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HomeScience doesn’t work that way
Science doesn’t work that way
Kimmel to Palin: “You Just Got Served!” ($&@#, Do People Still Say That? Am I Just Showing My Age Again?)
May 4, 2016 May 4, 2016 fosterdisbelief "Facts" that aren't facts, News of the Weird, Religious Liars, Science, Science doesn't work that way, Skepticism, Snark, Wingnuttery Batshit insanity, cognitive dissonance, current-events, false premise, fundamental misunderstanding, global climate change, government, human-rights, intellectual dishonesty, Jumped Sharks, logical fallacy, Lying liars who lie, politics, Science, skepticism, Weird, wingnuts
So if you’ve been able to peel your eyes away from the trainwreck currently taking place in the GOP presidential primary, then you are probably aware that climate science deniers have a new “movie” out, promoted by esteemed scientist Sarah Palin as well as Weather Channel founder John Coleman. Climate Hustle is the latest attempt by the deniers to trick the general public into believing man made climate change is some vast, underpants gnome-like conspiracy the left is using to fuck over white working class Christians, rather than an actual problem that we’ve already ignored for far too long that 97%* of scientists working in related fields agree is definitely taking place.
Look guys, I get it. Climate change is scary. It is a serious problem and we’re at the point now that any effective effort to fix it is going to be painful, especially to our wealthy western way of life. I’m not immune. I love steak. Fucking love it. I run an air conditioner constantly in order to make my attic room livable rather than just moving everything downstairs into a spare room each summer. I take long, meaningless drives so my Chow can hang her head out the window and have her excitement. Sure, I’ve taken steps to have a smaller carbon footprint, but the vast majority of changes I made were relatively pain free. Ignorance is bliss; it means I can run my AC unit as much as I want and eat that 16 oz ribeye guilt free. But it is happening. Fast. It is the climate changing, not necessarily the current weather, so just cause we get some snow doesn’t negate the fact that we keep setting records for hottest year, practically every year. I don’t want to give climate change credit for things it didn’t cause, and I know we had an el nino this year, but damn, if you live in Pennsylvania tell me this wasn’t the strangest fall/winter/spring you have ever lived through. Globally, the temperatures are rising, the ice is melting, and the oceans are rising. And this is all shit that a layperson can figure out without an advanced degree in the relevant science. What kind of a world are we leaving for the future generations? Are we really that selfish, that deniers with conflicts of interest that make Andrew Wakefield blush can cause so many of us to doubt 97%* of climate scientists?
But, but, but….the founder of the Weather Channel!!!! What about him, hmmm? Checkmate, atheist liberal progressive person who accepts scientific consensus. Wow, the founder of the Weather Channel? That’s incredibly….meaningless. Is John Coleman a climate scientist? Is he publishing current research that challenges the results the rest of climate science keeps coming up with?
Both Fox News and CNN have recently invited John Coleman, one of the founders of The Weather Channel and former TV meteorologist, to express his views about climate change to their national audiences. Coleman is simply an awful choice to discuss this issue. He lacks credentials, many of his statements about climate change completely lack substance or mislead, and I’m not even sure he knows what he actually believes.
To begin, Coleman hasn’t published a single peer-reviewed paper pertaining to climate change science. His career, a successful and distinguished one, was in TV weather for over half a century, prior to his retirement in San Diego last April. He’s worked in the top markets: Chicago and New York, including a 7-year stint on Good Morning America when it launched. If you watch Coleman on-camera, his skill is obvious. He speaks with authority, injects an irreverent sense of humor and knows how to connect with his viewer.
But a climate scientist, he is not.
“Many people don’t accept my position that there is no significant man-made global warming because I am simply a Television Meteorologist without a Ph.D.,” he admitted in a blog post. “I understand that.”
I urge you all to go and read that whole article, it makes the point perfectly why it is one thing for a non-scientist to examine the data and agree that climate change is man made and happening, yet a completely different animal for them to look at the issue and declare that practically every climate scientist in the world is wrong or lying. But the main point I’m concerned with is the meaninglessness of John Coleman’s scientific opinion on any subject.
Palin is actually worse. No matter the subject, there is only one person I trust less than Sarah Palin in the United States and that person lived in Sarah’s womb for 9 months. Yet sadly, for some reason probably related to why Donald Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee for President, some people out there continue to not only care what she has to say, but actually consider her opinion when forming their own. And when faced with Sarah Palin’s endorsement of this oil company propaganda film, today’s best course of action is to turn it over to Jimmy Kimmel**.
Boom, mic drop. (There, that’s more current, right?)
** Yes, those were 13 words I never thought I would write in that order.
*Okay, time to make the climate deniers change their pants. Saying that 97% of climate scientists agree that man made climate change is real and currently happening is misleading and I will never quote the statistic again after this post. Why? Well, sorry deniers, you shot your wads a bit prematurely, which I am sure has never happened to any of you before.*** Let’s go to volume 39.6 of the Skeptical Inquirer to check out an article by James Lawrence Powell: (Bolding is mine, as always.)
Since it is inconceivable that any climate scientist today could have no opinion on the subject, if 97 percent accept AGW it follows that 3 percent reject it. To those outside of science, 3 percent may seem an insignificant percentage. However, we scientists know that a small minority has often turned out to be right, otherwise there would have been no scientific revolutions. In the 1950s, for example, the percentage of American geologists who accepted continental drift was likely less than 3 percent. Yet they were right.
If there were a 3 percent minority on AGW it would matter, but there is not. The “97% consensus” is false. The percentage of publishing climate scientists who accept AGW is at least 99.9 percent and may verge on unanimity.
*cut out tweet from Obama here*
How, then, has nearly everyone from President Obama on down come to buy the claim of a 97 percent consensus? The figure comes from a 2013 article in Environmental Research Letters by Cook et al. titled “Quantifying the Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature.” They reported that “Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming” (emphasis added). The 97 percent figure went viral and, not surprisingly, the qualifying phrase “expressing a position”—the fine print, if you will—got dropped. But those three words expose the false assumption inherent in the Cook et al. methodology.
Cook et al. used the Web of Science science-citation research site to review the titles and abstracts of peer-reviewed articles from 1991–2011 with the keywords “global climate change” and “global warming.” They classified the articles into seven categories from “(1) Explicit endorsement with quantification” to “(7) Explicit rejection with quantification.” In the middle was “(4) No position.”
The sine qua non of the Cook et al. method is the assumption that publishing scientists who accept a theory will say so—they will “endorse” it in the title or abstract. To count an article as part of the consensus, Cook et al. required that it “address or mention the cause of global warming.” Of the 11,944 articles that came up in their search, 7,970—two thirds—did not. Cook et al. classified those articles as taking no position and thus ruled them out of the consensus.
Do we need to know any more to realize that there is something wrong with the Cook et al. method? The consensus is what the majority accept; you cannot rule out a two-thirds majority and still derive the consensus.
Moreover, is it true that scientists routinely endorse the ruling paradigm of their discipline? To find out, I used the Web of Science to review articles in three fields: plate tectonics, the origin of lunar craters, and evolution.
Of 500 recent articles on “plate tectonics,” none in my opinion endorsed the theory directly or explicitly. Nor did a single article reject plate tectonics.
What of lunar craters? As recently as 1964, nearly every scientist who had studied the moon believed that its craters were volcanic. Then in July of that year, the first successful Ranger mission returned thousands of photographs showing that the moon exhibits craters ranging in size from the colossal to the microscopic. Except for a few senior holdouts, scientists quickly embraced the meteorite impact theory.
I reviewed the abstracts of the most recent 100 articles, which go back to 1997. As with plate tectonics, none explicitly endorsed meteorite impact, nor did any reject it.
Do biologists writing about evolution routinely endorse Darwin’s theory? I reviewed the abstracts of articles in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology from 2000 through 2014. Of 303 articles, 261 had abstracts. Not surprisingly, none of the 261 rejected the modern evolutionary synthesis; neither did any endorse it.
That’s all I’m going to quote from it, but seriously, if you are interested in that 97% number and ever wondered about the apparent 3% who do not accept climate change, you owe it to yourself to read the whole thing. The actual number is far closer to 99.9%.
***Yeah, I once received constructive criticism that I should leave out little digs like that, or my insinuations that MRAs possess micropenises, and while I understand the critique, in the famous words of Popeye, I yam what I yam.
Move Over Todd Akin, It’s Pete Nielsen Time!
February 29, 2016 fosterdisbelief "Facts" that aren't facts, Misogyny, Religion is the Problem, Religious Liars, Religious Lunacy, Science, Science doesn't work that way, Skepticism, What Century is It Again?, Wingnuttery abortion rights, Batshit insanity, current-events, false premise, forced vaginal probing, fundamental misunderstanding, GOP War on Women, misogyny, Planned Parenthood, politics, religion, sexism, Slut-shaming
Remember Todd Akin? Remember how he said that abortion restrictions didn’t need exceptions for rape because “legitimate rape” doesn’t result in pregnancy? Remember how he lost a senate race that should have been a cake walk mainly due to that comment?
After the amazing crash and burn Akin performed for the nation back in 2012, you would think that Republicans would learn a lesson from the whole fiasco. You’d be wrong, of course. Why? Damned if I know. Maybe it’s because some of them really believe, with zero evidence, that, ahem, “legitimate” rape is too traumatic to result in conception. Or maybe it is an “ends justify the means” situation, where as long as it results in punishing women for being sexual beings. What, you thought I was going to strike that out and end the sentence with “less abortions?” Why? When has the so-called “pro-life” movement ever supported something with an actual chance of lowering the number of abortions? They can say they care about the unborn child all they want, but until they stop opposing common sense measures, like Colorado’s long term contraception initiative for an example, measures that are actually effective at lowering the rate of abortion, why should any of us give them the benefit of the doubt as to their motives? They aren’t just protesting Planned Parenthood’s abortion facilities; they want it all shut down, because this has much more to do with women’s sexuality than the fate of some fetuses. Nothing should prove that faster than the speed at which they cease caring about the child upon birth.
Whatever their reasons may be, they keep beating that same old drum. Today’s “Wait, What?!?” is brought to you by the Idaho legislature. “I da Ho? Well then close your damn legs, ya slut!”
From The Spokesman-Review:
During the hearing Rep. Pete Nielsen, R-Mountain Home, said, “Now, I’m of the understanding that in many cases of rape it does not involve any pregnancy because of the trauma of the incident. That may be true with incest a little bit.”
Nielsen stood by his remarks after the hearing, saying pregnancy “doesn’t happen as often as it does with consensual sex, because of the trauma involved.”
Asked how he knew that, he said, “That’s information that I’ve had through the years. Whether it’s totally accurate or not, I don’t know.”
He added, “I read a lot of information. I have read it several times. … Being a father of five girls, I’ve explored this a lot.”
Why, may I ask, has this man “explored this a lot”? Hopefully it is for work, and not an attempt to figure out how likely his daughters would be to get pregnant if he…….
The scientific consensus on the issue is that rape is as likely to result in pregnancy as consensual sex, and some studies suggest the rate of pregnancy is higher in rape. A 2003 study that appeared in the scientific journal “Human Nature,” for instance, found that the rate of pregnancy from rape exceeded the rate of pregnancy from consensual sex by a “sizable margin.”
Is it any wonder if a percentage of the anti-choice brigade decides to ignore scientific consensus? Members of the GOP already freely ignore the scientific consensus when it comes to evolution and global warming, what would make this a bridge too far? Of course, in those cases the only people being called “liars” are scientists and biology teachers. I wonder if they stop and think that by holding on to the “legitimate rape doesn’t cause pregnancy” thing that they are directly calling every rape victim who got pregnant from her attack a liar?
Something tells me they just don’t care.
L. Brent Bozell Shares Foolproof Tactic to Win Debates Against Liberals
August 10, 2015 August 10, 2015 fosterdisbelief Politics, Religious Liars, Religious Lunacy, Science doesn't work that way, Snark, Wait, What Century is It Again?, What?, Wingnuttery Batshit insanity, cognitive dissonance, fundamental misunderstanding, government, human-rights, intellectual dishonesty, logical fallacy, Lying liars who lie, Planned Parenthood, politics, religion, Sarcasm, Science, Snark, Wait...What?, wingnuts
Normally I pay absolutely no attention to the “esteemed” L. Brent Bozell, head of an impotent organization with an important sounding name, the Media Research Council. Why you ask? Mainly because the “research” implied by the organization’s name seems to consist primarily of a Christian conservative, either Mr. Bozell himself or an underling. watching the media until they see something that morally upsets them. While I am sure our friend L. would love it if I compared his group to the Family Research Council or the American Family Association, I find the most fitting comparison is to Bill Donahue and the Catholic League, another group with an impressive sounding name that seems to exist only for its figurehead to untwist their knickers by writing an angry column consisting almost entirely of “rabble, rabble, rabble.” While, terrifyingly, the FRC and the AFA actually have power to shape the opinion and thought of their Christian conservative audience, I have a really hard time believing anyone not married or related to Donahue and Bozell take them even the least bit seriously. So ignore them I do.
For some strange reason, however, the “mainstream” media does seem to take them seriously at times. Media groups are constantly reaching out to Donahue for comments on stories affecting Catholics as if he has the authority to speak for any Catholic not named William Donahue. As for L. Brent Bozell, newspapers continue to publish his opinion columns even after he admitted that he doesn’t write the things, although perhaps he started to after that scandal broke.
So apparently if the “mainstream” media is taking L seriously, maybe I should as well. (I wonder what the “L” stands for anyways? I’m sure I could find out in less than a minute, but the mystery is so much more interesting. Is it “Limp?” “Lesbian?” “Lefty?” “Lucifer?” If you’re bored, leave your guess in the comments.) Conveniently (A word, for what it’s worth, I misspell more than any other. Definitely not convenient.) for my new “taking Lefty Brent Bozell seriously” plan, the Altoona Mirror, fishwrap of choice for all south-central Pennsyltuckians, published Limp Brent Bozell’s newest column this morning. Unfortunately for my new “taking Lucifer Brent Bozell seriously” plan, the content of the column aborted my new “take Lesbian Brent Bozell seriously” plan faster than a Planned Parenthood executive one baby liver away from a new Mercedes. * Since the Altoona Mirror has placed the majority of its articles behind a pay wall accessible only to subscribers, no doubt to combat the countless people attempting to pirate such a prestigious paper, I will link to Larry Brent Bozell’s column at ArcaMaxx instead.
Arrogant liberal journalists naturally assume that conservative talk radio only succeeds in making Americans dumber. They reach this conclusion by avoiding conservative talk radio entirely.
No, actually they reach this conclusion by listening to conservative talk radio.
The overwhelming majority would never dare appear on one of these shows and debate the conservative host.
I wonder why? I’m sure it couldn’t have anything to do with listening to prior liberals appearing on conservative talk radio and hearing the host shout over them, cut their mic, launch ad hominem attacks, insult them, refuse to let them respond, and hang up on them if all else fails. Surprises me to no end that the big name progressives aren’t lining up for the chance to be treated like shit.
If one of them ever entered the ring with Mark Levin, they’d invoke the “mercy rule” before the first commercial break.
And that, dear readers, is where my “take Lucinda Brent Bozell seriously” plan collapsed in flames. No, Lola Brent Bozell, you do not get to declare that your conservative heart throb would instantly win a debate with any liberal. That’s not serious commentary, that’s a literary blow job. Let’s follow along with some more of this fantasy hummer, shall we?
In recent years, Levin has matched a brainy talk show with a series of brilliant political books. The latest is called “Plunder and Deceit: Big Government’s Exploitation of Young People and the Future.” It’s a good bet that no liberal journalist will read it, no liberal newspaper will review it, and that no liberal network would imagine calling up Levin for an interview. They are too busy advocating tolerance and diversity.
