembly of β-barrel proteins into membranes is mediated by an evolutionarily conserved machine. This process is poorly understood because no stable partially folded barrel substrates have been characterized. Here, we slowed the folding of the Escherichia coli β-barrel protein, LptD, with its lipoprotein plug, LptE. We identified a late-stage intermediate in which LptD is folded around LptE, and both components interact with the two essential β-barrel assembly machine (Bam) components, BamA and BamD. We propose a model in which BamA and BamD act in concert to catalyze folding, with the final step in the process involving closure of the ends of the barrel with release from the Bam components. Because BamD and LptE are both soluble proteins, the simplest model consistent with these findings is that barrel folding by the Bam complex begins in the periplasm at the membrane interface.
Mahoney, Tara F, Dante P Ricci, and Thomas J Silhavy. “Classifying β-Barrel Assembly Substrates by Manipulating Essential Bam Complex Members.”. J Bacteriol 198.14 (2016): , 198, 14, 1984-92. Web.Abstract
UNLABELLED: The biogenesis of the outer membrane (OM) of Escherichia coli is a conserved and vital process. The assembly of integral β-barrel outer membrane proteins (OMPs), which represent a major component of the OM, depends on periplasmic chaperones and the heteropentameric β-barrel assembly machine (Bam complex) in the OM. However, not all OMPs are affected by null mutations in the same chaperones or nonessential Bam complex members, suggesting there are categories of substrates with divergent requirements for efficient assembly. We have previously demonstrated two classes of substrates, one comprising large, low-abundance, and difficult-to-assemble substrates that are heavily dependent on SurA and also Skp and FkpA, and the other comprising relatively simple and abundant substrates that are not as dependent on SurA but are strongly dependent on BamB for assembly. Here, we describe novel mutations in bamD that lower levels of BamD 10-fold and >25-fold without altering the sequence of the mature protein. We utilized these mutations, as well as a previously characterized mutation that lowers wild-type BamA levels, to reveal a third class of substrates. These mutations preferentially cause a marked decrease in the levels of multimeric proteins. This susceptibility of multimers to lowered quantities of Bam machines in the cell may indicate that multiple Bam complexes are needed to efficiently assemble multimeric proteins into the OM. IMPORTANCE: The outer membrane (OM) of Gram-negative bacteria, such as Escherichia coli, serves as a selective permeability barrier that prevents the uptake of toxic molecules and antibiotics. Integral β-barrel proteins (OMPs) are assembled by the β-barrel assembly machine (Bam), components of which are conserved in mitochondria, chloroplasts, and all Gram-negative bacteria, including many clinically relevant pathogenic species. Bam is essential for OM biogenesis and accommodates a diverse array of client proteins; however, a mechanistic model that accounts for the selectivity and broad substrate range of Bam is lacking. Here, we show that the assembly of multimeric OMPs is more strongly affected than that of monomeric OMPs when essential Bam complex components are limiting, suggesting that multiple Bam complexes are needed to assemble multimeric proteins.
Konovalova, Anna, Angela M Mitchell, and Thomas J Silhavy. “A lipoprotein/β-barrel complex monitors lipopolysaccharide integrity transducing information across the outer membrane.”. Elife 5 (2016). Web.Abstract
Lipoprotein RcsF is the OM component of the Rcs envelope stress response. RcsF exists in complexes with β-barrel proteins (OMPs) allowing it to adopt a transmembrane orientation with a lipidated N-terminal domain on the cell surface and a periplasmic C-terminal domain. Here we report that mutations that remove BamE or alter a residue in the RcsF trans-lumen domain specifically prevent assembly of the interlocked complexes without inactivating either RcsF or the OMP. Using these mutations we demonstrate that these RcsF/OMP complexes are required for sensing OM outer leaflet stress. Using mutations that alter the positively charged surface-exposed domain, we show that RcsF monitors lateral interactions between lipopolysaccharide (LPS) molecules. When these interactions are disrupted by cationic antimicrobial peptides, or by the loss of negatively charged phosphate groups on the LPS molecule, this information is transduced to the RcsF C-terminal signaling domain located in the periplasm to activate the stress response.
Konovalova, Anna, Jaclyn A Schwalm, and Thomas J Silhavy. “A Suppressor Mutation That Creates a Faster and More Robust σE Envelope Stress Response.”. J Bacteriol 198.17 (2016): , 198, 17, 2345-51. Web.Abstract
UNLABELLED: The σE envelope stress response is an essential signal transduction pathway which detects and removes mistargeted outer membrane (OM) β-barrel proteins (OMPs) in the periplasm of Escherichia coli It relies on σE, an alternative sigma factor encoded by the rpoE gene. Here we report a novel mutation, a nucleotide change of C to A in the third base of the second codon, which increases levels of σE (rpoE_S2R). The rpoE_S2R mutation does not lead to the induction of the stress response during normal growth but instead changes the dynamics of induction upon periplasmic stress, resulting in a faster and more robust response. This allows cells to adapt faster to the periplasmic stress, avoiding lethal accumulation of unfolded OMPs in the periplasm caused by severe defects in the OMP assembly pathway. IMPORTANCE: Survival of bacteria under conditions of external or internal stresses depends on timely induction of stress response signaling pathways to regulate expression of appropriate genes that function to maintain cellular homeostasis. Previous studies have shown that strong preinduction of envelope stress responses can allow bacteria to survive a number of lethal genetic perturbations. In our paper, we describe a unique mutation that enhances kinetics of the σE envelope stress response pathway rather than preinducing the response. This allows bacteria to quickly adapt to sudden and severe periplasmic stress.
Silhavy, Thomas J. “Editorial and policy changes for 2015.”. J Bacteriol 197.1 (2015): , 197, 1, 2. Web.
Silhavy, Thomas J. “The Journal of Bacteriology Is 100.”. J Bacteriol 198.1 (2015): , 198, 1, 1-3. Web.
Konovalova, Anna, and Thomas J Silhavy. “Outer membrane lipoprotein biogenesis: Lol is not the end.”. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 370.1679 (2015). Web.Abstract
Bacterial lipoproteins are lipid-anchored proteins that contain acyl groups covalently attached to the N-terminal cysteine residue of the mature protein. Lipoproteins are synthesized in precursor form with an N-terminal signal sequence (SS) that targets translocation across the cytoplasmic or inner membrane (IM). Lipid modification and SS processing take place at the periplasmic face of the IM. Outer membrane (OM) lipoproteins take the localization of lipoproteins (Lol) export pathway, which ends with the insertion of the N-terminal lipid moiety into the inner leaflet of the OM. For many lipoproteins, the biogenesis pathway ends here. We provide examples of lipoproteins that adopt complex topologies in the OM that include transmembrane and surface-exposed domains. Biogenesis of such lipoproteins requires additional steps beyond the Lol pathway. In at least one case, lipoprotein sequences reach the cell surface by being threaded through the lumen of a beta-barrel protein in an assembly reaction that requires the heteropentomeric Bam complex. The inability to predict surface exposure reinforces the importance of experimental verification of lipoprotein topology and we will discuss some of the methods used to study OM protein topology.
Sutterlin, Holly A, Sisi Zhang, and Thomas J Silhavy. “Accumulation of phosphatidic acid increases vancomycin resistance in Escherichia coli.”. J Bacteriol 196.18 (2014): , 196, 18, 3214-20. Web.Abstract
In Gram-negative bacteria, lipopolysaccharide (LPS) contributes to the robust permeability barrier of the outer membrane, preventing entry of toxic molecules such as antibiotics. Mutations in lptD, the beta-barrel component of the LPS transport and assembly machinery, compromise LPS assembly and result in increased antibiotic sensitivity. Here, we report rare vancomycin-resistant suppressors that improve barrier function of a subset of lptD mutations. We find that all seven suppressors analyzed mapped to the essential gene cdsA, which is responsible for the conversion of phosphatidic acid to CDP-diacylglycerol in phospholipid biosynthesis. These cdsA mutations cause a partial loss of function and, as expected, accumulate phosphatidic acid. We show that this suppression is not confined to mutations that cause defects in outer membrane biogenesis but rather that these cdsA mutations confer a general increase in vancomycin resistance, even in a wild-type cell. We use genetics and quadrupole time of flight (Q-TOF) liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to show that accumulation of phosphatidic acid by means other than cdsA mutations also increases resistance to vancomycin. We suggest that increased levels of phosphatidic acid change the physical properties of the outer membrane to impede entry of vancomycin into the periplasm, hindering access to its target, an intermediate required for the synthesis of the peptidoglycan cell wall.
Dwyer, Robert S, et al. “Folding LacZ in the periplasm of Escherichia coli.”. J Bacteriol 196.18 (2014): , 196, 18, 3343-50. Web.Abstract
Targeted, translational LacZ fusions provided the initial support for the signal sequence hypothesis in prokaryotes and allowed for selection of the mutations that identified the Sec translocon. Many of these selections relied on the fact that expression of targeted, translational lacZ fusions like malE-lacZ and lamB-lacZ42-1 causes lethal toxicity as folded LacZ jams the translocation pore. However, there is another class of targeted LacZ fusions that do not jam the translocon. These targeted, nonjamming fusions also show toxic phenotypes that may be useful for selecting mutations in genes involved in posttranslocational protein folding and targeting; however, they have not been investigated to the same extent as their jamming counterparts. In fact, it is still unclear whether LacZ can be fully translocated in these fusions. It may be that they simply partition into the inner membrane where they can no longer participate in folding or assembly. In the present study, we systematically characterize the nonjamming fusions and determine their ultimate localization. We report that LacZ can be fully translocated into the periplasm, where it is toxic. We show that this toxicity is likely due to LacZ misfolding and that, in the absence of the periplasmic disulfide bond catalyst DsbA, LacZ folds in the periplasm. Using the novel phenotype of periplasmic β-galactosidase activity, we show that the periplasmic chaperone FkpA contributes to LacZ folding in this nonnative compartment. We propose that targeted, nonjamming LacZ fusions may be used to further study folding and targeting in the periplasm of Escherichia coli.
Malojčić, Goran, et al. “LptE binds to and alters the physical state of LPS to catalyze its assembly at the cell surface.”. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 111.26 (2014): , 111, 26, 9467-72. Web.Abstract
The assembly of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on the surface of Gram-negative bacterial cells is essential for their viability and is achieved by the seven-protein LPS transport (Lpt) pathway. The outer membrane (OM) lipoprotein LptE and the β-barrel membrane protein LptD form a complex that assembles LPS into the outer leaflet of the OM. We report a crystal structure of the Escherichia coli OM lipoprotein LptE at 2.34 Å. The structure reveals homology to eukaryotic LPS-binding proteins and allowed for the prediction of an LPS-binding site, which was confirmed by genetic and biophysical experiments. Specific point mutations at this site lead to defects in OM biogenesis. We show that wild-type LptE disrupts LPS-LPS interactions in vitro and that these mutations decrease the ability of LptE to disaggregate LPS. Transmission electron microscopic imaging shows that LptE can disrupt LPS aggregates even at substoichiometric concentrations. We propose a model in which LptE functions as an LPS transfer protein in the OM translocon by disaggregating LPS during transport to allow for its insertion into the OM.
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Cloning of the Arabidopsis Clock Gene TOC1, an Autoregulatory Response Regulator Homolog
Carl Strayer1,2,
Tokitaka Oyama1,
Thomas F. Schultz1,
Ramanujam Raman1,
David E. Somers1,*,
Paloma Más1,
Satchidananda Panda1,
Joel A. Kreps1,
Steve A. Kay1,†‡
1 Department of Cell Biology, Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
2 Department of Biology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA.
DOI: 10.1126/science.289.5480.768
Carl Strayer
Tokitaka Oyama
Thomas F. Schultz
Ramanujam Raman
David E. Somers
Paloma Más
Satchidananda Panda
Joel A. Kreps
Steve A. Kay
The toc1 mutation causes shortened circadian rhythms in light-grown Arabidopsis plants. Here, we report the same toc1 effect in the absence of light input to the clock. We also show that TOC1 controls photoperiodic flowering response through clock function. The TOC1 gene was isolated and found to encode a nuclear protein containing an atypical response regulator receiver domain and two motifs that suggest a role in transcriptional regulation: a basic motif conserved within theCONSTANS family of transcription factors and an acidic domain. TOC1 is itself circadianly regulated and participates in a feedback loop to control its own expression.
The endogenous circadian clock enables organisms to anticipate and adapt to daily variations in the environment and to temporally coordinate internal processes. In animals, fungi, and bacteria, genetic screens for altered circadian rhythms have revealed molecular clock components. The generally conserved core mechanism consists of autoregulatory transcriptional loops in which positive factors act on genes encoding negative factors that in turn feed back to block their own expression (1). Although plant models have proven valuable for understanding circadian input and output pathways, our understanding of processes at the core of the plant circadian system is lacking.
We therefore executed a screen for rhythm mutants inArabidopsis, from which we identified the toc1(timing of CAB expression) mutant (2). The defining phenotype is a shortened period of luciferase-reportedCAB gene expression (∼21 hours, versus ∼24.5 hours in the wild type) under constant light conditions (LL). All clock phenotypes tested are similarly affected by the toc1-1mutation, which is semidominant, as are mutant alleles of diverse clock genes (1–3). Moreover, the effects of the toc1-1mutation are specific to the clock system, with no defects seen, for instance, in clock-independent light responses (3). This is noteworthy because disruption of photoreceptors and phototransduction components that participate in clock entrainment can alter period in LL (4, 5). However, perturbations of these components produce specific, differential effects depending on the quality and quantity of light, whereas the toc1-1 effect is essentially the same in all light conditions (3). To further address this issue, we assayed the bioluminescence rhythm of toc1-1 and wild-type seedlings during extended dark incubation (DD) using a new reporter,ccr2::luc. CCR2(COLD–CIRCADIAN RHYTHM–RNA-BINDING 2) is a clock-controlled gene whose LL expression rhythm is shortened by thetoc1-1 mutation (6). Theccr2::luc reporter (including a luciferase gene fusion) reveals that toc1-1 has a similar effect on the period of gene expression in DD (Fig. 1), consistent with a role for TOC1 outside of light input pathway(s) to the clock.
Bioluminescence rhythms from toc1-1 and wild-type seedlings in constant darkness (DD).ccr2::luc transgenic seedlings (7) were grown in 12:12 LD for 8 days before transfer to DD. Bioluminescence was recorded at the indicated times (7). Traces represent averages of 21 to 23 seedlings from each line. Period estimates (variance-weighted means ± variance-weighted SD) for each line were calculated as described (26, 27): wild type = 27.5 ± 1.16 hours, toc1-1 = 22.3 ± 0.39 hours.
Mutation of TOC1 also affects photoperiodic regulation of floral induction. Wild-type Arabidopsis flowers earlier in long days [16 hours light, 8 hours dark (16:8 LD)] than in short days (8:16 LD), but this differential response is greatly reduced in toc1-1 (3). This phenotype is likely the result of clock-based misinterpretation of photoperiodic information in toc1-1 rather than direct effects oftoc1-1 on floral induction pathways. To test this possibility, we measured the transition to flowering of toc1-1lines grown in LD cycles of 21 hours total duration, where the environmental period (T) more closely matched the period of the endogenous clock (τ) (Fig. 2). Correct photoperiodic response was restored in toc1-1 plants grown in this regime, where toc1-1 plants flowered much later in short days (7:14 LD) than in long days (14:7 LD). The toc1-1 flowering defect therefore can be fully explained by its circadian defect. The cause is not simply incorrect measurement of light or dark intervals: Mutant plants given 7 hours light in a 24-hour period (7:17 LD) also flowered early (Fig. 2). These data, combined with results of experiments measuring gene expression intoc1-1 and wild-type plants entrained to alteredT cycles (3), also suggest a possible mechanism underlying this defect: incorrect modulation of phase and/or waveform of clock-controlled regulatory factors when τ varies greatly fromT.
Photoperiodic response of toc1-1 plants in LD cycles of different period. Wild-type seedlings [ecotype Landsberg (Laer)] or seedlings homozygous for the toc1-1 (C24) allele introgressed into Laer (toc1-1/Laer) were grown in various photocycles as described (3, 28) (n = 12 to 22 for each condition). Initiation of flowering was defined as rosette leaf number at flower bolt height of 1 cm. Open bars, long days (14:7); solid bars, short days (7:14); striped bars, short days (7:17). Error bars denote SEM.
To further investigate its role in the Arabidopsis circadian system, we isolated the TOC1 gene. Genetic mapping delimitedTOC1 to a 78-kb interval on chromosome 5 (7). Sequencing of toc1-1 and wild-type DNA from this region identified a missense mutation in thetoc1-1 allele of one candidate gene (Fig. 3). We confirmed this gene as TOC1 by identifying a nucleotide change in a second mutant allele, toc1-2 (Fig. 3). Thecab2::luc rhythm defect of toc1-2homozygotes is similar to that of toc1-1 homozygotes (LL period ≈ 22 hours) (8); however, the toc1-2allele appears to be recessive (1). The toc1-2mutation changes the last nucleotide in exon 1, and one result is preferential splicing at a site 13 nucleotides 3′ to the normal donor site with a concomitant reduction in correctly spliced transcript (Fig. 3, A and E) (7). Quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) revealed that correctly spliced transcripts are 6% of the total in toc1-2, versus 96% of the total in the wild type (Fig. 3E). The incorrectly spliced transcript would encode a truncated protein of only 59 residues. Taken together, these results suggest that toc1-2 is a hypomorph, the loss-of-function phenotype is short period, and the semidominanttoc1-1 allele is therefore likely an antimorph.
Structure of TOC1 gene and gene products. (A) Gene organization of TOC1. Black boxes represent exons. Positions of start and stop codons and mutations in TOC1 are indicated. (B) Predicted protein structure of TOC1. (C) Comparison of receiver domains of TOC1 (GenBank accession no. AF272039), TL1 (AF272040), representativeArabidopsis response regulator homologs ARR2 (AB016472) (type B) and ARR4 (AF057282) (type A), and CheY (M13463) (9, 10,29). Residues identical to TOC1 are in black boxes; similar residues are in gray boxes. An asterisk indicates the residue mutated in toc1-2. (D) Comparison of CCT motifs of TOC1, TL1, Arabidopsis CO (CAA64407), Arabidopsis COL1 (Y10555), Arabidopsis COL2 (L81119), andBrassica CO9a (Bn CO: AF016011). Sequences are highlighted as in (C). An asterisk indicates the residue mutated intoc1-1; # and + indicate residues mutated inco5 and co7, respectively (15). (E) RT-PCR analysis of TOC1 transcripts. Autoradiograph from polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) analysis of products from quantitative RT-PCR (7) is shown at the left. A cartoon represents RT-PCR products from the two splice products. The lower band derives from the correctly spliced product containing the complete open reading frame. Nucleotide sequences surrounding the splice junctions (slashes) from each species from thetoc1-2 allele are shown at the right. Nucleotides included in the species represented in the upper band are underlined. The mutated nucleotide and amino acid residues changed in toc1-2are boxed in gray. Single-letter abbreviations for amino acid residues: A, Ala; C, Cys; D, Asp; E, Glu; F, Phe; G, Gly; H, His; I, Ile; K, Lys; L, Leu; M, Met; N, Asn; P, Pro; Q, Gln; R, Arg; S, Ser; T, Thr; V, Val; W, Trp; and Y, Tyr.
The predicted TOC1 protein contains several notable features. At the NH2-terminus, TOC1 contains a motif similar to the receiver domain of response regulators from two-component signal transduction systems (Fig. 3, B and C). Typically in these systems, the first component, a sensor kinase, perceives changes in environmental conditions and propagates signals by autophosphorylation of a conserved histidine residue (9). This phosphate is subsequently transferred to an aspartate within the receiver domain of a response regulator, which then effects the response, often a change in the transcriptional state of target genes (9). However, TOC1 would be unique among characterized response regulators in that two of three invariant residues required for normal response are substituted. In CheY, an Escherichia coli response regulator, Asp57 (D1 in Fig. 3C), is the normal site of phosphorylation by its cognate sensor kinase (CheA), and Asp13 and Lys109 (D2and K in Fig. 3C) are also crucial for normal phosphorelay and function (9). Residues corresponding to D1 and D2 are changed to Glu and Asn, respectively, in TOC1. About 14 response regulator homologs have been identified inArabidopsis, which can be classified as type A or type B on the basis of primary structure (Fig. 3C) (10). TOC1defines a new class because of the atypical primary structure of its receiver-like domain. We have identified several TOC1-LIKE(TL) sequences in the Arabidopsis genome (Fig. 3, C and D) (11) that are defined by this atypical motif and another feature, a distinctive COOH-terminal motif first identified within the CONSTANS family of plant transcription factors. The CONSTANS (CO) locus controls photoperiodic flowering response (12). Structurally, the CONSTANS-LIKE (COL) family is typified by the presence of this highly conserved COOH-terminal domain, herein termed the CCT (CO, COL, and TOC1) motif, and two NH2-terminal zinc finger domains (12–14). The CCT motif is ∼45 amino acids, rich in basic residues, and contains a putative nuclear localization signal in the NH2-terminal half (14).toc1-1 is mutated at a residue within the second half of the CCT motif, and proximal residues are mutated in two coalleles (Fig. 3D) (15). Immediately downstream of the CCT motif is a region rich in acidic residues, a feature common to a number of transcriptional activators (16). The last identifiable feature within TOC1 is an almost perfect direct repeat of 47 amino acids in the center of the protein, of unknown function.
Messenger RNA levels of TOC1 cycled robustly in light-dark cycles, peaking in the late day (Fig. 4A). Changes in TOC1 levels did not coincide with dawn or dusk transitions, nor wereTOC1 transcript levels acutely light-induced (17). In the absence of entraining signals, robust cycling persisted throughout an LL time course (Fig. 4B). Notably, the period of the TOC1 circadian rhythm was shortened in thetoc1-1 mutant, demonstrating that TOC1 products feed back to affect their own expression (Fig. 4B). The TOC1rhythm was bimodal in LD conditions, and aspects of this were evident in the LL time course (Fig. 4, A and B). One explanation is that TOC1 expression is always biphasic. Another possibility is that the phase of TOC1 expression is distinct in two different populations of cells or tissues, as has been shown for circadian genes in other organisms (18). In DD, the rhythm of mRNA expression dampened after one cycle, although mean levels were maintained (Fig. 4C).
Expression patterns of TOC1.Northern analysis was performed on RNA extracted from (A) wild-type seedlings grown in 12:12 LD (open bars denote light intervals, solid bars denote darkness; ZT, zeitgeber time), (B) toc1-1 and wild-type seedlings entrained to 12:12 LD and then released into LL at time 0, and (C) wild-type seedlings entrained to 12:12 LD then released into DD at time 0. Ordinate values are TOC1probe signal as a proportion of ribosomal DNA probe signal normalized to highest value within the same data set. All experiments were performed two or three times with similar results (7). (D and E) Subcellular localization of YFP::TOC1. BY-2 protoplasts were transfected with a plasmid directing expression of a YFP::TOC1 fusion protein (7) and kept in the dark for 24 hours before examination. (D) Superimposition of bright-field and fluorescent images (7); (E) close-up of two nuclei. Scale bars, 5 μm (D), 2 μm (E).
As predicted from the pervasive effect of TOC1 mutation, atoc1::luc transcriptional reporter was expressed in all organs of seedlings and mature plants (17, 19). We used translational fusions to yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) to investigate the subcellular localization of TOC1. In transiently transfected tobacco cells incubated in the dark, YFP::TOC1 appeared exclusively in the nucleus in a distinctive speckled pattern (Fig. 4, D and E). This pattern suggests TOC1 participation in functionally important complexes such as transcriptosomes, spliceosomes, or proteosomes (20). The same pattern was observed in transfected cells kept in the light (17), arguing against light-dependent differential partitioning of TOC1, such as we have shown for the circadian photoreceptor dCRY, which forms similar patterns in insect nuclei (21).
Although it is premature to unequivocally place TOC1in a central pacemaker, the identification of TOC1 molecular targets and partners will elucidate its specific role. Interestingly, PAS (PER, ARNT, SIM) domains found in several clock proteins show sequence similarity to two-component sensor domains (4, 22). Other clock-associated proteins are similar to sensor kinases and exhibit kinase activity (23, 24). More typical sensor kinase homologs have also been identified in Arabidopsis(25). However, considering the atypical nature of its receiver domain, TOC1 may not be involved in an orthodox phosphorelay.
Note added in proof: Several Arabidopsissequences were recently recognized as encoding atypical response regulator homologs, including one corresponding to TOC1(30).
↵* Present address: Department of Plant Biology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
↵† Present address: Novartis Agricultural Discovery Institute, San Diego, CA 92121, USA.
↵‡ To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: stevek{at}scripps.edu
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Short-day fluence rates were 180 μmol m−2 s−1; long-day fluence rates were 90 μmol m−2 s−1.
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S. Makino
Thanks to T. Kuhlmann and A. Schopke for technical assistance; J. Takahashi, T. Stevens, and M. Milnamow for sequencing; J. Bender and T. Caspar for marker information; and Kay lab members for support. Supported by NIH grant GM 56006 and the NSF Center for Biological Timing (S.A.K.), fellowships from BP America and NSF-Graduate Research Training Program (C.S.), Human Frontier Science Program (T.O.), and NSF grants DBI-9804249 (T.F.S.) and BIR-9403981 (D.E.S.).
You are going to email the following Cloning of the Arabidopsis Clock Gene TOC1, an Autoregulatory Response Regulator Homolog
By Carl Strayer, Tokitaka Oyama, Thomas F. Schultz, Ramanujam Raman, David E. Somers, Paloma Más, Satchidananda Panda, Joel A. Kreps, Steve A. Kay
Science 04 Aug 2000 : 768-771
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OFFICERS/COMMITTEE
Sally Laird – E| sandblaird@blueyonder.co.uk T| 01626 204294
Vice Chairperson: Mrs Prim Wood
Honorary Secretary: Lisa Prager
Membership Secretary: Ann Gardiner
Treasurer: Mrs Prim Wood
Other Members of the Committee:
Rosie Clapham
Stella Currie
Jennie Litt
Mark Saxelby
Director of Music:
John Hobbs taking a rehearsal
John Hobbs is the conductor of the North Devon, South Devon and Bude Choral Societies in addition to the South Devon Choir; and is organist at Holy Trinity Church, Weare Giffard.
His singing career began as a choral scholar at Cambridge University.
He has sung an extensive repertoire of oratorio, lieder and songs with many choral and music societies and performs many principal baritone operatic roles for the Duchy Opera Company and New Cornwall Opera.c
John’s enthusiasm for music and zest for life are reflected in the way he directs the Choir, both in rehearsal and performance. Everything he does is with good humour, great patience and enormous professionalism and his contribution to music across the Counties of Devon and Cornwall is appreciated and applauded by us all.
Accompanist:
Simon Dunbavand graduated in music from Cambridge University, where he was Organ Scholar of Peterhouse, and recently at The University of Sheffield, where he held the Charles Bryers Scholarship. He is an Associate of the Royal College of Organists and the Royal College of Music. Simon has performed throughout the UK and across Europe.
Simon Dunbavand
As a choral director and animateur, Simon has presented workshops devoted to Hispanic renaissance masterpieces in places such as Buckfast Abbey, and directs performances of Russian Orthodox music. His other interest lies in the early Baroque music of Latin America. Simon is also a frequent lecturer on cruises, as well as inspiring singers in the Choirs-at-Sea programme.
Exploration is his greatest pleasure, and he has played the ceremonial gong at a Hindu watermelon ritual in Bangladesh, among other musical experiences across the globe.
Simon joined South Devon Choir in September 2016 and has inspired us with wonderful warm up sessions and his masterful performance at both piano in rehearsal and organ at his first concert, ‘Hallelujah! It’s Christmas!’ in December 2016.
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Column: The Artist Who Paints With Her Voice
Category: Wilton Manors Gazette
Written by Pier Angelo
Glenda Grainger, Via Glenda Grainger Facebook
A native of London, England, Glenda Grainger has lived and performed all over the world.
Her entire life has been committed to the art of song and performance. She has graced many stages from Paris to Mexico and beyond. Her TV appearances over the years include The Johnny Carson “Tonight” show, plus several stints on the Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin and Joey Bishop shows peppered with guest appearances.
Grainger has also been on the Dean Martin and Hollywood Palace shows. She has performed as opening act for such legends as Jackie Mason and Milton Berle.
She has also performed with the Smothers Brothers, and many more. The list includes a hit record in the late 60s with “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” one of the songs from the James Bond movie “Thunderball.” She was featured in the Jerry Lewis movie, “Hook, Line & Sinker,” where she played a lifeguard who gave Jerry Lewis CPR and delivered mouth to mouth resuscitation!
Grainger has become a cultural and musical treasure and she is still tirelessly delighting audiences with her electrifying stage presence. Her timeless repertoire runs the gamut from Broadway show tunes like “The Great American Songbook,” jazz, and contemporary ballads sung in various languages.
Grainger has been described as “the artist who paints with her voice.” She has more voice and stamina than most singers half her age and when you listen to her full and rich voice you feel her enjoyment of singing, which is technically flawless, always fresh and emotionally endearing. She is a symbol of resilience.
A life long supporter of the gay community, even when it was not fashionable, Grainger sat down with SFGN for a lunch on The Drive. “I have been singing in Wilton Manors for many years and have a very large, loyal, gay following,” she said. “I have a very special connection with them. I worked at Tropics for years, at the new Chardees, at Angel’s restaurant piano bar on the Drive.”
“I work with Gary Lawrence, my piano accompanist,” she continued. “I sing and perform throughout the year because I love to interact with audiences and enjoy the work of the songwriters. Singing comes naturally to me. I have the discipline to work hard and always learn something new. I am very happy, at this stage of my life, to be where I am. I have been lucky to have been in love twice, and would not want to change anything in my life even if I could. Love is about caring, sharing and making sacrifices.”
Grainger is currently performing at Club Silver (2209 Wilton Drive) every Saturday from 7-10 p.m.
Her show is not to be missed.
Visit her website at www.Glendagrainger.com
local Voice Glenda Grainger
Study Underestimated Traffic Counts for Wilton Drive Lane Reduction
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Column: Looking Ahead in 2020
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Producer Brings Popular Chicago ‘Bathhouse’ Musical to Wilton Manors
Wilton Manors Gazette: Latest Print Edition
Column: So this is Christmas…
Julie Carson Announces Bid for Re-Election
LGBT Friendly Housing Complex Breaks Ground
Jazz at the Center Hosts Jesse Jones Junior Quartet
Santa By The Sea
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Violations Issued to Pride Center Over Problems with Stormwater Drainage
Column: Comfortably Numb
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Personalities Don’t Make Good Screensavers
anonymity, celebrities, flash fiction, photographs, Sarah-Clare Conlon, short story
by Sarah-Clare Conlon
We swapped over our coats and bags in the pub.
I used to be fatter and she’d been thinner, and people often mixed us up away from the confines of our desks; in the lift, say, or at the colour photocopier.
Easily done, I’d smile, and the person in the wrong would do that thing with their hands — kind of covering their mouth as if to choke a scream.
It’s when I realised that I was always telling friends how I was always being mistaken for my co-worker that I made up my mind to ask her about it.
“I know,” she said. “Don’t you feel as valued in this place as a supermarket own-brand toaster?”
This was radical talk. My thoughts had been more existential: the city permitted anonymity to the point where nobody knew anybody; we were just cogs.
“Maybe it’s the fault of email,” I suggested.
“That’s it!” she said, yanking me into the staff kitchen. “They treat us like machines.”
The dishwasher’s hum camouflaged our conversation from colleagues, puzzled spotting us together.
“See you on the other side,” she whispered.
I keyed in the password, eyed the digital clock in the corner of the screen counting down to the two o’clock one-to-one. I studied the photographs stuck to the monitor. Celebrities’ shoes and dresses, snipped from magazines.
I didn’t notice I was tapping the pen I was holding, all sparkles and sequins, until Malcolm’s face appeared round the cubicle partition.
“You don’t normally do that,” he hissed.
I shrugged and went off for my appointment.
She met me for drinks just after five, as arranged.
“Here’s your Biro,” I said, and handed over the glittery ballpoint. “I thought you’d want to keep it. I left your pictures. You don’t need that kind of motivation any more.”
Sarah-Clare Conlon’s prize-winning work is published by Salt, Comma, Stand and Flash, who called her “one of the most interesting and inspiring authors writing flashes today.” A former journalist on Elle magazine, with a master’s in creative writing, she edited The Manchester Anthology and is a critic and feature writer for The Manchester Review, The Skinny, Creative Tourist, Confingo and Bookmunch. She runs popular live literature night Verbose, in Manchester, and works for a university.
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ReframingBack/ImperativeConfrontations: Inside Egypt’s Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale
June 27, 2016 Sig Nordal, Jr.
© Michela di Savino, Morgane Quere
As part of ArchDaily’s coverage of the 2016 Venice Biennale, we are presenting a series of articles written by the curators of the exhibitions and installations on show.
The Venice Biennale of Architecture is an integral part of architectural culture. However, this year’s cycle “Reporting from the Front” is more unique, highlighting the capacity and potential of architecture’s role inside communities; “architecture makes the difference”, as 2016 Venice Biennale director Alejandro Aravena puts it.
The Egyptian pavilion commissioned and curated by Architect Ahmad Hilal with a team composed of Eslam Salem, Gabriele Secchi, Luca Borlenghi and Mostafa Salem, seeks to reveal various successful stories of architecture narrating the difficulties and challenges inside the Egyptian built environment. The works inside the pavilion reveal how architecture is actively creating change in communities. Nowhere are these confrontations more evident than in the urban context, and nowhere more so than in Egyptian cities.
The exhibition’s goal is to re-frame and position in a global forum what we think are examples of a successful architectural and urban conflict resolution where architects, through their work, were the mediators of change, this mediation took the form of built projects, or even research proposals & mappings that attempted to highlight existing problems.
The exhibition titled Reframing Back//Imperative Confrontations, responds directly to this year’s biennale theme “Reporting from the Front” by displaying architectural projects largely by grassroots initiatives, students and young architects. The works presented can be broken down into two large categories – mapping investigations and (built-up projects and experimental proposals). The mapping projects attempt to survey existing conditions with applied analytical lenses, evident in their representational outputs. As with recent mapping efforts in other contexts, here, representation is viewed as a tool to think and present new information. It also entails the same potential shortcomings of mapping exercises when data is poorly researched and could advance a skewed perspective, or completely misinform. The exhibition contains a various investigation about the Egyptian urban condition including sprawl, informal urbanism, desert vernacular architecture, coastal cities, and 19th– and 20th-century heritage buildings which have been all part of the parallel dynamics of growth in Egyptian context for the past half a century.
The MAS urban design of ETH Zurich contribution to the Egyptian pavilion. Image © Michela di Savino, Morgane Quere
This pavilion is in no way a comprehensive survey of all initiatives and works that have been produced during the last period in Egypt. it is, however, an attempt to introduce to a large audience the work of those individuals and collectives, students and professionals, who over the course of the past decade, have been searching for new operating models in Egypt and engaging in architecture as a field of critical intellectual inquiry. The works presented here demonstrates the interest of a wide range of actors – government, universities, research centers, independent practitioners – in the Egyptian urban condition marking the occasion to bring forth all these perspectives and approaches in one space and to reflect on the nature of the knowledge produced in the past decade. It is at the same time an opportunity to evaluate its potential for action and transformation.
PennDesign of University of Pennsylvania contribution to the Egyptian pavilion. Image © Michela di Savino, Morgane Quere
Through an open call, many works have been selected to be exhibited from, among others, the MAS Urban Design of ETH Zürich, School of Design of University of Pennsylvania, Mittelmeerland of AA School of Architecture, Lund University, and MSA architecture department. In addition to Baladilab, Cairobserver, CLUSTER, Community Design Collaborative, GUC Architecture Department, (IN)formal Pattern Language, MADA Architecture Studio, Studio Meem, Takween, Traslochi Emotivi, and Œcumene Studio.
http://ift.tt/295xbih
Architecturearchitecture, design
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#HumansOfBelltown
#BelltownLOCAL
#SeattleCAN
Rise Up Belltown
It's 2020 in Belltown, Friends.
On the one hand, it's a little impossible to believe that we've actually reached the year 2020. Maybe my brain has subconsciously blocked out basically everything since November of 2016, but I'm still left wondering how we actually arrived in what feels like the future. On the other hand, as I walk by all the cranes and the towering new buildings -- and even the fabulously giant, brand new neon sign at Shorty's -- I can't help but feel like we really are living in the future.
Bathtub Gin Turns TEN!
Thursday, July 25th at 5:00pm! The magic of this tiny little speakeasy can hardly be oversold, but those of you who've been here before - you already know that, don't you? Tomorrow, this little Belltown gem is celebrating TEN YEARS since they first cut a hole in the wall to convert this basement into a den of hidden cocktail magic. To mark the occasion, Bathtub Gin will be spilling out into the alley, with all the hallmarks of Belltown party that you won't want to miss! "I me
2nd Ave Development Update
This week on Tuesday, (deep in the bowels of City Hall) developer HB Management presented their proposal for a new 2nd Ave, and highlighted how they hope to honor the character of a "funky" Belltown. Below is our recap of what the meeting means, what they proposed, how Rise Up responded, and what comes next. What did this meeting mean? Technically, Tuesday's meeting was part of the City's formal process for deciding whether to give a developer the permits to build a new buil
#HumansOfBelltown #97
#HumansOfBelltown Q1. Why are you in Belltown? A. I came here ONE time, and I saw how mixed up everybody was. How much culture was here. How much music was here. How easy it was to access music. If you had no money to your name, but you had tickets to the show, you could walk to it. You don't need a ride. You don't need to bum a ride. Here, you could be a dishwasher, and see the greatest bands! If you had a ticket. Or knew the door guy. I chose to stay, because I found family
Rise Up Belltown turns One.
The end of this month will mark the one year anniversary since we kicked off Rise Up Belltown with local bands, local food, local art, and local Belltown pop ups. We celebrated our love for this place we call home, and set out to keep a neighborhood affordable. It was no small endeavor (especially in 2018 in Seattle!) but we set lofty goals for our community and ourselves, and started loudly sharing our stories with the world. Yet as most of us know, life rarely makes anythin
#HumansOfBelltown Q1. Why are you in Belltown? A. I moved here in the early nineties, because I wanted to be in the center - the epicenter - of the whole Seattle music scene. This WAS the epicenter. We moved into the Concept One, but we got kicked out for sword fighting in the hallway - not dick fighting, but actual swords. One of the neighbors didn't feel that was so funny. But we had everything at our fingertips. We'd look out our balcony and there'd be a line at the Croc,
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Join Belltown Pride!
Belltown is a LOVE is LOVE kind of place, so join us, whomever you are! Come show your LOVE for Belltown community, by pre-funking with your peops and raising toasts to our refreshingly accepting community. Drink Specials. Local Humans. PRIDE Parade Pre-funk. some radical rabble rousers that #HumansOfBelltown and some music that won't make you want to split your face in two. Doors at 11AM at Branchwater in the alley across from Dan's, on the DAY OF THE PARADE. Get your party
Saving Belltown. May Edition.
May has been a month of progress for Rise Up Belltown as we work to keep Belltown affordable for the working class, artists of all types, and small local businesses. There's nothing easy about trying keep what’s left of our soul — and there are definitely never any guarantees — but the #HumansOfBelltown have been making themselves heard and, at least for May of 2019, our City leaders and their teams were listening. What have we been up to? In addition to getting some great pr
#HumansOfBelltown Q1. Why are you in Belltown? A. Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven. Aaaaand, it's the closest thing to a French Quarter situation I've found, since coming north. I chose to stay because of Seattle's booming economy. You have a lot of culture here, but it's not a "city" culture. I stayed in Belltown because of all the acquaintances I have. I like the people of Belltown. It's the most community-oriented neighborhood I've found. Q2. What's your favor
Belltown in the News
Hey there humans! Check out the new article in Crosscut News on efforts by the #HumansOfBelltown to save our community and Tulas Jazz Club with new ideas and collaboration. It's great work by freelance journalist Alexa Peters, and captures both the spirit and logistics of our efforts. And great cover photo of Peter Daniel's Funk Jazz Quartet by Dorothy Edwards! Grateful to folks like Joseph Nix of Jupiter Bar, Eugenia Woo of Historic Seattle, Ed Hewsen of HB Management, and a
#HumansOfBelltown Q1. Why are you in Belltown? A. I moved to Belltown in 2001. I'd just got divorced, and I always knew I wanted to live in a hardcore, breathing City. I'd been to New York by then, but I knew I didn't want THAT. So I've lived in all three. Concept One. Humphrey. The Rivoli. I started going to Shorty's, and fell in love with the entire Pinball community. I was practicing law for a lot of cities. But I also helped people in Belltown. I wanna be clear. 2nd Ave,
Do Good + Rock Out = Save Belltown.
We rose up last Summer. We rose up this Winter. Now we rise up for the Spring! Join your friends and fellow #HumansOfBelltown for a kickass rock show with Sweet Jesus, Nasty Bits, and Winchester Pictures in Belltown's newest live music venue! Best of all, we're kicking things off with our monthly gathering of the BOAT. If you come for the RA RA BELLTOWN, then you get into the show for FREE. How's THAT for a sweet deal!? Please RSVP and SHARE the event page on faceland. Or, if
Saving Belltown. April Edition.
Though the going is sometimes rough, Rise Up Belltown takes small steps forward every day in our mission to keep Belltown affordable for the working class, for artists, and for small local businesses. We’re striving to keep what’s left of our soul — that which hasn’t gotten the boot already — as prices for basically everything have skyrocketed upwards. Those of you on the BOAT have probably noticed that our social feeds have been a little quiet lately. I do feel a little bit
BOAT Meeting Recap - March 2019
We made progress in our movement for an affordable Belltown and for local culture on Monday, when the Belltown Oversight and Advisory Team met to talk updates and action, and to hear stories from local-legend Brant Waldron as he leaves for a journey. Thank you local BOAT member Cursed Oak for hosting us, and for the incredible food! We were asked just ahead of the meeting (by BOAT members who were work elsewhere on the block that night) to see if we could live stream the me
Double-booked meetings in Belltown.
TONIGHT! Tuesday, March 26th Meeting #1: Proposed Redevelopment of the Block this is an outreach meeting hosted by the developer and their team as part of the City's requirements that they conduct outreach within the community they're building in. 6:00 - 7:00p @ the Antioch University Click for Meeting Details Meeting #2: Public Safety Meeting & Panel this is a panel on public safety that is being convened by the Belltown Community Council (the folks who plant the daffodils o
Calling all CREW for the BOAT!
Hey there BOAT members, we need your help! We're starting the process of recruiting a CREW (aka local volunteers) to help us run the Belltown Oversight and Advisory Team (the BOAT) for Rise Up Belltown. Here's what this means: Being on the BOAT means you're listed on the website as a supporter. Being on the CREW means downloading Slack (a messaging app) to your phone, and joining the conversations about what we're up to and how we're doing it. Why is this important? Growing a
Open Letter: MHA & #SeattleCAN
Hey there humans! Today the City Council is taking their final vote on Mandatory Housing Affordability legislation, which is basically a set of upzones and policy changes that let developers build a little bit more height, in exchange for being required to build (or pay for) a little bit of affordable housing in their new buildings. In general, we think it's a good idea but that leaves a lot out, like preserving existing affordable housing, keeping communities intact, and pre
St. Patrick's Day in Belltown!
This weekend we've got everything from Comic Con to St. Patrick's Day, and Belltown is going to be full of all sorts of fabulous, lively energy. So go support your local businesses and don't miss out on the many happenings, happening everywhere in the village! Lava Lounge (on Saturday) DJs THUNDERPAWS, KAVE-IN, OLD & TIRED (the DJ Power Couple) and STRAWBERRY WHINE bring you the finest grand slams of glam slabs to ever hit the bandstand! Punkers, powerpoppers, numbskull-dunc
Get up and eat a burger for Rise Up!
Come support Rise Up Belltown at round two of the Jucy Lucy Tuesday Pop Up at Black Cat! They'll be slangin out Jucy's all day long and this time around they're partnering with Rise Up Belltown! They'll be donating 3% of all their Jucy Lucy sales to the cause, so let's save Belltown together while getting Jucy! :) For those of you not yet in the know, Jucy Lucy's are cheese stuffed burgers hailing from the chefs' home state of Minnesota. Their local history goes back at least
#HumansOfBelltown Q1. Why are you in Belltown? A. its home. Came here for college almost ten years ago. I tried to leave three times, and always lasted less than a year in those places. It keeps drawing me back. No matter where I go, there's nothing like this community anywhere. I'm pretty sure I've lived on every street expect Battery.. I've almost got a full bingo card! Q2. What's your favorite thing about #Belltown? A. it's the people. It's knowing that I can go down to Ne
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SOCIALLY SPARKED NEW YORK
SOCIALLY SPARKED NEW YORK captures the people, places, events and causes that illuminate our lives. Straight from the mouth of that infamous blue-eyed crooner Frank Sinatra — New York, New York is a helluva Town!
SOCIALLY SPARKED NEWS is a cultural blog that spotlights the intersection of Pop Culture and Social Change via the crossroads of Entertainment, Music, Technology and Advocacy / Activism. All views are our own. #SociallySparked is a registered trademark.
By Abbe Sparks • Entertainment, New York, Socially Sparked Moments
Comedian Yakov Smirnoff and his brand of neutral humor have Socially Sparked® our lives for over four decades. We caught up with the comedian at the APAP NYC conference this week to hear what he’s been up to, catch his APAP Showcase and discover what’s Socially Sparked his life. Russian born iconic comedian Yakov Smirnoff [...]
By Abbe Sparks • Pop Culture, Advocacy, New York
New decade brings new energy and unity to The Women's March as they rise up and roar in solidarity for their rights. Women around the country and across the globe bonded together to rise up and roar for women's reproductive rights, climate justice and immigration rights. The underlying chant was to get out and vote [...]
NYC Restaurant Week is a Culinary Mecca
By Abbe Sparks • Entertainment, New York
NYC Restaurant Week® is a culinary mecca that is Socially Sparked®. The city's flagship dining program returns this winter from January 21st and runs thru February 9th. Foodies and non-foodies alike will have the opportunity to experience and enjoy over 350 diverse participating restaurants across 45 diverse neighborhoods across all five boroughs for the next [...]
By Abbe Sparks • Theatre, Entertainment, New York
Here comes Winter Broadway Week 2-for-1 Tickets in 2020! Beginning January 21st thru February 9th, theater lovers will be able to purchase up to two tickets to select Broadway shows for the price of one! Tickets are on sale now through the official Broadway Week Page. Broadway Week is a bi-annual theater celebration offering discounted [...]
Curtain Up for JanArtsNYC
By Abbe Sparks • Entertainment, Performing Arts, New York
The curtain goes up for JanArtsNYC on New Year's Day and does not come down until the last day of January. Each year New York City becomes a performing arts mecca all month-long as artists and organizations around the globe trek to the Big Apple to network, perform and book their artistry and shows for [...]
Fotografiska: Inspiring A More Conscious World Via Photography
By Abbe Sparks • Advocacy, Entertainment, New York
Fotografiska opens in NYC hoping to inspire a more conscious world via the power of photography. Moreover, the internationally renowned Stockholm-based photography and cultural destination plans to take New York and the U.S. by storm with the perfect combo of awe-inspiring communicative imagery, architectural beauty and New York City history sprinkled with wining, dining and [...]
NYE Crystal Ball & NYC Ready to Sparkle
By Abbe Sparks • Pop Culture, Entertainment, New York
The NYE Crystal Ball and NYC are ready to sparkle atop One Times Square to ring in the new Decade. Each year the Times Square Alliance, NYPD and New York City prepare for millions of visitors converging on the 42nd Street area to celebrate the upcoming year. The iconic New Years Eve Crystal Ball receives [...]
By Abbe Sparks • Entertainment, Music, New York
Let there be music, sweet emerging music says Mondo NYC at its fourth annual music and tech conference. This year’s outing took place by day in Brooklyn at The Williamsburg Hotel featuring inspiring speakers, panels and breakout sessions; by night, in music venues throughout lower Manhattan and Brooklyn showcasing emerging artists. EMERGING ARTISTS FROM AROUND [...]
Who Screams for a NYC Ice Cream Museum? Everyone!
When the Museum of Ice Cream opens its permanent locale in New York City this weekend it hopes that New Yorkers will send screams of approval throughout Manhattan and beyond. The founders hope to create a real world experience that is so captivating and engaging with its attendees that they’ll forget about all their current [...]
Remembering John Lennon 1940-1980
By Abbe Sparks • Advocacy, Entertainment, Music
Rembering John Lennon today 1940 - 1980. Thirty nine years ago on that fateful day of December 8th, we lost music legend John Lennon to senseless gun violence when he was brutally shot and killed in front of his residence at The Dakota in New York City. John Lennon, 1940 - 1980. Photo taken off [...]
Golden Giving & Gildie-Centric Philanthropists
By Abbe Sparks • Socially Sparked Moments 2017, Advocacy, New York
Gilda's Club NYC Associate Board are golden, giving & Gildie-Centric emerging philanthropists Golden, giving and Gildie-centric is the best way to describe the emerging philanthropists who comprise the Associate Board of Gilda’s Club NYC. (GCNYC). I can’t think of a better example of volunteers to highlight in honor of National Volunteer Week. Gilda Radner Gilda’s [...]
New York City Now a Pop-Up Kinda’ Town
By Abbe Sparks • Pop Culture, New York, Socially Sparked Moments
New York City is now a pop-up kinda’ town. The Bronx may be up and the Battery is definitely down, but everything’s coming up pop-ups. The most recent is the giant Saks Fifth Avenue fashion-adorned Carousel in Rockefeller Plaza. The Carousel Pop-Up is located directly across from the Flagship Saks at Rockefeller Plaza and will [...]
Nostalgic Power and Toys ‘R Us’ Return
Nostalgic power and Toys R Us' return to glory. Yes, it's true. The toy retailer officially opened it's first brick and mortar store last week in New Jersey, with more on the way. Houston is slated next. It was only last year that we bid adieu to the ‘80s iconic toy store. You heard it [...]
Prestigious New York Film Festival Returns for 57th Year
By Abbe Sparks • Entertainment, Film, New York
The Prestigious New York Film Festival (NYFF) returns for its 57th year on September 27th and runs thru October 13, 2019. NYFF is one of the longest-running and most prestigious festivals in the United States and a centerpiece of New York Culture since 1963. The 57th edition will introduce new cinematic works from around the [...]
Mondo NYC Ignites Sparks in Hip Williamsburg
By Abbe Sparks • Entertainment, Music, Technology
Mondo NYC ignites sparks in hip Williamsburg this week from October 15 thru 18. The Brooklyn conference brings emerging music and frontier technology center stage mixed in with fireside chats, over 100 panels, workshops and, of course, music showcases laced throughout the big Apple and Brooklyn. Mondo NYC will be held daytime at the Williamsburg [...]
Saluting Jazz’ Legendary Bird Charlie Parker
By Abbe Sparks • Pop Culture, Music, New York
Saluting jazz' legendary Bird, Charlie Parker in style. This weekend, the New York City Parks Foundation brings us the return of The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. Now in its 27th year, the summer festival is a vibrant and free celebration of jazz in New York that annually brings together storied, veteran players and the next [...]
Feast of San Genarro Returns to Little Italy
The Feast of San Genarro returns to Little Italy, New York City and will run from September 12th through the 22nd. The annual festival runs along Mulberry Street between Canal and Houston. 2019 marks 93 years of celebrating the Patron Saint -- which began in 1926 as a one day event. Inaugural day of the [...]
Uptown Eateries Shine During Harlem Restaurant Week
Uptown eateries shine during Harlem Restaurant Week in New York City. The 'Uptown Feast' as it is known runs from August 19th thru September 1st. There are over 40 participating restaurants. Harlem Restaurant Week is an exciting collaboration among the organizers of Harlem's most successful culinary themed events. Over 40 neighborhood restaurants and night spots [...]
Third Time’s a Charm for France Rocks NYC
By Abbe Sparks • Socially Sparked Moments 2016, Entertainment, Music
The third time’s a charm for France Rocks NYC, a summer music festival that brings the best of French produced music to NYC. The third annual France Rocks Summerfest kicks-off this weekend in New York City and runs through July 5. France Rocks founder Michele Amar tells us what to expect and how the music [...]
Cultural Diversity Abounds with Museum Mile Festival
Cultural diversity abounds with the 41st annual Museum Mile Festival in New York City on June 11th. That's when eight museums along Fifth Avenue open their doors for free to the public from 6pm to 9pm come rain or shine. The annual cultural event takes place along Fifth Avenue from 82nd Street to 110th Street. [...]
Artsy, Hip Gigantic-Size Shoe Exhibit Sparks Bloomies Return to Glory
By Abbe Sparks • Pop Culture, New York
An artsy, hip gigantic-size shoe exhibit on display at iconic Bloomingdale’s (Bloomies) NYC flagship locale is turning heads and feet of New Yorkers and tourists. The new exhibit is reminiscent of Bloomies of yesteryear when the legendary retailer was known as the “It” department store for cutting-edge fashion, pop culture, splashy campaigns, celebrity and New [...]
And, The Obie Award Goes To…
The 2018 Obie Awards let the sparks fly Off-Broadway last night with the 63rd annual Awards ceremony at New York City’s Terminal 5. Co-presented by The Village Voice and The American Theatre Wing, awards were given out to four writers, three directors and 10 artist performers plus special citations, grants and the Lifetime Achievement Award. [...]
Jazz Songstress Spider Saloff Heats Up New York
By Abbe Sparks • Pop Culture, Entertainment, Music
Jazz Songstress Spider Saloff heats up New York City and environs this weekend with two sizzling hot cabaret shows. The Socially Sparked spotlight artist and award-winning sultry jazz and cabaret talent brings her trademark Spider's spin on the music of Irving Berlin and Peggy Lee to Long Island's Tilles Center on Saturday and New York [...]
By Abbe Sparks • Pop Culture, New York, Art
The lovable Peanuts Gang become the newest kids on the blocks today when the American leg of The Peanuts Global Arts Collective Tour officially unwraps its graffiti-esque art murals on the streets of New York City. The groundbreaking worldwide, public art initiative is designed to bring communities together through the universal themes ingrained in Peanuts [...]
Tribeca Film Festival Spotlights Gender Equality & Diversity
When the Tribeca Film Festival opens April 18th for its 17th year, the spotlight will illuminate a more equal playing field that supports gender equality and diversity. Forty-six percent of this year’s films are directed by women – the highest percentage in the festival’s history. Image courtesy of the Tribeca Film Festival The 2018 feature [...]
Livestream from New York: Theatre’s Obie Awards
Tonight marks theatre's coveted Obie Awards® and the third time you can watch via livestream. The 63rd Annual Awards Ceremony will recognize Off-Broadway and Off-Off broadway’s most adventurous and groundbreaking artists and productions. A Co-presentation by The American Theatre Wing and The Village Voice, the awards categories are informal and there are no advance nominees. [...]
Adieu Toys ‘R Us: Iconic 80s Store Closing
Adieu Toys R Us: the ‘80s iconic store is closing its toy box to the world forever -- at least for now. The retail chain and its beloved mascot – Geoffrey Giraffe have Socially Sparked® the lives of millions of children of the '80s and '90s. While this news is bittersweet for every child that [...]
Full Live Stream Ahead for 60th Annual Grammy Awards
Full live stream ahead for The 60th annual GRAMMY Awards® and all the action leading up to tonight's live broadcast from New York's Madison Square Garden. James Cordon hosts the live telecast on the CBS Television Network tonight at 7:30PM ET / 4:30PM PT) and Paul Shaffer hosts the Premiere Ceremony. Both ceremonies can be [...]
Pizza Slices of Diversity Socially Sparked: National Pizza Day
By Abbe Sparks • Pop Culture, New York, Chicago
Pizza Slices of Diversity Socially Sparked® our lives in countless ways. Today, pizza comes in all shapes, sizes, styles and flavors, making it one of the most versatile food favorites of every age group – from toddler through senior. In honor of National Pizza Day, here’s a bit of trivia on the diversity of the [...]
Twofers Returns: NYC Off-Broadway Week 2018 Begins
Twofers return as NYC Off-Broadway Week 2018 begins. From February 12th thru February 25th, theatre lovers -- New Yorkers and visitors alike -- can seize the opportunity to take in an Off-Broadway show for a steal -- two for one tickets. The ninth annual Off-Broadway Week includes more than 36 unique Off-Broadway productions that include [...]
NYC Off-Broadway Week Fall 2019 Begins September 23
NYC Off-Broadway Week Fall 2019 begins September 23. Also known as '2-For-1 Tickets,'OBWF runs from September 23rd thru October 6th, Theatre lovers, New Yorkers and visitors alike can seize the opportunity to take in an Off-Broadway show for a steal -- at two-for-one tickets (2-For-1)! The bi-annual Promotion offers more than 30 unique Off-Broadway productions [...]
Return of The Women’s March 2018
By Abbe Sparks • Advocacy, New York, Socially Sparked Moments
The return of the Women’s March 2018 marks the anniversary of its historic inaugural year. On Saturday, January 20, 2018, millions of women and people of all genders across the country will once again raise their voices to demand equality for all humans. Alot has happened on the women’s movement front since last year’s march. [...]
NYC Red Carpet Ready for Grammys® Return
NYC is red carpet ready for the GRAMMYS® return this week. It's been 15 years since the Recording Academy™ last brought the Grammy Awards® to New York and the Big Apple is ready to be Socially Sparked® once again. A fitting finale to JanArtsNYC, GRAMMY Week brings thousands of industry professionals, artists, producers, creatives and [...]
NYE Ball Drops; Curtain Rises for JanArtsNYC
By Abbe Sparks • Socially Sparked Moments 2017, Entertainment, Performing Arts
The NYE Ball drops while the curtain rises for JanArtsNYC, a month-long annual celebration of the performing arts around the globe. Performing arts enthusiasts, advocates, artists and fans can expect a flurry of eventful activity in the City throughout the month. A kaleidoscope of industry conferences, forums, music concerts, public festivals, salutes, retrospectives and award [...]
JanArtsNYC returns to kick-off the new year with a month-long annual celebration of the performing arts around the globe. Performing arts enthusiasts, advocates, artists and fans can expect a flurry of eventful activity in the City throughout the month. A kaleidoscope of industry conferences, forums, music concerts, public festivals, salutes, retrospectives and award ceremonies will [...]
NYC Second Avenue Subway Turns 1
By Abbe Sparks • Pop Culture, Socially Sparked Moments 2017, New York
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Bi-epitaxial grain boundaries in YBa2Cu3O7-x thin films prepared by pulsed laser deposition and pulsed organometallic beam epitaxy: Direct comparison of transport properties and grain boundary structure
Boris Vuchic, K. L. Merkle, K. Char, D. B. Buchholz, Robert P. H. Chang, L. D. Marks
A set of 45° [001] bi-epitaxial YB2Cu3O7-x thin film grain boundaries was studied to compare the effects of the microstructure on transport properties. The grain boundaries were made using two different deposition techniques: pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and pulsed organometallic beam epitaxy (POMBE). The transport properties were highly dependent on the specific growth conditions used, resulting in both fully resistive and superconducting grain boundaries. Subsequent microstructural analysis of the measured boundaries showed that both types (superconducting and resistive) meandered on the length scale of hundreds of nanometers. The major structural difference between the boundaries was at the atomic scale where the resistive boundary had a 1 nm wide disordered region. The direct correlation of microstructure to transport properties demonstrates the importance of the atomic scale structure in the resulting transport behavior.
Journal of Materials Research
Pulsed laser deposition
Epitaxial growth
Transport properties
barium copper yttrium oxide
Vuchic, B., Merkle, K. L., Char, K., Buchholz, D. B., Chang, R. P. H., & Marks, L. D. (1996). Bi-epitaxial grain boundaries in YBa2Cu3O7-x thin films prepared by pulsed laser deposition and pulsed organometallic beam epitaxy: Direct comparison of transport properties and grain boundary structure. Journal of Materials Research, 11(10), 2429-2439.
Bi-epitaxial grain boundaries in YBa2Cu3O7-x thin films prepared by pulsed laser deposition and pulsed organometallic beam epitaxy : Direct comparison of transport properties and grain boundary structure. / Vuchic, Boris; Merkle, K. L.; Char, K.; Buchholz, D. B.; Chang, Robert P. H.; Marks, L. D.
In: Journal of Materials Research, Vol. 11, No. 10, 10.1996, p. 2429-2439.
Vuchic, B, Merkle, KL, Char, K, Buchholz, DB, Chang, RPH & Marks, LD 1996, 'Bi-epitaxial grain boundaries in YBa2Cu3O7-x thin films prepared by pulsed laser deposition and pulsed organometallic beam epitaxy: Direct comparison of transport properties and grain boundary structure', Journal of Materials Research, vol. 11, no. 10, pp. 2429-2439.
Vuchic B, Merkle KL, Char K, Buchholz DB, Chang RPH, Marks LD. Bi-epitaxial grain boundaries in YBa2Cu3O7-x thin films prepared by pulsed laser deposition and pulsed organometallic beam epitaxy: Direct comparison of transport properties and grain boundary structure. Journal of Materials Research. 1996 Oct;11(10):2429-2439.
Vuchic, Boris ; Merkle, K. L. ; Char, K. ; Buchholz, D. B. ; Chang, Robert P. H. ; Marks, L. D. / Bi-epitaxial grain boundaries in YBa2Cu3O7-x thin films prepared by pulsed laser deposition and pulsed organometallic beam epitaxy : Direct comparison of transport properties and grain boundary structure. In: Journal of Materials Research. 1996 ; Vol. 11, No. 10. pp. 2429-2439.
@article{cbe2fffd96c142868c8e238e1b13b7b0,
title = "Bi-epitaxial grain boundaries in YBa2Cu3O7-x thin films prepared by pulsed laser deposition and pulsed organometallic beam epitaxy: Direct comparison of transport properties and grain boundary structure",
abstract = "A set of 45° [001] bi-epitaxial YB2Cu3O7-x thin film grain boundaries was studied to compare the effects of the microstructure on transport properties. The grain boundaries were made using two different deposition techniques: pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and pulsed organometallic beam epitaxy (POMBE). The transport properties were highly dependent on the specific growth conditions used, resulting in both fully resistive and superconducting grain boundaries. Subsequent microstructural analysis of the measured boundaries showed that both types (superconducting and resistive) meandered on the length scale of hundreds of nanometers. The major structural difference between the boundaries was at the atomic scale where the resistive boundary had a 1 nm wide disordered region. The direct correlation of microstructure to transport properties demonstrates the importance of the atomic scale structure in the resulting transport behavior.",
author = "Boris Vuchic and Merkle, {K. L.} and K. Char and Buchholz, {D. B.} and Chang, {Robert P. H.} and Marks, {L. D.}",
journal = "Journal of Materials Research",
publisher = "Materials Research Society",
T1 - Bi-epitaxial grain boundaries in YBa2Cu3O7-x thin films prepared by pulsed laser deposition and pulsed organometallic beam epitaxy
T2 - Direct comparison of transport properties and grain boundary structure
AU - Vuchic, Boris
AU - Merkle, K. L.
AU - Char, K.
AU - Buchholz, D. B.
AU - Chang, Robert P. H.
AU - Marks, L. D.
N2 - A set of 45° [001] bi-epitaxial YB2Cu3O7-x thin film grain boundaries was studied to compare the effects of the microstructure on transport properties. The grain boundaries were made using two different deposition techniques: pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and pulsed organometallic beam epitaxy (POMBE). The transport properties were highly dependent on the specific growth conditions used, resulting in both fully resistive and superconducting grain boundaries. Subsequent microstructural analysis of the measured boundaries showed that both types (superconducting and resistive) meandered on the length scale of hundreds of nanometers. The major structural difference between the boundaries was at the atomic scale where the resistive boundary had a 1 nm wide disordered region. The direct correlation of microstructure to transport properties demonstrates the importance of the atomic scale structure in the resulting transport behavior.
AB - A set of 45° [001] bi-epitaxial YB2Cu3O7-x thin film grain boundaries was studied to compare the effects of the microstructure on transport properties. The grain boundaries were made using two different deposition techniques: pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and pulsed organometallic beam epitaxy (POMBE). The transport properties were highly dependent on the specific growth conditions used, resulting in both fully resistive and superconducting grain boundaries. Subsequent microstructural analysis of the measured boundaries showed that both types (superconducting and resistive) meandered on the length scale of hundreds of nanometers. The major structural difference between the boundaries was at the atomic scale where the resistive boundary had a 1 nm wide disordered region. The direct correlation of microstructure to transport properties demonstrates the importance of the atomic scale structure in the resulting transport behavior.
JO - Journal of Materials Research
JF - Journal of Materials Research
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Software Engineering Meta
Most underestimated programming tool [closed]
This question's answers are a community effort. Edit existing answers to improve this post. It is not currently accepting new answers or interactions.
We have many great tools which helps a lot when programming, such as good programmers text editors, IDEs, debuggers, version control systems etc. Some of the tools are more or less "must have" tools for getting the job done (e.g. compilers).
There are still always tools which do help a lot, but still don't get so much attention, for various reasons, for instance, when they were released, they were ahead of their time and now are more or less forgotten.
What type of programming tool do you think is the most underestimated one? Motivate your answer.
tools developer-tools
Our brains? - - – Trufa Mar 12 '11 at 1:55
Okay, who wants to add the Lisp entry? *grin* – Mark C Mar 12 '11 at 4:10
A rubber duck. Yes, really.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
Rubber duck debugging, rubber ducking, and the rubber duckie test are informal terms used in software engineering to refer to a method of debugging code. The name is a reference to a likely apocryphal story in which an unnamed expert programmer would keep a rubber duck by his desk at all times, and debug his code by forcing himself to explain it, line-by-line, to the duck.
To use this process, a programmer explains code to an inanimate object, such as a rubber duck, with the expectation that upon reaching a piece of incorrect code and trying to explain it, the programmer will notice the error. In describing what the code is supposed to do and observing what it actually does, any incongruity between these two becomes apparent...
Andiaz
I do this all the time with my husband. As a tech support guy with just a smattering of programming ability, he understands about 60% of what I say but forces me to explain the 40% that I don't understand as well. The number of occasions where it works is really quite impressive. – Ethel Evans Mar 11 '11 at 19:32
You laugh. I had a coworker actually have a rubber duck on her desk. – Berin Loritsch Mar 11 '11 at 20:51
I tried it, but my rubber duck couldn't seem to focus on the problem. Where can I find a properly qualified rubber duck with a genuine interest in programming? – Steve314 Mar 11 '11 at 21:25
I use my journal for this. I sometimes have quite lengthy discussions with myself on it. I wish I could make myself understand what I mean, sometimes. Writing this into a journal sometimes helps a lot later on, when I wonder what the idiot who wrote the code I'm working on was thinking. – Lars Wirzenius Mar 12 '11 at 16:59
@Steve: Japanese researchers are working on it, but I don't think they're anywhere close: youtube.com/watch?v=3g-yrjh58ms – Rei Miyasaka Mar 13 '11 at 0:56
Pen and notebook.
Works without electricity.
Portable.
Doodle on/in when bored in meetings
Store useful information.
If it is written down, people attach more importance to it.
Others can read it and learn.
In the old days of big corporations, engineers and technicians would be given blank engineering notebooks where they would write all those things we tend to stuff in various files on our hard drives. When the notebooks were filled, they would be sent off to a secure and fire-safe repository. If anyone needed to have access to those notes they could check out the notebooks. – oosterwal Mar 11 '11 at 21:15
The Russians used a pencil. – Job Mar 11 '11 at 22:03
@Job Hah, I still use a bottle of ink! (... Well, only for calligraphy, but still. :) ) – Mateen Ulhaq Mar 12 '11 at 0:45
What about Tablet PCs? – Mateen Ulhaq Mar 12 '11 at 0:50
@Job: …and vodka! – Spoike May 4 '11 at 10:43
Diff tools seem to be underused when comparing log outputs or data in flat text files. Or maybe that's just a niche? I seem to find it very useful and helpful for debugging to compare huge logs of program executions and pinpoint one or two details that changed.
Performance profiling tools are also very good to have, especially when you hit a critical bottelneck, but it seems very few people are familiar with them (and I admit myself to a degree in this category).
Good XML tools are vital - if you're working with XML files more than a dozen lines or multiples schemas. Sometimes you need more than just basic syntax highlighting other editors provide. Also when working with XML, learning XSL can be very useful. Many times I see what could be done in a simple XSL transform done in many lines in the application's code. Though to clarify: I am not suggesting that XML itself is an "underestimated programming tool"; I am suggesting that the value of good XML editors is underestimated, from what I've seen.
FrustratedWithFormsDesigner
++ Absolutely diff is underappreciated. On the subject of profiling, you're not alone in thinking they must be useful, but you yourself don't know how. Check this. – Mike Dunlavey Mar 11 '11 at 19:02
Yeah, I have thought about actually learning a profiling tool, but never got to that – Anto Mar 11 '11 at 19:05
+1 for profiling, +1 for diff tools, -1 for XML tools. Some people, when presented with a problem, think "I know, I'll use XML." <Problem:Worsening> <Problem:TimeDescription>Now</Problem:TimeDescription> <Problem:Posessive>they have</Problem:Posessive> <Problem:Quantity>many, many</Problem:Quantity> <Problem:WorseningDescription>more problems</Problem:WorseningDescription></ProblemWorsening> – Mason Wheeler Mar 11 '11 at 19:06
@Mason: Cute XML. – Mike Dunlavey Mar 11 '11 at 19:35
@Mason Wheeler: I didn't suggest XML as a tool to solve problems, I suggested Good XML Tools - when you have to work with XML, make sure you have an editor/tool that is very good at it. Something that can execute Xpath queries, schema validation, transformation, value vs. structure comparison (a special kind of diff tool I guess) etc... Simple editors with highlighting just can't cut it when things get messy - they often make things worse (btw I like your XML code ;) ). – FrustratedWithFormsDesigner Mar 11 '11 at 19:41
They are just so useful. They help when searching through log files, parsing text etc.. They are just extremely useful.
I find it strange how many people I know that don't ever use them because there is a bit of a learning curve associated with them. A lot of times I see people do things the hard way (Note: before regex I did things the hard way) when a simple regex could get it down quickly.
barrem23
Remember that Regular Expressions aren't a Swiss army knife even if they are great when applied correctly. – Anto Mar 11 '11 at 19:22
Extremely useful - but often abused, leading to cryptic unmaintainable code. The old "now you have two problems" saying does have some basis in reality. – Steve314 Mar 11 '11 at 21:32
RegExes are a Swiss army knife: An adequate tool for lots of quick jobs, though probably not the right tool for building an entire house. – JasonTrue Mar 12 '11 at 5:07
Hmm, for some reason I always got the impression regex was far from being underestimated. Too often I see people reaching for a regex where a simple split/for-loop would suffice or when regexes are simply not the answer (e.g. parsing xml/html). – MAK Mar 12 '11 at 18:41
I've seen both phenomena: Regex? That stuff is unreadable/slow/insert pejorative here and "What's the best way to parse (insert completely non-regular grammar) with one regex?" – JasonTrue Mar 13 '11 at 7:53
Your teammates. When you are off on some hot-shot idea and forget to incorporate your team, you'll never hear their concerns or ideas for why it won't work or for why it could be even better.
I say this, because it's easy to think that programming is some antisocial thing people do off in corners with their brilliant ideas. People who think this underestimate the value of teams and their teammates in helping make ideas/projects sink/swim.
Doug T.
Good team mates can never be over valued. Most software and hardware can. – Anonymous Type Mar 12 '11 at 4:38
Google. There is are very few problems that haven't already been solved and documented. A well-tuned Google query can save everyone a lot of time.
Adam Crossland
A good tool but I'm not sure I'd call it underestimated, at least not anymore (maybe I would have agreed 9 or 10 years ago). – FrustratedWithFormsDesigner Mar 11 '11 at 18:52
I'm sorry, but Google underestimated? At the very least Google is overestimated :) – eestein Mar 11 '11 at 18:58
I know, I know! But my rationale for saying that it is underestimated is one that I suspect you will agree with: at least 75% of the questions that are asked on StackOverflow are easily answerable with Google, yes? Clearly, it is to some degree underestimated if that many people are not using it. If my rationale is flawed, I will delete my answer. – Adam Crossland Mar 11 '11 at 19:06
@Adam Crossland: 75% is being kind. I think it's higher than that. – S.Lott Mar 11 '11 at 19:26
@adam @s.lott so I guess the point is that Google is not used properly. With that I agree. So many questions could be answered (wouldn't need to be asked) if people knew how to Google properly. Regards. – eestein Mar 11 '11 at 19:56
Far and away the most underappreciated tool for finding "bottlenecks" is Ctrl + C or the "Pause" button, in a debugger.
Check the last paragraph of this post, and this post, and this post, for starters.
So many times I see/hear of people saying "The program's too slow! What can I do about it? I tried a profiler (if they did), but I don't understand what it says. Anybody got any guesses? Help!" Well, guesses are just that. What I've always done, and others have too, is get it going, interrupt it, and examine the call stack. If the problem is really bad, bingo, it's right in front of you. If the problem is only mild, you do it several times. Anything that shows up on more than one sample, that you can avoid, is a bottleneck you can fix.
Yeah, this is downvote-bait, but it works.