I do have to give Lennon Brent Bozell some credit here for his absolute lack of a gag reflex.
Levin argues that the current ruling generation of statists — elected in part by millennial voters — are unraveling American civil society by undermining the country’s moral foundation and her economic footing. The central question of our time may be whether today’s young people still desire the founding vision of America with its constitutional limits on government, assisted by moral self-discipline, or whether we face a terminal moral and economic decline.
I can’t do it. I just can’t. This is basically, if you strip away the sloppy knob job, nothing but a man in black socks and shorts yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn. “Undermining the country’s moral foundation?” Really? I mean, I lasted past Lord Brent Bozo Bozell claiming Levin’s talk show was “brainy” and didn’t even call out the fact that Levin’s “brilliant” political book (first draft in crayon!) has a title that sounds like it came from Ann Coulter, but I have to draw the line somewhere. As this slob job continues, we find Leisure Suit Larry Brent Bozell citing the American Enterprise Institute as an unbiased source, taking random shots at the “liberal” media, and pointing out every mistake science makes as proof that climate change is a conspiracy. Here’s some more of this conservative porn:
The left pushes against economic freedom with dire prognostications of planetary doom. Levin cites Dr. Mark Perry, an economics professor at University of Michigan and a scholar for the American Enterprise Institute, who made a list of 18 “spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions” made by eco-leftists around the first Earth Day.
Our media are never embarrassed by these spectacularly failed predictions. Levin could write an entire book on this alone. To promote the leftist agenda, they ignore them and create an entirely new set of dire predictions.
Who is this Mark Levin anyway? I have to admit that I didn’t recognize the name. Perhaps he is a respected moderately conservative scholar that I have been unfairly damning by comparison with Lucid Brent Bozell? Let me Google him quick…..
“The Great One” pointed out that Fox had an opportunity to host one of these important debates, “And they took advantage of us, they took advantage of the audience.” Levin explained that Kelly”s “question two,” accusing Donald Trump of making inappropriate comments to Rosie O’Donnell and others, “was outrageous.” Levin suggested that Fox went to great lengths to engage in “oppositional research” on Mr. Trump.
(Fair warning, the above links to Breitbart)
Um. “The Great One”?
Moreover, Levin objected to the format where in which we heard six or seven minutes each from the ten candidates, and a third of the time the Fox moderators dominated the event. Fox brags they had 24 million viewers, he pointed out, but he concluded that it amounted to an “embarrassment as far as I’m concerned… while the New York Times and CNN praised the event, I considered it an exploitation of the process, which is supposed to inform the American people. Not gotcha questions, not gossip… I think the American people are owed an apology.”
(Fair Warning, this links to Hot Air.)
Well, that one I agree with. They should be nailed down on issues such as climate change, raising the minimum wage, the militarization of the police, income inequality, and other issues poll after poll shows the American people care about. Somehow though, I do not think Mr. Levin would think those were fitting subjects to talk about. I think he probably means “if you are elected President, how soon until you slash taxes on those with higher incomes and bomb Iran?” *Shrug*
Alright, I’m closing in on 1500 words, I guess it’s time to wrap this one up. Am I missing anything….. Oh, of course! The Facial! Back to Lulz Brent Bozell’s literary fellatio for the ending we all deserve.
And they’d never dare debate Mark Levin.
Uh, Mr. Bozell? You have something on your face…..
*The asterisked sentence was edited by The Center for Medical Progress. The full, unedited text of the sentence follows:
“Unfortunately for my new “taking Lucifer Brent Bozell seriously” plan, the content of the column aborted my new “take Lesbian Brent Bozell seriously” plan faster than a Planned Parenthood employee would counsel a pregnant executive to examine all of her options, pointing out that terminating the pregnancy was only one of the possible choices, choices that also included placing the baby up for adoption, though the executive would need more tests since her liver enzyme count was not far away from a problematic number, before complimenting her on her new Mercedes.”
As you can see, the original sentence was long and ungainly. We wish to thank The Center for Medical Progress for their non-context changing editing job.
Have you ever seen a dancing, singing, cartoon labia? Now you have. You are welcome.
March 6, 2015 fosterdisbelief News of the Weird, Religious Lunacy, Science doesn't work that way, Snark, Wait, What Century is It Again?, What?, Wingnuttery current-events, fear of female sexuality, fundamental misunderstanding, Health Care, human-rights, intellectual dishonesty, Jumped Sharks, logical fallacy, Lying liars who lie, Planned Parenthood, religion, Sarcasm, sex ed, sexism, Slut-shaming, Snark, USA USA, Wait...What?
Don’t get any ideas, I am still on hiatus. But I was posting this video to Facebook and my comment got a bit long, so I moved it over here. First, the video: (Watch it, it is so worth it.) From a Swedish children’s program, aimed at 3 to 6 year olds. You don’t need to understand the language to get the message.
Of course, this could never air in the United States, since by the age of three American children know that the bits under their underwear are naughty, sinful, nasty things that definitely do not sing and dance to catchy tunes, unless that is Satan’s current plan to get kids to look at or touch said bits. By six years of age, US kids should understand that those bits are only to be used by married people, and even then only for procreation, in one position, with neither participant receiving any joy or pleasure from the nasty, dirty, sinful, evil, horrific, monstrous, bad, naughty act.
Of course, they will soon become teenagers and ignore those teachings, deciding instead to imitate what bunny rabbits do when they think no one is watching their cute little floppy ears. But never fear, thanks to abstinence only education, American teens won’t know what they are doing or how to use contraceptives, so not only will it be a sub par experience, but there is a good chance they will be punished for their sin with a baby. (Silly me. I meant to say that it would be a sub par experience for the girl, and she would be punished with a baby. Because the boy doesn’t need to know what he is doing to enjoy the act, and its not like he can get pregnant.) And isn’t that preferable to the Swedish method where kids are given knowledge?
In case you were wondering for some reason, let’s compare the two nations approaches to sex ed, shall we?
Round 1: % of women who reported giving birth before the age of 20.
You know the United States is going to kick some Swedish ass on this one. We have abstinence only education and they have…..hell, they probably have sex parties instead of gym class. Anyway, survey says.…..
United States: 22%
Sweden: 4%
Wait…..that can’t be right. I know, Swedish taxes are so high that sperm can’t afford to fertilize the eggs. That has to be it. I’m sure we’ll get the next question.
Round 2: % of women who reported no contraceptive use at recent intercourse.
Dude, we got this on lock down. We have abstinence only education in the states, our teens don’t know what contraceptives are, and if they do we’ve taught them that they don’t work, so why bother using them, am I right? Survey says……
Booo-ya! I told you we would destroy those socialist skiers. Handed them their asses by 13 percentage poi..What’s that? We want people to use contraceptives? So the lower number is better? Are you sure about that? That doesn’t sound…You are sure. Positive? Positive. Okay……
Alright, it seems that Sweden wiped the floor with us again. But so what? That’s Sweden. They kick everyone’s ass at everything, as long as tanks aren’t involved. We probably destroy other nations. Like the “pregnant before 20” question. Sweden is probably an outlier. Let’s look at the numbers of a few other places:
Great Britain: 15%
Canada: 11%
France: 6%
Oh, what the flying fuck. Ya know what? Teenage pregnancy is a good thing, there, we fucking win.
What about the other question? I bet the Brits refuse to use condoms, just like us Merikkkans.
France: 12%
Great Britain: 4%
Look! Obama’s trying to take your guns!
Those who miss my writing and want to see what I am up to while this blog is on hiatus are welcome to come to my Tumblr, With a Trebuchet, to read me writing about A Song of Ice and Fire and the HBO show, Game of Thrones. If you do stop by, please leave the politics and social issues here. Thanks, and I will be back once I unburn myself out. I won’t give a time frame other than this: I will definitely be back to cover the presidential election campaigns. So even if this turns into a long break, I will be back before the first primary vote is cast.
Prepare to Stare, Mouth Agape and Wide Eyed, With the Single Thought of “Wait. What?!?”
July 9, 2014 fosterdisbelief "Facts" that aren't facts, Politics, Science, Science doesn't work that way, Snark, What Century is It Again?, Wingnuttery Batshit insanity, cognitive dissonance, current-events, dispatches from the culture wars, ed brayton, false premise, fundamental misunderstanding, government, intellectual dishonesty, Jumped Sharks, politics, Snark, Wait...What?, Weird, Whaaaaaaa?, wingnuts
Reality has never been a particular concern of science denialists. Creationists are not interested in learning the facts of evolution anymore than the deniers of human aided climate change want to understand how our species’ byproducts effect the planet’s carbon cycle. “The human eye is too complex to have evolved,” they claim. So you turn on the television and call up your dvr’d copy of Cosmos, or pull a popular science book on evolution off the shelf, or if comfortable enough with the subject, just explain the fascinating way that natural selection crafted light sensitive spots on cells, step by step through out the long history of life on Earth, into the complex varieties of eyes found in nature today with your own words. And if you can actually get them to pay attention and follow along, the vast majority of the time the result is the same. They look you in the eye and say, “the human eye is too complex to have evolved.”
Most climate change deniers share this trait with evolution deniers; an ideological basis to their belief on the issue. The scientific evidence for both issues is overwhelming. The consensus is in, and any actual debate within the scientific community is on specific mechanisms and matters of degree. How much warmer is the climate going to get? How much can we limit the damage if we act now? Is there anyway to stop it now that we have started it? What other natural causes drove evolution other than natural selection? What role did gene transfers play early on in the history of life? The questions are endless, and the deniers are quick to use this legitimate scientific debate to try to make the public believe the consensus is much weaker than it is in truth. Stephen J Gould’s theory of punctuated equilibrium and the scientific debate surrounding it has been pulled out of context and used by creationists to paint evolution as a theory in crisis for decades. They do not care about the context because they do not care about the science. Their ideology tells them that God created us all six thousand years ago, or that men have dominion on Earth and God would never let us unbalance the cycles, or whatever their own particular reason for turning their backs on evidence, reason, and logic happens to be, and that is all that they care about the issue. The evidence against them becomes a conspiracy. The existence of a scientific consensus turns them into a persecuted minority. It becomes more than a question of scientific literacy. Suddenly it is a plot by the atheists to turn their children away from Christ. A trick by the secular left to convince people that we are only animals to change the nation’s sexual morality. An attempt by the Muslim in the White House to get us more dependent on oil from the Middle East by making the practically infinite reserves in our country untouchable. Or the final ploy of the pinko, socialist, homosexual hippies seeking to end the American way of life by forcing men to emasculate themselves and perform such humiliating actions as conserving, recycling, and driving a compact electric car instead of a manly Hummer 3, factory modified to burn coal.
Ideology before reality unfortunately has become a trend. Perhaps it always was so, at least for a certain segment of the population. I would love to yearn for a time past where people studied the evidence and reached rational conclusions on issues, using their new found knowledge to update their ideological worldview, rather than the tragic mirror image that seems so common today, but I question if any such time actually existed. If there is any sort of silver lining to this cloud that interferes with rational policy debate, it would be the unintentional comedy that results when people hostile to science try to claim a scientific basis for their ideological beliefs. Listening to a young earth creationist explain how the scientific evidence really does support a global flood a few thousand years in the past is practically identical to hearing a satirist skewer the same beliefs. There is a reason Poe has a law. The denialist doesn’t care if the scientifically literate thinks his arguments are insane. They only have to make sense to him, because scientific arguments are just accessories to the ideological certainty.
Today we will travel to the Kentucky state legislature to learn a bit about the climate on other planets in our solar system. Why Kentucky? Because it may be the only place in the nation where this specific fact can be learned. No university or high school teaches this bit of trivia, yet here in the Kentucky state Senate, Sen. Brandon Smith is straight up schooling people during a hearing on climate change:
“As you (Energy & Environment Cabinet official) sit there in your chair with your data, we sit up here in ours with our data and our constituents and stuff behind us. I don’t want to get into the debate about climate change, but I will simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There are no factories on Mars that I’m aware of.”
There is nothing at all I could possibly add to that. That is a State Senator. An elected official. As Ed Brayton points out in his post:
Smith has been elected to the Kentucky House four times and the Kentucky Senate twice.
That, my friends, is weapon grade idiocy.
What Part of Cosmos Will Deal With This?As th
March 21, 2014 fosterdisbelief Religious Lunacy, Science doesn't work that way, Snark, Wait, What Century is It Again?, What?, Wingnuttery Batshit insanity, false premise, fundamental misunderstanding, Jumped Sharks, religion, Science, Wait...What?, Weird
As readers of my blog are no doubt aware, the “Letters to the Editor” section of my local fishwrap is one of my daily must-reads. Sadly, the section has been a bit boring recently, with a distinct lack of letters that I suspect arrived at the paper scrawled in crayon. Thankfully someone at the Altoona Mirror decided to emulate a Mr. Timberlake, only instead of sexy, they chose to bring the crazy back.
Before I let the writer’s words speak for themselves, I want to point out that as far as I can figure out, this was sent in response to nothing in particular. No, this bit of pseudo scientific religious babble appeared out of the blue, lurking on the Opinion page, laying in wait for an innocent rational person to read, leading no doubt to countless spit-takes, face palms, and catastrophic head explosions.
I warn you. If you are drinking a tasty beverage while reading today, finish swallowing before you go any further. Cleaning coffee off of monitors is no fun at all. With that out of the way, on to the “Wait, What?!?” goodness. (I was thinking about responding to this letter, but other than “you are so wrong you aren’t even wrong” I don’t even know where to start.)
Science Lesson
For years now, scientists have been trying to find the elusive “dark matter,” which they claim comprises over 90 percent of the universe.
They are also seeking the answer to why the galaxies are accelerating outward instead of slowing down from the big bang.
It just so happens that their dark matter is a globe of water surrounding the heavens.
It is the mass contained in this water that is providing the gravitational pull on the galaxies, causing their acceleration.
It is also possible that this water has frozen into a solid dome and, therefore, cannot collapse on itself. This would then provide a stable frame of reference until the galaxies reach it and their energy starts to melt it.
This approach not only makes sense logically. It is described in the very first chapter of the greatest textbook ever written.
Thomas J. Harclerode
I think it is safe to say I speak for the entire rational community when I respond, “Wait…..What!?!?!”
Sorry Sean, Young Earth Creationism IS a Religious Belief
February 12, 2014 fosterdisbelief Bigotry, Religion, Religious Liars, Religious Lunacy, Science doesn't work that way cognitive dissonance, current-events, false premise, fundamental misunderstanding, intellectual dishonesty, religion, Science, Wait...What?
After Bill “The Science Guy” Nye’s debate with Ken “The Bible is All the Science I Need” Ham, Sean McElwee wrote a piece for the Salon that, while also taking a cheap shot at so-called “New Atheists”, made the claim that Young Earth Creationism is not a religious belief.
In a much-hyped event live-streamed last night, “Science Guy” Bill Nye set out to defend evolution in a debate with Ken Ham, the CEO of Kentucky’s Creation Museum. But there was a fundamental problem: Ham’s young-earth creationism is not a religious belief, and it certainly is not scientific. To put it bluntly, it is quackery.
While I have no argument with McElwee that YEC is quackery, claiming that it is not a religious belief is laughable. I honestly do not even believe McElwee believes it, but it fits his pro-religion stance better if he can claim it is not a religious belief.
This is a common tactic of religious apologists. Anything good and moral is due to religious beliefs, anything bad or immoral is due to either a persons base instincts or incorrect interpretations of religious doctrine. Helping the homeless? Religion. Suicide bombings? Incorrect interpretation. Feeding the hungry? Religion. Hating homosexuals? Misreadings of the Bible. You can only follow this path so far. You can argue that you can be a practicing Christian while accepting homosexuals as moral members of society. You can not argue that Leviticus 20:13* is neutral on the issue.
I would challenge those with this opinion to produce a believer in YEC who does not believe for a religious reason, but in all actuality, it doesn’t matter if they can or not. The only reason the vast majority of YEC’s believe in it is due to their religious beliefs. Michael Luciano takes on McElwee’s argument, also at the Salon:
While creationism is certainly quackery, I take issue with the idea that it is not a religious belief. Creationism is a religious belief by definition. It is the idea that god created the universe and animals in their current form less than 10,000 years ago. This may not be McElwee’s belief, but it is certainly the belief of Ham and millions of other Christians. If McElwee truly believes that young earth creationism is not a religious belief, I challenge him to produce a scientist who rejects the creation account in Genesis, but is nonetheless a young earth creationist.
The accomodationist tendency to insist that manifestations of religion that they dislike aren’t actually religious in nature is both wrong and dangerous. Accomodationists want us to believe that religious people who are morally upstanding are that way because of their religion. Yet at the same time, they take great pains to explain that those religious people who do harm actually do so for reasons other than their faith, or because they fundamentally misinterpret the underpinnings of their religion.
The only thing being misinterpreted here is the essential nature of religion. Humans can be irrational enough without adding highly subjective doctrines and moral codes into the mix. As the physicist Steven Weinberg once said of religion, “With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”
You can’t religion when you like the result, and deny it when you don’t. When you take religion, you have to take the condemnation of non-believers into the lake of fire along with the blessed are the meek’s.
*The text of Leviticus 20:13, NIV:
13 “‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”
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Rien (The Netherlands)
Littenseradiel municipality, Fryslân province
Keywords: rien |
image by Jarig Bakker, 7 Sep 2003
adopted 1999; Design: J.C. Terluin and R.J. Boersma.
Rien village
Rien coat of arms
Littenseradiel municipality
Rien, village in Littenseradiel municipality, Fryslân province. It used to be in the former municipality of Hennaarderadeel, first as a hamlet under Itens-Lutkewierum, since 1954 as a separate village. It was noted for its horse-market. Population (1958): 175; (1974): 134. It was also known for its "IJsherberg", Ice-tavern - in olden days stores in cities needed ice to keep their perishable foods fresh; this had to be transported from the Frisian Lakes, for a city like Franeker or Leeuwarden a rather long haul, so at regular intervals the ice-transporters had a short rest at such an "ijsherberg". Geert Mak has written a book about the Amsterdam cultural center known as "De IJsbreker", which had a similar function for the long haul from Weesp to Amsterdam city.
Rien coat of arms: in green a golden chevron, on top with an erased swan-neck and an erased horse-head, facing each other, both silver, in base with a golden corn-sheaf.
Flag: five equally wide horizontal stripes of green and white; a yellow hoist-triangle with the point at 11/15 flag length and towards the hoist lengthened with 1/3 flag length; the yellow charged with a green hoist-triangle with the point at 6/15 flag length, this triangle charged with a yellow corn sheaf of 1/2 flag height.
The village is on the green dike on the so-called island of Easterein.
Near that village is the lock known as the "Rienstersyl", represented by the green chevron in the coat of arms. The swan-neck points at the "zwanejacht", connected to the lock (see: Mantgum). The horse-head symbolizes the horse-market, which was held here annually. The corn-sheaf is from the arms of the Rheen-family, which gave its name to the village.
In the flag the corn-sheaf and the lock are central. The silver elements on the arms are here represented by two white stripes.
Design: J.C. Terluin and R.J. Broersma, members of the Fryske Rie foar Heraldyk.
Jarig Bakker, 7 Sep 2003
from Wapens en Flaggen fan Littenseradiel, booklet of the municipality.
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GeekOut UK
Geek Proud, GeekOut.
Traditional Gaming
Tag: FPS
Riot Games Go All Out For 10 Year Anniversary – New Games!
Riot Games have gone all out for their 10 year anniversary, which is a pretty exciting thing to be able to say. Riot Games made the Free-To-Play giant, League of Legends, which is a major title in the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre. For years, they’ve run just the one game but this year, they’ve decided to throw caution to the wind and show how much progress they’ve made in their world.
Continue reading “Riot Games Go All Out For 10 Year Anniversary – New Games!”
Author TimlahPosted on October 20, 2019 October 19, 2019 Categories Entertainment, Gaming posts, Television, Video GamesTags 10 Year Anniversary, animated series, ARPG, Card Game, Fighting Game, First-person shooter, FPS, hack n slash, League of Legends, Legends of Runeterra, Project A, Project F, Project L, Riot Games, Virtual Card Game, Wild RiftLeave a comment on Riot Games Go All Out For 10 Year Anniversary – New Games!
Tower of Guns – Rogue FPS done right
Catharsisjelly is back with another video game review – This week, he checks out Tower of Guns, a rogue-like FPS. Didn’t he recently say he didn’t think that combination would ever work..?
I remember saying during my review of One More Dungeon that rogue games may not work for first person shooters, then I reminded myself of the fantastic Heavy Bullets which made me backtrack on this statement a bit. I also forgot about the game which I am going to talk about today and that is Tower Of Guns. The game is available for OSX, Windows and Linux from a number of different online retailers, which can all be found on the developers’ website.
Continue reading “Tower of Guns – Rogue FPS done right”
Author catharsisjellyPosted on October 5, 2016 October 5, 2016 Categories Gaming posts, Reviews, Video GamesTags blankslatejoe, First-person shooter, FPS, Gameplay, Graphics, Heavy Bullets, Linux, One More Dungeon, OSX, Review, Rogue-Like, Tower of Guns, towerofguns, video game, WindowsLeave a comment on Tower of Guns – Rogue FPS done right
Shotgun Rules
Have you ever tried to write your own tabletop roleplaying system, or perhaps a board game? If you have plenty of patience it’s fairly easy to put something together that works, although “fun” takes a hell of a lot more effort to achieve. A basic rule set is actually surprisingly easy to throw together, but that must then be followed by testing said rules until you hate them to make sure that they absolutely work, and while you might say “the simpler the better” sometimes the simple rules are the easiest to get drastically wrong, and you end up patching over the open crack with specific rules.
At least that has been my experience of game design, others may differ. There’s one particular example I want to pick on here, and it’s one you may have already guessed if you read the title, and didn’t just dive in without looking. Continue reading “Shotgun Rules”
Author terraphiPosted on April 26, 2016 April 25, 2016 Categories Gaming posts, Traditional Gaming, Video GamesTags accuracy, balance, complex rules, FPS, Game Design, Guns, guns in games, Pen and paper, RPG, Rules, shotguns, shotguns in games, simple rules, Tabletop Games1 Comment on Shotgun Rules
Is SUPERHOT super hot?
SUPERHOT has been on my radar for some time. I played the original demo probably two years ago and was very impressed so when they decided to Kickstarter the game I went ahead and backed it. I must admit I was really looking forward to play the final release, so I picked up my copy on it’s official release of 25th February 2016.
SUPERHOT is Available for Windows, SteamOS & Mac via HumbleBundle & Steam (RRP £17.99)
Continue reading “Is SUPERHOT super hot?”
Author catharsisjellyPosted on March 2, 2016 March 8, 2016 Categories Gaming posts, Video GamesTags Catharsisjelly, FPS, Gameplay Video, Gaming, Humble Bundle, Indie, Mac, PC, Review, Shooter, Steam, SUPERHOT, SUPERHOT Review, Unique Shooter, video game3 Comments on Is SUPERHOT super hot?
Multiplayer Gaming
Multiplayer games are a staple in the video game industry, as a way to interact with others through the medium… Or just to show someone how l33t you are. However in recent years, a lot of multiplayer games have changed how they are played. No longer are we playing games of healthy competition, but more games are out there to show that you’re better for having played them longer than someone else. Join me as I take a look back through multiplayer games of old and how modern games tackle the communication between people.
We’ll begin by taking a trip down memory lane, or for many of us, a year before we were even conceived. In the early 1970s, the first ever Pong consoles were released to the general public and people were buying them by the boat load. Well okay, perhaps not quite a boat load of them, but people all over were willing to get their hands on a way to interact with their television sets in more than a typical watch the broadcast way. They wanted to play Pong, a game that was only available in the arcades prior, in their home with their own friends without having to take change to play on the machines.
Whilst Pong was all well and good, it was just the first in a long line of easy games to pick up and play. We started to get games like Dig-Dug, Pac-Man, even games like Tetris supported more than one player after a while, for a little bit of competitive gaming between friends and family. But by the time the SNES was out, most of these simple two player games started to dwindle in favour for more complex, trickier to play single player games. Sure action games and fighting games were still popular enough to have two player modes, but games were already making their way into RPGs and more.
Spyro was one of many PS1 games that was incredibly popular but had no multiplayer functionality.
Now this isn’t to say that multiplayer games disappeared, but they had to evolve and adapt. Over time, we went on to playing less random action/adventure games, less platformers and more into shooters. These games were more like Quake and Unreal. Around the same sort of time, the PS1 came out and even more single player games came out. Games along the lines of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro. In the case of Crash, this was a platformer that did away with multiplayer all together, in favour of a more in depth story in the game. It’s not a traditional platformer, but it still is one. Hey, at the end of the PS1 years, my favourite RPG of all time came out: Final Fantasy IX. No main Final Fantasy game had done multiplayer at this point.
So shooters were the thing that really kept multiplayer going for a period of time, but then around the 2000s, the long standing MMORPG World of Warcraft came out. It’s incredible to think that next year the WoW community will have the Burning Legion to defeat in World of Warcraft. MMORPGs weren’t new… I was very accustomed to playing games such as Dark Ages of Camelot and City of Heroes at this point… But now the RPG genre was being more innovative and more involving of multiplayer, but really, this was a different way to play: This was about working together to defeat huge enemies, or fighting one another in intense battles. These are games of numbers, the more numbers you have, the better you do is the general rule of thumb.
Source: OUYA.tv
Now we’ve got the indie scene, a thriving community with countless fun games to play. Since I got my OUYA last year, I have played many cool multiplayer games, such as Amazing Frog? and Hidden In Plain Sight (which is also on Steam). These games have brought back the sense of fun, the sense of pure silly gameplay along with a little bit of competitive nature and in some cases: skill of the game. But whilst multiplayer games never left us, it sure feels now that we’ve got a more diverse library of games out there. Now there are games for those who want to invest plenty of time, as well as games which you just put on at a party. What’s your earliest memory of a multiplayer game? Share your favourite multiplayer games in the comments below, or over on Facebook and Twitter.
P.S: If you are ever in doubt about a good multiplayer game to get into, consider getting a fighting game or a shooter. Those generally are multiplayer. If you want something a bit different, for fighting check out Guilty Gear, for the characters are so outlandish, you end up falling for each and every one of them. I personally like using Bridget and Faust as my guys. For FPS, I implore you to play the Unreal Tournament games. Those are my personal picks for franchises!
Author TimlahPosted on November 18, 2015 Categories Gaming posts, GeekOut discussion, Video GamesTags Action, Adventure, Amazing Frog?, FPS, Gaming, indie games, Multiplayer, Multiplayer gaming, multiplayer video game, opinion piece, Platformer, Pong, Spyro, video game, Video GamesLeave a comment on Multiplayer Gaming
Narrative and Genre
So here’s something new I’ve been pondering:
I’ve been getting back into the point-and-click puzzle solver recently. I got a copy of the remastered Grim Fandango, was given a copy of a game called Amazone. I found myself considering their stories more deeply, the way they allude to future events early on, spin threads of narrative across chapters, acts, ages…
A P&C has a tendency to be a fairly linear game-style, moving from puzzle to puzzle, unable to progress to the next until the first is complete. More often than not you’ll be able to resolve multiple puzzles alongside one another, so if you’re stuck on one you can move to another for a while, so on, so forth. This kind of progression is not for everyone but it offers the genre one fantastic opportunity, cohesive and consistent story telling.
RPGs offer a similar experience, although rarely is the story quite so imperative. As in the film industry action often draws some of the priority away from the story, although time constraints aren’t a factor as they are in films, story requires a break in action, and the more story the greater the pauses in between action opportunities. It’s very difficult to weave both together simultaneously, and doing so often detracts from one or the other experience anyway.
That’s not to say of course that puzzle-solving is not without its’ deficits. Getting stuck on a puzzle can often lead to rage quitting which has a tendency to break the flow of narrative rather devastatingly, but they are advantaged heavily by the fact that the entirety of the gameplay (at least in a well designed game) is part of the story itself.
Myst III Exile is a prime example, each age visited is supposed to teach a valuable lesson that led the boys Sirrus and Achenar to a corrupted conclusion, and their vengeful victim Saavedro uses those lesson ages to teach Atrus a lesson of his own.
Each puzzle develops the ages as a rich and living world, every step uncovers some new dark truth about the arcing legends surrounding the series, and of course as with every Myst game there are books dotted around to add to the experience.
I think one of my favourite aspects of any game are things like books and journal entries. The Elder Scrolls games have the richest library to choose from, but Dishonored, Myst, the Witcher, and even the occasional FPS often have material worth the read or listen to. The sad fact is that in most games the introduction of book stops the flow of play altogether while you take a break to read, that’s why in the Witcher and ESO the effects of reading said book are immediately noticeable: “Block skill increased” or “Information added to journal”
That’s not to say that the relaxed pace of a P&C makes the storyline any more memorable, indeed RPGs and FPS games have the advantage when they successfully blend action and narrative in creating more dramatically tense moments that stay in our minds that much better, but depending on how you play can make those moments few and far between, or readily clicked-through distractions to the bloodshed and looting.
And what of other gaming genres? Is the platformer limited entirely to the story of “Try the next castle, swear I saw some shady looking dragon-turtle going in there!” Does strategy remove you too far from the personal experience to offer a rich storyline? Or does the scale of forces only add to the opportunities for grandiose moments of significance?
I open the question then to you, humble reader (or arrogant reader, I don’t judge), what narrative devices do you enjoy in games? What genre do you think best suits the story tellers art?
Naah! I’ll just tell you. It’s tabletop, it’ll always be tabletop! But hey, the question’s out there.
Author terraphiPosted on June 23, 2015 June 22, 2015 Categories Gaming posts, Geek Rants, Video GamesTags FPS, Gaming, narrative, Pen and paper, Point and Click, Point and Click adventure game, RPG, Story, story telling, Video GamesLeave a comment on Narrative and Genre
Geeking Out Hard – Borderlands
No interview this week, but not to worry. I’m rarely short of things to discuss.
I’m sure I can’t be the only one who geeks out over one thing for months on end before switching to something else. Well right now my thing is Borderlands, the FPS/RPG from 2K and Gearbox.
The first game was released some time after a wave of games attempting to blend the best of the western gaming market’s favourite genres, the First Person Shooter and the Role Playing Game. The most famous game of which was Bioshock, another 2K title which arguably fell a little heavily into the FPS category. The most famous flop was Hellgate: London, which attempted to bring a Diablo-like feel to the combination, and while the gameplay was sound it was also dull and little awkward.
Continue reading “Geeking Out Hard – Borderlands”
Author terraphiPosted on July 24, 2014 September 22, 2015 Categories Gaming posts, GeekOut discussion, RPGs, Traditional Gaming, Video GamesTags Borderlands, FPS, Geeking Out Hard, GeekOut, Review, RPG, Video Games10 Comments on Geeking Out Hard – Borderlands
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The July Meet – Tydd St Giles
Well today we played at Tydd St. Giles, unlike last year there were no late arrivals – well done Trevor for going to the correct course. A good turnout of 15 players, duly arrived for a “light” breakfast of bacon, egg, hash potatoes, sausage and beans. Although the weather was windy, the forecast of sunshine brought out numerous members wearing shorts, albeit no salmon coloured ones were seen today.