Mike Dunlavey
One shouldn't underestimate blunt instruments. Clearly this isn't always the right answer, but it can be. Call it a first order approximation, to be refined by a real profiler if needed. – Kristof Provost Mar 11 '11 at 20:17
@Kristof: It's tempting to think so, and there are problems it can't handle, and there are cases where the samples are not easy to get, but profilers can't handle those cases either, except for a certain kind, like Zoom, and even then they're not actually better in the sense of leading you right to the problem. – Mike Dunlavey Mar 11 '11 at 20:36
@Kristof: Here's the kind of problem random-pausing is not good at - where if you take a snapshot in time and study it, you can't tell the reason for what it's doing. Example: message-driven processing, where you can't tell where the message was sent from or why or how often. Another example: asynchronous protocols, where messages are being exchanged, and it seems like we're always waiting for the other guy. For synchronous processing, profilers may measure better, but random-pausing is better at finding. – Mike Dunlavey Mar 11 '11 at 20:43
The compiler.
Most people don't take time to understand what their compiler of choice does. They just feel that it makes the code into a runnable program and that is as far as they go. On most modern ones, there are several configurations that you can feed into it make it do what you need it to. Here's an example, I bet half the devs in your office have no idea how to set the warning as errors level (assuming it actually has one). What options to do you have to output debug symbols? Which optimizations (or what level of) do you want it to make. The list goes on.
@Kevin: and I would add ways to write code to actually have the compiler perform checks for you (for statically typed languages). Most devs use off the shelf types (such as string) to represent any kind of info, where they could define simple but incompatible types for unrelated data... and have the compiler they didn't mess up when passing arguments. – Matthieu M. Mar 11 '11 at 19:23
@Matthieu M That's also a good point. Many people forget the easy ways for it to help you out. – kemiller2002 Mar 11 '11 at 19:44
Every compiler warning is a precious gift. Don't ignore them! Ask for more! -Werror should be mandatory. – Kristof Provost Mar 11 '11 at 20:18
@Kristof: -pedantic -Wall -Wextra -Werror... though it can get difficult to build anything then :p – Matthieu M. Mar 13 '11 at 12:42
Maybe it's just me, but if "half of the devs" don't know what about debug symbols" is not an exaggeration, it's quite daunting. – kizzx2 Apr 15 '11 at 13:03
Your brain. Other tools wouldn't have much meaning without it.
jnevelson
I have rendered mine mostly unserviceable on occasion. – David Thornley Mar 11 '11 at 18:43
"more or less forgotten" :-S – user1249 Mar 11 '11 at 18:44
I would say it's underestimated. Too many people are always looking for shortcuts so that they don't need to think. There is no replacement for common sense and logic, and tools just cannot replace that. – jnevelson Mar 11 '11 at 18:52
I agree with Jonathan, the brain is often underestimated. In fact too many programmers rely on the few tricks they know instead of stepping outside the box and occasionally writing a bespoke (cheap and dirty, throw away class) test case and test tool to investigate the problem at hand. I have on many occasions given developpers the means to go beyond their state of thinking and solve their problems with not much more than a few questions. – asoundmove Mar 11 '11 at 19:19
Some comments got me to change my opinion, +1 :) – Anto Mar 11 '11 at 19:25
Good old:
Sometimes a debugger or profiler or a UML flow diagram is useful. And sometimes they make you crazy. I always find myself falling back on using print statements (or trace or NSLog or what-have-you) just to make sure my code is doing what I think it's doing when I think it's doing it.
JRW
I think this depends on the language and debugger. The kinds of debuggers offered by most decent IDEs nowadays for popular languages let you do things a hell a lot easier than print statements. – Billy ONeal Mar 13 '11 at 6:08
Plain old scripts... no matter how many next generation languages we develop we still heavily rely on scripts also most of the day to day tasks can be achieved by writing a few line of scripts.
Gaurav Sehgal
See.. I would disagree with this one. Yes, scripts can automate some tasks. But often they're taken far beyond the point of sense to the point where they just become a big pike of spaghetti. – Billy ONeal Mar 12 '11 at 16:49
True , big scripts are gruesome to look at and one might use perl or python for it. Though they are still great at getting small jobs done. – Gaurav Sehgal Mar 13 '11 at 2:55
@Billy Use python. Spaghetti problem solved :) – Evan Plaice Mar 18 '11 at 17:27
Pen and whiteboard.
You can't beat low tech when trying to explain something.
Andy Lowry
Duplicate answer - programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/57148/… – ChrisF♦ Mar 11 '11 at 22:06
May be a duplicate answer, but it earns my separate up vote for whiteboard. – Carson Myers Mar 12 '11 at 4:21
Hmm, pretty sure it wasn't a duplicate when I created it, very strange. I'll change it to Pen and Whiteboard. – Andy Lowry Mar 12 '11 at 14:55
ack. It's like grep -r, but it's designed for seaching through your source code.
Perl and other scripting languages. Great for tasks that are just a bit too complicated for GUI tools like Agent Ransack.
kevin cline
I'm not sure they are underestimated... – Anto Mar 11 '11 at 21:33
Definitely underestimated ... expecially Perl. It is a lang. very well designed with the keep things simple motto ... as such, it's priceless for quick tasks which just need to get done. – Rook Mar 12 '11 at 3:08
@Rook: I'm not sure how a language with more than 100 operators can be considered "simple". Useful, possibly. But not "simple". – Billy ONeal Mar 12 '11 at 16:50
@Billy - Simple does not exclude powerful. I find calculators simple. I don't know what half of the 300 functions on mine does, but that doesn't reduce its simplicity. – Rook Mar 12 '11 at 17:34
Keyboard shortcuts that allow quick, frequent and safe refactoring. Learning how to extract (or inline etc) variables, methods, constants, or classes at the press of some keys fundamentally changed how I code. You will only refactor frequently (i.e. enough) when the cost is minimal, so making these shortcuts second nature is essential to writing and maintaining good code as far as I'm concerned.
So generally, use good tools (IDE/editor) and learn how to get the most of the features they provide.
Unit testing and TDD comes next, to keep your code testable and prevent fear of refactoring.
Use these and you'll easily move towards writing correct maintainable code that conforms to the DRY principle and is self documenting.
Unit testing offers the following benefits:
Developers become the first clients of the code. The quicker a bug is caught, the less expensive it is to fix. Bugs may be caught before a build, install, or deployment.
Testing changes your perspective on the code. Is the design clear? Does it handle corner cases?
The Hawthorne Effect will improve quality, simply by announcing that a team is publishing quality/testing metrics.
Even if tests aren't checked into source control, they can be a great way to explore and learn new terrain.
A high probability of fewer bugs!
Michael Easter
Code generators can create a large amount of efficient and bug-free code from a simple definition. ORM type uses are the most obvious for creating data access classes, but there's many more potential uses.
Code generating support seems to still be in its infancy both from a programmer and framework point of view, but I believe it's something we'll see more and more of. In .NET you can start dabbling with the CodeDOM stuff.
I like writing code generators, not the easiest thing to get right, but oh so useful. – Zachary K Mar 13 '11 at 16:35
I use AgentRansack heavily. It is a tremendous help searching through thousands of files very quickly. It has saved me so much time, but I don't know of a lot of programmers that know about or use it.
JakeRadakovich
Formal Methods.
http://www.amazon.com/Discipline-Programming-Edsger-W-Dijkstra/dp/013215871X
http://www.amazon.com/Science-Programming-Monographs-Computer/dp/0387964800/ref=pd_sim_b_1
It's hard to overstate their importance. Every loop and every if statement starts out as an idea that requires some kind of "proof". Most programmers do this proof most of the time in their heads. You ask what the if statement does and they can articulate -- soundly and logically -- what the choices are and why the choices are complete, consistent, and exclusive.
But some just seem to guess randomly. They need more help and formal methods could be the kind of help they need.
It's just algebra (and calculus) for code. Nothing too complex or sophisticated.
S.Lott
I've found them frequently useful to get the simple stuff right so I can rely on it while debugging the more complicated stuff. My experience is that formal methods pretty well eliminate subtle bugs, leaving only the glaring obvious ones that are easily caught with testing. – David Thornley Mar 11 '11 at 20:39
Physical design patterns like leaving the chair for a quick jog in the sunlight and fresh air keep our brains running at peak awesomeness.
Joe Chrysler
Well it's Half Life 2 (insert your favourite game here). If i got a problem I can't solve I just quit and start playing with my favourite game and suddenly the solution pops in my mind. So to be honest it is not a game or something like that but doing something else. I often see people sitting on a problem for hours without solving it and all they should do is putting their brain offline for a short period.
Adam Arold
Stack Overflow - quick expert help when you are stuck
question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers. It's built and run by you as part of the Stack Exchange network of Q&A sites. With your help, we're working together to build a library of detailed answers to every question about programming...
+1, but not really underestimated anymore – MAK Mar 12 '11 at 18:44
maybe even overestimated, or at least overused – Anto Mar 12 '11 at 21:19
I think it is Notepad/TextPad/simple text edit programs. Everyone has a time when they need a quick fix that does not require opening an IDE and need just a quick edit. And all computers have some kind of simple text editing program.
Asserts and a good alwaysAssert() function. IMHO these are more important than unit tests, because unit tests can only find bugs in the specific cases you thought to test. If the same programmer writes the code and the tests, he/she will probably miss the same edge cases in both. Furthermore, sometimes unit testing is impractical because the environment in which the component functions and/or the data it operates on is too complicated to come up with a contrived test case for.
The beauty of asserts lies in their ability to document assumptions and test them on non-contrived inputs. If any of these assumptions are wrong, your code fails loudly instead of "working" but producing subtly incorrect results. It also fails closer to the root of the problem than it would without the asserts. In practice, if you explicitly state enough assumptions about a piece of code and all of these assumptions are correct then the code is usually correct.
One common gripe about asserts is that they can be turned off. IMHO every language or standard library should have an alwaysAssert() function or rough equivalent that does the same thing as assert but can't be turned off. This can be used for checking assumptions in non-performance critical areas of code, where the benefits of turning off asserts are negligible.
dsimcha
Agreed. But unfortunately simple, yet efficient, tools like this are often underappreciated. – Peter Mortensen Jun 3 '14 at 19:50
The F1 key. - Useful for programs you don't know and for programs you are working on. (Assuming that it's a large application.)
Powerful to filter out issues were a users report bugs based on their interpretation of how the software should work. Of course, it could be that the design itself was flawed. But that's another story.
Both underestimated and also underimplemented. – Anonymous Type Mar 12 '11 at 4:45
Very underestimated by developers of the application you are using right now; as such the help contains little to no useful information. – poke Mar 12 '11 at 14:08
Various UNIX core utilities, but primarily find and occasionally grep or ed. The ability to find things in deep nests of files is invaluable, particularly when you suddenly inherit a codebase and have to fix it. Even if said code is well-documented, you will probably have to hunt, and a strong understanding of find kills it.
Call it the "Riddle of programming." What is a tool compared to the person that wields it? The desire to know how and why something does or does not work expands one's knowledge more than any specific tool and that is true beyond programming.
Ctrl + C
Ctrl + V
Saved countless hours worldwide!
gAMBOOKa
Tail can be used to monitor program log output file in realtime. It has been of great help when developing for systems that doesn't provide others means of reading the log.
Example programs are;
tail for Unix.
tail for Mac.
BareTail for Windows.
Mac OS X is a UNIX system. No need to mention it seperately. – rightfold Sep 12 '11 at 20:03
I kludged together a Perl call graph generator once. It was extremely useful, but fell over hard on non-procedural code or out-of-file routines.
Paul Nathan
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged tools developer-tools or ask your own question.
How do people read big technical books?
Designing tool for C#
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You are here: Home / Australia / No Contest: Wind Power Can’t Compete With Coal-Fired Power On Cost, Or At All
No Contest: Wind Power Can’t Compete With Coal-Fired Power On Cost, Or At All
January 3, 2019 by stopthesethings 7 Comments
The well-chewed ‘chestnut, about wind power being cheaper than coal or gas-fired power is a nonsense. Then there’s the fiction that wind power is actually ‘competing’ with conventional generation sources.
‘Competition’, in the wind industry’s eyes, is a pretty fluid concept: for most of life’s endeavours, it means a head-to-head race between all competitors, starting at the same time and traversing the same course, from start to finish. Not so with wind power.
However, it won’t be long before RE zealots are forced to accept defeat: wherever you look, coal, gas, hydro and nuclear keep thrashing wind and solar. Not simply because they’re cheaper, but because they work. And when we say ‘work’ STT means delivering power when and whenever consumers need it.
STT doesn’t promote coal-fired power because we love coal. STT promotes it simply because it works and because it provides affordable power to all comers – 24 x 365 – whatever the weather and any time of day or night. It’s that simple, really.
Modern economies aren’t structured around the weather or time-of-day. Industrial economies operate around-the-clock.
If people are prepared to go back to the Stone Age then, sure, why not harness your energy hopes to that lucky old Sun and the Wind Gods. However, for some strange reason, countries like China and India – while paying a little lip service to wind and solar – are furiously building hundreds of coal-fired power plants, in an effort to drag themselves out of grinding poverty and to stand shoulder to shoulder with Europe and America, as industrial economies.
Again, STT doesn’t promote coal-fired power because we love coal. STT does so simply because coal-fired power works: the market says so, and has done so for a century.
Sure, a few wealthy virtue signallers in the West believe they can operate without reliable and affordable power supplies (although that class of clowns run fairly quiet in wind and sun ‘powered’ South Australia). But try telling that to the hundreds of millions who live in grinding poverty, around the globe.
No country ever dragged itself out of agrarian poverty without an Industrial Revolution. And no Industrial Revolution was ever powered by sunshine and breezes.
Australia’s enviable prosperity is inextricably linked to cheap and readily available energy: be it coal, oil, gas or hydro.
The real heavy lifter in that line up is coal.
On any given day coal-fired power is generating between 75% and 85% of the electricity being chewed up across the Eastern Grid.
After sunset on a breathless summer’s evening, the so-called ‘future fuels’- wind and solar – are producing a big fat doughnut, of course; always have, always will. Battery storage is a ludicrously expensive pipe dream and pumped hydro simply squanders between 25% to 30% of the electricity generated and required to pump water uphill for later use.
Coal-fired power doesn’t need ‘firming capacity’, batteries or anything else; it just works and, as Anton Lang details, it is cheap.
Is Wind Power Actually Cheaper Than Coal Fired Power? Well, No!
PA Pundits
Anton Lang
Virtually every commentator who even mentions renewable power generation these days will tell you that renewable power generation is cheaper than coal fired power, but is this really the case?
It has puzzled me for a long time now how they can get away with saying that, and not actually taking the time to check the real data to see if it’s true at all. They just repeat that same old thing, time after time, and as the old adage says, repeat something often enough and it then becomes the truth.
You’ll see all sorts of ways they can justify it, usually by quoting what is referred to by the acronym LCOE. (Levelised Cost Of Electricity) Over the years I have been doing this, now almost eleven years, I have seen so many different versions of these LCOE documents, and they have changed across the years, becoming more and more complex. However, one thing I have noticed with them is that they are skewed in favour of renewable power to make it look as good as they can possibly make it, and at the same time, skewed against coal fired power to make it look as bad as they possibly can make it.
By far the biggest manner they skew the results is that they attempt to make it ‘a level playing field’, by trying to make the numbers suggest that all the electrical power generated is basically equal, no matter what the source, and there are so many variables that are just not taken into account, and other variables that are included, some of which are patently false, the biggest of these being CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) which is something that will never be achieved on any level, let alone on the scale required, and to a lesser degree, the imposition of a cost on the emissions of Carbon Dioxide, your typical Carbon (sic) Tax
Because that LCOE is so biased and incorrect, and there have been so many of them, all different, I would tend to discount them.
In saying that, can I actually justify the position I am taking here?
Well yes, I can.
What I will be doing below is showing you actual data for both sources of power generation, wind power and coal fired power, and from that you can see, quite easily in fact, that real data supports my argument that wind power is definitely not cheaper than coal fired power, and in fact, it’s not even close.
The data I will be using is from Australia, and while you may think that is a small scale to be using, it is something which can be scaled up to the ‘bigger picture’.
What I will be using is the most current data for both wind power, and also for coal fired power as well, so it is actually a relevant argument.
Australia currently has a total Nameplate for ALL wind power of 5452MW. That comes from 50 Wind plants spread across the Country in the vast AEMO coverage area, and that’s every part of Australia East of the Western Australian border. This coverage area is for the 5 States, from largest to smallest, New South Wales Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and Tasmania and also the Australian Capital Territory, so it is not a small area we are looking at here.
That total Nameplate of 5452MW is from those 50 wind plants with an estimated total number of wind towers in the vicinity of 2800.
However, saying that the Nameplate is 5452MW does not mean that those wind plants deliver that total all the time. The total power s calculated by the actual generated power and is worked out across a full year, and that’s the Industry Standard, and that amount of power is expressed in GWH. (GigaWattHours)
Everyone knows that wind power is variable. It has good days and bad days.
That ratio of power generated versus Nameplate is expressed as the Capacity Factor. The current Capacity factor for wind power here in Australia for all those wind plants is 30%, so, across the full year, that Nameplate of 5452MW is only the equivalent of around 1650MW. The total generated power delivered to the grid across Australia for every one of those wind plants is a tick under 14400GWH.
Okay then, let’s compare that with an existing coal fired power plant, and for this case, I will use the Bayswater plant near Muswellbrook in New South Wales. This plant is now 32 years old. It has four large Units, each one of 660MW in total for a Nameplate of 2640MW.
Again, this plant also does not deliver that total power all of the time. It runs constantly while ever they feed coal into the furnace/boiler part of each Unit. The power delivery ramps up and down each day, and the only time the Units are off line is when they are undergoing maintenance or Upgrades. Like wind power, this coal fired plant is also subject to that tem Capacity Factor, and for this Bayswater plant, it’s Capacity Factor across a full year is around 75%. It delivers 17000GWH to the grid in that State of New South Wales.
So, as you can see from just these last two paragraphs, wind power has a total Nameplate of 5452MW, and Bayswater has a Nameplate of 2640MW, so wind power has double the Nameplate for the coal fired plant.
However, look here at the totals for generated power. Bayswater delivers 17000GWH, and wind (that’s EVERY wind plant in the Country) delivers 14400MW. So Bayswater, with half the Nameplate delivers 18% more power to the grid for use by all electricity consumers.
So, here you have 50 wind plants with 2800 wind towers still not delivering the same power as ONE coal fired power plant.
Now, I don’t care what anyone says here, there is no way that one coal fired power plant cost anywhere even close to the total cost of those 50 wind plants.
Okay, so there’s the case for existing power, already in place.
What about making a case for new coal fired power then? Would there be much difference?
Let’s do the maths for a new coal fired power plant, and here I will use the example of what is called a HELE (High Efficiency Low Emissions) coal fired power plant, the newest and most technologically advanced version of coal fired power, and these plants are in operation now all over the World, mostly in China where all new coal fired plants are of this type. It is also referred to as a USC (UltraSuperCritical) plant.
These plants burn less coal for greater output and higher efficiency than old 1960s to 1980s technology plants, and these new plants are three levels of technology better than those older coal fired plants
Because the technology and efficiencies are so much better, these new plants can operate larger generators as the technology for every stage of these plants has improved, also meaning that the technology for the actual power generator has also improved, these new plants can drive generators up to an individual generator Nameplate of 1500MW, but they typically drive two Units each of 1200MW each for a total plant Nameplate of 2400MW.
Again, because the technology has improved so far their power delivery has also increased and they can typically operate at a Capacity Factor of around 85%, and some plants are operating at Capacity Factors over 90%.
So, using the example of a new HELE plant with a Nameplate of 2400MW, and operating at a yearly Capacity Factor of that 85%, they will deliver across a full year 17800GWH of usable power to the grid.
So now, that reference point is that figure of 17800GWH.
Let’s do the maths for wind power, and here I’ll be using the example of the largest (and also one of the newest) wind plants in Australia, the Macarthur Wind plant in the State of Victoria.
This Macarthur wind plant has a total Nameplate of 420MW, and has been operating at that average Capacity Factor of 30%, so it will deliver across a full year 1100GWH of usable power to the grid.
1100GWH from wind versus 17800GWH from the coal fired plant.
So, from that, we can see now that o equal the same power delivery of that coal fired plant, we need to have in place 16 of these Macarthur equivalent wind plants.
That’s 16 of them.
The cost for the Macarthur wind plant was around $1Billion, and yes, that’s One Billion Dollars, and most sites only list that cost as ‘around’ that figure of a Billion.
So, right there, we are now looking at a total of $16 Billion.
SIXTEEN BILLION DOLLARS.
On top of that, the new coal fired plant has a life expectancy of 50 years, in exactly the same situation as current coal fired plants also have a life expectancy of 50 years, and some of them even longer than that.
The best case scenario for wind plants is the figure quoted at most wind plant informational sites, where they give that life expectancy of 25 years, but the real truth could be closer to only 20 years, and some instances I have seen in recent times is that most of might only reach a life expectancy of 15 years, but for the case of this exercise, I will use that best case scenario of 25 years. So, from that you can now see that the cost actually doubles because you now need twice that number to deliver the same power over the life of the coal fired plant., so now we are looking at $32 Billion.
THIRTY TWO BILLION DOLLARS.
I have purposely not given a cost for the new HELE coal fired power plant, because there is no way it could cost anywhere even close to that. They are constructing them in Germany for the equivalent of $3 Billion Australian Dollars. They are constructing in China for $US1 Billion.
There is no way known that even 50 years of other costs could bring that figure up to $32 Billion.
So, as you can see, when you use current data for actual power generation, wind power is most definitely NOT cheaper than coal fired power.
Filed Under: Australia, Australia's renewable energy target, Big wind industry, Big wind politics, power prices Tagged With: 100% renewable energy, Australia's energy crisis, Australian power prices, Bill Shorten 50% renewable target, Coal compared with wind power, cost comparison wind power, Cost of backing up renewables, cost of backup power, Cost of backup power wind power, Cost of intermittent wind power, cost of wind power compared with coal, Labor's 50% renewable target, LCOE coal vs wind, Renewables cost compared with coal
« Run Aground: Intermittent Offshore Wind Power Costs 25 Times More Than Ever-Reliable Coal, Gas & Nuclear
Wind Power Chaos Reigns: Scots Build Diesel Generators & Brace For Week-Long Blackouts »
Reblogged this on ajmarciniak and commented:
With an energy density around 50 acres per MW, where are all the turbines going to be located… Oh, plus approximately 250t coal to make each one. Hmm. Hardly green or sustainable.
bjornwiklund says:
50 acres/MW, 1 acre is 4 000 square meter
Installed 3.3 MW?
200 000 square meter per MW…inet or
200 000 square meter (1 MW) delivers (30% usage of 3,3 MW)
8.7 GWh/year or 50 kWh/m2/year
https://bjornwiklund.wordpress.com/2018/12/29/footprint
Hermann says:
Of course the 30% of nameplate capacity are delivered at random intervals which makes wind power even more useless!
Dollars are that Aus or US?
$1Billion (AUS $) the cost for 420 MW places the cost at
SEK 16/W (installed) which is spot on the cost of windmills in Sweden and the usage or 30% is what we have on average in Sweden for installing soon 7 GW
Very interesting is that the figure “So now, that reference point is that figure of 17800GWH.” or as I write it 17.8 TWh is spot on the same as the result in Sweden….
“.. life expectancy of 25 years, but the real truth could be closer to only 20 years,” is not happening in Sweden plants are decommissioned earlier due to the growth from 0.5 MW to 3+MW det last 20 years…. money talks…
$ 16 billion (AUS) is SEK 100 Billion which is the cost of one nuclear reactor (Finland) 1.6 GW delivering close to 13 TWh . .
So the wind freaks says that 13 is less than the 18 GWh YES U´r right BUT to have this 13 TWh for 40 years will cost nuclear
Bottom line nuclear SEK 0.20 / kWh/year (plus some 5-10% fuel)
Bottom line wind SEK 0.27 / kWh/ year
And with a usage of 30% you will have to need some backup power like coal…. depending on what power balance (demand in GW´s) from the grid .. my guesswork is that sometimes you will need the 2.4 GW´s and the other side of the coin is that sometimes the demands are so low that even wind has to “go down” from its maximum hence usage will be lower in a system with intermittent wind and full power backup….
LCC bottom line will be this SEK 0.26 / kWh / year plus another close to SEK 0.26 / kWh / year
BOTTOM LINE at least double …
Crispin says:
Professor Jordan Peterson nails ‘Climate Change’.
Thanks to GWPF for posting this on their YouTube channel.
Link below…
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC9mMt7HEFxVa0godNFbV5fg
Son of a goat says:
Those “Kings of Cognitive Dissonance” in the Renewable Energy Messiah, Yoda Yates and the CEC’s Kane Thornton seem to suffer from a renewable energy induced bipolar disorder.
One minute they are patting each other on the backside suggesting 2018 was the greatest year ever for renewables and the transition is unstoppable.
They then descend into vile rants at the Federal govts energy policy, like a druggy short of a quick fix.
Coal is in terminal decline they say, no investors in their right mind will touch it, wind and solar have already won the race.
Next minute the transition isn’t quick enough and the Federal govt is lying when it says we will meet our Paris commitment.
Heaven knows why anybody having said they have won the race would be so hell bent on tweeting about renewables 24/7 over the Christmas break.
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Mora County Housing Unit Occupancy Statistics
Mora County
A housing unit is a space where Mora County residents live—such as a house, an apartment, a mobile home or trailer, or other forms of living quarters. The people who occupy a housing unit form a household.
The American Community Survey (ACS), conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, publishes detailed estimates about Mora County housing each year. Unlike the Census—which is an exact count of people and households every ten years—ACS statistics are estimated based on a representative survey sample.
This report uses ACS 5-year estimates for Mora County housing data, rather than single-year periods. The 5-year estimates provide greater geographical granularity and accuracy, with a less granular time period.
How has the number of housing units changed over time in Mora County, New Mexico?
How many housing units in Mora County, New Mexico are owner- or renter-occupied?
How do the size of households and housing units vary by tenure in Mora County, New Mexico?
What do Mora County housing units use for heating fuel?
The most commonly-used heating sources are utility gas and electricity. The chart below breaks down Mora County housing units by these sources.
The next chart shows Mora County housing units by less commonly-used heating fuels and other sources. (Note the scale is different from the chart above.)
How many Mora County housing units lack plumbing or kitchens?
The ACS asks questions about the presence of hot and cold running water, a bathtub or shower, a sink with a faucet, a stove or range, and a refrigerator to create statistics about indicators of housing quality. Federal and local governments in Mora County and New Mexico use these estimates to identify areas eligible for housing assistance, rehabilitation loans, and other programs that help people access and afford decent, safe, and sanitary housing. Mora County public health officials may also use this information to locate areas in danger of ground water contamination and waterborne diseases.
While the presence of these facilities in the home has increased over time, there are still areas in Mora County where they are not available. Individual items (hot and cold running water, etc.) are asked about separately on the ACS to allow housing analysts to evaluate individual indicators of housing quality, and determine which items are lacking in particular areas.
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Games Database 3DS/2DS Sport: Football - Soccer
Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 - 3DS/2DS
Also known as: PES 12', 'PES 2012
Also for: PC, Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, PS2, PSP
Viewed: 3D Third person, into the screen Genre:
Sport: Football - Soccer
Media: Cartridge Arcade origin: No
Developer: PES Productions Soft. Co.: Konami
Publishers: Konami (GB)
Released: 2 Dec 2011 (GB)
Ratings: PEGI 3+
Connectivity: Multi-Card Play, StreetPass
PES 2012 3D will offer unrivalled realism, and allow users exclusive entry into its recreation of the UEFA Champions League tournament, and also allows users to experience the thrills of South America’s high-intensity Copa Libertadores league. Full control is offered over the game, with every pass, through ball, tackle and shot left to the player, and accessible via either the Circle Pad and buttons, or via a new Touch Screen control system where players use the Nintendo 3DS stylus to move their players.
PES 2012 3D then focuses on the skills on show via a number of new, intelligent camera views that pan and swoop to cover the on-pitch action and show off the 3D powers of the Nintendo system, players are also invited to hone their skills in a number of game modes.
The eternally popular Master League option made famous by previous home format versions of PES is now a vital part of PES 2012 3D, and allows users to shape and develop a team of unknowns into a dynamic football force. Similarly, the game’s new Become a Legend option takes a more personal look at the game, charging the player with the progression of one player trying to establish themselves as a world-class talent.
Other new additions include new League and Cup competitions, Free Training where the multi-layered controls elements can be practiced, and an Edit Mode wherein the players and their kits can be adapted. PES 2012 3D also boasts a strong online element following huge demands for fans of the series.
Players can now play against a friend in one-vs-one games via both wireless and Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection settings, while KONAMI has implemented a new take on the StreetPass system of data exchange. PES 2012 3D users can now exchange Master League team data with other Nintendo 3DS users, with players invited to take a CPU opponent using the team of other players.
PES 2012 - Euro 2012 Goals Go Screaming In News
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Playstation® Offers the Chance To Secure A Seat At The Uefa Champions League Final! Press Release
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UK Video Game Charts: Batman Scores Over Soccer News
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now help out International Superstar Soccer
International Superstar Soccer Deluxe
Sega Megadrive SNES PlayStation
International Superstar Soccer Pro
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Home > SAI Stadia > Dr. SPM Swimming Pool Complex
Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Swimming Pool Complex was constructed in 1982 to hold Asian Games. For the forth coming Commonwealth Games 2010 the existing swimming pool complex has now been upgraded and renovated with the latest state of art facilities so as to meet the international standards required for hosting world class aquatic events. With a total seating capacity of 5000 spectators, the stadium now has the largest cohestrand supported, breathable, elliptical shaped aluminum roof with span of 150m x 130m , which is first of its kind in the world. The stadium will host other multipurpose activities during legacy period. The stadium is the largest covered aquatic stadium in the country having Olympic sized racing and diving pools with a six lanes warm up pool. The work was executed by Central Public Works Department (CPWD), the premiere construction agency of the Government of India for the venue owner Sports Authority of India.
Air-conditioned Indoor Stadium with New Glass Façade & Standing Seam Roof
5,000 Fixed Seats
10,000 sq. m.
Entrance / Egress
2 ramps up to 1st floor level, staircases & lifts
Electronic Score Board & Video Screens
Sports Disciplines
Diving, Roller Skating, Swimming, Volleyball, Water Polo, Fitness Centre
50 m Swimming pool (10 lane) 25 m Diving Pool with new diving platforms
Lighting & PA System
Sports Lighting & PA System suspended from Catwalks
Barrier Free Access
Access & Amenities Provided
New 50m Warm up Pool (6 lane)
Facilities of International Standard for Spectators, VIPs, Athletes, Media & Technical Officials
State of the Art Infrastructure & Finishes
Legacy use considered for non-sports activities in form of large flexible halls / spaces and associated facilities.
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LEXUS AND AIM VASSER SULLIVAN FINISH FIRST RACING SEASON TOGETHER
Filed Under 2019, AIM VASSER SULLIVAN, IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, lexus RC F GT3, petit le mans, race report, road atlanta
Lexus and AIM VASSER SULLIVAN (AVS) concluded their first season together racing two RC F GT3 entries in Saturday’s Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. The AVS Lexus RC F GT3 entries combined to earn two wins, five podiums, nine top-fives and 16 top-10 results during the 2019 IMSA season.
The AVS No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3 earned a ninth-place result at Road Atlanta with co-drivers Jack Hawksworth, Richard Heistand and newcomer Parker Chase. Townsend Bell, Frankie Montecalvo and Aaron Telitz finished 11th in the AVS No. 12 Lexus at the 12-turn, 2.54-mile road course. Both AVS entries were involved in incidents on the track during the 10-hour endurance event that forced them to the paddock for extensive repairs. Both Lexus entries eventually got back on track, crossing the finish line at the conclusion of the race.
Lexus finishes the season second in the inaugural IMSA GTD Sprint Cup Manufacturer’s Championship and fifth in the overall IMSA GTD manufacturer’s standings. Hawksworth and Heistand placed third in the GTD Sprint Cup standings and sixth in the overall GTD driver’s championship. Bell and Montecalvo finished seventh in the GTD Sprint Cup standings and eighth in the overall GTD driver point standings to close out 2019. With his results behind the wheel of the AVS No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3 this year, Heistand clinched the Bob Akin Award, given to the highest-placed eligible amateur GTD driver.
The endurance event at Road Atlanta was the final race of the 11-event IMSA schedule. Lexus and AVS return to action in 2020 at the Rolex 24 at Daytona on January 25, 2020.
AIM VASSER SULLIVAN Driver Quotes
JACK HAWKSWORTH, No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3
How would you sum up the 2019 season with AIM VASSER SULLIVAN?
“It’s been a really promising year for the first year of the AIM VASSER SULLIVAN program. We got two wins with the Lexus RC F GT3 at Mid-Ohio and Detroit, and those were the highlights for me personally and for the 14 team this season. Alongside that, the No. 12 Lexus got three podiums this season. Overall, for the first year of the program, it’s been really positive to collect that much hardware. Now, we’re going into the off-season looking to improve, pick ourselves back up and see what we can do better so that we can come back next year and try to mount a championship challenge.”
RICHARD HEISTAND, No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3
What does it mean to win IMSA’s Bob Akin award for top GTD amateur during the 2019 season?
“We didn’t end the season entirely the way we wanted, but to win the Bob Akin award is pretty special. It’s an entrance into Le Mans. It’s something that we had kind of in the bag for a while and then down the stretch we weren’t scoring the points we needed to score, and it ended up being really close. To qualify and get the points I needed to win the award at the last race, the AIM VASSER SULLIVAN boys needed to fix the car and we were literally down to the last five minutes to get the car back on the track and they did an incredible job. I wouldn’t have won it without them, so hats off to them. I’m excited to hopefully go to Le Mans.”
TOWNSEND BELL, No. 12 Lexus RC F GT3
Are you pleased with your first season driving the Lexus RC F GT3 for AIM VASSER SULLIVAN?
“What a roller-coaster ride this season has been. A brand new team coming together, and we started off on the podium at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. We finished every race this season and that is a real accomplishment. The AIM VASSER SULLIVAN guys worked incredibly hard for us all year. A lot of challenges, but we all stuck with it and to finish the season rolling across the finish line at the end of 10 hours is a big accomplishment for this young team. We have a lot of growth left as we move into next season.”
Source. Lexus
« B-QUIK RACING GEARS UP TO ENTER THIRD “EVO” IN BURIRAM
WILL OWEN HAS STRONG RUN WITH JUNCOS RACING AT PETIT LE MANS »
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Decommission of Monju Nuclear Reactor to Cost Japan $3.2Bln
The decommission of the Monju fast neutron reactor, which has been shut down due to safety problems, will cost Japan some $3.2 billion, the Kyodo news agency reported Monday, citing the Japanese government.
Stable Chain Reaction at Unit 4 of Japan’s Takahama Nuclear Plant to Start
A stable self-sustaining chain reaction was initiated at the fourth nuclear reactor of the Takahama nuclear power plant in Japan, the plant’s operator Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) said.
Nuclear Option: Japan’s Olympic Football Team to Train in Cleanup Zone
Japanese footballers to train for the 2020 Tokyo Games near the exclusionary zone surrounding the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant.
Radioactive Water Leak at Japanese Nuclear Plant
Japanese utility company Kansai Electric Power Co., Inc. (Kepco), has reported the leakage of 34 liters of “slightly radioactive water” from the No.4 reactor at its Takahama nuclear plant in the Fukui prefecture, 500 kilometers (310 miles) west of Tokyo.
Not So Fast: Post-Fukushima Nuclear Restart Plans Foiled by Japanese Court
A Japanese court ruled against restarting nuclear power reactors at the country’s Takahama plant, derailing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s plans to relaunch atomic energy generation four years after the Fukushima disaster.
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What we have learned ... 1990-1995
Center for Prevention Services (U.S.), Division of STD/HIV Prevention. ; Centers for Disease Control (U.S.) ;
Center for Prevention Services (U.S.), Division of STD/HIV Prevention. ; Centers for Disease Control (U.S.) Less ▲
1. Analysis of Self-Reported Data from Women Attending 39 Pennsylvania Planned Parenthood Clinics -- 2. Analysis of 1988-1991 General Social Survey:Factors Associated with Sexual Risk Behavior -- 3. Analysis of Counseling and Testing Data, National Health Interview Survey, and CDC CT Database -- 4. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS): Attitudes About HIV/STDs, HIV Testing and Counseling -- 5. Comparison of Written and Audio Methods for Assessing STD/HIV Risk in STD Clinic Patients -- 6. Condom Use and Rates of STDs: Data From Cycle IV National Survey of Family Growth (1988) -- 7. Condom Use: Data from the 1990 National Survey of Family Growth -- 8. Cycle V (1994) National Survey of Family Growth: Questionnaire Items STD- and HIV-Related Behavior and Prevention -- 9. Evaluation of the DIS Interview Process -- 10. HIV/AIDS/STDs in Correctional Facilities: Issues and Options -- 11. HIV Prevention and Treatment Practices of Primary Care Physicians in the United States -- 12. Sexual Behavior and Condom Use Among Street Youth in Hollywood, California -- 13. Use, Acceptance, and Use-Effectiveness of Condoms in Preventing HIV and STD Transmission -- -- Community-Based Formative and Intervention Research -- 14. The AIDS Community Demonstration Projects -- 15. Alexandra Youth Project (Republic of South Africa) -- 16. Behaviors of Crack Cocaine Users and their Impact on Early Syphilis Intervention -- 17. Development and Pretest of HIV/STD Intervention Strategies of Targeting Minority Heterosexual Males -- 18. Evaluation of HIV Prevention Street Outreach Program for IDUs and Youth at High Risk (AESOP) -- 19. Evaluation of the Experience of African American and Latina Women with Sexual Decision Making and the Female Condom: An Ethnographic Study -- 20. Men Who Have Sex With Men: Minority Behavioral Assessment Project -- 21. Sociocultural Factors and HIV/AIDS Risk Reduction Programs in Young African American Homosexual and Bisexual Men -- -- Small Group Formative and Intervention Research -- 22. A Clinic-Based Research and Demonstration Project to Prevent Sexually Transmitted Diseases Among High Risk Blacks and Latinos -- 23. A Formative Evaluation of HIV/AIDS Risk Reduction Programs in Prison Settings -- 24. The Atlanta Congenital Syphilis Research Project: Assessing and Improving Provider Compliance -- 25. Risk Factors for HIV/STD and Intervention Opportunities Among Students Attending Alternative High Schools: the Cities in Schools Project -- 26. Community Support Group Study -- 27. Evaluation of Group Counseling for HIV-Positive Drug Users -- 28. Evaluation of the Impact of HIV C&T on Methadone Clients in Drug Treatment Centers -- 29. Evaluation of Risk Among Injection Drug Users in Detoxification Treatment (Proyecto ERAT) -- 30. Hemophilia Behavioral Intervention Evaluation Projects (Adolescents) -- 31. Hemophilia Behavioral Intervention Evaluation Projects (Adults) -- 32. Peace Corps STD/HIV Intervention Design Project -- 33. The Prevention of HIV in Women and Infants Demonstration Projects (WIDP) -- 34. STD Clinic Flow and Utilization: -- 35. Women in Support Groups (WINGS) -- -- One-On-One Formative And Intervention Research -- 36. Development and Integration of Computer Assisted Assessment and Education with Computer Assisted Counseling/Testing -- 37. Behavioral Risks for HIV/STD and Birth Outcomes Among Pregnant Women Who Abuse Substances: Evidence From Intensive Outreach Through Project Prevent -- 38. Evaluation of Multi Media HIV Risk Assessment of Inner City African American Adolescent Women -- 39. Perinatal HIV Reduction and Education Activities (PHREDA) -- 40. Prenatal Care Utilization Project -- 41. Prevention of HIV Risk Behaviors Among Young Women: Using Community Resources to Explore Alternatives to Prostitution -- 42. Project Respect: MultiCenter Study of Enhanced Counseling versus Current Counseling for Prevention of HIV/STD -- 43. Evaluation of Factors, Including Perceived and Actual Risk, That Influence HIV-Testing Behaviors Among STD Clinic Clients
The Behavioral and Prevention Research Branch (BPRB) was formed in 1989 when the Division of STD/HIV Prevention was reorganized. Its principal goal was to create a foundation of behavioral and social science expertise within the National Center for Prevention Services and to foster interdisciplinary research approaches to all applied research in the Division and the Center as a whole. The multidisciplinary team of anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, epidemiologists, statisticians, demographers, analysts, and post doctoral fellows in collaboration with partners within and external to CDC generated a research agenda that will carry on to the year 2000. While the Branch's work attempted to find ways to change behaviors associated with the acquisition and transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections at the group, individual and community levels, the work also created a behavioral and social science environment of collegial and disciplined research that crossed numerous Centers and Divisions at the CDC as well as other Federal Agencies. Every year the Branch has published a compendium of research projects, publications, and work products. During this year of transition when the former Behavioral Prevention and Research Branch (BPRB) gives birth to a new Branch, the Behavioral Interventions and Research Branch (BIRB), this document will serve to once again share with our partners, within and external to CDC, those findings and opportunities resulting from the energy and enthusiasm of the Behavioral and Social Scientists in the National Center for Prevention Services. This manuscript is the final collective work of BPRB and is intended for use by our partners in research and service, by our sister agencies, and by our customers: the State and local health agencies and community based organizations which seek the most effective interventions and measures to reflect success in reducing morbidity and mortality associated with STD and HIV. These project summaries provide some answers to the questions of what we have learned and what works by focusing on the results and implications generated by the projects conducted between 1990 and 1995. Readers who are interested in the scientific methods and theories which produced the results are referred to BPRB's annual research summaries and the publications listed at the end of the project summaries in this manuscript. The results in this manuscript meet four criteria for inclusion. First, they are substantive, conceptual, or preliminary but not methodologic. Second, they are directly related to the purpose of the respective project. Third, they are statistically significant or described with caveats. Lastly, in the case of multi-site projects, they are common or similar in at least two sites. Occasionally, projects produced results that did not meet the above criteria but were of compelling interest. These results are placed under the heading of "other findings." The implications which are included are specific suggestions for the application of the results. Only those publications that are readily accessible to readers, such as journal articles and published meeting abstracts, are listed. Products are those materials produced, or planned to be produced, by or as a result of the project and which are, or will be, available to readers, such as videos, software, guidelines, curricula, and policy statements.
Prevention & Control
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome/Prevention & Control
HIV Infections/Prevention & Control
urn:sha256:69fe67b0a1e2a67ef270d326131012fdbf6686196e6b55151985e278df55805e
Implementation Of An Ergonomics Process At A US Surface Coal Mine
Torma-Krajewski, Janet; Steiner, Lisa; Lewis, Pauline; Gust, Paul; Johnson, Kean;
1. Analysis of Self-Reported Data from Women Attending 39 Pennsylvania Planned Parenthood Clinics -- 2. Analysis of 1988-1991 General Social Survey:Factors Associated with Sexual Risk Behavior -- 3. Analysis of Counseling and Testing Data, National H...
Pilot test of a cervical cancer prevention video developed for Alaska Native women.
Stillwater, B; Echavarria, V A; Lanier, A P;
1995 Mar-Apr
Public Health Rep. 110(2):211-214
Considerations In Training On-The-Job Trainers; Strategies For Improving Miners’ Training
Wiehagen, Bill; Conrad, Don; Friend, Tom; Rethi, Lynn;
Putting the controversy aside, how is the Data Bank doing?
Yessian, M R
1995 Jul-Aug
Use of simulation exercises for safety training in the U.S. mining industry
Cole, Henry P.; Mills, Belinda Sue; Vaught, C.; Wiehagen, William J.;
Pittsburgh Research Laboratory (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health)
Information circular (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) ; IC 9459
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Activities Report: Vector Control and Investigations Branch.
October-December 1951
[PDF-34.68 MB]
This document cannot be previewed automatically as it exceeds 5 MB
Please click the thumbnail image to view the document.
Communicable Disease Center (U.S.). Vector Control and Investigations Branch.
The Vector Control and Investigations Branch was officially organized on October 5, 1951, by order of the Medical Director in Charge. The components of the new Branch were formerly the Engineering and Entomology Branches and the plague studies and investigations in the West and Hawaii which were under the jurisdiction of the Laboratory Branch. The Branch is composed of the Office of the Chief and seven Sections.
Many of the trends and observations contained herein are of a preliminary nature and studies are continuing. Material in this report is not for publication or release in articles for publication without authorization.
General and adminstrative activities -- Fly control and investigations -- Malaria investigations -- Mosquito control and investigations -- Plague investigations -- Rodent control and investigations -- Thomasville Field Station -- Regional offices -- Water resources.
Federal Security Agency, Public Health Service, Communicable Disease Center, Atlanta, Georgia.
37 numbered pages
Disease Vectors
Insect Vectors
David J. Sencer CDC Museum
urn:sha256:26a8b007c71f334d6f027f6377fd5c779d62233c50238e5f04204d6fa4f9fa81
National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-Borne, and Enteric Diseases (CVH)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.). Management Analysis and Services Office.
MASO CDC organization ; CVH
The National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-Borne, and Enteric Diseases (NCZVED) maximizes public health and safety nationally and internationally through the elimination, prevention, and control of disease, disability, and death caused by suspected and...
National Center for Infectious Diseases (CVC)
MASO CDC organization ; CVC
Plans, directs, and coordinates a national program to improve the identification, investigations, diagnosis, prevention, and control of infectious diseases. In carrying out the mission, the Center: (1) provides leadership in investigation and diagnos...
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (CVL)
MASO CDC organization ; CVL
The National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID) works to prevent and control a broad range of infectious diseases through public leadership, partnerships, science, and systems. In carrying out these activities, NCEZID: (1) ...
Venezuelan equine encephalitis surveillance : zoonoses ; VEE summary for July 1983
Venezuelan equine encephalitis surveillance : zoonoses ; VEE summary ; July 1973
DHEW publication ; no. (CDC) 73-8254
No isolations of Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) virus have been reported from vertebrates in North America in the first 6 months of 1973. However, in January 1973, VEE virus was isolated from 1 pool of 50 Culiseta inornata mosquitoes in Xochimi...
Locally acquired mosquito-transmitted malaria; a guide for investigations in the United States
Filler, Scott J.; MacArthur, John R.; Parise, Monica; Wirtz, Robert; Eliades, M. James.; Dasilva, Alexandre; Steketee, Richard W.;
National Center for Infectious Diseases (U.S.). Division of Parasitic Diseases.. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.).
MMWR. Recommendations and reports : Morbidity and mortality weekly report. Recommendations and reports ; v. 55, no. RR-13
"Recent outbreaks of locally acquired mosquito-transmitted malaria in the United States demonstrate the continued risk for reintroduction of the disease. Since 1957, when CDC's Malaria Branch started conducting malaria surveillance, 63 outbreaks have...
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Stevie the Squirrel is Gay
They keep turning me down on grounds of taste, I think this one is more likely to convince them of my merit as a children’s author, and it also tackles important things in a child’s growth and emotional development. See what you think.
One Day when Stevie the Squirrel came into class he felt strange.
It all started when he saw Hagrid the phallic shaped wombat sat a few desks away from his.
He felt funny, but it was a nice sort of funny.
But he was probably looking at the wombat for too long, as people noticed.
When he was leaving school that afternoon, he was cornered by Lenny the Leopard, Carl the crow, and Randy the pit bull terrier that was bright purple and had a massive head for some reason.
“Stevie’s gay!!” shouted Lenny the Leopard “I saw him looking at that Wombat that looks like a willy!”
“So they started hitting Stevie very hard and whipping him with towels.
And then Randy the pit bull terrier jumped on Stevie and started hitting him with his abdomen.
And then Lenny the Leopard went wee wee on his face.
“Bet you homos love that!” said Lenny the Leopard, smiling.
Then the bullies went away and felt all funny about what they had just done.
Stevie sat there crying for a little bit.
Until Sandy the screamingly camp Pheasant came along.
“What is wrong little squirrel?” asked Sandy “were those bullies picking on you?”
“Sniff…they said I’m gay because I was looking at that wombat that looks like a willy” said Stevie “but I couldn’t help it”.
“Oh, its okay” said Sandy “if you’re gay, it doesn’t matter, don’t listen to them, lots of people are gay and its no big deal”
“Really?” sniffed Stevie.
“Of course not” said Sandy “now lets go to a leather bar, it’ll be lots of fun”.
So Stevie and Sandy went to a leather bar with Hortence the Nympho kitten and Billy the sadomasochistic badger with a leather fetish who liked to be tied up and whipped.
Yes, I only drew this because I thought a badger in a leather gimp suit would be funny.
Posted in Stuart's Children's StoriesTagged anthropomorphic, black humour, Book, bullies, bullying, Children's, comedy, coming out, dark, death, funny, gay, harsh, ill-advised, Kids, lgbt, outcast, Parody, psychotic, psycopathic, reject, school, sexual development, social, stories, story, SubversiveLeave a comment
Children’s Stories: The Puppy that Wouldn’t Share
As you may know by now, I’ve been writing kids’ books and sending them off to publishers in hope that I will become a recognized children’s author as it can’t be that hard to write for kids, you just need some cuddly animals, a cute nice little lesson some light idiotic humour. And I always try to be a bit more daring than a lot of kids’ books do, its just in the name of trying to make something kids will remember, I mean some of the shit they come out with nowadays to entertain kids is fucking atrocious. And I think that my books can be informative and entertaining for the current generation of kids. The publishers don’t see my point of view though. In fact the last guys I pitched to actually tried to have me arrested for suggesting kids be shown this stuff. Alright its a bit extreme….in fact its why I’ve given up writing children’s stories cause I just don’t see the big deal. I mean sure its a bit much for kids to take but…okay I’m just gonna shut up and show you the damn thing.
One morning best friends Charlotte the Cat and Alvin the Radioactive Green Mouse came into school and saw a new kid sat at the back of the classroom.
“Who’s that?” asked Alvin, pointing at the puppy sat looking very grumpy indeed.
“I don’t know”, said Charlotte. “Should we talk to him?”
But then Mr Moosey McMoose, the really stupid substitute teacher came in and they had to go and sit down instead.
“Um…you can do what you want and play this morning” said Mr Moosey Mcmoose “I don’t know what I’m meant to be doing this week so I’ll just sit down and drink my grown ups’ drink”.
So while Mr Moosey McMoose sat and drank his grown ups’ drink and counted the number of fingers he had, Charlotte and Alvin went over to the new kid to say hello.
“What’s your name?” asked Alvin as they reached his desk. “I’m Alivin and this is Charlotte” he said. That’s a nice orange choo choo train you have there”.
“Thanks” said the Puppy. “I’m Pauley” he said very quietly, he seemed annoyed about something.
“That’s a nice name” said Alvin. “I like your choo choo train, have you got any more? Then we could all play choo choo trains together”.
But Pauley looked like he didn’t like that idea at all.
“I don’t share!” he shouted. He stepped on Alvin and started hitting Charlotte, and Charlotte said ow lots and lots.
Once they got out of school that afternoon Alvin had an idea when they saw the nasty puppy going home.
“We should follow him home and get him back for picking on us in class” said Alvin.
“Um I don’t know Alvin, isn’t that wrong?” asked Charlotte.
“The punishment fits the crime” said Alvin. He was very determined.
Charlotte agreed and they followed the puppy to the bad neighbourhood where there were lots of mean looking people doing and saying bad things.
They went up to the window and spied what was going on inside.
They saw Pauley’s Mummy hitting him and Pauley was crying lots. She had lots of small dotty marks on her and there were lots of syringes in the room.
“Maybe she’s really sick and gets angry easily” said Charlotte.
“Hey look! The door has been left open” said Alvin. “Lets go in and make sure he’s okay. I’m sure he won’t mind”.
“Hey what’s that sound?” said Charlotte as they went inside. “It sounds like its coming from the basement”.
“I have a bad feeling about this” said Charlotte as they went downstairs.
“I’m sure it’s nothing bad” said Alvin as he pushed the door open when they reached the bottom.
But they were shocked at what they found.
They found a torture chamber completely filled with dead bodies except a ferret that had been stabbed and wasn’t quite dead yet and was screaming in agony.
“Help me” the ferret screamed “its all hurty and I want my mummy!” But Charlotte and Alvin couldn’t move because they felt really sick.
There was a sheep that had been nailed to the wall. It’s eyes and mouth were pinned open in a silent scream.
And there was a giraffe that had had its guts torn out.
And there was a penguin who had been shot and had it’s blood smeared into the words I am chaos across the wall.
Alvin and Charlotte got so scared that they ran away.
They couldn’t cope with the maddening things they saw.
And so they led bad lives and became hookers and smack dealers.
The End!!
….yeah, I think I may have gone a bit toooooo far with this one….
Posted in Stuart's Children's StoriesTagged anthropomorphic, black humour, Book, bullies, bullying, Children's, comedy, dark, death, funny, harsh, high school massacre, ill-advised, Kids, killing, outcast, Parody, psychopath, psychotic, psycopathic, reject, school, social, stories, story, SubversiveLeave a comment
Children’s Stories: Sally the Snake Deals With Some Bullies
Well, a few months gone by and continuous growth of my pile of rejection letters. Why, why can I not make it in the world of children’s publishing? I seriously don’t know what I’m doing wrong, I thought Wilfred the wolf and the teenage pregnancy was a shoe-in, but no apparently there are questions regarding taste.
Anyway, keeping with the idea to deal with issues relevant to children, I was inspired this year to write a children’s book about bullying after N-dubz were dropped from a governmental bullying campaign. Honestly, I would make a perfect representative for anti-bullying among kids, and now I’ve got the material to back it up. See what you think
It was sally the snake’s first day at school and she was really excited.
But as they were getting to school, Sally’s parents had something to say that made her feel funny.
“Now sweetheart” said Daddy snake “You be careful! Some kids don’t like us snakes, don’t let anyone push you around”
“…um, okay”, said Sally, feeling nervous now.
She went in excited though and found her seat in her brand new classroom.
“What are you meant to be?” asked Helen the horse “You don’t even have any limbs”.
“I bet she’s really stupid too” said Otis the owl. “My mummy and daddy say I could be a famous scientist. I bet she couldn’t even serve MacDonald’s since she’s so slimy”.
“Now now class, settle down” said Mr talking banana type thing as he came in. “Lets begin” he said.
But Sally was running from the room crying her eyes out and Mr talking banana type thing didn’t even notice.
She sat in the toilet crying for hours and didn’t want to go back to class because she didn’t have any hands to dry her eyes.
When she had finished crying, sally went out to break but she was caught by those bullies when she came out.
“There she is” said Otis “the weirdo, lets get her”.
Fred the ferret pushed Sally’s face in the mud.
She was very upset and started crying when Otis the owl started pecking her head.
“Crybaby!!” shouted Helen the horse.
Sally was very unhappy when Daddy snake picked her up from school later but she didn’t want to tell him about the bullies as she was too upset.
Sally sat in bed that night thinking about how she could deal with the bullies. She knew what she would do tomorrow.
The next day she headed to the woodwork classroom.
“Hey, wonder where that weirdo is,” said Otis the owl as class was about to start when all of a sudden, Sally came in.
She had a chainsaw in her mouth and looked all cross.
“…um…what is she doing with that?” asked Otis, but it was too late.
Sally was already busy taking care of Helen the bitchy horse.
Sally slithered over Helen’s corpse happily.
“This is fun” said Sally as she took care of Otis
and Fred the ferret.
But Derrick the cute innocent little duckling accidentally got killed in the confusion when sally dropped her chainsaw.
Sally was shocked at what she had done.
And she spent the rest of her life going mad in prison.
The End!!!
seriously, this is getting ridiculous, why does no one want to publish me?
Posted in Stuart's Children's StoriesTagged anthropomorphic, black humour, Book, bullies, bullying, Children's, comedy, dark, death, funny, harsh, high school massacre, ill-advised, Kids, killing, Parody, psychopath, psychotic, school, stories, story, SubversiveLeave a comment
Children’s Stories: Wilfred the Wolf and the Teenage Pregnancy
Well those of you still interested in my quest to get a kid’s book published ought to know that the last one I was actually commissioned to do got turned down. They actually bloody asked me to do a pamphlet on the life cycle of the bedbug to put kid’s minds at ease and they didn’t like it. Apparently it wasn’t entirely factually correct, how do they know that? What sort of sad bastard actually studies bedbugs? Jesus Christ.
Anyway, in the mean time, with the news that plans are being implemented for kids as young as five to be taught sex education for some strange reason I thought I’d be the first to get on the bandwagon. I’ve sent this off to “parenting advice, education and development organisation” or “PAEDO” for short, and I’m kind of regretting it. They may turn me down again, just look at this story and tell me whether you think I’ve got a shot at getting this published.
Wilfred the wolf came into school on Monday and sat with his new girlfriend Chardonnay the slutty mongoose.
“Today” said Mr Talking Banana type thing “We’re going to learn about sex education”
But Wilfred wasn’t paying attention, he was too busy feeling up his girlfriend’s boobies under the table.
So Wilfred wasn’t listening when Mr banana type thing was explaining about the condom, the most important invention since the wheel.
After school; Wilfred and Chardonnay decided to go back to hers since her parents weren’t home.
Wilfred and Chardonnay said that they loved each other so much they would get in the same bed together and so they did.
And then they did something.
Wilfred didn’t call Chardonnay and avoided her at school for a week afterwards for some reason. He just played video games and boasted to his friends. Until one day…
…the phone rang and Wilfred went to answer it
“Hello?” said Wilfred.
“Hello” said chardonnay “You’ll never believe this but..I’m pregnant”
Wilfred didn’t know what to say.
He then got really sad and started drinking a drink that made him all cross.
And he cried himself to sleep every night.
Chardonnay went to Petey the penguin at the abortion clinic and had an abortion since she didn’t think she could raise a child with Wilfred.
But she ended up getting so unhappy that she hung herself.
Trying to cope with the pain, Wilfred turned to drug abuse to forget.
but then he overdosed and died.
Posted in Stuart's Children's StoriesTagged abortion, anthropomorphic, bedbugs, black humour, Book, Children's, comedy, dark, funny, harsh, Kids, Parody, sex education, stories, story, Subversive, teenage pregnancy, violent, youngLeave a comment
Children’s Stories: The Life Cycle of The Bedbug
Well those of you who are following my efforts to get a kid’s book published should know that my last attempt which I called “The crow made out of feet” was sent off to a publisher….it came back with some extensive notes about it, particularly the ending. They were quite foul-mouthed for a kid’s books publisher. Anyway, you’re in luck though because I have actually been comissioned to write a book informing kids the real facts about bedbugs. We all know the rhyme “night night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite” well that’s apprantly been traumatising kids over the years which means they stay up all night screaming about something or other. So to set kid’s minds at rest, here is a Stuart guide to the life cycle of the bedbug
One night Henry the top hat wearing hippopotamus was putting his son Harold to bed.
“Night, night” said Henry “sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite”.
“I won’t Daddy” said Harold and he slowly drifted off to sleep.
But little did Harold know that the bedbugs had started burrowing inside his flesh the second he got into bed.
They got inside his skin using a specially made flesh drill.
They lived inside Harold, laid their eggs and grew steadily in number.
Then one of the bedbugs found his heart and decided to tuck in.
Eating Harold’s heart made the bedbug grow big and strong.
Harold woke up in the morning and felt strange. His sides started hurting.
Then all of a sudden the tentacles of the bedbug growing inside of him started to burst out.
He tried to go to his parents for help but he was still changing.
Even by the time he reached his mummy and daddy’s room the bedbug was still growing and had begun to split his ribcage open.
“Ahh, its horrible” cried Hermione, Harold’s mother “Kill it!”
“Leave it to me” said Henry and drew his gun.
Henry fired at the monster.
So Harold the hideous bed-bug-hippopotamus mutant freak thing died; all because he had let the bedbugs bite.
What? Why are you looking at me like that?
…………….alright I’ve been inside doing revision all day and I’ve gone a bit weird, okay? That’s why.
Posted in Stuart's Children's StoriesTagged anthropomorphic, bedbugs, black humour, Book, Children's, comedy, dark, hippo, Kids, Parody, sleep tight, stories, story, Subversive, violentLeave a comment
Children’s Stories: The Crow Made Out of Feet
Some of you may remember my attempt at writing a kid’s book entitled “Vernon the Giraffe and the war on drugs”. Well since then I’ve been to a publisher and asked about possible publication….that was a very animated discussion that was, the words “satanic” and “sick weirdo” came up at least three times….bastards.
So unfortunately for now there is no market for Vernon the Giraffe and the war on drugs or its planned but never written sequel “Vernon the Giraffe and the Teenage Pregnancy” or the third instalment “Vernon the Giraffe’s adventures in a US military prison in the middle east”.
So not letting this get me down I went away and started to formulate plans for another book. I thought I was probably focusing too much upon the educational messages (that and it was mostly political and I realized how much I dislike people trying to push their views on kids) So this is a neutral and non-impressionable book that’s just about the characters and plot. So here I present:
Once upon a time there was a crow made out of feet. He was a happy crow and did not mind his smell.
But his brothers did mind the smell, they minded as much as a crow could mind a smell.
So one of them thought of a plan to get rid of the crow made out of feet.
So one day when the crow made out of feet was sat on the park bench cooing away, one of his brothers came over to him in tears.
“What is wrong?” asked the crow made out of feet?
“Sniff…there is a man in the park with a gun, he has slain my family. I would stand up to him but I’m so scared” said the crow.
The crow made out of feet decided to go and have a stern talk with the man with the gun.
But when he got to the place he heard the man was he found that there was no one there.
The crow made out of feet was about to leave when all of a sudden.
His brothers came rushing at him with axes,
they started hitting him quite hard and the crow made out of feet said “ow” lots.
One of the axes split his head open.
Then his brothers went wee-wee on his corpse.
The crow that was made out of feet was dead and would smell no more.
what? Don’t look at me like that!!!
So does anyone think any publisher will buy the rights to this?
Posted in Stuart's Children's StoriesTagged anthropomorphic, bedtime, black humour, children's stories, comedy, crow, dark, ParodyLeave a comment
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Home News Iran claims arrests in Ukrainian plane downing, will send black boxes to...
Iran claims arrests in Ukrainian plane downing, will send black boxes to France | KyivPost
The Iranian government claims it has made several arrests in the downing of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752.
Gholamhossein Esmaili, a spokesperson for the Iranian judiciary, announced the arrests without providing further details, the Reuters news agency reported.
Esmaili also said that Iran would send the plane’s black boxes to France for analysis. A day earlier, on Jan. 13, Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told Reuters that a senior Iranian investigator would visit Ukraine in the coming days to determine whether a local laboratory was suitable for analyzing the black boxes.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that his country would form a special court to investigate the plane’s downing, according to the Iranian ILNA agency.
The announcements came just days after Iran admitted that its forces had accidentally shot down the civilian airliner, which Rouhani termed a “great tragedy” and “unforgivable mistake.”
The Iranian leader promised to identify and prosecute the guilty parties.
Read more: Zelensky seeks justice after Iran apologizes for shooting down Ukrainian plane
On Jan. 8, Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 took off from Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran. Several minutes later, it crashed roughly 20 kilometers north of the capital, killing all 176 people on board. Initially, Iran blamed the crash on engine issues on the plane.
In the wake of the crash, Ukraine dispatched 45 specialists and other government officials to Tehran to take part in the Iranian investigation. Ukrainian investigators quickly came to understand that the plane had been shot down, but refrained from publicizing this information to avoid antagonizing Iran, the Washington Post reported.
However, over the next two days, evidence began to mount that Iran was responsible for the crash.
On Jan. 9, several Western media reported that intelligence from multiple countries indicated that an Iranian missile had downed the airliner. Soon, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that both Canadian and allied intelligence indicated that Iran had shot down the plane.
On Jan. 11, Iran admitted as much.
Read more: How Ukrainian plane crash went from ‘engine failure’ to ‘Iranian attack’
On Jan. 14, Ukrainian rescuers finished their work on the ground in Tehran. A search and rescue team, interior ministry experts and National Police investigators returned home from Tehran, the State Emergency Situations Service announced.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for the bodies of the 11 Ukrainian victims of the crash — nine crew members and two passengers — to be repatriated by Jan. 19.
Read more: Who were the 11 Ukrainians killed in Iran plane crash?
“I insist on immediately completing identification of the bodies and their return to Ukraine,” he wrote on Twitter on Jan. 11 after speaking with Rouhani. “The perpetrators must be held accountable.”
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#FinnAtkins
To Walk Invisible ; Finally In Plain Sight.
July 9, 2017 Masterpiece, Specials#Brontesisters, #FinnAtkins, #HappyValley, #LastTangoInHalifax, #ToWalkInvisible, CharlieMurphy, ChloePirrie, SallyWainrightRioraBenEphraim Leave a comment
This month I discuss the tour de force that is To Walk Invisible, the television special from Masterpiece PBS. It’s a hard-yet-passionate look into the truth behind the vague and whispered stories about the enigmatic Brontë sisters who lived on the bleak, windy moors of Yorkshire.
The three sisters, Charlotte (Finn Atkins), Emily (Chloe Pirrie), and Anne (Charlie Murphy), who wrote, among other novels and poems, Jane Eyre (Charlotte) and Wuthering Heights (Emily) and became one of the most important literary voices in history. had to initially write under men’s names in order to have any chance at publication. They had to “walk invisible.” Obviously, there is a far deeper wound implied here, felt by all women who have had to walk invisible through history despite their groundreaking, astonishing talents and achievements. This particular gem was written and directed by the wildly talented Sally Wainright (Last Tango in Halifax) which makes it even more significant; she has advanced remarkably in a field in which women have had an uphill struggle to be recognized. It is a new level of television – artistically, ethically, and technologically. This one will haunt you for a while.
The sisters live with their poor, frail curate of a father (Jonathan Pryce) – a good man, but terribly worn down – and a weak, narcissistic addict of a brother (Adam Nagaitais), watching their father aging rapidly and their brother toppling towards rock bottom. Survival instinct has no gender, and they had to find a way to endure in a world in which women were chattel. If you were unmarried by your mid-twenties, you were generally out of luck, and without a family fortune, your prospects for the future looked dim indeed. Highly intellectual, intense girls from poor families, with no traditional good looks to speak of, undomesticated, incomprehensible to many, Emily and Charlotte weren’t big catches, and I don’t think they wanted to be caught and separated.
Charlotte (Finn Atkins) who is ambitious and refuses to be infantilized, knows that the girls’ writing has merit. They have written since they remember themselves. But she isn’t sanguine about their future as writers until she breaks into Emily’s jealously-guarded secrets. Emily was always intensely private and when Charlotte finds her poems, she is incandescent from the betrayal. Nonetheless, Charlotte opened the door to a future that we would be far poorer without.
The poems, voiced by Emily (Chloe Pirrie), are dizzying; the sweeping words, pounding like hoofbeats, amaze Charlotte, and she is almost physically overtaken. That reaction, in that small space, makes it grander still, because it cannot reign in the words with the raw power of Emily’s. She tries to convince Emily that they could try to publish them, and Emily furiously scoffs at her “grubby little publishing plans.”
The abuse Branwell heaps upon his father is unbearable. He tortures money out of him to go down to the pub, and the women watch as he slowly wears the father down, badly fraying his will to live. There is a moment of levity when Anne says “I think we should tell Papa about Jane Eyre.” But Papa dismisses Charlotte’s work, as usual, saying he would be interested in her scribblings if the letters weren’t so tiny. When she shows him the published books, he is amazed when she tells him her pen name, Currer Bell. The day after Charlotte barely escapes Emily’s wrath, Emily stops outside the paper shop and says “If we’re going to be writing novels, we’ll need more paper.” This from the woman who had already written Wuthering Heights by the time she was twenty-five.
Not only do they have to deal with the merciless world of publishing, they have the added difficulty of having to commit federal crimes just to get their mail from publishers or be able to publish at all. “When a man writes, it’s his work he’s judged for. When a woman writes, it’s herself she’s judged for,” says Emily, with a barely-controlled rage. This is necessary practicality, which, ironically would be the last thing three highly-strung females would be known for in 1842. This paradox is left up to the viewer to understand, and Ms. Wainright doesn’t feel the need to engage us with clunky character exposition, plot devices or cliches, like neighbors’ opinions or village gossip about them. Their single status is never mentioned; it is just taken for granted. One can put together the pieces of their probable journey to spinsterhood.
The acting is phenomenal, especially from the tiny and powerful Finn Atkins as Charlotte, Chloe Pirrie as Emily, and Adam Nagaitis as Branwell. Chloe Pirrie, in an interview, said that Sally Wainright trusted her actors, which is rare. She also describes the intense experience of working on this project and how much she learned from it. She knew almost nothing about Emily coming in. Now, she has a profound bond with her. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/podcasts/getting-inside-the-mind-of-emily-bronte/
Ms. Wainright is a pilgrim in many ways. I think more and more in television, showrunners are entrusting actors with their words and message, as dialogue can get sparse and minimalist with no loss of clarity. The visual connections we have to the scene and characters’ faces, with every expression etched in sharp, crystal HD and a level of lighting artistry that adds form to the content that can not only support the drama but heighten it to levels that only a perfect marriage of the two can create. I will argue this point even more so in television than in film, as the form can be restrictive and can easily fall into the formulaic.
Television is new again, a limitless, visceral stripper bursting out of a stale cake. This profoundly fleshed-out level of visual and emotional reality leaves little room for the actors to do anything but commit utterly to their decisions and interpretations. Nothing can compare with a perfect moment between actors that conveys all, but says nothing. An entire story can be told with a smear of blood on someone’s lip.
A perfect example is a short but powerful scene between Branwell and Emily, when he comes home utterly drunk. Instead of ripping him apart, she shares a perfect moment with him sitting on the wooden gate with their heads together, the desperate, strained loyalty and love obvious in Emily, and the complete self-loathing, especially poignant in Branwell when he sees himself through Emily’s eyes. They bay at the moon together along with the dogs, a ritual that feels like it has been there since childhood. Since always.
The other powerful intimate scene between reclusive guarded Emily and warm, grounded Anne uses Emily Brontë’s real words as they sit, Anne leaning against Emily. Emily shares her poem with Anne. The extreme difficulty she encounters trying to say it out loud, so much like her poems in the drawer, made me wince and cry and laugh at the raw vulnerability of bringing someone your creation, a chrysalis of your soul, and awaiting their judgment. It’s even harder because the poem is for Anne in Emily’s heart. She starts hesitatingly and then the words, the rhythms pound; like the winds on the rocks and the grasses, opening up and rising, utterly unbridled by the boundaries of language. She recites “No Coward Soul Is Mine” the line “Oh God, within my breast” soars and brings the viewer closer to the divine in nature in a way never done before on television. Mixing poetry and the visual is tricky, but when done well, few things are more powerful.
The moment that for me, embodied the message of this film: Charlotte’s validation and success give her the strength to become the person she knows she is, but could not be under Branwell’s shadow and his spattered fury about not becoming a writer. The most important moment consists of fourteen words. When Charlotte’s name is impugned due to a corrupt American publisher who is tying her and Anne’s pen names into a shady deal, she is horrified by what it will mean about her as a person, as an artist, and them as a family if she does not show herself as she is to her publishers and keeps her good name. She does the almost unthinkable, and travels with Anne seventeen hours in a carriage to see Mr. Smith, ”Currer Bell’s” publisher, to explain that Ellis (Emily), Acton (Anne), and Currer Bell were three separate people, no, three separate women, of moral character and strength of convictions. When Mr. Smith is unsurprisingly astonished and insists she can’t be Currer Bell, she asks him “And what makes you doubt that, Mr. Smith? My accent? My gender? My size?” The power in the way this line is delivered and filmed, directly and relentlessly on Charlotte’s face, is a balm to the heart of every overlooked, patronized, talented woman and also a reminder of the dagger in the gut, reminding us that our size, our outer being will always define us, no matter how much we want to pretend we have come such a long way, especially woman of size, who have always been treated like third or fourth class citizens.
This is not a Hollywood movie about three plucky sisters overcoming adversity and living happily forevermore. This is a real and gutting struggle against poverty, abuse, addiction, oppression, and illness. These are not three models in period dress, wide-eyed and melodramatic. These are mistresses of their craft. Finn Atkins is 4′ 9” and plump. Chloe Pirrie is glorious, strong, powerful, vital, but in no way traditionally pretty. Charlie Murphy is nice looking, but it’s beside the point. Branwell, played by Adam Nagaitis, is no looker – skinny, red-headed and awkward, but he had a scene which should land him twenty awards. There are awards for streaming TV now, so I don’t think it will take long. Branwell (Nagaitis) stands in an oppressive, dim stairwell where he burns like a naked flame of true pain. The gorgeous cinematography, lighting every streak in his ginger hair, HD etching out every line of his shockingly vulnerable despair. Few television films have gone this deep.
I could take this work apart for a long time, and practicality is also of an essence, as it was to our girls, notwithstanding their brilliant, luminescent minds. Lack of such was, in fact, the reason for so much of the sad fragility of their lives, their poor devout father, their raging fantasist of a brother. Writing was their way out, but also their way in, their way to touch the world, not to just pass invisible through it. To have a Heathcliff, a Mr. Rochester, even an Edmund. Their real lives, so narrow, so suffocated, did not stop their voices from becoming an eternal echo thrown into the winds of the moor. A heartbreaking arc of what was, and what could have been, resonating in all who have encountered their work. With To Walk Invisible, people may be introduced to their work after seeing their lives, and have a different perspective from those of us whose questions and love were a quiet, little-known place.
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HomeBoard - USA / Can. Board Privately Held Companies Senté Labs appoints Laurent Combredet as CEO
Senté Labs appoints Laurent Combredet as CEO
February 9, 2016 By Talent4Boards Team Comments are Off Board - USA / Can., Board Privately Held Companies
– USA, CA – SENTÉ, a privately held specialty aesthetics company pioneering the development of differentiated medical grade skincare products based on the science of glycosaminoglycans, today announced the appointment of Laurent Combredet as President and Chief Executive Officer.
“Laurent is a well respected and strategic leader in the aesthetics dermatology field and we are excited to leverage his leadership and experience to help take the company to the next level,” said Faheem Hasnain, Chairman of the Board of Directors of SENTÉ. “Laurent is a tremendous addition to SENTÉ and I look forward to his strategic insight as we further position the company to be a major contender in the aesthetics industry.”
Mr. Combredet brings to SENTÉ nearly 20 years of commercial, operations and management experience in the dermatology and consumer products industry. Most recently, Mr. Combredet was General Manager at Allergan, Medical Dermatology and Skin Care Division (including the Skinmedica line of products), where he was responsible for the management of a $700M medical grade skin care business including international operations. Previous to Allergan, Mr. Combredet was Senior Category Leader, Health and Beauty for Amazon France where he held general management positions and full P&L ownership. Mr. Combredet has also held senior commercial and marketing roles with Johnson & Johnson, Neutrogena, Gap and Clairol. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from George Washington University and a Masters of Business Administration from Columbia Business School.
“I am thrilled and honored to be joining SENTÉ, a company with deep experience in biotechnology that is pioneering innovative science-based skin care products with proven patient benefits,” said Mr. Combredet, President and Chief Executive Officer of SENTÉ.
About SENTÉ
SENTÉ is a privately held specialty aesthetics company leveraging its expertise and foundation in biotechnology to deliver novel, science-based skin care products. SENTÉ is a recognized leader in the development of innovative and targeted medical skincare products based on glycosaminoglycans. Founded in 2007 and based in San Diego, California.
Sente appoints Mireille Gillings to Board of Directors
SENTÉ appoints Philippe Schaison to its Board of Directors
PayU appoints Laurent Le Moal as new CEO
Talent4Boards Team
here the original post =>
Tribal Group welcomes Nigel Halkes to its Board as Non-Executive Director
F-star
Raven Industries
Philips Lightning
GenieBelt
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Another Year Slips Away...
Well, here we are again and all too soon it seems since this time last year. As appears to be the 'done thing' here in the blogosphere I suppose I ought to try and sum up my experiences of 2013, although why anyone would really be interested evades me somewhat to say the least.
As I consider myself mainly a wargamer who paints, rather than a figure painter who wargames, and there is a significant difference I think, I shall begin proceedings with a summary of the games we've played this year. Looking over my notes I see I've played a total of 65 games during 2013, a very respectable total in my opinion. Of these I won 29, drew 6 and lost 32 and so I'm clearly heading for midtable mediocrity amongst the gaming community! Rather apt as I'm a long term season ticket holder at Walsall! New games have included Battlegroup Kursk which I've played both at Phil's and with Jon at the Midlands Wargames Centre in Stafford. While I've enjoyed the games, and done quite well in them, I still prefer Rapid Fire! myself. I've also dipped my toe into the Back of Beyond, in the shape of 1920's pulp type games using Setting the East Ablaze, which I first encountered at Phil's but for which I now have my own force {see Tales From Rhanzlistan in the side bar links}. Throughout the year we've dabbled in no end of rule sets and periods between ourselves, from the Ancient World using Hail Caesar, to the Vietnam War using free wargames rules from the web, to Alternative WWII in the shape of Operation Zelowe, Blandings Castle and 1946 and beyond! In all this, my perennial favourite remains the ACW, so its fitting that I should introduce you to the final figures I painted this year, a Confederate command base featuring Jubal E Bykleigh and a few enthusiastic supporters!
Old Jubal was my Christmas gift from Matt and his family, following on from my Birthday gift of a stout Union General, Useless S Bykleigh in May ~ who figures on the heading of the site by the way. Matt sculpted my head and had some cast up. In this case its added to a Redoubt body and mounted on a Dixon horse to fit in with my collection. The two enthusiastic Rebs are from Dixon of course. Thankfully, Jubal is based on a younger and slimmer version of myself this time. Matt remembered my Mexican 'tache which I sported for several years in my post beard phase, hence the slightly sinister look!
As we are on the subject of painting, its probably apt to look at my output this year now. My notes show that I painted some 603 28mm figures during the year. They will have been in any number of period interests, most notably the whole of the Rhanzlistan Field Force and of late the start of my 2014 project, the Wars of the French Revolution, which I mentioned and previewed in an earlier post! Now, if you have been following this closely, you'll recall that I described myself as a wargamer who paints and not a figure painter who games. I do believe that there is a fundamental difference between the two. The former, amongst whom I proud to stand, make up in my view the vast bulk of our hobby, although the magazines and Forum Boards are often peopled more by the latter, for whom I once coined the rather strong label 'Painting Facists'. By that I meant to convey that I felt the painting of the figures was becoming an end in itself and that folk, or some of them at least, had lost sight of the fact that the hobby is called wargaming and that we are all united, despite our different interests, approaches and scales, as wargamers! The little lead folk have no life beyond that which we give them over our table top battlefields. Of course, that does n't mean that we should spray one side red and the other blue, unless we want to of course, but we do well to remember the 3' rule: we see the figures on the tabletop battlefield, not blown up as photos on the web or in a magazine or rulebook. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I feel ever more strongly with each passing year that the object is to game with like minded chums; to have fun and enjoy the social interaction a game brings; not to lead a semi monastic existence, hunched over the painting table like some monk of old carefully illuminating a manuscript for weeks on end, labouring over a single figure.
Another series of events has coloured 2013 for me, though rather less pleasantly than the games I've played, the folk I've met and the places I've visited. I'm referring to my experiences where I was subjected to what I considered to be a form of cyber bullying simply because I asked a few folk to think for themselves about something before mouthing off to all and sundry. I've said before I'm sure that the net should be a wonderful source of inspiration and information for our hobby, and of course it generally is, but sadly it seems to have attracted a small number of socially inadequate folk who have no concept of good manners or of proper behaviour, encouraged as they are to hide behind tags which give them anonymity. Terry Wise once told me that every hobby attracts such fringe elements: sadly the net has given them a voice far beyond their import and a malign influence far out of proportion to their number. My only New Year Resolution is to ignore such elements in our fine hobby entirely!
Looking forward with enthusiasm now to 2014 and all I hope it will bring us all. I have started a new period, despite vowing this time last year never to do it again. I've already painted 12 French Infantry and 3 French Dragoons as a start, with a further 4 infantry and 1 Dragoon underway on the painting table. These are from Trent Miniatures for my Wars of the French Revolution project. I hope to show the first units to you early in January, so pop back from time to time. In the pending tray, already undercoated and ready to go, I've also got two ACW infantry units from Dixon, some Saxons for my Late Roman armies together with three more Late Roman generals, all from Foundry. 2014 looks like it will be busy on the painting front, DV! I also look forward to more work on my Great Detective project, though that's in the pending tray as I'm waiting for the final buildings to be delivered still. Lots to do, lots to look forward to, and that's not even thinking about the new and shiny which will come along to tempt us all...
So, out with 2013, in with 2014, and A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!
Labels: Reflections, Updates
I was lucky enough to have my whole family with me for Christmas this year, making the holiday a real joy from start to finish! I was also lucky enough to receive several wargames related presents this year. From Sue, my wife, I got a battery of Trent Miniatures 28mm French Revolutionary Wars Horse Artillery to add to my growing 2014 project. From Matt, my son, I got the second of my unique 'Personality' figures, a second ACW General; this time a Confederate, Jubal E Bykleigh! More on both of these gifts as they are painted in the coming weeks. From Ruth, my daughter, I got the new Private Eye History in Cartoons which has had me chuckling steadily since I opened it on the Day!
Finally, from my wargaming chums in the GHQ Irregulars I got a fine 28mm German Officer for our 1940 Zeelowe games from Jon and a mystery 'Red Cross' parcel from Phil ~
It contained three wonderful additions to my collection in the shape of a fully assembled and painted 1/48th scale kit of an Airco A10 with its own unique landscaped flight stand. It will do duty in our developing Great War games and also see action in Rhanzlistan I am sure.
And lurking amongst the packaging was a very pleasant surprise in the form of a painted and based Staff Car for the 1914 games next year!
It will need some base work to match my collection and the rear passenger needs some work ~ I painted these earlier in the month for another project but they fit the car so well. But, I'm sure you will agree, a really spiffing set of hobby related gifts to mark Christmas 2013! A final picture of my only win this month, a Wings of War game with Phil: Captain Bicclesworth downs the Hun ace, von Rhobinsaan, the Pink Baron ~
Labels: General, Updates
Turning the Tide...
...or not! A brief photo montage report of a recent Rapid Fire!2 game here in GHQ between Jon and myself. As is usual by now, Jon took command of the British forces while I commanded the Germans. The game is set in July 1944 and sees a retreating German force attempting to stave off an overwhelming Allied assault as it covers the main body's retreat. The game was played down the length of the table and was set at ten moves. After Turn 3 the Allies' plane can arrive on the table, while after turn 5 the Germans can try to mobilise a counter attack ~ their initial force consisting of two Stugs, an 88mm Anti Aircraft gun in anti tank mode, and one Company of Infantry with an 80mm mortar and MMG support. {The small delaying force faces overwhelming odds in its task but can call on off table artillery strikes on two predetermined coordinates at the German player's will, assuming he can make radio contact that is!}
The table in Turn 3. The 88mm has knocked out one armoured car, while one of the Stugs has failed to hit its target. {The plane is not yet in action}
As you can see in the first picture, the Germans are withdrawing to the second defencive line in order to preserve their small forces integrity and effectiveness. As the Allied force does n't know that it enjoys overwhelming superiority on the table the lines of hedges and he ruined buildings in their mind can become strong defencive positions to be approached with caution.
The first Stug and the 88mm withdraw through the ruins of the town to avoid the oncoming barrage of fire and the predeclared aircraft attack.
The Allies' 25ld battery lays down fire on the ruins, just after the Germans withdrew their force there!
The Stug and the 88 struggle to move to their second position and are in danger of being caught in the open!
The Allies' Churchill tanks bear down on the lone Stug!
The Germans struggle to deploy the 88 to support the unequal struggle of the lone Stug and are bombed by the Allied aircraft!
A second Stug, until now without a target, comes into action from the German right flank and takes out an Allied Churchill!
Finally, at the third attempt, the 88 is destroyed in a bombing run by Pilot Officer Whyte DFC & Bar!
Now, at this point, you may be asking yourself what happened to the German's Counter Attack, as well you might. Three Panzer IVs were available to attack across the Allied line of advance from Turn 5 on a throw of 5 or 6 on a D6. My best effort in five turns was a 2! So, no Counter Attack materialised and when my force's Morale broke the force was in headlong retreat in Turn 9!
The game reminded us both of how much we enjoy Rapid Fire! as a wargame's system for fast and furious WWII games here in GHQ. While its true that I've enjoyed in recent months several games of Battlegroup Kursk with Phil and Jon on tables large and small, I do feel more comfortable here in GHQ with Rapid Fire! for my games. I've bought a copy of Battlegroup Overlord and I expect we'll try it out here in 2014 in due course, but I think it will struggle in my mind to supplant the system I've grown so used to over the years.
It only remains now to wish my loyal reader, where ever he or she may be
A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND A PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!
Labels: Games, WWII
"The British are coming!"
Earlier this week Phil and I managed to arrange for a day's gaming here in GHQ. We decided to give the 'Maurice' rule set by Sam Mustafa another tryout, as our first effort had been somewhat confusing as we only had the 'lite' rules at the time, and set the game in the AWI. I had n't really warmed to the rules myself, but Phil was keen to give them a go so who was I to refuse?
The table layout for the game. Phil chose to defend as the Rebels and I was to attack as the British and Loyalist force. My objective was marked by the 'outdoor facility' gracing the main farmstead!
George Washington Robinson had drawn his forces up with his right and centre covered by his infantry, while his left consisted of his cavalry and the Continental artillery battery ~
As my objective lay towards my army's left flank, I decided to attack directly towards it with four infantry units, while deploying only two in my centre and my artillery battery and cavalry on my right ~
After an initial failure on my Right, the cavalry regrouped and drove off their Rebel counterparts ~
In the meantime, my main attack snarled up in a firefight which lasted for several turns ~
But unfortunately for my cause, Disruption markers were building up and attempts at Rallying them off were a dismal failure ~
To relieve the pressure on my left I advanced the weaker centre force hoping to flank his strong defence while my cavalry turned behind his artillery to take his centre in the flank ~
In the centre I managed to overrun his C-in-C! Phil threw the dice and the score resulted in his capture! Hurrah! I got all of his cards as a result, to add to my paltry two at the time. Things are looking up for King George's cause! Here you can see the moment George Washington Robinson was marched away into captivity as 'Gentleman Johnny Bykleigh' surveys the battlefield and notes his army's progress ~
Decisively on the left my infantry suddenly broke under heavy fire, while on my left appalling dice throws resulted in my cavalry failing to beat the flanked infantry!!! My Army Morale reached zero and the remnants quit the field. A victory for the Rebel cause snatched from the very jaws of defeat! A hard end to swallow to an excellent and closely contested game.
Our game lasted some three hours and drew to a conclusion when only two cards remained to be drawn from the pack. I've no idea how many turns were involved though. I have to say that despite my sad loss, I actually enjoyed the game far more this time around. Having a rule book each and the time to consult when we were unsure definitely helped us understand the flow of the game and the nuances of the rules.
The game is demanding in that it causes you to consider all your options, opportunities, and difficulties, continually, rather than in a more conventionally structured game where one side activates any or all or its forces, followed by the other side repeating the sequence. In a sense there is a more realistic sense of time passing as you 'visit' an area of the battle at a certain moment in time, rather than sense it all happening at once. I've never been entirely won over by the notion that a move in a game represents a certain amount of elapsed real time and here Mustafa seems to have addressed and solved the problem rather neatly.
Of course, some will not like the way the game is structured, being used to the I Go - You Go game which most sets follow and I have heard others describe the game more as a card game than a wargame. I'm won over I think at the moment by the way a story seemed to unfold in the game which was believable to both of us, even if seem from different perspectives. Crucially neither of us proved successful at Rallying off mounting Disruption points and at a crucial moment Phil's firing dice became overwhelmingly successful causing me to loose three units in a thrice!
We have decided to give the rules an extended trial in 2014 by playing out an AWI campaign using them. Look out for further battle reports over the coming year!
Labels: AWI, Games, Reflections
Battle for the Empire
A while ago Jon and I dusted off my Late Romans/Arthurians/Saxons/Huns and sorted out a game using the Hail Caesar rules here in GHQ. I've not been a great success using these rules, indeed I'm almost sure I'm going to convert the forces into three Impetus armies next year, but we thought the figures should see the light of day for a game before the year draws to a conclusion...
The table layout and forces early in the game. Jon's commands were attacking from the left towards the ruined temple {my only bit of ancient terrain} with the objective of capturing the ruin and preventing its reuse for vile pagan rites...
On my right flank the cavalry of both sides were manoeuvring for advantage ~
But my lads, buoyed by the exhortations of the rightful Emperor, Pompus Maximus, were soon getting stuck into the usurper's hordes ~
Meanwhile, over on my left flank,events were much slower to unfold, due entirely to timid generalship or poor command dice ~
My Hun allies were pushed off the low rise after some desultory efforts to shoot at the approaching enemy ~
My Saxon mercenaries were even less inclined to get stuck in for the cause, and soon my whole left was being pushed in on the centre ~
Although over on my right, the forces of the usurper had been driven from the field in disarray, I now found my cavalry too far from the action to relieve the mounting pressure in the centre and on my left flank ~
Despite a little success for my infantry against enemy skirmishers, I found my centre suddenly overwhelmed and my cause in disarray ~
It was suddenly all up for my men, two broken commands and an army loosing faith in its commander's cause. The dismal sight at the end of the game as Pompus Maximus can only flee the field of Mars, again... The old gods may not be as powerful as they once were after all.
My Ancients collection is comprised entirely of Foundry figures. Some were painted for me by Matt and by Andy Dumelow and just under half by myself over the years. I must say that despite getting a tanking in the end I thoroughly enjoyed the run out of Hail Caesar. I may have to reconsider the plan...
Labels: Ancients, Games
The Great Detective ~ update
A few shots of the progress I've made recently with the Oshiro Victorian buildings. I'll combine them on the tabletop with the existing Dock tile and Cemetery tile from the Pulp set up. I'm waiting on two more buildings from James: a two storey shop front and a small pumping station. A general overview in period look ~
The local industry: Josiah Robinson & Son, import & export to the Empire. The walls, from Hovels, will need repainting before I finish a base for this piece ~
St Editha's Mission - to Seamen & Fallen Women - and an Ironmongers ~
The Ironmongers' window display ~
Two shop front buildings: a butcher and the Britannia Inn ~
The butcher's window display - downloaded from the net {and resized} after a long search. The inn's windows are greaseproof paper ~
A row of terraced houses ~
The advertising boards, like the shop window displays, are the result of long trawling on net searches. As I don't plan any interiors for the buildings this time around, I thought a few window displays were in order. I still have to make the shop front name signs.
When all is done I have to solve the problem of back yards for the buildings and a cobbled texture for the roads, but all that will have to wait now for 2014...
En Avant!
I've broken a promise I made to myself earlier in the year! I had decided that there would be no more major painting projects undertaken, where I would paint both sides' armies in 28mm. I've spent the last two days, on and off, cleaning up and spraying figures for the first of two new 28mm Armies ~ the Republican French for the Flanders Campaign in the 1790s. I still have the bones of a British force to deal with, though that will have to wait a few days now anyway ~ sore fingers and out of white acrylic spray!
I bought the two forces from Duncan Macfarlane's Trent Miniatures stand at Partizans and at Derby earlier this year. I need to explain my motivation to undertake this project: I have decided that I am not old after all!{ I met a 72 year old on Sunday at Wargamer. Not only still actively wargaming at the local club, but a part of the club's demonstation game team! Age, I have decided, is all in the mind! At least, that's what I'm telling myself for now!}
I also want to sell my SYW collection next year, or at least a part of it, as I shall move its focus from Europe to North America. More on that plan in 2014 I hope! My son, Matthew made the masters for almost all the French you'll see on this entry, with the exception of the 8th Cavalry, and some of the British as well I believe. The whole force to date ~
I've got three Line and one Legere battalions at present, together with a battery of guns {a 12lbr and a Howitzer}, some Dragoons and some 8th Cavalry and a command stand! I've got a few pictures to show the character of the figures, which was a further reason to choose them, as if I needed one that is...
I decided to publish them 'in the raw' like this as I found it motivated me to get started with the painting when I did a similar post for the RFF {see an earlier Blog entry} and so I'm hoping for similar progress with this project next year.
The British force is slightly smaller ~ well, it is only French rabble they are up against! In fact, both sides will be expanded next year I'm sure as I make inroads into the units I've prepared for painting action! I may add an entry when I get the British troops ready, but they are still a few odd figures light which I'll pick up early in the new year, so I may not bother until I've got some painted.
Labels: French Revolutionary Wars, Updates
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task & gear
Video: the M1 Abrams' new upgrades will blow you away
Chris Capelluto
A system that intercepts enemy rockets and a brand-new munition? Tank you very much.
The .50 cal Barrett sniper rifle's strange origin story
upgrade tank abrams tank army armor m1 abrams sept 4 120 mm canon video marines chris capelluto jwplatform.com m1 a2 abrams tanker vehicle multi purpose round munition task & gear
The Army’s Latest Big Upgrade To The Abrams Tank Started Rolling Off The Assembly Line
Adam Linehan
Army photo
The latest upgraded version of the iconic Abrams Main Battle Tank has begun its slow roll off the assembly line, with the first of six M1A2 System Enhancement Package Version 3 production vehicles being delivered to the Army on Oct. 4.
abrams tank battle of 73 easting desert storm m1a1 abrams M1A2 SEPv3 tank battle
5 Things The Army’s Next-Generation Combat Vehicle Needs To Be Successful
Marty Skovlund Jr.
U.S. Army photo
From the Sherman tanks in the Battle of the Bulge to the Abrams tanks in the second Battle of Fallujah, and even the Strykers that carried infantryman during “the surge,” the Army’s armored vehicles have performed valiantly in our nation’s most important operations. Some have argued that armored divisions are no longer necessary in light of the unconventional fight that is status quo for the United States. But with Russia, Iran, and North Korea all making open threats directed at the United States recently, a conventional war in the near future is now a realistic possibility.
abrams tank Army’s Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center next generation combat vehicle U.S. Army U.S. Army Brotherhood of Tankers
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Recommended Dose
A blog about teaching the history of medicine
The Syllabus Archive
December 5, 2019 cbakmcl
Digital Tools for Teaching Early Medicine to a New Generation: Part 1
At this year’s AAHM annual meeting in Columbus, OH, Emily Clark, Kathleen Crowther, Elaine Leong, and Lisa Smith convened a lunchtime panel to talk about using new digital tools to teach undergraduates early medicine. This post, the first in a series of four, will cover one of the methods discussed.
Visualization with Voyant and the Reading Early Medicine Website
Emily J. Clark
The Reading Early Medicine, or REM, website and database aims to engage students, teachers, and researchers with early medicine in its varied and rich forms, and to facilitate their interactions with printed sources. It is a comprehensive bibliographic database of works about health and healing (defined broadly) published in English from the dawn of print to 1700, with additional resources to help students and researchers find and interpret texts of interest to them. Bibliographic data on over 2,500 printed works can be searched with key-terms, author names, booksellers, printers, and more. Searchable data include additional categories coded by the project team, such as genre, topic, and the advertised occupation of an author of the work. Such occupational titles were claims to authority over the body and health—writers variously describe themselves as “Masters of the Art,” “Doctors of Physick,” “occultists,” “doctor’s wives,” “gentlemen,” “chirurgeons” and more. Genres and topics include deliberately anachronistic search terms like “reproduction” that can help novice students find texts.
REM continues to add syllabi, classroom exercises, and peer-reviewed context essays to the site to support teaching on early-modern health and healing. Strong student work— brief biographical essays, for example—will be included on the site to deepen the knowledge base, acknowledge students’ research, and build interest in the subject.
REM includes a suite of visualization tools, including Platin to create histograms; Voyant for text mining; and for network visualizations, with step-by-step instructions for each. Voyant creates word clouds that instructors and students can use to reveal trends in any given genre of early modern print. Take this example, drawn from the titles of printed works under the topic of “Beauty and Cosmetic” from the REM database.
Word cloud generated from the “Beauty and Cosmetic” topic in the REM database
Visualizing this data with the Voyant word cloud fosters discussions about the place of gender in early modern print and healing practices; it can also complicate the ways we might think of beauty and medicine. As this word cloud makes clear, beauty and cosmetic manuals were as much about practices that we think of as “medical” (surgery, physick, apothecary, experimentation) as they were “non-medical” (beauty, cooking, youth). The largest words in the cloud indicate those which appear most frequently in the titles of beauty manuals— “physick,” closely followed by “preserving” and “candying.” Care of the exterior of the body—including skin, hair, and nails—through washing and beautifying were important aspects of early modern medicine, or physick. The means used to care for the body, in terms of both illness and cosmetics, often called for tools and procedures found in early modern kitchens. Similarly, we see the importance of qualities like experience, secrecy, and trustworthiness to early modern readers when it came to cosmetics and the body. The authors of these manuals touted their authority in terms of class or social standing (as words like “countesse,” “gentlewoman,” and “honorable” demonstrate). Word clouds such as these promote discussions about the intended users of such books, the nature of domestic healing, the importance of secrecy, and a host of other topics.
Emily J. Clark is a PhD candidate in the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. She studies the history of the body, with a particular focus on sexuality, race, and reproduction in the early modern Atlantic world. Her dissertation explores the everyday experiences of sex, intimacy, and labor among poor, servant, and enslaved women in colonial New England.
Published by cbakmcl
View all posts by cbakmcl
Previous Teaching from the Archive: Mary Fissell
Visit our Syllabus Archive for teaching the history of medicine!
Teaching from the Archive: Mary Fissell
Of 3D Livers and Laser-Printed Lungs: Teaching with Pop-Up Exhibits
Teaching with the Visual Medical Archive: Deciphering the National Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Cuba
Finding a Cure for Venereal Disease in Early Modern London
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« The Despicable And Pathological Radical Ideological Ignorance Of Barack Obama
Boy, Did Sam’s Club And My Asurion Warranty Ever Come Through For Me »
Any ‘Moderate’ Reform Of Islam Is Impossible And The Religion Of The Prophet Muhammad Will Increasingly Embrace Violent Jihadism
Recently, Barack Obama demonized Christianity for the sin of religious violence – going back in time nearly a thousand years to do so – and cited the Crusades and the Inquisition as his proofs. Mind you, all the violent things that Muslims are doing right now at this very moment aren’t being done by real Muslims and so hateful Christianity founded by that hateful man Jesus is evil whereas loving Islam founded by that loving man Muhammad is peaceful.
Well, Obama’s vile demagogic attack against Christianity and its Christ come about 700 years too late even as Obama is blind, deaf and stupid dumb when it comes to comprehending the reality of Islam today. And this fact ought to be no surprise because – frankly – demons inhabit the soul of Barack Hussein Obama and his Democrat (as in “DEMOnic bureauCRAT”) Party.
Islam desperately needs to reform. Because whether we’re talking about a religion murdering Jews, or Christians, or even Muslims themselves, there aint nothing CLOSE to Islam at being vicious these days. Islam is a murderous religion and is in fact the most murderous religion in the history of the world. Except, perhaps, of course, Obama’s true religion of state-atheistic socialism which murdered more than 100 million of its own citizens during peacetime alone. Which is why I read atheists demagoguing religion and saying it’s responsible for all the violence in the world and I just laugh at the moral stupidity of these fools. For the official factual historical record, the Bible is correct and there is something desperately flawed with human nature since the fall of Adam and Eve into sin – and the only thing more brutal and vicious than men acting in the name of their God or gods is men who have embraced the religion of atheism and made themselves gods in God’s place.
But we’re talking about the murderous nature of Islam today. And given the fact that you name the top three terrorist organizations today – Islamic State, al Qaeda, Boko Haram – or you name the five top terrorist groups, or the ten top terrorist groups, or the twenty top terrorist groups, and what they invariably have in common is ISLAM – and we’re talking about Islamic terrorism. And we’re talking about a viciousness that is literally OLD TESTAMENT in its ruthless, murderous viciousness. In these last days, the very same sort of people from the very same ethnic stock have arisen in the very same region to carry out the very same barbaric terror that we saw from the vicious Assyrians.
So I’ve mentioned Islam and I’ve mentioned State Atheist Communism. Are they poles apart? Are they doing the opposite things or the same things, with the different ends producing the identical same means?
Let me try to connect the dots for you between Obama’s Stalinism and violent jihadist Islam by means of a few quotes about the forms of socialism (communism and fascism) that progressive liberalism embraces:
“Communism and fascism or Nazism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority.” — James A. C. Brown
“At the end of a century that has seen the evils of communism, Nazism and other modern tyrannies, the impulse to centralize power remains amazingly persistent.” — Joseph Sobran
“COMMUNISM: Liberation of the people from the burdens of liberty.” — Rick Bayan, The Cynic’s Dictionary
Ah, yes, the inhumanity of official state atheist socialism:
And they came to [Chairman Mao] after the first year [of the Great Leap Forward] and they said, “Chairman, five million people have died of famine.” He said, “No matter, keep going.” In the second year, they came back and they said, “Ten million Chinese have died.” He said, “No matter, continue.” The third year, 20 million Chinese have died. And he said finally, “Well, perhaps this is not the best idea that I’ve ever had.”
CHANG: When he was told that, you know, his people were dying of starvation, Mao said, “Educate the peasants to eat less. Thus they can benefit – they can fertilize the land.”
Was it wisdom Mao Tse-Tong attained when – like Ted Bundy – the awakened to the long view? “The atom bomb is nothing to be afraid of,” Mao told Nehru, “China has many people. . . . The deaths of ten or twenty million people is nothing to be afraid of.” A witness said Nehru showed shock. Later, speaking in Moscow, Mao displayed yet more generosity: he boasted that he was willing to lose 300 million people, half of China’s population. Does Mao’s reckoning shock me really? If sanctioning the death of strangers could save my daughter’s life, would I do it? Probably. How many others’ lives would I be willing to sacrifice? Three? Three hundred million? — Annie Dillard, “The Wreck of Time” in Harper’s of January 1998
And let’s not forget good old Josef Stalin:
If the opposition disarms, all is well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves. — The Political Report of the Central Committee, The Fifteenth Congress of the C.P.S.U.(B.) (7 December 1927).
“Having consolidated its power, and taking the lead of the peasantry, the proletariat of the victorious country can and must build a socialist society.” — Stalin
And something like sixty million dead (after being disarmed, of course) human beings murdered by socialism later…
But what’s sixty million human beings? After all, Democrats have murdered that many human beings in America in our abortion mills. All you’ve got to do is deny the humanity of the victim, the way Hitler did with Jews and the way Democrats did with their black slaves before they turned their hate on the unborn.
Versus Islam:
“The mullahs are going to rule now. We are going to have ten thousand years of the Islamic republic. The Marxists are going to go on with their Lenin. We are going to go on in the way of Khomeini.” — Ayatollah Khalkhali
“What he [Stalin] did in Russia we have to do in Iran. We, too, have to do a lot of killing. A lot.” — Behzad, Iranian interpreter for Western journalist V.S. Naipaul
“There is no room for play in Islam… It is deadly serious about everything.” — Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in his speech at Qum as reported in Time magazine January 7, 1980
And for the record these are Shiites. They’re the good Muslims these days, given the fact that the BAD Muslims are the Sunnis who are behind Islamic State and al Qaeda and the 200,000 dead Syrians at the hands of Bashar al-Assad (who pissed on Obama’s “red line” cowardice and proceeded to draw his own red line – in blood).
You look at these quotes, and tell me that the biggest problems created by our socialist friends isn’t also created by radical Islam. You tell me that while Democrats want to strip away our personal liberty with mindboggling regulations and the determination to regulate what we eat, our healthcare, you name it they want to control it, that radical Islam has no desire to take away anyone’s liberty. You tell me that while Obama has an impulse to increasingly centralize power, our radical Muslim friends have no such desire. You tell me that while socialism has always had a dictator’s face and a cult of personality – Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Dear Leader Kim, Obama – that radical Islam has no desire toward mass movements featuring submission to superior authority.
One of the big problems in stopping radical Islam is that progressive liberals want pretty much the same exact authority the jihadists do.
But there are three OTHER reasons that there WILL BE no reform of Islam, such that violent jihadism will continue to take root and grow larger and uglier and more vicious.
The first reason is that moderate Muslims simply CAN NOT WIN any legitimate religious debate on Islam with the violent jihadists as long as the Qu’ran, the Ahadith and simple history have anything to do with the debate.
Why do I say that? Well, let me put it this way, take the side of the “moderate” Muslim and answer these questions as posed by a member of the Islamic State: given the fact that the Prophet Muhammad beheaded his enemies, why shouldn’t we behead our enemies, why shouldn’t we behead our enemies? Given that the Prophet Muhammad committed genocide on multiple occasions, why shouldn’t we commit genocide? Given that the Prophet Muhammad, after having all the males killed, sold women and children into slavery, whey shouldn’t we kill and enslave? Given the fact that the Prophet Muhammad was a man of war who had fought in more than twenty military campaigns of religious conquest and had another thirty planned at the time of his death, why shouldn’t we spread by force and violence?
All of these statements about the Prophet Muhammad are true. He did all of the above, without any question whatsoever.
History makes it very crystal clear that Muhammad was a man of violence and forced conquest who had fought in over 20 military campaigns and who actually had more than thirty more planned at the time of his death. In 624 AD Muhammad launched the Nakhla raid and officially began the spread of violence in the name of Islam. Also in 624 Muhammad began the practice of ethnic cleansing against the Jewish Qaynuqa tribe. He put that same tactic into practice again the following year in 625 against the Jewish Nadir tribe. Yes, rather like what we saw Islamic State do in Iraq. In 627 Muhammad beheaded all the males of the Jewish Qurayzah tribe and enslaved all the women and children. Yes, rather like what the Islamic State is doing now. And in 631 Muhammad began his warfare against the Christians. Yes, rather like what the Islamic State is doing now.
Add to that, given the fact that in 722 – within ninety years of the death of Muhammad when the movement was still under the ideological stamp of its founder – Islam had violently spread across Christendom, all the way across Europe, all the way to France to finally be stopped by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours. Islam spread violently spread across Christian Africa to eradicate the substantial Christian community of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo; it violently spread across Spain to be thwarted by El Cid. And given the historically-butchered fact that Islam ignited the Crusades by violently spreading to Christian Byzantium, why should the Islamic State NOT violently spread today?
The bottom line is this: either Muhammad was a false prophet of a demonic religion, or how he lived his life in his understanding of the religion that he founded is all-important. And of course also important are how the first Muslims understood the religion that Muhammad passed on to them.
Are you going to condemn the Prophet Muhammad as a false prophet of genocide? Are you going to condemn the entire history of Islam for the first several hundred years of its history? Or are you going to be a liar, a hypocrite and a coward like Barack Obama and those who act as apologists for a violent and rabidly intolerant religion???
The Christ whom Obama attacks every time he slanders Christians was the Prince of Peace who specifically condemned all of the above, but the Prophet of Islam wallowed in it, oh yes, the way an unclean pig wallows in mud. And the most faithful Muslims are the best murderers.
If you are a “moderate” Muslim, how do you take this debate on? How do you deal with the fact that history and reality mock you and declare you a liar and a hypocrite and a fool?
You can see why Obama is terrified of it and simply will not say anything but lies about the nature of Islam and the nature of the Islamic State and al Qaeda and those devout Muslims who think the way they do.
The second reason that reform is impossible to Islam is because Islam is inherently, intrinsically and pathologically a political religion bent on spreading by conquest. We can go back to the Catholic Church that Obama demonized by going back a thousand years to absolve Islam. In 1095 AD, when Pope Urban II called for the Crusades, the Catholic Church was a profoundly political organization with a religious leader as powerful as any emperor. One of the major things that the Reformation accomplished was to chop down the authority of the Catholic Church so that ultimately Catholicism lost its political power and its power of empire.
Try that with Islam and tell me how that works out for you. I mean, go ahead and be the very first person in all of human history to establish a democracy guided by Islam. It has never been done because it is every bit as impossible as is to draw a square circle. Because for the record, “democracy” and “Islam” are every bit as incompatible as “square” and “circle.” You cannot put them together unless one obliterates the other.
The third reason that Islam is impossible to reform in such a manner that respect for human life and autonomy is embraced is purely religious and is comprehended only when Islam is directly compared to Judeo-Christianity. In the Judeo-Christian Bible, we have two doctrines that command Judeo-Christians to respect human life: the Imago Dei of human beings and the Incarnation of Christ.
God, according to the Bible, created man in His own image. And specifically, male and female created He them.
That’s something of a problem for Islam, given that Allah is so transcendent and so otherly that human beings are like ants to him. Consider rather that:
one must first recall a fundamental aspect of Islamic belief, namely the transcendence of Allah Most High and His complete dissimilitude from created things. This is decisively conveyed within the Qur’an itself when it states, “There is nothing whatsoever like Him,” (42: 11) and also by the foremost theological texts of our tradition.
And to the extent that a Muslim can somehow wriggle his/her way to say that words that Allah created man in his image (provide you only mean it as a pretty much purely rhetorical device), Muslims have a gargantuan problem indeed in the doctrine of Incarnation, whereby Allah did or ever could have become a mere human bug – oops, I mean being.
Consider one of, if not the very greatest, Christological passage in the Bible found in Philippians chapter two:
Philippians 2:3-11The Message (MSG)
He Took on the Status of a Slave
2 1-4 If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.
5-8 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
9-11 Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.
Walk around and do your own survey with Muslims and find out how many of them think that Allah did that.
There’s a saying that in Islam, believers die for Allah (e.g., as so-called “martyrs” in suicide bombings); whereas according to Christianity God died for humanity. It is simply true. And because of that Christianity provides the grounds for a divinely-ordained love of humanity that Islam can never possibly match.
If you’re a liberal, you’re fool enough, so go to Syria and Iraq and conduct your survey among members of the Islamic State. I mean, go ahead, go nuts, lose your head over it.
According to Christianity, God not only created man in His own image – and hey kids, women too! – but He also Himself actually became a human being. God created man in His image so that He could assume our image, and live a life among us, and love us enough to take His place with us and ultimately die for us, representing us.
Such a doctrine provides a rather massive correction to the inhumanity of Stalinism and the inhumanity of Islam both.
Again, let me point out the fact that men are bugs to Allah. Allah most certainly did NOT become a man and live among us or die for us or represent us in any way, shape or form.
In Islam, the system is everything. You know, just like in progressive liberal socialism. And the individual is nothing. You know, just like in progressive liberal socialism.
This entry was posted on February 23, 2015 at 3:31 pm and is filed under abortion, Armegeddon, Barack Obama, Conservative Issues, Democrats, fascism, morality, Politics, religion, Religion and Culture, Shiite, socialism, Sunni, terrorism, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
8 Responses to “Any ‘Moderate’ Reform Of Islam Is Impossible And The Religion Of The Prophet Muhammad Will Increasingly Embrace Violent Jihadism”
pastorcallaway Says:
Great read. I’m following you. I think you may be my brother from another mother.
pastorcallaway,
Thanks for reading/following/commenting.
If you’re a believer in Jesus, you are DEFINITELY my brother from a different mother.
‘Cause it boils down to who are Father is and by which Savior and LORD we know that Father.
We’ve got a great home awaiting us, because Jesus is preparing a place for us and He’s the World’s Greatest Carpenter.
truthunites Says:
Great analysis. A lib would be hard pressed to refute it. A “moderate” muslim would not enjoy owning the historical facts either.
Birds of a feather flock together. That’s why Libs and Islamicists flock together.
truthunites,
The thing is that this transcends “Democrat vs. Republican.”
The reason is because it is a terrifying prospect: there were 55 million Germans who could be recruited to provide the war machine for Nazism. Compare that to a pool of 1.6 BILLION Muslims.
The terrifying truth is that if Muslims read their Qur’ans and learn the REAL history of their genocidal, beheading, enslaving prophet, they will become radicalized (translation: actual Muslims who live according to the actual teachings of their religion as delivered to them by Muhammad).
George W. Bush blinked and declared Islam “a religion of peace.” It’s the religion of hell. And the authentic Muslims are murderously living out the lives of their murderous Prophet.
Muhammad DID commit acts of genocide. He murdered all the men and enslaved all the women and children of his enemies on more than one occasion. He beheaded people. He forcibly spread his religion by armed conquest. In less than a century after his death, his Islam had viciously attacked Christendom all the way across Europe to the very shores of the Atlantic Ocean in France where they were finally stopped at the Battle of Tours. Muhammad’s forces viciously spread across Africa. They annihilated the region that St. Augustine had Christenized and “fundamentally transformed it” into Islam by threat of death. His Muslim hordes spread into Spain to be finally stopped by El Cid. The Crusades were a direct military response to Muslim invasion.
If Islam is the religion of peace, it is only because “war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.”
But this is a completely spiritually blind world that is lost in darkness and under the control of the god of this world, Satan. That’s why we’ve got Obama.
The ONLY real argument is ultimately what – or WHO – is the genuine source of peace. And the only actual answer is that the ONLY source of peace is the Prince of Peace.
This author affirms your argument:
ISIS is the most genuine Islam in the world.
Good article. Thank you for linking to it.
There is absolutely no question whatsoever that Islam consists of “convenient suras” by which Muhammad justified whatever the hell he wanted to do at any given present moment whether it directly contradicted his previous “revelations” or not. And violence is merely one example of this.
In Mecca, when Muhammad was the weaker underdog, he preached a religion of peace and urged people to believe and be “spiritual.” But the same guy – AFTER THAT – when he had the upper hand militarily – began to preach the threat of the scimitar to violently force people to Islam. http://www.renewamerica.com/analyses/060630hutchison.htm
This is simply a fact of history and the only people who believe in a “peaceful” Islam are people who hate history, hate truth, hate facts and hate reality.
Again, the Word of God:
“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” — Romans 1:22
“Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe…” — 2 Corinthians 4:4a
“Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.” — Colossians 2:8
Barack Obama is a demon-inhabited man who has chosen an administration on the basis of dishonesty and Stalinism. The Democrat Party is the “DEMOnic bureauCRAT” Party. And secular humanism and progressive liberalism is the worship of the god of this age.
They are immune to the truth and immune to reality.
Amen Bro. The longer I live the more my heart cries with St John, “Even so, come Lord Jesus.”
I’m calling the Rapture “The Great Bailout” now. And my hope is that we don’t have to watch America plunge into chaos and despair as our economy and health care and everything else implodes prior to the Tribulation.
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Posts Tagged ‘lobbyists’
Businesses And Wealthy People Flooding Out Of Liberal California. The Only People Pouring IN Are Lobbyists. And Why Is That?
As a native Californian, I laughed when I first came across Murphy’s Laws and saw the one that said, “Everything east of the San Andreas fault will eventually plunge into the Atlantic Ocean.”
It’s not so damn funny now in the age of Obama when everything east of the San Andreas fault IS pretty much plunging into the Atlantic Ocean. Especially given the fact that liberals dominate California and are plunging that state into its own special form of hell.
Then again, Murphy – never much for looking at the bright side – predicted Obama would become president in one of his darker moods.
Things were not going well for California. People and businesses were flooding out of California.
It was 2009 when I cited an article which stated an amazing fact regarding the competition for businesses between liberal California and conservative Texas:
Don’t look now, but there’s a new War Between the States under way, and the south is winning. The most dramatic winner is Texas. The cover story of a recent (July 9) issue of The Economist compared California with Texas and implied that the Golden State is falling apart, while the Lone Star State is leading the nation out of the recession. Then, in a mid-July issue of National Review, Kevin D. Williamson said the nation is “Going Alamo,” with new jobs and businesses tipping southward, draining California, the Midwest, and Northeast of their former economic glory.
One indicator of the trend, according to Williamson, is the cost of renting a U-Haul truck for a one-way move. From Austin, Texas to San Francisco, California, the cost is $900, while a one-way rental from San Francisco to Austin is $3,000, due to the exodus of trucks from California.
All this makes sense. We are a mobile nation. People can move easily enough (especially if they rent), and capital can move even faster. Capital, jobs, and businesses will go where they are most welcome, while capital leaves places where it is punished by higher taxes and over-regulation.
Why was it 233 percent more expensive to go from Texas to California than it was to go from California to Texas in a U-Haul truck? Because rats were fleeing the sinking liberal ship of Statism, that’s why.
We found that the most liberal states with the highest tax rates were not only seeing by far and away the most flight as people poured out of states that simply were dead-ends for anybody wanting a damn JOB, but that it was these same liberal states that also had the highest budget deficits. While states that were run by conservatives had the budget surpluses.
Well, of course, it got even worse for California. In the 2010 election, California was pretty much the only state to defy the massive and historic Republican landslide as people across the nation voted against liberalism. California actually gained power for Democrats that year.
Now where are we?
Well, we elected liberal Democrat Jerry Brown. Jerry Brown hiked taxes. And businesses increased their rate of flooding out of the state.
I was in a Burke’s Outlet store today. The store in my town was almost completely empty of merchandise. I asked the manager what was going on and he said that Burke’s – which has more than 500 stores nationwide – was leaving California entirely.
I asked him why that was and he was brutally honest: because of the new tax hikes. There were other states that didn’t piss on their businesses the way California pisses on their businesses via the Democrat Party.
Well, I’m sure all of those Burke’s Outlet employees are thrilled to be out of their jobs. I’m sure those tax hikes on the rich are working out just swell for those poor workers.
You don’t hear this very often, but the Los Angeles Times – in one of their incredibly few honest moments – published the fact that California has a $500 billion deficit because of their giveaways to liberal labor unions:
California’s $500-billion pension time bomb
April 06, 2010|By David Crane
The staggering amount of unfunded debt stands to crowd out funding for many popular programs. Reform will take something sadly lacking in the Legislature: political courage.
The state of California’s real unfunded pension debt clocks in at more than $500 billion, nearly eight times greater than officially reported.
That’s the finding from a study released Monday by Stanford University’s public policy program, confirming a recent report with similar, stunning findings from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.
We’re doomed in California. And we deserve to be doomed. Plunging into the ocean would be about the best outcome we could dream of compared to the economic collapse we’re eventually going to be unable to keep papering over with insanely bogus “math.”
And of course, other liberal states like Illinois (see also here) are just as evil and face just as awful a pension time bomb.
Liberalism is pure evil, and anybody who has a clue knows that.
Fortunately for liberals, most Americans are stunningly ignorant and depraved people. So it’s working out great for the Democrat Party machine which has succeeded by lying to the most ignorant and stupid populations (such as young people who pretty much are the definition of “stupid”).
Do you want to know who IS flooding in to bankrupt California right now?
Lobbyists, that’s who. Contrary to Democrats’ lies, we’re seeing a massive increase in lobbying to the tune of a 50% increase over the evil Bush years:
SACRAMENTO — Although many of California’s cities and counties have been struggling financially, putting off road repairs, cutting back library hours and reducing police patrols, there is one way in which they have not held back: hiring Sacramento lobbyists.
Local governments’ spending on advocacy in the Capitol has surged in recent years, topping $96 million during the two-year legislative session that ended last fall — an increase of nearly 50% from a decade ago.
The sum dwarfs the lobbying bills of the state’s largest labor unions, big oil companies and other energy interests combined, according to the California secretary of state’soffice. No sector spends nearly as much trying to influence government in California as government.
And, of course, after all of his lies and slander and demagoguery and bogus promises, Obama turns out to be the worst whore for lobbyists’ money in the history of the republic as he sells out this nation like no one has ever even thought of selling it out before.
Barack Hussein Obama is the Whore-in-Chief.
It’s actually pretty easy to explain what’s happening and why: liberalism is the worship of the State. God is dead. The State is God. And in liberal theology, the State as God sovereignly chooses as our God who wins and who loses, who gets Marxist redistribution and who is forced to pay higher and higher and higher taxes to pay for that Marxist redistribution. And under ObamaCare, the State even gets to decide who lives and who dies as the death panels Sarah Palin predicted turn out to be all to damn real.
And, of course, there too, the State gets to decide who wins and who loses, as liberals grant waivers to the unions and the big corporations that most helped Obama pass his socialist takeover of what used to be the finest medical system on planet earth.
After Black Friday in 1929, just as shortly after the Titanic hit that iceberg, there was a period when things didn’t seem that bad. As an example, after that infamous Black Friday in September of 1929, “In early 1930, credit was ample and available at low rates.” Things were looking up. Everything seemed swell.
Mind you, during the Great Depression, which FDR prolonged by seven years according to economists, we had plenty of lobbyists whoring for more government influence and government money, too. When the government is running everything on the one hand and spending money it doesn’t have on the other, there are always dishonest whores waiting to suck it out of corrupt politicians.
All you have to do is worship Obama and take the mark of the beast, and you too can have a fancy job as a lobbyist. But otherwise, just give up because things are a lot worse than they seem for decent people.
The way of California is the way of Cain. And Cain is burning in hell for his wickedness just like every liberal will soon be.
Update, 3/20/13: What Democrats are doing in California and everywhere else is a firehose of evil that just keeps pouring out of the left. I wrote this article the evening of the 18th and published it so it would come out the 19th. When I woke up the morning of the 19th, what did I learn? That Democrats are doing in California what socialists were trying to do in Cypruss: steal their citizens’ money by any vile means possible.
In California, Democrats actually tried to retroactively tax small businesses five years back. California had provided a tax break for small businesses and other entrepreneurs and Democrats are whores who suck other people’s money. Democrats not only wanted to end the tax break, but they demanded that businesses pay the socialist State BACK every single penny they had received in those tax break – complete with interest and even penalties:
California’s top-end taxpayers — already steamed over a recent hike in the nation’s highest state income tax — are now fuming over a new $120 million retroactive tax grab on small business owners.
In December, the state’s tax authority determined that a tax break claimed over the past few years by 2,500 entrepreneurs and stockholders of California-based small businesses is no longer valid and sent out notices of payment.
“How would you feel if you made a decision, which was made four years ago, (and) you absolutely knew was legally correct and four years later a governing body came in and said, ‘no, it’s not correct, now you owe us a bunch more money. And we’re going to charge you interest on money you didn’t even know you owed’,” Brian Overstreet told Fox News from his office north of San Francisco.
Last year, Overstreet and his fellow investors sold Sagient Research Systems and immediately reported the sale to the California Franchise Tax Board, the state’s version of the IRS. “It was good for the shareholders, it was good for the employees and good for those of us who founded it,” Overstreet said about the sale of the data mining company. “We paid the tax based on the law at the time.”
Here’s the question: how would YOU feel, not that you liberals are capable of mustering up that kind of actual empathy or anything.
The vileness of the left simply has no limits and knows no boundaries.
Tags:bankrupt, budget deficits, budget surpluses, businesses leaving, California, conservative states, liberal states, lobbyists, pensions, retroactive
Posted in Barack Obama, Conservative Issues, debt, Economy, health care, Politics, socialism, taxes | 7 Comments »
Abject Liar Alert: Washington Post Documents FACT That Under Obama, More Lobbyists Are Getting Access And Exploiting The System Than Ever
The Washington Post article featured below says the following about Obama’s self-righteous promises:
“More than any president before him, Obama pledged to change the political culture that has fueled the influence of lobbyists.”
What are some things that Obama said en route to taking the presidency in 2008?
“I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists — and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not get a job in my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president. I’m in this race to take those tax breaks away from companies that are moving jobs overseas and put them in the pockets of hard working Americans who deserve it.” – Barack Obama, in a speech to the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, November 10, 2007.
“We will not take a dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest pacs.”
“They will not fund our party. They will not run our White House.”
“We’re going to change how Washington works.”
Talk is cheep. Obama knows that – which is why his presidency has been based entirely on cheep talk and on saying he’d do one thing and then doing another.
Just who is visiting the White House? And how often are these people getting access?
WH Logs Reveal Obama Met With AFL-CIO & ACLU Lobbyists Over 50 Times Each
by Wynton Hall3 hours ago14post a comment
An interactive and searchable database of White House visitor logs is turning up some interesting findings and reveals a “steady stream of lobbyists” visiting the Obama White House, reports the Washington Post.
For example, AFL-CIO lobbyist Bill Samuel visited the White House over 50 times, and American Civil Liberties Union lobbyist Laura Murphy visited almost as frequently.
By comparison, Speaker of the House John Boehner has only visited the White House 23 times.
Oprah Winfrey has visited five times.
To search the 1.3 million distinct names in the database, which span from December 2009 to January 31, 2012, click here.
If you’re going to try to argue that Obama has been reaching out to the Republicans, Speaker Boehner’s 23 invites versus just two union lobbyists hundred or so invites says different.
Barack Obama has already been documented to be a hypocrite and a liar on lobbyists and special interests pacs. But this is just out from the Washington Post to show that even as he’s attending more fundraisers than the previous five presidents COMBINED, nothing has changed as Obama campaigns 24-7 for re-election:
White House visitor logs provide window into lobbying industry
By T.W. Farnam, Published: May 20
Before 9 a.m., a group of lobbyists began showing up at the White House security gates with the chief executives of their companies, all of whom serve on President Obama’s jobs council, to be checked in for a roundtable with the president.
At 1 p.m., a dozen representatives from the meat industry arrived for a briefing in the New Executive Office Building. At 3 p.m., a handful of lobbyists were lining up for a ceremony honoring the 2011 World Series champions, the St. Louis Cardinals.
And at 4 p.m., a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs arrived in the Old Executive Office Building for a meeting with Alan B. Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.
It was an unremarkable January day, with a steady stream of lobbyists among the thousands of daily visitors to the White House and the surrounding executive office buildings, according to a Washington Post analysis of visitor logs released by the administration. The Post matched visits with lobbying registrations and connected records in the visitor database to show who participated in the meetings, information now available in a search engine on the Post’s web site.
The visitor logs for Jan. 17 — one of the most recent days available — show that the lobbying industry Obama has vowed to constrain is a regular presence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The records also suggest that lobbyists with personal connections to the White House enjoy the easiest access.
More than any president before him, Obama pledged to change the political culture that has fueled the influence of lobbyists. He barred recent lobbyists from joining his administration and banned them from advisory boards throughout the executive branch. The president went so far as to forbid what had been staples of political interaction — federal employees could no longer accept free admission to receptions and conferences sponsored by lobbying groups.
“A lot of folks,” Obama said last month, “see the amounts of money that are being spent and the special interests that dominate and the lobbyists that always have access, and they say to themselves, maybe I don’t count.”
The White House visitor records make it clear that Obama’s senior officials are granting that access to some of K Street’s most influential representatives. In many cases, those lobbyists have long-standing connections to the president or his aides. Republican lobbyists coming to visit are rare, while Democratic lobbyists are common, whether they are representing corporate clients or liberal causes.
Lobbyist Marshal Matz, for example, who served as an unpaid adviser to Obama’s 2008 campaign, has been to the White House roughly two dozen times in the past 21 / 2 years. He has brought along the general counsel for the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the chief executive of cereal maker General Mills and pro bono clients, including advocates for farmers in Africa.
In April 2011, Matz came to the Old Executive Office Building with the owner of Beef Products Inc. to meet with Robin Schepper, a woman he has known for years who heads Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign. The company owner argued that one of his products should be promoted for school lunches, according to two participants in the meeting.
Matz, like most of the lobbyists contacted for comment, declined to be interviewed. But Howard Hedstrom, a Minnesota sawmill owner and president of the Federal Forest Resource Coalition that hired Matz, said: “I appreciate Marshall’s ability to have access. . . . He opened the door, but basically the conversation was carried by those of us who know the issues.”
White House spokesman Eric Schultz referred in a statement to Obama’s “unparalleled commitment to reforming Washington” and noted that this is the first administration to release the visitor records. “The people selected for this article are registered lobbyists, but this article excludes the thousands of people who visit the White House every week for meetings and events who are not,” he said. “Our goal has been to reduce the influence of special interests in Washington — which we’ve done more than any Administration in history.”
Acting on a pledge to make government more transparent, Obama released the visitor logs, although he did so to settle a lawsuit seeking the records. The administration publishes the information monthly, with a three-month delay, so the latest information is from January.
The lack of a list from previous administrations makes it impossible to know whether paid advocates have more or less access than in the past.
The logs show the names of the roughly 2,600 people each day who are given a badge to enter the White House, the Old Executive Office Building, the New Executive Office Building or the vice president’s residence. The visits can be for any purpose, from meetings, group tours and state dinners to basketball with the president.
The database containing the visits lists more than 2 million visits, with 1.3 million distinct names, but includes no other information about their identities or professions.
Many of the lobbyists who appear on the visitor logs are representing organizations that support administration policies. Bill Samuel, lobbyist for the AFL-CIO, for example, has been to the White House more than 50 times since Obama took office. The logs show he met four times with former White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley and three times with Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council.
“We’re not dealing with any state secrets here,” Samuel said, noting that his organization has worked closely with the White House to persuade lawmakers to pass job-boosting legislation.
Other White House allies have visited almost as often, including Nancy Zirkin, a lobbyist for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and Laura Murphy, who represents the American Civil Liberties Union.
“The administration’s stance on lobbying may be a great applause line for people outside the Beltway but there are people here in D.C. who are lobbying on behalf of a multitude of worthy causes,” Murphy said.
Tony Podesta, brother of former Obama aide John D. Podesta, has visited 27 times. And Robert Raben, who represents many liberal causes, has been 47 times.
But lesser-known names are also among the frequent lobbyist visitors, including Tim Hannegan, an informal adviser to Obama’s 2008 campaign with clients such as Comcast and Taser International. He has been to the White House and executive buildings more than 30 times for social events or meetings.
Hannegan did not respond to requests for comment.
In October, Hannegan gathered at the Old Executive Office Building with the CEO and a lobbyist from his client Kelly Services and aides in charge of the president’s jobs council. Among other things, the group discussed a tax credit that Kelly, which supplies temporary office staffers, was pushing to encourage companies to hire unemployed veterans. Obama signed into law the credit, known as the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, a month and a half later.
James McIntire, the Kelly Services lobbyist, noted the advantage of hiring Hannegan, who is very familiar with the White House. “He was aware of many of the administration’s ideas and then directionally where they were heading,” McIntire said.
Hannegan was also the top lobbyist for a coalition of for-profit colleges, which successfully argued for weaker regulations affecting their industry. The Washington Post Co., which owns Kaplan University, also lobbied on that issue.
Among the lobbyists with close ties to the White House is former New York congressman Tom Downey, who is married to Carol Browner, until last year Obama’s energy czar. Downey is the head of Downey McGrath Group, a lobbying firm whose clients include Time Warner Cable and Herbalife, which sells nutrition and dieting products. He has been to the White House complex for meetings and events 31 times.
Downey declined to be interviewed, but a statement from his office noted that before Browner joined the administration, “he took the extraordinary step of discontinuing work for a client with issues in her purview” and did not sign up new clients in that area during her tenure.
On Dec. 10, 2010, Downey held a meeting with economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers and Bill Cheney, the head of the Credit Union National Association, one of Downey McGrath’s clients. John Magill, the top lobbyist for the association, said that the group was pushing to lift the cap on the percentage of assets its members can lend out. The group asked Downey to request the meeting because he is a well-known Democrat.
“Had it been the Bush administration, we probably would have asked one of our Republican consultants to make the call,” Magill said. “That’s the way it works.”
Downey also visited his wife about 20 times in the two years she worked there, usually signed into the building by her aides. The logs show him attending a raft of social events, including holiday parties, a St. Patrick’s day reception and two senior staff dinners.
Andrew Menter, the chief executive of Vivature Health, said that Downey helped set up a meeting for him in December 2010 with Michael Hash, a top health-policy official. The group discussed how the new health-care law might affect Menter’s business, a Texas-based company that provides billing services for college health programs.
“The whole process was interesting for me. It’s a little scary,” Menter said. “You need a lobbyist to get a meeting.”
That last sentence pretty much sums up the abject hypocrisy that is Obama. From:
So let’s just put those two thoughts together and conclude that:
“More than any president before him, Obama is a cynical, dishonest lying hypocrite.
And it’s more than a little scary.
Tags:lobbyists, Obama promised, special interests, visited White House, Washington Post, White House
Posted in Barack Obama, first Jeremiah Wright term, Politics, socialism | Leave a Comment »
Why Did Our Economy Melt Down In 2008? (Email This To Your Friends)
Note: I did not write the following; I am only passing it along. I hope you read it and then pass it along as well.
Remember the LONG-TERM Causes of the Financial Sector Meltdown (an email pre-formatted for sending)
FreedomKeys.com ^ | 20101010 | various
Posted on 10/23/2010 12:49:32 PM PDT by FreeKeys
Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
by novelist Orson Scott Card, a Democrat
.. This [financial crisis] was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.
Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It’s as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.) …
If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.
If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis. …
So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?
[Was] getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for? …
… tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.
This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.
If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.
– Novelist Orson Scott Card, a Democrat, on October 5, 2008,HERE
.. The Financial Sector Meltdown ..
1. Almost all of the financial problems we see today are based on bad mortgage lending. That would be lending money to people to buy homes who didn’t qualify for a loan.
2. The Democrats, under Clinton, strengthened a government-created monster called the “Community Reinvestment Act” [first foisted upon the country under Jimmy Carter]. This law was then used by “activists” and “community organizers” … to coerce lending institutions to make these bad loans … millions of them.
3. Now we see what happens when political “wisdom” supplants good loan underwriting. When private financial institutions are virtually forced to make loans to people with a bad credit and job history … this is what you get. Enjoy it. — Neal Boortz, here ..
Enough cards on this table have been turned over that the story is now clear. The economic history books will describe this episode in simple and understandable terms: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exploded, and many bystanders were injured in the blast, some fatally.
Fannie and Freddie did this by becoming a key enabler of the mortgage crisis. They fueled Wall Street’s efforts to securitize subprime loans by becoming the primary customer of all AAA-rated subprime-mortgage pools. In addition, they held an enormous portfolio of mortgages themselves.
In the times that Fannie and Freddie couldn’t make the market, they became the market.
.. — Kevin Hassett, Bloomberg News, here ..
.. Obama choice helped Fannie block oversight
National security adviser tied to discrediting of probe ..
By Jim McElhatton, The Washington Times,October 13, 2010 here
UNDER SCRUTINY: Thomas E. Donilon worked as a registered lobbyist for Fannie Mae from 1999 to 2005.
Years before Fannie Mae foundered amid a massive accounting scandal, President Obama’s choice for national security adviser oversaw an office inside the mortgage giant that orchestrated a negative publicity blitz to fight attempts by Congress to increase government oversight, records show.
Thomas E. Donilon, who won the job as national security adviser this month, worked as a registered lobbyist for Fannie Mae from 1999 to 2005 at a time the company’s officials insisted finances were sound. He also earned more than $1.8 million in bonuses [from Frannie Mae] before the government took over the troubled company in the wake of an accounting scandal.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Mr. Obama, who railed against lobbyists on the campaign trail, hailed Mr. Donilon’s appointment last week, but made no mention of his time as a registered lobbyist.st wee
Democrats and some [big-government] Republicans opposed reform in part because Fannie and Freddie were very good at greasing palms. Fannie has spent $170 million on lobbying since 1998 and $19.3 million on political contributions since 1990.
The principal recipient of Fannie Mae’s largesse was a Democrat, Sen. Chris Dodd (D, CT), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. No. 2 was another Democrat, Sen. Barack Obama (D, IL).
Mr. Dodd was also the second largest recipient in the Senate of contributions from Countrywide’s political action committee and its employees, and the recipient of a home loan from Countrywide at well below market rates. The No. 1 senator on Countrywide’s list? Barack Obama. Check it out here: http://tinyurl.com/4h9955
“Congressman Frank and Senator Dodd wanted the government to push financial institutions to lend to people they would not lend to otherwise, because of the risk of default.
“The idea that politicians can assess risks better than people who have spent their whole careers assessing risks should have been so obviously absurd that no one would take it seriously.” — Dr. Thomas Sowell, Professor Emeritus, Economics, Stanford University, HERE
When the Bush administration tried to rein in Freddie and Fannie from continuing to engage in risky practices, guess who stepped in to block their efforts? Democratic senators Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and — are you ready? — Barack Obama.
Meanwhile, guess who were the top four recipients of campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie between 1988 and 2008?
Senators Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and — still ready? — Barack Obama.
A coincidence, I tell you — just a coincidence.
More mere coincidences: Franklin Raines — a former Carter- and Clinton-administration official and former head of Fannie Mae, now under investigation for cooking its books — had a lot of powerful people in Congress beholden to his agency. Here is a list of his campaign-contribution recipients. Meanwhile, Democratic honcho Jim Johnson, another former Fannie Mae CEO, has been an economic adviser to and major fundraiser for Barack Obama, and even ran his vice-presidential search committee until growing scandals over his Fannie management forced him to step down in July. – Robert Bidinotto, here ..
On May 25, 2006, Sen. John McCain spoke forcefully on behalf of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005. He said on the floor of the Senate:
“Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.
“The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.
” The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.
“For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.
“I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
“I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.”
It died at the hands of the DEMOCRATS —
HERE’s a video clip showing their anger.
“Many politicians and pundits claim that the credit crunch and high mortgage foreclosure rate is an example of market failure and want government to step in to bail out creditors and borrowers at the expense of taxpayers who prudently managed their affairs. These financial problems are not market failures but government failure. … The credit crunch and foreclosure problems are failures of government policy.” — Dr. Walter E. Williams, the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University, HERE
“Barack Obama wasn’t just the second-largest recipient of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac political contributions. He was also the senator from ACORN, the activist leader for risky ‘affirmative action’ loans. … [The CRA] gave groups such as ACORN a license and a means to intimidate banks … ACORN employed its tactics in 1991 by taking over the House Banking Committee room for two days to protest efforts to scale back the CRA. … Obama represented ACORN in a 1994 suit against redlining. ACORN was also a driving force behind a 1995 regulatory revision pushed through by the Clinton administration that greatly expanded the CRA and helped spawn the current financial crisis. Obama was the attorney representing ACORN in this effort.” — IBD Editorials
“The Woods Fund report makes it clear Obama was fully aware of the intimidation tactics used by ACORN’s Madeline Talbott in her pioneering [“community organizer”] efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards. Yet he supported Talbott in every conceivable way. He trained her personal staff and other aspiring ACORN leaders, he consulted with her extensively, and he arranged a major boost in foundation funding [via CAC and Woods Fund] for her efforts.” — Stanley Kurtz, “BARACK’S ‘ORGAANIZER’ BUDS PUSHED FOR BAD MORTGAGES”HERE
Bloomberg News has an excellent recap of
the history of the financial meltdown:.HERE.
Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama
not shown: Bill Clinton
“Scratch the surface of an endemic problem — famine, illness, poverty — and you invariably find a politician at the source.” — Simon Carr
“One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.” — Ayn Rand
“I think that we all need to consider the possibility … just the possibility … that Obama is engaged in a conscious effort to destroy our free market economy so that he can build a government-controlled socialist party on the rubble.” — Neal Boortz, here
[Conscious effort or not, we have an emergency on our hands.]
Tags:'affirmative action' loans, 2008, AAA-rated, acorn, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, and the economy as a whole, Ayn Rand, bad loans, banks, Barack Obama, Barney Frank, blame Republicans, Bush, campaign contributions, Carter, Chris Dodd, Clinton administration, coerced, community organizers, Community Reinvestment Act, cooking the books, Countrywide, crisis, default, Democrat Party, destroy capitalism, Economy, efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards, exploded, Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae CEO, Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, financial, financial institutions, Franklin Raines, Freddie Mac, GSEs, If Congress does not act, Jim Johnson, journalism, Kevin Hassett, lending, lobbyists, McCain, meltdown, mortgage, Neal Boortz, Obama, Orson Scott Card, prevent the crisis, securitize, solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay, statists, subprime loans, The credit crunch and foreclosure problems are failures of government policy, the overall financial system, Thomas Sowell, Walter E. Williams, warn, who didn't qualify
Posted in Barack Obama, Conservative Issues, Democrats, Economy, fascism, George Bush, John McCain, Politics, socialism | Leave a Comment »
Demagoguing Hypocrite Obama Buys His Lobbyists By The Dozen
Whenever Obama is talking, he’s lying. I can make that sentence present-tense because he’s lied so many times in the past.
Obama promised to usher in unprecedented transparency and end the process of bringing lobbyists into the White House. He broke both promises without so much as blinking.
Obama’s Biggest Lobbyist Winners from Left-Wing Advocacy Organizations
By Warner Todd Huston
On the campaign trail, now President Obama regularly excoriated lobbyists. He said he’d make the government “open and transparent” and said he’d make it hard for lobbyists to “curry favor” with his administration “based on how much they can spend on a fancy dinner.” Once elected, John Podesta, a member of his transition team, said that Obama would be implementing the “strictest ethics rules ever applied” to those scoundrel lobbyists. In his 2009 State of the Union address Obama puffed up his chest, proud of himself that he “excluded lobbyists” from important jobs in his administration.
With all that bombast and populist wind from Obama and his cohorts, then, one would expect to see a dearth of lobbyists in important positions in Obama’s Washington. One’s expectation, however, would easily be dashed by the truth.
Remember the rarefied air of Obama’s campaign for president? Wanna see some, shall we say, “broken promises”?
[Link to video embedded on Publius article]
Oh, the dreamy dream of hope-n-change. It’s what you voted for, America. So did we get it?
In fact, at least 50-some lobbyists have won the Obama lottery and found themselves landing plumb jobs in the Obama administration. All sorts of Obama’s favorite special interests have found their lobbyists suddenly riding the gravy train. From Big Agriculture, to Big Financial and Big Banking, to Trial Lawyers, to Military, Communications, and Big Bio, Obama’s buddies have lined up around the block to get his favor and found the honey pot well supplied.
Alarmingly, though, the biggest winners seem to be lobbyists from ideologically left-wing think tanks and issue advocacy groups.
Here are some of the known lobbyists that have hit the Obama jackpot:
Left-Wing Organizations
Barnes, Melody: ACLU; Center for Reproductive Rights
Barrien, Jacquelin: NAACP Legal Defense Fund
Butts, Cassandra: Center for American Progress
Coven, Martha: Center on Budget & Policy Priorities
Crowley, Phillip J: Center for American Progress
Frye, Jocelyn: Nat’l Partnership for Women & Families
Corr, William: Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids
McDonough, Dennis: Center for American Progress
Munoz, Cecilia: National Council of La Raza
Perciasepe, Robert: National Audubon Society
Rundlet, Peter: Center for American Progress
Stoner, Nancy: Natural Resources Defense Council
Trasvina, John: Mexican American Legal Defense Fund
Douglas, Derek: Center for American Progress
Banking/Insurance/Financial
Beliveau, Emmett: PriceWaterhouseCoopers; Worldwide Medical Technologies; Shaw Group
Donilon, Thomas: Fannie Mae
Klain, Ron: Time Warner; Fannie Mae
Patterson, Mark: Goldman Sachs
Turton, Dan: Freddie Mac; Visa
Singiser, Dana: Insurance
Wilkins, William J.: Swiss Bankers Association
Sutphen, Mona: Angliss Int’l
Biotech/Military/Energy
Hayes, David: Sempra Energy; San Diego Gas & Electric; General Cigar Holdings
Eric L. Hirschhorn: Lockheed Martin; Sun Chemicals
Hoffman, Alan: RAND Corporation, Unocal
Holder, Eric: Global Crossing; Large Scale Biology Corporation
Lynn, William J.: Raytheon
Strickland, Thomas: Amgen
Technology/Internet/ Communications
Harris, Scott: Microsoft; Cisco; Dell; Sprint
Kennedy, Sean: AT&T
Marantis, Demetrios J.: Lucent Technologies
Punke, Michael: Time Warner
Sapiro, Miriam: VeriSign
Union Lobbyists
Gaspard, Patrick: American Federation of Teachers
Liebowitz, Jon: Motion Picture Association of America
Vilsack, Thomas: National Education Association
Harden, Krysta: Gordley Associates
Isi Siddiqui: CropLife America
Taylor, Michael: Monsanto
Medicine/Hospitals/Big Pharma
Sher, Susan: University of Chicago Hospitals
Sussman, Robert M.: Amphastar Pharmaceuticals, Navistar, Business Roundtable
Sebelius, Kathleen: Kansas Trial Lawyers Association
Strautmanis, Michael: Association of Trial Lawyers of America
Litt, Robert: Recording Industry Association of America
Varney, Christine: Hogan & Hartson
Panetta, Leon: Seismic Safety Coalition
Perrelli, Thomas J.: American Survivors of 8/7/98 Bombings of Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
Poneman, Daniel: Payless Shoe Source
Verma, Richard: Cigna; National Association of Convenience Stores; U.S.-India Business Council
Timothy P. Carney of the Washington Examiner has been Keeping a list of the lobbyists that have won the Obama Lottery and he has some rich details of from which firms they’ve come and what clients were represented.
So much for being post partisan, non-ideological, transparent…. all those bight and shiny hope-n-changie sort of things Obama told us all he’d force Washington to observe.
Looks to me like it is business as usual with Obama’s Washington.
Transcript of video clip: (My bold for emphasis)
I’ll also institute an absolute gift ban so that no registered lobbyist can curry favor with members of my administration based on how much they can spend on a fancy dinner. I’ll make our government open and transparent so that anyone can ensure that our business is the people’s business. Justice Louis Brandeis once said “Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant,” and as president I am going to make it impossible for congressmen or lobbyists to slip pork barrel projects or corporate welfare into laws when no one’s looking because when I’m president meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public… no more secrecy, that’s a commitment I make to you as president. No more secrecy!
And, when there’s a bill that ends up on my desk as president, you the public will have five days to look on-line and find out what’s in it before I sign it so that you know what your government’s doing. When there are meetings between lobbyists and a government agency we’ll put as many as pos… as many of those meetings as possible on-line for every American to watch. When there’s a tax bill being debated in Congress you will now the names of the corporations that would benefit and how much money they would get. And we will put every corporate tax break and every pork barrel project on-line for every American to see, you will know who asked for them and you can decide whether your representative is actually representing you!
That’s a lobby full of lobbyists in your lobbyist-free administration, Barry Hussein.
Tags:advocacy groups, agriculture, banking, communications, curry favor, ethics rules, financial, left-wing, list of lobbyists, lobbyists, Obama, open and transparent
Posted in Barack Obama, Conservative Issues, Politics | Leave a Comment »
Obama Calls For Tolerance And Civility While His Rabid Rodents Throw Hate Bombs
I hate Obama’s Marxist policies, certainly enough. But the thing I despise most about Barack Obama is his galling personal hypocrisy.
He is a man who makes a false promise that he never keeps, and then continually congratulates himself about those very same promises. He promised transparency that he never delivered, but keeps talking it up as though he really DIDN’T have his meetings on “transparency” closed to the public and the media; and as though he really DID put the health care negotiations on C-SPAN like he promised at least 8 times on video; as though his ObamaCare WEREN’T so secretive that even senior Democrats admitted they were completely in the dark; and as though Obama really WEREN’T denying the media of access far worse than his predecessors had ever done. He patted himself on the back for getting lobbyists out of Washington as if his administration DIDN’T have at least30 of them on the payroll; and attacked lobbyists at his state of the union as if he DIDN’T have a schmoochy meeting scheduled with them for the very next day. He promised to end earmarks, then signed a bill that had nearly 9,000 of them – and just instructed Democrats to submit their earmark requests for the upcoming budget even as he told the country that he was “calling on Congress to continue down the path of earmark reform.” And all I can say when Obama talks about reforming earmarks now is that it is too damn bad we didn’t elect John McCain.