The most interesting warm up prize goes to Geoff Delany and his left leg swivel exercise on the first tee. Speaking of the first tee Brian was seen to put his ball out of bounds on the right, in a similar place to where he hit his first tee shot last year. They do say consistency counts!
Geoff Liscoe was the highest scorer on the first hole with a par and 4 points – well done Geoff. He was also seen putting in from 40ft plus on the 10th green.
Similarly, the rule about drivers being careful of following other cars in the fog, should have applied to Jon, Roy & Gabe, who managed to follow in the footsteps of Brian, Colin & Martin into the dyke on the 7th – mind you Martin enjoyed it so much he made three trips.
In another vein of consistency, Trevor pushed his tee shot left on the 5th hole, so much so that he thought he was in the water, so took a provisional – only to find both balls within 3 foot of each other in a safe place. So he promptly celebrated by placing the next shot over the water and onto the green and getting a par.
I’m not sure whether Gabe’s holiday home in Greece is on the coast or up in the hills but I think it must be the latter as he never missed an opportunity to get into a bunker and spend some time in the sand. That said, he got out with consummate ease each time. Unlike Jon, who made a magnificent 200 yard drive which unfortunately went into a bunker, followed by 5 shots to get out of the bunker.
No real disasters occurred, apart from Colin who set his trolley for a 10 yard dash – which it obeyed – just a shame about the last couple of yards being downhill so it ran into a tree.
Les admitted that his group were boring, with nothing of reportable value. Geoff Delany again got nearest the pin on the 16th, he was so embarrassed that he had to leave early – allegedly to go to the train station!!
Despite not scoring and losing two balls on the first two holes, Trevor came home with 38 points to win. Next meeting on Friday 18th August at Rutland Water.
The June Meet – Elton Furze
A very good turnout of 16 Follies competed for the President’s Cup and, in parallel, the June competition of the annual Follies Trophy.
Stories seem to be thin on the ground but the 6th hole did see Geoff Delany using a ball scoop retriever to get his tee out of ditch. I guess tees do cost money. Later on the same hole, David West was trying to retrieve his ball from a ditch and slipped. He avoided falling in but was certainly on all-fours at one point in his scramble to stay out of the ditch.
John Wakefield, Roy Fletcher and John Dexter reached the 11th without too many incidents other than the normal lost balls and played down into the bottom of the fairway just over the ditch. It is a blind shot from there up to the green and we thought that Les’s group could still be on the green. John W nipped up the fairway and watched the group in front drive their buggy over to the 12th tee. John
D then hit a good shot that sailed over the brow of the hill and out of sight. Suddenly, there was an almighty bang as his ball hit the roof of the buggy, scattering said Les, Colin and Andrew for cover. Apparently, the ball hit the buggy, then a tree, coming to rest under the buggy. It may
be a good idea to look into hard hats in Fritz colours for everyones’ safety!!! With Les’ recent medical history, we are thankful that the bag was hit and not Les.
There’s lot of talk about shortening events these days as everyone is busy and cannot spare the time. It’s seen in cricket where T20 is all the rage rather than 5 day matches and in tennis with best of 3 sets rather than 5. Well, Jon Kelly suggests golf should be reduced to 17 holes – or he certainly does after his experience today. On the 18th, Jon topped his drive maybe 20 yards into the rough. Geoff Delaney, your friendly local Rules Official offered three options, including playing 3 off the tee. In Jon’s own words “I put the ball there, I’ll get it out”. You would think “Who Dares Wins” and “Fortune Favours the Brave” would have some basis in fact. Not a bit of it. Jon’s first hack left the ball behind him, and a further 4 wild swings eventually saw him onto the fairway. He ended up with a 13.
Onto the results:
3rd place was Colin Keal on 33 points.
2nd also on 33 was Kevin Hingle on countback
And this year’s winner of the President’s Cup is David West on 35 points.
Next outing is soon! Friday 14th July – Tydd St Giles
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Campgrounds Near St. Joseph, Michigan
Campgrounds in Georgia Near Interstate 95
Campgrounds Near Hardeeville, South Carolina
Camping Around Lancaster, Ohio
Campgrounds in the Middle of Tennessee
Campgrounds in the Gainesville, Florida, Area
Once a quiet low-country town with shaded streets and small one-story houses, sleepy Hardeeville, South Carolina, has seen its borders expand and population explode since the early 2000s. Its proximity to Georgia, Hilton Head and Interstate 95, America's most heavily traveled highway, makes it an ideal hub from which to enjoy historic Savannah and Atlantic Coast beaches. If you prefer to stay at a campground instead of one of Hardeeville's host of hotels, several options are within a 30-minute drive of town.
Hardeeville RV
With it's peaceful, natural setting, it's hard to believe that Hardeeville RV (hardeevillerv.com) is just 10 minutes from the hustle and bustle of Savannah. The tranquil, family-owned campground has 100 level RV sites with full hookups and free cable TV and wireless Internet access. Pets and big rigs are welcome, but the facility does not allow tents, has no restrooms and doesn't accept credit cards. The Pink Pig (the-pink-pig.com), however, does take plastic. The family-operated restaurant, just a half mile down the road from the RV park, has been featured in national magazines and food networks. Campers can take a break from sightseeing and outdoor activities to enjoy slow-roasted barbequed pork with homemade sauces.
Biltmore RV Park
Biltmore RV Park (biltmorervpark.com) is a pet-friendly campground 22 miles southeast of Hardeesville and less than six miles from Savannah. Car rentals can be delivered to your campsite, and trolley tours are available on site. The campground has 38 level shady sites, but because the park has no restrooms or showers, it accepts only full-hookup units. You can connect to cable TV and telephone hookups, and wireless Internet access is provided in the office that doubles as an antiques and collectibles shop.
Hilton Head Harbor RV Resort and Marina
For an amenities-packed campground, campers flock to Hilton Head Harbor RV Resort and Marina (hiltonheadharbor.com). The Internet-friendly park is 23 miles southeast of Hardeesville at the north end of Hilton Head Island, an island known for its golf courses, beaches, sunsets and candy-striped lighthouse. Like most of the campgrounds in the area, the facility accepts only full-hookup units at its 200 level, paved sites. Campers have access to the property's tennis courts, playground, fitness room, saunas, hot tub and two swimming pools, in addition to its fishing pier and marina. Kayak and personal watercraft rentals, nature tours and fishing charters are also available.
Savannah Oaks RV Resort
Savannah Oaks RV Resort (savannahoaks.net), 30 minutes from Hardeesville, is close to restaurants, shopping and sightseeing opportunities, yet it's in its own little world on 24 lush acres along the Ogeechee River. With a swimming pool, fishing pier, floating dock and canoe and kayak rentals, the resort offers plenty of wet entertainment. In addition to cabin rentals, free hot showers, an arcade room, playground, convenience store, laundry and dump station, the campground provides free trolley rides to historic Old Town Savannah with the purchase of a tour ticket. As an added bonus, an RV technician is on site in case your coach needs repairs. An arcade room, playground, convenience store, laundry and dump station complete the amenities. Pets are welcome, but tents are not permitted.
Hardeeville, South Carolina: Home
Hardeeville RV: Our Park
The Pink Pig
Biltmore RV Park: Amenities
Hilton Head Harbor RV Resort & Marina
Census Viewer: Hardeeville, South Carolina Population: Census 2010 and 2000 Interactive Map, Demographics, Statistics, Quick Facts
Woodall's Eastern Campground Directory; Ann Emerson, publisher
Campgrounds in Lansdale, PA
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How to Get a Hotel at ComicCon
How to Get a Cheap Hotel Room
How to Know What Hotel Room You're Getting Through Hotwire
by Michael Roennevig
How Does Priceline.com Work?
How to Cancel a Flight Made Through Travelocity
How to Find Cheap Vacation Packages
How to Book a Room at the MGM Grand in Connecticut
Discount travel broker Hotwire sells travelers cheap rooms at high-end hostelries. It does this by keeping hotels' identities secret until after a booking has been made and a payment taken. This allows hotel owners to fill their empty rooms without damaging their brands. Via Hotwire, you specify the general area where you want to stay, and you're then presented with a list of low-price options — but the names of hotels are blacked out. If you want to book through Hotwire and know the identity of the hotel you'll be staying at before handing over any money, you'll have to pay the website's standard rates.
Navigate to Hotwire.com. Check the "Hotel" option in the Hotwire Hot Rate Locator and enter details of where you want to stay, when you need a room and how many people will be traveling with you.
Click on "Find a Hotel" to run your search. Hotwire's Hot Rates -- cheap deals with the identities of hotels hidden -- will be listed first by default. Click on the "More hotels" tab to view the site's standard rate deals. With these, you'll see the names of hotels and get the opportunity to check out TripAdvisor reviews before booking. You'll also get to read about hotel amenities and all the features you'll be able to expect in your room. The downside is, you'll pay more than you would if you booked a Hot Rate deal. Hotwire offers the assurance that all of its standard rate deals are priced competitively.
Review the list of hotels presented to you, make your selection and click through to make your booking. Enter your personal details and then make a payment using a credit card. You'll get a chance to review your purchase before any money is taken from your account. As you're booking a standard deal, you'll be covered by your chosen hotel's policies. Check through its terms and conditions for information on its cancellation policy.
Hotwire: Hot Rates
Hotwire: Standard Rates
Michael Roennevig has been a journalist since 2003. He has written on politics, the arts, travel and society for publications such as "The Big Issue" and "Which?" Roennevig holds a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from the Surrey Institute and a postgraduate diploma from the National Council for the Training of Journalists at City College, Brighton.
How to Choose a Flight Booking Service
How to Check on Hotel Reservations
How to Contact Expedia
How to Cancel Hotwire Reservations
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Committed to people, processes and data
We support an iterative adjustment of our customers' data analysis and business processes by designing, developing and supporting software solutions that make the most out of the available technology.
In a rapidly changing world, we help businesses use best-practice technologies and applications. By leveraging the latest software technology without being unnecessarily exposed to long-term investments, we enable them to compete more effectively.
To ensure that the inclusive, trusting and collaborative style of Scandinavian leadership is core to our actions. To live it in a natural way, negotiating the fast pace of change thus ensuring that we are not waiting for the future to begin. We help lead the way.
To operate as a learning organisation renowned for its competence, cost effectiveness and integrity. To empower people to continuously strengthen our abilities around solid software engineering of business processes, process automation and data science.
skilled software engineers
years track record
annual growth rate
< 10 %
attrition rate
> 95 %
customers EU based
We are recognized by the professional community for our steady growth and development in the IT engineering sphere.
2018 Gazelle Award
from financial Newspaper Boersen
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❚❚
Christian Holst-Jensen
Christian combines solid senior management experience from providing IT services and product solutions internationally with management consulting experience focused on industry and financial services. In a world changing at an ever increasing rate, he is used to leveraging the latest standard technologies and applications from recognized global vendors to support critical business processes. As CEO, Christian build stable long-term relationships with partners and customers as he sees this as a fundamental requirement for dealing with complex data and processes. As a result, he plots a financial stable course for the company that ensures that it is both profitable and self-financed. Prior to founding Global Mediator, Christian spent a decade in management consulting and a decade in international business development for software services and products – this included running an international +300 partner distribution network. Christian has a background in Computer Science with a Master Degree from Aarhus University, Denmark.
Niсolai Krarup
Nicolai sees constant change and adaptation as the only long lasting competitive advantage. In a world that evolves rapidly, organisations must learn to stay relevant. In his view, continuous growth combined with the satisfaction and retention of both customers and team members, is one of the primary measures of long-term success – especially, when it comes to working with complex data and processes. As COO, Nicolai strives to operate Global Mediator as a Scandinavian style learning organisation recognized for its competence, cost effectiveness and integrity, while empowering its people to continuously strengthen their abilities around business process analysis, business process automation and data science. Prior to joining Global Mediator, Nicolai worked in change management and business development in various parts of the world – he has been part of senior management teams in Asia, Europe and North America. Nicolai holds an MBA from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Olesya Lukyanenko
Olesya’s biggest passion is finding the right people for our team ensuring the perfect match between skillset, personality, cultural fit and values that Global Mediator lives. Empathy is among her strengths and she leverages it to reflect what we care about the most – the individual. Exceptional newcomer experience is the backbone of a successful onboarding process, so she introduces the induction program by tracking mutual expectations constantly along the way. Having worked in the "Red Bull" company for the previous 10 years, Olesya now helps to implement initiatives that drive engagement, retention and development of strengths and talents of our people. As we grow, she makes sure we do things differently, challenging the status-quo, but still staying flat and non-bureaucratic organization with a high level of freedom, distributed responsibility and accountability. Olesya has a talent for supporting trustful relationships within a team. As a result, for us it’s not a regular 9 to 6 job, it’s a lifestyle we truly enjoy!
Evgeny Buriak
DIRECTOR OF DELIVERY
Evgeny lives and breathes for data and business processes. Starting with Microsoft Dynamics in 2004, he has been involved with organizing development in and around ERP systems helping customers overcome challenges, new feature development, add-on solutions, integrations, test automation and much more. Evgeny always encourages people to positively challenge them self and he has a natural flair for building the right project team with the required skills to organize the work, drive priorities and deliver what the customers expect when they expect it. As Director of Global Delivery, Evgeny manages people to make sure that skills are utilized, people challenged and partners receive the expected results. In the process he actively drives cost allocation, resource planning, tools and methodologies. Prior to joining Global Mediator, Evgeny was the NAV division manager in charge of 30+ specialists in Celenia Software. Evgeny has a background in Computer Science with a Master Degree from the Kyiv Polytechnic University, Ukraine.
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Infography
Increase in the number of defections of army officers and Pasdarans
Western confidential notes report an increase in the number of defections of Iranian officers, who use missions abroad to desert.
Macron calls for greater European commitment in the Sahel
French President Emmanuel Macron recently wrote to the European Union member states to ask them for more financial commitments in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel.
USA - Iran:
Recent tensions between Tehran and Washington have not turned into armed conflict but have given rise to a fierce electronic warfare. The latest episode of this clash is a vast Iranian cyber espionage plan discovered by the US anti-terrorist services.
The succession of al-Baghdadi confirms AMNI’s control over ISIS’s leadership
The appointments at the head of ISIS, following the death of its “caliph”, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and its spokesman, Abu Hassan al-Muhajir, confirm the growing control of AMNI, the former intelligence service of the Caliphate, over the terrorist organization’s governing bodies.
The ambassador of Qatar to Paris warns Tariq Ramadan against any revelation about his past ties with the gas emirate
Ali Bin Jassen Al Thani, the ambassador of Qatar to Paris since October 2018, has taken Tariq Ramadan’s threats against the emirate very badly, suggesting that he may reveal to the media his past links with the gas emirate.
To please General Gaïd Saleh, Paris is considering appointing a military ambassador to Algiers!
Paris is considering appointing a new ambassador to Algiers to replace Xavier Driencourt, who was criticised by the new Algerian government for the “too great influence” he has acquired in recent years in circles close to the Bouteflika clan.
Al-Jazeera is trying to take over the international rights of the documentary inspired from “Qatar Papers”!
After having tried, in vain, to hinder the distribution of the book “Qatar Papers” by Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, by mobilizing Arab scholarship students to massively buy the book, Qatar is trying to contain the audience of the documentary from the same book.