The left is angry at Obama’s failed promises (a failed promise = a lie, by the way) as well. Obama promised to close Gitmo. He lied. Obama promised to have had the troops home from Iraq by now. He lied. Obama promised to resolve the conflict in Afghanistan with his own personal magnificence. And more than TWICE as many American soldiers gave their lives under Obama in Afghanistan in 2009 than during Bush’s last year in office.
Is it any wonder that he is the most polarizing president we have ever seen?
But Obama’s signature lie was his cynical promise from the most radically leftist Senator in Congress to transcend the political divide and bring the parties together. Democrats, of course, blame Republicans; but it wasn’t the Republicans who promised to do it, was it? The president who mockingly told Republicans “I won” when they tried to talk to him, and who repeatedly demonized Republicans for their “failed policies of the past,” is now actually upset that Republicans would take anything approaching the same attitude with him that he took with them.
We’re not supposed to be able to talk about HIS failed policies after he attacked us about a hundred million times with the very same claim?
Is it any wonder that his polls are now even LOWER than they were before he gave that deceitful state of the union?
Obama wants conservatives to lay down their arms even as his cockroach minions continue to shrilly attack them. Apparently he truly thinks people are that stupid.
Here were Obama’s words at the national prayer breakfast (which he ultimately politicized, because the man just can’t help himself):
Obama at “national prayer breakfast”: The President calls for tolerance and civility
At the event of the “national prayer breakfast” in Washington on Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama has urged his fellow countrymen to adhere to the ‘spirit of civility’, affirming that “civility is not a sign of weakness”.
The event which attracts leading political, religious and business leaders was witness to the famous oratorical power of the US president.
“Too often that spirit (of civility) is missing without the spectacular tragedy,” Mr. Obama said. “We become numb to the day-to-day crises. We become absorbed with our abstract arguments, our ideological disputes, and our contests for power. And in this tower of babble, we lose the sound of God’s voice.”
He remarked that we should be open to differing views and make a concerted effort to abandon the cynicism and skepticism that have done enough harm to American politics already.
Obama has repeatedly dishonestly demonized Republicans as obstructionists and hatemongers – which, for the record, is a very obstructionistic and hatemongering thing for him to do.
In his Q and A session with House Republicans, Obama said:
I mean, the fact of the matter is is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your own base, in your own party. You’ve given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you’ve been telling your constituents is, “This guy’s doing all kinds of crazy stuff that’s going to destroy America.”
And how are Democrats supposed to embrace Republican ideas in a bipartisan fashion when Democrats just like YOU repeatedly demonize George Bush and demagogue Republicans for “the failed ideas of the past,” Mr. Hussein?
There’s a joke that Obama finally honored George Bush by naming the tectonic region beneath Haiti as “Bush’s Fault.” It’s not far from the truth.
Does Barry Husein seriously not realize that every single Democrat in the Senate voted for ObamaCare (not withstanding the outright bribes such as the Louisiana Purchase and the Nebraska Purchase)? Since when is it that every single Democrat voting for a Democrat bill is good, but every single Republican voting against a Democrat bill is bad? Wouldn’t both Republicans AND Democrats be voting both for and against a bipartisan bill?
Since Democrats love to claim about how “bipartisan” they have been, I would love to see a Democrat offer me a list reciting 100 specific instances in which Obama or Democrats have said, “We’ll do this your way” on significant elements of any and all legislation.
It would be nice if Obama and Democrats paid attention to the giant log in their own eyes. Just for once in their lives.
Meanwhile, Obama’s supporters are like frothing-mouth rabid vermin:
New York Slimes I mean Times columnist Frank Rich:
New York Times columnist Frank Rich would have rebelled against the notion that opposing President Bush’s policies was unpatriotic. But he can shamelessly declare that opposing Obama’s agenda is unpatriotic – even if you’re John McCain. Rich wrote on Sunday:
If [Harry] Reid can serve as the face of Democratic fecklessness in the Senate, then John McCain epitomizes the unpatriotic opposition. On Wednesday night he could be seen sneering when Obama pointed out that most of the debt vilified by Republicans happened on the watch of a Republican president and Congress that never paid for “two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program.”
Rich wasn’t going to find it ridiculous that Obama was blaming Bush for an “expensive” Medicare entitlement that Democrats voted for and/or felt wasn’t expensive enough – just as Obama blames Bush for the deficit effects of TARP, which he voted for.
It should be remembered that John McCain spent something like six years in the hellhole of the Hanoi Hilton in Vietnam and suffered terribly physically as a result. To accuse him of being “unpatriotic” after what he went through for his country is a disgrace from a disgrace of a newspaper.
Not to be outdone as a moral disgrace, Chris Matthews basically compared the Republican Party to the leftist communist regime that murdered well over a million people:
Chris Matthews: Far Right Republicans Like Cambodian Regime (VIDEO)
Huffington Post | Danny Shea First Posted: 02- 1-10 05:36 PM | Updated: 02- 1-10 05:59 PM
Chris Matthews compared the far right wing of the Republican Party to the Khmer Rouge, the genocidal Cambodian communist party led by Pol Pot, in MSNBC’s coverage of President Obama’s Q&A with House Republicans Friday night.
“The Republican Party is under assault from its far right,” Matthews said. “I don’t think I can remember either party being under assault by its extremes. I mean, there seems to be a new sort of purity test that unless you’re far right, you’re not a Republican, and this sort of tea party testing they’re doing now.”
Matthews called the party’s pull from the far right “frightening” in comparing it to the Cambodian regime.
“So what’s going on out there in the Republican Party is kind of frightening,” he said, “almost Cambodia reeducation camp going on in that party, where they’re going around to people, sort of switching their minds around saying, ‘If you’re not far right, you’re not right enough.’ And I think that it’s really – there’s going to be a lot of extreme language on the Republican side. And maybe, it will be a circular firing squad when this is all over.”
Just two days prior, Matthews came under fire for saying that he forgot President Obama was black for an hour while watching his State of the Union, a post-racial comment he would later clarify.
So let’s understand, this closet bigoted turd who is continuously aware of Obama’s blackness (light-skinned blackness with no Negro dialect only, mind you!) says that there’s a lot of extreme language coming from the Republican side — but only AFTER comparing those same Republicans to a communist regime that systematically murdered 1.7 million of their own people.
And speaking of bigoted turds….
Rachel Maddog I mean Maddow:
Maddow: Tea Party Conventioneers Are Racists In White Hoods
By Noel Sheppard
Rachel Maddow on Friday referred to attendees of the National Tea Party convention in Nashville, Tennessee, as white-hooded racists.
Continuing MSNBC’s sad tradition, Maddow first attacked one of the convention’s speakers: “The opening speech last night was given by failed presidential candidate, ex-congressman and professional anti-immigrant, Tom Tancredo who started the event off with a bang, a big loud racist bang.”
From there, she went after the audience (video embedded below the fold with transcript).
What a bigoted, vicious, racist thing of you to say, Rachel. But according to Obama, who only attacks Fox News for being biased, Barry Hussein tacitly approves of every single word.
And we can get back to Barack Obama and pretty much the entire Democrat Party as repeatedly demagoguing the Republican Party as “the party of no” when it is now an openly acknowledged fact that they were never any such thing.
Cited from a recently written article:
For another thing, it isn’t true that Republicans have ever been “the party of no” and offered no ideas:
Despite the “lecture” by the commander-in-chief, as one member described it, Republicans had the opportunity to articulate the proposals they’ve sent to the president over the past year.
And for the first time, Obama acknowledged that House Republicans had crafted measures to stimulate the economy, reduce the budget deficit and reduce health insurance costs.
At a number of times during the rare, televised, question and answer session with members, the president said that he had read many of their proposals.
“I’ve actually read your bills,” the president said to a packed banquet room at Baltimore’s Marriott Renaissance hotel.
In other words, it is now a matter of public record that Democrats have been intentionally lying, misrepresenting, slandering, and demagoguing Republicans all along. Why on earth should Republicans have cooperated with these vile people?
So Democrats can just shut the hell up with their accusations of Republicans saying or doing ANYTHING until they clean up the thousands of cockroach nests that constitute their political wing, and start being HONEST for once in their lives.
Personally, I am quite willing to cease fire on the rhetoric wars; all I need to see is for Barack Obama to denounce the mainline media for their lies rather than continually attacking Fox News; all I need to see is the Maddows and the Olbermanns and the Mathews of the news to be fired; all I need to see is for the left to quit demonizing and demagoguing. And I will happily practice all the “tolerance” and “civility” Obama wants.
The problem is that that will never happen, because the left is demagogic and hypocritical to their very cores of their dried-out, shriveled little souls.
And the fact that Barack Obama is out in front of the cameras beseeching for “tolerance” and “civility” while his minions are viciously and hatefully attacking day after day without any rebuke from the president just proves my point.
Tags:access, big loud racist bang, C-SPAN, Cambodia, Chris Matthews, civility, closed-door, earmarks, failed policies, Gitmo, health care, hypocrisy, in the dark, Iraq, Khmer Rouge, light-skinned, lobbyists, McCain, Media, negotiations, Negro dialect, Obama, party of no, polls, post-partisan, Q and A, Rachel Maddow, racists, reeducation camp, State of the Union, tolerance, transparency, unpatriotic opposition, white hoods
Posted in Barack Obama, Conservative Issues, health care, Politics, race, socialism | 2 Comments »
Obama Publicly Demogogues Lobbyists While Going To Bed With Them Behind Closed Doors
A berry, berry good article detailing Barack Obama’s pathological dishonesty and simultaneous demagoguery regarding lobbyists:
Obama’s Lobbyist Slams Masks Big K Street Payday
Posted on January 29, 2010 By Warner Todd Huston
In his State of the Union speech, the president puffed up his chest, fixed his Mr. scornful face, and once again pulled out the populist’s handbook to bash those evil, monstrous lobbyists.
Obama mentioned lobbyists seven times in his address and in every case they were used as a scapegoat to explain away Washington’s inability to get one thing or another done.
Obama promised — again and for the thousandth time — to “end the outsized influence of lobbyists” in Washington. He then praised himself for excluding lobbyists from jobs in his administration and he proposed even more limits on them.
This attack on lobbyists is cathartic and makes for great populist boilerplate, of course, but there isn’t much truth in Obama’s attack on them because the fact is K Street — the D.C. street where many lobbying firms are located — has made more money off the Obama Administration than from any previous president.
And Obama has been pretty blatant about ignoring the obvious disconnect between his populist harangues against lobbyists and his coddling and sidling up to them. Obama’s big paydays to lobbyists at nearly every level has been nothing short of breathtaking. It has been like this since day one.
One is tempted to call the president a prevaricator on the issue.
Obama didn’t even let his TelePrompters get cold before he was snuggling up to lobbyists. The Hill reported that the very next day after Obama attacked the evils of lobbying in the SOTU speech, his administration invited a bunch of them to private briefings.
The Hill quoted one lobbyist’s frustration with Obama’s habit of talking out of both sides of his mouth where lobbyists are concerned. “Bash lobbyists, then reach out to us. Bash lobbyists [while] I have received four Democratic invitations for fundraisers,” The Hill reported this lobbyist as saying.
Meanwhile, back in December, Politico reported that Lobbyists were on pace for a record year. It was estimated that lobbyists would spend $3.3 billion lobbying the federal government in 2009.
“We’ve never had as good a year,” said one lobbyist whose shop deals mostly with financial services and health care issues. “It’s been a tremendously busy year, and it’s going to keep getting that way,” the lobbyist said, noting that both health care and financial reform will remain active as congressional action moves from drafting legislation to implementation to the inevitable fixes.
Never had as good a year? I thought Obama was the veritable Jack the Lobbyist killer?
During the SOTU, Obama wanted brownie points because he “excluded lobbyists” from important jobs in his administration. This has been a longtime refrain from this president. Even as he began his term last year he claimed he was instituting the “strictest ethics rules ever applied” to lobbyists in Washington. The truth, however, shows that his back patting does not quite ring true. As early as February 2 of 2009 it was becoming clear that quite a few lobbyists had, indeed, been hired into the Obama Administration. It was so obvious that Politico began tracking the number of lobbyists that Obama was hiring — and waiving his new “rules” for. Politico discovered at least a dozen had been hired by the end of January, 2009.
The lobbyist’s big payday didn’t end there. In March Chris Frates reported that former Democratic legislative aides were “hot commodities” for lobbying firms as Obama’s new rules became increasingly dense and hard to understand. By May 30 Roll Call was reporting (subscription required) that the Obama Administration was lifting some of its bans on lobbyists so that they could get their hooks more easily into the stimulus spending. Last August Obama even “gave a seat at the table” of healthcare negotiations to a former Congressman turned healthcare lobbyist.
If I can paraphrase Chico Escuela, former faux baseball great, the truth is that Obama has been berry, berry good to lobbyists. So much for the hopinchange and the end of lobbyist’s influence in the era of Obama.
Even the very left leaning MSNBC was easily able to find dishonesty in seven major areas of Obama’s misstatement of the union speech. The AP points out Obama’s prevarications in eight areas of their own. The Conservative American goes to town, finding 23 untruths in Obama’s speech.
Obama demonized the Supreme Court in that speech, which was a massive breach of etiquette. The Supreme Court Justices showed up out of courtesy and out of respect for the three branches of federal government; not to be denounced in a forum in which they had no chance to respond. You can go back to every single state of the union speech since George Washington’s, and not find such an attack. And it was largely based on lies: Obama said that foreign corporations would be able to buy elections thanks to the SCOTUS ruling — which is simply patently untrue.
You can’t help but think our “constitutional scholar” president would know that. Which means that Obama’s slander was not a simple mistake: it was transparent demagoguery.
As was Obama’s constant blaming of George Bush for every problem under the sun. Obama has long-since worn out his “The buck stops with George Bush” paperweight. It’s long past time he took responsibility for his own presidency.
I’m sick of Obama’s lies. I’m sick of this man who promised he would be the greatest unifier in history being the worst polarizer in history. I’m sick of this deceiver congratulating himself for his “transparency” while holding closed-door meeting after closed-door meeting with unions, lobbyists, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical companies – not to mention all the Democrat politicians who negotiated sweetheart deals for their own districts at the expense of the rest of the nation.
And I’m even sicker of the mainstream media’s refusal to report the truth.
Fox News – the network that the Obama administration has repeatedly demonized – is now far and away the most trusted name in news. Perhaps the fact that honest media players like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal are thriving while the lamestream media slips into bankruptcy will finally force these propagandists to change their tunes and start reporting the truth.
Tags:ban, blame Bush, closed-door meetings, ethics rules, Fox News, fundraisers, invited lobbyists, lobbyists, Media, most trusted, Obama, paydays, polarized, private meetings, record year, scapegoat, seat at the table, State of the Union, stimulus, waiving
Posted in Barack Obama, Conservative Issues, Politics, Supreme Court | Leave a Comment »
Sarah Palin Demolishes Obama’s Pretentions State of the Deception Speech
From Sarah Palin’s Facebook page:
The Credibility Gap
While I don’t wish to speak too harshly about President Obama’s state of the union address, we live in challenging times that call for candor. I call them as I see them, and I hope my frank assessment will be taken as an honest effort to move this conversation forward.
Last night, the president spoke of the “credibility gap” between the public’s expectations of their leaders and what those leaders actually deliver. “Credibility gap” is a good way to describe the chasm between rhetoric and reality in the president’s address. The contradictions seemed endless.
He called for Democrats and Republicans to “work through our differences,” but last year he dismissed any notion of bipartisanship when he smugly told Republicans, “I won.”
He talked like a Washington “outsider,” but he runs Washington! He’s had everything any president could ask for – an overwhelming majority in Congress and a fawning press corps that feels tingles every time he speaks. There was nothing preventing him from pursuing “common sense” solutions all along. He didn’t pursue them because they weren’t his priorities, and he spent his speech blaming Republicans for the problems caused by his own policies.
He dared us to “let him know” if we have a better health care plan, but he refused to allow Republicans in on the negotiations or consider any ideas for real free market and patient-centered reforms. We’ve been “letting him know” our ideas for months from the town halls to the tea parties, but he isn’t interested in listening. Instead he keeps making the nonsensical claim that his massive trillion-dollar health care bill won’t increase the deficit.
Americans are suffering from job losses and lower wages, yet the president practically demanded applause when he mentioned tax cuts, as if allowing people to keep more of their own hard-earned money is an act of noblesse oblige. He claims that he cut taxes, but I must have missed that. I see his policies as paving the way for massive tax increases and inflation, which is the “hidden tax” that most hurts the poor and the elderly living on fixed incomes.
He condemned lobbyists, but his White House is filled with former lobbyists, and this has been a banner year for K Street with his stimulus bill, aka the Lobbyist’s Full Employment Act. He talked about a “deficit of trust” and the need to “do our work in the open,” but he chased away the C-SPAN cameras and cut deals with insurance industry lobbyists behind closed doors.
He spoke of doing what’s best for the next generation and not leaving our children with a “mountain of debt,” but under his watch this year, government spending is up by 22%, and his budget will triple our national debt.
He spoke of a spending freeze, but doesn’t he realize that each new program he’s proposing comes with a new price tag? A spending freeze is a nice idea, but it doesn’t address the root cause of the problem. We need a comprehensive examination of the role of government spending. The president’s deficit commission is little more than a bipartisan tax hike committee, lending political cover to raise taxes without seriously addressing the problem of spending.
He condemned bailouts, but he voted for them and then expanded and extended them. He praised the House’s financial reform bill, but where was Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in that bill? He still hasn’t told us when we’ll be getting out of the auto and the mortgage industries. He praised small businesses, but he’s spent the past year as a friend to big corporations and their lobbyists, who always find a way to make government regulations work in their favor at the expense of their mom & pop competitors.
He praised the effectiveness of his stimulus bill, but then he called for another one – this time cleverly renamed a “jobs bill.” The first stimulus was sold to us as a jobs bill that would keep unemployment under 8%. We now have double digit unemployment with no end in sight. Why should we trust this new “jobs bill”?
He talked about “making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development,” but apparently it’s still too tough for his Interior Secretary to move ahead with Virginia’s offshore oil and gas leases. If they’re dragging their feet on leases, how long will it take them to build “safe, clean nuclear power plants”? Meanwhile, he continued to emphasize “green jobs,” which require massive government subsidies for inefficient technologies that can’t survive on their own in the real world of the free market.
He spoke of supporting young girls in Afghanistan who want to go to school and young women in Iran who courageously protest in the streets, but where were his words of encouragement to the young girls of Afghanistan in his West Point speech? And where was his support for the young women of Iran when they were being gunned down in the streets of Tehran?
Despite speaking for over an hour, the president only spent 10% of his speech on foreign policy, and he left us with many unanswered questions. Does he still think trying the 9/11 terrorists in New York is a good idea? Does he still think closing Gitmo is a good idea? Does he still believe in Mirandizing terrorists after the Christmas bomber fiasco? Does he believe we’re in a war against terrorists, or does he think this is just a global crime spree? Does he understand that the first priority of our government is to keep our country safe?
In his address last night, the president once again revealed that there’s a fundamental disconnect between what the American people expect from their government, and what he wants to deliver. He’s still proposing failed top-down big government solutions to our problems. Instead of smaller, smarter government, he’s taken a government that was already too big and supersized it.
Real private sector jobs are created when taxes are low, investment is high, and people are free to go about their business without the heavy hand of government. The president thinks innovation comes from government subsidies. Common sense conservatives know innovation comes from unleashing the creative energy of American entrepreneurs.
Everything seems to be “unexpected” to this administration: unexpected job losses; unexpected housing numbers; unexpected political losses in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New Jersey. True leaders lead best when confronted with the unexpected. But instead of leading us, the president lectured us. He lectured Wall Street; he lectured Main Street; he lectured Congress; he even lectured our Supreme Court Justices.
He criticized politicians who “wage a perpetual campaign,” but he gave a campaign speech instead of a state of the union address. The campaign is over, and President Obama now has something that candidate Obama never had: an actual track record in office. We now can see the failed policies behind the flowery words. If Americans feel as cynical as the president suggests, perhaps it’s because the audacity of his recycled rhetoric no longer inspires hope.
Real leadership requires results. Real hope lies in the ingenuity, generosity, and boundless courage of the American people whose voices are still not being heard in Washington.
– Sarah Palin
She nailed it.
Tags:bailouts, banks, big government, bipartisan, C-SPAN, commission, common sense, credibility gap, deals, deficit, energy, Fannie Mae, foreign policy, Freddie Mac, freeze, Gitmo, green jobs, jobs bill, let me know, listen, lobbyists, mountain of debt, New York, partisan, Sarah Palin, small businesses, speech, spending, State of the Union, stimulus, taxes, trial, unemployment, wage a perpetual campaign
Posted in Barack Obama, Conservative Issues, Media, Politics, socialism, taxes | 4 Comments »
Martha Coakley Uses Lobbyists And Thugs To Claw Her Way To The Massachusetts Senate
First of all, on the health care industry big pharma and big insurance lobbyists that Martha Coakley featured at her fundraiser.
I wrote an article on it last night. It provides a news article that actually identifies the names of these lobbyists, plus the companies/industries they represent.
Breitbart has a short, powerful video that features the galling liberal hypocrisy surrounding this event. The featured line from a lobbyist is, “I hope they all use lobbyists to raise money,” while Obama promises to keep the big boys from buying all the seats at the table.
I responded to a comment of this article to another site by providing the following response:
One of the things you learn about fascism is that – while it is a form of socialism – it differs from Marxist socialism in that Marxism directly owns the means of production while fascism regulates, bribes, or coerces the means of production into doing what fascist leaders want.
Same result, different means.
So we find that Obama has already made deals with Pharma, and with many of the big players in the system. He gets what he wants – power over one-sixth of the economy and literally power over peoples’ lives – and big Pharma/insurance get something they want – security that Obama won’t plough them under.
That’s Fascism. We saw a lot of the same sort of “dealmaking” with big business in Nazi Germany that we’re seeing today.
Communist China is now a hybrid of Maoist Marxism and fascism. Obama likey.
Jonah Goldberg also points out the “liberal fascism” of FDR’s New Deal. And, again, FDR co-opted large corporations to write the laws/regulations that would benefit themselves and drive under their smaller competitors.
That’s basically what’s going on now. The big players can make sweetheart deals with the government that will enable them to expand their market share even as the overall market shrinks to to Obama’s stupid policies.
Being “pro-capitalism” is NOT the same as being “pro-business.”
If conservatives can seriously get behind policies that will be beneficial for SMALL BUSINESSES (the true engines of a thriving capitalist system), they can become an unstoppable political force.
Less sweetheart deals; more sensible policies.
[Note: you can take a look at an economic encyclopedia’s definition of fascism and see if I understand it correctly].
Martha Coakley is clearly at least supporting more lobbyist money. And so supporting more sweetheart deals resulting from more government controls goes hand in hand.
Now, it turns out that Martha Coakley is embracing liberal fascism in more ways than that major big one.
Fascists love thuggery. And liberals certainly have had more than their fair share of it (e.g. union thugs – see some recent videos of union thugs at work here).
Coakley has her own goons, as Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack found out last night.
Here’s a video of the incident. You can see John McCormack with his hands above his head to protect his recorder and demonstrate that he’s not the one doing any shoving. You can see Coakley’s goon bodying up to McCormach and clearly shoving him around. And you can see Martha Coakley stop, turn around, and look intently in the direction of the assault immediately prior to McCormack hitting the ground:
Here’s another video of the same assault. You watch this and tell me that this liberal Democrat thug didn’t criminally assault John McCormack:
The assailant is a man named Michael Meehen. The assault began shortly after Meehen came up and demanded McCormack’s press credentials. Even though they were on a public street, McCormack displayed them. When McCormack asked who Michael Meehan worked for, Meehan said, “I work for me.” We now know he’s from Blue Line Strategic Communications, and has worked for John Kerry, Maria Cantwell, and was sent to Massachusetts by the DSCC to handle “messaging” for Coakley.
Here’s a picture from the video of Meehan knocking McCormack down:
Here’s a picture of a Weekly Standard reporter after being taken down.
Coakley cited “GOP stalkers” and “Brown operatives” (which itself is evidence of a paranoid nutjob) and claimed that “I didn’t see what happened, so I can’t say” to dodge questions about the incident.
But the photograph pretty much reveals that that one is as much of a lie as Coakley’s entire candidacy is being revealed to be:
I’m reminded of Sgt. Shultz’s line from the Hogan’s Hero comedy series: “I see nothing!”
Martha Coakley is an attorney general who doesn’t seem to give much of a damn about acts of criminal assault she witnesses with her own eyes.
You saw the whole thing, you liar. And I guess we see which side is lying and which side in bleeding on the ground.
As assaulted reporter John McCormack put it:
“She knew that there was a reporter who asked her a question. We had met before. I asked her four questions. She saw me get knocked to the ground and kept walking,” said McCormack. “I wouldn’t say I was surprised. … She’s decided she’s entitled to the seat without answering questions on issues that are of national importance.”
I can’t say that I miss the days when political hopefuls jumped into bed with big money lobbyists to fund their campaigns in exchange for promises we never get to hear, because those days have never really left us. All I know is that if you want more of that, then Martha Coakley is your woman.
I also can’t say that I miss the days when Benito Mussolini’s fascisti Blackshirts and Hitler’s Brownshirts made sure that any and all opposition was properly intimidated, either. But apparently the woman who “sees nothing” while a reporter from a conservative publication is knocked down by her goon has brought back that old trend, too.
The debate-proof Democrat-dominated Senate has the following message for anyone contemplating taking away their total control:
Tags:Blue Line Strategic Communications, Brown operatives, DSCC, fascism, fascist, GOP stalkers, Hogan's Heroes, I didn't see what happened, insurance companies, John McCormack, lobbyists, Michael Meehan, pharmaceutical, Schultz, thugs, union, Weekly Standard
Posted in Conservative Issues, Democrats, fascism, health care, Politics | Leave a Comment »
Massachusetts Senate Candidate Martha Coakley’s Vote ALREADY Bought And Paid For
Is it Massachusetts or Massachusettes? No matter. Not as long as all those pharmaceutical and insurance industry lobbyists spell Martha Coakley’s name right on all those fat checks they’re writing to buy her election.
The line of the evening during last night’s debate as reported by Politico:
David Gergen pressed Scott Brown on health care and the Kennedy legacy last night, producing a memorable exchange:”With all due respect, it’s not the Kennedy seat and it’s not the Democrat’s seat — it’s the people’s seat,” Brown says.
But that’s not true at all if Brown’s opponent wins.
If Martha Coakley wins, it will be PhRMA’s seat. It will be Pfizer’s, Bristol-Myers Squibb’s, Astra-Zenaca’s, Blue Cross’, United Health’s, and numerous other pharmaceutical and insurance company’s seat.
This campaign has taken an amazing turn, particularly in the utter incomprehension of Democrats that the American people have genuinely turned against them.
The greatest signal of disconnect may have happened last night, when Democrat candidate Martha Coakley went to Washington to attend a fund raiser with more than 50% of the guest list coming from big Pharma (PhRMA).
Here is a video compendium of Barack Obama from 8 separate occasions saying he would make health care negotiations public by televising them on C-SPAN:
And here is Barack Obama from one of those 8 promises:
“we’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so the people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who is making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.”
And the man and the party that made that promise have instead buried their health care boondoggle into total secrecy to hide the bribes and corruption going on.
John McCain’s heated exchange with Democrat Senator Max Baucus nakedly reveals the reality as to which party “is making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies”:
Mr. McCAIN. My response is, I don’t know what deal has been cut in Senator Reid’s office, as the deal was cut with the pharmaceutical companies and the deal was cut with the AMA and the deal was cut with the hospital association. But I know what the effect is. I know what the effect is. The bill would slice $55 billion—-
Mr. BAUCUS. This is not on my time because he is going to filibuster over there.
Mr. McCAIN. The House bill would slice $55 billion over 10 years for projected Medicare spending on home health services while the Senate bill would take $43 billion. I know that. But I don’t know the details of the deal that was cut over where the white smoke comes out. I don’t know what the deal was. I know what the deal was with PhRMA. I know what the deal was with PhRMA. They told them they would oppose drug reimportation from Canada, and they told PhRMA they would not allow competition for Medicare patients.
So I don’t know the deal that was cut that bought them, but I know deals have been going on, and I know they are unsavory. I know people, such as the lady who was just referred to, Bertha Milliard, are not too interested in seeing their home health care cut.
Mr. BAUCUS. If the Senator will yield, with time being equally divided on both sides for this colloquy.
Mr. McCAIN. I don’t know what the deal was—-
Mr. BAUCUS. I can tell the Senator the deal. I am going to tell the Senator the deal.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona has the floor.
Mr. McCAIN. I don’t know what the deal was, but we will find out, just like the deals that were cut with all of these other organizations.
Mr. BAUCUS. I will tell the Senator what the deal was.
Mr. McCAIN. This place is full of lobbyists. I can’t walk through the hallway without bumping into one of their lobbyists. If the Senator keeps interrupting, he is violating the rules of the Senate. He needs to learn the rules of the Senate.
Did someone say lobbyists? Did someone talk about pharmaceutical and insurance lobbyists being thick as fleas, and Democrats cutting one deal after another with them?
Well, last night a lot of these lobbyists quit flocking around the hallways of the Capital and instead flocked around Martha Coakley to shower her with campaign money.
Martha Coakley promises you, the American people, that if you trust her with the power and prestige of the United States Senate, she will be one more politician in the pockets of those lobbyists:
Coakley in trouble? Pharma and HMO lobbyists to the rescue
By: Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist
01/09/10 1:55 PM EST
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley speaks during a news conference at her campaign headquarters in Charlestown, Mass. Monday, Jan. 11, 2010. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
With Democrat Martha Coakley in trouble in the Massachusetts special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat, Democrats could lose vote No. 60 for President Obama’s health-care bill. In response, an army of lobbyists for drug companies, health insurance companies, and hospitals has teamed up to throw a high-dollar Capitol Hill fundraiser for Coakley next Tuesday night. The invitation is here.
Of the 22 names on the host committee–meaning they raised $10,000 or more for Coakley–17 are federally registered lobbyists, 15 of whom have health-care clients. Of the other five hosts, one is married to a lobbyist, one was a lobbyist in Pennsylvania, another is a lawyer at a lobbying firm, and another is a corporate CEO. Oh, and of course, there’s also the political action commitee for Boston Scientific Corporation.
All the leading drug companies have lobbyists on Coakley’s host committee: Pfizer, Merck, Amgen, Sanofi-Aventis, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Astra-Zeneca, and more. On the insurance side of things, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Cigna, Humana, HealthSouth, and United Health all are represented on the host committee.
Those HMOs (like Aetna) or drug companies who don’t have lobbyists in Coakley’s top tier of fundraisers? They’re covered, because the host committee includes four lobbyists representing the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), two representing America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), and one representing the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO)
So think of these top donors to health-care reform’s 60th vote next time President Obama claims that he’s battling the special interests in this battle. The army listed below is on Obama’s side, and these clients will all benefit from “reform.”
Here are some of Coakley fundraiser hosts with some of their current health care clients:
Thomas Boggs, Patton Boggs: Bristol-Myers Squibb
Chuck Brain, Capitol Hill Strategies: Amgen, BIO, Merck, PhRMA
Susan Brophy, Glover Park Group: Blue Cross, Pfizer
Steven Champlin, Duberstein Group: AHIP, Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis
Licy Do Canto, Raben Group: Amgen
Gerald Cassidy, Cassidy & Associates: U. Mass Memorial Health Care
David Castagnetti, Mehlman, Vogel, Castagnetti: Abbot Labs, AHIP, Astra-Zenaca, General Electric, Humana, Merck, PhRMA.
Steven Elmendorf, Elmendorf Strategies: Medicines Company, PhRMA, United Health
Shannon Finley, Capitol Counsel: Amgen, Astra-Zeneca, Blue Cross, GE, PhRMA, Sanofi-Aventis.
Heather Podesta, Heather Podesta & Partners: Cigna, Eli Lilly, HealthSouth
Tony Podesta, Podesta Group: Amgen, GE, Merck, Novartis.
Robert Raben, Raben Group: Amgen, GE.
If Coakley pulls it out, this is the crowd that will have brought her here. If health-care reform passes, this is the crew that will have won.
This amounts to the most naked and most shameless chutzpah I have ever seen.
If Martha Coakley is elected to Senate, it will be total and abject mockery of everything that Obama promised the American people.
Just to further demonstrate what a total scam Martha Coakley’s bought-and-paid-for candidacy is, she ran the usual liberal attack ad after the debate last night –
– which MISSPELLED THE STATE FOR WHICH SHE WAS RUNNING TO SUPPOSEDLY SERVE.
BOSTON (Legal Newsline) – An advertisement for Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley’s senatorial campaign misspelled the name of the state Monday night.
After a three-person debate Monday night, an attack ad on Republican state Sen. Scott Brown paid for by the state’s Democratic Party spelled it “Massachusettes.”
The ad was “authorized by Martha Coakley for Senate and approved by Martha Coakley.”
“The punchlines write themselves: Before you represent a state in the Senate, shouldn’t you learn how to spell its name?” Jim Geraghty wrote for National Review Online.
We don’t know for sure who owns Martha Coakley, or who pays for her smear ads, but we know they aren’t from the state of Massachusetts. They’re from some state called “Massachusettes,” where pathologically dishonest demagogues promise bogus utopias, but produce disaster.
If you are a Democrat and you are not ashamed of your party, I have nothing but contempt for you.
Tags:Amgen, Astra-Zenaca, attack ad, Blue Cross, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cigna, GE, health care, Healthsouth, HMO, insurance, lobbyists, Martha Coakley, Massachusettes, Massachusetts, Merck, Pfizer, pharmaceutical, PhRMA, Scott Brown, senate, United Health
Posted in Barack Obama, Conservative Issues, Democrats, health care, John McCain, Politics | 1 Comment »
Most Transparent Health ‘Reform’ In History So Secretive Even Democrats Are ‘In The Dark’
Barack Obama promised to put the health care debate on C-SPAN so that everybody could be informed about and engaged with the process.
“That’s what I will do in bringing all parties together, not negotiating behind closed doors, but bringing all parties together, and broadcasting those negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see what the choices are, because part of what we have to do is enlist the American people in this process,” Obama said at a debate in Los Angeles on Jan. 31, 2008.
The special interests and lobbyists, he said, “will resist anything that we try to do. … And the antidote to that is making sure that the American people understand what is at stake.”
Obama promised:
To achieve health care reform, “I’m going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We’ll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies — they’ll get a seat at the table, they just won’t be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process.”
Not negotiating behind closed doors. Bringing all parties together. Broadcasting the negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see.
Those were the words of Barack Hussein Obama, documented liar, fraud, and hypocrite.
In the age of Obama, lobbying and lobbyists has doubled. Now THERE are some jobs Obama has “created or saved.” And the leftist labor unions – who want everybody to pay massively more so they can get more – don’t want to pay taxes that they expect everybody else to pay.
On December 6, Obama went to the Capitol to push health care in a closed door session for a meeting with Democrat Senators in which he excluded Republicans and excluded the press:
At the Capitol during a rare Sunday session of the Senate, Obama delivered a closed-door pep talk to the fractious Democratic caucus that lasted about 45 minutes. Deep divisions remain over abortion coverage, but there was hope for compromise on whether the government should directly offer health insurance in competition with private companies.“They’re going to get it done,” Obama said as he left. He avoided specifics in the meeting with senators and took no questions.
How “open” and “transparent” of him.
Here’s the blunt, simple reality:
Washington, Oct 21 – For days now, a small group of Democrats in Congress and members of the Obama Administration have been meeting behind closed doors on Capitol Hill to hammer out the details of their costly government takeover of health care. This is despite President Obama’s repeated pledges on the campaign trail last year that these discussions would be open and televised. One Capitol Hill newspaper has called these secret talks “a slap at … the taxpayers who will be asked to foot the bill for whatever reform plan does get adopted.” Now Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) has introduced a resolution demanding that these critical negotiations be conducted in the open “under the watchful eye of the American people.” With the fate of one-sixth of our economy in the balance, anything less than full transparency is unacceptable.
And now we find that Republicans – who have been shut out all along – are not the only ones who have been excluded in this byzantine, twisted, closed-door process:
Sen. Durbin says he’s ‘in the dark’ on possible healthcare reform compromise
By Eric Zimmermann – 12/11/09 12:33 PM ET
The 10 Democratic senators who crafted a healthcare compromise are keeping its details a secret, says Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Friday.
Responding to a complaint by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that Republicans haven’t been told what’s in the new bill, Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, responded that he’s in the same position.
“I would say to the senator from Arizona that I’m in the dark almost as much as he is. And I’m in the leadership,” Durbin said on the Senate floor.
Stop and think about it. This process has become so byzantine, so closed, and so secretive, that even the #2 Democrat in the Senate is completely in the dark as to what is going on. Ten Democrats – and a whopping load of special interests – are formulating the takeover of 1/6th of the American economy.
This came out of a discussion between Senators John McCain and Dick Durbin.
Mr. McCAIN. Could I ask my friend about the situation as it exists right now? Right now, no Member on this side has any idea as to the specifics of the proposal the majority leader, I understand, has sent to OMB for some kind of scoring. Is that the way we want to do business, that a proposal that will be presented to the Senate sometime next week and voted on immediately–that is what we are told–is that the way to do business in a bipartisan fashion? Should we not at least be informed as to what the proposal is the Senate majority leader is going to propose to the entire Senate within a couple days? Shouldn’t we even know what it is?
Mr. DURBIN. I would say to the Senator from Arizona, I am in the dark almost as much as he is, and I am in the leadership. The reason is, because the Congressional Budget Office, which scores the managers’ amendment, the so-called compromise, has told us, once you publicly start debating it, we will publicly release it. We want to basically see whether it works, whether it works to continue to reduce the deficit, whether it works to continue to reduce the growth in health care costs.
We had a caucus after this was submitted to the Congressional Budget Office, where Senator Reid and other Senators who were involved in it basically stood and said: We are sorry, we can’t tell you in detail what was involved. But you will learn, everyone will learn, it will be as public information as this bill currently is on the Internet. But the Congressional Budget Office has tied our hands at this point putting it forward. Basically, what I know is what you know, having read press accounts of what may be included.
Mr. McCAIN. Could I ask my friend from Illinois–and by the way, I would like to do this again. Perhaps when he can get more substance into many of the issues.
Mr. DURBIN. Same time, same place tomorrow?
Mr. McCAIN. I admit these are unusual times. But isn’t that a very unusual process, that here we are discussing one-sixth of the gross national product; the bill before us has been a product of almost a year of sausage-making. Yet here we are at a position on December 12, with a proposal that none of us, except, I understand, one person, the majority leader, knows what the final parameters are, much less informing the American people. I don’t get it.
Durbin acknowledges that Republicans have been kept completely in the dark (and fed on horse sh*t) because even he himself – the number two man in the Democrat Senate – has been kept in the dark. He blames the Congressional Budget Office – because it’s either the CBO, or the Democrats, and he will not blame the Democrats.
Newsflash: the CBO does not have the power to prevent Democrats from releasing all the details of the Democrats’ bill. Democrats have refused to release the details of the Democrats’ bill.
We are in a situation in which a tiny handful of Democrats are writing up an ideological and partisan takeover of a whopping chunk of the economy. And if you think these people have any integrity at all, you need to reread this article, because you clearly didn’t understand what is coming out of Washington.
Tags:behind closed doors, bringing all parties together, C-SPAN, Capital, closed-door, dick durbin, doubled, in the dark, John McCain, lobbyists, loibbying, negotiating behind closed doors, negotiations, roadcasting negotiations on C-SPAN so that the American people can see, specifics
Posted in Barack Obama, Conservative Issues, Democrats, health care, Politics | Leave a Comment »
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Comparing Arsenal Midfielders + Explaining CM Radar Charts
By Ted Knutson
I started producing these radars – god, on Monday? This week feels like a year. As mentioned in the initial post, they are something I’ve wanted to do for months, but I didn’t have the data collected yet or the skill to do them. The skill element of these is still in question, but I have gathered a fairly comfortable data set from 09-10 from the many public sources out there.
One of the things that occurred to me while building the base template was that these would likely be much more useful for specific positions. We don’t expect defenders to take 8 shots a game like Ronaldo, and it’s pretty silly to expect Ronaldo to make 5 tackles a game like Arturo Vidal. So that’s what I started doing after publishing the Ballon D’or piece.
The first position template I built was for central midfielders. I wanted something that reflected the fact that CMs are potentially the most versatile players on the pitch. They need to attack and defend. Some play a big role in the offense, contributing high levels of key passes, throughballs, some goals, dribbling, etc. Others are destroyers that sit much deeper, and recycle the ball quickly back to offensive players. I figured I could create a radar that reflected the full potential of central midfielders.
That’s Mikel Arteta from last season. His role is very defensive, with very little area covered on the offensive side of the ball.
Now for someone a little different.
That is Cesc Fabregas at Arsenal in 2009-10. I have stated for quite a while that I think Fabregas is the best attacking passer I have ever seen in the Premier League. Given his key pass and scoring contribution (NPG+A90), that seems pretty accurate.
One of the cool things I was hoping to do was use these radars to display how role changes alter statistical outputs. Check this out.
Same chart, two outstanding players, two completely different shapes. Cool, right?
Now how about this? Here’s Aaron Ramsey for Arsenal so far this year (For those reading from the future, the data was good through Jan 17th).
Ramsey probably plays a role much more comparable to what Fabregas played when he was at Arsenal than Arteta, but obviously they aren’t the “same.” They have similar defensive I+T but Cesc intercepted the ball more and Ramsey tackles more. They even have similar scoring contributions (NPG+A90), but Cesc’s were split pretty evenly across assists and goals, while Rambo has scored a ton this year. Fabregas is the more creative passer by far. Now let’s see what happens when we overlay these two.
I’m going to keep developing the positional radars based on KPIs I’ve examined and think are important, some of which will obviously get adjusted after feedback. Some of the contextual ones like Dispossessed, Fouls, Was Dribbled make people shrug, but they are actually fairly important bits of information when evaluating midfielders. Other positions will have different axes, and presumably different contextual stats to go along with them.
If you like these – and response from most people has been very positive – then check back more in the coming weeks for new positions and comparisons. I’m still very much learning with these, but one thing I am hoping to look at is what happens when you overlay entire midfields on top of each other and then compare them across teams.
Bonus Radars
Design Decision Discussion
Though I am new to creating these, I have been studying this for a while and am aware of many of the pitfalls for both the data itself, and then method of display.
The boundary choices for each axis are the actual boundaries that a player has produced in that position for the data set. So in today’s case, a player has actually produced those numbers playing as a midfielder across a reasonable chunk of one season.
I have grouped similar attributes together. Passing accuracy is neutral, but tied to the passing stats. Long balls are attached to it, but lie near the defensive metrics as well (typically defenders play many more long passes than offensive-focused playrs). Scoring and offensive metrics are to the right of the chart, while contextual metrics are down at the bottom. Defense is to the left. Thinking about it, Dispossessed should likely be next to Successful Dribbles. I will change that in a future version.
Good performance should take up more area, so the “bad” contextual stats have had their scales reversed. If a player was never dispossessed, they would hit the outside of the chart. Never dribbled past? The same. Basically, players with the best stats should cover the greatest area in the radar.
Article by Ted Knutson
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Arakhin 27a-b: When Jubilee Was In Force
While the seventh perek of Massekhet Arakhin dealt with a person who consecrated his ancestral field to the Temple while the yovel was in force, the eighth perek, which begins on today’s daf, discusses the laws at a time when the yovel was no longer kept. As we learned, someone who consecrated his field to the Temple during the time of yovel would redeem it based on a Biblical formula (see above, daf 24). When there was no yovel, however, the field was redeemed based on its market value as established in a public auction.
Tosafot emphasize that the need for a public auction only existed when the Temple was standing. With the destruction of the Temple, a field that was consecrated to the Temple served no real purpose and could be redeemed even with a symbolic peruta coin.
Keeping the Jubilee year and its attendant laws ended at the time of the exile of the tribes of Re’uven, Gad and half of Menashe, who made their ancestral homes on the eastern bank of the Jordan River, an event that took place many years before the destruction of the first Temple. The Rambam explains that the laws of the Jubilee year apply only when the Jewish people are established in the Land of Israel, and since that time this has not been the case. It is clear from a variety of sources that during the second Temple many of the laws relating to the Jubilee year were kept, a fact that led Rabbeinu Tam to assume that there was a biblical obligation to keep the yovel during that time. The Rambam does not accept this reasoning, and he states clearly that the laws of yovel did not apply during second Temple times (see the Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Shemitta VeYovel 10:3). Some suggest that there was a Rabbinic injunction to keep some of the laws during the second Temple period.
This essay is based upon the insights and chidushim of Rabbi Steinsaltz, as published in the English version of the Koren Talmud Bavli with Commentary by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, and edited and adapted by Rabbi Shalom Berger.
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Arakhin 28a-b: Dedicated to God
The mishnayot on today's daf discuss someone who declares his property to be %herem - dedicated or devoted to God…
Arakhin 26a-b: Owning a Field
From the perspective of Jewish law, ownership of a field is made up of two separate elements: ownership of the…
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Research ArticlesIon Channels
Ca2+ controls gating of voltage-gated calcium channels by releasing the β2e subunit from the plasma membrane
Dong-Il Kim1,
Hae-Jin Kweon1,
Yongsoo Park2,
Deok-Jin Jang3, and
Byung-Chang Suh1,*
1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST), Daegu 42988, Korea.
2Department of Neurobiology, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
3Department of Ecological Science, College of Ecology and Environment, Kyungpook National University, Kyungbuk 742-711, Korea.
↵*Corresponding author. Email: bcsuh{at}dgist.ac.kr
Science Signaling 05 Jul 2016:
Vol. 9, Issue 435, pp. ra67
DOI: 10.1126/scisignal.aad7247
Dong-Il Kim
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST), Daegu 42988, Korea.
Hae-Jin Kweon
Yongsoo Park
Department of Neurobiology, Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
Deok-Jin Jang
Department of Ecological Science, College of Ecology and Environment, Kyungpook National University, Kyungbuk 742-711, Korea.
Byung-Chang Suh
For correspondence: bcsuh@dgist.ac.kr
Kicked off the membrane by calcium
Voltage-gated calcium (Cav) channels govern Ca2+ entry into excitable cells, notably neurons, muscles, and secretory cells. These channels have a pore-forming subunit, an auxiliary subunit, and a regulatory β subunit; the electrophysiological and regulatory characteristics of the channel depend on which subunits are present. Kim et al. found that stimulation of G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs) coupled to Gq (muscarinic acetylcholine receptors and purinergic receptors), which increase intracellular Ca2+, triggered the release of β2e from the membrane, thereby enhancing the inactivation of Cav2.2 channels. Because cellular excitability must be tightly controlled to mediate appropriate physiological responses, maintain organismal homeostasis, and prevent Ca2+ toxicity, Cav channels are subject to complex regulation. Membrane dissociation of β2e by cytosolic Ca2+, which occurred independently of known regulatory mechanisms, adds GPCR signaling to the complexity. β2e and Cav2.2 are abundant in neurons, and these Gq-coupled GPCRs are important in pain signaling and regulation of the cardiovascular system.
Voltage-gated calcium (Cav) channels, which are regulated by membrane potential, cytosolic Ca2+, phosphorylation, and membrane phospholipids, govern Ca2+ entry into excitable cells. Cav channels contain a pore-forming α1 subunit, an auxiliary α2δ subunit, and a regulatory β subunit, each encoded by several genes in mammals. In addition to a domain that interacts with the α1 subunit, β2e and β2a also interact with the cytoplasmic face of the plasma membrane through an electrostatic interaction for β2e and posttranslational acylation for β2a. We found that an increase in cytosolic Ca2+ promoted the release of β2e from the membrane without requiring substantial depletion of the anionic phospholipid phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) from the plasma membrane. Experiments with liposomes indicated that Ca2+ disrupted the interaction of the β2e amino-terminal peptide with membranes containing PIP2. Ca2+ binding to calmodulin (CaM) leads to CaM-mediated inactivation of Cav currents. Although Cav2.2 coexpressed with β2a required Ca2+-dependent activation of CaM for Ca2+-mediated reduction in channel activity, Cav2.2 coexpressed with β2e exhibited Ca2+-dependent inactivation of the channel even in the presence of Ca2+-insensitive CaM. Inducible depletion of PIP2 reduced Cav2.2 currents, and in cells coexpressing β2e, but not a form that lacks the polybasic region, increased intracellular Ca2+ further reduced Cav2.2 currents. Many hormone- or neurotransmitter-activated receptors stimulate PIP2 hydrolysis and increase cytosolic Ca2+; thus, our findings suggest that β2e may integrate such receptor-mediated signals to limit Cav activity.
You are going to email the following Ca2+ controls gating of voltage-gated calcium channels by releasing the β2e subunit from the plasma membrane
By Dong-Il Kim, Hae-Jin Kweon, Yongsoo Park, Deok-Jin Jang, Byung-Chang Suh
Science Signaling 05 Jul 2016 : ra67
The β2e subunit of voltage-gated calcium channels is uniquely suited to integrate G protein–coupled receptor signals with calcium channel activity.
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Neighbor to Neighbortoolboxnewdev2019-09-20T15:29:21-06:00
case studies | neighbor to neighbor
Opening doors. Advancing lives.
The community-funded organization — dedicated to helping neighbors stay in their homes, regain housing stability and achieve homeownership — needed a brand as strong as their mission.
5,000 neighbors
served by N2N every year
N2N prevents homelessness for
N2N prevents foreclosure in
90% of cases
A strong community starts neighbor to neighbor
What began in 1970 as a group of neighbors banding together to prevent a large family from experiencing homelessness has grown to become our community’s front door to housing services — helping more than 5,000 of our neighbors afford, own and stay in their homes each year. It was time for Neighbor to Neighbor’s brand to match their expanding role and influence in the community.
Toolbox started with an extensive Brand Assessment, including interviews with staff, partners and clients, to get to the heart of N2N and what distinguishes it from other community housing resources.
The transformation
Neighbor to Neighbor was in need of brand positioning and a refreshed look and feel to more accurately reflect the breadth of work they do along the full continuum of housing.
Old logo
To take their organization to the next level, Neighbor to Neighbor understood they needed a brand and positioning that clearly communicated who they were, what they did and how their work impacted the community.
Toolbox oversaw a full rebrand, which included developing a brand hierarchy. We created a compelling parent brand for Neighbor to Neighbor and then organized a dozen disparate programs into three service categories, creating a complementary color palette and service icon for each. The resulting “parent” and “child” brands articulated Neighbor to Neighbor’s mission and capabilities, which greatly aided internal organization and external communication alike.
Neighbor to Neighbor provides expertise and services across the housing continuum, from preventing and ending homelessness to facilitating homeownership. Its three service areas — Eviction Prevention, Rental Options and Homeownership — each assist a distinct group in our community. To facilitate conversation, Toolbox plotted those service areas along the continuum and developed talking points for each category and audience archetype.
This internal resource was designed to work equally well in two directions. For those who understand and support Neighbor to Neighbor’s mission, it gives N2N staff the language they need to be the most effective advocates they can be. For those unfamiliar with N2N’s work, it provides messaging to build consensus, educate and empower positive action.
The rebranded Neighbor to Neighbor helped spark public support and increase awareness of their mission. As importantly, the process helped internal departments better understand each other and articulate their own voices within the larger N2N narrative.
Neighbor to Neighbor has been making the community a better place to live for nearly a half century, without making much of a stir. Toolbox clarified and strengthened their message, helping the organization look and sound as good as they truly are — setting them on a strong course for the next 50 years.
Visit N2N.org
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Elected school boards are the bedrock of American democracy.
tultican
Thomas Ultican
Tag Archives: Slaying Goliath
“We Are the Resistance and We Are Winning.”
By Thomas Ultican 1/1/2020
Historian and former United States Assistant Secretary of Education, Diane Ravitch’s, new book, Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools is due for release January 21. This masterpiece weaves together recent history with illuminating data concerning “corporate driven education reforms.”
The reported community response to self-anointed reformers is spiritually uplifting. Ravitch presents strong evidence that resistance to their reforms is carrying the day. She declares, “Judged by their own chosen metrics – standardized test scores – the fake ‘reforms’ failed.”
Diane tells a deeply personal story of her own journey through the education wars while bringing to life the experiences of teachers, students and parents harmed by “fake reforms.” In this captivating read, Ravitch describes the fight to save the commons.
Disruption and Changing Course
There is a parallel between Diane Ravitch and Elizabeth Warren. Both Warren and Ravitch were scholars whose research led them to a profound change of thought. Warren was fundamentally a moderate Republican when she began researching bankruptcy law. Ravitch was an advocate of top down standards based education reform. Through their personal research both these women awakened to personal error and went out to make amends. Warren became the bane of the banking industry and a tiger in Democratic politics. Ravitch threw up a stop sign in front of “corporate education reform” and has become its most virulent opponent.
When I mentioned something Ravitch wrote in 2012 to a teacher colleague, that veteran teacher in my neighboring classroom expressed open hostility toward her. He remembered Lamar Alexander’s resident scholar in the Department of Education and her full throated advocacy of standards and testing accountability. He remembered her papers published by the Brookings Institute. Since then, Ravitch has overcome many of her skeptics by working harder than anyone else and fearlessly leading the fight to save authentic public education.
In Slaying Goliath Ravtich shares,
“Having worked as assistant secretary of education for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the administration of President George H. W. Bush and for many years in some of the nation’s leading conservative think tanks, I had hoped that privatization and testing would produce sweeping improvement, especially for the neediest students. It didn’t. I couldn’t pretend otherwise. I came to realize that the privatization movement was a continuation of a decades-long campaign by right-wingers who hated public schools, which they derisively called ‘government schools.’ I renounced my own past views and determined to expose the well-funded smear campaign against American public schools and their teachers.”
What should we call the proponents of the choice agenda fueled by standardized testing driven accountability? What do we call those wealthy elites financing the push for charter schools, vouchers and public school closures? Ravitch refuses to call them “reformers” or what they promote “reform.” She recites various appellations people use; “deformers,” or the “financial privatization cabal,” or the “Destroy Public Education Movement.” She observes that “reform” has positive connotations that denotes ‘“improvement,’ ‘progress,’ and ‘uplift.’”
An oft stated goal of this corporate driven agenda is disruption. Disruption is an odd management theory championed at Harvard University in 1995. It posits disruption as a needed ingredient for innovation-driven growth. Ravitch decided they have named themselves.
“They are Disrupters. They are masters of chaos, which they inflict on other people’s children, without a twinge of remorse.”
From the beginning of the book on, Ravitch refers to the “Disrupters.”
Strategy of the Disrupters
A natural starting point for analyzing the era of the Disrupters is the Reagan administration’s 1983 polemic, “A Nation at Risk.” Ravitch shares that Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency with three goals for public education; (1) abolish the US Department of Education, (2) restore school prayer and (3) introduce school vouchers for religious and other private schools.
His Secretary of Education, Terrel Bell, had other ideas. To save the department, he established “The National Commission on Excellence in Education.” In its report written by American business leaders and a venerated scientist, they did not call for prayer or vouchers, however, they blamed public education for the nation’s economic struggles which Ravitch saw as “no less destructive.” She cites an NPR report in which the authors candidly admitted that the data was “‘cherry-picked’ to make American public schools look as bad as possible.”
When the Department of Energy commissioned engineers at the Sandia Nation Laboratories to study the current status of American education in 1990, they criticized “The Nation at Risk” as overly alarmist. Sandia found that test scores, graduation rates, and other indicators were actually improving. In Slaying Goliath, Ravitch’s shares an insiders perspective. She writes,
“At the time, I was assistant secretary of education for education research and improvement, and in 1992, I attended the Energy Department’s briefing about the Sandia report. I accompanied David Kearns, former CEO of Zerox, who was deputy secretary of education, to the meeting. He was outraged by the Sandia report, which contradicted the view of the Department of Education that American public schools were failing and needed radical change. The Energy Department never published the report, but it was immediately leaked to hundreds of influential researchers, who wrote about its findings. In retrospect, the Sandia report got it right. The late Gerald Bracey, a prolific and outspoken education researcher, was highly critical of the conventional wisdom, which I was then defending. I hereby personally apologize to him. He was right. The “crisis in education” was a politically inspired hoax, or as the eminent researchers David Berliner and Bruce Biddle later called it, a ‘Manufactured Crisis.’”
What do disrupters want? They want:
Inexperienced teachers with little or no training from organizations like Teach For America.
To replace teachers with machine teaching (“blended learning” – “personalized learning”).
To move fast and break things including school systems, historic schools and communities.
To eliminate local democratic control over schools.
To eliminate teacher tenure and seniority rights.
To eliminate teacher defined benefit pensions.
To eliminate teachers unions.
To evaluate teachers and schools with standardized test scores.
To lower taxes and reduce spending on education.
Ravitch goes into significant detail about who are the disrupters. She calls out the billionaires in the private sector driving the school choice agenda and highlights their spending. She states, “Every Republican governor is a disrupter, because they actively support privatization by charters and vouchers.” However, she notes that rural Republican officials understand that public schools are the anchors of their communities and do not support privatization. The Democratic Party also has many disrupters but not in as great of numbers as the Republicans and generally no Democrats support vouchers. The last two Democratic Presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, were disrupters.
Conservative groups supporting disruption include the far right Heritage Foundation and the libertarian Cato Institute. Ravitch asserts, “The radical right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is the key organization in the world of disruption advocacy.”
She lists more than a dozen pro-disrupter “think-tanks” on the right including the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Center for Education Reform which Ravitch describes as liking “every choice in schooling except public schools.”
Before his 1998 election to the governorship of Florida, Jeb Bush served on the board of the Heritage Foundation where he developed his education plans. Diane cites his A+ Plan for education as the “template for disruption.” It combines choice, competition, high-stakes testing, grading schools with A-F grades and accountability as the formula for excellence in education.
Two “liberal” groups, the Center for American Progress (CAP) and Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), push most of the disrupter agenda. In her description of DFER Ravitch writes,
“In 2005, several hedge fund managers – Witney Tilson, Ravenel Boykin Curry IV, John Petry and Charles Ledley – launched Democrats for Education Reform at a posh party on Central Park South in Manhattan, where the inaugural speaker was a young senator from Illinois named Barack Obama. DEFR, as it is deceptively called, was founded to support school privatization by making strategic campaign contributions. Inspired by DFER, charter schools became the pet passion of Wall Street.”
“It is likely difficult to throw a beanbag in a corporate or Wall Street boardroom without hitting a member of the board of a charter chain.”
The Victorious Resistance
Tom Ultican and Diane Ravitch at the 2018 NPE Conference
The picture above was taken just over two months before the historic LA teachers strike on January 14, 2019. Following the massive teachers strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma and Arizona, the LA strike was the first one led by a sanctioned teachers union. When the teachers settled their strike after nine days, they did not get any bump in the original take home pay offer but they won big.
USA Today reported, “‘this is much more than a labor agreement,’ said UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl. ‘It’s a very broad compact that gets to social justice, educational justice.’” The Los Angeles agreement included class size reductions in all grade levels, 300 additional school nurses, 80 new teacher librarians, one counselor for every 500 students and a 3 percent raise for teachers.
In Arizona, a group of six women established Save Our Schools Arizona to fight the Koch brothers initiated large voucher expansion proposal which was adopted by the Arizona state government. At the Indianapolis NPE conference, Beth Lewis and Sharon Kirsch of SOS Arizona were presented the first of a planned annual Phyllis Bush Award. Against all odds they landed a citizens’ initiative stopping the voucher expansion on to the November 6, 2018 ballot. Later we learned their initiative won with a whopping 65% of the vote.
Ravitch tells these stories and many more of the resistance taking on Goliath and winning.
The saga of Douglas County Colorado being taken over by school privatization forces in 2011 is unique and uplifting. The disrupters immediately established a district school voucher program. That was only the beginning of their agenda, but a bi-partisan group of parents fought back. Today there are no disrupters left on the school board in Douglas County and there are no vouchers.
The account of Barbara Madeloni, President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA), leading the fight to stop the state from increasing the number of charter schools is amazing. The contest was played out at the ballot box over a referendum to expand the number of charters known as Question-2. Ravitch reports that the MTA directed Madeloni to negotiate with legislators and quotes Madeloni’s negotiating position,
“We are glad to talk, but we will not accept any deal that involves any new charter schools. Now, what do you want to talk about?”
Question-2 lost 68% to 32%. One of the largest contributors to the yes-on-2 campaign was the world’s now second richest women hailing from Bentonville, Arkansas, Alice Walton. She is an heir to the Walmart fortune.
A Concluding Analysis
Ravitch’s books like The Death and Life of the Great American School System and Reign of Error are scholarly efforts that serve for years as references. Yet, they are written in a fashion that gives the average reader access to the material in an enjoyable and understandable way. I believe that in Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools, Ravitch has upped her game. The stories are riveting and the scholarship underlying them is first rate. This is another game changing book from Diane Ravitch.
Twitter: @tultican
Tags: Charter schools, Diane Ravitch, NCLB, philanthropy, Politics, Slaying Goliath, Standardized Testing, Standards, testing, vouchers
Categories DPE, education, Justice
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Dialogue on Dallas Public School Attack
Corporate Education Reform
School Experiences
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'BE CONSCIOUS': Calypso Rose (McArtha Lewis)
JB MILLOT
Calypso Rose to perform at Coachella
Kimoy Leon Sing
Follow Kimoy Leon Sing
Trinidad and Tobago’s Calypso Rose, real name Linda Mcartha Sandy Lewis will perform at Coachella, one of the world’s biggest music and art festivals.
This is Rose’s first time performing at the event which is scheduled to take place in Southern California from April 12 to April 14 and from April 19 to April 21.
The veteran singer will be a part of a star-studded line-up of artistes which include Childish Gambino, Janelle Monae, Diplo among others.
On Thursday, Rose went on her Instagram and commented on her selection for the celebrity-packed event.
“So excited, I can’t wait to sing, dance and enjoy this time with all of you.”
Every year, the festival draws thousands of music and art lovers in various parts of the world. This year, fans will also enjoy hits from musical giants such as Ariana Grande, Whiz Khalifa, Dj Kahlid, Pusha-T among others.
Some other local stars that have performed previously at Coachella include Machel Montano, Ian “Bunji Garlin” Alvarez and his wife, Fay Ann.
At 78, Rose continues to add more accolades to her very busy musical career.
Dubbed the calypso queen of the world, she was recently awarded the grand prize for World Music Award at the Sacem Grand Prix in France and has seen a resurgence in her career since she released her album Far From Home in 2016.
She has toured throughout Europe and in 2017 won the World Album Of The Year at the Victoire de la Musique, considered the French equivalent of the Grammy Awards.
In May last year, the seasoned singer released her follow up album So Calypso.
Calypso Music
Machel Montano
STUART IN THE BOX
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‘HE SAVED MY LIFE’
You can be jailed for helping launder cash
Michelle-Lee Ahye charged with beating her wife
Goodbye wet fetes: Water restrictions in effect
Stuart ready for JSC
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Sarah Abdallah @sahouraxo 13h13 hours ago
Sarah Abdallah Retweeted CNN
Heartbroken, huh Barry boy? So are the fathers whose daughters were killed by all the bombs you dropped on 7 countries last year.
Sarah Abdallah added,
CNNVerified account @CNN
Obama's message to Manchester: "As the father of two daughters, I am heartbroken by the extraordinary tragedy" http://cnn.it/2qUix5t
Truly, WTF?
I have 3 children, Barack.
I think maybe he's trying to skirt the outrage that Sarah Abdallah rightly feels.
Instead of saying, "As someone who carried out torture and bombing, I am heartbroken," he goes to "as a father."
He is an embarrassment.
I cannot believe he managed to be in the White House for eight years.
Bully Boy Bush, Barack Obama and now Donald Trump.
As a country, we deserved so much better.
(That's not a plea for Hillary.)
Friday, May 26, 2017. Chaos and violence continue, the US Senate looks at VA accountability, the cost of the never-ending wars hit six trillion for US taxpayers, and much more.
We're going to start in the US with the Senate and we'll wind down there too at the end of the snapshot. Senator Tammy Baldwin's office issued the following yesterday.
Contact: press@baldwin.senate.gov
Bipartisan VA Accountability Reform One Step Closer to Senate Passage
Committee on Veterans’ Affairs approves bipartisan legislation, now heads to full Senate for vote
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) joined Senators Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Jon Tester (D-MT) and fellow cosponsors of the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act in applauding the bipartisan committee passage of this VA reform legislation.
The bipartisan legislation, which passed the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs by voice vote, would reform the VA by better protecting whistleblowers and providing the VA Secretary with stronger measures to discipline and hold bad employees accountable. The legislation will now move to the full Senate for a vote on final passage.
“Now that our bipartisan legislation has passed committee, we must continue to work across party lines to push our VA reforms forward and make them a reality,” said Senator Baldwin. “Together, we can build a VA that protects whistleblowers, many of whom are veterans working to improve the system. We also need to make sure we are empowering the VA to hold bad actors accountable because our veterans deserve nothing less than high quality service and care.”
Along with Senators Baldwin, Isakson, Rubio and Tester, 19 other senators who are cosponsors of the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act urged the Senate to pass the legislation without delay, including Senators John Boozman (R-AR), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Thad Cochran (R-MS), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Steve Daines (R-MT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Dean Heller (R-NV), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), John Kennedy (R-LA), John McCain (R-AZ), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Bill Nelson (D-FL), David Perdue (R-GA), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Roger Wicker (R-MS).
The Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act is widely supported by key veterans stakeholders including the VA, U.S. House VA committee leadership and the American Legion Department of Wisconsin. This legislation has also won the support of several veterans advocacy groups that represent millions of veterans in the United States and key government accountability groups.
An online version of this release is available here.
And we'll note this from a member of the Texas legislature on burn pits.
Joaquin CastroVerified account @JoaquinCastrotx 11h11 hours ago
Exposure to burn pits at military installations in Iraq & Afghanistan may have caused serious health problems for service members & veterans
March 17th the US bombed a building in Mosul. Civilians were inside. There have been many attempts to confuse the issue -- I've sat through two Congressional hearings alone where members of Congress offered conspiracies -- but the reality is that civilians were killed. Now?
BBC NEWS notes, "The United States has admitted that at least 105 Iraqi civilians were killed in an air strike it carried out in Mosul in March." The Pentagon is saying they killed two snipers and that they were the targets of the strike; however, AP explains "several residents of the Mosul neighborhood told The Associated Press on Friday there were no IS fighters or explosives inside the house struck by the U.S. bomb."
That news surfaced late Thursday. John Haltiwanger (ELITE DAILY) tracked trends online and noted that the news did not amplify on social media:
Is this is a sign of ignorance of what’s being done with U.S. tax dollars in the Middle East, or just indifference?
Perhaps it’s a mixture of both.
But there’s a strong case to be that made airstrikes that kill civilians aid the cause of terrorist organizations like ISIS.
In real time, in the US, it briefly made the news in a "Donald Trump increased the killings!" type of way. Meaning that members of the so-called 'resistance' (firmly in debt to the centrist core of the Democratic Party) promoted it as an example of Bad Trump.
In doing so, they revealed that, for them, killing innocent civilians was okay as long as it was less than a hundred at a time.
Which is why they had no objections to the many civilians killed in this same manner when Barack Obama was president.
This further reveals the corruption of the Democratic Party.
The Iraq War was used to give opposition to Bully Boy Bush 'morality.'
And once Democrats got control of both houses, interest in ending the Iraq War (a promise Nancy Pelosi made ahead of the 2006 mid-term elections) vanished.
It's why War Hawks like Debra Messing can sling s**t at Susan Sarandon and get away with it.
Susan spoke out against the war.
And suffered for it.
But the Froth In Their Underpants Hillary Clinton Temple Slaves don't care about that anymore than they care that Hillary voted for the Iraq War and was a war monger as Secretary of State.
There is no repulsion to the US government continuing to kill civilians.
But if they can find a way to hang the blame solely on Donald Trump, you better believe that The Debra Messings and their laughable 'resistance' will find a way to take over the topic of the never-ending Iraq War.
There are other countries bombing Iraq as well.
Samuel Oakford (FOREIGN POLICY) reports:
The United States’ coalition partners in the war against the Islamic State are responsible for at least 80 confirmed civilian deaths from airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, according to U.S. military officials. Yet none of their 12 allies will publicly concede any role in those casualties.
These dozen partner nations have launched more than 4,000 airstrikes combined, the vast majority of which were undertaken by the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Belgium, and the Netherlands. However, they have so far claimed a perfect record in avoiding civilian casualties. An Airwars investigation for Foreign Policy has now uncovered evidence that disproves that assertion.
These confirmed deaths caused by non-U.S. airstrikes came to light in the most recent coalition civilian casualty report, released April 30. The report quietly referred to 80 new deaths referenced only as “attributable to coalition strikes to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria from August 2014 to present [that] had not been previously announced.”
Three U.S. Central Command officials confirmed to Airwars and Foreign Policy that the 80 deaths occurred in incidents that U.S. investigators concluded were the responsibility of partner nations. But allies pressured the United States and the coalition against releasing details of the strikes in question.
Back to a focus on the US, Linda J. Blimes (AMERIFORCE) counts the financial cost:
On Memorial Day, we pay respects to the fallen from past wars – including the more than one million American soldiers killed in the Civil War, World Wars I and II, Korea and Vietnam.
Yet the nation’s longest and most expensive war is the one that is still going on. In addition to nearly 7,000 troops killed, the 16-year conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost an estimated US$6 trillion due to its prolonged length, rapidly increasing veterans health care and disability costs and interest on war borrowing. On this Memorial Day, we should begin to confront the staggering cost and the challenge of paying for this war.
Six trillion dollars.
$6,000,000,000,000.
Is that typed right?
And counting.
For the never-ending Iraq War.
The war that Americans gave the Democratic Party both houses of Congress in the 2006 mid-terms to end. The war that the American people elected Barack Obama president in 2008 to end.
The war that never ends.
Meanwhile, Ali Arkady's reporting continues to have impact.
ABC NewsVerified account @ABC 21h21 hours ago
EXCLUSIVE: Iraqi photojournalist risks his life to expose torture used by some elite Iraqi soldiers fighting ISIS. abcn.ws/2rUko8Z
Iraqi troops, once praised by U.S., torture civilians in secret videos
160 replies1,220 retweets781 likes
Wrapping up, will now note this from Senator Johnny Isakson's office -- Isakson is the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee:
Thursday, May 25,, 2017
Contact: Amanda Maddox, 202-224-7777
Kristen Hines, 202-228-2967
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., today announced that the Senate will consider the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act, legislation introduced by U.S. Senators Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Jon Tester, D-Mont., ranking member of the committee, on Tuesday, June 6, when the Senate reconvenes after the Memorial Day state work period.
“I am thrilled to see the Senate moving quickly on this important piece of legislation, and I encourage my colleagues to support this measure as we take steps to change the culture at the VA and improve care for our veterans,” said Isakson. “I thank Majority Leader McConnell for his commitment to ensuring our veterans receive the quality care that they deserve.”
In remarks on the Senate floor earlier today, McConnell stated, “[A]fter the state work period, we’ll be taking up a bipartisan bill reported out of Committee just yesterday that will enhance accountability at the VA, improve the care veterans receive, and empower the VA with the tools necessary to remove employees who are failing to perform at the high-quality level our nation’s heroes richly deserve.”
McConnell continued, “We know many challenges remain in ensuring that veterans have access to the care they need and deserve at the VA, but this legislation will further improve our ability to meet our commitment to them. I appreciate Chairman Isakson for his continued advocacy on behalf of our veterans as well as Senator Rubio for his leadership on this critical legislation. I look forward to the full Senate taking up the bill and passing it soon.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act was introduced by Isakson, Rubio and Tester on May 11. The measure passed the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs by voice vote on Wednesday, May 24.
The Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act is widely supported by key veterans stakeholders including the VA and U.S. House VA committee leadership. It has also won the support of several veterans advocacy groups that represent millions of veterans in the United States and key government accountability groups. Read more about the legislation’s support here.
The Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs is chaired by U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., in the 115th Congress. Isakson is a veteran himself – having served in the Georgia Air National Guard from 1966-1972 – and has been a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs since he joined the Senate in 2005. Isakson’s home state of Georgia is home to more than a dozen military installations representing each branch of the military as well as more than 750,000 veterans.
Who started which war?
I agree with Julian
Margaret Kimberley calls out the corporate media
Will they pay attention to John Stauber's warnings?
EMPIRE and Demi Moore
2 who get it right
what does glenn greenwald know?
That awful Debbie Washerwoman Schultzycakes
iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq
iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq iraq
Robert Fisk.
A huge disappointment.
He was supposed to be our great lefty, remember?
ANd he walked away from the Iraq War about ten years ago.
John Stauber Retweeted
Ian56 @Ian56789 May 20
The CIA's and Saudis original "Moderate Rebel"
8 replies114 retweets98 likes
Remember that.
It was Robert Fisk with the inside line on Osama bin Laden -- a CIA asset.
And is that what Fisk is?
He is usually pushing CIA narratives.
His position is usually that of the breakaway CIA group -- think of the ones Ted Koppel interviewed in that NIGHTLINE story in 2002.
Robert Fisk seems very close to intel.
I'm guessing he's one of those 'do gooders' who thinks he can bring peace by getting other people to do what he wants.
As opposed to those of us who believe in self-determination.
When Fisk dies and the truth can be reported, I won't be at all surprised to read that he was part of MI6 and the CIA.
Thursday, May 25, 2017. As The Mosul Slog continues, we're going to underscore that the new Judith Miller is a danger -- and the stooges who support her are dangers as well.
Day 218 of The Mosul Slog.
Iraqi Day 🇮🇶 @iraqi_day 16h16 hours ago
#PMU advancing toward Baaj west #Mosul on the 3 fronts, multiple villages have been stormed. #Iraq
1 reply23 retweets47 likes
Day 218 and still it continues.
Iraq has opened an inquiry into claims that its forces abused and killed civilians in the battle for Mosul against so-called Islamic State (IS).
An interior ministry statement said it would take legal measures against anyone proven to have been "negligent".
It comes after Der Spiegel published an article by a photojournalist who was embedded with the ministry's troops.
Ali Arkady says he took pictures of detainees suspended from ceilings and that others were tortured and raped.
Wait, wait! Abuses? And it wasn't reported by Rukmini Callimachi?
Of course, it wasn't reported by her. She's THE NEW YORK TIMES' new Judith Miller -- as we pointed out February 10th.
Rukmini is very popular with Glenn Greenwald but then so was the Iraq War once upon a time.
Rukmini poured propaganda out her blow hole and the usual saps lapped it up like it was 2002 all over again.
Rukmini Callimachi fans should be suspect.
Especially if, like Glenn Greenwald, they got it wrong in real time (he supported the Iraq War).
There's a barrier between those people and critical thought.
REUTERS notes:
Iraq's interior minister on Wednesday ordered an investigation into allegations that members of the security forces had tortured, killed and abused civilians in the campaign to oust Islamic State militants from Mosul.
The inquiry was in response to a report by the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel last week that included images of apparent torture taken by a freelance photographer embedded with the Interior Ministry's elite Emergency Response Division (ERD).
Photographs showed detainees accused of affiliation with Islamic State hanging from the ceiling with their arms bent behind them, and the journalist wrote of prisoners being tortured to death, raped and stabbed with knives.
DOAM @doamuslims May 22
#Iraq - SPIEGEL photographer Ali Arkady documents Iraqi security forces abducting, torturing, raping, & killing Sunnis around #Mosul.
Rukmini was too busy socializing to get the job done. But, hey, she got a lot of free meals, didn't she?
Chad Garland (STARS AND STRIPES) notes:
Under a law known as the Leahy law, the U.S. is prohibited from supporting units accused of human rights abuses for which “credible” evidence exists. Officials with the U.S.-led anti-Islamic State coalition could not confirm the allegations against the Iraqi forces but said the United States does not currently train or equip the Emergency Response Division.
“Any violation of the law of armed conflict would be unacceptable and should be investigated in a transparent manner,” the U.S.-led international coalition in Iraq said in a statement. “Prime Minister (Haider al-Abadi) has stated that he has a zero-tolerance policy for any improper action by the Iraqi Security Forces and would thoroughly investigate any such allegations.”
RT adds:
In the article, which was in stark contrast to Western reporting from Mosul, the photographer claimed that the ERD persecuted numerous civilians on “vague” suspicions of links with IS.
The piece included photos by Arkady of people hanging from the ceiling with their arms tied up behind their backs, as well as other torture scenes.
The victims were picked up during night raids, which included rape and looting, and taken to villages outside Mosul where there were no foreign journalists, he said.
Oh, Rukmini.
If only someone could have warned us in real time that Rukmini was reporting lies . . .
But don't worry, Rukmini will be fine. (A) THE NEW YORK TIMES has lied about Iraq repeatedly and (B) Glenn Greenwald will continue to support her.
At some point, the world's going to notice that except for the Ed Snowden dumped in his lap, Glenn's not accomplished anything.
As Rebecca asked earlier this week "remember when 'the intercept' was supposed to be an important outlet? "
No start-ups had more money and no start-up has done less.
At this point, he's making Tina Brown's TALK look like an investigative journal.
The following community sites -- plus PACIFICA EVENING NEWS -- updated:
My favorite character on TV
good for roberty parry
The War Hawks grab a pen
Look at all these great actresses
Margaret Kimberley
EMPIRE and Roger Moore
Diana Ross' diana album
Where was Jane Mayer?
That awful NPR
Border Wall, Sanctuary Cities Topics at Homeland Security Budget Hearing
I don't like DEAR WHITE PEOPLE
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Bugatti has revealed a limited-run trim for its Chiron hypercar, inspired by the pre-war La Voiture Noire edition of the iconic Type 57 SC Atlantic.
The French firm released a design concept based on the car in March, and the reception from the public was so good that it has decided to make them available to the public – though only 20 will be built.
There are two versions available – Noire Sportive and Noire Elegance. The body panels are made from carbon-fibre, and for the Elegance, the material is left on display, while in the Sportive it is covered by a matte black paint.
Other feature on the Elegance include a redesigned radiator with a solid silver Bugatti emblem, new Caractere wheels and a silver aluminium-finish signature C line, while inside the C-shaped cabin line is made of aluminium with a silk-matte finish.
On top of its matte black body paint, the Sportive also gets black trim elements, such as the signature C line, wheels, front spoiler, titanium exhaust tips, and engine cover. Inside, the theme continues, with most of the switchgear also painted black.
Both models are powered by the standard Bugatti engine, which is an 8.0-litre 16-cylinder unit producing almost 1,500bhp and 1,600Nm of torque. Prices start at €3 million, and can be upgraded to use the more performance-focused Sport chassis for an extra €100,000.
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Tim's Film Reviews Film Reviews From Tim The Film Guy
in Action, Drama, Predictions, Sci-Fi, Thriller, Trailer
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Trailer #1) Review
Wow was not expecting that, at all. It’s looking very interesting and whilst I have no idea what the final product will deliver I am very interested in this film. Watched the trailer a few times now and my only thought is wow Sony is REALLY going for it! Insane amount of content in this film and there is a lot of stuff I like, and the usual worries I get. We see Rhino, Electro, Green Goblin or Hob Goblin? And easily my favourite scene showing the super tech for the sinister six. Sinister Six! And this is only the trailer for the second film. So yeah I like what I see so far and whether Sony’s strategy of going big or going home works out at least it’s a really big change in the normal formula of superhero films. Come on Webb show us something new. Spiderman, Spiderman does whatever a spider can. Enjoy the review and please tell me your initial reactions to this new trailer, more so if you disagree.
“Soon everyone in this city will know how it feels to live in a world without power, without mercy. A world without Spider-Man!”
My Score: A-
We’ve always known that Spider-Man’s most important battle has been within himself: the struggle between the ordinary obligations of Peter Parker and the extraordinary responsibilities of Spider-Man. But in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Peter Parker finds that a greater conflict lies ahead. It’s great to be Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield). For Peter Parker, there’s no feeling quite like swinging between skyscrapers, embracing being the hero, and spending time with Gwen (Emma Stone). But being Spider-Man comes at a price: only Spider-Man can protect his fellow New Yorkers from the formidable villains that threaten the city. With the emergence of Electro (Jamie Foxx), Peter must confront a foe far more powerful than he. And as his old friend, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), returns, Peter comes to realize that all of his enemies have one thing in common: OsCorp.
What I liked
#9. Dead Lifting A Cop Car
Nice catch! Hoping Rhino threw that, although looking at it again I think its Electro I can see in the background. You don’t normally see Spiderman demonstrating his strength but he is actually a really strong superhero, I mean he’s no Hulk but he beat up Captain America, not sure why he would be could. This is going to be a fun battle.
#8. Matrix!
Stop pretending your Neo, Spiderman! I really hope they give him good dialogue to interact with Rhino; some of the best stuff from Spiderman is his taunting of villains. Because when they come back in mech suits or with super powers they really have a good reason to go after Spidey.
#7. Mr Blue Eyes I Mean Harry Osborn
Haven’t heard enough of him to get a good feel for the character but he seems interesting enough. Gonna talk about his apparent extra curricula activities later on. What do you all think of our new Harry Osborn?
#6. Sinister Six!
6 blast doors opening in unisons in the Osborn building. Sinister Six anyone? Yay I cannot wait for this to play out on the big screen. It’s going to be so EPIC!!! Anyway more Sinister Six teases to come.
#5. A Much Brighter World
Compared to the first film which was 90% filmed at night for some reason (one of my complaints) this trailer seems to present a sequel with a far more vivid and bright environment for Spiderman to fight his many loopy villains. Hell this still image looks like a really excellent animated Spiderman film, that’s a compliment.
#4. Daddies Secrets
I remember them teasing this in the first film and I am very glad it spawned into something, the comics have a lot of different ideas of what his parents did and why they died but I can’t really remember any of them so let’s just go with Peters dad being the scientist behind a lot of Oscorp weapons and technologies. Also spidey has his own secret lab which is cool.
#3. The Vulture And Doc Ock
Yes that is the weapons used by the Vulture and Doctor Octopus, two members of the Sinister Six. I am having a nerd attack currently so bear with me. Clearly Sony wants this series of films to last a while and if they are bringing the Sinister Six together I am with them all the way. This is such a fun teaser moment.
#2. Electro
Ah so Jamie Foxx shows his face in a trailer that is shockingly not primarily showing him as the villain, everyone gets a little screen time. Normally it’s all about good vs. bad, here’s the hero and here’s the villain. However this tells us a lot of different aspect to the film, then at the end it’s all Electro this and Electro that haha no but he does really kick ass near the end of this trailer. Looking for a good fight Electro!
#1. Spiderman Dodging The Electro
This scene looks EPIC!!! Let the electric bolts fly we have a boss fight in progress. Looking at the scene it looks like they have a fight near a power station, seems like Electro would have the advantage in that fight but Spidey is getting away with it as always. Really looking forward to this.
What I Didn’t Like (Kind of)
#3. Rhino Mech
I’ll probably warm to the whole mech suit Rhino but I’d still like to see the other Rhino designs. The more I think about it the whole mech suit is probably the safest option for the character; it could have really looked terrible. I will like it a lot more if Spiderman develops a disliking of robots because I always thought that was funny in the animated show.
#2. Norman Osborn. Dying?
Not sure where they are going with Green Goblin in this series but I am not a fan of change, but we could also be going with Hob Goblin first then Green Goblin later. Am good with that, could also explain the lack of green in Harry’s appearance (image below).
#1. Hob Goblin or Green Goblin?
The more I look at this image and the trailer in general the more I see the Hob Goblin and not the Green Goblin. Anyway that’s not my complaint, the visuals are my complaint. He looks pretty terrible in this scene and I hope they fix this in post-production; they have a few months so I am not too worried.
Well that’s my views. Now what do you think about this newest trailer?
Share my magical words:
Tags: Andrew Garfield, B.J. Novak, Black Cat, Chris Cooper, Chris Zylka, Colm Feore, Dane DeHaan, Denis Leary, Electro, Emma Stone, Felicity Jones, Green Goblin, Hans Zimmer, Harry Osborn, Hob Goblin, Jamie Foxx, Marc Webb, Martin Sheen, Marton Csokas, Marvel, Oscorp, Paul Giamatti, Peter Parker, Poster, Review, Rhino, Sally Field, Sony, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, superhero, The Amazing, The Amazing Spider-man, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Trailer #1) Review, Trailer, Trailer #1, Uncanny
About Tim The Film Guy
Very opinionated about films!
View all posts by Tim The Film Guy »
51 responses to “The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Trailer #1) Review”
scifidramaqueen says : January 17, 2014 at 2:58 PM
I can’t wait for this one. I wasn’t sure about the reboot at first, but the first film surprised me. Andrew Garfield is a great Spidey and I can’t wait to see Jamie Foxx in action.
Tim The Film Guy says : January 18, 2014 at 4:07 PM
Glad to hear it, should be good. Its a risky looking film and I like that 😀
cevans1982 says : January 12, 2014 at 12:11 PM
Hm, I have mixed thoughts to be honest Tim. I really enjoyed the first ASM and there’s a lot of cool easter eggs hinted at in the trailer for ASM2 (Sinister Six!!!) but it looks a little…overloaded. Now I’m one of the few that didn’t hate Spider-Man 3 but I agree that less is perhaps more? Not too keen on the mech-Rhino.
Will still be seeing it on release though so fingers crossed!
It might be too much, I hope they will focus on one and the others will get 10 mins, first ten is for rhino, last 10 for Goblin killing Gwen 😀
Haha yeah either way I will be the first one there 😀
cevans1982 says : January 19, 2014 at 10:30 AM
Yeah I’m hoping for the Death of Gwen Stacy, not because I dislike the character or Emma Stone (far from it on both counts) but it’s such an iconic and important moment in Spider-Man history and paves the way for Mary Jane…
There is a lot that points to her death. What she is wearing, what spiderman is doing, The position he shoots that web, a goblin is in the scene. I would be very surprised if she lives past this film.
The film looks more fun and funny than the first and so it ending with her death will really shock a lot of people. Probably me if it contrasts the films other content. Would be powerful though 😀
Dan says : January 11, 2014 at 4:04 PM
I really enjoyed the first film and it looks like that film really set us up for what takes place in part 2. Looking forward to this.
It looks good, lots of content, hope it all works out 😀
Lights Camera Reaction says : December 19, 2013 at 5:22 PM
Jamie Foxx looks ridiculous haha.
Looking forward to Stone and Garfield’s performances though.
Tim The Film Guy says : December 19, 2013 at 5:52 PM
He’s growing on me but eh its a cheesy super villain and spidey has the best cheese when it comes to his villains 😀
I have high hopes for this one. What is your favorite part of the trailer, or if you saw the recent bonus trailer that is more humorous i’ll except a scene from that too 😀
Niejan says : December 16, 2013 at 11:54 AM
Great post Tim. The only complaint I have is the excessive use of CGI. But then, the international trailer looks way different (and better) than the first trailer. My favorite part is definitely the Matrix moves by Spidey. I laughed so hard when seeing that. 🙂
Thank you. The contrast between the two trailers is very stark! The difference between a comedy and a drama haha and I prefer the comedy 😀
Oh yeah the spidey matrix trip, hope he makes a joke about that 😀
Fringe Void says : December 13, 2013 at 12:57 AM
Mr. Freeze? Also, since when can Spiderman catch cars?
Tim The Film Guy says : December 14, 2013 at 10:05 PM
Ha! Lets not draw that comparison, please not 😀
He’s actually a very strong superhero, not often depicted as such in the films. I think he can lift 10-20 tonnes depending on the comic arc, often holds back his strength to avoid killing 😀
Yes I am a nerd.
Brian McNeal says : December 11, 2013 at 2:19 AM
You’re much more optimistic than I am. I saw “The Amazing Spider-Man,” which was pretty awful. The trailer is admittedly pretty, but so was the first one.
Always have to be optimistic 😀
Wasn’t awful, had its problems but I saw plenty of potential and hopefully that will pay off in this one 😀
Brian McNeal says : December 11, 2013 at 6:41 PM
You can have potential and still be awful. They’re definitely not mutually exclusive.
No they are not 😀
boxofficebuzzab says : December 10, 2013 at 4:01 AM
I really liked the trailer. Looks like they’re going to cover A LOT of ground in this one. While there’s a risk the film could be overstuffed, I like that there’s so much exciting stuff going on here. 🙂
Glad to hear it. It kind of makes me wish they rebooted the series without an origin story. We get it your spider-man! 10 years we’ve known that now bring on the sinister six! 😀
I like that they are reaching for the skies with this one, even if it fails I respect the attempt. I just hope that one thing will make this film great. Endless hilarious quips and one liners for spider-man, it really makes the character who he is 😀
ruth says : December 9, 2013 at 9:00 PM
Hi ya Tim! Now I didn’t hate the first film but my interest level quickly took a dive shortly after. So can’t say I’m all that enthused about this sequel to be honest. Dane DeHaan casting as Harry is interesting though.
Hi ya Ruth 😀
I get that, the first had its flaws, many many flaws but I saw potential and hopefully this will be the pay off 😀
Ya gonna watch it though. Favourite part?
ruth says : December 10, 2013 at 6:45 PM
I don’t think I have a favorite part in the trailer, sorry. But maybe the one w/t Dane DeHaan as I’m curious to see how his character plays out here.
He is good, hope he brings Harry Osborne to life 😀
Hypersonic55 says : December 7, 2013 at 9:19 PM
Dude I think we’re on the same level of nerdiness for this new film. This trailer just showcases a lot more comic book elements and even aspects from the last few Spidey animated series’ too.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 looks totally badass and WAY better than the first film and this is just a trailer. Thought I do have some valid concerns:
1) That Rhino armour looks ridiculous
2) The CGI in the film looks more like a video game than something that should mix into live-action, I hope it gets cleaned up
3) There’s a lot of people and storylines going on this film, I hope it doesn’t get overcrowded
4) I hope they don’t go for Hob Goblin over Green Goblin, if they do Hob, then they’ve have to choose someone or at least get the guy who was related to the character in the comics.
That’s my main concerns, otherwise, bring this film the fuck on!
Tim The Film Guy says : December 8, 2013 at 12:58 PM
Right?! Looks so jam packed with comic content goodness. Could be its downfall but lets stay optimistic for now 😀
1) Yeah am still not sure about the rhino but we only saw tiny bits of it. The more I think about the suit being like the original the more I am glad they didn’t attempt it haha, it would have looked awful 😀
2) Pretty early days, got some post production work to do 😀
3) It is the main area of concern for most, we’ve seen too much at once ruining a sequel 😦
4) I really hope it is Hob goblin because he does come first and the images I have seen so far would suggest Hob goblin. Green goblin has got to be more obvious 😀 He’s marvels Joker!
Really hope this doesn’t turn to crap 😀
atothewr says : December 7, 2013 at 12:20 PM
Really looking forward to this one. I had to watch it a couple of times just to take it all in. Should be good if they do it right. Nice review.
Tim The Film Guy says : December 7, 2013 at 2:58 PM
Looks really interesting, hope it turns out well. Thanks and thanks for the comment 😀
Got a favourite part?
atothewr says : December 7, 2013 at 3:44 PM
That part with Electro when Spidey is dodging the bolts looks fantastic.
That does look impressive 😀
V says : December 6, 2013 at 1:15 PM
I am excite, Tim! You also noticed a lot more in this trailer than I did. Hawkeye.
Tim The Film Guy says : December 7, 2013 at 11:44 AM
Haha does this excite you? ;D
Thanks, i like my eagle eyed screenshots. Try to get as much as I can out of the trailer 😀
Favourite part?
V says : December 8, 2013 at 11:28 PM
Dodging bullets at the start, and then dodging Electro at the end.
And yes, it excites me. Bahaha. ;P
Glad you like it then haha 😀
sidekickreviews says : December 6, 2013 at 3:31 AM
I like how you pointed out the 6 blast doors and the vulture wings/octo arms. Good eye! I actually like the mech rhino suit. My favorite scene is any time Spidey is swinging through the air!
Its what I do 😀
Yeah I am warming to the rhino suit, we’ll see how it looks in full. Taking the Ultimate spider-man route with the suit anyway 😀
Haha yeah its a main draw for a spider-man film, swing threw the air spidey 😀
Did you hear that snippet of the Zimmer score they released?
Chris says : December 6, 2013 at 1:03 AM
I dunno, that trailer looks like a total mess. Way too much going on, and it looks like the movie’s gonna have A LOT to try and juggle. Not to mention the effects look like a video game rather than a movie. But eh, could still end up being surprisingly good, I suppose.
So where do you land on the trailer? I like it, could go either way with the film but eh that describes most trailers for these films 😀
Brian @ Hard Ticket to Home Video says : December 5, 2013 at 8:43 PM
If you squint really hard and hit yourself in the head with a brick that kind of looks like a rhino.
Haha it looks remarkably like the rhino from power rangers. I think he made up the leg when they joined 😀
What overall is your opinion of the trailer though?
I agree with R.O.T.O.R., I’m kind of meh to it. I pretty much hated the last movie, and this one seems like, “HEY, LOOK AT ALL THIS STUFF!!”
Oh well yeah you probably won’t like this film all too much then 😀
The first had many flaws but I saw potential, i’m optimistic for this film 😀
“HEY, LOOK AT ALL THIS STUFF!!” Haha that’s every trailer ever made xD
jjames36 says : December 5, 2013 at 8:43 PM
My first instincts. 1: I love Dane Dehaan. Glad to see he’s in the cast.
2. It looks they’re overdoing it, like they have so many characters they won’t possibly be able to make all of them interesting. This in a film series that was already, in my opinion, unnecessary.
Yeah he is good, hope he really works out in the role of friend and foe 😀
AS for over doing it yeah it could be going that way, we have certainly seen it go that way before. Just hope they learn from the mistakes of the past 😀
Let’s hope.
mikeyb @ screenkicker says : December 5, 2013 at 8:28 PM
This is a fantastic review for the trailer! The makers have obviously been getting inspiration from The Avengers. You’re obviously a fellow Spiderman fan!
I see avengers in scope but generally seems like a completely different type of superhero film. Glad they have moved this series into that scope, bring on the Six!
And yes a fellow spider-man fan 😀
Got a favourite scene?
Daniel says : December 5, 2013 at 8:20 PM
I was both surprised and excited by the new trailer. It had a ton of new footage that they didn’t show at SDCC. At the con they leaned heavily on Electro and his origin. They left out a lot when it comes to The Oborns and rhino. Looked great and I loved the doc Ock and vulture weapons cameo. Oh fun fact, if left unedited when spidey catches that squad car he quips “need a hand” to the cop he saves. Good stuff
I never saw that Con footage. Glad you liked the trailer, certainly has a lot to go on 😀
Yay I love spidey quips, hope the film has lot of them 😀
Thanks for the comment Daniel, got a favourite part?
[NEWS] The Sunday Spew (8th December 2013) « The Verbal Spew Review - December 8, 2013
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Tim The Film Guy
90%+ = Excellent
81 - 90% = Very Good
71 - 80% = Good
41 - 70% = Average
21 - 40% = Bad
0 - 20% = Very Bad
Captain America: Civil War (2016) Review
Deadpool (2016) Review
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) Review
Hiatus over!
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Comic-Con Trailer #1) Review
San Andreas (2015) Mini Review
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Mini Review
Avengers: The Age of Ultron (2015) Mini Review
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Teaser #1) Review
Chappie (2015) Mini Review
Movie News Report: He Lived Long and Prospered
Movie News Report: Aquaman’s new look and Spider-Man Returns Home
Fantastic Four (Trailer #1) Review
John Wick (2014) Mini Review
Taken 3 (2015) Mini Review
Tim’s Top Ten Films of 2014
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) Mini Review
Chappie (Trailer #2) Review
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Shitfest Winner 2013
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Japan Exchange Trip
"That's Dicey"
Are you looking for a new game for game night? Or perhaps a fun game to play with your friends? Look no further - we've created a head to head dice battle game that is fun for all ages. (Note; this game is still in its beta form, and is subject to change as the game develops.)
That's Dicey is an original game from Walsmith Gaming. It is a dice game with fun, simple rules and exciting dice action.
Each game comes complete with: Six dice, beta rule set, and cloth satchel. One game set is good for two players.
Please visit our online store to see available sets.
Send us a note, we want your feedback.
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How the 777X’s folding wing tips work
It's 2023 and Singapore Airlines 242 is getting ready to fly home from Sydney.
This page is also available in: 简体中文 (Chinese (Simplified))
July 2023. Kingsford Smith International Airport. Sydney, Australia. Singapore Airlines Flight 242 is on its way back home. The mid-afternoon departure rolls slowly to runway 16L. SQ242 usually uses the much-longer 16R, but a last minute change reassigned the lightly-loaded Boeing 777-9 to the shorter of Sydney’s two north-south runways for the seven-hour flight to Changi International.
The jet’s 11 and a half foot tall (3.5m) folding wing tips are still pointed straight up to the sky as it turns onto taxiway B10. The paths to runway 16L in Sydney are a mashup of tight taxiways and part of a global search by Boeing to find airports where the 777X’s transforming geometry might get hung up. The centerline of B10 is 262 feet (80 meters) from parallel taxiway L, that’s just enough for the 777X to squeeze through on its way to the runway.
This is precisely a spot for which Boeing designed the 777X’s folding wing tip. The International Civil Aviation Organization gives this tight spot on the edge of Botany Bay a Code E taxiway classification. Just enough space for two Code E aircraft with wingspans up to 213 feet (A350 and 777) to pass one another safely. Before it left Gate 53, the crew of Singapore 242 determined during the departure briefing it would be here where the wing tips would be unfolded, ensuring they’d be down and locked before crossing the hold line on to the runway.
Related: Beyond the carrier deck: A glimpse at the 777X folding wingtip
777XBoeingSingapore Airlines
Three Points: Delta’s A330neo fuel stats, Norwegian boss out, Boeing shuffles NMA & Max execs
This page is also available in: 简体中文 (Chinese (Simplified))July 2023. Kingsford Smith...
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Dallas Police Chief David Brown Extensive Interview Explaining Attack – Videos…
Dallas Police Chief David Brown was interviewed by CNN’s Jake Tapper today and discussed, at length, the attack against police in Dallas.
This entry was posted in Anti-White Intifada, BGI - Black Grievance Industry, Conspiracy ?, Cultural Marxism, Death Threats, Dept Of Justice, Fabian Socialists - Modern Progressives, media bias, Notorious Liars, Police action, Political correctness/cultural marxism, propaganda, Racism, Typical Prog Behavior, Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.
240 Responses to Dallas Police Chief David Brown Extensive Interview Explaining Attack – Videos…
The black gangsta ghetto culture is just as foreign/opposed to US law and order and just as supremacist as Islamist sharia culture.
Sloth1963 says:
There is a huge overlap. Enough that they are almost one and the same.
You are so right. I hadn’t seen that in the sense that you have expressed it.
Yes, LOL, wish we had a lot of pictures of eunics from the middle east to show them. I believe they were usually negro.
Ruffin says:
With the overlap between the the Islamist sharia culture and Black Lives Matter Culture, am I being paranoid to conclude that there are close ties between the two groups and their agendas?
danmillerinpanama says:
Not only are there are definite connections, the Obama administration appears to be working on a scam comparable to “Countering Violent Extremism” to deal with white “racism” against Black Lives Matter and related groups. In everything the Obama administration does, and in everything Hillary would do as president, contempt for America is evident.
https://danmillerinpanama.wordpress.com/2016/07/10/the-contempt-obama-and-clinton-have-for-america/
Not paranoid. Both are political philosophies based on the lies of charismatic leaders. The weak minded are easily led astray.
RLTW says:
Wasn’t all that long ago that the North American Continent was 100% brown. I would suggest BLM and La Raza read American history. Or for that matter, world history.
A tiny contingent of white Europeans conquered and enslaved the massive Aztec and Mayan empires. Same with the Inca empire. 400 white men conquered millions of Incas.
Sam Houston and a few hundred Red-Necks with personally-owned weapons, outnumbered by factors of multitude, wiped out one of the largest and well-equipped modern armies in the world at that time. The battle lasted all of 14 minutes. In order to save his own cowardly Mexican-ass, Santa Ana signed a legal document that ceded the disputed territory known as Texas.
500 White men, women and children settlers conquered the mighty Zulu empire and ruled Africa.
American blacks didn’t earn their freedom. It was handed to them by 700 thousand White Christian men who slaughtered each other. A war which was sparked by a hardcore Christian named John Brown, whose Christian values dictated that slavery was a sin.
John Brown and his sons stormed the armory at Harper’s Ferry and armed the black slaves. The blacks were too cowardly to fight. John Brown and his sons were subsequently captured and hanged as a result of attempting to liberate the blacks.
Yet blacks keep flocking to islam and Obama. Obama, who is a descendant of one to the most prolific slave-trading muslim tribes.
And blacks continue to flock to the ACLU, SPLC, NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus, BLM, etc. All organizations started by Jews.
Some of the more educated muslims that I have interrogated turned me on to “Auction Sales, Jews Selling Blacks” by the nation of islam, which is simply a book full of thousands of original auction advertisements for the sale of black slaves by Jewish slave-traders in the 1700s and 1800s. Excellent recruiting material for islam and absolutely irrefutable.
Or the book by Dr. Tony Martin, a black college professor who wrote the book “The Jewish Onslaught” who was persecuted by the jews for daring to expose their role in black slavery. More recruiting material for islam that is absolutely irrefutable.
So my point to blacks (and all minorities in America) is two-fold:
One. The Redneck driving the big 4×4 with the Rebel Flag in the back window is your liberator and your blue-collar brother. The jewish lawyers at the ACLU, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Breyer and Kagan are your modern-day slave masters. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are their operatives. Jay-Z and Beyoncé are their Goebbels.
Two. The White Man has been in a very charitable mood for the last 50 years. We decided to try to bringing the lesser races to our level instead of exterminating or ruling them. This experiment has failed miserably. Largely because of the Judeo-Marxist agenda of “multiculturism” and “diversity.” Cultural-Marxist euphemisms for “Treason” and “Sedition.” Otherwise, it might have worked.
Judeo-Marxists love to point out that whites are only 70% of the population now in America. That the white man is done for. I would refer these Marxists back to the beginning, when whites were zero percent of the population on the North American Continent and brown was 100%. And then what happened?
(I would also remind the jews of America that it was us Anglo and Scotts-Irish Americans who liberated you from the concentration camps. This is how you repay us? By inciting the minority groups to go to war against us? By corrupting our financial, media and government to destroy our culture. The culture that saved you?)
What you fail to realize is that you exist at our pleasure. We were trying to help you. I fear we are beyond that now, that we have progressed onto the next phase of history, which is essentially a return to original history. You are about to be brutally reintroduced to your appropriate place on the food chain.
I know you are too stupid to understand anything I have said here, as you grab your crotch, with your pants down… with your gold teeth, your dreadlocks and your “tats”, filming everything with your free “Obama phone.” You will never read history. You cannot even read. I explain this merely to allay my own guilt for what is about to happen to you. So that I can reassure myself that I honestly did everything I could do to give you a hand up.
I honestly tried.
YOU END!!!
JeremyR says:
Except that it was islam that was over running Africa at the time, islam that enslaved, and islam that is blaming the Jews. Many thousands of blacks were taken to muslim states as slaves. Those that were men were castrated. many died as a result. The arabs took the best looking women and boys they considered desirable. It is well documented , and many history sites have citations unlike noi that is a spin site for mohamhead’s pedophiles.
wyntre says:
Ever hear of the Black Muslims?
You mean just like Boko Haram,, I gather….
This black ghetto culture is as barbaric and inhumane as ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood. The Nation of Islam is their puritan sect and more like the Taliban – but still just as hateful and murderous if old Farrakhan is to be believed, since he calls upon blacks daily to hate and kill whites and police.
William A Sager says:
On the news it was reported Johnson wrote the letters R.B. on the wall with blood and they had no idea what it was.Over at a Mississippi Black Panthers Party Facebook page they have that cartoon of a cloaked Panther warrior in a style reminiscent of ISIS propaganda slitting the throat of a cop.On top the guy is described as a R.B.G. warrior.R.B.G. stands for Red,Black and Green the colors of the Pan African Flag sometimes called the Black Liberation Flag.Ps Facebook does not consider this to be hate.
I think you have solved the mystery. They probably blew him up before he could finish writing.
Mickie says:
Wow! I think you solved the mystery. Hard to believe the cops didn’t figure it out.
patrickhenryrevisited says:
They have.
You won’t hear about it from then, though.
The head black lives matter jihadi in the white house won’ allow it,
lorac says:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/07/10/report-micah-johnson-scrawled-black-revolutionary-message-blood/
the human condition says:
Yep, it’s “homegrown” therefor domestic, and it is terroristic and in our face. See the picture above. Ferals without a clue.
Sunshine says:
U.S. has to bring back the boot camps, forced labor.
Racewellwon says:
A picture is worth a thousand words . This photo above speaks volumes of hatred towards white people. The hatred has been passed down through generations of hate towards white people . Built on a lie of ” White Guilt “. In reality , in America there have always been more white slaves then black and many black slaves were owned by other blacks .
I did not watch the CNN video as I do not ever watch CNN .
The Devilbat says:
Brilliantly said. For those who doubt what you said, Google “Black Slave Owners.”
Neural says:
I’m surprised Google hasn’t eliminated search results like that from their database.
Thank -you !
booger71 says:
You are correct. The term “redneck” came from the Carolinas when slave owners (including owners who were black) owned Irish slaves.
Linda Ruth says:
Real history indicates that the first slaves in the colonies were white, not black. They were Irish, English prisoners resulting from the failed Ireland rebellion against English rule. The king had them shipped to all the colonies. Black slavery came later in America as it became very profitable cargo for shipping merchants at the time.
The Irish Slave Trade – The Forgotten “White” Slaves
The Slaves That Time Forgot
By John Martin
“The Irish slave trade began when 30,000 Irish prisoners were sold as slaves to the New World. The King James I Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the mid 1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.
Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-irish-slave-trade-the-forgotten-white-slaves/31076
Scots too, especially after Culloden.
Ono says:
Indentured servants/slaves were criminals (often petty) that were pardoned/paroled to the colonies rich land owners. Same for Australia.
The Scots transported after Culloden were British prisoners of war, primarily. After the Jacobite rebellion was quelled in 1745, the British decimated the Highlands, forbid clan plaids or any other form of clan badges or identity, seized lands, starved the population.
The Crown has, isn’t, and never will be anything more than slave traders.
Anywhere you see the Union Jack flying you can bet that the crown owns or has taken away all that holds value…Resources and lives.
They stole Scot children and teenagers to work on sugar plantation in the Caribbean also. They stopped eventually because they died in droves almost as soon as they transported them. They were considered sub-human.
mamadogsite says:
Watch the series OUTLANDER, based on the deries of Books by Diana Gabaldon…8 books out already. 700+pages each. Fiction, but a meticulous history of Scotland…season 2 finished last night with the battle of Culloden.
And for you Sci-fi people…this is also about time travel…forgot his first name..last name Moore, (producer of Battlestar Galactica) is also producing this series. Outstanding!!!!!
Anyway, it traces the history of the Scots before and after Culloden. Eventually ending up in Jamaica and America.
There is also another series by Ginnie Dye…think it is called the Bregdagan Chronicles. 5 books…each covers 1 year of the Civil War. They tell the story from the viewpoint of white plantation/slave owners who were sympathetic to emancipation, the slaves themselves, and the Northern abolitionists. I call it factual Fiction …it also touches on the Irish Indentured Servants in Philadelphia and NYC
Have watched all more than once and read the books more than once (Outlander). My own ancestors were Scots Highlanders who came to the Mohawk valley in the 1770’s. They (two families-Ross and Fraser) fought for the Crown, and left for Canada after the Revolutionary War. They are known as Empire Loyalists. There is another large group of Scots who settled near Cape Fear in the Carolinas.
A long but interesting history on the Irish Slaveshttp://www.globalresearch.ca/the-irish-slave-trade-the-forgotten-white-slaves/31076
There is not a race or culture on earth that hasn’t been enslaved by greedy scum sucking bilge rats.
Right here right now I am a slave to a government that will throw my azz in jail if I do not register, license and insure my trade as a builder.
Yet in Ca (where I am a fourth generation citizen dating back to pre USA) I will be fined and or imprisoned for not following laws/while illegals work without insurance and license and no prosecution. Sounds like chain on Ono’s tail to me, or a big hook in my mouth
This is true and well documented. Indentured slaves. It is a know fact the first white inhabitants of the Appalachians (of that region)where runaway slaves-they became known as ‘hillbilly’s.
paul vincent zecchino says:
The book, “Ghost Ships” published in the mid-90s describes the ordeals of Irish ‘indentured servants’ – as the Howard Zinn fake history books called them – in the early Virginia colony.
Funny, the Irish aren’t shooting cops despite the horrific treatment and experiences as ‘indentured servants’.
The fake history books in socialist studies soft soaped ‘indentured servants’, saying they just had to do some light work indoors for seven years, then they were free.
What the leftist, commie rat, fake historians who write this tripe to destroy young minds omitted is this: Most indentured servants were dead before their first year was up.
The Irish in some cases were treated worse than blacks.
https://exzoom.net/2015/03/18/no-irish-slaves-grievance-industry-in-america/
They were cheaper – therefore more expendable.
We never hear the Irish go on or on about the “legacy of slavery,” though, do we.
Andybinga says:
No affirmative action or guberment jobs either.
kpm58 says:
They did seem to take to one government job that most would be unwilling to take.
Yep – I am a Quinn !
DelAware says:
They weren’t just Irish.
http://jimgoad.net/whiteslavery.html
Whites have been brutally enslaved for most of our history. The US is the first place we’ve had/been able to make where we are free. No wonder the (((masters))) want us slapped back into the chains from which they’ve so richly profited.
Teach your children this history!
In the early 1800s and through out our Civil War, I believe there were as many if not more Irish slaves in th NE and in pockets of the midwest and South…they just had a fancier name..”indentured servants”.
the.bear says:
Seriously people. Everyone knows that the initial slaves were white indentured servants, as well as failed attempts at enslaving Indians (though attempts at enslaving and subjugating Indians were far more successful in Latin America). For goodness sakes, the entire colony of Georgia was created for the purpose of dealing with British debtors. And everyone also knows that there were black slave owners. The only people who claim that this is some fact lost to or suppressed from history are a tiny amount of conservatives. It isn’t that people do not know this … it is that it does not matter that much. Here are reasons why.
The number of black slave owners was very tiny. Of course, efforts to exaggerate their numbers – as well as any political, legal or social influence that they might have had in the Old South (which was absolutely nothing) – increase with time. But a far better indicator of the truth is the total lack of black members in the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy and other such groups.
White indentured servitude lasted briefly and had completely ended long before the Revolutionary War. Black slavery lasted nearly 200 years.
White indentured servants were freed upon paying their debts or after the maximum time period after they could no longer be enslaved (15 years) had passed. It was not a lifetime institution, and most certainly the children of indentured servants were not enslaved also. Once the time of their indenturement was over, the formerly indentured were free to either return to England or remain as colonists, and in either case their full political, legal and economic rights and privileges – which blacks did not receive until the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments during the Reconstruction era – were restored.
At any given time, the percentage of whites in America who was a slave, had been a slave, or was a descendant of a slave was very small (except for the unique case of Georgia). By the time of the Revolutionary War and indeed well before it, the fact that a tiny percentage of the white population had briefly enslaved as a consequence of amassing debts was nothing than a mere historical curiosity, as such whites and their progeny quickly retained their legal and economic privileges and were entirely absorbed into the larger population with no methods of distinction.
By contrast, until the Civil War, almost the entire black population of the United States was either currently enslaved, recently manumitted, or had enslaved family members. Well into the 20th century, a huge percentage of the black population in America was either former slaves or first generation free-born. Even now, there are some elderly blacks whose grandparents were enslaved for portions of their lives.
And, as we know, unlike the case of the former white indentured, even after slavery there were these little things called segregation and skin color that prevented blacks from quickly assimilating and joining the economic and social mainstream right away, or even for decades. As an example, in many places in America, it was not allowed for a black person to so much as join certain churches – who were not subject to the public accommodations provision of the Civil Rights Act because of the 1st amendment free exercise of religion protections – until the 1980s. U.S. Senator Jesse Helms left his church when – and because – it finally desegregated. Around that same time, Mike Huckabee – long before he exchanged the pulpit for politics – had to prod and cajole his congregation to allow a black man to be baptized in and join his congregation.
So it is not that people do not know, it is just that it is largely irrelevant. A comparison: some black colleges used to give affirmative action admittance and scholarships to whites. (It was for various reasons, ranging from court orders to a legitimate desire to increase white enrollment). But no one opposed to affirmative action talks about it. Why? Because the number of whites who received benefits under these programs that they arguably should not have is/was so small in comparison to the number of blacks and Hispanics that do as to make it irrelevant as a legal and political issue, as much as it may be a fascinating curiosity worthy of some scholar writing a paper or book about it otherwise.
Of course, the issue is not reparations or other nonsense where blacks today should hold white people or the government responsible for what happened then. Especially since the same blacks who do argue this nonsense also reject collective responsibility for such things as crime and are hypocrites as a result. I also reject the idea that we should use slavery as an explanation for the ills of today’s blacks … except to point out that giving family-destroying welfare programs to a group of people that were barely 100 years removed from generations of slavery AND were still experiencing a ton of segregation and other discrimination in the 1960s was a terrible idea, and was only done because of utter convictions in that era that simplistic Marxism-rooted quick fixes would obviously work. I am merely pointing out that taking two things that are factually true while PURPOSEFULLY ignoring the huge differences in things like scale, context and mitigating factors so that you can pass them off as equivalent is dishonest … every bit as dishonest as the black lives matter people are being.
My fathers and my husbands family were indentured slaves and then their families fought to free the slaves and died in the Civil War . My mother a salve in the Russian War Camps during WWII . Rapes and Pillaged at age five and a slave .
Please save your liberal educated BS for someone else . Better yet , lets see if you can walk through the streets of Chicago and make out alive as I have for years working in Hospice .
You are ignoring the facts that BLACK RACISM exists . 1% of white in America owned Black slave and my family was not one of them
Stop Blaming White people for your indiscretions.
Life is no easier on us then these black kids in gangs that work for the Mexican Cartels dealing Illegal Drugs – it was a choice – go to school or sell drugs .
Get off your HIGH HORSE !
coloradochloe says:
Well said Racewellwon, some of the blacks and whites in our country have taken slavery and parleyed it into a multi-million dollar business using lie after lie after lie.
Our countries well being is in shreds and if we do not throw over these hateful ideas and people that promote them everyone will lose. Including the.bear.
I managed to wade through his/her long mundane post and stay awake. A post that was full of either deliberate or ignorant mistakes.
I believe we are on the road to recovery now and will finally get back to where we need to be.
In November and then January we will be moving so fast to recovery it will make the America haters heads spin.
Trump 2016 and Onward
I agree and well said !
Did you know that more Irish slaves were sold in the 17th century than black slaves? With a staggering death rate between 37% to 50%, this is the story the history books will not tell you.
White and Black Slaves in the Sugar Plantations of Barbados. None of the Irish victims ever made it back to their homeland to describe their ordeal. These are the lost slaves; the ones that time and biased history books conveniently forgot.
The first slaves imported into the American colonies were 100 White children. They arrived during Easter, 1619, four months before the arrival of a the first shipment of Black slaves.Mainstream histories refer to these laborers as indentured servants, not slaves, because many agreed to work for a set period of time in exchange for land and rights.
Yet in reality, indenture was enslavement, since slavery applies to any person who is bought and sold, chained and abused, whether for a decade or a lifetime. Many white people died long before their indenture ended or found that no court would back them when their owners failed to deliver on promises.Tens of thousands of convicts, beggars, homeless children and other undesirable English, Scottish, and Irish lower class were transported to America against their will to the Americas on slave ships. YES SLAVE SHIPS.
Many of the white slaves were brought from Ireland, where the law held that it was ?no more sin to kill an Irishman than a dog or any other brute.? The European rich class caused a lot of suffering to these people , even if they were white like them.In 1676, there was a huge slave rebellion in Virginia. Black and white slaves burned Jamestown to the ground. Hundreds died. The planters feared a re-occurence. Their solution was to divide the races against each other. They instilled a sense of superiority in the white slaves and degraded the black slaves. White slaves were given new rights; their masters could not whip them naked without a court order,etc. White slaves whose daily condition was no different from that of Blacks, were taught that they belonged to a superior people. The races were given different clothing. Living quarters were segregated for the first time. But the whites were still slaves.
When White servitude is acknowledged as having existed in America, it is almost always termed as temporary “indentured servitude” or part of the convict trade, which, after the Revolution of 1776, centered on Australia instead of America. The “convicts” transported to America under the 1723 Waltham Act, perhaps numbered 100,000.
The indentured servants who served a tidy little period of 4 to 7 years polishing the master’s silver and china and then taking their place in colonial high society, were a minuscule fraction of the great unsung hundreds of thousands of White slaves who were worked to death in this country from the early l7th century onward.
Up to one-half of all the arrivals in the American colonies were Whites slaves and they were America’s first slaves. These Whites were slaves for life, long before Blacks ever were. This slavery was even hereditary. White children born to White slaves were enslaved too.
Whites were auctioned on the block with children sold and separated from their parents and wives sold and separated from their husbands. Free Black property owners strutted the streets of northern and southern American cities while White slaves were worked to death in the sugar mills of Barbados and Jamaica and the plantations of Virginia.
The Establishment has created the misnomer of “indentured servitude” to explain away and minimize the fact of White slavery. But bound Whites in early America called themselves slaves. Nine-tenths of the White slavery in America was conducted without indentures of any kind but according to the so-called “custom of the country,” as it was known, which was lifetime slavery administered by the White slave merchants themselves.
In George Sandys laws for Virginia, Whites were enslaved “forever.” The service of Whites bound to Berkeley’s Hundred was deemed “perpetual.” These accounts have been policed out of the much touted “standard reference works” such as Abbott Emerson Smith’s laughable whitewash, Colonists in Bondage.
I challenge any researcher to study 17th century colonial America, sifting the documents, the jargon and the statutes on both sides of the Atlantic and one will discover that White slavery was a far more extensive operation than Black enslavement. It is when we come to the 18th century that one begins to encounter more “servitude” on the basis of a contract of indenture. But even in that period there was kidnapping of Anglo-Saxons into slavery as well as convict slavery.
In 1855, Frederic Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who designed New York’s Central Park, was in Alabama on a pleasure trip and saw bales of cotton being thrown from a considerable height into a cargo ship’s hold. The men tossing the bales somewhat recklessly into the hold were Negroes, the men in the hold were Irish.
Olmsted inquired about this to a shipworker. “Oh,” said the worker, “the niggers are worth too much to be risked here; if the Paddies are knocked overboard or get their backs broke, nobody loses anything.”
Before British slavers traveled to Africa’s western coast to buy Black slaves from African chieftains, they sold their own White working class kindred (“the surplus poor” as they were known) from the streets and towns of England, into slavery. Tens of thousands of these White slaves were kidnapped children. In fact the very origin of the word kidnapped is kid-nabbed, the stealing of White children for enslavement.
According to the English Dictionary of the Underworld, under the heading kidnapper is the following definition: “A stealer of human beings, esp. of children; originally for exportation to the plantations of North America.” The center of the trade in child-slaves was in the port cities of Britain and Scotland: “Press gangs in the hire of local merchants roamed the streets, seizing ‘by force such boys as seemed proper subjects for the slave trade.’ Children were driven in flocks through the town and confined for shipment in barns…So flagrant was the practice that people in the countryside about Aberdeen avoided bringing children into the city for fear they might be stolen; and so widespread was the collusion of merchants, shippers, suppliers and even magistrates that the man who exposed it was forced to recant and run out of town.” (Van der Zee, Bound Over, p. 210).
White slaves transported to the colonies suffered a staggering loss of life in the 17th and 18th century. During the voyage to America it was customary to keep the White slaves below deck for the entire nine to twelve week journey. A White slave would be confined to a hole not more than sixteen feet long, chained with 50 other men to a board, with padlocked collars around their necks. The weeks of confinement below deck in the ship’s stifling hold often resulted in outbreaks of contagious disease which would sweep through the “cargo” of White “freight” chained in the bowels of the ship.
Ships carrying White slaves to America often lost half their slaves to death. According to historian Sharon V. Salinger, “Scattered data reveal that the mortality for [White] servants at certain times equaled that for [Black] slaves in the ‘middle passage,’ and during other periods actually exceeded the death rate for [Black] slaves.” Salinger reports a death rate of ten to twenty percent over the entire 18th century for Black slaves on board ships enroute to America compared with a death rate of 25% for White slaves enroute to America.
Foster R. Dulles writing in Labor in America: A History, states that whether convicts, children ‘spirited’ from the countryside or political prisoners, White slaves “experienced discomforts and sufferings on their voyage across the Atlantic that paralleled the cruel hardships undergone by negro slaves on the notorious Middle Passage.”
Dulles says the Whites were “indiscriminately herded aboard the ‘white guineamen,’ often as many as 300 passengers on little vessels of not more than 200 tons burden–overcrowded, unsanitary…The mortality rate was sometimes as high as 50% and young children seldom survived the horrors of a voyage which might last anywhere from seven to twelve weeks.”
Independent investigator A.B. Ellis in the Argosy writes concerning the transport of White slaves, “The human cargo, many of whom were still tormented by unhealed wounds, could not all lie down at once without lying on each other. They were never suffered to go on deck. The hatchway was constantly watched by sentinels armed with hangers and blunder busses. In the dungeons below all was darkness, stench, lamentation, disease and death.”
Marcus Jernegan describes the greed of the shipmasters which led to horrendous loss of life for White slaves transported to America:
“The voyage over often repeated the horrors of the famous ‘middle passage’ of slavery fame. An average cargo was three hundred, but the shipmaster, for greater profit, would sometimes crowd as many as six hundred into a small vessel…The mortality under such circumstances was tremendous, sometimes more than half…Mittelberger (an eyewitness) says he saw thirty-two children thrown into the ocean during one voyage.”
“The mercantile firms, as importers of (White) servants, were not too careful about their treatment, as the more important purpose of the transaction was to get ships over to South Carolina which could carry local produce back to Europe. Consequently the Irish–as well as others–suffered greatly…It was almost as if the British merchants had redirected their vessels from the African coast to the Irish coast, with the white servants coming over in much the same fashion as the African slaves.” (Warren B. Smith, White Servitude in Colonial South Carolina).
A study of the middle passage of White slaves was included in a Parliamentary Petition of 1659. It reported that White slaves were locked below deck for two weeks while the slaveship was still in port. Once under way, they were “all the way locked up under decks…amongst horses.” They were chained from their legs to their necks.
Those academics who insist that slavery is an exclusively Black racial condition forget or deliberately omit the fact that the word slave originally was a reference to Whites of East European origin – “Slavs.”
Moreover, in the 18th century in Britain and America, the Industrial Revolution spawned the factory system whose first laborers were miserably oppressed White children as young as six years of age. They were locked in the factories for sixteen hours a day and mangled by the primitive machinery. Hands and arms were regularly ripped to pieces. Little girls often had their hair caught in the machinery and were scalped from their foreheads to the back of their necks.
White Children wounded and crippled in the factories were turned out without compensation of any kind and left to die of their injuries. Children late to work or who fell asleep were beaten with iron bars. Lest we imagine these horrors were limited to only the early years of the Industrial Revolution, eight and ten year old White children throughout America were hard at work in miserable factories and mines as late as 1920.
Because of the rank prostitution, stupidity and cowardice of America’s teachers and educational system, White youth are taught that Black slaves, Mexican peons and Chinese coolies built this country while the vast majority of the Whites lorded it over them with a lash in one hand and a mint julep in the other.
The documentary record tells a very different story, however. When White Congressman David Wilmot authored the Wilmot Proviso to keep Black slaves out of the American West he did so, he said, to preserve that vast expanse of territory for “the sons of toil, my own race and color.”
This is precisely what most White people in America were, “sons of toil,” performing backbreaking labor such as few of us today can envision. They had no paternalistic welfare system; no Freedman’s Bureau to coo sweet platitudes to them; no army of bleeding hearts to worry over their hardships. These Whites were the expendable frontline soldiers in the expansion of the American frontier. They won the country, felled the trees, cleared and planted the land. The wealthy, educated White elite in America are the sick heirs of what Charles Dickens in Bleak House termed “telescopic philanthropy”–the concern for the condition of distant peoples while the plight of kindred in one’s own backyard are ignored.
Today much of what we see on “Turner Television” and Pat Robertson’s misnamed “Family Channel,” are TV films depicting Blacks in chains, Blacks being whipped, Blacks oppressed. Nowhere can we find a cinematic chronicle of the Whites who were beaten and killed in White slavery. Four-fifths of the White slaves sent to Britain’s sugar colonies in the West Indies did not survive their first year.
Soldiers in the American Revolution and sailors impressed into the American navy received upwards of two hundred whiplashes for minor infractions. But no TV show lifts the shirt of these White yeoman to reveal the scars on their backs.
The Establishment would rather weep over the poor persecuted Negroes, but leave the White working class “rednecks” and “crackers” (both of these terms of derision were first applied to White slaves), to live next door to the Blacks.
Little has changed since the early 1800s when the men of property and station of the English Parliament outlawed Black slavery throughout the Empire. While this Parliament was in session to enact this law, ragged five year old White orphan boys, beaten, starved and whipped, were being forced up the chimneys of the English parliament, to clean them. Sometimes the chimney masonry collapsed on these boys. Other times they suffocated to death inside their narrow smoke channels.
Long after Blacks were free throughout the British Empire, the British House of Lords refused to abolish chimney-sweeping by White children under the age of ten. The Lords contended that to do so would interfere with “property rights.” The lives of the White children were not worth a farthing and were considered no subject for humanitarian concern.
The chronicle of White slavery in America comprises the dustiest shelf in the darkest corner of suppressed American history. Should the truth about that epoch ever emerge into the public consciousness of Americans, the whole basis for the swindle of “Affirmative action,” “minority set-asides” and proposed “Reparations to African-Americans” will be swept away. The fact is, the White working people of this country owe no one. They are themselves the descendants, as Congressman Wilmot so aptly said, of “the sons of toil.”
There will only be racial peace when knowledge of radical historical truths are widespread and both sides negotiate from positions of strength and not from fantasies of White working class guilt and the uniqueness of Black suffering. Let it be said, in many cases Blacks in slavery had it better than poor Whites in the antebellum South. This is why there was such strong resistance to the Confederacy in the poverty-stricken areas of the mountain south, such as Winston County in Alabama and the Beech mountains of North Carolina. Those poor Whites could not imagine why any White laborer would want to die for the slave-owning plutocracy that more often than not, gave better care and attention to their Black servants than they did to the free white labor they scorned as “trash.” To this day, the White ruling class denigrates the White poor and patronizes Blacks.
If this seems admirable from the pathological viewpoint of Marxism or cosmopolitan liberalism, the Black and Third World “beneficiaries” of White ruling class “esteem” ought to consider what sort of “friends” they actually have.
The Bible declares that the man who does not take care of his own family is “worse than an infidel.” This also applies to one’s racial kindred. The man who neglects his own children to care for yours has true love for neither.
White, self-hating liberals and greed-head conservatives who claim to care for the “civil rights” of Black and Third World people, discard the working class of their own people on the garbage heap of history. When they are finished with their own they shall surely turn on others.
Yep, and now the middle and lower class “white devils” who actually work are being stolen from through illegal taxation to finance their own demise and the uprise of these feral scumbags full of hatred that begins first and foremost… for THEMSELVES.
It would seem to be impossible to care about yourself when you are a subject to such a sick and destructive culture. That’s why black lives do NOT matter to black trigger fingers.
I have many friends in all skin colors that work and pay taxes . Its the people that CHOOSE to join gangs and choose not to follow the law of land that Cry Wolf .
FTR:
Just 5% of slaves transported from Africa ended up in North America.
Less than 5% of Americans owned slaves.
Significant numbers of free Blacks owned slaves
Slavery from Africa existed ONLY because Black Africans captured, imprisoned and SOLD fellow Africans. White Europeans did NOT venture into the continent to imprison blacks.
Exactly – as a matter of fact a majority of black slaves went to Spain . Black slaves were more expensive than white slaves .
Most ended up in South America and the Caribbean.
http://www.mexconnect.com/articles/666-slavery-in-mexico
Jso Rsa says:
Yes, and the system of involuntary servitude was imposed upon American colonies by the various colonial powers of Europe via triangular trade. Slavery had taken root in what was to become the 13 original states 200 years before the US existed. The newly independent US was left to wrestle with the issue and to try to root it out without causing rebellion (unsuccessfully, as it turned out). There was no way the founding fathers were going to be able to change it overnight, but the new congress began taking immediate steps to eliminate it. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was one of the first laws passed by congress, and it forever prohibited slavery in the territory that was to become six states (OH, MI, IN, IL, WI, MN). I hear people criticizing the US for not outlawing slavery until 1865, but that shows an ignorance on how things work under the federal system outlined in the US constitution. Like any other issue that did not have to be handled by the federal government, and other than the future states that were formed from the Northwest Territory, the issue of slavery was left up to the individual states, and many had on their own outlawed slavery within their borders by the early 1800s. The federal government outlawed importation of slaves to the US effective in 1808, which was in line with or in advance of many other countries, European or otherwise. In the meantime, the government took gradual steps to limit the spread and influence of slavery within the new territories while attempting to avoid the secession and rebellion that was threatened several times before it actually occurred in 1860 – ’61. To outlaw slavery on a national basis required the consent of the states via a constitutional amendment, for which the national consensus was not present until late in the Civil War.
Haven’t watched the video yet, did CNN censor out any statement that would state a motive, so their god Obama can look good?
Chief did not mention that murderer said he wanted to kill whites and white cops, said only that murderer wanted to kill police. Tapper let it slide.
So yes as you expected, the fact that the killer was a racist piece of dog caca was eliminated from the story.
HTown says:
The Chief said in one of his press conferences that the murderer told them he wanted to kill whites and especially white cops. You obviously didn’t see it per your comment
He left it out of this CNN interview. Completely. It was an intentional omission. No doubt.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/07/08/one-dallas-shooter-identified-micah-x-johnson-25-black-lives-matter-activist/
LBB says:
Chief Brown did mention that during their talks with the killer, he seemed delusional and rambling. Chief Brown said they are in the process of putting together a transcript. There was also a journal found at killer’s home (looked like a nice house in another video) which should give them more detail. Chief felt killer had a bigger plan and may have been triggered early by recent events.
They found a lot of drugs in his house and hinted that it was meth. He doped up just like jihadi murderers do for fake “courage” before they go out. Of course he was wigged out and made little sense. Where did the money come from for all these drugs, weapons, tactical gear, “lessons” when no one has mentioned a single job for this loser? He lived with momma, used her car so how did he pay for all this if he was drummed out of the reserves a couple of years ago?
So, if he lived with her, his mother must have known about the drugs and weapons and his intent to kill.
And who paid for that big fancy house he and mom live in? /s
Hopefully we will find out more if killer tied into an organized group with funding , or other.
They killed him for a reason. Can you say Cover-Up?
redsequin4 says:
I really like this police chief. He seems honest and forthright, no BS.
Early on he read the statement made by the killer that he wanted to kill white people, especially white police officers. No spin, just straight talk, so refreshing.
burnett044 says:
This video below shows what Trapper and those on the left want you to think about us Vets…
I on the other hand want to say thank you to all my fellow vets for your service to this nation…
hang tuff
Oh wow. After watching the first bit of that video, I believe that chief was in on it. What a piece of SCUM. And I’m only on minute 5:12.
Oh. My. Lord.
Can we ever know for sure? And if anything is questionable it should be investigated, not automatically assumed or denied. Neither government nor media are to be trusted to tell the truth, so digging for facts is what always needs to be done, especially here at CTH.
Special Effects and Modified Weapons Expose Dallas Deception.
July 10, 2016 James Robertson
https://crimesofempire.com/2016/07/10/special-effects-and-modified-weapons-expose-dallas-deception/
oldiadguy says:
I went to your link and can say with some certainty that that site is a disinformation site. According to the site, the shooter was with an SKS. From what look to be cellphone photos taken by officer(s) after the blast that the shooter was armed with a Saiga AK-74 style semiautomatic rifle. Here is a photo of his weapon.
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0226/7001/files/New-Photo-Of-Dead-Dallas-Shooter-And-His-Gun-Surfaces-Online_large.jpg?1587458473284703359
If you wish to look at his body, you can go here.
http://www.dangerandplay.com/2016/07/10/graphic-picture-of-micah-johnson-the-dallas-shooter-after-he-was-killed-by-a-robot-bomb/
Also, the photo of the Dallas officers near the Bank of America Building supposedly having blank adaptors on their weapons is an apparent fraud. When I enlarged the photos it was clear that the “red adaptors” had been placed over the weapons. Also, the photo is a png file, the kind of file my photo editor creates when I edit a photo unless I instruct it to do otherwise.
As far as the claims fired were “dust hit” and “spark hit” rounds. More Bravo Sierra. I frequent both indoor and outdoor ranges. It is common to see sparks from hits from 5.56/223 and 7.62X39 rounds. Looking for dust hits? Just go to Y-tube and watch combat footage from either Afghanistan or Iraq.
The weapon that was reported used in this incident, the Saiga AK-74 rifle chambered in 5.45X39 which is similar to the 5.56 round. The 5.45/39 round was nicknamed the “Devil’s Round” by the Afghans. It is a wicked round.
Remember that there are people and sites intentionally putting out false information, so beware.
Thank GOD for you, Old IAD Guy! We need you here to stop the spread of false information. The kind of people who do that are a special kind of evil.
Clc says:
How would crime scene photos be on the internet? Are you sure that is Johnson’s body?
Those aren’t crime scene photos. Those photos appear to have been taken with a smart phone. (You can see their feet in one of the photos)
Those photos are definitely unauthorized, but after that carnage, the troops had to know that they had gotten the XXXXXX. This is one of those cases where someone was wrong, but did good at the same time.
Don’t remember which show it was on, but hubby told me it was reported that they weren’t sure there was enough of the shooter left to do a proper toxicology test on him. That does look like him though. So I don’t know what to think of the picture of the “body”.Did anyone else hear that reported about there being hardly anything left of his body?
Rumors tend to magnify as they are retold. Also remember your husband heard it from the media. Enough said.
Ask people who have been around homicide bombers. Yes, there is a lot of body left in most cases. It takes a lot of explosive to obliterate 200lbs of human flesh. Likely that R2FU only took in a few pounds at most. maybe as little as a hand grenade size bomb.
It does not take a lot of explosive to make you dead, but it takes a whale of a lot to make you disappear. The concussion of a small blast in a closed space would create over pressure that would rupture blood vessels and lungs.
The method we were taught when I joined the military in the event of a grenade was to fall away from the grenade, hands over ears, mouth and eyes wide open.
It doesn’t take much in the way of blood, bodily fluids, or tissue samples to do a toxicology workup. I seriously doubt he was vaporized.
deqwik2 says:
The picture shows a body that would be intact enough to get a blood sample. Chief Brown said yesterday that there was not a body intact enough to do toxicology on so I highly doubt that is a picture of the Dallas shooter.
I did a Bing search and could not find where Chief Brown made that statement. Do you have a link?
FWIW – those photos have all the ear marks of a photo being taken by a copper on the scene to show his fellow officers. I checked the photo’s properties, but it doesn’t supply the info I was looking for.
No, I don’t have a link but I heard it on Fox yesterday morning. They were talking about finding the drugs in the shooters house & asked if there would be toxicology done on the body. The Chief said there wasn’t enough body left to get a blood sample. I can’t recall which reporter was talking but I do remember Shepard Smith was live so it could have been him.
Thanks for the quick reply. I suspect the chief was being facetious when he made that statement and at the same time sending a message to anybody thinking about being a copycat shooter.
I found a clip from Shepard & it is possible that this is what I was listening to. It’s not the Chief. It is the former Deputy Chief doing the interview. I watched way too much Fox news yesterday & saw the Chief several times so I may be wrong about who said it. In this clip it is Shepard Smith that says it so the picture could be him after all.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/5028971419001/former-dallas-pd-deputy-chief-drugs-found-in-shooters-home/?playlist_id=2694949843001#sp=show-clips
janc1955 says:
I heard something similar, also on Fox.
all it takes is a sample of his blood. The could get that off the wall of the building next door if needed.
TrumpFanGirl says:
Even if he bled out, there should be a pool in his heart to obtain uncontaminated sample.
He had a heart?
Oldiadguy, I appreciate your evaluation of the information. When various versions of the same event appear, they do need to be assessed and compared. That is something the MSM will not do.
Hard to tell, but the red on the one pistol is a reflection of the sign they are next to. On most pistols, the end of the barrel, the chamber end, is polished steel. It makes for easier cleaning and also for quick glance checks of the weapon. The middle guy has something in his hand that is reflecting the light, but it’s position would not be where a blank adapter would be.
As for the blank firing adapters preventing anything, they shoot off in an instant when live ammo is introduced. All they do is contain gas pressure so that the blank will make the gas system function and cycle the rifle.
The rifle does NOT have any thing on it. it is held against the back drop of the red neon sign.
In closing let me say that no department would put officers out in the street with disabled weapons. The military? yes, but police are expected to be well trained and capable.
you would be wrong. chief brown is good. i live in dallas
I have family in Texas who think he is a good man too.
So why are so many officers quitting and saying it is because of low morale? They can’t even fill a police academy class to replace them. Part of it is pay which is not the chief’s fault necessarily but something is not right at DPD.
I’ve heard of other cities having the same problem with filling academies. Chicago, Philly, San Diego. Some may be lowering the requirements to attract incoming applicants.
There may be various reasons for officers quitting across the nation. Hopefully we can retain enough until Trump gets elected and gets them some much needed help. Dollars, bodies, equipment or whatever.
It may be the danger, the constant trauma of dealing with lawless, low-living people and the low pay.
I have the same question. Can we confirm the low morale rumors?
http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2016/03/dallas-city-manager-throws-his-support-behind-police-chief-after-calls-for-him-to-resign.html/
$$$$$$$$$$
easttxisfreaky says:
Dallas is a complex web of cities-within-a-city. Chief David Brown attends Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, whose pastor, Rev. Tony Evans, gave the invocation at the Texas Governor’s inauguration. Evans is also against same-sex marriage and gave an interview about it here: https://www.facebook.com/6abcActionNews/videos/10153796921336378/
I bring that up because there has been recent flack between opposition forces who oppose Dr. Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, providing counseling and other services to the DPD.
“Last week, Take Back Oak Lawn, the Resource Center and Dallas’ Stonewall Democrats asked Brown — and Mayor Mike Rawlings — to sever ties with the church, which is offering counseling services and other benefits to officers.” This was May 29, 2016 article.
http://cityhallblog.dallasnews.com/2016/05/dallas-police-chief-brown-explains-relationship-with-first-baptist-dallas-by-insisting-there-isnt-one.html/
What recent development since May? Jeffress’ support of DJT.
palafox says:
I watched the first 6 minutes (enough to cover your stated 5:12). What did you hear that I didn’t, indicating he was “in on it”?
His representatives that met with BLM were not told that there would be a march.
As soon as that march started, that chief had a responsibility to put a stop to it, period. That was not part of the plan. Yet he did nothing. He ALLOWED IT to continue. Complicit in the result.
There is not a right to block roadways. The marchers were breaking the law and it was HIS JOB AS CHIEF to stop them. He chose to allow it. Complicit in the result.
The march following their rally was – per the chief – “spontaneous.” I do not believe that not for one second. Later in the interview the chief actually stated that the murderer, in his black tahoe, was leapfrogging intersections AHEAD OF THE MARCHERS.
How did the killer know where the marchers were going?
That chief allowed his officers to be led straight into a trap. He himself called it a ‘funnel.’ And that’s exactly what it was.
The blood of those officers is on that chief’s hands.
How could the police have stopped the crowd?
I believe the BLM leaders should be indicted and prosecuted for marching against the law – without permit – leading to the deaths of the officers.
Didn’t the mayor order the police not to be wearing protective gear? Or was it the Chief?
I read that it was the chief who gave the order for no protective gear, but I can’t recall where at the moment.
lizzieintexas says:
I don’t yet have an opinion of the chief, but it was still 89°’s at 10:30 pm a couple of nights ago (Houston).
Just because the killer knew where the march was going does not mean the Chief knew about the march.
But I think there were others who knew what was going to happen.
If you watch some of the videos you will notice that a few people are walking around seemingly unworried that they may be in harms way. Like they knew they would not be a target.
emma….I think you have an agenda here…..Chief Brown is not GOD…..the situation got way out of hand fast…and his folks on the ground reacted well….and did not provoke a bunch of rioting, burning, and looting as has happened elsewhere. This man does not deserve your sour comments, IMO
Do you have any evidence that the chief was even on the scene when the demonstrators decided to march? Normally the scene commander is a lower ranking officer at events such as this.
From what the chief said, his officers blocked traffic as the protestors, now marchers approached each intersection to protect the marchers from traffic. Yes, the event organizers were violating their permit, however, it is doubtful that the chief was any position to stop the march.
This action by the shooter clearly indicates he did not know ahead of time where the march was going and was leapfrogging intersections as the march progressed in order to find a suitable location to strike.
There is no evidence that the shooter knew the route of the march. If the shooter had known the route of the march, there would have been no need to keep leapfrogging intersections in front of the march.
The blood of the slain officers is on the hands of the shooter and no one else.
It only takes a few to take over and lead a bunch of protestors. What may have seemed spontaneous may have been an organized effort to lead the cops into a killing field.
teaforall says:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/07/09/dallas-police-chief-david-brown-has-dealt-his-own-personal-losses/86895246/
“Yes, the event organizers were violating their permit, however, it is doubtful that the chief was any position to stop the march.”
So, you’re saying the chief was unable to maintain law and order in his own jurisdiction? Do you believe that is the case in all of our major cities today, or is this specific to Dallas?
It’s a political election year and arena. Communiques between BLM leaders stated their goals were to incite violence, create civil unrest, interfere with the RNC, and prevent Trump from winning. Howie made a great observation: how do you stop a thousand people? Jails won’t hold them. It’s impossible.
In this article, there is a great discussion about how police departments decide how to handle rallies and marches: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/07/08/what-dallas-pd-does-right-and-why-doing-those-things-could-now-be-more-difficult/
I don’t know how police departments will plan for the coming months, but most people I know are adding to their collections and practicing. Ultimately, most p.d.s just show up to write up a report. They can’t prevent much.
We have seen this blocking of streets and display of violence in other cities, notably those protesting Trump events.
Michael Savage was all over this theory on Friday. Expect fireworks from him, tomorrow.
Daniel Overton says:
Step away from the BS trolling. You are too obvious.
Totally Domestic says:
That is not my take. I am so proud of the whole Dallas PD.
I really like Chief David Brown & feel he should be supported,
He has a difficult job.
Do wish he had of clearly called out BO rather than hinted at it.
He was weak in that area.
Dallas police chief is believable where as James comey is not believable. I still think there could have been more than 1shooter. Just like JFK.
Have they released ballistics info yet?
We’ll never hear or see it, like Orlando
Because it would reveal more than one shooter, and the Dallas chief and the Dallas mayor can’t have Dallas residents thinking them to be incompetent, now, can we….
He’s probably a nice guy, most are. But emma has a point. The BLM terrorists have been threatening cops since Ferguson. One look at any of their protests in the last 2 years shows them to be extremely violent.
You cannot just have a rally and then begin to march down the middle of a busy street. Those permits are set up in advance. If it happens ‘spontaneously’ that’s what we pay police for to shut it down and make arrests.
When we used to have tea party rallies downtown in my city, a capital city by the way, we were instructed by police over and over where we could assemble, how far we could go on to the surrounding sidewalks and were not allowed to march down the streets without a permit. We were kept on a tight leash and had to pay $10,000 from donations to hold the rally in the particular place we chose.
The police departments in many cities are doing the bidding of the feds. They are being intimidated and blackmailed to follow Obama/Lynch’s orders else they lose federal grant monies.
When Dallas police chief first came out right after the killings the first night he sounded badass; now he looks as if he’s had a talking-to by Loretta and Barry.
Paul Killinger says:
Let me see if I have this right… Your group paid $10K for what was essentially a “parade permit?”…
So how is it allthe these marchers very likely don’t pay 10 cents ??
GreenMirror says:
Revenue generation can only come from those that have it.
Savage said, on Friday, that he and his staff had searched for hours for signs of a Dallas “parade/protest permit” and came up with nothing.
That’s … troubling.
Friday afternoon he spent a good hour on this point.
“We cannot find a permit that was filed by BLM. We cannot find a record of it in the Dallas city office. We cannot find it on the BLM websites. And so, since the parade or march route was not published in advance, I would assume that only the Black Lives Matter community organizers knew which direction they would be taking.”
I’m sure he’ll have an update on his show tomorrow.
http://www.michaelsavage.wnd.com/2016/07/michael-savage-newsletter-dallas-investigators-should-be-asking-this-question/
I noticed Chief Brown was steering clear of the politics in this interview. He punted the “how do you feel about gun policies” back to Tapper. I’m glad the Chief got to share his message, not someone else’s.
A few things I learned from video. The protest was suppose to be “static” and then disperse. Things changed to cause some of the “real time” moments. Some protesters came with AK guns over shoulder, camo, gas masks (allowed in Tx) The 3 suspects came from this group because of attire. When shooting started they had to consider them suspects. Two were released. One was arrested because he was not legal to carry.
“his” officers were funneled into the position they were in. Very suspect stuff… anyone who likes can talk about my tin foil hat, but this crap happens by design. The globalists care nothing about life.
Tommy Frisco says:
That must be the most asinine comment I’ve seen at CTH. Yes, the DPD should have contained the protesters, but they were doing their best to keep the event peaceful. Certainly, our U.S. DOJ has set the example for what/when laws are enforced.
Instead of accusing a patriot for this massacre, you should look at Jeff Hood, the man who led the protesters and the police toward the shooter. If anyone coordinated with the shooter, it was Jeff Hood, not the Chief of Police for Dallas, TX. David Brown would not have led his men to their death, but Jeff Hood is certainly capable of it.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/07/08/meet-leftist-reverend-behind-dallas-black-lives-matter-protest/
In my opinion Hood is crazy. Very crazy. I looked through one of his books which is on Google Books https://books.google.com/books?id=eEmUCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=jeff+hood++went+to+auburn&source=bl&ots=NkI2JW0h1O&sig=l2QxBpOZHo93x8qUG5emuuKXOBw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiUxbvtvufNAhVk6oMKHb9rDecQ6AEIWjAN#v=onepage&q=jeff%20hood%20%20went%20to%20auburn&f=false He is very disturbed and there is absolutely no way of telling what he could be into or up to.
I suspect that Bill Ayers knows what Jeff Hood is up to.
I agree. And so does No Quarter. See below.