Tehran makes its embassy in Paris the spearhead of its diplomacy
Tehran dreams of an Ashura missile with a range of 2,500 kilometres
Hostage-taking of a leader of Total in Libya: A warning from the anti-Haftar to France?
The Élysée is expanding its justice office
Sino-Russian cooperation on ground-to-air defence systems
Parliament improves its strike force in the intelligence business
Beijing wants to impress with its Dong Feng-41 missile
Antiterrorism: new important issues in Central Africa
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September 11, 2014 - 9:00 am EST 5 years ago
BACK9NETWORK Names Taylor Massey Director of Golf Creative
Ryan Cortese Follow
HARTFORD, CONN., September 11, 2014: BACK9NETWORK, the 24/7 golf lifestyle network, announced today the addition of Taylor Massey as Director of Golf Creative. Massey joins BACK9NETWORK from Golf Punk, an alternative golf magazine based in London, England, where he served as Managing Editor and U.S. licensor of the publication. BACK9NETWORK will launch on DIRECTV, channel 262, on Monday, September 29th.
“I could not be more excited to have an old friend join our network and help lead its creative direction and branding as BACK9NETWORK evolves over the upcoming months. Taylor and I have known each other for a long time, and I had to be patient in convincing him to drop everything and join us,” said Charles Cox, CEO, BACK9NETWORK. “Taylor’s ability to balance golf entertainment creativity with authenticity and respect for the sport and its traditions will be vital as we try to attract the younger generations to the sport and not polarize our older, larger golfer audience base.”
“BACK9NETWORK is exposing the foods, fashions, gadgets and personalities that create the culture of golf” said Massey. “I’m thrilled to help the network’s television transition and take advantage of an incredible opportunity to use lifestyle entertainment to expand and diversify the traditional golfer.
Massey will report to Carlos Silva, President, BACK9NETWORK, and oversee brand messaging across TV and digital platforms. BACK9NETWORK has experienced tremendous digital growth over the past year with over two million monthly unique visitors to its web properties, and over 2.5 million downloads of its Swing by Swing Golf GPS mobile app (IOS and Android platforms).
Prior to his role at Golf Punk, Massey co-founded San Diego, CA based PAHR Fairway Essentials in 2008, with the goal of redefining golf apparel. While at PAHR Massey served as Creative Director, where he oversaw company initiatives including brand messaging, and clothing and digital design.
BACK9NETWORK announced its first television carriage agreement with DIRECTV in July. The lifestyle & entertainment network will hit the airwaves with nearly 1,100 hours of original programming in its first year, including ten original primetime series including AHMAD RASHAD, Golf Treasures and Ball Hogs, mid-day and evening shows, as well as a variety of golf lifestyle programming covering travel, real estate, food, fashion, autos, courses and equipment.
About BACK9NETWORK: BACK9NETWORK is a golf lifestyle cable television network and media company based in Hartford, Connecticut. BACK9NETWORK was developed as a complementary alternative to traditional media’s focus on professional golf tournament coverage. Focused on compelling storytelling, interesting personalities, features and fashions, interviews and instruction, travel, gear and much more, fans of all kinds will want to hang with the BACK9NETWORK. golf.swingbyswing.com, the online clubhouse for BACK9NETWORK, delivers a fresh perspective on the golf lifestyle and its worldwide influence. BACK9NETWORK’S leadership includes respected and outspoken executives from the golf and media industries. For further information, visit golf.swingbyswing.com, @BACK9NETWORK on Twitter or BACK9NETWORKTV’s YouTube Channel.
Jeff Pomeroy
jeffpomeroy@golf.swingbyswing.com
Samantha Massei
samanthamassei@golf.swingbyswing.com
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What is Delta-8 Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)?
Feb 18, 2019 | Medical
The Dawn of a New Super Hero — Delta-8 Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)
Considering the fact that THC was identified only 54 years ago, the discoveries of what cannabinoids can do have only scratched the surface. The delta-9 THC molecule has gotten the most attention, followed closely by CBD and then CBN. But what of the mysterious if not perplexing delta-8 tetrahydrocannabinol?
There have been few studies conducted about the effects of these Big Four cannabinoids since 1974. Federal law squashed any attempt at government-funded research in the states.
A few studies have shown Delta-8 to be a potent appetite stimulant and anti-nausea treatment with one study showing a propensity to shrink tumors in mice.
While delta-8 only exists naturally in fractions of a percent, products are beginning to appear with delta-8 as the only or predominant ingredient.
Science says delta-8 is an analogue of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) with antiemetic, anxiolytic, appetite-stimulating, analgesic and neuroprotective properties. Translation: the uses include the easing of nausea, stimulating eating for those who have that challenge, slowing the growth of tumors and protecting the brain from concussive injuries.
Delta-8 THC is chemically different from delta-9 THC by only a few atomic bonds, some say providing the body high people feel. Delta-8 binds to both CB1 and CB2 receptors in the body, producing different sensations than delta-9. The cannabis community says delta-8 creates a mild stoned feeling, but nothing as powerful as delta-9 THC. Just how powerful has yet to be determined.
Wikipedia states that delta-8 binds to the cannabinoid G-protein coupled receptor CB1, located in the central nervous system. After that, the explanation of the physiology needs a chemistry/physiology interpreter.
The state of Nevada does not test for delta-8 by itself as quantities of delta-8 in recreational and medical marijuana are usually under 1 percent compared to up to 32 percent of delta-9.
The vagaries of its potency lie in the interaction within the human body and include delta-8’s overall effectiveness, which delta is the most powerful to attack cancerous tumors and how both deltas work with other cannabinoids.
Very Little Research
There are no NIH-supported clinical trials ongoing and little U.S. research since one obscure 1974 study. Studies are rare, in part due to illegality of studies in the states and the difficulty in isolating delta-8 from other cannabinoids during separation from a heating process that exceeds 300 degrees.
The first study in 1974 was funded by the Public Health Service, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Health Services & Mental Health Administration, a private donor and by an institutional grant from the American Cancer Society. The cancer Lewis lung adenocarcinoma growth was retarded by the oral administration of delta-9, delta-8 and cannabinol (CBN), but not cannabidiol (CBD). Animals treated for 10 consecutive days with delta-9 THC, beginning the day after tumor implantation, demonstrated retarded tumor growth. Mice treated for 20 consecutive days with delta-8 and CBN also had reduced tumor size. CBD showed no effect on tumor growth at 14, 21, or 28 days.
Oral administration of 25, 50, or 100 milligrams of delta-9 inhibited primary tumor growth by 48, 72, and 75 percent respectively, when measured 12 days post tumor inoculation. On day 19, mice given delta-9-THC had a 34 percent reduction in primary tumor size. On day 30, primary tumor size was 76 percent that of controls and there was a survival time increase of 36 percent. Delta-8 activity was similar to that of delta-9.
In 1995, Delta-8 was shown to be an efficient new cannabinoid antiemetic in pediatric oncology in an experiment conducted in Israel. Delta-8 was found to be an effective agent in relieving the symptoms of chemotherapy. Eight children between the ages of 3 and 13 were given the compound two hours before their treatment. Vomiting was eliminated and other side effects lessened. Raphael Mechoulam, called the father of modern-day cannabis research and a patent holder for delta-8 THC antiemetic treatments, was part of a team comparing delta-8 and metoclopramide (brand name Reglan, an anti-nausea drug commonly used in chemotherapy patients). The children enrolled in the trial were all blood cancer patients — primarily leukemia — and delta-8 stopped all nausea or vomiting induced by the chemotherapy treatments. Metoclopramide was only effective in 40 percent of patients and higher doses caused dangerous side effects. The delta-8 side effects observed were negligible.
Delta-8 also has been tested on mice for food consumption, cognitive function, and neurotransmitters. In 2004, very low doses of delta-8 increased food consumption in mice and alter neurotransmitter levels following weight loss. THC-treated mice showed a 16 percent increase in food intake compared with controls. Delta-8 increased food intake significantly more than did delta-9. Cognitive function showed a tendency to improve from both.
Only a few other studies, also using mice, have been completed, all showing positive results from delta-8 and delta-9. Both tested positively for transdermal application in one past study.
Master grower Shane McKee of Shango Premium Cannabis has been cross-breeding strains that may be the key to future mega-healing strains. Some of the strains McKee is worked on crossing with landrace strains available in Oregon’s five Shango dispensaries include Sticky B, Grape Valley Kush, A-dub, Bruce Banner No. 5 and Mango OG, where THC content can exceed 30 percent at times.
“These will produce some amazing new genetics,” he said. “Stay tuned in 2018 for more of these amazing crosses.”
New Delta-8 THC Product Lines
Extraction companies are taking notice of the value of delta-8. One extractor based out of Washington state, Oleum Extracts, is producing a cartridge called “AquaTek Delta-8 THC.” It’s 58 percent Delta-8 THC, 7.9 percent Delta-9 and 0.35 percent CBD.
Leafly says: “The AquaTek cartridge delivered a semi-sedative physical sensation without much whimsical mental stimulation. The distillate’s pervasive effects cascaded over my body while imbuing me with a classic “stoned” contentment. The appetite stimulation was apparent, but never fully manifested as hunger. This might be partially due to delta-8-THC’s anti-nausea qualities, however AquaTek does contain a modest amount of delta-9-THC as well.”
Item 9 Labs added the Delta 8 Distillate Cartridge to its lineup of distillates. The master extractors at Item 9 Labs headquarters fill cartridges with distillate made from a cannabis delta-8 compound that provides an array of therapeutic cannabinoids. The Delta-8 Distillate Cartridge offers a near balance of CBD and THC the company uses is helpful for enhanced pain and migraine relief.
What is known: The cannabinoid is a powerful antiemetic capable of drastically reducing nausea and vomiting. This, along with its ability to stimulate appetite, make it extremely viable as a treatment for the harmful side effects of cancer treatments.
What to prove: Is delta-8 helpful in reducing or eliminating tumors? How much delta-8 is needed to be effective? Which types of cancer does delta-8 work on?
The future: More studies, of course, particularly in the areas of injecting tumors with each of the Big Four, are needed. But also, targeted treatments and the mixture of delta-8 with other cannabinoids and terpenes need multiple studies. Test results will need to be included on products and medical cannabis strains with high delta-8 will be created. Extraction companies already are taking notice of the value of delta-8 and a few extracts exist in California and Washington.
For now, all cannabis users are merely guinea pigs.
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Peace & Warlords in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) : What can make them agree?
Jesutimilehin Akamo
This article attempts to diagnose initiatives that can bring belligerent warlords to agreement. The situation in DRC is complex and ethnic-based; the warlords are rational and have a common desire which can be leveraged.
Reconstructed Scenario is based on the following judgments:
There is a realistic probability of lasting peace if the influence and interference of Rwanda are contained.
It is almost certain that the path to peace and end to the cycle of violence in DRC is rooted in finding a lasting solution to the ethnic hatred.
It is highly likely that the only common ground between belligerents in DRC is wealth.
Reconstructed Scenario
After the Belgians left DRC Kivuye was of a sane society until after 1994 when the Tutsi-Hutu spillover from Rwanda affected them. Kivuye is located in the northern province of DRC. They lack basic medical facilities, roads, schools, and other critical infrastructures and this is owed to the violence it has suffered from 4 different militias at different times. The authority of the state despite UN support is weak. Also, it has been almost impossible to guarantee sustainable security within the last 2 decades.
At every moment when a modicum of peace seems to prevail, it is quickly snatched from them. For instance, in 2014, the Congolese soldiers had fought off the militias and they withdrew after a little while. It was unknown to them and the people of Kivuye that they only withdrew to a nearby hideout in the forest waiting to strike again at any reasonable opportunity.
Kasongo, A Warlord
Kasongo Kalomo is a warlord in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He was part of at least two rebel groups before he formed his own. In 2009, following the demobilisation, Kasongo disarmed and joined the national army. He resigned in 2011 because his trust for the national army had expired, along with the national arm “killing” his people. After a rebellion erupted in 2012 which was allegedly supported by Rwanda, Ksongo played a vital role in the creation of the Forces for the Defence of Human Rights which was funded by apologist businessmen and politicians. The militia controlled a vast territory. He is a highly respected warlord and in spite of the obvious pursuit for power and wealth, he has been applauded and appreciated for protecting the rights of those within his controlled territory such as Kivuye. The end to mass rapes and killings by the Mai Mai Sheka militia is owed to his intervention.
Kasongo has on two occasions disarmed; yet, the government seems to be the reason he picks up arms again. Kasongo showed an attempt towards peace even though many doubt the ingenuity of the most recent attempts, he blames and will blame any form of failure on the government by not fulfilling their part of the deal to providing adequate medical care and food Kasongo’s fighters. Even though Kasongo has handed over arms, it is almost certain that he can equip when he wants to. The story of other warlords is like this. There is a realistic probability that they solve problem(s) which earns them public support and control of a certain territory without the threat or actual use of force.
Peace and ‘Warlordism’ in DRC
The success of ‘warlordism’ in DRC is because of the:
Intense Ethnic Hatred
Mistrust
Non-responsive government
The 1994 Genocide in Rwanda is at the bedrock of the DRC crisis. Everything appeared to be normal until post-1994. The Rwandan problem between the Tutsis and Hutus spilled over into DRC. The intense hatred is informed by failed or lack of attempts to redress the issues surrounding the genocide. This hatred informs the mutual suspicion – lack of trust. The DRC government is made of different individuals with different standpoints who are partisan. Hence, asides the obvious governance deficit, the inability of the government to respond to critical basic needs leaves a lacuna some warlords such as Kasongo are ready to fill.
The tit-for-tat nature of the attacks between and among the warlords makes the conflict vengeful in nature. Hence the cycle of violence. Now even though the starting point is known it becomes complex to identify the point where redress can begin. On different counts, Rwanda has been accused of supporting rebel groups against the DRC government. This support includes funding and supply of weapons and it serves as a fuel to the armed conflict in the country.
The direction to which this tragedy is headed is not looking promising for peace. Asides the interplay of these causative factors, warlords have tasted and they seek more power and wealth. It is therefore highly likely that achieving sustainable peace would be conceived as a threat to their interest. Hence, the question ‘do they want peace?’ is complex because they seem to have gained more from conflict and it is unlikely that peace would guarantee such. They are only being rational. Based on GreyDynamics African Intelligence Assessment, this and the factors earlier stated, it is almost certain that the DRC will implode if peace operations withdraw.
What Can Make Them Agree?
A background check is to ensure limited influence and interference by Rwanda – strategic. Beyond this, resource politics is likely the most instrumental tool – what does peace have to offer me? The negative side to it is that it may sow seeds of violence in that younger generations will catch the destructive vibe that violence is a sure means to wealth.
Image: Peninsula Qatar (link)
Jesutimilehin Akamo is Grey Dynamics’ analyst focussing on Central Africa and a Pre-doctoral fellow at STRATFOR. Jesutimilehin is a trained Human Rights Field Officer and was awarded the Tana 2018 continental essay award.
#Central Africa
#Democratic Republic of Congo
#DRC
#Jesutimilehin Akamo
#Non-state actors
#Rebel
#Rebellion
#Warlord
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Grist / Somedaygood / Dominic Lipinski - WPA Pool / Getty Images
The royal baby is cute and all, but hello, the planet is on fire
By Lisa Hymas and Ted MacDonald on May 21, 2019
Here’s a sign of how badly the big networks are blowing it: ABC’s World News Tonight spent more than seven minutes reporting on the birth of royal baby Archie in the week after he was born — more time than the program spent covering climate change during the entire year of 2018.
Other major TV news outlets in the U.S. have also severely underreported the climate crisis yet found plenty of time to note the arrival of Archie, son of Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. He’s now seventh in line to the British throne, which means he probably won’t be a king but definitely will be a tabloid mainstay.