Keep in mind that the majority of Black Americans do not hate. They are encouraged to hate. But they are too well-grounded in Christ and Sanity. The mother shot in Dallas has not a corpuscle of hate in her. She is typical. And I trust will be heard by many.
So, too, Whites. A tiny number hate others. Let’s not fall into us and them.
This is a great tragic moment to analyze the true condition. Trump was ahead of the curve and has been speaking (the only voice in the campaign) of helping African-American youth and African-American workers. His solution: jobs. With economic growth, many problem disappear. With the Wall drugs will stop polluting the Black Communities.
The Hate and Kill Cops stuff is Obama Street Ideology. Divide, Rule, Amass Chaos, Destroy. He is the devil incarnate.
Just Sayin' says:
They may not hate, but there is a whoooooooooooole lot of resentment
MISPLACED resentment.
Swohawk says:
Bet the numbers aren’t terribly different from the percentage of “good-hearted, peaceful” muslims who believe we should institute sharia and execute homosexuals. “Mostly good” is meaningless if a not insignificant minority are bad people.
The difference is that Islam commands evil. A Christian (black or white) who becomes a truer Christian becomes a better person. A Muslim who becomes more fervent becomes a worse person and one incapable of accommodating secular mores. ISIS members are the truest Muslims.
Citizen Kane says:
Police Chef David Brown’s son died in a shoot out with police from suburban Lancaster, Texas.
He was killed by police after fatally shooting a patrol officer in 2010.
Yes, he is the ‘daddy of a cop killer’ chief. And riled the department with theses stunts:
http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2010/06/the-virulent-eruption-surround.html/
http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2010/06/decision-to-use-on-duty-office.html/
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Dallas-Police-Chief-Talks-About-The-Pain-Of-His-Sons-Death-97948064.html
“Now there are questions about why another Dallas police officer was put on “special assignment” to help the chief’s family after the shooting. Sgt. Tanga Hampton babysat for the Brown family on the day of Brown Jr.’s funeral.
“I don’t begrudge Sgt. Hampton for wanting to help us out,” Brown said. “We had a 4-year-old who didn’t to go to the funeral home and on to the funeral, and all of my family was there, so there was no one to watch the 4-year-old. We’re going to correct it.”
Officers are sometimes assigned to assist the grieving family of a fellow officer, but City Manager Mary Suhm said it was not appropriate under this circumstance.”
I don’t know, you all tell me: how many times are you aware of cop KILLERS getting a police escort for their funerals? Does this happen a lot?
Oh my Lord. So this chief’s son killed a cop and an innocent man in a carein front of the man’s children? And then his brother was killed by dope dealers?
I’m sorry, even if Brown is a separate person not responsible for raising a cop killer son or his brother’s drug use(and don’t use that mentally ill excuse-stats show that 99% of mentally ill people are not violent) he still must have psychological scars that can mar his judgment.
I think he dropped the ball. The BLM killer was leapfrogging through intersections to get ahead of the unauthorized march–say what? Where the gosh darn police to throw a block in front of him?
Chief Brown messed up. He “met” with the BLM folks and gave them carte blanche to do what they wanted without permits. He probably sympathized with Sterling and Castile since his son and brother died violently. Gimme a break. This guy shouldn’t be mentally cleared to be police chief of an Alaskan outpost. He has blood on his hands too.
Can you imagine how officers must have felt when they were ordered to provide a COP KILLER with a police escort typically provided for FALLEN OFFICERS!!!
I wonder how many officers left DPD because of that incident.
No surprise (to me) that morale at DPD has been in the toilet for a while now…
From reading the articles, it is apparent that Chief Brown did not set up the detail. According to your links
“Deputy Chief Julian Bernal, who oversees the traffic unit, said that as the funeral procession was headed to the cemetery, the private motorcycle escort was having trouble keeping up.
He said other motorists were zipping past the slow-moving line of cars and weaving in and out of the procession to try to exit Central Expressway. He also said an accident at Walnut Hill Lane added to the problems.
Bernal, who was in the funeral procession, said he then ordered on-duty assistance to help control traffic.
“It was dangerous, and it was a matter of public safety,” Bernal said.
He said officers, mostly on motorcycles, met up with the procession on Central Expressway at Mockingbird Lane and traveled with the procession the rest of the way to the cemetery.”
You spew nothing but hate in your comments and they lack any sense of intelligent though.
My impression is the chief is telling it straight. If he says there was only one shooter, it is hard for me to disbelieve him. What I am having trouble with …. 12 ? officers discharged their weapons? Were they all shooting at the same suspect? Were some trying to lay down cover fire? Were they shooting at echos?
Joe Knuckles says:
When he made his statement at the press conference, he looked down and seemed ashamed to be saying the terrorist acted alone and was not a part of any group, I think he was ordered to say that. Remember, there’s a idiot liberal mayor in Dallas and, of course, the iron fist of the DOJ could come down on him, too.
Yes, he first said they had 3 people in custody. One was a woman and they were piling into a Mercedes. Did I miss something? Now he changes the story because Obama and Lynch got to him, perhaps. This is crazy.
sundaybu says:
What about reports of triangulated coordinated shooters?
You were not imagining those reports. Granted, the sound of a gunshot in an echo friendly environment can fool you. But 12 policemen failing to get a head shot on one suspect? They were either poor marksmen, or engaging the target well beyond effective pistol range, or – shooting at multiple assassins. Anything is possible.
From what I understand, the shooter was moving. He could have fired some shots from one end of the parking garage, ran down to the other end and fired additional shots. This action alone could have made it seem like there were two shooters.
I suspect that early on, most of the officers on the scene were equipped with handguns, that have limited range.
Curry Worsham says:
He wasn’t in the garage. He was started shooting from the pillars at El Centro. He then ran around to the north side and entered the college by shooting out the door. I don’t know how he went through a wall of cops on Lamar St. to get to the garage.
https://www.google.com/maps/@32.7796948,-96.8043345,3a,80.9y,272.28h,97.63t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sOdlxzlZcKwcU5oFy7CJKUg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
Runs in the building at 1:55:
El Centro damage:
“According to Adames, the sniper, Micah Xavier Johnson, shot out the locked glass doors at El Centro and proceeded to the second floor of Building C, on the west side of the complex, at the corner of Elm and Market streets.”
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/headlines/20160708-el-centro-officials-shooting-occurred-from-west-side-building-not-just-east-side-garage.ece
Sundance and fellow Treepers. I was just listening to Stefan Molyneaux’s podcast for July 9th and he gave a shout out to the Treehouse!!!! Thought you might want to know👍
Wonderful as I was just composing a complaint to Snopes that discredited Sundances Article on Castile being a Armed Robber suspect .
Listening to it now – Stefan has been doing such a fantastic job lately, and I was thrilled to hear the shout out to CTH!
Just_me says:
I was impressed with the Chief. Seemed to have his officers’ backs and he didn’t hesitate to say politicians and media, in addition to the complacent communities, are hyping the problems/making things worse.
Did you notice Cheif Brown mentioned the silent majority? I think he’s a Trump supporter. How could any cop not be?
Finalage says:
Giuliani for VP or attorney general. His pick.
Let Giuliani dismantle DHS and put only the most important ones back where they were.
I think this election will come down to national security, Clinto corruption and trade. Guiliani is a very strong voice, well known and will prosecute Hillary Clinton as attack dog. I think Trump needs someone strong, who can be a strong attack dog and respectable. Rudy Guiliani checks a lot of boxes. Granted Guiliani is pro-choice but I think the GOP base can trust Guiliani more than Flynn to be a strong VP choice for Trump.
Bottomline, Trump is likely to choose someone from the NE because they are the folks that genuinely like him and who he can trust. Those are Scott Brown, Rudy Giuliani, and Chris Christie. Chris Christie has the same strengths Giuliani brings and is pro-life. That may make the difference in the end.
Lol, as soon as I say all that this comes out!
"95 percent probability" Pence will be Trump VP: report https://t.co/a8uYEolp1A pic.twitter.com/ZZgf0Pei9I
— The Hill (@thehill) July 11, 2016
It’s The Hill!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Clickbait.
You know, I’m more concerned who he picks for his cabinet then his VP. The thought occurred to me that he might pick Cruz as AG. Cruz likes to win, and it would keep him from anymore “Corker” bills and the threat of undermining him. Then if he doesn’t like his performance, Trump could ask for his resignation. IDK, so many things wrong . We have to calm down and return to being a nation of respected laws. I’m afraid Christie would turn too many people off as the VP.
Pence is a good choice. Not the best but really Trump didn’t have much to pick from that fit right. Newt had no chance imho. Sessions doesn’t want it. Christie is good but he doesn’t help Trump aside from being a strong attack dog. Pence gives Trump someone who is conservative, staid and has political experience. I agree the VP pick is overhyped. I think the main thing is for Trump to make the case that he will be the best leader for this country. That this country is better of with him at the helm than Crooked Hillary!
quintrillion says:
That was the most respectful interview I’ve ever seen from a talking head. Police chief David Brown has a servants heart and bless his soul, a gifted speaker and leader. God bless those in his command.
Exactly why other posts on this thread are so out of touch with common sense.
Wow, the chief may not be a gifted speaker, but he spoke from the heart and not some canned message. It was nice change from what we have been experiencing as of late. Chief Brown gave out a lot of information about the shooter, took full responsibility of using an explosive device, backed his men, gave praise where praise was due and pointed out the culprits who are pushing the anti-police message. He skillfully dodged the gun control trap. Asked for help from the community to help the families of those slain, exposing the truth behind those claims of gold plated pensions.
I don’t have any information about Chief Brown or what kind of police chief he is, but that interview was on the money. His officers have reason to be proud of him today.
From May 25, 2016:
‘Exodus’ continues at the Dallas Police Department
From the text which follows the video at the link below. Emphasis added:
“We talked to an officer whose last day was Wednesday. He joins more than 40 others who quit in the month of May.”
“Many say low morale is plaguing the department under the leadership of Chief David Brown.”
“Sources say so many officers are leaving the department that the personnel office can’t process the paperwork quickly enough, and they are telling officers they have to wait to quit.”
http://www.wfaa.com/news/exodus-continues-at-the-dallas-police-department/215006466
From July 5, 2016:
“The Dallas Police Association says nearly 50 officers resigned over the past month to take jobs in other North Texas cities.”
““I’ve been doing this for over 20-years, I’ve never seen it like this” said Mata. “48 is a very high number for a month.”
While the Dallas Police Department said it is aware of the resignations, nobody was available to comment.”
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2016/07/05/dallas-police-assoc-says-low-pay-morale-trigger-several-police-resignations/
What is the cause of a huge exodus from an organization? It is usually due to a problem at the top. Or, it is because the whole place is corrupt and there’s now a good guy at the top. Did Dallas have a huge corruption problem that this chief is cleaning out? Or is he the rat at the top? Take your pick, because with that many officers bailing, it’s one of those two.
And don’t forget, the current mayor of Dallas is a demonicrat who won the seat over the GOP candidate who is a former police chief.
I think you may have answered your own question. I might add that the new mayor is a liberal democrat and I believe he is all far bringing in additional illegals and ME immigrants and instituting other liberal nonsense.
I was at a family event last night and my sister, who is dyed in the wool liberal, commented how the mayor tried to shut down all information getting out on the shooter. However, when the chief came on, disregarded the mayor’s previous comment and went into great detail about the shooter. My sister was impressed with the chief’s openness.
zephyrbreeze says:
This sheds a different light on everything.
Why would the police allow an illegal protest march disrupt traffick?
That is why my spidey sense is going off so bad. Look, the folks here at CTH knew the likelihood of this group to make an attempt to go mobile and then block traffic as we’ve seen it for years now out of this exact same group. If WE know preparations should be made in case the permitted group decides to pull one of the stunts they’ve become known for pulling, WHY DID THE CHIEF NOT KNOW TO MAKE PREPARATIONS FOR SAME?
As to how a police department stops a group from blocking traffic, does DPD not know the side streets available off whatever route they’re on at the moment? The chief said his officers were also leapfrogging intersections in order to block traffic to protect the marchers.
Am I to believe that those same officers the chief used to block traffic were incapable of blocking the marchers instead?
Makes zero logical sense to me.
” If WE know preparations should be made in case the permitted group decides to pull one of the stunts they’ve become known for pulling, WHY DID THE CHIEF NOT KNOW TO MAKE PREPARATIONS FOR SAME?
What do you suggest, stringing razor wire around them. SMH
Yep! The motorist were compliant because their route was being blocked by a marked police vehicle. If the marchers wanted to go through a line of police cars, they could just go around or over them.
Are you saying BLM marchers don’t have to follow the law now? We all know that they do not follow the law, but are you honestly saying that it’s acceptable for BLM marchers to ignore direct orders from officers by going around and over cars in place to block their route?
How does the nation get this mess under control if BLM are free to ignore the laws and orders from officers of the law?
Is it really your position that there is no way to stop BLM? Because that’s what you seem to be saying….
If person(s) are not willing to comply with the law, what steps are you willing to take to force compliance?
Mass arrests? If they resist, then what, beatings? lethal force? These are choice that will have to be made.
Lets not forget about 1st Amendment issues and the various court decisions allowing public demonstrations.
I am not here to argue with you about BLM and their activities. It is what it is. Since it is obvious to me that you have an agenda, but have little or no knowledge of concerning crowd control of decision making, I’m done making replies.
Have a nice evening.
So realistically the only option for LE is mass arrest. And with mass arrests comes screams of “oppression!” “discrimination!” “raaaaccciiiisssssmmmmm” and on and on and on and….
Society is being held hostage? Is that it?
Unfortunately yes. That is why they are conducting themselves in the manner that they are.
As long as society sanctions their actions this will continue.
I don’t like it either, but it is what it is.
You’re not alone. My “spidey” sense is haywire, too. See below.
I thought it was a great interview, Police Chief Brown was very open, direct and explained in no uncertain terms what is at stake. Respect! He sure put Tapper in his place in the second half, he had the longest face ever towards the end, chin on the floor as one says…
About the two letters written in blood on the wall (RB I think, will check later). Is there any way of finding out if they could be initials of the female officer who accused him of sexual harassment or anyone responsible for him being discharged from army in Afganistan? I have another idea if the letters were in lowercase, need to check something first….
This was a very helpful interview to get an idea of what, when, how everything transpired that night. I was proud of Chief Brown for saying he made the right call to send in the robot and would do it again.
It is indeed possible that the leaders of the protest group, that suddenly began to march without prior approval, led police into danger and into the line of fire of Micah Johnson who was in a ‘high perch’ position waiting to ambush them. Was it intentional?
Coincidentally, Bill Clinton met with that same BLM protest leader recently…
“Was it intentional?” My gut screams “yes.”
Progressivism is Poison.
Progressivism has poisoned these communities.
What was the domestic terrorist singing? I think it may be something like this:
Snopes had a pretty weak rebuttal of the CTH articles on Philamdo. No gun they say but I even heard Obama make a reference to it…The Police officer is saying thats why he shot him and it damn sure looks like a gun in the video.. Still 100 proof needs to exist but it may never come if Loretta is in chrge of the investigation. The newports were just a quirk..Yeah OK… I bet more is coming he could not have lived a lifestyle like that without winesses. They disputed the crip thing too. So what as long as the stop was good and the officer feared for his life he’s justified…..
Duhders says:
Did the police know the parade route? Was it publicly available?
Sort of off-topic, but I have been trying to figure out who Hillary’s race relations policy advisor is going to be if she gets elected and based on her message after the Dallas shooting:
She also called on white Americans to empathize with African-Americans who live in fear of clashes with the police. “We’re the ones who have to start listening to the legitimate cries that are coming from our African-American fellow citizens,” Mrs. Clinton said.
I finally figured it out:
So does anyone want to hear from white Americans about how they’re feeling about being called racist, or about the blame for black problems that is constantly laid at their feet? Does anyone want to empathize with white Americans who bust their hump everyday to earn a living and pay their taxes so the BLMers can “peacefully protest” on full tummies? Is anyone interested in listening to the cries of exhausted white Americans?
right on, janc
I wish i knew when each officer was shot ..as in was it from above or on the ground …I know one was shot point -blank on the street….I want to know for my mind to know if it was one shooter or more ..cause that was a lot of movement for one man…
so many unknown things….how long had he planned it/…how did he know where to make his perch??…what did he know about the protest and where it was going??
roxiellTX says:
Listening to Aaron Klein on AM 970 The Answer Hackensack,NJ
6-8 CDT
via tunein on ROKU
glypenblog says:
Here is a letter on LC about the shooting in MN. Good read.http://lamecherry.blogspot.com/2016/07/an-open-letter-to-dallas-county.html
I don’t know WHY I feel this but something seems “off” about Dallas Police Chief David Brown.
His son killed a police officer in 2010.
His partner was killed in a shooting in 1988.
His brother was killed in Phoenix by drug dealers in 1991.
He signed onto the POS reform of police body cameras and has so far bought 200.
There is a lot of animosity against him by the rank and file.
And now we learn the assassin knew the parade route.
Something about this entire situation, from the POS conveniently being in Europe when all hell broke loose to the continued emphasis by him, the media and pols about inherent racism by whites against blacks – now a campaign talking point for Clinton – just feels so orchestrated.
Larry Johnson agrees the story does not add up.
Troubling “Facts” From Dallas and Killing Micah Johnson
“I really like Dallas Police Chief Brown but the story he is telling in public about the urgency in killing the former soldier who murdered five Dallas police officer and the method of killing him does not really make sense.”
“The public’s justifiable outrage at the racist murdering of Micah Johnson is keeping folks from asking common sense questions. But here is the bottomline–The police had Johnson cornered and could have waited him out. They chose not to . . .”
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/79200/troubling-facts-dallas/
Dallas is a sanctuary city and it just lost big federal bucks:
Recent legislation ends sanctuary city funding: http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/07/justice-department-cuts-off-federal-law-enforcement-grants-to-sanctuary-cities/
Results: Barry/Hillary are pissed b/c illegals are their voter base; Dallas gets mega bucks for NGO, non-profits, and federal bucks for illegals.
Dallas is an arm of the Democrat/NWO body. The controllers, Barry and handlers, make a call to Dallas and give the order to stand down during a protest rally. There may or may not have been prior knowledge about what was about to go down.
The shooter was a paid mercenary, waiting on the call to go ahead.
Barry made sure he was across the globe so as to exonerate himself..
Louis Farrakhan makes a call to kill whiteys in his spiel on a Twitter message at 3:00 p.m. the day of the shooting:
Are you truly ready to pay the price for freedom? pic.twitter.com/5xS2trn7mw— MINISTER FARRAKHAN (@LouisFarrakhan) July 7, 2016
I don’t have a timeline for the protests that occurred across the country for the past 48 hours, but they are coordinated.
BLM twitter accounts were hacked and revealed these plans and what we know NEXT is that 10,000 protesters will show up at the RNC.
HOW CAN POLICE POSSIBLY PROTECT THEM?
Will they storm the building, break through the security, and assassinate all who attend?
Why not just SKYPE the convention? This IS the age of technology and the convention seems so antiquated.
Hovering above the planet…watching a globe on fire…
After reading the article written by Johnson, I had to look at his bio. On the surface, it is very impressive, however, I have to ask with all the expertise he has why is writing in an obscure blog and asking for donations via PayPal? According to his own website, ohnson has the grand total of 61 twitter followers????
Then there are the three critical facts he listed, so let me break them down.
1.The shooter, Micah Johnson was pinned down. He was not running free and the police had him surrounded. He was not in a position to continue shooting and, if he had, he would have run out of bullets.
“The shooter, Micah Johnson was pinned down.”
“He was not running free and the police had him surrounded.”
That is the definition of having someone pinned down.
“He was not in a position to continue shooting and, if he had, he would have run out of bullets.”
Here is where Johnson really loses me. According to reports, the shooter continued to sporadically fire at officers during the negotiations. But to say that eventually the shooter would have run out of bullets is insane. Where did Johnson expect those bullets to impact. I’m sure that the shooter wouldn’t have been able to maybe hit and fatally would another officer. SMH
2.The shooter did not have any hostages. No one else was in immediate jeopardy and, if the police were doing their job properly, pushed the perimeter back to the point that no one was in a line of fire.
“The shooter did not have any hostages.”
“No one else was in immediate jeopardy”
Except the officers trying to contain him.
“if the police were doing their job properly, pushed the perimeter back to the point that no one was in a line of fire.”
Apparently the Dallas Police didn’t need Johnson advice as they apparently already did this as no other officers had been shot.
3.The remote control robot was adjacent to the suspect.
I’m not sure what he is talking about here. Is he worrying that the explosion would damage or destroy the robot? The robot is a machine and is expendable, an officer’s life is not.
Then Johnson apparently went to the Remotec web site and listed the capabilities of the robot. Johnson then went on to explain how it would have been better to have used a ANDROS F6B SHOTGUN AND MOUNT instead of explosives. I really like this line, “I think what really happened is that they decided to shoot Johnson with the shotgun on the robot.” He thinks?? Did he bother to think about whether the Dallas PD even had the shotgun and mount for their bomb deposal robot in the first place?
Johnson apparently did not hear the chief’s explanation. The SWAT team was given 15 minutes to come up with a plan. They chose the material they had on hand. They had C-4 on hand to detonate suspicious packages or unstable explosives that can’t be moved. It was an old school solution it is called Improvise, Adapt Overcome.
The chief addressed critics such as Johnson who are Monday morning quarterbacking his decision from the comfort and safety of their homes or office. Lets remember that Chief Brown had a dozen officers down, some dead and did not know for certainty what kind of armaments that the shooter had in his possession. The chief did not want to risk the lives of any more officers by trying to go in and get the shooter or wait and allow the shooter to do a “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” grand exit and possibly and possibly add to his score of dead and wounded officers.
Critics like Johnson do not have to face the widows and families of the slain officers. Chief Brown does. Chief Brown did the right thing.
I have been following NQ for years, since 2008. He sometimes gets it wrong (like everyone) but is often right on the mark.
I believe his blog is more of a side-thing. He does not post every day.
As for the rest of your analysis, I will check it out tomorrow when I have time.
wyntre – Please don’t think that my comments were directed towards you. My comments were aimed specifically at Larry Johnson, whom I never heard of, and the presumptuous article he wrote.
I don’t. I just like Johnson and find many (but not all) of his blogs interesting.
Cops Get Unexpected Pizza Delivery…
http://www.americasfreedomfighters.com/2016/07/10/cops-unexpected-pizza-delivery-hidden-boxes/
Now this is frightening. Argument about BLM erupts on FACEBOOK.
Offended party breaks into cop’s house, gets shot by the cop.
WTFrick???
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/off-duty-st-louis-county-officer-fatally-shoots-intruder-at/article_00c6c2bd-d559-5b78-a8f1-e78187dfa2a6.html
catluver99 says:
This is close to my neck of the woods but closer still is the officer who was shot this past Friday just 2 blocks from my home. I feel like Chief Jon Belmar is part of the family since I see him more often. I never heard of him until Ferguson was in the news and then, every couple months some tragedy involving a shoot out or knife problem with cops. He seems to be on our local news quite a lot. Very sad.
I have looked at the video of the guy supposedly shooting the officer point blank many times. The more I look, the less I am convinced that it was shooter victim. Instead, it appears to be a uniform and a plain cloths both taking fire from an elevated position to the left of the camera. Horrible as it is, it does a lot to change perception. I was using that as my basis for discounting the single shooter theory.
Given typical police behavior, single shooter becomes much more plausible. No cop hides and cowers in a situation like that. They would be advancing, seeking cover and advantage points to fire from. Also, they would be risking themselves to get to exposed victims who were in the field of fire thus exposing themselves.
I would expect SWAT outfitted cops to advance like military, but not just uniformed cops. A bullet resistant vest under an ordinary shirt isn’t very protective. Cops do want to stay alive. I did notice that most of the cops were trying very hard to keep down and behind some kind of cover.
They will lay it on the line to rescue a person in the line of fire. There was one witness who was hit who stated that several officers were hit attempting to get to her.
Here is a link to MTV forum where they discuss I what I think you are asking.
Sorry, the link didn’t show up.
http://forum.maxvelocitytactical.com/forums/topic/hugging-cover/
What is the right training? Do police officers need to be trained military style, like in urban warfare training? There are obviously different techniques for attack and for survival? Are actual SWAT cop units urban warfare trained? There has been a lot of criticism leveled at cops for being too military oriented for civilian policing. So what are cops supposed to do? Even they don’t know for sure, it seems. Your thoughts?
Backspin says:
Tonights MOB action , described by Police on air as ” Not peaceful ” is brought to you by ZIP TIE company , makers of Flexi – Cuff. Louisiana State Police moving in. WBRZ ch. 2. Live.
Something is different. I live in a small rural southern town that is 53 percent black. I am white. In the past when these things have happened and I’ve been out and around I get some very dark looks from black people as if I am the enemy because I am white. Today, people of all colors were going out of their way to be kind and helpful to each other. I saw it, participated in it, experienced it. Yes, there are forces that are trying to divide us, but they are not winning! Something is different…
I’ve noticed this too..
Ivehadit says:
Love, love, love Chief Brown!
alliwantissometruth says:
This entire “black liberation / social justice / hate whitey” nonsense is a construct of the left, used as a weapon of war to take down a nation & it’s system of governance. The left has been using it for decades
Blacks are being used as pawns in a game of deception. A completely fraudulent narrative is used to incite those who’ve been brainwashed by the leftist curriculum in our government controlled public school system. Under the guise of “education”, young blacks are being fed a never ending onslaught of victimization & radical militant ideology
The foot soldiers who espouse this nonsense have no idea they’re being used to enslave their own people all over again
Liberation? From what, an orderly & safe society based on the rule of law? Their utopian dream is a society where killers face no consequences, people live in fear of gangs & uneducated masses run wild in the streets?
What do they want, a police force who will let their crimes go? A police force not allowed to use force? Go ahead, try that. In a few short months, the same people screaming police brutality will be screaming that the police aren’t protecting them
Not only are young blacks being robbed of the opportunity to lead a free & prosperous life, they’re protesting a system that protects them. It’s totally irrational & just plain stupid
Many young blacks seem to think being free means anything goes, no rule of law, the right to stay ignorant & dumb, the right to be used by people who hate them
They believe getting a real education, bettering yourself & being law abiding is racist. They’re taught that by the left. They’re taught to hate whites & the authority of the system in place. Having their minds molded this way, they cannot comprehend the real consequences to their freedoms & their well being. Obedient, good little leftist shock troops working toward their own destruction
Brainwashing at it’s finest. White children, children of all colors, are being programmed in this way too. We cannot stop the madness & we cannot help them until we remove the leftist stench in our school systems. We will ultimately lose if we don’t
“What do they want, a police force who will let their crimes go?”
At the height of the Ferguson fiasco, there was all sorts of moaning and wailing in the media about “We’re being policed by an occupying force, it’d be much better if police looked like US.
Ok, fine. Seems reasonable at face value.
Then the following Christmas, at a tree-lighting ceremony in Seattle (I think), they held a “hands-up, don’t shoot” rally (I don’t know if “BLM” had been coined yet.
There was video news footage I can’t locate anymore where a black policeman was walking down the sidewalk being harangued relentlessly by a black female: “You an Uncle Tom. Why you not supporting your own people?” (paraphrasing from memory.
Puts the lie to “we want to be policed by officers who look like us.”
In truth: they simply don’t want to be policed.
That’s what it seems like to me. They want no policing at all so they can do whatever they please … to whomever they please.
nimrodman, I agree that’s becoming the case. Many older blacks don’t feel that way though. It seems to be the newer generations, the ones who were “educated” in our leftist indoctrination camp schools, who think that way
All by design of course
Thanks for replying, truth. Yes, I think you’re correct on the generational aspect.
There HAS to be a huge difference in personal responsibility between civil-rights-era / pre-welfare-era blacks from a time when black families were largely intact and fathers had jobs (mothers too in many cases unless they were able to be stay-at-home moms) and later welfare generations from fatherless households, without work, and indoctrinated with resentment in the educational mills and from rap music.
Even within the welfare era, there’s also likely a generational difference between those of pre-rap-music age and those who have been raised the past 30 years or so with openly violent and crude rap music as a societal influence.
Needless to say, the current generation living thru the Obama era where outright anti-white disdain is permissible – even fashionable (Beyoncé, anyone?) – is doubtless the worst so far.
We’re seeing it. And we’ll see it get worse, absent any countervailing reform or self-correction in black society.
Well stated nim
And yes, I don’t see the downward spiral getting any better soon. Until rational, mature voices in the black community begin to overpower the leftist influence, the race pimps & the media narrative, they’re bound to delve further into self destruction
The sad thing about all this? As you stated, 50 – 60 years ago, blacks were becoming middle class, enjoying the American system of freedom & safe environments. God fearing, employed, two parent households were the norm. Black parents taught their children to respect authority & use the system in place to better themselves
Enter the leftist influence, well, you can see what we have now
Tparty says:
I have a suggestion for the Chief about the ‘suspect’ sprawling BP on the wall. From their site…
“The only true way us black people can liberate ourselves from white supremacy, and other race control! Is by using the same methods they use to control us, against them! That’s the same technique Zionist Jews use to liberate their people! By targeting the head, the people with the power and authority to make the changes we want! White Leaders and leaders of other race are the ones with the power and authority to make the changes us black people want! All it takes is to get influence and control over them like the Jews did. Then we will be able to force them to do what we want! All of that is easy to accomplish! You either use economic influence to control them. Or you use an independent assassin group to target these leaders and their families until they do what we want! Zionist Jews use both techniques! So don’t worry yourselves, a better tomorrow is coming for us black people. (From Black Power Political Organization – BPPO)”
The group has a group called the Black People Protection Agency. (BPPA)
” To Accomplish Our Goal! We Will Be Working With (Black People Protection Agency AKA “BLACK KNIGHTS”)! A Powerful Group Of Well Trained Professional Sniper Assassins, With Tens Of Thousands Of Assassins Located All Over The World, In Every Country! Who’s Job Is To Hold Government Leaders And Other Powerful People All Over The World Responsible When They Fail To Give Black People Equal Rights And Justice In Their Countries.”
In the video above, the Chief says the letters were RB, not BP. Good catch though, an org or slogan like Black Power. Any org/slogan with letters RB? Revolution /Rebel/ Rule/ Revolt Black? Hmmm…
Red, black and green or Red black and gold, I can’t remember which it was, but it’s supposedly yet another black power type organization.
White Leaders and leaders of other race are the ones with the power and authority to make the changes us black people want!
So, we just need to elect a black president, have black attorneys general, some black secretaries of state, have most city police chiefs be black, and have the media push our talking points.
Oh, wait, we already did that (or SOMEone did, anyway).
Yea this needs a huge review…as I submit that BLM is a terrorist organization, they just used a new TROJAN HORSE method to kill cops. It’s a perfect setup, cops can’t say no or media will force police chief to resign under racism. What a simple way for gangs, Islamic Terrorism, hell any Grievance Industry to execute an attack…and then even create sympathy for the assassin!
Will wonders never cease? (/s =sarcasm)
Shetania T praises Dallas cops.
Very moving. Thanks for posting
Yeah, moving, but notice she’s going to show up at the next BLM protest, anyway? /s
grlangworth says:
God bless Chief Brown. Man, has he been through it…
wow. powerful stuff.
Don’t know if this statement by Allen West has already been posted. There is a lot of material on CTH — haven’t been able to keep up with it all. Anyway — this is WOW material from him — hope it goes everywhere! http://www.allenbwest.com/allen/after-dallas-cop-attack-hillary-makes-statement-i-find-deeply-offensive
ripcurl2121 says:
this guys own son is a cop killing murderer
afirmative action is bullet proof!
Black Tahoe…so what was the black vehicle with hazard lights on possibly his positioned get away vehicle?
He drove up in it. He wasn’t planning on getting away.
Good review by Suits…
http://kfiam640.iheart.com/media/play/27139865/
Does appear that he had parked his mommies tahoe for the parade to pass.
Police morale in the Dallas Police Department has been low; poor pay and rank and file police officers have been complaining about Chief Brown’s leadership….in addition, citizens are upset over the rise in neighborhood crime…..
Police response times have been on the increase…..not all is rosy in Big D.
As recently as March 2016 the Dallas Police union was calling for the resignation of Chief Brown.
Wow, I was unaware of that piece of the puzzle. Thanks very much, Kane!
From the March 25, 2016 letter from the Black Police Association’s Board of Directors to Councilman Griggs:
“The current atmosphere within the Dallas Police Department is one of vengeance, distrust, retaliation, and a failure to employ the most prudent use of manpower.”
“Vengeance” and “retaliation”? Yikes.
http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/dallas-police-chief-murder-rate-up-86/106350785
Another article about the problems at DPD:
Comments under that article are interesting too.
Thanks again, Kane, for the tip about this.
maggiemoowho says:
Defund BLM, stop supporting the organizations who support BLM. Help save Officers lives and cities from burning. Hill Snowden Foundation considers Baltimore protest/riot a victory, The Ford Foundation has donated over 14 million in funds and the Kellogg Foundation gave $30,000 for the Inaugural BLM Chapter Retreat and another $900,000 on 6-1-16 to strengthen their local chapters organization capacity. The Ford Foundation, Hill Snowden and Novo Foundations changed their grant making guidelines to only fund Racial Injustice.
Kellogg Foundation
Ben and Jerry’s
Marguerite Casey
Novo Foundation
Hill Snowden
Akonadi
And others.
This is discrimination, wonder if the water fountains and bathrooms will be designated also.
Black Lives Matter: Grand Rapids shared Shelline Parks’s event.
July 8 at 10:59am ·
This is public to share. There will be a designated space for white folks and non-Black POC allies to meet and make their own commitments to Black lives as well. Spread and share. Message for more info or if you have questions!
BLM Grand Rapids: Healing Space for Black Healing
Fri 7:00 PM in EDT · Grand Rapids, MI
161 people interested · 69 people going
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A Fitness Lover's Guide To Rio De Janeiro
Surfing is one of the many water sports available |public domain/Pixabay
Rio de Janeiro embraces sports as much it does samba, sun and beaches. At the crack of dawn, runners of all levels and ages lap up and down the beach, only moving into the gyms when the sun gets too hot to work on ‘Project Summer,’ an expression Cariocas (people from Rio) use for getting a beach-ready body. There are lots of different physical activities in Rio for all interests, levels, and preferences.
Running, Cycling And Skateboarding
Luckily, Rio’s unique combination of nature and urban life creates plenty of safe, outdoor running and cycling spaces away from the road yet easily accessible within the city. Running along the beach from Leme down to Leblon is a cycle path of approximately 10 kilometers that is shared by runners, skateboarders, and cyclists. It is incredibly energizing to run or cycle with stunning ocean views at your side. Another popular running, cycling, and skateboarding path winds its way from Praia de Botafogo (Botafogo Beach) to Parque Flamengo (Flamengo Park), a wide green space with tall palms and views of the Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain). It is possible to run from São Conrado to Flamengo, which is the route used for the International Half Marathon held every August.
Running on Copacabana beach © Jimmy Baikovicius/Flickr
Itau, a large bank in Brazil, developed a concept that allows you to rent bikes for just R$10 a day from any of the bike stations around Rio. Use is limited to one hour per bike, but it’s possible to leave the bike at a station after one hour and pick up another one. You just need a credit card and a phone to call and pay (there is an English option).
Outdoor Gyms And Circuit Training
Outdoor gyms are a big thing in Rio, with some designed with the maturer audience in mind and others for a quick workout on the beach. The equipment is made to stretch and exercise all muscles yet is not too demanding. They are dotted around all over Rio in almost every neighborhood. For a more sweaty and challenging workout, try one of the circuit training classes on the beach that can be found all along Copacabana and right down to Recreio. They have daily rates and welcome drop-ins as well as regular members. Just stop by and inquire within.
Outdoor gyms in Rio ©Travpacker.com/Flickr
Indoor Gyms And Crossfit
Crossfit is seeing a surge in popularity for its promise of increased muscularity and better overall fitness. There are lots of new Crossfit centers around Rio. Many accept drop-ins and have reasonable class rates, and they are a great way to get your sweat on and your heart pumping. The classes are physically demanding but fun, with a strong feel-good factor. There are traditional indoor gyms, too, with daily rates, so fitness enthusiasts can drop in and not miss a workout.
Crossfit © Rose Physical Therapy Group/WikiCommons
Yoga classes in Rio attracts expats, tourists, and Cariocas alike, and the outdoor classes are a particularly great way to exercise while soaking in the exhilarating Rio vibe. Class location varies, from Ipanema Beach to Jardim Botanico, and classes tend to be restricted in size to avoid overcrowding and maintain a peaceful environment. However, some classes are open to all and attract large groups.
Rio’s mountainous skyline and close proximity to the Atlantic Forest make for some of the best hikes in Brazil, from moderate-intensity walks to more challenging climbs. All offer sensational views of Rio from up high. The easier ones include Morro da Urca, the smaller peak behind the Sugarloaf, and Pedra Bonita, which is also the base for handgliding and one of the best views over Rio. Dois Irmãos (Two Brothers), reachable via a motortaxi trip through the Vidigal favela, is also relatively easy yet a bit longer. More advanced hikes include Pico da Tijuca, which is one of the longest hikes with dramatic views and Pedra de Gavea, where one part involves actual climbing and is best done with a guide and equipment.
The view from Pedra Bonita which is also the base for handgliding © Jordan Fischer/WikiCommons
Being a coastal city, Rio offers countless opportunities to practise surfing, kite-surfing, swimming, canoeing, stand-up surf paddle, and body-boarding. Praia Vermelha in Urca is a little beach within a bay and sits at the foot of Sugarloaf Mountain. The water is almost always calm, making it ideal for stand-up paddling and canoeing, with all equipment available on-site for rent. For surfing and kite-surfing, head to Ipanema, Barra de Tijuca, or Recreio, where the waters are choppier and there are also surf schools for one-off or package lessons.
Surfing is one of the many water sports available public domain/Pixabay
Football is the national sport of Brazil and lies at the heart of the culture. The majority of games are played on the beach as friendly kickabouts between friends. It’s not uncommon for people to join in on an ongoing game, so feel free to ask if you can play, too. On Wednesdays and Saturdays in Flamengo Park, there are games of football costing R$20 per game and a full-length match.
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You Pick: Week 8
Published on November 22, 2011 at 4:34 pm
By Sameer Bhuchar
The "You Pick' Em" contest is back at it this week. For those of you that are new to this here are the rules:
1. Pick a team you think will win each of the college football contests below.
2. Post it as a comment with your first and last name.
3. The person who correctly picks the most winners receives TWO FREE MOVIE TICKETS courtesy of Regal Cinemas, as well as your picture and bio in next week's issue of Double Coverage.
4. Your selections must be in before 11 am on Saturday.
5. In the event of a tie, the winner is the person who correctly guesses the denoted tie breaker game. If there is a tie beyond that, then the winner is selected by earliest time of submission.
This week's games
No. 25 Texas at Texas A&M
No. 8 Houston at Tulsa
No. 3 Arkansas at No. 1 LSU (Tie-breaker game)
No. 13 Georgia at No. 23 Georgia Tech
Ohio State at No. 15 Michigan
No. 2 Alabama at No. 24 Auburn
No. 19 Penn State at No. 16 Wisconsin
No. 22 Notre Dame at No. 6 Stanford
No. 17 Clemson at No. 12 South Carolina
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218-210: House Passes Boehner Proposal
Elisabeth Meinecke
@lismeinecke
Posted: Jul 29, 2011 6:20 PM
The U.S. House has passed Speaker John Boehner's debt ceiling proposal. At least 22 Republicans voted "nay" with the Democrats, and no Democrats voted for the Boehner proposal.
The final tally was 218 for and 210 against.
This version, according to Townhall Political Editor Guy Benson, contains these key elements highlighted by Boehner's office:
- Bill currently has a two-step process for raising the debt ceiling.
- As currently written, before POTUS can request second tranche of increased debt authority, Select Committee must produce spending cuts larger than the debt hike.
- Change to bill would specify that before POTUS can request second tranche of debt authority, Select Committee must produce spending cuts larger than the hike AND a Balanced Budget Amendment must be sent to the states.
It's reported that Sen. Harry Reid will table the Boehner bill on arrival in the Senate.
As displayed by the 22 GOP "nay" votes, not all Republicans were on board with the latest GOP offering. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who chairs the conservative caucus in the House known as the Republican Study Committe, voted "nay." Republican Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia released this statement on his vote against:
“I cannot in good conscience vote for a bill that puts the future of my grandchildren and of generations to come in jeopardy. While I respect my Republican colleagues’ efforts to come up with a compromise, the people in the 10th Congressional District of Georgia did not send me to Washington to follow the herd. They sent me here to protect their liberty and to fundamentally change the way our federal government spends their money. I do support a Balanced Budget Amendment, but I do not support raising the debt ceiling and allowing President Obama to put more debt on the backs of the American people."
Meanwhile, Broun's Georgia and GOP colleague Rep. Tom Price voted for the legislation and called for support of a Balanced Budget Amendment.
"This evening, we passed legislation that cuts spending now and limits spending in the years ahead," Price's statement said.
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Trans News Week 32
By Marcy Cook
Lots of Canadian Transgender News this last week (3rd-9th August).
What We Know About: The Brain and Gender Dysphoria
Like in many areas of science, it is difficult to unravel cause and effect. It is important to iterate that none of the studies presented provide us with a definite cause for gender dysphoria. It is also likely that gender dysphoria, and the social experiences it confers, also shape the brain.
Additionally, many of these studies hint at different mechanisms affecting trans-men compared to trans-women. It could very well turn out that gender dysphoria has completely different root causes affecting trans-men and trans-women.
We don’t know a lot, yet. We do know that what you think changes the brain, look at London UK cab drivers for example. Is the brain different at birth or becomes different – that’s going to be tricky to answer.
Source: transcience project
Bakersfield Earth – Comic
… a few years ago, after seeing a straight white guy save the world for the millionth time, I started to fantasize about a different scenario and … Shazam! the idea for Bakersfield, Earth was born.
This first issue, from USA duo David Quantic and Tamra Bonvillain, is interesting, I’d like to see where this is going. You should try it too. Also see https://twitter.com/BakersfieldEar
Source: Bakersfield Earth
NDP presents its gay agenda on eve of Vancouver Pride
On the eve of Pride celebrations in Vancouver, gay NDP MPs unveiled what they describe as their “gay agenda,” a list of initiatives that have been introduced in Canada’s House of Commons.
That unfinished business includes three bills — C-279, C-600 and C-448 — that aim to guarantee equal rights for transgender and gender-variant Canadians, suspend the criminal records for gay offences that are no longer illegal, and repeal the unequal age of consent for anal sex, respectively.
Esquimalt–Juan de Fuca MP Randall Garrison, the federal NDP’s LGBT critic, also highlighted three motions the party is pressing forward with, namely ending discriminatory policies on blood and organ donations by gay men, ensuring that the service records of people discharged from the Canadian Forces because of their sexual orientation or gender identity are revised, and getting an apology for civil servants who were fired for their sexuality or gender identity.
NDP, love them or loath them, have the reputation of being the most LGTB friendly of Canada’s main political parties. I think this bills are godo and regardless of where you are on the political spectrum – please help push these through!
Source: Daily Extra
Iranian transgender refugee struggles for acceptance
Tannaz Mehraban woke in the middle of the night to find her brother standing next to her. He told her they had to leave the house — immediately. Her family was going to kill her the next day.
Mehraban, who was only 13 at the time, had recently been kicked out of school for being someone who looked like a boy but dressed as a girl.
“Because this was a great tragedy for my family — I had destroyed my family’s reputation in the community — my family wanted to kill me,” Mehraban said, speaking in Farsi through an interpreter.
This was just one of many hardships that Mehraban had to face as a transgender woman in Iran. After being persecuted her whole life Mehraban, now 38, arrived in Canada as a refugee eight months ago. She currently resides in Burnaby.
Immigration when you are transgender is damned hard, but it can beat the hell out of where you come from. I’m an immigrant to Canada too, really no services exist for transgender immigrants so it is a tough lonely road.
Source: CBC
LGBTQ groups come together for pride despite differences
For the pride society, it’s about changing the historical perception that mainstream pride celebrations are dominated by white gay men. This perception has contributed to the growth of alternative celebrations around North America over the years. Vancouver’s trans march and Dyke March events are good examples of this. Neither is affiliated with the pride society.
This article is talking about Vancouver Pride Parade, I live in Victoria, so close but not the same. Where I live trans* wasn’t at all visible in the local pride march. It was gay white dudes, lesbians, oh and banks and political parties. A bank gets centre stage at pride but trans people don’t? Huh.
I wish seperate trans* parades were not required, I wish we were included in the the pride, but we’re not. The reality is we’re marginalised and that is not changing fast enough. So a trans* parade right now is a requirement.
Source: CTV
A lifelong approach to LGBTQ healthcare
Imagine the embarrassment of being called a man if you lived your life as a woman.
Or the frustration of having to explain to your doctor why, as a woman in a same-sex relationship, you don’t need birth control — even though you are sexually active.
To many in the LGBTQ community, moments such as these are not only upsetting— but scarring.
Dr. Jacqueline Gahagan, professor and director of the Gender and Health Promotion Studies Unit at Dalhousie University, says negative experiences with healthcare providers often discourages LGBTQ people from seeking medical care in the future.
Go Halifax! This is a real requirement. When you getted treated poorly, embarressed or even mocked when you seek medical help you stop seeking medical help as readily. The results of that are obvious.
Source: Media Co-Op
UK: LGBT youths harassed online ‘three times more often’ than rest of population
42% of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths have experienced bullying online, compared to 15% of non-LGBT people.
They were also twice as likely to report being hassled via mobile phone message, with 27% reporting harassment, compared to 13% for non-LGBTs.
As a result of this bullying, the middle and high school pupils surveyed suffered low self-esteem, a higher chance of developing depression, and lower school grades.
This is not exactly a shock for anyone how has looked at a mainstream website when they cover LGBT topics. People seem to think that bulling and abuse using the Internet is no big deal. It is, and a lot of the time it is illegal.
In Canada:
What can you do if someone is stalking, harassing, or cyberbullying you?
First, if the harassment is attempted communication with you, tell the person to stop. Otherwise, they may not know that they are harassing you. Never reply to harassing messages – except to tell the person to stop.
Call the police to report the problem. Record the details of every incident, including time, date, place, who was involved, and what was said and done. Keep letters, notes, voicemail messages, emails, texts, instant messages, and social media and internet posts. Give them to the police.
If the harassment happens at school, report it to the school authorities, as well as to the police. If it happens at work, report it to your boss, plus the police.
Report cyberbullying or other harassing communication to your internet or cell phone company. Most companies have policies on acceptable use of their services, and can cancel the service of a customer who violates those policies. The company can also help police find a cyberbully who is using their network.
If you get a harassing phone call on a landline, dial *57 immediately when the call ends. The phone company will record the phone number that made the call, so the police can get it. If you receive harassing calls on your cell phone, call the phone company for help in tracking the calls.
You can also seek a civil restraining order in court. But to do this, you need legal advice.
Source: Pink News
Marcy Cook
Female geek, author and blogger. Non-cis, non-straight, non-single, non-asshat.
Tagged: news, weekly news
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Join our discussion Cancel reply
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Report: Trump Administration Will Pressure Foreign States to Probe Clinton Foundation
By Rusty Weiss | Featured Contributor | November 28, 2016 6:00AM
While many Donald Trump supporters were upset upon learning that the President-elect was backtracking on a campaign promise to investigate Hillary Clinton’s private email scandal, they’ll be plenty pleased with a new report which indicates he’ll actively pressure foreign states to investigate the Clinton Foundation.
The explosive report from the New York Post indicates that ambassadors named to Trump’s administration will be instructed to bring up the foundation with foreign governments — and pressure them to probe its financial dealings.
In short – getcha popcorn ready.
Via Fox News Insider:
There has been a new twist in the investigation into the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, Sandra Smith reported.
While President-elect Donald Trump has now promised not to personally dig into the scandal-scarred organization, a new report from the New York Post says that he will instead ask his new ambassadors to aid in the probe.
Ambassadors to certain countries may be asked to pressure the governments which which they are the liaison to commence their own investigations into their relationships with the foundation.
The countries of Haiti and Colombia lead the list of those investigated because of the amount of money the Foundation made off of the Haitian earthquake and a Columbia mining tycoon, respectively.
Emails uncovered during an RNC FOIA request, showed Hillary Clinton’s State Department aides giving special business consideration to companies labeled ‘Friends of Bill (Clinton)’ after the massive 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Even ABC News conceded that the “correspondence offers a glimpse into the first stages of a $10 billion Haiti recovery effort” and “appear to show a State Department process that at times prioritized — and, some argue, benefited — people with close ties to the Clintons.”
As for Columbia, the Post reports “Canadian mining magnate Frank Giustra pledged $100 million to the foundation in 2005 and later benefited from the foundation’s philanthropic work in the country, where he acquired large parcels of land and set up an oil business, according to watchdog groups.”
The Foundation has also “received millions from dozens of foreign governments including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Canada, Sweden and Ireland.”
Comment: Do you agree with the Trump administration’s plans to pressure foreign countries to investigate their own dealings with the Clinton Foundation? Share your thoughts below.
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Tag Archives: prequel romance
The love story that started it all WYOMING WILDFLOWERS: THE BEGINNING by USA Today bestseller Patricia McLinn #amreading #romance #western
TODAY’S REVOLVING BOOK is the western contemporary romance WYOMING WILDFLOWERS: THE BEGINNING. (Prequel to the Wyoming Wildflowers Series).
In his life he’d been thrown by horses, bulls, and a tractor. Nothing had ever knocked the breath out of him the way she had.
WHERE YOU CAN GET IT:
Amazon: http://hyperurl.co/WWTBam
BN: http://hyperurl.co/WWTBbn
Kobo: http://hyperurl.co/WWTBko
iBooks: http://hyperurl.co/WWTBit
GooglePlay: http://hyperurl.co/
ABOUT THE STORY:
Wildflowers have to be strong and resilient to bloom amid the rugged beauty of Wyoming – and so do the women.
Before the bestselling and award-winning Wyoming Wildflowers series, there was another love story, one that laid the foundation for all those that came after.
Ed Currick’s and Donna Roberts’ worlds couldn’t have been any more different – a rancher from Wyoming and an up-and-coming Broadway musical actress on a national tour. What could have been a momentary encounter sparks desire . . . and more. But can there be anything but heartbreak ahead when they have only days before their dreams pull them apart.
5-STAR REVIEWS:
A sweet, insightful, beautifully written, love story. — 5-Star review
This is one of those stories that grabs you by the heart, and has you completely invested. — 5-Star review
ABOUT PATRICIA McLINN:
USA Today bestselling author Patricia McLinn’s novels — cited by reviewers for warmth, wit and vivid characterization – have won numerous regional and national awards and been on national bestseller lists.
In addition to her romance and women’s fiction books, Patricia is the author of the Caught Dead in Wyoming mystery series, which adds a touch of humor and romance to figuring out whodunit.
Patricia received BA and MSJ degrees from Northwestern University. She was a sports writer (Rockford, Ill.), assistant sports editor (Charlotte, N.C.) and — for 20-plus years — an editor at The Washington Post. She has spoken about writing from Melbourne, Australia to Washington, D.C., including being a guest-speaker at the Smithsonian Institution.
She is now living in Northern Kentucky, and writing full-time. Patricia loves to hear from readers through her website, Facebook and Twitter.
CONNECT WITH PATRICIA McLINN ONLINE:
Website: http://www.patriciamclinn.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/patriciamclinn
Twitter: @PatriciaMcLinn
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/patriciamclinn/
Filed under amreading, Best-selling authors, Bestselling Authors, Book Promotion, books and reading, boxed set, CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE, COWBOY ROMANCE, LOVE STORY, Patricia McLinn, REVOLVING BOOK, ROMANCE AUTHOR, romance authors, romance books, ROMANCE FICTION, ROMANCE NOVEL, ROMANCE NOVELS, WESTERN ROMANCE
Tagged as COWBOY ROMANCE, Patricia McLinn, prequel romance, ROMANCE AUTHOR, ROMANCE NOVEL, romance novels, The Beginning by Patricia McLinn, western contemporary romance, WESTERN ROMANCE, Wyoming Wildflowers Series
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Popular Tech News
Exclusive: Google suspends some business with Huawei once Trump blacklist
admin May 20, 2019 No Comments GoogleHuaweiTrump
NEW YORK – Alphabet Inc’s Google has suspended business with Huawei that needs the transfer of hardware, code and technical services except those in public accessible via open supply licensing, a supply at home with the matter told Reuters on Sunday, in a very blow to the Chinese technology company that the U.S. government has wanted to blacklist round the world.
Holders of current Huawei smartphones with Google apps, however, can still be able to use and transfer app updates provided by Google, a Google proponent aforesaid, confirming earlier reportage by Reuters.
“We are complying with the order and reviewing the implications,” the Google proponent aforesaid.
“For users of our services, Google Play and the security protections from Google Play protect will continue to perform on existing Huawei devices,” the proponent aforesaid, while not giving more details.
The suspension might hobble Huawei’s smartphone business outside China because the school big can at once lose access to updates to Google’s robot OS. Future versions of Huawei smartphones that run on robot also will lose access to well-liked services, together with the Google Play Store and Gmail and YouTube apps.
“Huawei will only be able to use the public version of android and will not be able to get access to proprietary apps and services from Google,” the supply aforesaid.
The Trump administration on weekday supplemental Huawei Technologies Co Ltd to a trade blacklist, at once enacting restrictions that may build it extraordinarily tough for the corporate to try to to business with U.S. counterparts.
On Friday, the U.S. Commerce Department aforesaid it had been considering scaling back restrictions on Huawei to “prevent the interruption of existing network operations and equipment”. it had been not at once clear on Sunday whether or not Huawei’s access to mobile code would be affected.
The extent to that Huawei are hurt by the U.S. government’s blacklist isn’t nonetheless called its international provide chain assesses the impact. Chip consultants have questioned Huawei’s ability to still operate while not facilitate from the u. s..
Details of the precise services full of the suspension were still being mentioned internally at Google, in keeping with the supply. Huawei attorneys also are learning the impact of the blacklist, a Huawei interpreter aforesaid on Fri.
Huawei wasn’t at once accessible for more comment.
Chipmakers together with Intel firm, Qualcomm opposition, Xilinx opposition and Broadcom opposition have told their workers they’re going to not provide crucial code and parts to Huawei till more notice, Bloomberg according bloom.bg/2VLT5QK late on Sunday, citing folks at home with the matter.
Intel, Qualcomm, Xilinx and Broadcom didn’t at once answer requests for comments on the Bloomberg report.
Representatives of the U.S. Commerce Department didn’t at once comment.
Huawei can still have access to the version of the robot OS accessible through the open supply license, called robot Open supply Project (AOSP), that’s accessible for free of charge to anyone United Nations agency needs to use it. There ar concerning a pair of.5 billion active robot devices worldwide, in keeping with Google.
However, Google can stop providing Huawei with access, technical support and collaboration involving its proprietary apps and services going forward, the supply aforesaid.
Huawei has aforesaid it’s spent the previous few years making ready a contingency set up by developing its own technology just in case it’s blocked from mistreatment robot. a number of this technology is already being employed in product sold in China, the corporate has aforesaid.
In associate degree interview with Reuters in March, Eric Xu, rotating chairman of Huawei, smitten a disobedient note in anticipation of punditry actions by U.S. companies. “No matter what happens, the android Community doesn’t have any legal right to block any company from accessing its open-source license,” he said.
Popular Google apps like Gmail, YouTube and therefore the Chrome browser that ar accessible through Google’s Play Store can disappear from future Huawei handsets as those services aren’t lined by the open supply license and need an advert agreement with Google.
But users of existing Huawei devices United Nations agency have access to the Google Play Store can still be able to transfer app updates provided by Google. Apps like Gmail ar updated through the shop, in contrast to OS updates that ar usually handled by phone makers and telecoms carriers, that the blacklist might have an effect on, the supply aforesaid.
The impact is predicted to be nominal within the Chinese market. Most Google mobile apps ar prohibited in China, wherever alternatives ar offered by domestic competitors like Tencent and Baidu.
In Beijing, foreign ministry interpreter metallic element Kang aforesaid the ministry had detected the report and would cross-check it and listen to developments.
“At the same time, China supports Chinese firms to use legal weapons to defend their legitimate rights,” he added, however didn’t elaborate.
Huawei’s European business, its second-biggest market, may well be hit as Huawei licenses these services from Google in Europe.
“Having those apps is crucial for smartphone makers to remain competitive in regions like Europe,” aforesaid Geoff Blaber, vice chairman of analysis, CCS Insight.
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Australia’s University Of Wollongong Cyber Attack Ready
Martinez Athena
June 14, 2019, 7 months ago
Australia’s University of Wollongong (UOW) is taking strong defensive measures against cyber attacks in anticipation of its eventuality said by its spokesperson this week. This is through an effective lessening of the attack surface of University computers and Internet-connected devices as well as regular penetration testing, continued cybersecurity training for University staff and IT security awareness crash course for all students. Penetration testing is a well-planned simulation of an actual cyber attack in order to measure the defensive capabilities and vulnerable attack surface of the target system. The end result of penetration testing is a hardening of the software and hardware infrastructures of UOW in order to be immune to the attacks used during the simulation.
UOW staff and faculty are also taking advantage of Two-factor authentication (2-FA) technology when it comes to logging-in the school’s internal systems. UOW’s actions were a direct result of warning issued by the Auditor General that universities are a big target of cybercriminals, given the age-old bad computing habits practiced in their respective institutions, like delayed updates of essential software and operating systems. The Auditor General emphasized the IT incidents of backdoor hijacking, DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, and data breaches as amongst the three most common campaigns cybercriminals launch against their targets.
“The Auditor General did not identify any high-risk matters, IT related or otherwise, during the audit. UOW has not had any major incidents or a breach of cyber protocols. Several minor incidents have been managed successfully when they occurred. Of the eight matters that related to IT, four related to an issue previously identified by the Auditor-General,” explained the UOW spokesperson.
UOW wishes to prevent a repeat of the data breach issue that recently plagued Australian National University, which caused the latter to lose nineteen years worth of personally identifiable information belonging to University stakeholders (staff, students and faculty). “As part of the audit process, the university and the Auditor-General agree on an action plan and a timeframe for addressing the issue raised. Some of the matters have been resolved since the audit; some of the issues are complex and will take more time to resolve, and hence may span a number of years,” concluded UOW spokesperson.
How to Keep Your Business Protected From Cyber Attack
Why Cyber Attacks Are Now The Biggest Risk To The World
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Lake City Suffers ‘Triple Threat’ Ransomware Attack
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Athena Martinez is a security expert/analyst geek with almost 5 years of experience, writes on various topics pertaining to internet security with latest happening in the IT world thoroughly.
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Marine Works for Bulk Loading
In 1983 Australian commodities, particular coal, were facing severe competition from South Africa, USA, Poland and Canada. Costs and reliability of supply had become a major concern for the Japanese who were our most important customer.
A review of these issues could be of significant benefit to industry and the nation. The objectives of the project, therefore, were to study the operational techniques, transport systems and types of structure appropriate for Australian conditions, for the movement of bulk materials from shore to ship berth.
BROAD RANGE OF EXPERTISE
Eighteen people contributed papers that covered:
The future of coal exports
Developments in shipping
The planning of bulk ports and offshore terminals
Slurry technology, and slurry loading and unloading of ships
The industrial relations implications of new marine works
Best-practice design, maintenance and operational principles.
The broad thrust of the project was the transfer from shore to ship and the importance of links upstream and downstream in the transportation chain. However, the industrial relations climate prevailing in Australia could not be ignored. The project concentrated on coal because it was the highest export revenue generator, it was the most difficult material to handle and improvements made to coal handling could be transposed to other bulk materials to produce similar benefits.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENTS
Against these circumstances, the project team revealed a number of technologies that had the potential to meet and overcome the above challenges. These included:
ACTIVE MOORING DEVICES – The growth in vessel size and the associated development of offshore berths brought new demands on mooring systems. Active mooring devices could overcome many difficulties by increasing berth availability, but signal processing, servo control systems and improved devices for controlling mooring lines required further investigation.
BULK PORTS AND OFFSHORE TERMINALS – The planning of bulk ports and offshore terminals generated major dilemmas about the dimensions of a maximum-sized ship with a life of several decades and the trade-off between capital investment and operating costs.
The project outlined numerous best practice principles for future green-field developments as well as expansion of existing facilities, and recommended that designers should give strong consideration to:
Optimising wharf structures to take into account specific site conditions
Easing the repair or replacement of damaged berthing components, and adopting a design approach based on four designated levels of berthing impact
Overall performance reliability for equipment and permanent structures, to help maintain continuous use of the operation.
POSITIVE OUTCOMES AND BENEFITS
The project brought together for the first time experts associated with the handling, transportation and export of bulk materials at a time of fierce competition.
It promoted a number of innovative ways for safer berthing and mooring of ships, even under extraordinary loading situations. these included the use of pre stressed concrete in conjunction with expanded polystyrene foam, and novel caisson designs, with emphasis on the rapid repair and replacement of berths and moorings
Its extensive survey of the maintenance and design requirements of wharves, jetties and ship loading structures produced a number of design recommendations that would lead to more efficient and reliable structures
Leighton Holdings became aware of and purchased IPCO marine, a rapid installation pier technology company, as a direct consequence of the project.
DOWNLOAD PROJECT DOCUMENT HERE
Humanitarian Babel Fish
Professional Performance, Innovation and Risk (PPIR)
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The Best of Think
December 23, 2019 Best of Think
From December 23rd to January 1st, we will be showcasing our most notable conversations of the year. Check out the shows that will be featured!
Tommy Tomlinson
Tommy Tomlinson joined us in February to talk about his lifelong battle with weight – and about what it’s like to move through the world constantly aware of your size, which he writes about in “The Elephant in the Room: One Fat Man’s Quest to Get Smaller in a Growing America.”
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/140/4d081180-774e-4f5d-b0d6-6aa277368d8e/Tommy_Tomlinson_BB.MP3
(Dec. 23rd, 12pm CT)
Sarah M. Broom
Sarah M. Broom joined us in August to talk about the New Orleans home where she and her 11 siblings grew up and the emotional toll of being displaced from the world she loved, which she writes about in her memoir, “The Yellow House.” She recently won the 2019 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/140/46589b77-325c-4123-a69c-60c918f986a3/Sarah_Broom_BB.MP3
(Dec. 23rd, 1pm CT)
Journalist Tatiana Schlossberg joined us in October to talk about how re-evaluating our lifestyles is the key to any real, radical change. Her book is, “Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have.”
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/140/60cd7b40-2bdf-438f-a0a0-00afaa7672b7/Inconspicuous_Consumption_BB.MP3
(Dec. 24th, 12 pm CT)
Jayson Greene
Jayson Greene joined us in May to talk about the courage it took for him and his family to realize there could be life after the death of a child. His memoir is, “Once More We Saw Stars.”
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/140/4ba50ce1-de07-41e9-97e7-0562c54ba9a1/Once_More_We_Saw_Stars_BB.MP3
(Dec. 24th, 1 pm CT)
Novelist Margaret Atwood joined us in September to talk about the highly-anticipated “The Handmaid’s Tale” sequel, “The Testaments.”
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/140/b1f05c78-6ca8-424c-b390-4b4b2d036c78/Margaret_Atwood_BB.MP3
(Dec. 25th, 1pm CT)
Tomás Jimenez
Stanford University associate professor Tomás Jiménez joined us in August to take on the idea of assimilation, the history behind it, and what’s lost when immigrants are encouraged to change who they are.
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/140/82704efa-43f4-4882-bf7d-7a46dee7bd66/Tomas_Jimenez_BB.MP3
Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, joined us in August to talk about looking inward to combat racism, which he writes about in “How to be an Anti-Racist.”
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/140/49dec85a-5a77-49ba-81ea-1cda2352d392/Ibram_X._Kendi_BB.MP3
Chuck Klosterman joined us in July to talk about his new collection of far-from-normal fictional stories, “Raised in Captivity: Fictional Nonfiction.”
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/140/4f7d67bf-493c-4c77-ae2d-545d16e85ba8/Chuck_Klosterman_BB.MP3
Damon Young, cofounder of VerySmartBrothas.com joined us in April to talk about the shifting definition of black masculinity – and what it’s like to live in a country you feel is out to get you. His new memoir is “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays.”
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/140/b9d8a45b-3357-4981-82e8-0b2f3e2e4b04/Damon_Young_BB.MP3
Tressie McMillan Cottom
Black feminist author and associate professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University Tressie McMillan Cottom, joined us in October to talk about her exploration of black women’s space in culture, affluence, beauty and power. Her book is titled, “Thick and Other Essays.”
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/140/2904320d-f8de-4df1-80ab-797bb4db31e9/Tressie_Cottom_BB.MP3
(Dec. 30, 1pm CT)
Hari Kondabolu
Comic Hari Kondabolu joined us in November to talk about his comedy style, his Netflix special, “Warn Your Relatives” and that graduate degree in human rights he earned from the London School of Economics.
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/140/f4e588c2-7b9c-4510-9c07-2986ffdef82a/Hari_Kondalobu_BB.MP3
(Dec. 31st, 12 pm CT)
John Hodgeman
Writer, comedian and actor John Hodgman joined us in October to talk about his brushes with fame — and what it feels like to be brushed off. His memoir is titled, “Medallion Status: True Stories from Secret Rooms.”
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/140/a0578fc4-2b87-43d3-8691-7752f046ec37/John_Hodgman_BB.MP3
(Dec. 31st, 1pm CT)
Arthur Brooks
Arthur C. Brooks joined us in July to talk about our purpose in life beyond our professional careers. His essay, “Your Professional Decline is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think” appeared in The Atlantic.
https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/dovetail.prxu.org/140/20d2f11a-5c51-49c1-87cf-9e8f6891a932/Arthur_Brooks_BB.MP3
(Jan. 1st, 1 pm CT)
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Ringing the Carillon
How the University Chapel bells keep chiming
by Joan Tupponce
Ringing the Carillon from UVA Magazine on Vimeo.
If you thought the sounds of the University Chapel’s bells are made by an expert ringer toiling inside the steeple, think again: In most cases, an electronic carillon in the front of the building creates the tolls.
The carillon resembles a typical church organ. It has a handsome oak cabinet and two-tier manual keyboard. But the two instruments are very different. Each note in bell music has six individual tones, and each lasts for up to 20 seconds.
“That makes it very difficult to play,” says Jared Loewenstein (Col ’66, Grad ’68, ’92), the University’s carillonneur, who plays the instrument by hand on special occasions. He learned to play growing up in Luray, Va. He assumed his role as UVA’s third carillonneur 10 years ago. “It’s a very specialized training.”
The University Chapel's carillon is very difficult to play. Jared Loewenstein assumed his role as UVA's third carillonneur 10 years ago.
The carillon was purchased in 2012 to replace the University’s original electronic carillon, which was a gift from the Seven Society in 1957. The Seven Society's members are acknowledged with a special toll of the chapel bells when they die–seven times in sets of seven tolls that are seven seconds apart. The tolls are followed by “The Good Old Song.”
“It’s the first acknowledgment that this person was a member of the Seven Society,” says Loewenstein, who is also the retired head of Alderman Library’s reference department.
The carillon has the equivalent of 183 bells with three variations of bell sounds—cast, Flemish and harp—that have a five-octave range. Wires run from the carillon to high-tech speakers in the steeple as well as to other locations on Grounds. The sound it reproduces when Loewenstein isn’t at the keyboard uses digital files of actual carillon bells. It can play thousands of preprogrammed songs automatically.
Loewenstein manually plays all the Seven Society tolls, as well as numerous other events, including in remembrance of the Virginia Tech tragedy victims and the anniversary of 9/11. The carillon is also played for presidential visits and significant UVA sports victories.
Pennsylvania firm Schulmerich built both carillons. The original “was just a metal case with knobs and dials in a computer cabinet,” says Loewenstein. It had the equivalent of 25 bells, the smallest amount available, which had to be played through the keyboard of the pipe organ in the Chapel.
And it could be temperamental. One July night it began playing “O Holy Night.”
Fall 2014 / Retrospect
Alumni, History, Traditions & Grounds, Grounds & the Physical Plant
Marleen Hansen on 09/16/2014
Lovely to hear “Oh, Shenandoah” from so far away…..
Electric scooters have become a major UVA phenomenon. We have the numbers to prove it.
UVA rethinks medical collections after critical WaPo story
The Health System vows indigent relief, less litigation.
Decades of musings and drawings adorn Alderman carrels. How UVA is making sure some of it survives.
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UH Energy Symposium Will Focus on the Future of Plastics
Sustainability, Recycling Concerns Raise Questions About Single-Use Plastics
Plastic waste has become ubiquitous, raising the stakes in the effort to develop more sustainable single-use packaging. Photo: Pexels
Perhaps no substance defines the modern era as much as plastics, that ubiquitous material most often produced from fossil fuels and found everywhere from industrial plants to the most delicate consumer products.
But plastics have also spawned another defining issue – what can society do about a material that is intertwined with almost all facets of modern life but is increasingly raising concerns because if it difficult to recycle, slow to break down in landfills and poses a risk to oceans and other threatened ecosystems.
A panel of experts from industry, government and academia will discuss possible solutions, including the potential of biologically-based plastics and new recycling technologies, at the next UH Energy symposium.
“Future of Plastics: Designed Sustainability or Recycling” begins at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 7, at the University of Houston Student Center South. The symposium is free and open to the public, but registration is requested.
Nichole Fitzgerald, technology manager in the Bioenergy Technologies Office at the U.S. Department of Energy
Jill Martin, global sustainability fellow at Dow Chemical Company
Susannah Scott, Duncan and Suzanne Mellichamp Chair in Sustainable Catalysis at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who heads the university’s Mellichamp Initiative in Sustainable Materials and Product Design
Ganesh Nagarajan, associate director for polymers business development and projects at LyondellBasell Industries
Megan Robertson, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UH, will serve as moderator. Robertson focuses on developing new plastics from renewable resources, as well as creating new recycling methods for plastics.
WHAT: “Future of Plastics: Designed Sustainability or Recycling,” UH Energy
symposium addressing the challenges in creating a sustainable plastics
WHERE: Hilton University of Houston, 4450 University Drive, Houston, TX 77204
Parking at the hotel garage or the Welcome Center Garage. Map
WHEN: 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 7
MEDIA CONTACT: Jeannie Kever, 713-743-0778, jekever@uh.edu
Categories: Energy, Events, Top Stories
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Man, 81, jailed for acting as getaway driver for county lines drug dealer because he felt ‘isolated’
Ian Hemmens was jailed at Portsmouth Crown Court for nine months: Steve Parsons/PA
An 81-year-old man who acted as a getaway driver for a county lines drug dealer because he felt “isolated” has been jailed.
Ian Hemmens helped the dealer escape justice after he stabbed a rival in a potentially fatal attack.
The retired burger van worker was sentenced at Portsmouth Crown Court after he was found guilty of assisting the offender, alleged to be Mahamud Sami, who has fled the country to Bahrain.
Hemmens showed no emotion as he was told by Judge Roger Hetherington he would serve a jail term of nine months.
His co-defendant, Akeem Adebayo, 23, was jailed for nine years for wounding with intent and two charges of possessing cocaine and heroin with intent to supply.
Judge Hetherington told Hemmens: “You assisted an offender by driving him away from the scene when you knew he must have been involved in a serious assault, you saw blood on him and you undoubtedly knew that he had been involved in drug dealing.
“But your involvement was considerably more than this one journey, you made several journeys on that day and on the night before, you would have been aware that you were being used as a driver whose age and appearance would have been unlikely to draw attention.”
The court heard Hemmens used his green Citroen C3 to act as a getaway driver for Adebayo and his co-drug dealer, Mr Sami, from Chichester to Bognor Regis on 10 March.
Amy Packham, prosecuting, told the court a dispute broke out with a rival “drug dealer”, Dimitrijs Semelis, from Lithuania, which led to Adebayo and Mr Sami chasing him while families with young children were nearby.
Adebayo then held Mr Semelis on the ground and shouted “Just f***ing stab him” three times, while Mr Sami stabbed him five or six times, Ms Packham said.
She said Hemmens had remained in contact with Mr Sami and arranged for him to bring the car nearby to pick him up.
She said: “He was seen to sprint to the car, jumped in the back of the car and disappeared into the footwell.
“Assisting the offender was effective, it not only took Mr Sami from the scene and prevent[ed] his arrest, it then allowed Mr Sami to leave the Chichester area and then the country.
“The last known whereabouts is he was on a flight to Bahrain.
“There is an all-ports warning out for him which has not been triggered yet.”
Describing the injuries suffered by Mr Semelis, which including a “potentially fatal” punctured lung, Ms Packham said: “It was life-threatening, he was lucky he was treated so quickly and successfully.”
Mark Kessler, defending Hemmens, said: “It’s unusual to find a man of Mr Hemmens’s background should be in court at his age for a matter of this nature, it’s very strange indeed.”
Saying the client’s isolation had led to his involvement, he added: “The defendant admits that he likes talking to people and that is why it has come about.”
Additional reporting by Press Association
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Banking and Financial News
Lebanon security forces fire tear gas, clash with protesters near central bank
BEIRUT, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Lebanese security forces fired tear gas to disperse protesters outside the country’s central bank on Tuesday evening, clashing with dozens of people who pelted them with stones and fireworks.
Protesters threw tear gas canisters back at riot police and some young men, their faces covered, smashed bank storefronts and ATMs, a Reuters witness said.
Protests began last October against a ruling elite accused of steering Lebanon towards its worst economic crisis in decades.
Since Saad al-Hariri resigned as prime minister in late October, politicians have failed to agree a new government or a rescue plan. The Lebanese pound has weakened on the parallel market, a hard currency squeeze has driven up prices and confidence in the banking system has been battered.
“Everything we’re suffering from is because of the banks and the central bank’s policies,” Ali, a 21-year-old college student, said at Tuesday’s protest in Beirut’s Hamra district. “This is why there’s no longer any money, and prices are rising.”
He said tight controls that banks have imposed, including limiting dollar withdrawals and blocking most transfers abroad, have also fuelled outrage.
“They won’t give people their own money,” he said.
Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh has said deposits are safe. (Reporting by Ellen Francis and Issam Abdallah, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
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January 13, 2020 / 12:57 PM / 8 days ago
'Grieving nations' to discuss legal action against Iran over downed airliner - Ukraine
John Geddie, Aradhana Aravindan, Pavel Polityuk
SINGAPORE/KIEV (Reuters) - Five countries whose citizens were killed when an airliner was shot down by Iran last week will meet in London on Thursday to discuss possible legal action, Ukraine’s foreign minister told Reuters.
FILE PHOTO: Security officers and Red Crescent workers are seen at the site where the Ukraine International Airlines plane crashed after take-off from Iran's Imam Khomeini airport, on the outskirts of Tehran, Iran January 8, 2020. Nazanin Tabatabaee/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Speaking on the sidelines of an official visit to Singapore on Monday, Vadym Prystaiko said the five nations would also discuss compensation and the investigation into the incident.
All 176 people on board the Ukraine International Airlines flight were killed in the crash on Wednesday, minutes after the plane took off from Tehran airport.
In Kiev, Ukraine’s top security official said a senior Iranian investigator would visit the Ukrainian capital in the coming days to determine whether a Ukrainian laboratory is suitable to decode the plane’s black box flight recorders.
Prystaiko said suggestions from Iran that the plane was shot down as it flew near a sensitive military base during a time of heightened tensions were “nonsense”.
“We have created this group of foreign ministers from the grieving nations. On Jan 16, we will meet in person in London to discuss the ways, including legal, how we are following this up, how we are prosecuting them (Iran),” Prystaiko said.
He said the five nations also included Canada - which had at least 57 passport holders aboard the doomed flight - Sweden, Afghanistan and a fifth country which he did not name. Canada has previously said these four countries and Britain had established a coordination group to support victims’ families.
Many on board were Iranians with dual citizenship.
After days of denials, Iran said on Saturday its military had shot down the plane in a “disastrous mistake”.
Tehran said its air defences were fired in error while on alert after Iranian missile strikes on U.S. targets in Iraq, and that the airliner was mistaken for a “hostile target” after it turned toward a sensitive military base of the elite Revolutionary Guards near Tehran.
“This is nonsense because our plane was recorded and confirmed - was going within the international route which was given by the dispatchers...Nothing was extraordinary,” Prystaiko said, adding that investigators said the pilot’s last words were “everything is ok on board and I am switching to auto pilot.”
“I have seen this information on media that our plane changed the route...Yes, because it was hit by rocket! It was already dying.”
EXPLANATION FOR EARLY CONFUSION
Oleksiy Danylov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council, told Reuters in Kiev that Iran would have the final say on where the black box recorders would be decoded.
Danylov also offered an explanation for an early source of confusion: a statement issued by Ukraine’s embassy in Iran on the day of the crash that initially pointed to engine failure as the cause.
The statement, which was deleted later that day and replaced with another statement saying the cause was unknown, had been issued to try to gain access to the crash site, Danylov said.
“If we had said straight away that they had shot it down, I am not sure they would have let us go to the wreckage at all, let us do what we were doing,” he said.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko speaks to Reuters on the sidelines of an official visit to Singapore, January 13, 2020. REUTERS/Aradhana Aravindan
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards apologised to the nation and accepted full responsibility. Senior Guards commander Amirali Hajizadeh said he had informed Iran’s authorities last Wednesday about the unintentional strike, a comment that raised questions about why officials had publicly denied it for so long.
Prystaiko said all involved had to be held to account and that Ukrainian investigators should be central to the investigation.
“We have to dig out who gave the order, who pushed the button. Everything...all these people should be punished,” he said.
Reporting by John Geddie and Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore and Pavel Polityuk in Kiev; Editing by Peter Graff and Timothy Heritage
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China's services sector expands at slower pace in Dec as confidence dips: Caixin PMI
BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s services sector expanded at a slower pace in December following a strong rebound in the previous month, with business confidence falling to the second lowest on record despite a pick-up in new orders, a private survey showed on Monday.
FILE PHOTO: People walk past a statue, placed there to promote a restaurant, at a shopping district in Beijing April 3, 2013. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
The more downbeat reading suggests services companies remain cautious about the outlook for China’s economy despite a flurry of stimulus measures, signs of improvement in the manufacturing sector and a long-awaited U.S.-China trade deal.
The services sector accounts for more than half of the economy.
The Caixin/Markit services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slowed to 52.5 last month from 53.5 in November, but was still higher than an 8-month low hit in October.
The index has stayed above the 50-point margin that separates growth from contraction on a monthly basis since late 2005.
The cooling trend in the private survey echoed that in
the official non-manufacturing PMI, published by the National Bureau of Statistics, which fell from November’s eight-month high.
Beijing has been counting on a strong services sector to cushion a prolonged slowdown in manufacturing and investment and create jobs for workers laid-off in other areas. Economic growth has cooled to near 30-year lows amid sluggish demand at home and abroad.
“China’s economy is likely to get off to a quick start in 2020, but it will still be constrained by limited demand for the rest of the year,” Zhong Zhengsheng, director of macroeconomic analysis at CEBM Group, wrote in a note accompanying the Caixin PMI release.
Services companies surveyed expressed concerns over subdued economic conditions and a lack of staff, the Caixin survey showed. Their expectations regarding the one-year outlook for business activity fell to the second-lowest level since the series began in 2005.
The pace of job creation was also more modest, with the employment sub-index hitting the lowest level since July. Meanwhile, input costs continued to rise, while firms had to lower their selling prices for the first time in over a year, squeezing companies’ profit margins.
That was despite a faster rise in the volume of new work in December, suggesting some companies were cutting prices to promote sales amid fierce competition.
“It is difficult for the measure of business confidence, which remained at a relatively low level in December, to improve. That has become a major hurdle to stabilizing the economy,” Zhong said.
While domestic demand picked up somewhat in December, new orders from overseas weakened to the worst level in six months, deteriorating notably from November.
Caixin’s composite manufacturing and services PMI, also released on Monday, slowed to 52.6 in December from 53.2 in November.
While the “Phase one” trade deal with the United States, which is expected to be signed on Jan. 15, will ease some of the pressure on exporters by reducing U.S. tariffs, analysts at NatWest markets said a recovery in the manufacturing sector is unlikely be sustainable if further tariff escalation remains a threat.
“We expect the stronger recovery momentum in the services sector to partially offset the downside risks of the manufacturing sector outlook into 2020,” they wrote in a note.
Reporting by Yawen Chen and Kevin Yao; Editing by Kim Coghill
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Series: Vengeance
Unstuck Pages > Vengeance
Covert Vengeance by Kaylea Cross
Posted on 16th August 2019 13th August 2019 by Dísir
Series: Vengeance, #2
Published by Kaylea Cross Inc. on 30th July 2019
Revenge came at a heavy price.
Valkyrie hacker Amber Brown is deadly in her own right, but her preferred weapon is a keyboard. So after her teammates left her for dead, she took her revenge the way she was trained to—swiftly and brutally. Except one of her targets might be innocent. To right that wrong, Amber vows to rescue the at-risk Valkyrie no matter the cost, and this time she’s working alone. So when a sexy stranger shows up in the middle of a firefight and announces he’s been sent by her sister, it’s going to take a whole lot more than his word to make her trust him.
Chasing redemption may prove deadly.
Elite gun for hire Jesse Cordova lives on the edge of the law. When a new job offer sets off warning bells, he digs deeper and finds the startling truth. The woman he’s been tasked with capturing is a secret government assassin, and Amber Brown is unlike any target he’s gone after before. But bringing her in opens them up to a whole new level of danger, pitting them against one of the most ruthless assassins in the world. Now that the sexy Valkyrie has stolen his heart, Jesse will risk everything to see their mission through—knowing that the only way this ends is with one of them dying.
I’m taking extraordinarily long with a Kaylea Cross book, which is unusual to say the least, which really meant that ‘Covert Vengeance’ was a massive disappointment on a scale that horrifies me, seeing how Cross used to be a staple of mine.
The series of avenging women out for blood is an intriguing one, but thus far, I think I’m simply reading variations on a theme about closed-off, distrustful and distant women who operate alone (aren’t bred for relationships and commitment, naturally) who finally find someone to trust—after a series of suspenseful events that typically involve some life-or-death scenarios. Like ‘Stealing Vengeance’, ‘Covert Vengeance’ traverses the same blurred lines of conspiracy theories and secret dealings though it’s a lot more toned down here without the particular rough edge that I associate with suspense writers.
Cross’s Valkyrie characters didn’t seem to carry the cloaking weight of tragedy or angst that I’d expected them to have; instead, Amber and Megan felt like brashly petulant characters bulldozing their way around to kill everyone who’d wronged them, to the point where they trampled over their own partners in their blazing self-righteousness to be judge, jury and executioner.
Jesse/Amber as a pairing was as well, a lukewarm one that felt forced and emotionless (though Cross does write steamy scenes) and a connection that, like Tyler/Megan, was made with inexplicable near-instant love—somehow, they are right for each other because they have similar occupations—because this is after all, romantic suspense. In short, I just didn’t feel it and no amount of espousing a character’s beauty/strength/determination—traits that could as well, be negatively interpreted as headstrong, foolish and plainly TSTL at times—helped change my mind about them.
Maybe the Valkyrie sisterhood is one that Cross attempts to highlight, though the bonds weren’t so tangible that I felt moved by them; neither did I even like the women characters at all, much less Amber, which kind of defeated the whole point of the book and the romance which was clearly meant to take centre-stage.
Posted in Contemporary Romance, Reviews, Romantic SuspenseTagged Annoying-brainless-wimpy-female, Bloody regret this, Contemporary Romance, Eyeballs rolled into my head, Hair Pulling Frustrating, Idiotic Lead Character, Instalove Purgatory, Oh for fuck's sake, Romantic Suspense, Skimmed through, Smutty, spooks-spies-n-such, Too Stupid to Live FoiblesLeave a comment
Stealing Vengeance by Kaylea Cross
Posted on 3rd June 2019 by Dísir
Published by Kaylea Cross Inc. on 28th May 2019
She’s an expert at getting into places she doesn’t belong.
The government created Megan, transforming her into a Valkyrie—a deadly operative only whispered about in certain circles. They took everything from her and made her into a weapon. Now someone is leaking secret information about her sisters-in-arms, betraying them for money. Loyal Unto Death is the Valkyrie motto. So when Megan is recruited to find who leaked the files, she takes the high-risk assignment. Even if it means working with the man who betrayed her trust long ago. Even if it means giving her life. Because she’ll do whatever it takes to find justice.
But this is one situation she can’t escape from on her own.
Tyler Bergstrom never forgot the resourceful woman who escaped during the toughest phase of SERE school. So when he learns the stunning truth about her and his unwitting part in her past, he volunteers to work alongside Megan for a chance at redemption. Except she doesn’t want a partner. Doesn’t want to let anyone into her life, including him—hell, especially him. Yet whether she likes it or not, for this mission they’re partners. Now it’s a race against the clock to bring down the shadowy figure targeting Valkyries. But the threat goes deeper than they ever imagined. No one is safe. And if they can’t overcome the past and learn to trust each other, they’re both dead.
A super-secret government program taking orphaned young girls and turning them into black-ops assassins is the basis for Kaylea Cross’s new Valkyrie series.
Having graced graced the pages of her books from time to time, there’s a particular mould that these women seem to fit: doing all that it takes to get the job done, staying solitary, emotionless and distrustful while they’re at it. So similar are they, that it feels like a calculated risk that Cross takes as she finally puts all of them in the spotlight in order to give the Valkyries their own HEAs.
‘Stealing Vengeance’ nonetheless, is a good establishing book, with a slightly different tone and flavour to her previous books and it’s not bad so far. It’s a lot more cloak and dagger, more furtive and evasive though admittedly pushing past the point of suspending disbelief at times, all with the overarching theme of revenge and weeding those responsible for their inhumane actions.
Cross pairs Megan with Ty Bergstrom here in a mission to sniff out traitors—2 characters who only have a fleeting brush with each other over a decade ago, though that was apparently enough to help reignite a spark between them. And given the women’s kind of covert history, there’s also a bit of a role reversal here as the women act pretty much like many male protagonists in the romance genre: distrustful, putting the mission above all and inevitably throwing a wrench in a developing relationship.
Megan did frustrate me from time to time: I didn’t know where her ultimate loyalties lay; that it was inexplicably to a long-lost sister in custody who hadn’t yet proven herself simply made her judgement seem even more dodgy (and not copping any punishment for insubordination seemed somewhat naive…and a constant thing that Cross seems to gloss over in most of her books). And instead of voicing regrets and wishing things could have gone differently, I wished she’d been brave enough at least emotionally to sort herself instead of being a coward—while justifying it with arguments like he deserved better—where Ty was concerned.
There’s not too much we know about Ty’s history on the other hand, only that Cross writes him as far gone over Megan, with an attraction that’s simmering, and apparently so deep that he decides he can’t live without her…and would pay almost any price to keep their relationship. But any conflict between them is quickly resolved and the story ends (almost abruptly) before I could get a convincing feel of the both of them beyond fervent reiterations that Ty really, really wanted to be with Megan, the latter of whom tearfully reciprocates at the last minute.
In all, ‘Stealing Vengeance’ is more than a decent start, even if it didn’t come off as breath-stealing as I’d hope it be. Where Cross takes the story arc however, is something to look forward to.
Posted in Advanced Reader Copy, Contemporary Romance, Military/Paramilitary, Netgalley, Reviews, Romantic SuspenseTagged Contemporary Romance, Indifferent shrugs, Military, Romantic Suspense, Smutty, Speculative Fiction, spooks-spies-n-suchLeave a comment
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CIA chief warns Trump against torture
by Friends of TFC • December 13, 2016
(Reprieve) – The director of the CIA, John Brennan, has warned President-elect Donald Trump against resuming the use of torture.
Mr Brennan told the BBC, in an interview broadcast this morning, that “the overwhelming majority of CIA officers would not want to get back into” the use of torture such as waterboarding. He added: “Without a doubt the CIA really took some body blows as a result of its experiences.”
President-elect Trump has said he would “bring back waterboarding” and “a hell of a lot worse.” Last week, he told the New York Times that “if [torture] is so important to the American people, I would go for it.” Trump’s choice to succeed John Brennan as CIA chief, Mike Pompeo, has incorrectly suggested that torture is legal.
In 2014, a detailed report by the US Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that the torture programme “was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence”, that its use “impeded” the US Government’s national security, and that the programme “damaged the United States’ standing in the world.”
Image Source: Fibonacci Blue, Flickr, Creative Commons
The President-elect’s pledges to bring torture back pose potential problems for US-UK intelligence sharing. UK intelligence agencies cannot legally assist a US administration that tortures prisoners. International human rights organization Reprieve – which assists torture and rendition victims – wrote to the UK Prime Minister seeking clarification about this issue on 11 November, but has received no substantive response.
Mr Brennan’s comments come as MI6 faces a legal challenge for its participation in CIA torture and rendition. A UK Supreme Court decision is expected soon in a case where MI6 officers conspired with the CIA to abduct and render a pregnant woman, and several children.
Abdel Hakim Belhaj, an anti-Gaddafi dissident who, along with his pregnant wife Fatima, was kidnapped in the joint CIA-MI6 operation and rendered to Gaddafi’s Libya, is asking for a token £3 and an apology from the UK. Reprieve is assisting the Belhaj family.
Commenting, Katie Taylor, a deputy director at Reprieve, said:
“When even the director of the CIA expresses concerns over torture, loud alarm bells should ring. The use of torture and rendition – including against women and children – has achieved nothing, and done immeasurable damage to the US’ standing around the world. Donald Trump must urgently listen to these warnings, and avoid repeating the disastrous errors of his predecessors.”
This report prepared by Reprieve.
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Tags: cia reprieve torture trump waterboarding
← Increase in Incendiary Weapon Attacks
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These 3 women are defining the race to unseat Trump
By Brad Bannon, Opinion Contributor — 10/21/19 12:35 PM EDT
Three women – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Nancy PelosiDemocrats worry a speedy impeachment trial will shut out public Schiff huddles in Capitol with impeachment managers Media's selective outrage exposed in McSally-Raju kerfuffle MORE (D-Calif.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Ann WarrenNYT editorial board endorses Warren, Klobuchar for Democratic nomination for president Trump rails against impeachment in speech to Texas farmers Biden breaks away from 2020 pack in South Carolina MORE (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Alexandria Ocasio-CortezNYT editorial board endorses Warren, Klobuchar for Democratic nomination for president Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Jayapal endorses Sanders Sanders, Warren battle for progressive endorsements MORE (D-N.Y.) – are defining the race to replace Donald Trump Donald John TrumpTrump rails against impeachment in speech to Texas farmers Trump administration planning to crack down on 'birth tourism': report George Conway on Trump adding Dershowitz, Starr to legal team: 'Hard to see how either could help' MORE.
Just last week, Pelosi directly questioned the president’s relationship with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich PutinCountries reach agreement in Berlin on Libya cease-fire push, arms embargo DOJ releases new tranche of Mueller witness documents Russia's shakeup has implications for Putin, Medvedev and the US MORE; Ocasio-Cortez’ grip and grin image with Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernie SandersNYT editorial board endorses Warren, Klobuchar for Democratic nomination for president Trump rails against impeachment in speech to Texas farmers Biden breaks away from 2020 pack in South Carolina MORE (D-Vt.) at his presidential campaign rally in New York City launched thousands of Facebook posts; and Warren calmly fended off attacks from eleven of her opponents in a nationally televised Democratic presidential debate.
More than anybody else, Pelosi has been a burr under Trump’s saddle since she became speaker after the 2018 midterm election. She has stymied the president’s obsession to build a wall on the Mexican border and most recently challenged his desire to act to enhance the interests of Putin in Ukraine and in Syria.
Last week, Pelosi challenged the lion in his own den. You have to give her credit. It wouldn’t be easy for even the most hardened politician to walk into the White House, as Pelosi did, stand up to the president, stare him down and tell him to his face that he’s Putin’s puppet.
Speaker Pelosi was slow to start the impeachment inquiry into the president. But since she initiated the process, there has been a significant upsurge in support for the president's impeachment and removal from office. A new Gallup poll indicated that a majority (52 percent) of Americans now supports Trump’s impeachment and removal. In June, a majority (53 percent) opposed impeachment.
Warren in the last few weeks has emerged as the biggest threat to former Vice President Joe Biden Joe BidenNYT editorial board endorses Warren, Klobuchar for Democratic nomination for president Trump rails against impeachment in speech to Texas farmers Biden breaks away from 2020 pack in South Carolina MORE’s campaign to secure the Democratic presidential nomination.
She has run a smooth, steady and mostly mistake-free campaign. In the most recent debate, she had more screen time than any of the other candidates and calmly handled all the flak that came her way during the discussion.
The Real Clear Politics average of national polls of Democratic primary voters reveals that Warren is within striking distance of the frontrunner, Biden, and that she has lapped Sanders.
Warren’s surge in the polls has come at the expense of Sanders. National polls show Warren leading Sanders among the liberal Democrats who fueled Sanders' 2016 campaign.
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’ formal endorsement of Sanders on Saturday was a much-needed burst of energy for the Vermont senator’s sagging presidential fortunes.
Even though she is a new member and only 30 years old, Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has had an outsized influence on national politics in her brief time in Congress. She joins Reps. Ilhan Omar Ilhan OmarMedia's selective outrage exposed in McSally-Raju kerfuffle Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Jayapal endorses Sanders Sanders, Warren battle for progressive endorsements MORE (Minn.), Rashida Talib (Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley Ayanna PressleyCongressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Jayapal endorses Sanders Sanders, Warren battle for progressive endorsements Ayanna Pressley's 'squad' of congresswomen offers support after she opens up about alopecia MORE (Mass.) in forming “The Squad,” a group of progressive Democratic women who are raising important issues in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail, including the Green New Deal.
Ocasio-Cortez’ rock star status among progressive Democrats explains why her endorsement of Sanders made headlines. Two thirds (65 percent) of the Warren supporters have a favorable opinion of AOC, which means she might be a vehicle to bring former followers of Sanders back into the fold.
It’s no accident that three women have become the driving force behind the effort to unseat the president. Trump has accelerated women’s move from the Democratic to the Republican Party.
The president’s many demeaning statements about women and his appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh Brett Michael KavanaughDemocratic group plans mobile billboard targeting Collins on impeachment January reminds us why courts matter — and the dangers of 'Trump judges' Planned Parenthood launches M campaign to back Democrats in 2020 MORE to the Supreme Court in the face of credible accusations against the jurist of sexual assault have no doubt made many Republican women rethink their party affiliation.
Midterm election exit polls indicated that Democrats made significant gains among female voters and that these gains were the reason Democrats reclaimed the House majority.
In August a national poll found that women opposed the president's reelection by a two-to-one margin. Sixty-two percent of all female registered voters said they would vote for a generic Democratic presidential candidate, while only 30 percent said they would vote for Trump.
The end of Donald Trump’s presidency could be the beginning of a new era of female dominance in American government. These three women have lots of clout now, and they might have even more after Election Day next year.
Brad Bannon is a Democratic pollster and CEO of Bannon Communications Research. He is also the host of a radio podcast “Dateline D.C. With Brad Bannon” that airs on the Progressive Voices Network. Follow him on Twitter @BradBannon.
Tags Gallup Wall Street Journal Facebook 2020 election Democratic Party Donald Trump Alexandria Ocasio Cortez Nancy Pelosi Elizabeth Warren Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Brett Kavanaugh Ayanna Pressley Bernie Sanders Vladimir Putin Ilhan Omar Joe Biden American women in politics
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Bronx Tales: An Interview with Chris Arnade
Aside from a few notorious individuals—Henry Ford, perhaps, or Bernie Madoff—few people get to experience life at society’s top and bottom. Chris Arnade is an exception. Two years ago, Arnade quit his job as a Wall Street trader to focus on a burgeoning hobby, photographing addicts and prostitutes in the Bronx neighborhood of Hunts Point. That’s where he spends most of his time now, following subjects into dirty pits under the expressway, or crashing for the night in a crack house.
Arnade doesn’t want this story to be about him, though. He’d far rather focus on the people he’s befriended and photographed—people like Takeesha, a prostitute who was raped when she was eleven, and Wayne, a homeless scrap metal collector and addict who, despite his troubles, is always polite and gracious. Men and women who, born into other circumstances, could perhaps have made a decent life for themselves.
“Poverty and addiction have a thousand mothers, none of them sloth,” Arnade wrote in a recent op-ed piece in the British newspaper The Guardian. As he’s eager to point out, nobody chooses a life of poverty and daily hustling—which, contrary to popular perception, “is some of the hardest work around.”
So no, the story isn’t about him. Still, Arnade knows, the “quitting Wall Street to photograph junkies” line is intriguing, so he’s not completely averse to using it to publicize his work. “It’s a bit of a cheap story, but I also know it’s a gimmick that gains attention.”
What becomes clear when you talk to Arnade is that he was never the stereotypical Wall Street guy. He grew up in the South, with a father whose Civil Rights campaigning resulted in taunts and death threats against the family. A socially awkward math prodigy, Arnade initially loved the intellectual challenge of being a money man. “I found my sense of accomplishment when I was doing numbers,” he says.
Things changed in 2008, when the recession hit and a shimmering curtain was lifted on Wall Street, revealing corruption and greed. Before, Arnade says, “I felt we weren’t doing a bad thing. We weren’t doing a good thing, per se, but it was benign.”
For several years before that, Arnade had been taking long walks around New York City on the weekend with his camera. One weekend, he got to Hunts Point—a desolate peninsula in the South Bronx, cut off from the rest of the city by an expressway and train tracks—and something coalesced. There he met people like Sonya, a former soccer mom turned heroin addict, and Michael (aka Shelley), who was disowned by his parents at fifteen for being gay. From those encounters, a sense of mission was born that has propelled him into a new career as photographer, writer and activist. On his flickr photostream and his tumblr site, Arnade publishes photographs and stories about a group of people he has come to think of as his friends; he has also been writing a series of searing op-eds for The Guardian.
Recently, Arnade spoke to The Literate Lens about the work, his subjects and his hopes for society.
Literate Lens: Were you in Hunts Point last night? It was SO cold.
Chris Arnade: Yes, and I’m in Hunts Point now. I spent the morning looking for a friend, I don’t know where she is, hopefully she’ll pop up. Usually she manages, but there’s always a risk she’ll pass out in the cold.
LL: That brings up the question of how involved you get with your subjects. You seem to get more involved than the average documentary photographer. How did you decide that, and is it hard?
CA: I’m lucky: if I was working for an institution I’d have guidelines, but I’m doing this work for myself. To me these people are my friends, and it’s no different from if you had a friend in need. The questions to consider are, how much influence do you think you have? Does the “help” you give actually help, or hurt? You can’t come in and tell someone they need to be saved: that’s massively presumptuous. If they ask for help I’ll help—I’ll give them a ride to detox or take them to McDonald’s and buy them dinner—but I’m not going to preach to them. The biggest thing I can do, as with any friend, is just listen, and see what that listening brings.
LL: How did this project get started?
CA: In 2010, I came to Hunts Point for the first time on one of my ‘Terminus walks’ — I’d ride to the end of a subway line and walk around the neighborhood. Someone had said to me, Don’t go to Hunts Point, so of course I had to go there!
LL: What made you keep going back?
CA: Hunts Point is surrounded on all sides by water, train tracks and expressway, so it feels isolated from the rest of New York City. I grew up in a small town, and Hunts Point has a similar feeling. As soon as I got here, I felt very comfortable. After some time walking around, I got involved with the nonprofit Hunts Point Alliance for Children, and started coming almost every weekend with the camera. I liked spending time in the quieter, more desolate parts, where the addicts live—so it was only a matter of time before I started talking to them.
LL: How do you approach and befriend your subjects?
CA: I treat them like people, not pariahs or children. One thing I do is hug everyone out here—there are times I’ve come home covered in filth! People here are used to getting a fist-bump, that’s their maximum human contact. I try to treat them the same way I’d treat anyone else. It may sound arrogant of me, as a former Wall Street trader, to call them friends—but I truly see them as friends. I slept over at Takeesha’s apartment during the blizzard, I wasn’t getting any pictures out of it, it was just where I wanted to be.
LL: What’s your photography background, and how has it influenced the work?
CA: I’ve used cameras all my life. As a kid, I used to build my own cameras, and as a PhD candidate in Physics, I built cameras in optics labs. But the fact that I have no art school training has benefitted me, I think. If I’d been to art school, I might have felt compelled to do something more complex with the work. I just want to take conventional pictures of unconventional people.
LL: Is it advocacy?
CA: At some level, yes. I’m a political person, opinionated, and that comes into the work. By accident or whatever, I’ve spent a lot of time between two very different populations, the top one percent and the bottom one percent. At first, that was playing out in real time—I was going to work on Wall Street during the day and coming here at night. I knew the two populations very well, and it was frustrating to me to see how they could exist ten miles from each other and be so different in terms of what they owned, yet not so different in terms of skill sets and qualities. I do get mad at times, so there’s a sense of activism.
LL: A lot of notice you’ve gotten for this work has come from social media. What’s it been like to post these images and get immediate feedback?
CA: It’s a mixed bag. I get one or two emails a day from addicts and parents of addicts, saying things like, Thank you for letting me realize I never want to do drugs again, or, Thank you for helping me understand my mother. On the other hand, I’ve gotten a lot of remarkably negative feedback from people I thought would be more open-minded. I don’t know why they’re so angry. Mostly they say I’m exploiting the poor, which I think is absurd. They say it’s poverty porn—well, I wish there was more poverty porn, because there sure is enough luxury porn! As for exploitation—well, that’s working out really well for me. I’m earning no money, and I’m about to sell my house and move upstate so I can keep doing this.
LL: Along with the images, you post little vignettes of your subjects’ lives, which are really touching. You’ve also collaborated with other writers to tell some of these stories. What do the words add?
CA: A lot! The worst piece of advice I was ever given was from a famous professional photographer: he told me the pictures should be able to stand on their own without words. I totally disagree! There’s only so much a picture can do. Maybe if my project was about melting icebergs or people with tattoo fetishes I’d need words less, because pictures can do justice to icebergs and tattoos. But my goal is to get people to look at a picture and then be drawn into a story. The words challenge our narratives about the poor, which—if you’re one of society’s winners—might be that they deserve their lot, they’re lazy and need to work harder. As I see it, the real story is that winning and losing is based on circumstances, not merit. And that’s a harder truth to live with.
LL: You’ve also been writing your own op-eds for The Guardian, many of them about issues of poverty and its root causes. What do you hope to accomplish with those?
CA: Well, I hope my Guardian pieces have gotten a few people to change their minds about policy. Economists and policy-makers are often so obsessed with GDP and growth that they ignore everything else. I worked with economists for a long time, and what was often missing from the equation was empathy.
LL: What’s the biggest thing you’ve learned from doing this work?
CA: That men suck. Seriously. Every single woman I work with out here has been raped by a man. They get abused and exploited on a daily basis.
LL: You didn’t know this before?
CA: Not to the extent I know it now.
LL: So how does it make you feel, as a man, to know this?
CA: Sad. My father was a civil rights activist, and right before he died, one of the last things he said to me was, vote for Hillary. I said, not for Obama? And he said no, men have messed the world up for long enough. And these days I think that’s about right.
LL: How else has this work changed you?
CA: Eight or nine years ago, I was an empiricist and an atheist. I thought the best way to live was to weigh every decision and find the best answer based on all the evidence. Now I think that science is good at building bridges; it’s not so good at building lives. I’d rather live a life of complication and irrationality. I think that’s what being human is!
See Chris Arnade’s Flickr photostream, with stories, here.
See Arnade’s tumblr site here.
Read Arnade’s op-eds for The Guardian here.
Listen to a story on Arnade on NPR’s Weekend Edition here.
78 comments on “Bronx Tales: An Interview with Chris Arnade”
Strong work. Thanks for introducing me to it!
I’m supposed to be interested when a privileged white guy from an industry filled with psychopaths and awful people decides to joyride into the abyss for “art”. Work on Wall Street, get rich speculating at the expense of the rest of the planet, retire at 40 and pass your time taking pseudo-sensitive photographs of the same people the financial system left broke. Psychopathy is the key to success.
There are hundreds of thousands of people that are doing what he’s doing, but they didn’t have the connections or the privilege necessary to make this a story. Instead of interviewing him, go up to the South Bronx and do a special on a pastor that has to console these people every day, or a social worker that gets paid pennies to provide mental health services for people who have fallen off the radar. I do not understand why a rich guy becoming a saint for god knows why is somehow more important than anything else.
It’s like those stories you read about well off yuppies who leave the city to grow 20 acres of organic vegetables. Hello? There are people called “farmers” out there already.
Thanks for your comment, Lucent. I respectfully disagree. By interviewing Chris I’m not trying to say he’s more important than anything else—and I’m sure he’d cringe in horror at the suggestion. Also, I don’t think he’s taking a “joyride into the abyss”—unless you call selling his house and renting a room in a crack house joyriding. Chris is devoting his life to this work, and although it may be an ugly fact, if he can get some attention for being “the Wall Street guy who quit to take photographs of prostitutes” and it throws attention on his subjects, should he refuse that? Ethical purity is very fine, but sometimes it’s a luxury. Let’s not let the perfect become the enemy of the good.
His story is totally one dimensional. A wall street man develops a fascination with these people and begins to make art about them. Is this supposed to be a recuperative narrative? Where we as readers or listeners actually empathize more with his transformation, or enlightenment than with the subjects of his photos as he writes about himself and his transformation endlessly – “Omg there are poor people that do drugs!?!? I had no idea!?!”
Is his privilege merely being reproduced by this story here? Is the former atheist, physicist/financier redeemed by the faith of those who are truly disenfranchised by systemic racism, sexism and economic disparity? Is his prior participation in an economic system of alienation and abstraction somehow forgiven by simply becoming aware of the disparity and suffering in our society. In short, isn’t all still about him and not about his subjects at all?
True artists, especially photographers, don’t make themselves the focal point of their work. Name me one, just one national geographic photographer that probably produces some of the most amazing images known to man. I know you probably can’t name one, and you want to know why? Answer: Their work is not at all about them, and the subjects they photograph are the focal point. How/why is it I know more about him(his childhood, his Wallstreet days, basically everything) like his subjects? Is there a reason other than gaining attention for himself for the endless discussion of HIS beliefs, HIS discovering there are poor people, HIS discovering, omg, there are poor people who still believe in god and a million other really “aha” moments he had in realizing for the first time in his boring life that there are people on that live an existence entirely different from his.
Someone take Chris to a real third world country where people die left and right from not having access to the most basic needs like fresh water. Like I’m sure it will be revelatory and shocking to him as well, that he discovers that there are poor people worldwide suffering, but I’m sure there will article after article about himself, talking about himself, about how he had no idea.
We can agree to disagree on this.
It is much more than that–have you followed his work? He actually gives a s*&t about the people that cross his path. He values them, who most have felt no value. He helps them in whatever it is they need at the moment-sometimes just someone to lean their head on. He gives them a voice. How often do we walk past people who are wearing their problems on the outside and turn our heads and click our tongue–tsk tsk drug addict or get a job. He gives them a platform to share who they are-cry out to the world and for the rest of us to realize it’s so much more than what we think.
So before you jump on the white wallstreet guy, go really check out his work and then ask yourself what are YOU doing for the hurting, broken, voiceless that live among us all?
The shocking part of what he is doing is–it isnt in that third world country–it’s right here in the land of dreams–the good ol US of A
Interesting points put forward here, I see a lot of this in real life, privileged people who work in finance, make loads of money, then decide to open a restaurant or become a photographer, or open a yoga studio.
Amy Sanidas
Powerful stuff. Thanks for sharing.
Lucent: Indeed! All I would say is that it is not Chris who is driving the media focus on HIS story, and I think he too is frustrated by it. In fact, at the end of our conversation (not included in the interview) I asked him if any publishers had approached him about doing a book. He told me that someone had approached him about writing HIS story, but that he wasn’t interested in that…
I, however, am always interested in how people come to do what they do, which is a part of my interviews with photographers on this site and elsewhere. And actually, I can name many NatGeo photographers (Jay Dickman, Catherine Karnow, Paul Nicklen, Steve McCurry), though I may be unusual in that regard.
Chris_Arnade
No need to defend me, but thanks.
“Someone take Chris to a real third world country.”
A part of my bio that you haven’t read, is this. I lived one year in Nigeria, during the middle of their civil war, in 69. I spent one year in India in 74. I spent most of a year in Eastern Europe in 76, during Communism. I spent most of 80 in Southern Africa.
A great deal of my life has been spent in what you call “third world countries”
You have ideas for how art should be produced. Great. Do them, do them that way.
I have chosen to go down this path.
Yes, talk about yourself some more. Please let us more about you b/c I just don’t know enough!
Seriously, Chris, the last thing I want to read is more about you. I think the countless articles you have pumped out about yourself is sufficient and you are chastising me for knowing more and delving deeper into your personal narrative. You do see the irony in this? Right?
You are awesome. I love what you do and appreciate all that that entails. Contrary to popular belief, America has its own “third world country” and far too many people are in denial about that! Keep up the good work Chris, you have a huge following and you are loved!
mommyx4boys
I think it is awesome what you do, i am a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, i have been clean now for two years and six months. I am also a wife and mother of four. People need to have their eyes opened so they can see that the people they pass on the street and think of as nothing but trash, well these people have loved ones they are someone’s child probably someone’s parent, brother, sister they are no different then anyone else they are just lost
You are indeed different in that regard, as I bet if you asked 100 people less than 5% would be able to name one. Also, do you know the level of detail from their childhood, growing up, what happened in their adult life, that they have kids,etc? You don’t, and you want to know why? It’s bc what I wrote above.
And lastly, he is frustrated that the focus on him? Who is writing story, after story, after story ABOUT HIMSELF in The Guardian pieces about HIS beliefs, HIS transformation(ME ME ME ME ME ME ME). I would hope are able to realize by reviewing what he has written, the narrative is always about him as the focal point of anything he writes, and you actually believe it when he says he is frustrated by all the attention he is getting? Umm, ok, makes perfect sense.
Wow, that was quite an angry and perhaps misdirected rant, Lucent.
I have followed Chris’s work since fairly early in its development. While I don’t know Chris personally (I have never met him or spoke with him) one of the many things I have come to learn about him and from him, through his work, is that any reference to himself in his writing is generally in the form of perspective. I have never felt that he came off as a self serving type of person as you for some reason seem to judge him. I also believe at least one of many subtle and complex intentions of his work is to garner a little empathy (not sympathy) for people to have for one another. We are all human and each of us is as valid as another, despite some of us being lucky enough to be born with more social privileges and thus opportunity than others. When I mention privileges I don’t just mean that of income or race but also gender, sexuality, etc. There are many types of privilege that most of us are not conscious of and that lack of awareness I think is largely related to a general lack of empathy as well.
Azoe
You really can’t stop hating, can you?
Knowing an artist’s background should interest you, because it shows you where someone is coming from, it allows for compassion to be felt towards them and the work they produce. The man has lived an incredibly fascinating life! What is your problem? He is so worldly, a very special characteristic in humanity; he wants you and me and everyone to know that people deserve the same regard and the same respect no matter who they are. This is translated in all of his work, and he is no better or no worse from the “pastor” and “social workers” you mentioned earlier. He simply goes about making a difference in another way. I’ve been following his work for over a year now and it is like no one else’s…simply put. He is the freaking MAN and yet all you can do is whine about how he shares stories about his life and himself. Maybe because you wish you could make an impact as meaningful as his?
Granny Squares of Love
It appears to me, Lucent, from all of your MANY posts that you are envious that it is not all about YOU, YOU, YOU, and you are trying very hard to make it so. Write your own articles. Then you can get the attention YOU seem to crave.
Powerful stories! I’d say, it’s best to do something, and help however you can – spread the word, bring attention to the issues, get help for this community, than sit around and do armchair philosophy. I don’t think this under-served community can be picky about who helps them out.
Chris, great photographs and stories! They remind me of the documentary “Dark Days.”
GiorgiaOri
It’s funny to see that people WHO DON’T DO ANYTHING ARE ALWAYS READY TO JUDGE THE WORK OF OTHERS.
Keep up the good work Chris:)
Amazing stories you have brought forward. I drive through this area daily on my to work & almost all of it goes unnoticed.
eat sleep lose
It’s easy to criticize what you don’t do. I give you credit for what this post DOES accomplish – so many of us live blissfully unaware of the suffering right here, down the street form us. Great work here !
Yes! I’d also just like to say that I’ve interviewed many esteemed and respected documentary photographers in my life, and Chris is the real deal.
Francesca Maria
Made me nostalgic for the Bronx, we lived there in the 60s and 70s, I miss it a lot. Give my regards to Arthur Avenue:)
Wow this is extraordinary work. I live in Ghana and I’ve always wanted to visit New York. Television had shown me the glamorous side of the city, and also the not so decent part. But i never though it was real.After seeing this pictures i still want to visit New York because i feel it has so much to offer, the one difference is that i know really know that not all of its streets are filled with hone and milk. – Hakeem Adam
Thanks for your comment, Hakeem. I hope you get the chance to visit New York some day! It’s a complex, fascinating place.
sixdegreesphotography
I’m side-stepping the drama up there..I like this photographer.. He’s not afraid to peel back the satin curtain that hangs on many people’s eyes so we can see the reality of our people. I choose street photography as well and have many shots of my “street people” whom I take the time to meet and know their history.. Yes, it’s easier to take a photo of a butterfly (no offense to naturist) but the real work is in confronting the dirt..
Nice interview and tell Chris, keep snapping those post cards!
Reblogged this on A Year on the Island.
robertlampros
That’s the way art should be done; not just made but Lived. Important work, too. He’s a man on a mission. Thanks for sharing.
Jadey
Reblogged this on jadeyhamidon's Blog.
Your welcome ! ♡
beenough
Wow! You are a gift. A light. A voice in the desert.
I understand your heart. I pray that your photography raises awareness, and that as you walk among the ruins, you will also become part of the restoration. xoxo
Reblogged this on Ketchup Is Red! and commented:
Take a trip to the margins. The majority of us never do.
Thanks, Jason!
helenlouisejk89
Beautiful photographs. I love photography, and recently went to an exhibition with my non-arty friend, a mixed exhibition as it was a photography award, and we both felt the way they displayed (no text and arranged specifically) misconstrued the point of some of the images. This makes me think; adding words like Chris has done seems crucial to these pictures as without it the people portrayed would lose some of their power. For me anyway. Without it you could put the image next to another photographers work and then maybe you could see as ‘poverty porn’ or whatever.
But I definitely think they are beautiful images that give the subjects a strong personality, and I don’t feel like they are made into victims in any manner. The opposite in fact. I think the images show us beautiful elements of the people that would be overlooked by most documentary photographers. The work gave me the similar nice feeling that ‘Her Story – Animata Freetown’ did by Jason Clarke; showing a poor woman, living in poverty, as a strong beautiful woman with power and strength. I love the one of Sarah in the wing mirror by the way – its my favourite!
Tarek Elbakry
Reblogged this on Tarek Elbakry's Blog.
Julia Benjamin
Great blog post and thanks for bringing attention to the forgotten neighborhood of Hunts Point. From this New Yorker — there aren’t many that would step into Chris Arnade’s shoes here.
gaia mouse
Wow. I thought this work might be about voyerism, but it is really about the feeling that “There but for fortune, go you or I, you or I” (song: Blowing in the Wind by Bob Dylan)
1224foxslippersandcoffee
This is a bleak reminder of what needs to be done here in the US to improve the lives of people society has left behind.
Congrats Sarah on a meaningful interview that brings the art and the artist off the page!
Chris, your work is incredible!
Reblogged this on Kristine O"Reilly.
Fraukje
Wow this is heavy. Beautifully done!
incaunipocrit
maha69
Reblogged this on maha's place.
photographing drug addicts, and making it into art – the camera makes the addict look beautiful, but reality the addicts life is pain – pain turned into art
…as is so much art, jai3! Thanks for your comment.
joycefleming222
Reblogged this on joycefleming222.
1421art
Poignant and positive work!
leswillbe
http://www.dryguywaterproofing.com
eU.suNt.LibeR.
Reblogged this on Eu. Sunt. Liber..
hallerica
Reblogged this on PROFESSIONAL OPTIMISTIC.
Boom Boom Photography
I loved your article, eye opening and powerful
Thank you! It’s been rewarding to feature Chris’s powerful work and get such a good response.
Thanks for reading and responding!
Kendell Linh
Thank you for your article. It was quite an eye opener. I truly believe that he is friends with these people. Even if I didn’t, I sure am glad someone is there to lend a hand in helping out. Rich or poor, happy or sad – no matter the reason, Chris is helping out.
mimis72
Great work your doing!! But what is sad is that you are out there helping people that most people think can’t be helped,then by no means of yours you happen to get a little of attention from it,then you have people attacking you and your motives. Its seems crazy to me that someone could look at what your doing and only focus on what you’re getting out of it. There was a constant theme in these posts ,that you’re talking about yourself, but all of this persons posts are totally obsessed with talking about you. He baits you with questioning your life and what you have done, then as soon as you answer his questions he says, there you go again talking about yourself. Wow, he’s so transparent. Anyways what your doing is good and it really doesn’t matter how your doing it. You’re getting people to see what life can really look like and that it can happen to anyone. Nobody is immune to addiction. Addiction only ends in one way and your showing people what it looks like on the way to that ending. Its not pretty ,but it always ends in death. Keep up the good work!!
Oh and thank you Sarah for taking the time to get an interview with Chris. The only way anybody would ever know about his work is by people like you getting this out there to the people. New York City needs to see what this little hidden area of their city looks like. Chris is showing us and you’re putting it into words. Thanks I’m looking forward to more articles and more pictures.
Thanks, mimis72! You make good points.
islamiccomics
Reblogged this on Wedding Photographer Sydney.
The Generation Me
Reblogged this on TGM.
Grez Suziö
Reblogged this on Grez Suziö.
Great piece. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for reading and reblogging, Grez!
cynthiadasilvarocha
Reblogged this on cynthiadasilvarocha.
Graham Johnson
Thanks Sarah without you I would never have found out about this very interesting photographer. I think Lewis Hine was a schoolteacher when he started his treks to Ellis Island — not exactly the same as an investment banker but I suppose a similar desire to get of the island and photograph people in limit situations.
Hi Graham, Thanks for reading. Lewis Hine was a lifelong Progressive, so not sure about that analogy, but there are others who’ve left stable careers (though perhaps not as well-paid as Wall Street) to become photographers. Can’t think of names offhand, but I know I’ve interviewed photographers who were once something else. And let’s not forget that William Henry Fox Talbot, one of the first inventors of photography, was a member of the landed classes who didn’t need any kind of income from work.
This entry was posted on January 29, 2014 by sarahjcoleman in Interviews, Uncategorized and tagged addiction; heroin; prostitution, Bronx, Chris Arnade, Hunts Point, poverty, Wall Street; recession.
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I Actually Don’t Own a TV
Kirstin Butler July 19, 2017
“What does the professoriate watch off the clock, in their precious moments of respite?” Because academics need breaks too, Sarah Kessler asks her colleagues what shows they’ll be binge-watching this summer. If you’re one of those weirdos who still prefers books, though, how about binge-reading Henry James?
Kirstin Butler is social media editor at The Millions. She lives in Brooklyn where she's currently working on her first novel. Find her online @kirstinbutler, and of course, on The Millions‘ feeds.
Eat Your Heart Out, Fyre
Kirstin Butler August 29, 2017
Planning to attend this Saturday’s National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.? The Washington Post has provided five sample itineraries. And for an entirely different, vicarious trip, revisit Mythili G. Rao‘s account of visiting the Jaipur Literature Festival a few years back: “To voice their disapproval of the circumstances of Salman Rushdie’s absence, four writers read from The Satanic Verses — a book that has been banned in India. They were advised to leave. What kind of real intellectual discussion could go on in a setting that had proved itself so hospitable to self-censorship?”
Kirstin Butler
The End of One Era & Start of Another
“[I]n the world of letters, it is hard to imagine a more seismic change than this one.” The New York Times announces that its longtime book critic Michiko Kakutani is stepping down after nearly four decades of reviews.
The Times also offers a roundup of her greatest hits, including writeups of Beloved, Infinite Jest, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and Bill Clinton‘s memoir My Life:
The book, which weighs in at more than 950 pages, is sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull — the sound of one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angel of history.
This announcement was followed by the great news that repeat Year in Reading alumna Parul Sehgal will join Jennifer Senior and Dwight Garner as a Times book critic, leaving her position as senior editor of the NYT Book Review. Congratulations, Parul!
Thomas Beckwith March 1, 2013
Jon Methven (of This Is Your Captain Speaking) has a problem: one of his characters trashed his novel on Amazon.
Thomas Beckwith
“You have always been a dark labyrinth”
Thomas Beckwith July 16, 2013
13 Reasons Why Not
Kirstin Butler May 18, 2017
Writing toward Home
Tess Malone November 22, 2013
“The home I grew up in will never exist again, and this is why I write so much about home, perhaps. Because I lost mine,” Jesmyn Ward told Roxane Gay in an interview for The Toast. They discussed Ward’s new memoir, Men We Reaped, her writing process, and how she deals with being labeled a “black woman writer.”
Tess Malone
I Am My Lighthouse’s Keeper
Nick Moran December 12, 2013
If you haven’t fantasized about being a solitary lighthouse keeper, then you’ve either a) read some of the scariest bits from Susan Casey’s The Devil’s Teeth; or b) you haven’t yet watched Aeon Magazine‘s gorgeous Behind The Light short film.
Nick Moran
Rhian Sasseen October 17, 2012
With regards to that Rushdie quote: a defense of bad books.
Rhian Sasseen
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Home > News & Policies
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CRUISE SHIP TO HELL!
December 29, 2019 December 29, 2019 by Boyce Day
Not from Hell, But To Hell!
Lucy and Marcus Teegarden planned to spend their tenth anniversary on a cruise. “I suggested it for months,” Lucy said. “I started with small hints—you know, saying nice things about cruises when we saw them in movies or on TV. But Marcus is dense, so I started leaving pamphlets all around and texting him links. Finally, I just came right out and asked.”
Marcus said yes. “I knew she was hinting,” he said. “But it’s condescending and annoying. Why would I want to celebrate ten years, anyway? Do prisoners have parties to celebrate ten years in the clink?”
Lucy and Marcus Teegarden at the start of the cruise
The two of them booked a cruise for this November.
The Teegardens left their kids with Lucy’s parents and flew to New York. “When we boarded the boat, we were thrilled,” Marcus said. “But right away we noticed a kind of funny smell. The greeter assured us that they were just hardboiling a bunch of eggs for lunch.”
“I work in a public school where the facilities leave something to be desired,” Lucy said. “I thought it was sewage.”
It turned out to be something much worse.
SHUFFLEBOARD AND PRIVATE TIME
The first day went well. The Teegardens played shuffleboard, ate at what was billed as a “pan-Asian-and-Mexican buffet,” and even got in a little private time. “Tee hee,” Lucy said. “That’s what we used to say in high school when we had sex with our boyfriends. Tee hee.”
“You had sex with your boyfriends in high school?” Marcus said. “I’m shocked.”
“Yeah, right,” Lucy said.
“No,” Marcus said. “Really. I am shocked. That wasn’t what you told me when we met. You told me your grad school boyfriend was your first.”
“Curt?” Lucy said. “I never said that. I was with Karen for like six months before that.”
“Karen?” Marcus said. “You were involved with a woman?”
“I must have told you that,” Lucy said. “You’ve seen pictures of me and Karen.”
“I thought you were just friends,” Marcus said.
“Tee hee,” Lucy said.
The argument over Lucy’s romantic past dragged on for more than forty minutes, but eventually, the Teegardens returned to the matter of their cruise from hell.
The Captain of the Ship
“The first night we ate at the captain’s table. When we met him, he looked really sunburned,” Lucy said. “Then he turned to go, and we saw a little red tail peeking out the back of his jacket, with an arrowhead-shaped black tip.”
Marcus was the first to recognize what was happening. The captain was Satan, and they were on the cruise to hell. “Suddenly we noticed demons all around us,” Marcus said. “And on the lower levels of the ship we heard screams as if people were writhing in terrible pain. Ironically, the smell we had smelled when we first boarded did turn out to be hardboiled eggs, though doubly ironically, they used them to make deviled eggs.”
THE SCARY SEAS
The boat sailed northeast through the Atlantic, into the Bermuda Triangle, at which point it descended through a whilrlpool. When it surfaced, it was in a lake of lava during a hot hailstorm. They disembarked onto a burning island populated with flying were-creatures and other frightening beasts. There, the captain gathered the passengers and made his pitch. “He stood up on this stage, holding a skull in each hand, and asked us if we wanted to leave our mortal souls in damnation for all eternity,” said Marcus. “Most passengers did not.”
The Teegardens were among those refusing the offer. “We got right back on the boat,” Lucy said. “We were a little shaken, frankly, so we couldn’t enjoy Bermuda fully. Beautiful beaches, though.”
Photo from the Hell Cruise brochure
For its part, the cruise line denies any wrongdoing. “It says ‘Hell Cruise’ it right there on the original booking site,” said Harriet Yelchin, a publicist for the company. “Plus, the name of the boat, in twenty-foot letters, is Mephistopheles of the Seas. We’re deceiving absolutely no one.”
The Teegardens are home now, but they still carry the scars of their frightening experience. “Maybe this is what happens when you hint too much,” Marcus said. “Maybe next time you should just let me decide on a present. Right now you could be cleaning the house with your nice new vacuum.”
“Shut it,” Lucy said.
“Don’t you mean ‘Go to hell?’ Marcus said.
“I’m serious,” Lucy said. “I can’t be drawn back into any thoughts of the dark arts. I’ll do myself in.”
“Oh, no?” Marcus said. “Who would burn the toast?”
“Go tee hee yourself,” Lucy said.
Categories Headlines Tags cruise, cruise ship, hades, hell, shuffleboard 1766421 Commenthttps%3A%2F%2Fweeklyworldnews.com%2Fheadlines%2F176642%2Fcruise-ship-to-hell%2FCRUISE+SHIP+TO+HELL%212019-12-29+13%3A20%3A58Boyce+Dayhttps%3A%2F%2Fweeklyworldnews.com%2F%3Fp%3D176642 Post navigation
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United Kingdom - Unite union plans further strikes at BA - May 30, 2010
United Kingdom - Unite union plans further strikes at BA - May 30, 2010 https://wageindicator.org/labour-laws/collective-bargaining/2010/news-items/united-kingdom-unite-union-plans-further-strikes-at-ba-may-30-2010 https://wageindicator.org/@@site-logo/wageindicator.png
After returning to work on Saturday, part of British Airways (BA) cabin crew started a next five-day stoppage on Sunday 30 May, after talks between the airline and the Unite union ended without an agreement. A third five-day strike is due to start on 5 June. On Friday 28 May, conciliation service Acas said talks had been adjourned and it would now try to arrange new negotiations. Unite has announced it will call off the industrial action if the airline restores travel concessions to staff who previously went on strike. Unite joint general secretary Derek Simpson said his union was prepared to meet with BA “anytime, anyplace” to negotiate, but was concerned that BA's CEO Willie Walsh was content to let the strikes continue without any attempt to resolve the dispute because he wants to “punish” the workforce.
English: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10188958.stm; http://www.unitetheunion.com/news__events/latest_news/unite_ba_strike_update_-_day.aspx
This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl. You may find further information on the ETUI atwww.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2009.
Cite this page: © WageIndicator 2020 - WageIndicator.org - United Kingdom - Unite union plans further strikes at BA - May 30, 2010
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All Our Kids Awards Dinner l Ben Droz
Photos by Ben Droz
Emilia Gore, Keyno Clark, Melanie "Kleo" Plumber, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
DJ K O L E C O, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
Student participants, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
Claudia Zeldin, Kesari, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
Nicole Alexiev, Kathy Fletcher, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
Claudia Zeldin, Brian McCormick, Stefanie Zeldin, Sara Pratt, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
Sara Pratt, Kesari, David Brooks, Anne Snyder, Nicole Alexiev, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
David Brooks (L) and Sara Pratt (R) with Students, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
Kathy Fletcher, David Brooks, Sara Pratt, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
David Brooks, Sara Pratt, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
Jessica Caldwell, David Simpson, Kathy Fletcher, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
Carolyn Fletcher, Kathy Fletcher, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
Michael Peterkin, Keyno Clark, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
Crystal Kasturi, Avi Kasturi, Catherine Bahumian, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
Kathy Fletcher, David Simpson, Kaethe Zellner, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
Rachel Goslins, Kathy Fletcher, Kaethe Zellner, Carolyn Fletcher, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
David Simpson, Kathy Fletcher, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
Craig Beden, David Simpson, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
David Brooks, Anne Snyder Brooks, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
David Brooks, Sara Pratt, Kathy Fletcher, Congressman Jim McGovern, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
David Brooks, Congressman Jim McGovern, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
David Brooks, David Simpson, Congressman Jim McGovern, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
Roderick Spencer, David Brooks, David Simpson, Congressman Jim McGovern, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
David Simpson, Citizen Cope, Nicole Alexiev, First Annual All Our Kids Awards Dinner, AOK, at Sixth & I, February 15, 2018, photo by Ben Droz.
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Battle Creek Public Schools, GVSU Team Up For College Access
This partnership will allow Battle Creek Public Schools students to get ready for careers in Education, Health, and STEM fields, leading all the way to BCPS Juniors and Seniors being able to earn college credit and build their path towards higher education.
More Campaign Stops For Presidential Candidates In Michigan
With the Presidential Election tightening, the campaigns of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are making a few more stops in Michigan.
The RealClearPolitics average of state polls shows Clinton up 4.7% in Michigan, but our state is being treated as a battleground ahead of Tuesday’…
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Dr. Brian Long, director of supply chain management research at the Institute for Supply Management at Grand Valley State University, issued a new economic report on west Michigan's economy a few weeks ago. Largely, the news is good.
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West Michigan Jobs Disparity Continues
The latest west Michigan economic outlook from Dr. Brian Long, director of supply chain management research at Grand Valley State University, shows something we have continued to see for some time: good paying jobs with no one to fill them...
Calhoun County Unemployment Improves While Economy Coasts
In his latest observations of the west Michigan economy, Grand Valley State University Director of Supply Chain Management Dr. Brian Long tells WBCK he sees slight stagnation. The upside to that is he doesn't see a retraction in local economic growth...
Long: Plant Closure Likely
Dr. Brian Long, director of supply management research for the Seidman College of Business at Grand Valley State University publishes a periodic economic outlook for West Michigan based on reports from purchasing managers, and works to observe the factors affecting the local economy...
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Your search: The Holocaust
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David Ivor Young
(politician, businessman)
Finchley, United Kingdom
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry
13 June 1987 - 24 July 1989
Paul Channon
Secretary of State for Employment
2 September 1985 - 13 June 1987
Minister without Portfolio
11 September 1984 - 2 September 1985
Member of the House of Lords
10 October 1984 - Present
Events Participated in
Bilderberg/1985 10 May 1985 12 May 1985 New York
Arrowwood of Westchester
Bilderberg/1986 25 April 1986 27 April 1986 Scotland
Gleneagles Hotel
Retrieved from "https://wikispooks.com/w/index.php?title=David_Ivor_Young&oldid=179677"
... more about "David Ivor Young"
February 27, 1932 +
Politician + and Businessman +
27 February 1932 +
Born 27 February 1932 +
Has almaMater
University College London +
Has amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Lord-Young-of-Graffham/e/B00IY1DYEQ +
Finchley + and United Kingdom +
David Ivor Young +
David_Ivor_Young +
Has nationality
UK +
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry +, Secretary of State for Employment +, Minister without Portfolio + and Member of the House of Lords +
Terje +
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David Young, Baron Young of Graffham +
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Young,_Baron_Young_of_Graffham +
David Ivor Young +, David Ivor Young +, David Ivor Young + and David Ivor Young +
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The New Dark Age
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Brexit trade delusions show why Britain needs to confront its history of empire By Rahul Verma
15 June 2019 — Global Justice Now
Edward Duncan’s painting of the East India Company iron steam ship Nemesis destroying Chinese war junks in Anson’s Bay, 1843 | Credit: National Maritime Museum, London
On 7 December, 2016, nearly six months after the referendum, Prime Minister Theresa May gave a speech to the Gulf Cooperation Council in Bahrain. She said: “As Britain leaves the European Union so we intend to take a leap forward, to look outwards and seek to become the most committed and most passionate advocate of free trade in the world.”
May also cited the East India Company and while it may seem a peculiar and tone deaf reference – historian William Dalrymple describes ‘The Company’ as, “the supreme act of corporate violence in world history” – she was joining the dots between post-Brexit Britain, free trade and empire.
Why? Because May understood that the glories of Britain past – empire and free trade – underpin the fantasies of many Brexiteers. We’ve seen plans to build trade with Commonwealth African countries called ‘Empire 2.0’ and ministers including Jeremy Hunt, Michael Gove and Liam Fox champion a new Royal Yacht Britannia (at a cost of ￡120 million) to rule the waves as Britain strikes trade deal after trade deal.
Where do we begin – or end – with explaining why evoking empire as the inspirational vision for Brexit Britain is grotesque? We could start with how Britain’s imperialism was founded on racist ideologies, white supremacy and brutal violence that racked up a black and brown bodycount in the tens of millions in a ruthless quest for power and capital.
We could explain that our empire’s vision of free trade was built on protectionism, with tariffs and duties imposed according to British interests and enforced by military might and naval supremacy. Looting – a Hindi word for ransacking – raw materials, labour and food, better describes the extractive and exploitative character of Britain’s empire.
Britain’s history of ‘free’ trade is a fantasy. The reality is a long, dark history of putting profit before people. It’s something which continues today, with the UK supplying billions of pounds of arms to Saudi Arabia that have been used to bomb civilians in Yemen and have contributed to a humanitarian crisis where an estimated 85,000 children have died from starvation.
Spiridione Roma’s The East Offering Her Riches to Britannia, 1778, commissioned by the East India Company for the ceiling of East India House in London, a panegyric to British colonial domination | Credit: British Library
Weavers to beggars
In a 2015 address to the Oxford Union, Indian MP and historian, Shashi Tharoor outlined how India’s world renowned textiles industry was dismantled by Britain. “Britain’s industrial revolution was premised on the deindustrialisation of India. For example, the handloom weavers, whose products were exported around the world.
The British came in, smashed their thumbs and broke their looms, imposed tariffs and duties on their cloth and began flooding the world with manufactured cloth, the products of the dark and satanic mills of Victorian England,” said Tharoor. “That meant the weavers became beggars and India went from being a world famous exporter of finished cloth to an importer. India’s share of the world economy when the British arrived on its shores [1600] was 23%, by the time it left [1947] it was down to less than 4%. Why? Because India was governed for the benefit of Britain,” explained the author of Inglorious Empire, a sobering account of the British Empire in India.
Trading in humans
However, it’s the transatlantic slave trade that is the most shocking example of the British Empire’s sacrificing of black lives at the altar of profit. Between 15 million and 20 million Africans were shackled and forcibly transported from West Africa to the Caribbean, central America and South America. When Britain abolished its trade in human beings in 1833, 245 years after it began, the government compensated British slave owners £20 million (£17 billion in today’s money), for ‘loss of property’.
Slavery devastated the continent, causing depopulation and wars and instability, while the loss of tens of millions of men stunted agricultural production, leading to underdevelopment. Just 20 years after America abolished slavery in 1865, the ‘scramble for Africa’ began and by the early 20th century the vast majority of the entire continent was colonised – and looted – by European powers.
Trade and war
The mid-19th century Opium Wars capture how Britain’s ‘free trade’ crusade overwhelmingly served Britain’s interest. Britain declared war on China to protect the eyewatering revenues of its merchants who monopolised the lucrative opium trade. The East India Company forced desperate farmers in India to grow poppies (when they could be growing food to sell and eat), ran vast opium processing factories and the trade with China, where millions were ravaged by opium addiction. When Britain’s warships defeated China in 1842, China was forced to accept free trade, including the damaging, morally bankrupt trade in opium. This is a glimpse of what British ‘free trade’ looked like and why it’s deeply troubling to see it and empire being lauded by politicians.
Colonialism and its free trade zealotry established the framework of globalised neoliberalism today, with inequality and pillaging of the global south its defining traits.
Since the sun set on empire, Britain has failed to have a meaningful and open discussion about it and how it’s shaped the world today, whether migration in Britain, the slave trade, free trade, its marauding nature, the Opium Wars, concentration camps in South Africa, the Partitions of Ireland, Palestine and India, or why regions of West Africa were known as the gold coast, ivory coast, grain coast and slave coast (as 20-year-old rapper, Dave, notes in his track ‘Black’).
Instead our institutions display an empire state of mind – it’s evident in the treatment of Windrush citizens, British citizens illegally turfed out because of their skin colour, the Foreign Office’s recent recruitment drive with adverts asking, “Fancy an African adventure?”, and a racist criminal justice system.
This mindset is damaging trade talks: today Indian companies own Jaguar, Land Rover and Tetley, and thousands of steel workers’ jobs in Port Talbot are in the hands of Indian multinational giant Tata. And yet sources close to trade talks between India and the UK describe Britain’s stance as “we want your business, we don’t want your people”.
Cape Coast Castle, one of about forty ‘slave castles’ built on the ‘Gold Coast‘ of West Africa (now Ghana). Its large underground dungeon held up to 1,000 slaves | Credit: Julius Cruickshank/Wikimedia
Education, education, education
Education would help to redress the impact of the colonial propaganda project, Operation Legacy, which systematically destroyed millions of empire documents, and is surely a contributing factor in a near majority of Britons saying empire was a good thing in public polling today.
Teaching empire in schools and universities from myriad perspectives is not only a necessity to unpick the empire fantasies inherent in Britain’s national character, but because nearly one in ten people in Britain has heritage in places Britain plundered; it isour collective history.
There are grassroots initiatives doing this work and stimulating much needed discussion and analysis of empire, such as the decolonising movement in universities, Colonial Countryside and Our Migration Story. In time we might see the end of empire nostalgia being used to sell us stuff, such as Marks & Spencer ‘Empire Pie’ and Gourmet Burger Kitchen ‘Old Colonial Burger’, and slave auction worksheets being used in a secondary school. Brexit may have bored us to tears, but it’s revealed 21st century Britain is haunted by the ghosts of empire and rather than being used to Make Britain Great Again, surely they need to be laid to rest.
This article first appeared in the May 2019 issue of Ninety-Nine, the magazine for Global Justice Now members.
Join as a member today to receive it three times a year.
Posted in: UK | Tagged: brexit, empire, free trade
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Syria and War Propaganda: Robert Stuart vs the BBC
Richest 1% owns more than TWICE as much wealth as 6.9 billion people – Oxfam
A super-rich one percent of the world’s population has accumulated twice as much wealth as the remaining 90 percent, global charity Oxfam said in a newly-released report.
“Unlike the Latin American left, the pathetic European version has lost all sense of what it means to do politics. It does not try to propose concrete solutions to problems, and is only able to take moral stances, in particular denouncing dictators and human rights violations in grandiloquent tones. The social democratic left follows the right with at best a few years delay and has no ideas of its own. The “radical” left often manages both to denounce Western governments in every possible way and to demand that those same governments intervene militarily around the globe to defend democracy. Their lack of political reflection makes them highly vulnerable to disinformation campaigns and to becoming passive cheerleaders of US-NATO wars. That left has no coherent program and would not know what to do even if a god put them into power.” – Jean Bricmont
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North County Bike Path Pushed Back a Year
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Supporters of the proposed bike path connecting North Adams and Williamstown are lamenting another construction delay and looking for answers.
The Berkshire Eagle reports after years of planning, local officials want clarity on why the Massachusetts Department of Transportation has put the brakes on the project and when it will finally be built.
"The trail project between Williamstown and North Adams has been reprogrammed to federal Fiscal Year 2020 to allow for additional environmental review," a MassDOT spokesperson said in an email to The Eagle.
When asked for further detail, spokesman Maxwell Huber stated, "The additional review process is to ensure that the project adheres to the Federal Aviation Administration guidelines since a portion of the trail is adjacent to an airport."
In an April amendment to its fiscal 2019 Transportation Improvement Plan, the Berkshire Metropolitan Planning Organization shifted the project from fiscal 2019 to fiscal 2020. The planning organization is a board that includes representatives from MassDOT, the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, the Berkshire Regional Transportation Authority, and municipal officials from across the county. Its work is aided by staff members of the regional commission.
If DOT isn't ready to put the project out to bid in fiscal 2019, which ends Sept. 30, the project need not be in the fiscal 2019 Transportation Improvement Plan, he confirmed.
The bike path would connect Syndicate Road in Williamstown to the Harriman and West Airport in North Adams. Eventually, the goal is to connect to the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail and create more than 20 miles of bike path connecting Lanesborough to Williamstown through Cheshire, Adams and North Adams.
The path's backers in the Northern Berkshires sent out emails last week urging residents to file a comment with the the planning organization before the public comment period on the proposed transportation plan ended Wednesday.
To Amanda Chilson, Mass in Motion coordinator at the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition, the proposed path offers improved bicycle and pedestrian connectivity between Williamstown and North Adams, a potential driver of economic growth and beneficial to public health.
"There's been so much momentum and movement behind it, to stall it, we're going to lose some of that momentum," Chilson said.
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Steelseries Rival Optical Mouse – Review
By Wolf's Gaming Blog on February 6, 2014 • ( Leave a comment )
– 50 to 6500 Adjustable CPI
– 1ms Response Rate / 1000Hz Polling Rate
– 200 Inches Per Second (IPS)
– 50Gs of Acceleration
– Weight: 128 grams (0.28 lbs)
– Height: 45 mm (1.8 in)
– Width: 70 mm (2.76 in)
– Length: 133 mm (5.23 in)
– Cable Length: 2m (6.5 ft.)
Mice. Mice everywhere. Not the furry kind intent on making stereotypical teenage girls in movies scream, you understand, but the more plastic kind, the kind designed to for playing games and fragging enemies. There’s no shortage of these devices on the market, many of which claimed to be aimed squarely at gamers and boasting an assortment of numbers that generally succeed more in baffling potential customers than actually helping them make an informed decision. It’s a confusing world, out there.
In truth I have something bordering on an obsession with mice, a weird desire to try out as many of them as I can, constantly in search of that perfect union between technology and hand. Today I’m taking a look at Steelseries latest offering in the form of the Rival, a powerful optical beastie that isn’t perfect, because perfection is an unattainable and ever-changing goal. It is, however, very, very good.
When it comes to comfort the Rival doesn’t manage to claim the padded throne, that accolade being retained currently, in my eyes, by the Drakonia Black, but still holds its own well enough. The design is relatively straightforward with a sleek build that’s geared towards right-handed players, so if you’re one of those bizarre lefties then you might want to look elsewhere as sadly no plans seem to be have been announced to create a southpaw variant. The Rival is quite long while the back of the mouse sweeps into a lovingly curved hump that falls off slightly toward the right so that it fits the hand more naturally. Meanwhile the anti-sweat matt black finish provides a good, soft feeling, which is bolstered by the textured grips on either side of the mouse. The end result of all this lavished attention is quite nice, remaining comfortable even after several hours of solid, hard usage.
One complaint I will level at the Rival, though, is that when using a standard palm grip my pinky finger tended to hang over the side, sliding along the mat like an upset child being dragged along the floor of ASDA by a clearly sleep-deprived parent. This is actually a problem I have with many mice, one which has been solved by other companies through the simple expedient of introducing a curved wing for gamer’s fingers to rest on, but for whatever reason this seems to be a practice not yet widely adopted. What, is my pinky simply not worthy of your attention? It may be the smallest of the fingers, but it’s just as noble.
In terms of buttons the Rival boasts seven of the task-achieving things, each of which can be programmed using the downloadable Steelseries Engine, which we’ll come back to later and discuss in far more detail. In a somewhat surprising move Steelseries have opted for a soft, quiet feeling to the main right and left buttons situated atop the mouse, creating something that almost feels…luxurious. At first this was a little disconcerting as years of gaming have left me naturally attuned to a far louder click which announces whether or not I’ve pressed the button correctly and how many times I’ve done so, but after just a short amount of usage I began to appreciate the Rival’s quieter nature, especially when simply browsing the Internet, although I did run into the occasional problem in the form of accidentally double clicking when the action was heated. This, I must stress, though, was very, very rare occurrence. It was, in all honesty, quite likely my own fault as well, as I’ve often been somewhat over excitable when it comes to shooting people in the face. Squeezed between the left and right clicks is the standard-issue wheel which sports a decent scrolling action, being smooth enough for everyday use whilst still having enough control for doing things like swapping weapons in the middle of a heated match. The wheel can, of course, be clicked as well. Sitting just behind that is a button for quickly switching between DPI settings on the fly, although sadly you’re limited to just two presets at any given time. Meanwhile to the left-hand side of the mouse reside a further two buttons, the first of which is quite sizable cin comparison to those seen on other mice and falls neatly under command of the thumb. The second button proved to sit a little too far away for my taste, though, requiring a stretch of the thumb in order to catch the very edge of it, a clear disadvantage in some situations though it must be said that I’ve had this problem before with other mice and so the fact that I don’t have very large hands must be taken into account. Both of these buttons have a far louder click in comparison to their brethren atop the Rival, but generally feel quite nice to use.
As for the build quality I can’t find anything in particular to moan about, which is something of a let-down as I’m actually in quite a bad mood and could have done with waving my finger at some imagined slight. At 128g the mouse hits the sweet spot in terms of weight for me, feeling light enough to throw about at speed with enough heft to provide a reassuring sensation. Give it a squeeze or two and everything feels absolutely solid and well-made.
The horrible fact about reviewing gaming mice is that at this level of technical performance it’s damn near impossible to declare one product better than another, because the differences are so small that humans struggle to register them. At the heart of the mouse is the Pixart PMW3310 optical sensor which makes bold claims to having 1:1 tracking and absolutely no hardware acceleration. The Rival boasts a polling rate of up to 1000Mhz for response times of just 1-millisecond, and has a maximum CPI (DPI) of 6500, a considerably higher number than I can justifiably imagine anybody actually using, but is nonetheless noteworthy for being an impressive maximum for an optical mouse. But in the harsh light of reality these stats mean so very little when attempting to compare performance through fingertips. A polling rate of just 125Mhz compared to a mouse with 1000Mhz is obvious, but try to feel the difference between 500Mhz and 1000Mhz and it’s simply not possible, or at least to me. Can I claim the Rival is better than the Drakonia Black in performance? Or the Steelseries Guild Wars 2? Or the DeathAdder? No.
What I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt is that the Rival is a precise, responsive piece of technology that never once let me down, delivering pinpoint accuracy and perfect tracking at all times. There are numerous pieces of software that can measure the exact statistics of a mouse’s performance to be compared with those from other devices, but that would be a pointless errand. You’ll never notice the difference, I bet, between relatively specced offerings. No, I’ll just tell you that I simply can not fault the performance of Steelseries latest mouse, having tested it thoroughly through a mixture of the newly released Loadout, Far Cry 3, Call of Duty: Ghosts and more. The only thing that ever resulted in my demise at the hands of my foes was my own lack of skill, speed and precision, the mouse itself presumably smirking at every downfall, contemplating how in the hands of a more God-like gamer it could dominate any battlefield.