On May 6, the same day Archie was born, the United Nations released a summary of a major new report warning that human destruction of the natural world, including through climate change, now threatens up to a million species with extinction. That’s dire news for our species too, as it also threatens our water supplies, food security, and health. The destruction of ecosystems and species “means grave impacts on people around the world are now likely,” the report warned. Robert Watson, head of the group of scientists that produced the report, laid it on the line: “What’s at stake here is a liveable world.”
Yes, this extinction crisis is grim news, and many people need a little light fare mixed in with their misery — a report on a royal baby, if you’re into that kind of thing, or a sports recap, or a segment on disgruntled Game of Thrones fans. But when the light fare takes over and the real news is shut out, that’s beyond lopsided. We’ve got a problem.
Media Matters tracked broadcast news coverage on May 6 and found that ABC and NBC’s nightly news programs failed to even mention the U.N. biodiversity report. They did, however, air two segments each on Archie. CBS was the only national broadcast network that ran a segment on the biodiversity report that night, and of course it ran one on the baby, too.
The perverse priorities of TV newscasters became even more obvious in the following days. Archie stayed in the news. Biodiversity and climate change stayed out of it.
By May 12, the three networks’ nightly news shows had spent a total of 17 minutes and 56 seconds on baby Archie. The extinction report and climate change garnered a total of one minute and 21 seconds — all of it in that single CBS segment on May 6.
ABC’s World News Tonight devoted the most time to the royal baby: seven minutes and 14 seconds over the week. Compare that to the six minutes and three seconds the program spent on climate change over the entire course of 2018. ABC typically lags behind its competitors in time spent covering climate change, as Media Matters has previously documented. The network has devoted less airtime to the climate crisis than CBS and NBC every year since 2013 — even though CBS and NBC don’t have great track records themselves. Lest you think the old broadcast dinosaurs don’t matter anymore, their flagship nightly news programs still attract an average of 25 million viewers a night, including more than 5 million between the ages of 25 and 52.
Within hours of Archie’s birth, Vice’s Derek Mead published a post headlined “Who’s Going to Tell the Royal Baby That Our Planet Is Unequivocally Dying?” He concluded, “royal baby aside, the most important news of the day, the decade, our lives, is this: We have pushed the planet far past its limits, and we ignore that at our existential peril.”
Mead joins a small but growing group of journalists and citizens demanding that our media step it up and cover climate change like the looming existential crisis it is. As Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope wrote last month for the Columbia Journalism Review, “If American journalism doesn’t get the climate story right — and soon — no other story will matter.” The Columbia Journalism Review, The Nation, and The Guardian are launching a #CoveringClimateNow project to spur the media into action. The disproportionate hullabaloo over the royal baby, juxtaposed with the near silence over the extinction crisis, shows exactly why we need it.
Imagine if mainstream media covered climate change with anything near the fervor of a royal wedding or a royal birth. Weeks of high-pitched pieces anticipating the release of new climate action plans. Minute-by-minute coverage dissecting every aspect of new scientific reports. Splashy, in-depth profiles of the people leading new climate movements. Homepages and front pages dominated by the climate crisis and climate solutions, day after day. If we can imagine it, can we make it happen?
Lisa Hymas is director of the climate and energy program at Media Matters for America and was previously a senior editor at Grist. Ted MacDonald is a climate and energy researcher at Media Matters.
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4 min video
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The Grit In The Oyster
Luke Commentary
Pastoral issues
Hell 24: The smoke of their torment
Posted: May 9, 2014 by J in Bible, Theology
The most confronting image of judgement in the NT is probably that in Revelation 14.
John of Patmos brings together a bunch a OT images to paint this picture of the judgement of the enemies of the lamb:
Then another angel, a third, followed them, crying with a loud voice, “Those who worship the beast and its image, and receive a mark on their foreheads or on their hands, they will also drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger, and they will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image and for anyone who receives the mark of its name.” Revelation 14:9
Let’s see if we can identify the images. This should help us get a sense of what John was trying to say by employing them.
The much-used imagery of ‘the beast’ comes from Daniel ch.7. It is a metaphor from Daniel’s store of apocalyptic images. It represents the enemies of Israel, under the control of dark powers, who fight against God.
The ‘cup of the wine of God’s wrath‘ is from Jeremiah 25. The prophet is given a cup of wine and told to make various nations drink it. The result is the devastation of those nations by the sword. Obviously this did not literally happen: it is a visionary image of judgement on the nations.
‘Fire and sulfur‘ is a traditional description of the wrath of God being poured out. It originates with Sodom and Gomorrah, but recurs throughout the OT. It pretty much always stands for complete destruction. The image also recurs throughout Revelation.
The image of ‘smoke going up‘ also comes from Sodom and Gomorrah. However the particular version here in Revelation, ‘smoke going up forever and ever‘ is taken from Isaiah 34, which details the destruction of Edom:
And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch,
and her soil into sulfur;
her land shall become burning pitch.
Night and day it shall not be quenched;
its smoke shall go up forever.
From generation to generation it shall lie waste; Isaiah 34:8-9
Once again we are dealing with prophetic imagery: Isaiah’s hearers were not to expect the whole land to become a lake of burning pitch. Rather, the point of the description is that Edom would go the way of Sodom and Gomorrah. Its destruction would be final and irrevocable. The land of Edom would be left waste forever, a place of thorns, a home for jackals.
The description of the followers of the beast as having ‘no rest‘ contrasts with the martyrs, mentioned immediately after. It comes from Isaiah 57:
Peace, peace, to the far and the near, says the LORD;
and I will heal them.
But the wicked are like the tossing sea
that cannot rest;
its waters toss up mire and mud.
There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked. Isaiah 57:19-21
This vivid comparison of the wicked with heaving seas expresses the emotional content of the future that awaits them. God’s people will be restored and healed by Yahweh, but the wicked ones will miss out and remain in turmoil. There is of course no concept of an afterlife functioning in this or any of Isaiah’s prophecies: it is the future of earthly people groups that is in view.
John brings all these prophetic images together in a description of toxic intensity: a place of ongoing fiery torment, where the wicked have no rest. The resulting picture would have been easily recognisable to first century listeners as the popular idea of Gehenna, or Tartarus. This is one of the very few places in the Scriptures that such a picture can be found, so we should consider it carefully.
Though John does seem to be tapping into this popular imagery, he has made his intentions tolerably clear by building up his picture using quotes from the Hebrew prophets. His interests and concerns are those of the prophetic tradition – the concerns outlined above. The afterlife is scarcely one of them.
In their original prophetic settings these images were used as metaphors. Here they are gathered together in a context that is overtly symbolic, drawing freely on a variety of OT metaphors. The wine is ‘the wine of anger’, and the cup is ‘the cup of his wrath’. John is signalling to us that he is dealing in metaphors.
What do the metaphors mean, then? The message of John’s third angel seems to be that all the judgements foreseen in the prophets are now being realised.
It is worth noticing that later John reuses some of these images in describing the destruction of Babylon, in ch.18-19:
And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning; they will stand far off, in fear of her torment. Revelation 18:9-10
Once more they said, “Hallelujah! The smoke goes up from her forever and ever.” Revelation 19:3
As so often before, here also we see how the prophetic imagery is used and reused flexibly depending on the needs of the situation.
If in spite of this context we are determined to read this as a literal description, then we will find here evidence of the reality of Gehenna. We have finally found somewhere in the Scriptures that teaches our traditional doctrine of Hell.
If we want to take this approach, then to be fair in our reading we would also have to say that this Hell is a place for people who have a trade mark on their foreheads, which indicates that they follow a real beast with two horns. And also that, once in hell, they drink wine from a cup there, while a lamb watches. Also that only 144 000 people will escape this fate, as that is the number who got the lamb’s forehead mark instead of the beast’s.
If we are not willing to say that, then perhaps we can recognise that, just like every other biblical writer, John of Patmos uses these images of judgement as a symbolic language to communicate his message about the judgement of God. God’s enemies face the terrible prospect of being paid back the shame and destruction they dished out to the saints: a destruction which this time is complete, final, and deserved.
Kevin Scholes says:
but is it forever ,why is the word forever used ,did it mean forever??
Hell 23: Paul and the river of Jesus-fire
Hell 25: Conclusions
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Corruption Remains Entrenched in Guyana | Guyana News and Information Discussion Forums
Corruption Remains Entrenched in Guyana
Bibi HaniffaGNI Queen
- Ralph Ramkarran
Despite the rhetoric from Government in regard to combating corruption, and notwithstanding the laws that have been passed empowering institutions like the State Assets Recovery Unit (SARU) to act, corruption still remains entrenched in Guyana.
Former Speaker of the House, Ralph Ramkarran
Much more needs to be done, according to former Speaker of the House, Ralph Ramkarran, SC, who in his latest missive has said Guyana is about to experience a massive increase in its resources — a reference to the burgeoning oil industry, which is expected to commence commercial production of oil in 2020 — but still retains an inexperienced regulatory environment, with corruption still existing.
“Challenges (the country faces include) continued corruption and disquiet about the next elections,” Ramkarran stated in his column, Conversation Tree. “Despite the loud talk, new policing laws and institutions, no dent in corruption has been noticed. It is as pervasive as it was in the past, though less noticeable because there is less government spending.”
He also spoke about the elections, and the continuing delay in appointing a chairman for the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to replace outgoing Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally.
President David Granger, having rejected the first list submitted by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, has been furnished with a second list since May 2; but sources close to the People’s National Congress (PNC) have related that the President has in mind a favoured person whose name has not appeared on either list.
Government has since denied this assertion, but Ramkarran has said that if the second list is rejected, serious questions would emerge.
“On the elections’ front, the rejection by President Granger of the first list for Chair of the Elections Commission, submitted by Leader of the Opposition, was unexpected and surprising. If the rumours that the second list is also to be rejected prove to be true, serious questions will emerge as to whether the APNU+AFC coalition government wants an independent Chair; and if not, why not,” Ramkarran expressed.
Ramkarran notes that it was against this backdrop and the continuing lack of social cohesion that the Carter Centre had called for constitutional reform. He has accordingly expressed his complete support for the position taken by the Carter Center.
“It (the Carter Center) said that the anticipated influx of oil revenue has the potential to exacerbate ethnic and political conflicts. It recommends separate presidential elections, possibly with candidates ranked by voters in a preferred scale, with the person gaining the highest total votes being the winner,” Ramkarran explained.
Last year, the United States Department of State had reported that corruption continues to be among the leading human rights problems facing Guyana. The Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2015, released by that department in 2016, had also chronicled other human rights violations.
“There remained a widespread public perception of corruption involving officials at all levels, including the police and the judiciary,” the report said. It noted, however, that Government had responded to these reports, but it did not elaborate on that response.The report also stated that while the law requires public officials to declare their assets to an Integrity Commission, that commission has not yet been constituted.
It added that the law sets out both criminal and administrative sanctions for public officials who do not disclose their assets to the commission, but said neither disclosure of assets nor conviction for nondisclosure of assets occurred during the year.
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo has called on the Government to have an international firm investigate whatever assets are held by both current and past Government officials, but this call that has gone unanswered by the Government.
The latest U.S. State Department report on human rights in Guyana had also mentioned alleged Government corruption, including among police officials, as among Guyana’s continuing human rights problems.
According to the Department’s annual report, which examines human rights conditions in countries throughout the world, the law provides for criminal penalties for corrupt officials, and Government generally implements the law effectively. However, it noted that “there were isolated reports of government corruption during the year, and administration officials responded to the reports.
There remained a widespread public perception of corruption involving officials at all levels, including the police and the judiciary.”
here remained a widespread public perception of corruption involving officials at all levels, including the police and the judiciary.”
I have been saying this all the time. PNC operatives in the police, the judiciary, and the GDF. One big hell hole.
Lemme cut and paste a teeny-weeny puny piece:
“Despite the loud talk, new policing laws and institutions, no dent in corruption has been noticed. It is as pervasive as it was in the past, though less noticeable because there is less government spending.”
Past = Jagdeo+Ramotar Reign
Now, this problem is so endemic, I think it resides in ordinary people's bones. As soon as a layman in Guyana gets entangled with the law, his natural instinct is to bribe the police. If the matter reaches court, he is willing to fork out more money to bribe court functionaries from bottom to top.
Now, many businessmen are notorious bribers. They bribe police, court officials, customs officers, strategic public servants, and they offer unrejectable "gifts" to politicians in government. Is who yuh think "spoilt" dem previously lean-and-clean PPP ministers? Is businessmen like BK and da crook-n-thug Annand Persaud who bin own Strand Cinema and who bin a PNC supporta befo dat.
This is the most frightening!!!
"President David Granger, having rejected the first list submitted by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo, has been furnished with a second list since May 2; but sources close to the People’s National Congress (PNC) have related that the President has in mind a favoured person whose name has not appeared on either list."
Let us face the facts, the same set of corrupt officials in the police and civil service during the PPP tenure are still there during this PNC hard guava season. So the fact that corruption continues unabated is not surprising considering that Harmon(5Million missing corruption), Norton(drug bond corruption), Volda Lawrence(Ansa Mcal corruption) were caught red handed.
Does Ramkarran really believe anyone can just wish away corruption? Then he is naive! He was part of the machinery all his life, what did he do to fight it within his own ranks? He is being hypocritical to expect it to go away!
Corruption runs deep in the society and, like any corrupt society, it has become a sub-culture within the national culture going way back to the old PNC days. Corruption will not just go away by shouting, it will not just go away by legislation, it will not even go away with a firing squad, just ask the Chinese!
Corruption is a complex issue and needs to be addressed with both a stick and carrot. All I hear everyone talk of is the stick, how about the carrot? Corruption has become the livelihood for some and a supplemental income for many. Unless you create dis-incentives and value-at-risk incentives, corruption will be the risk people will be willing to take to get by! This will be a generational struggle!
alena06Senior Member
Very well written I must say. Corruption is a 'way of life' in Guyana regardless of who is in power.
Bibi Haniffa posted:
Is da man whose name sounds like da male waterfowl wid flat beak and webbed feet. Jagdeo would never put his name on the list because he and PPP had some kerfuffle.
S B K
And when yuh get yuh head out yuh kakahole it will not only be refreshing but you will be able to see
There you go again, your response didn't address the "back and forth" in my sentence.
He is still under Mental supervision.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH WITH YOU MR DJANGO
Sean is jumping the gun again. You can't make a judgement and the trial has just begun. This is just to have a say or to talk trash on...
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Decreased Appetite After Beginning to Work Out
Why Does Interval Training Burn More Fat?
Does Exercise Increase the Appetite?
by Eileen Rojas
Does Exercise Make You Sleepy?
Morning Workouts for Weight Loss
Chemicals Released in Your Body When You Workout Your Legs
Expected Weight Loss on Metformin
Exercise can both increase and decrease your appetite. Today Health reports that the frequency of exercise performance and its intensity level play a major role on the effect it has on appetite. Research studies have shown that aerobic exercise, such as running, can have a greater effect on the suppression of appetite during exercise and immediately afterwards than an anaerobic activity, such as weightlifting, according to Science Daily. Performing intense aerobic exercises can affect the appetite hormones in the body.
Aerobic Exercise and Appetite
According to a Loughborough University’s medical study in the UK, jogging for an hour on a treadmill affects two of the body’s appetite hormones – gherlin and peptide YY. The treadmill workout caused gherlin levels to decrease and peptide YY levels to increase in eleven male participants – a sign that appetite was suppressed. The study’s author, David Stensel, Ph.D., believes part of the reason why appetite is suppressed is due to the body’s need to circulate more blood to prevent overheating. Approximately one to two hours after exercising, there’s a tendency for appetite to increase due to the body’s need to replenish the energy it has lost. The effect is more pronounced in women, since exercise may also raise their longer-term appetite stimulating hormones leptin and insulin.