Previous Steelseries mice did have a notable problem with positive acceleration, which for those not in the know essentially boiled down to the mouse cursor moving differently depending on the speed, resulting in sometimes inconsistent tracking. For the Rival, though, this problems seems to have been completely abolished, leaving in its wake fantastic performance. It was, and is, quite simply, a lovely mouse to game with.
You may have also noted that most of my testing has been in shooters, and rightly so. Those who spend more time playing RPGs, MMOs or even RTS games may wish to opt for a mouse with a higher button count in order to make the most of macros. With its sleek design and button-count the Rival felt, to me, to be naturally attuned to the shooting genre.
The Rival allows for plug and play, so you can rip the mouse straight out of the packaging, whack in the USB and game away, but to take complete advantage of the product its best to install Steelseries custom engine, which sadly doesn’t come packaged on a disc with the mouse itself. Acquired by visiting the official website the Steelseries Engine 3 features a neat, simple layout that saves fuss by ensuring everything is clearly presented to the user, and it’s from this magical little piece of software that you can merrily fiddle with the CPI, using pleasingly small increments of adjustment , change the polling rate, alter acceleration/deceleration and tweak the angle snapping function. The Engine also contains a pretty comprhensive macro creation suite where you can play to your hearts content, recording length of time of buttons being held, delays and more. The Steelseries Engine 3 is pretty much impossible for me to find fault with at this point, so I tip my hat to its creators.
As is becoming a far more common feature these days the Rival also allows for automatic profile switching, which changes the mouse’s settings to your own designated preset selection when firing up a certain application. Obviously this means you could, for example, have it swap to a higher DPI setting when it detects Counter Strike: Go being started. In particuilar it’s handy for jumping between games and programs where you commonly utilise different macros.
For those that enjoy a bit of showmanship the Rival does have customisable lighting options, the Steelseries logo on the back of the mouse and the edges of the scroll wheel coming alive with whatever color light you opt for through the Steelseries Engine. And this naturally brings me to the aesthetics of the mouse, a topic that is naturally fairly hard to write about. The fact of the matter is that Steelseries have gone for a pretty understated style for the Rival, with the sole exception being the lit-up logo, but even that can be turned off if you wish to retain a more streamlined look. With its easy black paint job and elegant shape I find myself rather attracted to the Rival, as it seems genuinely comfortable in its own basic sleekness, aloof of that over-designed stuff that a lot of companies seem to think all gamers want. I’d go so far as to say the Rival looks classy, or as classy as a mouse can ever be.
Rather strangely Steelseries have opted to include a second nameplate for the back of the mouse which they claim can have the owner’s name engraved on it using a 3D printer. Considering that 3D printers at home aren’t exactly prevalent at the moment I’m not sure how many of these will ever get used for their intended function, but it’s a fun nod from Steelseries nonetheless, even if the cynical recesses of my soul are loudly proclaiming it to be a waste of money that bumps up the overall retail price, if only by a small amount.
As you may have already ascertained from this review there’s little I can actually fault with the Rival; it really is a damn good mouse, both decently comfortable and powerfully capable. There’s a few things I’d have liked to have seen added, such as more curvature on the right-hand side of the mouse’s body to provide finger support, but these are relatively minor complaints, though still, I feel, justifiable ones. I’ll go out on a limb here and say the Rival is Steelseries’ best mouse to date, which is why it has become my current favorite.
+ Lovely to look at.
+ Performs like a dream.
+ Easy to use software.
– Pinky can drag when using standard palm grip.
– Er.
The Verdict: 4.5/5 – Great, bordering on awesome.
Though it’s not quite the mouse to end all mice, the Steelseries Rival easily ranks amongst the best that money can buy.
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Tagged as: mouse, optical, review, rival, steelseries
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Bright Apprentice not being taken seriously
We had an apprentice join our team in late 2017, this is the first time an apprentice has been given a rotation in the Software Development Team so it's a new concept to everyone. For the purposes of the question I’ll call him Dave.
Despite being fresh out of A-Levels and having no previous experience in Software Development, he has picked things up so quickly and rarely asks for help from anyone.
The issue is that my other colleagues don't seem to see what I am seeing, Dave is doing things that even some of the Senior members of staff can't do. There's been occasions where someone has struggled with a problem and he's offered to assist and is never taken up on the offer. He's came to me and explained and the solution he had to the problem was pretty good.
On occasion I've even said, "Have you asked Dave, as he's just completed a course in that?" and it'll be blatantly ignored, and they'll proceed to ask another team member who equally has no clue in the subject. On the rare occasion he's able to interject into the conversation, he fixes the problem and often does it very quickly.
I've already tried explaining to everyone how good he is and the achievements he has made in such a short space of time, to no avail. He really wants to make a good impression to help kick-start his career but finds it hard that he has not been listened to.
How do I get this across to the team? Dave has developed multiple programs that are being used in live since starting but people don't seem to take him seriously.
united-kingdom software-development apprentice
V2Blast
andtoddandtodd
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. – user44108 Aug 16 '18 at 6:12
When I started my apprenticeship as a software developer, I was in a similar situation. Although I had no qualifications "on paper", I had a lot of private experience with software development. Just nobody believed me. So what I did was ask the most respected senior developer on the team what he was working on and if I could take a look. I then spent the next day analyzing the sourcecode looking for the worst part I could find. Then I approached him and asked:
Hey [senior developer]. I've looked at your sourcecode and there is one thing I don't understand. What's the reason why you didn't use [more efficient solution] here? I am sure there is a good reason why you used [inefficient solution]. But I don't know this technology as well as you do. So I would really like to know why you did that.
Now, he did of course not have a reason to do it the inefficient way. The efficient way simply didn't occur to him. That moment he understood that I am far more capable than my job title would say, but the way I showed him was submissive and unconfrontational, so he did not perceive me as an obnoxious know-it-all either.
Five years later, I got his position.*
*no, don't worry. I did not bully him away. He got an even better paying job offer somewhere else.
One thing you should teach Dave about is the importance of visibility in the workplace. People might underestimate him because they are not aware of his talents and just judge him by his job title.
Things you might want to encourage him to do:
Hold presentations in front of the team. Conceal it as an exercise to test presentation skills.
Look for internal projects which are of interest for management.
Solve long-standing problems everyone is afraid of tackling.
Sandra K
PhilippPhilipp
I see this is the accepted answer, but I would like to highlight that this approach is very risky, imho: I am an intermediate-level developer, and if a person who is fresh out of A-Levels and having no previous experience in Software Development comes to my source code and says "why didn't you think of this?" with an obvious, more efficient solution, I would feel like he is amazingly condescendant. And I would feel stupid, of course. Maybe I am oversensitive, but OP's colleagues could be as well. – Simone Chelo Aug 14 '18 at 8:14
@SimoneChelo I tried to make it clear in my answer, but maybe I didn't bring it across as well as I could. The idea is to phrase the improvement suggestion as a question with the assumption that the senior is smarter than oneself and that one wants to learn from them. When this is brought across well, it should not feel condescending for the receiver. – Philipp Aug 14 '18 at 9:15
It is clear as you state that a smart senior should recognise when someone wants to prove himself (your aim) and when someone is an insufferable know-it-all. I just want to address that not everyone is a smart senior, and could take this approach the bad way. – Simone Chelo Aug 14 '18 at 10:12
@SimoneChelo The approach also runs the risk of the developer having a reason it's done that way and you may undermine your current position. Heck, they could even cop-out and say it's under-engineered because it was done under a deadline when they didn't have time to just pour over source code looking for a better way. – Centimane Aug 14 '18 at 11:00
This solution is pretty much the logic, "go beat up the toughest looking guy in the prison yard". The dev could be really understanding, but it'll likely comes across as sarcastic and very know-it-all. – Tom Aug 14 '18 at 12:31
As a software developer, I've been in both your position and Dave's. In software development teams that have worked together for a long time, each colleague starts to develop an idea of who is the 'go-to' for knowledge on a particular project or system (especially if it's something so esoteric that StackOverflow can't help!). It's great that Dave is well-qualified and picking up things quickly, but in cases where time might be against them, a colleague may simply seek out the one they know for certain has experience with the bit they were stuck on. This does not just apply to apprentices or junior developers. In one job, despite having two senior developers above me, my colleagues would ask me questions about C# problems just because I was the 'C# guy'. I had to make it clear to them over time that others knew enough about it too.
One solution could be to make your team more aware of what Dave has been working on (not simply just the achievements). It sounds as if your colleague did not know or had to be reminded that Dave took a relevant course in something. It may also be worthwhile asking to Dave to, for example, shadow a colleague on a JavaScript task after he completed a JavaScript course. This will help Dave make more of a name for himself among the team and it will also make your colleagues more confident that he is more than merely book-smart, and therefore more likely to ask for his help when the time comes. This can even be demonstrated by giving Dave the chance to work on a high-profile or important task (if you feel he is ready).
The more Dave integrates with the team, the more they will come to acknowledge and depend on his knowledge. As Dave is given more chances to demonstrate knowledge that can only come from working with your development team, the more likely it is he will be sought out for advice.
On the "making your team aware" front, my team has this pattern of having members who have just spent time learning something new (maybe over a formal course, maybe not) give a short presentation of what they learned. This helps the team to as a whole to be aware of new tech as well as gauge how much the learner knows about that tech. – muru Aug 14 '18 at 2:09
It would be worth speaking to Dave's manager and/or the Development Team Manager (if they're different people) specifically on this subject, and not just in casual conversation.
With the Dev Team Manager you should highlight this issue that you've seen and suggest that they look for opportunities not just for him to grow and contribute, but for him to take actual named responsibility for something. He'll be much harder to inadvertently sideline of he's the go-to on a particular technology or has a position of responsibility in a project. This also has the benefit of being very good next-step learning for him.
With his own manager it can be in the form of feedback for his next appraisal and perhaps even a recommendation of promotion / title bump / pay rise / bonus / re-thinking his career development opportunities in light of his exceptional progress.
You should also offer to mentor him if nobody else is.
If appropriate you could also offer / request for him to join you with some of your work as a way for him to cross-train, gain broader experience, contribute where he's appreciated, and get wider exposure.
PhuealPhueal
Maybe some people in the team don't want a bright apprentice. What should the boss think if the apprentice does some things better than the so called experienced team members? And probably the apprentice is paid a fraction of what the experts get.
It seems the apprentice is too good for that team. They want someone who is not good and does not learn fast. They want someone who asks the experts and who does not have good ideas which the experts don't have.
I guess you have the choice to be on the side of the team or on the side of the apprentice and against the team...
EdgarEdgar
I work on completely different stuff hence why I try and help how I can but I’m pretty limited, but I really don’t think they expected he would be as good as he is. – andtodd Aug 13 '18 at 7:36
I like this, maybe you could mention the Ego/reputation of the senior members being affected. They don't want to be demoralised by an apprentice – Twyxz Aug 13 '18 at 7:37
That would be my first intuition as well. Look for instances where they hide information to keep it as competitive advantage. – Puzzled Aug 13 '18 at 15:51
Though there are plenty programmers who try to stay ahead of the game by adopting new techniques, in my experience I've concluded that, in general:
Programmers who've never/not for a while experienced new input like status quo.
They're not fond of new techniques/programs/methods/... they know how the current ones behave and what quircks they have. Switching to, say, a new programming style could take quite some effort and IMO even more effort from the older people. And now imagine some random new guy saying it. And he's getting all this praise for it too, where they maintain a balance which never gets complimentented1!
I don't like using clichés, but this is a situation where 'respect' has to be earned. First show he's a team playing, a bit more passive aproach. After a while he will appear competent, even without showing code. After a bit, if he has his own tasks, he could throw in a "hey, I've written this snippet, I'd like your thoughs about it". That way he can show his level and at the same time learn how the rest of the company works (all new ideas sound great, but are they a fit?).
After some time, the status quo will include him. In my experience the more you push change, the more you get pushback. Find the flow, join it, influence it.
1 Might be incorrect, but it explains the emotion a bit.
MartijnMartijn
Speak for yourself. My method is working hard to stay ahead of the kids, and freely sharing my knowledge. And when they come up with something improved, I congratulate them and gained some more knowledge myself. – gnasher729 Aug 13 '18 at 22:22
Haha I did speak for myself, I've encountered this a few times now :) And I'm not saying all programmers are like this, but "In general" i find this to be true – Martijn Aug 14 '18 at 6:59
I agree with @gnasher729 I have over 10 years industry experience and although the type of programmer you describe most certainly does exist from my experience they are in the minority. To me and my team if we do not stay ahead of the curve we risk becoming obsolete. It also makes it more difficult to get a new job if you have no experience of newer technologies. As a team we push change when we can to better ourselves so that we do not become stagnant. I am all for knowledge sharing even if someone is in their first week. I will sanity check it before allowing it to be shared with the team. – kenjara Aug 14 '18 at 12:09
I must say, I'm glad I'm getting oppossed with this answer. It's better for everyone to switch routine every once in a while: "that's how we always work" is the enemy of innovation. I've tried to update my answer accoridingly :) – Martijn Aug 14 '18 at 12:32
This answer is based on my experience as an apprentice.
Fresh out of school with A-Levels I got a position as an apprentice in a multinational consulting company, we went through an initial training period most of which did not expand significantly upon my already existing self-taught knowledge. But what this did provide was access to mentors whose role it was to provide guidance, answer technical and conceptual questions, and whose influence provided major benefit to my growth.
Upon being launched into the main company I was put in the 'innovation' team, there were lots of exciting things being developed which we could only have cursory participation in due to our needing to progress through the 'training program' & apprenticeship coursework.
Whilst there I entered into discussions with the head of a department about onboarding, and was assigned by them the task of developing an onboarding app prototype. I found a few apprentices to run this with on the side and everything was going well.
After a period of developing this during my evenings I realised that I was likely missing certain knowledge which would improve the development process, technical information regarding technologies of the time such as Angular, which the innovation team were making use of on a daily basis. I approached the lead engineer on the team for advice, was told he would not put aside any time for me as I had yet to finish the coursework (which I had no interest in, I would rather be coding), and was subsequently interviewed by him about how I was assigned this project rather than the team as a whole, he did not understand why a head of a department would choose me to run this and wanted to claim ownership of it.
This significantly demoralised me, I continued without guidance on the development but did not know how to process this situation or to seek help from elsewhere. Around this time I was going through a breakup with a longtime partner, this combined with being away from home and having little emotional support meant I started arriving late to work (despite always leaving last). A week or two of this, a missed medical appointment (I started using my existing condition as a crutch to explain away my late arrivals), I was pulled into a HR meeting by myself and given the option of being fired on the spot or signing my resignation letter, I wrote my resignation email in the interview room as I felt I had no other choice and was gone before lunch.
My manager, the team, the head of the other department, no-one know this HR action was being taken against me, the HR figure that did this to me was let go shortly afterwards.
In short, if possible try to protect him, bring his situation to the awareness of the higher ups and shine a light on his potential within the organisation in a role outside of the apprenticeship itself, explain to him the bureaucracy and how to exist within it, whilst guiding him towards mentors and being mindful of his situation, he is likely full of optimism and courage, but there is a fine line being tread between thrilling challenge and being left to wither within a corporation without support or nurturing of his talents.
VixVix
You and Dave should be more direct in your offering of help.
Dave is surrounded by senior software engineers. Telling them "I know something" is easily ignored (maybe out of pride, maybe because they honestly don't see how Dave might help them). Telling them "You need to use X in this way and Y in another way to accomplish Z" is very concrete, proves his knowledge and makes it hard to dismiss.
The same applies to you. Asking a senior engineer "have you asked Dave" can be understood as
"Take Dave under your wing and try solving the problem together" - which may not seem very reasonable
"Have you tried randomly asking your colleagues for help?" - which he did, he just randomly asked another colleague
"I know that Dave knows how to help you"
Instead tell them "Dave mentioned that he knows a solution to your problem."
ElmyElmy
The thing is, as a junior dev, we may think we are right, we may even know we are right, but it's difficult to assert to someone more senior that they need to do "X in this way and Y in another way to accomplish Z" - if the junior is incorrect in this instance it will not look good on them. It's wise to assume you may be wrong, even if you know you're not, especially when talking to a senior. – ESR Aug 14 '18 at 4:47
I've been Dave. The thing which really helped me was someone who also knew the job, to say "I haven't got time [to help you] right now, but I know Dave can do this; you should ask him. Dave, can you foo a bar with Gertrude for a minute?". Eventually Gertrude learned to bring her bars to me. – Wilson Aug 14 '18 at 6:23
While I agree with pretty much all answers already here with the following pieces of advice:
'Respect' is earned over time
Make him medior/senior
Assign bigger/more complex tasks
Get Dave to do pair-programming with the others/seniors
I think something is missing. In your question you mention that you've already been trying this and that:
There's 2 things that stand out, 1 of which becomes a question:
"[...] kick-start his career but finds it hard that he has not been listened to"
You've been trying to explain - How long has this been going on?
If this is "pretty long" (fill that amount in yourself, you're the best judge in the situation), I come to this advice:
Tell him to find a job elsewhere.
I mean this in the best-case for Dave. If you've been trying the above and have probably tried most of the advice/answers to your question here, tell him to just leave. Software developers are in short supply, being somewhere where you're not listened to sucks. Ok ok, you listen, but "the rest" doesn't, that sucks.
Anyway, that's what I'd do if I had an intern become a not-so-much-intern anymore and have this happen. I would also tell him to put me down as a reference and to no longer apply for intern jobs; junior minimum (based on amount of time in jobs, managers tend to get their knickers in a twist over "too" young mediors/seniors).
rkeetrkeet
"Oh, hey Dave. You're really great at your job and we really love having you around... I think you should work somewhere else." – trashpanda Aug 15 '18 at 9:12
When you listen to Dave but the rest doesn't, for whatever reason, then yes. I would be enough of an adult to tell someone, that I like working with, that the rest of the office is being childish and he (Dave) should probably find a place where he fits in. I, personally, would also take offense at what the rest was doing and find myself another place to do my thing, as such an "exclusive" and "I'm better than you because <reason>" environment doesn't sound like the place I would stick around. – rkeet Aug 15 '18 at 9:57
I think you could be even more explicit in this answer: that the best result for Dave is a position with a firm whose culture can make use of his talents, and that facilitating him staying here is actually doing him a disservice. It's possible he can eventually win these people over, but this kind of strictly hierarchical and close-minded environment is very toxic (the skills fossilization if nothing else), and all that energy he'd spend just trying to get listened to is energy better spent doing valuable work in an environment that supports his development. – Tiercelet Aug 15 '18 at 18:43
Why is Dave still a junior if he can outdo Senior staff and pick up on things quickly? The only way I see to force this is to make Dave a Senior or Mid-level dev and assign bug tickets - assuming you're using scrum or kanban - to him.
Other than that, you just need to improve his reputation with things that actually matter; achievements, not standard grades in standard courses.
He is on a temporary contract due to his apprenticeship. If a vacancy becomes available, I have no doubt that he would get the post. – andtodd Aug 13 '18 at 15:32
@andtodd so he's an intern. Basically, if he's contributing regularly he's already over performing. Talk to your boss about promoting him because of that. – user53651 Aug 13 '18 at 15:36
The company wont work like that, he must complete his apprenticeship and can only apply for a role if one becomes available. There are a number of reasons, including budgetary as an apprentice wage is less than 1/3 of the developer role, never mind the senior. They’ll want him to finish the apprenticeship as he’s also cheaper labour. – andtodd Aug 13 '18 at 15:42
@andtodd Make a case anyway, or write a strong letter of recommendation for him. Outside of that you can only really assign him more important tickets. – user53651 Aug 13 '18 at 15:43
@andtodd maybe you can help push to make it easier/faster for him to get a real position? We don't know how much patience he has, but also quite approachable and un-arrogant peoples' patience can run out. Especially if he is a silent kind of person his frustrations maybe don't show so easily. – mathreadler Aug 13 '18 at 15:53
There's more to being a senior developer or a team leader than programming skill, there's communication, accountability, and responsibility for starters as a senior dev you're responsible for more and are more of a go to person(s) for... everything, you don't get to pick and choose usually.
Then there's architecture / design patterns, I've had folks on some of my teams who can solve most technical problems (some I've failed at), but the moment you ask them to design something is a WTF moment to put it nicely.
So what should Dave do? Make a big deal of the problems he solves, demonstrate an understanding, rather than stating "it's done" ( which is synonymous with "it was simple"), show an understanding of the system, and produce code with minimal bugs.
What should you do? Encourage Dave to explain his problem solving to the rest of the team. Also, if he's picked up the skills he feels he needs, you should encourage him to apply for a non-apprentice position there or elsewhere.
RandomUs1rRandomUs1r
Dave could use the Ben Franklin effect...it sounds like he is kind of on the bad side of it right now.
The idea is that we like to believe that we are fair, so if we do someone a favor we subconsciously rationalize that they must be a good person who deserved a favor, and conversely if we do someone harm (even by accident) we try to rationalize that they somehow deserved to be harmed.
Pitfalls to watch out for: If you ask for too many favors, or too large of favors, that doesn't work. If you preemptively do things in return, it doesn't work. And if a neutral third party asks for favors on your behalf, it doesn't work (and may be detrimental).
It seems like you and Dave have been falling into categories two and three. Dave's large backlog of favors that he has done for others leave them feeling like they owe him, which actually makes him less popular. And your cheering him on as a third party makes him less popular.
If Dave, on the other hand, asks to be shown or taught something, the person showing/teaching will 1) feel good about Dave because they did him a favor, 2) feel good about themselves because they had knowledge that was useful, and 3) maybe think Dave is smart, if he asks good questions and learns quickly.
Unfortunately Dave isn't here, but my advice to you is to stop cheerleading Dave quite so loudly--that is, stop bringing Dave up any time someone needs help. If Dave does help you, then that's OK to mention, or if Dave does really good on a solo project--but at roughly the same level you would mention any other teammate.
Instead, try to get Dave to talk to other team mates as an apprentice, instead of as a teacher. For example, there's always domain specific knowledge that isn't available in written resources. If Dave runs into any problems like that, you can point him to a colleague who is both knowledgeable and likely to be flattered by him asking questions. ("You should ask Sally and Bob--they worked on this originally and know all of the picky details about why certain things are the way they are.")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin_effect#Uses
It's always been the plan that I should just convince the top people in the industry -- CEOs, CTOs, academics, top-level consultants, heads of government sectors needing advanced techn, and more or less let the know-nothings say what they wanna say. Then I'd have a startup and when I start earning money (a lot of it), that should speak loudly for itself.
But things have changed from then. Excessive ridicule had worn away my and my product's credibility. At first, I was very, very opposed to having my work be shown in public, but I eased up a when I found it countered those false rumors of what my work is about. With how quickly I eased up, I didn't even realized that it bothered me that much that my capability was questioned.
Right now, there's even a good chance that I will lose and that will take out the deterrent. The people I've angered would then do everything in their power to stop me from launching my startup.
About those programs "David" wrote. If those programs are no more than many hundreds to thousands LOC, then I doubt what he's solved a commendable problem. And to disappoint you, it's either I write sizable software (ENR still being the biggest) as products or small wrappers for Unix tools and such. I don't bother with small program prompting you to enter values through the CLI, doing minor things.
I have a folder of my solutions to combinatronic problems -- permutation, combinations, solved with small functions. The functions' corresponding test C files are the only small programs that I have. At the very start of this journey, I thought I was gonna need those functions. Didn't turn out to be that way. Well, it had to be written down anyways.
DehbopDehbop
I'm not sure what you're trying to say - "don't overrestimate the new guy"? Whereas your own tale is about people underestimating you? – Rup Aug 15 '18 at 11:11
And there is some truth to the old "knowing where to put it" fable: you can fix software performance, correctness, reliability etc. problems with the right small change. – Rup Aug 15 '18 at 11:12
This anecdotal answer doesn't seem to address the question at hand. Can you please edit it so that it does? – user44108 Aug 15 '18 at 13:15
@Rup I don't know how technical you are (I won't bother to check your profile page), but if you're a good engineer, to be able to improve performance, correctness, reliability, etc of a solution, you have to have the base. In most software, that means the codebase. When talking about software packages, the tools included. Exactly where did I improve from? ENR was started from scratch, just C & no other library. ENR uses no external support programs either. If you're talking about improving methodology, well, I'm fine not having improved them much. – Dehbop Aug 15 '18 at 14:17
"If those programs are no more than many hundreds to thousands LOC, then I doubt what he's solved is a commendable problem." The heck? What kind of software environment do you live in where all your "commendable problems" require 10,000 lines of code to solve?! – Kevin Jan 3 '19 at 21:39
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged united-kingdom software-development apprentice or ask your own question.
Why is it important to gain “visibility” in the workplace?
How do I encourage root cause analysis rather than focusing on short - term solutions?
How to diplomatically resolve an unreproducible bug your manager wants addressed?
How to tell the boss that his “All hands on deck” approach doesn't work?
Senior employee thinking about perspectives/career
Line-manager is denying me training as an apprentice and has started threatening & bullying me
Determining why an employee who is very quiet seems to be unhappy
Younger junior colleague who behaves like the boss
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Home » Domain » Godaddy » GoDaddy Acquires Media Temple With An Eye on Web Developers and Designers
GoDaddy Acquires Media Temple With An Eye on Web Developers and Designers
By:Harsh Agrawal In:Godaddy Last Updated: 15/08/2016 (Leave a Comment)
GoDadday, the domain registry giant has acquired yet another firm, Los Angeles based Media Temple. GoDadday has been on a roll, this being its sixth buyout in the last 15 months. We have earlier reviewed Media temple, and it’s one of the highly recognized webhosting company.
Media Template, a well renowned, privately held, web hosting company began its operations back in 1998 with its target on premium web services. Since its inception, the company has seen tremendous growth and has built a sustainable brand and insurmountable reputation among web professionals. The company has on various occasions been recognized as the fastest growing company in North America in provision of web hosting and cloud services. By acquiring Media Template, GoDaddy intends to reach out to premium online services clientele who primary include web designers and developers.
Russ Reeder, Media Temple president stated the drive to sell the company as the underlying great potential it has and the need to access the global market. GoDaddy is argued to comfortably offer the resources to reach these goals. Co-founder, Demian Sellfors expressed the acquisition as an accomplished long term objective of the enterprise. According to him, the founders are mere entrepreneurs and have remained committed to that vision.
In terms of reputation, Media Template has sustained an unmatched standing compared to GoDaddy’s and as true as it may be; GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving admitted “We can learn a lot from them, whether it’s in infrastructure or customer acquisition. There is a ton of things that we can learn on the developer and marketing sides.” Media Temple is expected to offer GoDaddy the opportunity to sharpen expertise in providing more sophisticated offerings web hosting services, and will go the extra mile to polish its image for future clients. Media Template’s products and services include; different levels of web hosting services API management, SSL services and CDN services. These products are likely to rake in higher margins than most of GoDaddy’s existing basic products.
GoDaddy’s plans for their new acquisition have taken a different approach from the previously acquired firms. Media Template shall be run as a standalone entity unlike the usual culture of integration into GoDaddy’s operations. The CEO Irving during a briefing stated “We can continue and invest in and accelerate its growth without integrating. We think it’s a much smarter move for Media Temple to let them remain as their own business.” The business structure including the human resources shall remain intact with an anticipated huge injection of financial resources into its operations. Blake Irving and Russ Reeder did not reveal the figures on the final total sum for the acquisition. It is however everyone’s guess that Media Temple could not have come cheap, especially being a company of favorable status and has been steadily profitable in over a decade, serves more than 125,000 brands including prestigious clients such as Wall Street Journal, IBM, Toyota, Samsung, Adidas and Starbucks. Moreso, in 2012, the company managed to raise just over $15 million dollars in venture financing.
Check out Media Temple || Check out Godaddy
GoDaddy is on the track to global dominance with its services available across the continents in over 30 different languages. Its acquisition of online services firms in the recent past has only served to enrich available products and services on its ever growing catalogue. Currently, the company serves more than 12 million customers with an employee base of 4,000.
According to me, it’s a good move by Mediatemple, as with Godaddy global presence, they will grow really fast. More over, Godaddy is doing right thing by not changing the internal staff of Media temple.
If you are an existing Media temple customer, I would like to know how you are feeling about Media temple buyout by Godaddy? Was it a good move by Media temple to sale itself?
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WPCampus Seeks to Raise $30K for Gutenberg Accessibility Audit
Sarah Gooding · November 29, 2018 · 10 Comments
WPCampus is seeking funding to conduct an accessibility audit of WordPress’ Gutenberg editor. The non-profit organization is dedicated to helping web professionals, educators, and others who work with WordPress in higher education. Educational institutions often have stricter legal obligations that require software to be WCAG 2.0 level AA compliant and many European institutions set the bar even higher at WCAG 2.1.
WPCampus moved to spearhead an audit after Automattic decided to forego Matt MacPherson’s proposal for Gutenberg to undergo an accessibility audit. Results of the audit will help WPCampus determine any potential legal risk for institutions upgrading to WordPress 5.0 and will also identify specific challenges that Gutenberg introduces for assistive technology users and others with accessibility needs.
“A professional accessibility audit is a large expense for a small nonprofit like WPCampus,” WPCampus director Rachel Cherry said. “Accessibility is important to all of us in the WordPress community. We’re asking for your help to fund the audit and ensure this important research is completed.”
WPCampus is still evaluating proposals from vendors and will announce its selection soon, along with an updated timeline for completing the audit. The organization has set its funding goal at $30,000, an amount that falls in the mid-range of the proposals the selection committee has received. If the campaign raises more than the amount required, WPCampus plans to designate the funds for other accessibility-related efforts, such as future audits and live captioning at conferences.
Two days after launching the campaign, WPCampus has received $3,692 (12%) towards its funding goal. The organization plans to share the results of the audit and any supporting documents on its website.
The comments published on the donations page demonstrate how strongly supporters feel about getting an audit and using that information to make Gutenberg a tool that anyone can use. The topic of accessibility is close to the heart for many donating to the campaign.
“When I was navigating stores with three small children, stores which helped me with automatic doors, wide aisles, and shopping carts for a crowd often made the decision for me as to whether I could shop at all,” WordPress developer Robin Cornett said. “As we create content and build tools for the internet, we should be doing all we can to ensure the best online experience we can for everyone.”
WordPress co-founder Mike Little also donated to the campaign, with comments on how important accessibility is to fulfilling the project’s mission.
“As the platform that democratizes publishing, we can’t allow new features in WordPress to take that away from users with accessibility needs,” Little said.
“Accessibility matters to everyone — injured, encumbered, distracted, disabled, everyone,” WordPress consultant Adrian Roselli said. Accessibility in WordPress matters to my clients because some of their people require it in order to use the tool and therefore stay gainfully employed.”
The audit proposed months ago has evolved to become a community effort funded by passionate supporters working in various capacities throughout the WordPress ecosystem. If WPCampus is successful in funding its campaign, this particular approach has the benefit of making it a more cooperative effort with more people invested in the process than if it were funded by a single company. WPCampus aims to release the audit report to the community by January 17, 2019 but the dates will depend on the arrangement with the vendor.
Tagged accessibility, gutenberg
It is again quite bad thought. I mean they have had years to do that audit. Actually without taking accessibility concerns SERIOUSLY into consideration they simply should not have begin coding the UI at all.
Now as there are only some days until GB lands in core they just want money for that audit?!
That is a complete non-sense as they will get that audit cost free from people living with accessibility problems the next day as GB ships with core.
And by the way any audits are completely useless if they just do not listen and change their mind.
Read the article again. The audit was proposed months ago not just days to Gutenberg’s release, which in itself, judging by sentiments all around, it’s really good for primetime despite reaching RC status. If you follow discussions it seems as if the Gutenberg team powered ahead without really considering all community feedback.
The effort and will has always been there for an audit but it’s like it was given a backseat by the core Gutenberg team.
Andreas Nurbo
This is a community initiative, it is not a initiative from Automattic or the WordPress Foundation. You write a lot about “they” in your reply but who “they” are is not very obvious, you seem to have misread or not even read the post in question.
This really is shameful. Its the most blatant abuse of the community’s goodwill being used to line the pockets of Automattic’s investors. It’s not like there are two different WordPress applications — one for professional use and the other for home use — but even if there were, wouldn’t both need to be equally accessible? No, the only organization which should be paying to test this software is the one who stands to make the most money with it. Shame on you Matt Mullenweg.
Sarah Gooding
It looks like Automattic will be conducting its own audit, separate from this effort. Matt mentioned it in the Gutenberg FAQ post he published yesterday.
In reply to Sarah Gooding
Adrian Roselli
Sarah, do you have a URL for that post? I am struggling to find it
In reply to Adrian Roselli
https://ma.tt/2018/11/a-gutenberg-faq/
Yes, I read that post and I still don’t understand the real reason for Gutenberg, even when it is “explained” by the man himself, other than “It is my deep belief that WordPress must evolve to improve and simplify its own user experience for first-time users.”
So that’s his “deep belief”, but I wonder if asked — which they weren’t, as far as I know — what would users want?
Not Gutenberg, I am sure, but, I would imagine, a front-end WYSIWYG editor, which Gutenberg most certainly is not.
I think Automattic will do the audit themselves seriously. The effort they put on the editor (classic) on wordpress.com is huge and that really improves the writing experience. They have millions of average users on the platform and that will be a disaster if Gutenberg is not an improvement for writing experience.
Excellent. I guess they were shamed into doing so.
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Explore WWI
The Great War Mystery
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Len’s Bookshelf
Index of Book Reviews
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« The Railway Operating Division on the Western Front: The Royal Engineers in France and Belgium 1915-1919
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Selling the Great War: The Making of American Propaganda
By Ezekiel Register | August 13, 2015 - 11:47 pm | August 13, 2015 Books
Selling the Great War: The Making of American Propaganda by Alan Axelrod
Published by St. Martin's Press on March 3rd 2009
Genres: History, United States, 20th Century, Military, World War II, Social History
Len's Summary: Motivated by fears than America’s multi-ethnic population would not support the war effort, President Wilson launched the federal government’s first concerted public information campaign headed by journalist George Creel.
View the book's Goodreads page
Tagged 07-10, 2009. Bookmark the permalink.
Len Shurtleff
Good-bye to All That: Len Shurtleff Goes West
Ambassador Shurtleff, a retired American Foreign Service officer who served as President of The World War One Historical Association and as a past President of The Western Front Association – U S Branch, passed away on January 22, 2014. The searchable version of Len’s Bookshelf was created and will be maintained in his honor.
WW1 Historical Association | Powered by Mantra & WordPress.
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What You Need To Know About Niantic's Harry Potter: Wizards Unite App
Pokemon Go Meets Harry Potter
Video of Harry Potter: Wizards Unite | Launch Trailer
The creators of the popular Pokemon Go app, Niantic, have given fans a new way to delve into the Wizarding World.
First teased in November 2017, the official release day was officially announced at an event by comedian Tiffany Haddish on Tuesday, but the game is early. The app stores started allowing downloads Thursday morning.
Players will become a fledgling wizard in the Statute of Secrecy (SOS) Task Force, exploring the real world to learn spells, discover mysterious artifacts and encounter characters from the J.K. Rowling books in augmented reality (AR). Those who have played the Pokemon Go mobile game will immediately feel at home in the interface and gameplay.
#HarryPotterWizardsUnite is here! Fans of #PokemonGo will feel right at home in this game. pic.twitter.com/19bGW1RjRq
— George Fox (@GeorgeJFox) June 20, 2019
If you're looking for how to turn off the sound effects and music in Wizards Unite -- settings are under the briefcase (bottom center). Also if the camera on the map is unstable i.e. moving back and forth try switching off "Map Camera Idle" under Advanced.
It was widely rumored that a viral video of a strange looking figure captured on home security camera was created to promote the game. The resemblance to the character Dobby the house elf was undeniable.
a lady posted this and said she saw this on her home camera this morning. what y’all think this is ? pic.twitter.com/L98wckn6bO
— jey bee . -- (@jadynbee_) June 7, 2019
Where can you download "Harry Potter: Wizards Unite"? Get the app in the Android and iOS app stores.
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“Amazing on his feet and unflappable. His technical knowledge and ability to put clients at ease in complete confidence is second to none.” “Charles Hale can present the most complicated issues almost effortlessly.”
Arbitrator (CIArb)
LLB (Hons)
Blackstone Scholar
Elected member of the Bar Council of England and Wales 2002 – 2012
Charles was appointed to the rank of Queens Counsel in 2014. He is a family advocate with particular expertise in all aspects of matrimonial finance and Schedule 1 (financial remedies) and private law children work. He is regularly instructed in international family disputes, leave to remove and child abduction cases involving international law, Brussels I and II and international treaties. He has provided advice and Affidavits of Laws in French and Australian divorce cases and international pre-nuptual agreements. In domestic cases, Charles has a reputation for dealing with the most complex matters involving financial disputes as well as intractable and alienated parent cases, vulnerable adult/child cases and also cases arising out of same sex/alternative family disputes.
Awarded the Family Law Junior of the Year in 2012 by Jordans, Ranked in Band 1 for both children and finance by Chambers and Partners and being one of only 5 family Barristers listed in their Top 100 Barristers list, Charles was one of the few recognised leading juniors in both matrimonial finance and children work, a practice he continues now as Leading Counsel.
Charles has recently written 4 of the main chapters in the re-published, 18th ed. Rayden and Jackson on Divorce and Family Matters 2016.
Member of the International Association of Family Lawyers (IAFL)
Family Law Bar Association
Association of Lawyers for Children
South Eastern Circuit
Renowned family silk who specialises in complex matters in both the private children and matrimonial finance spheres. He routinely handles significant cases on behalf of an impressive client base of high-profile individuals including those with alternative family arrangements. His practice includes international child abductions and jurisdiction disputes.
Strengths: “Amazing on his feet and unflappable. His technical knowledge and ability to put clients at ease in complete confidence is second to none.” “Charles Hale can present the most complicated issues almost effortlessly.”
Recent work: Acted in Re C, a Supreme Court appeal on behalf of a legal charity on the issue of repudiatory retention in a 1980 Hague Convention case.
Chambers & Partners 2020 Ranked for Children & Matrimonial Finance
‘Forms strong relationships with clients and immediately puts them at ease.’‘Is recommended for his command of the courtroom, his honeyed advocacy skills and user-friendliness.’
Strengths: “Razor sharp and unflappable, he’s consistently good, and can always be relied upon to rise to the occasion. He is able to deliver advice, even in very difficult circumstances, in a calm, measured and client-focused way.”
Recent work: Acted in an appeal to the Supreme Court regarding the concept of ‘anticipatory breach’ in Hague Convention proceedings.
‘A master of persuasion and charm, the archetypal iron fist in a velvet glove.’ ‘The don. An unparalleled ability to turn the ear of the court in his client’s direction.’
Renowned family silk who specialises in complex matters in both the private children and matrimonial finance spheres. He routinely handles significant cases on behalf of an impressive client base of high-profile individuals including those with alternative family arrangements. He earns praise for his ability to connect with the full spectrum of clients.
Strengths: “An excellent advocate who is able to put across his client’s case in a persuasive and effective manner. He inspires judicial respect, his cross-examination skills are excellent and he always seems unflappable. He is calm with clients, who feel confident with his representation. He has great attention to detail and is always well prepared.”
Recent work: Represented a father in the Court of Appeal whose child had been relocated to another area of England. Hale argued that internal relocations should be treated in the same way as international abductions.
‘He describes the most complicated circumstances in ways that are accessible to clients and judges alike.’ ‘He simplifies complicated information extremely well.’
Renowned family silk who specialises in complex matters in both the private children and matrimonial finance spheres. He routinely handles significant cases on behalf of an impressive client base of high-profile individuals.
Strengths: “A very commanding presence in the courtroom. He’s wonderfully pragmatic, very persuasive and very thorough. He has one of the best client manners going.”
Ranked for Children & Matrimonial Finance
He comes alive when he gets on his feet and leaves clients feeling supported and comfortable.”
“A master tactician with a fine grasp of detail and an excellent manner with clients.”
A barrister with “gravitas,” who brings an authoritative approach to both private children and money cases. People are also quick to emphasise his ability to empathise and engage with clients.
Strengths: “Handles children and money with equal aplomb and efficiency. A powerful advocate, he brims with authority and common sense. Clients adore him for his calmness and unflappability. He is a shrewd negotiator and can be steely when needed. Judges trust his judgement and instinct.”
‘His demeanour inspires confidence in even the most difficult or nervous clients; he is an excellent advocate.’ ‘Very intelligent, hardworking, and responsive; clients love him and he gets results.’
Deals with both very high-value matrimonial finance proceedings and complex children law matters. He is regularly sought out for cases pertaining to cross-border children disputes and for his advice to alternative families.
Expertise: “Charles is the ultimate negotiator. If there is a good deal to get, he will get it.” “When he speaks people are drawn to what he says; he’s a very persuasive and powerful advocate. His bedside manner is great, and he captures the trust of a client instantly.”
Chambers & Partners 2015 – New Silk
Charles Hale QC – ‘A very accomplished advocate and a calm port in stormy seas.’ ‘Meticulous in preparation and a master of cross-examination.’
Charles Hale is a family practitioner who is a master at both matrimonial finance and children related cases. He is regularly instructed by leading London and national solicitors and has handled cases of the utmost complexity and sensitivity such as A, B and C (2012), a matter concerning the relationship of a gay birth father to a child of lesbian mothers. Other recent matters of note include Re T (Children), which raised a very significant point in respect of costs in children proceedings involving local authorities. “A very smooth operator with clients, he shows an empathy and understanding of their emotional issues which is second to none. Clients are made to feel that he is really part of the fight.”
Chambers 100 List UK Bar
The Chambers Bar 100 ranks the top barristers practising at the Bar of England and Wales.
Elicits much acclaim for his work on both the matrimonial finance and children law sides, and is routinely sought out for his strengths on high-value divorce cases and large-scale cross-jurisdictional children disputes.
Expertise:”His delivery is well judged and he is very easy to work with. He inspires a lot of confidence.”
Recent work: Hale acted on behalf of the Grandparents Association in a widely publicised Supreme Court appeal regarding the liability of a local authority to pay the costs of a party to care proceedings.
Chambers & Partners, 2014
Band 1 for both Children and Matrimonial Finance
The ‘very personable’ Charles Hale is ‘one of the very few senior juniors around who can tackle both financial remedy and children cases with equal facility’. ‘He is meticulous in preparation and a master of cross-examination.’
Charles Hale climbs the rankings for both children law and matrimonial finance matters, and receives strong plaudits for his work pertaining to international children disputes and high net worth divorces. Sources reveal that he “never takes a bad point,” while adding that he is a “smart advocate” who is “good at finding solutions to intractable problems.”
The ‘impressive’ Charles Hale, who is ‘a number-one choice for complicated children cases as well as financial issues’.
Charles Hale “is very good at both money and children cases,” and is thus a popular choice amongst solicitors for cases that contain both elements. He has a “very conciliatory approach and is extremely popular with clients,” say sources.
Charles Hale is an ‘exceptional performer’ who is ‘outstanding at both children and money work’. Charles Hale is ‘a formidable advocate, particularly in cross-examination ’.
Kelly v Pyres (2018)
In the matter of C (Children) (2018)
J v U; U v J (No.2) (Domicile) (2017)
Re R (Final) (2016)
Johnson v Takieddine & Anor
Re B (Children) 2015
[2016] 3 WLR 1 : [2016] 2 FCR 576 : [2015] EWCA Civ 1305 :[2016] Fam Law 284 : [2016] Fam 253
Re C (Internal Relocation) (2015)
Ramadani v Ramadani [2015]
B v B [2015]
SB v MB (Costs) [2014]
2014 EWHC 4210
AA V BB 2014
MB v GK [2014]
A v B and C [2012]
[2010] 1 FLR 1229 : [2010] Fam Law 328 : [2009] EWHC 3074 (Fam)
Re R (A Child) sub nom DE L v H (2009)
De L v H [2009]
D v S sub nom Re E (A Minor) (DOB 19 May 2000) : S v D (2008)
Hammerton v Hammerton (2007)
[2006] 1 FLR 601
Re G (Interim Care Order: Residential Assessment)
B County Council v L & Ors (2002)
Michael Andrew Gayle v Julie Nwamara Gayle (2001)
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New Samsung Galaxy S7 video “leaked early”
HomeNew Samsung Galaxy S7 video “leaked early”
People are saying this could be a video of the next Galaxy S7.
Technology news website techradar.com says the video was uploaded an unlisted YouTube link on the Samsung Indonesia channel.
There’s no mention of what the phone actually is in the video, but techradar thinks it is the Galaxy S7 Edge with a 5.5 inch display with waterproofing and wireless charging features showcased – and that the video has accidentally surfaced before the launch date.
MicroSD memory card slot set for a return?
Samsung will reportedly unveil the Galaxy S7 at a press event in Barcelona on 21 February 2016 ahead of going on sale on 11 March. The curved screen version of the phone, the S7 Edge, is also expected to be unwrapped at the same time.
Samsung Galaxy S7 specifications
The micro SD card slot is predicted to return, supporting memory cards up to 200GB to complement the 32GB and 64GB of internal storage.
NEED A MEMORY CARD FOR YOUR SMARTPHONE – CLICK HERE FOR LOW PRICES AT 7DAYSHOP.COM
The latest models could look very similar to the S6 and S7 phones. But the devices could have pressure-sensitive screens and waterproofing. Longer battery life could also be in the offing, with 3000mAh and 3600mAh capacities for the S7 and S7 respectively.
And there could be fast charging, with a full charge in under 30 minutes thanks to a high speed charging port.
The South Korean smartphone maker could also launch Samsung Pay, which is the equivalent of Apple Pay, in Europe with the launch of its latest devices.
Here’s what one industry specialist / serial leaker tweeted:
https://t.co/JT6X0g8sBu pic.twitter.com/J78eezrU5o
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) January 29, 2016
Samsung has teased the launch event via a YouTube video, titled Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2016 – #TheNextGalaxy, with what appears to be a VR (virtual reality) headset.
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New iPhone 7 headphone jack ‘to be ditched’
Galaxy S7Galaxy S7 EdgemicroSD card slotSamsungtech newstechnology
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Maintenance and Safety
Car Trends and Lifestyle
What to Know About Leasing a Car
How you can save money, get the latest tech and enjoy other perks over ownership
by James R. Healey, AARP, September 11, 2018 | Comments: 0
DjelicS / Getty Images
En español | A lease gives you the responsibilities of owning a car — insurance, registration fees, inspections, legal liability — but you aren't the owner. The bank or leasing company is. That arrangement doesn't appeal to everyone, but there are definitely benefits to leasing over buying a new car. For one, a lease usually offers lower monthly payments. Plus, particularly of note to older drivers, you get new technology and safety features every few years. And a lease typically is 36 months or 36,000 miles, so it matches the warranty of most cars, sparing you unexpected fix-it costs.
Even better: If it’s your first lease, you probably have a used car to trade in as part of the deal, which will cut your payments. (Just keep in mind that you won’t have that advantage when it’s time to lease again.)
In fact, the lure of leasing’s lower payments is strong enough that nearly one third — 31.3 percent — of new car transactions were leases in the first half of 2018, up from 25.7 percent during the first half of 2013, the auto-research and -shopping site Edmunds.com tells us.
Here’s a simplified example of why leasing can be so attractive, using data from carpaymentcalculator.net.
You find a 2018 Honda CR-V, one of the best-selling SUVs in the U.S., for $33,500 ($35,000 out the door with taxes and other fees). You have a trade-in worth $10,000, and you find a deal that requires no immediate payment when you sign the lease. A three-year loan at 5 percent, about average right now, according to Bankrate.com, makes your monthly payment a hefty $749. A three-year lease cuts the monthly hit to $287.
Get a newer and safer vehicle while saving with the AARP Auto Buying Program
Wow. You’d need an eight-year loan to get a loan payment close to the lease’s. Yes, you’d keep the car after the loan was paid, but how long would you want to?
Here's what to consider.
Pick the right car. You're paying for depreciation in a lease, so choosing a car that holds its value lowers your lease payment. But that limits choices: How about a Toyota, or a Toyota, or a Toyota? The brand’s Tacoma midsize pickup, Tundra full-size pickup, and 4Runner SUV hold the top three slots in Kelley Blue Book’s 2018 awards for best resale value. They're worth roughly 65 to 70 percent of their new value after three years.
The data is broken into segments, so at least you can find the top dogs within, say, the sedan or minivan or SUV categories. (We used kbb.com’s depreciation forecasts in the CR-V example above.) The Jeep Wrangler and five pickups trail the three top Toyotas. The first actual car is a Subaru WRX, a high-performance sedan, at No. 10.
“Vehicles that are popular and have good resale value — SUVs, Toyotas,” are best from a financial standpoint, says Ronald Montoya, senior consumer advice editor at Edmunds.com.
Westend61 / Getty Images
Understand the deal. Leases “have a lot of variables,” Montoya says, perhaps understating the case.
First, the price is negotiable — though, as when buying a car, expect resistance from dealers. You can see what similar new models sell for in your area by using Truecar.com, kbb.com, Edmunds.com. You also can get a purchase quote from the dealership’s internet department before you go to the showroom. It's hard for the salesperson to quibble with that.
The agreed-upon price, plus fees (sales tax and the seemingly inescapable dealer documentation or transaction fee, for instance), minus the car’s projected worth at the end of the lease, becomes the basic amount you repay. That’s the capitalized cost, or “cap cost” in lease-speak.
Manufacturers often offer lease deals that trim the price. Some involve artificially inflating the expected resale, or residual, value of the car at lease-end. That’s good now, because it lowers payments, but bad later if you want to buy the car when the lease ends, because you’d pay the inflated residual price.
Understand the “money factor." The money factor, which is the equivalent of interest, is not always stated. If it's not, ask. It’s supposed to be expressed as a small decimal, such as 0.002. You multiply that by 2,400 to get the equivalent interest rate — 4.8 percent in our example. It shouldn't be higher than interest on a new-car loan. And that 2,400 figure is always part of the calculation; it's not related to the length of the lease, says LeaseGuide.com.
Sometimes the money factor is misstated so that it seems like a cheap interest rate, perhaps as 2.0 in our example above. Adjust the 2,400 accordingly (to 2.4 in the example above) and you'll still get 4.8 percent.
Other dealers might be working with lenders offering better money factors, or other vehicles might have lower money factors. Shop around.
Consider the length of the lease and annual mileage. Is the lease the right length for you, and does it include enough miles? Maybe you drive about 10,000 miles a year, but loved ones just moved away and now you’ll roll up twice that with your visits, triggering a mileage penalty on your 12,000-mile annual limit. Or perhaps it’s the opposite — you're not big on long road trips — and you can opt for a low-mileage lease, or even one of the two-year leases available on some models. Those have mileage caps of 15,000 to 24,000 for the two-year term.
You can put some money down for lower monthly payments. The “$0 due at signing” ads might have lured you to leasing, but you can kick in some cash to lower your payments. That’s called a “capitalized cost reduction fee.” Just don’t overdo it. “You want to have as low a down payment as possible because you’re not going to get it back,” Montoya cautions.
Consider gap insurance. You drive off the lot and a drunk slams into you at the first stoplight. Thank goodness you’re unhurt, but your car’s pretty bent.
To you, it’s still a new car, albeit smashed. But once the dealer sold it, it became a used car and it depreciated. You’re in a pickle if you don’t have gap insurance. It pays the difference between what your normal auto insurance covers and the balance of the lease or loan, so you're not stuck without a car and a big payment balance.
“In some cases (gap insurance) will be included,” says Montoya. “It’s not that expensive relative to the price of the car. If you didn’t put down a significant down payment, it’ll cover [the gap between] what the vehicle’s worth and what you owe.”
Ask if the lease contract includes this specialty gap insurance coverage. Bankrate.com suggests: “If it doesn’t, consider looking for a car with a lease plan that does.”
And there are specialty coverages that might sound like gimmicks but can be valuable, Montoya says. Because you must return the leased car in good shape, he explains, “Sometimes people want coverage for ‘curb rash.’” It pays for repairs if you scrape the wheels against the curb when you park, for example, so you don't get dinged for it at the end of the lease.
5 things to make your new car last
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Pensions Regulator's statement on managing service providers
Insights & briefings
Trustees' management of service providers: Do you meet the Pensions Regulator's expectations?
The Pensions Regulator has recently published a statement setting out its expectations of trustees with regard to managing their service providers, particularly for services such as scheme administration where a service provider's failure could have major consequences for the scheme. The statement follows recent high profile concerns about companies providing outsourcing services, including pensions administration services. Regulator statements do not have the force of law, but do indicate the standards the Regulator will expect when considering whether trustees have complied with their broader legal duties.
Trustees are legally responsible for the running of their scheme even though services such as administration may have been delegated to someone else. Sponsoring employers, as ultimate funders of their schemes, also have an interest in the risk of claims against the scheme arising from an administrator's failure.
Key points for managing commercial relationships
Some of the Regulator's key expectations are that trustees should:
review the suitability of service providers before appointing them, considering multiple providers;
be confident that service providers are operating in accordance with their legal obligations, use service level agreements and regularly monitor the performance of providers;
take steps to address areas of poor performance;
have procedures in place, and a clearly documented procedures manual, to enable a continuous service in the event of a change of provider, or provider failure.
Trustees should understand the contract terms
The Regulator expects trustees to be familiar with, and understand the effects of, the terms and conditions of contracts with service providers, including:
the scope of services;
the cost;
the arrangements and procedures if the service provider is changed; and
any limits on liability.
One of the practical things that trustees can do to plan for and mitigate the risk of service provider failure is to pay attention to the contractual provisions that deal with what happens in this scenario. Trustees should consider whether the provisions around notice periods to terminate are sensible, what happens on a termination, whether the provisions should be modified in the event of a "distressed" termination and what the contract says about handover of relevant data and information for any replacement provider.
Risk management and business continuity planning
The Regulator expects trustees to have a business continuity plan (BCP) in place which sets out what actions should be taken if certain events occur that would affect the running of the scheme. The Regulator expects the failure of a third party provider to be covered in the BCP.
The Regulator also expects trustees to understand their service providers' business continuity arrangements and be confident that they "ease any risks" to member data and benefits. The Regulator suggests trustees may wish to understand who is liable if processes are interrupted by a BCP event or the BCP fails in practice.
The Regulator expects trustees to work with their service providers to address any areas of concern, and to be aware of risks before making a decision to terminate a contract.
The Regulator's statement contains action points both for ongoing relationships with service providers and the appointment of new service providers. Service level provisions need to be drafted in meaningful terms so that trustees have legal recourse against an administrator whose service levels are not up to scratch. Termination provisions are also key. Firstly, it's important that trustees have a clear right to terminate when they need it. Secondly, it's important to have robust provisions dealing with an outgoing administrator's obligation to cooperate with the handover to the new administrator. If an administrator has just been sacked, achieving an orderly handover to its competitor is not necessarily going to be its top priority. Liability caps are also key, as liability caps in standard form contracts can be very low relative to the value of benefits being administered.
Standard T&Cs produced by an administrator are inevitably going to be weighted in the administrator's favour, but trustees should recognise their own bargaining power and negotiate accordingly.
Where there is an ongoing administrator relationship in place, the Regulator's statement is clear that trustees are expected to plan ahead for possible problems, not simply react to problems when they occur. If trustees are currently in the process of reviewing provider contracts from a data protection perspective to ensure they meet the requirements of the GDPR, it may be cost efficient to broaden the scope of the review to also cover the points in the Regulator's statement. Trustees should ensure that an explanation by the scheme administrator of its business continuity plan is put on the agenda for discussion at a trustee meeting.
Scheme administrator failure should already feature on a scheme's risk register as a material risk. Trustees should consider what their risk register currently says on this point and how that compares with the expectations set out in the Regulator's statement.
As a practical point, trustees should make sure that they can quickly access their contracts with all service providers, not just administrators but also actuaries, lawyers, investment advisers, auditors etc. Our recent experience is that our clients increasingly look to us not just for legal advice on specific issues, but also for services that enable them to gain easy access to their documents electronically and to identify key terms quickly.
Rachel Rawnsley
Partner, Head of Pensions
Jade Murray
Partner, Pensions
Email Jade
Catherine McAllister
Email Catherine
Rachel Uttley
Five key pensions issues in 2020: how will they affect you?
Trustee Quarterly Update - December 2019
Safeway v Newton: European Court judgment re closure of "Barber window"
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Join ADLIB
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Search live jobs
Cyber Security Incident Response
— flexible working hours
Apply Shortlist Ask a question
Exciting time to be joining a company who are currently going through a big digital transformation
Great benefits package, flexible working hours, 12% pension, annual bonus
Commitment to develop your skills within security
A financial services company is looking for a Cyber Security Incident Responder to join their team in Cardiff. They are a global business and they are currently going through a big digital transformation. They are a business that value their employee’s well-being and ensure that they provide a great work life balance. You will be supporting the cyber security operations and incident response for all aspects within the security team and ensuring the procedures, threats and issues and effectively managed.
What skills you’ll need
Experience with security operations that protect data, infrastructure and applications
Advanced knowledge of Cyber Security intelligence, threat hunting and malware analysis
Solid incident response skills
Experience in countering threat actors
Vulnerability tools (Splunk/ Alert Logic/ Nessus/ Alien Vault etc)
Technical knowledge of operating systems and networks
Shell scripting and programming knowledge
What you’ll be doing
You will collaborate with the internal and external stakeholders to deliver cyber security intelligence and incident response. You will help implement attack frameworks such as OWASP or MITRE ATT&CK. You will provide technical expertise on supported tools and services to the business and IT teams and work closely with the vendors to enhance security for products and deliver greater value for the business. In order to help the business, react quicker and make better informed decisions you will deliver value added awareness, notification, communication and response. You will provide hands on supports of technical cyber security issues and improve maintenance and tracking of logs and alerts for audits.
What you’ll get in return for your experience
On offer is a salary up to £58,000, you will also receive 12% pension, annual bonus, 27.5 days holiday, life cover 10 x salary, salary sacrifice scheme (private dental, health insurance, retail vouchers, cycle to work scheme), on-site gym and a discounted staff restaurant.
Sound great? Send in your CV now for more info to Paige or call 01179 269 530.
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— excellent benefits
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SOC Manager
— strong culture
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3rd Jan
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— extensive training package
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1st Feb
— commitment to your career development
Exciting time to be joining a company who are currently going through a big digital transformation Great benefits package, flexible working hours, 12% pension, annual bonus Influence over the emerging technologies that will be implemented A financial services company is looking for a Security Architect to join their team in Cardiff. They are a global business and they are currently going through a big digital transformation. They are a business that value their employee’s well-being and ensure that they provide a great work life balance. Within this role there is a key focus on identity management, authentication and authorisation. This opportunity is ideal for someone who is looking for a challenge, that is hands-on and who can bring gravitas to the role. What skills you’ll need Solid background in Security Ideally Oracle IDM experience or something similar Ability to research and suggest emerging tech that can be implemented Experience with ISO27001 Ability to communicate at all levels What you’ll be doing You will be the Security Architecture go to for the company’s largest transformation programme to date. You will define security solutions that coincide with the strategic security architecture. You will redevelop the Access Control measures for the businesses systems. You will cooperate with third parties on security related design. Creating awareness across the wider business for security best practice. You will keep up to date with advances in security, technology and what implications this may have for the business and cyber security in general. You will communicate with technical and non-technical parts of the business and provide practical advice on best practices and policies. What you’ll get in return for your experience On offer is a salary up to £78,000, you will also receive 12% pension, annual bonus, 27.5 days holiday, life cover 10 x salary, salary sacrifice scheme (private dental, health insurance, retail vouchers, cycle to work scheme), on-site gym and a discounted staff restaurant. What's next? Sound great? Send in your CV now for more info to Paige or call 0117 926 9530.
— Agile // Progressive Tech Environment // Sitecore Specialists
Best Digital Product Business in South Wales. Huge investment in training and development. Exposure the latest methodologies, awesome projects and fun team. A talented Back-End .Net Developer is needed to join one of the biggest and best Digital Product business' in South Wales at their amazing studio in Cardiff. They have multiple offices across major cities within the UK and are continuing their growth at a fast pace. This is an exciting opportunity for someone that wants to either continue using or learn Sitecore in an extremely driven, friendly and fun environment. What skills you'll need Expert understanding of the .Net Framework (MVC, .Net Core, API’s). Commercial awareness of Continuous Integration methodologies and toolsets (Azure DevOps and build & release pipelines). Proven exposure to service orientated architectures. Working knowledge of Visual Studio IDE. Experience of component based solution development. Understanding of Sitecore or desire to learn/use daily. They work within an Agile scrum set-up so any experience or understanding of this would be desirable. What you'll be doing Your primary responsibility will be working with the team to deliver end-to-end web based solutions, developing well-renowned, big brand websites, taking a lead on key projects when required and developing new features throughout. Part of the role will also involve investigating customers problems, working with other team members to solve technical issues and to produce realistic time estimates. You’ll be working in a collaborative team so when necessary, its all about helping any other colleagues when they need it (of course this help goes both ways!). You’ll be supporting existing customer websites and making sure set processes and standards are being kept to throughout. What you'll get in return for your talents With a salary of up to £45K DOE, this is a great opportunity to join an award-winning company that provides fantastic training, development and working culture for their staff with a large amount of funding in place for training and CPD. Part of this is attending tech meetups and conferences where possible but they'll also support wherever else they can for you to build your technical knowledge and abilities. All developers are able to work directly with customers, providing a sense of real professional responsibility. With smart offices and a fun environment along with the usual Friday drinks, Games, team events/socials, hackathons, football/sports teams and more. What's next? If you're ready to join a truly amazing company and push your career forward, then please send your CV to Tareek now (01179269530).
£30K-£45K
5th Dec
IAM Security Engineer
— digital transformation
Exciting time to be joining a company who are currently going through a big digital transformation Great benefits package 12% pension, bonus, healthcare insurance Good career progression opportunities A financial services company is looking for an IAM Security Engineer to join their security team in Cardiff. They are an international business who turned over 1.12 billion last year and they are currently going through a big digital transformation. They operate a family feel culture and this is reflected in their high retention rate. This is a great opportunity for someone who is technical and looking for a hands-on role to really make your mark within the business. What skills you’ll need Solid background in Cyber Security and IAM experience Experience of Identity and Access Management suites Technical skills - Linux, Windows, Android, Azure, IAM technologies Ideally you will have relevant certifications such as CISSP, CIAM, CIST, CIMP What you’ll be doing The focus of your role is being an expert of Identity and Access Management Services for applications, systems, data and cloud platforms. You will be working closely with a number of technical teams ensuring that the IAM services meets both today’s requirements and that it is in line with the business’s current transformation programme. Acting as the SME for all things relating IAM. You will implement ABAC solutions that have been defined and documented. Carry out initial security testing of systems during the software development lifecycle. Work closely with vendors to ensure standards are met for internal and external identity access over network channels. What you’ll get in return for your experience On offer is a salary up to £78,000, you will also receive 12% pension, annual bonus, 27.5 days holiday, life cover 10 x salary, salary sacrifice scheme (private dental, health insurance, retail vouchers, cycle to work scheme), on-site gym and a discounted staff restaurant. What's next? Sound great? Send in your CV now for more info to Paige or call 01179 269 530.
1st Dec
Application Security Engineer
Exciting time to be joining a company who are currently going through a big digital transformation Great benefits package flexible working hours, 12% pension, bonus Commitment to develop your skills within security An opportunity is available for an Application Security Engineer to join a financial services company in Cardiff who are currently going through a huge digital transformation. Your role will be to analyse applications from a security perspective and work closely with the development teams to help resolve any identified security issues. This is a great opportunity for someone who has recently graduated from University or is working in a junior security role and is passionate about cyber security. What skills you’ll need Degree in a Cyber Security, Computer Science or related subject Deep interest in cyber security Use of Hack the Box, Bug Bounty, Github etc What you’ll be doing You will work closely with the Head of Security to develop yourself into a role as an Application Security Engineer. You will help improve the security of the software development life cycle along with its tools and processes. Help implement and support new application security technologies to meet business requirements in line with latest industry trends and best practices. What you’ll get in return for your experience On offer is a salary £30,000- £40,000, you will also receive 12% pension, annual bonus, 27.5 days holiday, life cover 10 x salary, salary sacrifice scheme (private dental, health insurance, retail vouchers, cycle to work scheme), on-site gym and a discounted staff restaurant. What's next? Sound great? Send in your CV now for more info to Paige or call 01179 269 530.
Working in an open and accessible team Flexible working hours Great career progression An award-winning financial services company is looking for a Security Consultant to join their growing team in Cardiff. You will be providing security expertise that will support the business in understanding their security risk exposure and supporting a developed understanding of the security risks at hand. Your work will enable the business to effectively prioritise the necessary activities and provide adequate investment for their security functions. This is a business that prides themselves on their people centric culture and their ability to provide a healthy work/life balance. What skills you’ll need Strong security consulting background. Ability to explain complex, technical information to a variety of audiences. Experience performing risk assessments Ideally you will have experience with cloud technologies (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform) Certifications such as CISSP, CISM etc would be desirable but not essential What you’ll be doing You will be responsible for reviewing Information Security risks and putting the appropriate controls in place to help mitigate these risks. You will support the delivery of security projects and provide mentoring and support on information security topics. You will look into emerging trends through reporting and collating your findings. Provide security advice for new products or areas of business expansion. You will be tasked with dealing with any internal information security queries that come through and facilitate regular security risk reviews. Part of your role will also be to develop and maintain stakeholder relationships across the group. What you’ll get in return for your experience On offer is a salary between £50,000-£70,000, you will also receive a generous benefits package which includes share scheme, pension 6% matched contribution, life assurance, travel season ticket loans, gym membership, free parking, cycle to work scheme, parental perks and more. As well as this, they are committed to your professional development and can offer an in depth training and development plan. What's next? Sound great? Send in your CV now for more info to Paige or call 01179 269 530.
£50-£70K
Power Electronics Engineer
— Innovative consultancy - making waves
Colloborative team, focused on delivery of innovative technologies. Work alongside household names, gaining exposure to key players in the semiconductors market. Competitive salary, alongside generous benefits package. Based in the heart of Cardiff, our client are seeking Power Electronics Engineers to join their existing team. Operating as a colloborative group, you will join a talented team of electronics engineers - working to deliver solutions to over 100 businesses. With a number of contracts due to start - we are urgently seeking engineers looking to make their next move. What experience you will need: Degree within Power Electronics, or relevant industry experience. Power Electronics design experience. Strong background and knowledge of power electronics, analogue and digital circuits and development. Familiarity with SiC/GaN power switching technologies. Analytical and problem-solving skills. Skilled in EDA/PCB Design/Embedded programming. Experience with automotive power electronics design is advantageous - alongside familiarity with engineering lifecycle management. What you’ll be doing: You will take part in the design, modelling, simulation, and test of power electronic systems. You will design PCBs to optimize electromagnetic and thermal performance - alongside supporting the activities of your wider team. You will evaluate circuit topologies - including technical reporting to your team and wider group. What you’ll get in return for your talents: A comprehensive benefits package, including a generous pension scheme (5% contribution from you, 10% from the client). This client also supports flexi-working alongside exposure to some of the most innovative tech to date. Working with over 100 businesses, your work will be varied, challenging, and stimulating. What’s next? For more information or to apply, apply direct to this advert. We are looking to commence interviews this week - so don’t hesitate to get in touch.
— JS/React/ES6, Top Cardiff Digital Specialist
Best Digital Product Business in South Wales. Huge investment in training and development. Learn latest JS frameworks, awesome projects and fun team. A talented Front-End Developer is needed to join one of the biggest and best Digital Product business' in South Wales at their amazing studio in Cardiff. They have multiple offices across major cities within the UK and are continuing their growth at a fast pace. This is an exciting opportunity to join a team that is extremely driven whilst remaining friendly and fun. What skills you'll need Excellent HTML5 and CSS3 skills. Solid SASS skills or at least a very strong understanding of pre-processors. Knowledge of JavaScript such as ES6, React.js, Object-Orientated and Functional programming. Gulp/Webpack or similar experience. CMS experience. Git version control experience. They work within an Agile scrum set-up so any experience or understanding of this would be desirable. What you'll be doing Your primary responsibility will be working with the team to deliver end-to-end web-based solutions, developing well-renowned, big brand websites, taking a lead on key projects when required and developing new features throughout. It'll involve a healthy mix of Greenfield, improvement and maintenance projects which will require you to be extremely detail driven and care about interaction and design. Part of the role will involve investigating customers' problems, working with other team members across front-end, back-end, product owners, project managers etc to solve any technical issues and providing solutions. It's all about helping any other colleagues when they need it (of course this help goes both ways!). You'll also have the opportunity to use emerging tech and learn along the way. What you'll get in return for your talents This is a great opportunity to join an award-winning company that provides fantastic training, development and working culture for their staff with a large amount of funding in place for training and CPD. Part of this is attending tech meetups and conferences where possible but they'll also support wherever else they can for you to build your technical knowledge and abilities. All developers are able to work directly with customers, providing a sense of real professional responsibility. With smart offices and a fun environment, you'll get a competitive salary (£30K-45K) along with the usual Friday drinks, Xbox, team events/socials, hackathons, football/sports teams and more. What's next? If you're ready to join a truly amazing company and push your career forward then please send your CV to Tareek asap (01179 269 530).
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Adobe Robohelp (2019 Release)
HTML5 Publishing
Don’t just take our word for it, let our users speak for us.
"Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) is a positive game changer for technical authors. It's a complete code rewrite under the hood and has a clean, minimalist look and feel that is easy to learn. There are no messy ribbons and pods and extra dialogues interrupting your train of thought. Upgrading my projects from earlier versions of RoboHelp was quick and easy. The HTML5 and CSS3 compliant code gives RoboHelp authors confidence that the software will easily accommodate the constant technology changes we all experience.”
—John Daigle, Adobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate Instructor, Evergreen Online Learning, LLC
“The 2019 release of Adobe RoboHelp is RoboHelp ‘reimagined’ and has been built on the latest technology, enabling a faster content development cycle. On a large scale, authors will be blown away by the increase in speed and real time CSS and skin editors. On a more granular level, writers will enjoy the enhanced flexibility in creating tables, multi-level lists, autocorrect editing and other enhancements. Adobe has taken RoboHelp to a whole new level in help authoring.”
—Beth Gerber, President, Lightext, Inc.
“I'm impressed with the new RoboHelp (2019 release). It's a completely new product that makes me excited to dive in and start using it. From the increased speed to real-time CSS editor and GIT and SharePoint Online integration, the new RoboHelp makes it a pleasure to design user assistance for my software clients.”
—Toni Byrd-Ressaire, Info4Design
“I love how the 2019 release of Adobe RoboHelp makes it easy to work with dropdowns. You can author and maintain it much more easily now. The SharePoint Online integration with Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) makes it easy to publish my content while leveraging SharePoint’s powerful authorisation mechanism. SVG support is one of my longtime favourite features of Adobe RoboHelp because there is no need to have differently scaled images as graphics scale perfectly on any device.”
—Willam van Weelden, Owner, WvanWeelden Consultancy
“The new skin editor in Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) addresses a lot of my requirements for international clients. In can just pick a skin for my content from the WebHelp gallery and customise for Help, HTML5 and other outputs in seconds.”
—Rajdeep Gupta, Managing Director & Principal Trainer, Blue Dots Consultancy Services
“Content is now stored and managed in XHTML with support for HTML5 elements. CSS styles can be applied through point and click, which is quick and accurate. The separation of the output generation from the editing makes sense and you can continue working while building an output.”
—Tony Self, Director, HyperWrite
“If you aren’t a CSS coder, the visual CSS editor in Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) makes it much easier to change your styles and view those changes in real time. If you edit and/or create skins regularly, you’ll not only get a modern interface with Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release), but also more tools to make your help projects look better than ever.”
—Eric Butow, Owner, Butow Communications Group
“One of my favourite improvements in Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) is in generating output. It generates faster than ever and while you work. No more waiting. The output is also sleek with fewer output files to manage making website refreshes and access times faster and more responsive. A big win for both authors and users.”
—Shelley Bates, Production Strategist, Tanner Corporate Services
“Adobe continues to delight in its ongoing support and development of RoboHelp. In RoboHelp 2019, Adobe has rebuilt it from the ground up, taking advantage of the latest in computing technology. It has a new, easier-to-use interface, creating a much better user experience, to making it a faster online development solution. I was really pleased at the degree of simplicity around importing Word documents. Without having to make any changes, it easily imported my document beautifully. Adobe has also included a new, more versatile skin editor, much better support for dynamic content filters and they’ve added better support for GIT and SharePoint. This is a long-awaited and greatly anticipated revamp of a popular workhorse for creating online help (responsive HTML 5 and web help), eBook, printed documents and mobile output.“
—Lin Laurie, Owner, Lin Laurie & Associates
“The 2019 release of Adobe RoboHelp is a game-changer. It offers a clean, modern interface and is nimble, faster and easier to use.”
—Robert Desprez, Contract Technical Writer and Owner, Robert Desprez Communications, Inc.
"Our clients will be happy that Search is easier and faster for their employees. I am happy that the Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) programming team responded to my team's requirements as they built and tested the new features. RoboHelp (2019 release) enables us to provide better service to our clients."
—Beth Tanner, President, Tanner Corporate Services
“The lightweight file structure in Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release) is very transparent. What you see in the Contents panel is exactly what you’ll see at the file explorer level. There are no virtual folders or guesswork as to where to find and manage project assets like topics, style sheets, graphics and videos.”
Adobe Tech Comm support programmes ›
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