Anaerobic Exercise and Appetite
An anaerobic exercise, such as weightlifting, can also have an effect on appetite. The same UK study asked eleven male participants to engage in 90 minutes of weightlifting. The results – gherlin levels decreased, an indication of appetite suppression, but peptide YY levels did not vary by much. This is an indication that anaerobic exercise can also suppress appetite but not as much as intense aerobic exercise. (ref. 1, 2)
Frequency of Exercise
Engaging in frequent exercise not only helps you to lose extra pounds or maintain your ideal weight, Professor Neil King, Ph.D., states it also restores sensitivity to the brain cells that control satiety, or the body’s feeling of fullness that causes you to stop eating. This is important for people who have high-fat diets: "Men's Fitness" magazine reports that some research shows that excessive fat in a diet can disturb the brain’s signals for satiety, which can lead to over-eating and obesity. Another issue associated with frequent exercise -- some people overestimate the amount of calories burned after a workout and like to indulge in less healthy foods that end up replacing the calories burned.
Healthy Vs. Obese Individuals
A person’s health status can also play a role in whether exercise increases or decreases appetite. For example, researchers in California Polytechnic State University found that young and healthy individuals who exercised vigorously after one hour showed less interest in food. Obese individuals showed varied results: 59 percent lost weight and showed less interest in food, the remaining 41 percent lost less weight than the first group and showed more interest in food after exercising.
Science Daily: Exercise Suppresses Appetite By Affecting Appetite Hormones
Today Health: Exercise Can Curb Hunger, New Research Finds
Eileen Rojas holds a bachelor's and master's degree in accounting from Florida International University. She has more than 10 years of combined experience in auditing, accounting, financial analysis and business writing.
Signs & Symptoms of Overtraining
What Are the Health Benefits of Walking an Hour a Day on the Treadmill?
How Exercise Affects Your Body's Composition
Factors That Affect One's Performance in Sports
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Tag Archives: insidious 2 plot
Review: Insidious: Chapter 2 takes you deeper into the further
Another positive review of Insidious Chapter 2 (from someone whose opinion we trust). We’re looking forward to seeing it this weekend. Okay, Mrs. Horror Boom is looking forward to it, Mr HB not so much… but both of us saw Insidious in the theater, so neither of us will be lost. Can’t wait to see ‘The Bride In Black’ again (if that’s what they’re calling the creepy old woman in black with the candle from the original, who–here’s some trivia for you–was actually played by a man, possibly because they couldn’t find a woman scary and ugly enough; see our featured image above), though mid-movie, we might be regretting that statement. Dig into this review from Rhino’s Horror!
James Wan’s Insidious: Chapter 2 may have been a somewhat forced sequel after the major success of the first film, but Wan does everything in his power to make it one that not only holds up to the original, but takes you deeper into the further in a strange as hell ride. Wan has stated that this will mark his last film in the genre as he moves on to newer and exciting things so it’s no surprise that he really wanted to leave behind a wickedly weird and entertaining flick that is riddled with enough scares to make Insidious: Chapter 2 an absolute blast. The sequel picks up right where the original left off as the haunted Lambert family seeks to uncover the mysterious childhood secret that has left them dangerously connected to the spirit world.
Posted By: Mrs. Horror Boom (HorrorBoom.com) Category: Get The HELL Scared Out of You!, Here Go Hell Come, Horror Boom, Horror Franchises - Featuring All the Best, Horror Sequels and Horror Prequels, Images and Galleries, Practical Effects - Still the Best!, Raves- BITCHIN'!, Reviews, The Stuff of Nightmares Tags: bride in black Insidious 2, insidious 2 plot, insidious chapter 2 review, Lin Shaye Insidious, Mother Crane Insidious
See Promising First ‘Insidious: Chapter 2’ Trailer: Hello Terror, (And Tiny Tim) My Old Friend
Whoo-hooo!
OK, straight up: I’m not sure how they’re going to explain away the fact that the first Insidious ended (Er, SPOILER ALERT FOR INSIDIOUS (2011)!!!! with Patrick Wilson‘s possessed character strangling Lin Shaye‘s character to death, after which it is established the (fucking terrifying) old woman in black finally got her hands on and her spirit into him – just NO RETCON, PLEASE, JAMES WON! That was one of the most awesome, chilling, clever endings I’ve seen in a long time. The icing on the cake was the smash cut to the title credit — when a horror movie does that BOOM! I’m OUT! drop-the-mic style ending, which was/is master of horror John Carpenter‘s trademark, picked up later by other horror directors who are clearly horror fans (example: Sam Raimi). This here horror fan has been known to spontaneously shout, “YEAH!” and burst into applause seeing a horror movie in the theater that ends this way, not caring whether or not the rest of the crowd joins in or not (as Mr. Horror Boom slumps down in his seat). OK, anyway, I’d buy it explained away as a dream. Lin Shaye is shown in the cast on the IMDB page, maybe CPR brings her back… oh hell, for now I’ll trust Wan. “Specs” and his partner are in the trailer –and the cast list on the IMDB page–too. Enough of my yakking, take a look at the trailer for Insidious Chapter 2 theatrical trailer above!
“Insidious Chapter 2” psychological horror new trailer unveiled (panarmenian.net)
‘Insidious Chapter 2′ Trailer: Go Deeper Into the Further With Director James Wan (slashfilm.com)
First Trailer and Images for INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2 (collider.com)
Insidious Chapter 2 Trailer Now Haunting the Internet! New Stills! (dreadcentral.com)
Posted By: Mrs. Horror Boom (HorrorBoom.com) Category: Get The HELL Scared Out of You!, Horror Boom, Horror Franchises - Featuring All the Best, Images and Galleries, Indie Horror, Raves- BITCHIN'!, The Stuff of Nightmares, Trailers and Clips Tags: Barbara Hershey, insidious, insidious 2 plot, insidious 2 theatrical trailer, insidious 2 trailer, insidious chapter 2 trailer, insidious creepy trailer, insidious spoilers, insidious tiptoe through the tulips, James Wan, Lin Shaye, Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne
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Restaurant Technology Network (RTN)
Content Hubs
Avoiding Network Security Pitfalls of 3 Next-Gen Technologies
Evolving network security threats require evolving solutions.
By Julie Ritzer Ross, Contributing Editor - 04/05/2019
Hotels of all sizes continue to fall prey to cyber attacks, while the breadth of data compromised grows exponentially. The practices employed by hackers on hotels are also rapidly evolving, necessitating that IT defense strategies evolve as well.
“The threat landscape is very different now than it was just a few years ago,” notes Kelvin Coleman, executive director, National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA). “Every hotel is vulnerable, and hackers are looking not just for credit card numbers, but also for data they can monetize. Additionally, attacks are no longer being carried out by ‘lone wolf’ types sitting in a garage or basement. Now most perpetrators are members of organized rings,” both in the U.S. and abroad.
Simple phishing attacks and malware injections are still common in the hotel space, say Coleman and vendors like OpenVPN. However, more sophisticated schemes are surfacing. NuData Security, a Mastercard company, offers the injection of overlays into reservation systems to skim credit card numbers as an example. Advanced persistent threats to hotel networks, which involve multiple simultaneous points of entry (so that if a breach is discovered, hackers can still continue with an infiltration), are popular now as well, reports Compliance Point.
1 WiFi Networks: Be Vigilant
WiFi networks are a common access point for perpetrators to hack into as a “bridge” to the corporate network. According to XM Cyber, this allows hackers to access systems that collect personally identifiable information (PII) and payment card information. Similarly, many attackers now engage in a form of “dark hoteling” that involves creating a spoofed version of a hotel’s guest WiFi network. Guests are tricked into sharing payment or other personal information for WiFi access or faster service.
Another up-and-coming “dark hoteling” scheme involves targeted spear-phishing attacks. According to SiteLock, individuals who are trying to use the guest WiFi encounter a pop-up that looks like it is from the hotel and contains some type of personal information about the guest (the latter distinguishes it from a mass phishing attempt). Clicking a link in the pop-up injects malware into the system. Spear-phishing is also perpetrated against hotels by sending emails to guests, requesting that they click a link (resulting in malware infection) or provide PII or other sensitive data.
2 Internet of Things Platforms: Connected & at Risk
In certain instances, perpetrators now attempt to gain access to properties’ restaurant POS, guest registration, and billing systems through other systems that are connected to the wireless network — e.g., hacking into it via Bluetooth-controlled locking systems, smart TVs, remote-controlled in-room amenities (e.g., HVAC) and advanced AV systems in conference rooms. Vendors like Nyotron acknowledge that as hotel operators increasingly leverage the Internet of Things (IoT) to cater to guest demands for connected experiences, the latter variety of schemes will become more common.
Forter notes a trend among fraudsters creating fake booking sites. This involves reservations being fabricated for resale through “URL-jacking” — utilizing the URLs in hotel confirmation emails to see, extract and change personal information provided there. Highly sophisticated online criminals will also set up fake websites that resemble those of legitimate hotels, accept bookings from real customers, and complete the bookings elsewhere using stolen credentials. The reservations are then sold on a third-party site, turning a profit before the hotel or consumer realizes that any type of theft has occurred.
Forter’s research indicates that account takeovers, wherein fraudsters use stolen credentials to hack into legitimate online accounts, are on the rise across all industries, increasing at a rate of 31% annually with no sign of abating. These attacks occur after network breaches with the perpatrators using PII after it has been stolen to commit additional crimes like account takeover. Takeovers of loyalty accounts are becoming especially prevalent.
3 Artificial Intelligence, Real Threat Exposure
As businesses look to artificial intelligence (AI) to bolster customer experience and guest engagement, Coleman says criminals have begun to exploit this for their own gains. Fraudsters have become adept at finding ways to harness AI to identify where to launch and spread attacks, as well as to pinpoint guest targets and enhance malware capabilities.
Final Word: Technology Fixes
Firewalls, VLANs and regular patching of systems represent a good start toward keeping cyber attackers at bay, but evolving threats call for more comprehensive, effective cyber-defense strategies.
“It’s not only the endpoints any more, it’s everywhere — every device and every system has to be safeguarded,” asserts Randy Vanderhoof, executive director, Secure Technology.
Sources note that while network segmentation — separating networks used to process payment card information from guest WiFi and corporate networks — is good practice, it is insufficient protection against compromise. Attackers now know how to overcome this separation of networks and “jump” from one network to another by taking advantage of misconfigurations or weak controls. Limiting the number of interconnections between different types of networks is therefore very important, as is utilizing technology from vendors like Digital Shadows to detect when unauthorized access from one network to another occurs. Similarly, sources suggest migrating to next-generation firewalls that pair traditional firewall technology with intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS) designed to monitor network or system activities.
Hotel operators might also consider opting for fiber-based passive optical LAN rather than a copper-based LAN infrastructure. According to the Association for Passive Optical LAN (APOLAN), copper LANs can span a distance of only 300 feet, so network access points for copper LANs can be placed no more than 300 feet apart. Passive optical LANs can span much greater distances (up to 12.5 miles), reducing the number of vulnerable access points to which hackers have access. Additionally, the optical network terminal component of passive optical network infrastructures store do not store configuration or user information and require no physical management access. This adds another layer of security not possible with copper networks.
CMIT Solutions and Netsurion see a combination of security information and event management (SIEM) and endpoint detection and response (EDR) technology as weapons for fighting the security battle at network endpoints. The SIEM component provides a single location for storing and analyzing data coming from multiple log sources, while the EDR determines whether malware has been installed on endpoint devices and finds ways to respond to this type of threat. Netsurion has rolled out next-EventTracker EDR, a next-generation solution that integrates SIEM with EDR and is delivered in a managed-services model.
Patrick Dunphy, CIO, Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG) points to the increased importance of using unified threat management and threat intelligence solutions given the breadth of the cyber-attack landscape. The latter solutions, sources say, should track geographical indicators and block fraudsters who are pretending to be from somewhere they are not, using an identity-centric approach that involves monitoring customer behavior at every touchpoint of travelers’ buying journey. For example, the browsing, account creation and point redemption stages of loyalty program usage should all be scrutinized to determine the legitimacy of each traveler and catch fraudulent activity before it makes an impact.
Priceline has implemented Forter’s proprietary end-to-end technology in a move to detect and eliminate fraudulent purchases at the account level as well as at the point of sale. The solution taps into an extensive network of resources and utilizes AI to ferret out suspicious activity and determine if a transaction is legitimate prior to settlement.
“This is critical, since both honest travelers and fraudsters regularly book travel at the last minute,” states Eric Lorenz, Priceline’s vice president of finance operations.
In fact, SiteLock and other sources point out that the ever-higher volume of third-party reservations coming in and out of hotels’ internal systems warrants more than proper authentication and authorization. Replacing insecure messaging protocols like SOAP with more secure options such as JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)
or representational state transfer (REST) is equally critical because third-party reservations require APIs, in turn increasing the number of external connections. The use of sniffers to detect insecure API connections helps safeguard data and
systems as well.
While deploying the right network security technology tools is important, hotels must also create what some sources call a “human firewall” by properly training employees about what they can do to thwart threats and what to watch for (e.g., emails that contain suspicious links, suspicious guest behavior, etc.).
Vendors like Cybint Cyber Solutions and VENZA offer cybersecurity education to hotel operators and employees. Prism Hotels & Resorts recently implemented VENZA’s Everest data security package, which in addition to PCI DSS SAQ preparation, internal/external network scanning, and data breach coverage includes the services of a personal program coach and webinars. A wide variety of brands, among them Hyatt Regency and Hilton Hotels & Resorts, among others, made it necessary to provide consistent security training to a diverse employee base, according to Prism Resorts & Hotels CFO John Bailey.
“Hotel employees really need to understand the extent of these threats, and that they play a role in handling them,” Dunphy observes.
April 2019 issue
Security -- Network
Property Wide
Top Malware Trends and What They Mean for the Hospitality Industry
WatchGuard’s Q2 Internet Security Report Finds Malware Hiding on Popular Content Delivery Networks
Priceline Selects Forter to Fight Online Travel Fraudsters
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“Gasbag”: GOP challenger takes aim at Senator Boof in new ad
Ed MorrisseyPosted at 1:01 pm on October 6, 2018
Could Sheldon Whitehouse suddenly find himself vulnerable to a Republican challenger in deep-blue Rhode Island? Almost certainly not, but it’s certainly fun to play out this string anyway. Bob Flanders launched a new ad highlighting the most excruciatingly embarrassing five minutes in recent Senate history — Whitehouse’s cross-examination of Brett Kavanaugh over high-school yearbook entries such as
“boofed,” and “Devil’s Triangle.” Whitehouse demanded that Kavanaugh cop to them as sexual references … as though a teenage boy talking about sex was evidence of anything but being a teenage boy.
Flanders calls it “Gasbag,” which fits perfectly:
The most hilarious part of this is that Whitehouse seems to be completely enthralled with himself as he sets supposed perjury traps for Kavanaugh — over teen slang from 36 years ago. Unfortunately for Whitehouse, he skipped over the part where cross-examiners do research and figure out the answers ahead of time. It turns out that “boof” was well-enough known as a slang for flatulence to be included in a book about it, and four other boys from Georgetown Prep testified that “Devil’s Triangle” was indeed a drinking game.
Perry Mason he ain’t.
In a just world, a performance as ridiculous and self-important as this would cost a politician his job. Rhode Island, however, is one of the deepest-blue states in the country. Whitehouse won his last election in 2012 by thirty points, and Hillary Clinton won the state by 16 points two years ago. In the only poll of the state thus far this cycle, Flanders trailed Whitehouse by 19 points, 54/35. Whitehouse looks unassailable.
Or does he? Our friend William Jacobson wrote on Thursday that a local radio host’s sources told him that Whitehouse’s internal polling shows signs of a collapse in support:
Local radio host John DePetro reports, Flanders gaining on Sheldon Whitehouse as Rhode Island U.S. Senate seat is up for grabs:
“Here comes Bob Flanders. The Rhode Island U.S. Senate race has heated up as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has watched his poll numbers collapse in the aftermath of his embarrassing performance questioning Brett Kavanaugh.
“The Flanders campaign has gone into full gear as the race has moved into a single digit lead for Whitehouse. A poll last month by WPRI had Sheldon at 54% and Flanders at 35%, however the numbers have changed. Democrat sources say new internal numbers show Sheldon Whitehouse at 47% and Flanders at 40%, with 13% undecided. Whitehouse has watched his numbers with Independent voters collapse and his numbers with men have fallen significantly.”
I heard the same thing, that Whitehouse’s internal polling showed him ahead by high single digits. I repeatedly emailed Whitehouse’s campaign manager for comment, but never received a response.
I’d love to think this was accurate. It certainly would be a just outcome. However, it’s one source on one internal poll, so it’s almost impossible to credit this as a significant development. Perhaps it might induce some of the regional or national pollsters to take a closer look at Rhode Island, where the one poll was taken just as the Washington Post first reported the allegation against Kavanaugh from Christine Blasey Ford. The political landscape has changed greatly since then.
But has the Kavanaugh Effect hit in a Democrat stronghold like Rhode Island? If it has, Democrats might have some big trouble on their hands. Without more data, though, we can only chalk that up to speculation.
Addendum: My column at The Week noted that Democrats have a problem in another deep-blue bastion even apart from the Kavanaugh Effect. If they have to start defending Whitehouse along with Robert Menendez, it’s going to leave some incumbents twisting in the wind:
Bob Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat who beat the rap in a corruption trial earlier this year, finds himself in a shocking neck-and-neck race with political upstart Bob Hugin in the deep-blue Garden State. A new Stockton University poll of likely voters shows Menendez only leading 45 percent to 43 percent in a state Clinton carried 55 to 41 in 2016. Another likely-voter poll from Fairleigh Dickinson gave Menendez a six-point lead, but only 43 percent of the vote — a very low number for an incumbent of the state’s dominant party. No likely-voter poll has given Menendez more than 45 percent support this year.
That’s not a very good omen for a man who won his last election by 19 points. So what’s changed? For one thing, FiveThirtyEight‘s Clare Malone points out, the scandal of the corruption trial has corroded Menendez’s standing with voters. He claimed the result vindicated him, but both the Stockton and Fairleigh Dickinson polls put his unfavorable ratings above 50 percent. Almost a quarter of Democratic likely voters in one poll still remain undecided between Menendez and Hugin, who’s running as a pro-choice, pro-same-sex-marriage Republican. Undecideds of any stripe tend to break away from the incumbent as the election approaches, and with unfavorables this high, Menendez may be in for a long night. …
If the catalyst for this enthusiasm is the Kavanaugh confirmation process, it’s also a question of where it will be felt most. That will likely be in the red states Trump carried, which means that those incumbent Senate Democrats that seemed safe a few weeks ago might be in real trouble. Two likely-voter polls taken in North Dakota during the hearings put incumbent Democrat Heidi Heitkamp down double digits to GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer after having spent much of the cycle within the margin of error. Democrat Joe Donnelly still leads in Indiana, but he’s dropped from 51 percent support in an NBC/Marist poll in late August to 43 percent in two successive Fox News likely-voter polls. In Tennessee, where Democrats hoped to swipe a seat from retiring Republican Bob Corker, Democratic Rep. Marsha Blackburn has surged into the lead over former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen.
This makes holding onto the New Jersey seat even more critical for Democrats. To do so, however, the party may have to shift resources into the Garden State that would normally go to defending incumbents in less friendly states or to play offense on the few vulnerable Republican seats up for grabs. Even that might not be enough to stave off an angered Republican base in their home states.
Tags: Bob Flanders boof Brett Kavanaugh devil's triangle Sheldon Whitehouse
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#MayThe4th
These seven Star Wars-inspired cocktails can awaken the Force in you
What's Eric Eating Episode 2
Ronnie Killen talks about creating the perfect burger and Austin plans
Sneak Peek at King's BierHaus
Sneak peek: German beer garden gets a modern Houston update with ultimate outdoor space
Philipp and Hans Sitter are ready to welcome diners to King's BierHaus. Photo by Jeremy Niederheiser
The new King's resides near the intersection of Ella and T.C. Jester. Photo by Jeremy Niederheiser
Bar manager Keith Taylor shows off King's 2.5L boots. Photo by Eric Sandler
40 taps of mostly German beer and lots of whiskey. Photo by Jeremy Niederheiser
King's will always be known for sausage. Photo by Eric Sandler
Learn about German beer via flights. Photo by Eric Sandler
Sitter hopes to fill the communal tables with neighbors sitting next to each other. Photo by Jeremy Niederheiser
Oma's fried chicken features a light, crispy breading. Photo by Eric Sandler
The range of German spirits includes brandy with a pear that grows inside the bottle. Photo by Eric Sandler
Or choose a tequila cocktail. Photo by Eric Sandler
Hammocks are mandatory. Photo by Jeremy Niederheiser
Behold the bucolic landscape. Photo by Jeremy Niederheiser
“The problem with typical German restaurants is they’re dying with their clients, seriously. They’re an older generation. The younger crowd. They don’t know what typical German food is.”
Hans Sitter understands the problem of owning a German restaurant too well. As the owner of King’s Biergarten in Pearland, Sitter has transformed a one-time carwash into a destination of German food, beer, and kitsch that’s one of the Houston-area’s most underrated dining experiences. Despite that success, as he notes, the concept’s appeal is limited.
So Sitter and his son Philipp are changing things up for the new restaurant, King’s BierHaus. Located near the Heights on the border of Shady Acres and Lazybrook/Timbergrove, the new King’s updates the formula and aims to broaden the concept’s appeal. The new restaurant will host a few nights of invite-only previews this week before throwing open the doors to the public on May 8.
“This (restaurant) is really his baby,” Hans Sitter says. “I’m the old fashioned guy and the funny guy, but the operator, the manager, and my partner is really my son. He said, ‘we have to bring more stuff in there. We have to take care of a much wider spectrum of people.’”
As Philipp explains, that means offering customers a family-friendly environment with different sections that provide different experiences. The highlight is a fully-landscaped, lush beer garden with trees, hammocks, picnic tables, and a water feature. It’s a decidedly more lush, bucolic environment than places like Axelrad or the recently opened Heights Bier Garten.
“What we’re trying to do is a modern approach to a German beer garden,” Philipp Sitter says. “What’s the difference between a German beer garden and an American beer garden? We still add the trees, the water, and the atmosphere. If you go to a beer garden in San Francisco, it could be a container with gravel. We’re more the European beer garden style: communal tables, a lot of trees, water, good for families, kids, friends, everything.”
On nice days, Sitter envisions the garden full of customers, eating dishes that range from traditional German fare like sausages and schnitzel to more contemporary fare like an apple pear salad or an on trend fried chicken sandwich topped with Swiss cheese and mushroom sauce. King’s even offers a kale salad. The classic dishes, including most of the sausages, are based on Sitter family recipes that Hans identifies as 150 years old. Recipes for the menu's three vegan sausages are considerably newer, but that's just one way King's wants to appeal to as many people as possible.
“Our staple is sausages and beer, but we go well beyond that,” Philipp sitter says. “Maybe you and I come in, we say, let’s try the goulash next time. Let’s drink a bottle of wine. It’s multi-dimensional like our seating is.”
Those who want to sit inside will find different options, too. A section of smaller tables with individual chairs feels more like a restaurant, while the bar area offers communal tables and lots of TVs.
Another Oktoberfest touch at King’s BierHaus will be the serving style. Similar to places like Hopdoddy, diners will order at a counter when they walk in, then a server will deliver the food, offer refills, and facilitate the rest of the meal. Full service is available at the bar.
“We have the Germanic theme, let’s have the Oktoberfest style of serving,” Sitter explains. “We feel like it marries to our brand well, because it’s themed German.”
The Germanic feel extends to the beverages as well. Of the 31 beer taps, all but five are from Germany. They’re available in regular pints, but Sitter encourages people to go for a half liter or full liter. Groups of two or more can opt for a 2.5L boot — roughly equivalent to an entire 6-pack by ounces; best of all, the $55 price includes taking the boot home.
Diners can learn more about the different beers by ordering a flight of four, four-ounce samples. The selection includes beers brewed at monasteries as well as Weihenstephan Vitus, a noble hefeweizen that’s been rated as the best beer in the world by the World Beer Council.
“Think about a Pauliner or Fraziskaner, but with the flavors amplified by three,” bar manager Keith Taylor explains about the Vitus. “It’s very intense but very delicious . . . I’ve never had anybody try that beer and say they don’t like it.”
Taylor and the Sitters have also sourced almost all of the restaurant’s wines, schnapps, and brandy from Germany and Austria. He’s encouraging customers to try a pear brandy that features a pear grown inside the bottle.
King’s also offers a 50 bottle whiskey list that covers both American and international styles, which draws upon the expertise Taylor displayed during his stint at Hunky Dory. “We plan on eventually bringing it three or four bottles of something awesome (ie, a small batch or highly allocated whiskey),” Taylor says. “Put that on the board. Basically, as soon as it’s gone, we’ll bring something else in.”
As he looks around the empty room, Sitter lays out his vision for what the future might hold. Imagine a full dining room on a Saturday night with live music filling the air and giant boots full of beer hitting the tables.
“If it gets really crowded, we may start introducing people to each other. Give it that real Oktoberfest feel,” Sitter says. “I think Houston is ready for something like that . . . Come, meet your neighbors, have a good time together.”
King's BierHaus, 2044 East T. C Jester Boulevard; 281-990-3042
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News Commits Offers Predictions Greg's Guys Preferred Walk-Ons OOS All Recruits
Jalen Paxton
6′1″ / 165 lbs
National Avg
Rating: 83.8
School Preferences
Official Visit
Staff Predictions
Name & Date
Our staff hasn't made any predictions for Jalen Paxton yet.
(1 Total)
sophomore season
There aren't any stories for this recruit.
National Average Rating
The National Average Rating is a proprietary formula that calculates an industry-wide aggregate rating for each recruiting prospect. The formula includes publicly listed grades, scores, ratings and rankings by national recruiting services, along with a Hail Varsity rating. Combining the data provides a rating for each prospect, which is then normalized to fit the Hail Varsity Rating 100-point scale.
The intent of this rating is to provide Hail Varsity readers with a comprehensive snapshot of how individual prospects rank nationally.
Hail Varsity Rating
99-100: Elite national prospect (Five-star)
Considered one of the best prospects in the nation and a likely difference-maker at the collegiate level. Displays all of the physical skills to be a future All-American with potential to be an early-round NFL draft pick.
90-98: Elite state prospect (Four-star)
Considered one of the best 30-40 prospects in the state and a top 250 national prospect. Displays the physical skills to be a major early contributor at the collegiate level with high professional potential.
80-89: Quality prospect (Three-star)
Considered one of the best 100 prospects in the state and a top 500 national prospect. Displays the physical skills to develop into a contributor over the course of his college career. Has the ability to become a professional prospect over time with development.
70-79: Solid prospect (Two-star)
Considered one of the top 250 prospects in the state. Has the physical skills to be a potential contributor at a D-1 program over the course of his collegiate career with significant development. Professional potential is low.
The predictions represent which school each staff member believes will ultimately sign the recruit, and the confidence meter represents his level of certainty in that outcome.
If the predicted school is Nebraska and confidence is set to “High”, then the staff member is saying “I believe that this recruit will ultimately sign with Nebraska and I feel very certain about that.”
If the predicted school is “Alabama” and confidence is set to “Low,” then the staff member is saying “I believe that this recruit will ultimately sign with Alabama, but I’m not very certain about that.”
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“Let us work together to replace despair with HOPE, fear with human SECURITY and humiliation with DIGNITY”
Mission Statement, Goals & Core Values
Who Are the Arab Christians of the Holy Land?
Reflections from the President
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King calls for safeguarding Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.
His Majesty King Abdullah on Sunday, November 10, inaugurated the fourth ordinary session of the 18th Parliament and delivered the Speech from the Throne.
In the speech, King Abdullah reaffirmed Jordan’s unwavering positions on key causes, His Majesty said: “Our national positions on the Palestinian cause are steadfast, supporting our Palestinian brethren to establish their independent state on the 4 June 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital. There will be no compromise on safeguarding Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, despite increasing dangers and threats.”
He added, “I hereby call on Muslims and Christians to step up the protection of these holy sites, and support us in safeguarding them and ensuring the preservation of their legal status. Today, I also announce the expiration of the Peace Treaty annexes on Al Ghamr and Baqura and the imposition of our full sovereignty over every inch of those lands.”
King Abdullah added, “The government has launched the program’s first package, and will announce other detailed packages, including a review of regulations and legislation related to taxes and customs, in order to facilitate business and reduce the burden on citizens. Therefore, I hereby direct the government to work vigorously and efficiently to take further bold measures to advance the national economy.”
He continued, “I do not address you today fearing for our nation. I speak to you out of my faith in our country and in you, and with a clear vision of the opportunities before us. Our youth are qualified; our sectors are promising; investors are keen; and the world believes in Jordan and its potential.”
Source: en.abouna.org
Fadi Hani 2019-11-12T09:46:31+00:00 November 12th, 2019|Categories: News|
War in Syria drives out Christian community.
EGYPT – Melkite Patriarch: we are in the Middle East not to “spread the Christian civilization”, but to demonstrate the work of the Holy Spirit in our life.
Official welcome of Card. Filoni, new Grand Master to Order of Holy Sepulchre.
Program of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in Jerusalem 2020.
Holy Land Coordination Bishops release final statement after visit to local Christians.
Bethlehem Museum
HCEF Security Seals
Copyright © 2005 - 2016 Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation.
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Home IFP Exclusive Saudi Analyst: Yes, Yes, We have the Bomb, as simple as that!
IFP Exclusive
Translated by IFP
Saudi Analyst: Yes, Yes, We have the Bomb, as simple as that!
A Saudi political analyst, during an interview with Russia Alyoum, said his country has been in possession of nuclear arms since two years ago and may probably carry out its first nuclear test within the next few weeks. The remarks came as Riyadh insists it does not have a nuclear bomb. During a televised debate […]
A Saudi political analyst, during an interview with Russia Alyoum, said his country has been in possession of nuclear arms since two years ago and may probably carry out its first nuclear test within the next few weeks.
The remarks came as Riyadh insists it does not have a nuclear bomb.
During a televised debate with Tariq Ahmad, a member of the political bureau of Syrian nationalist party, Deham al-Anzi said his country has the Bomb.
“Yes, yes, as simple as that. We have the bomb. It is nothing new. All big powers know we have such weapons and it was decided that we would conduct a nuclear test if Iran does so,” he said.
ABNA
https://ifpnews.com/ifp-editorial-staff
The IFP Editorial Staff is composed of dozens of skilled journalists, news-writers, and analysts whose works are edited and published by experienced editors specialized in Iran News. The editor of each IFP Service is responsible for the report published by the Iran Front Page (IFP) news website, and can be contacted through the ways mentioned in the "IFP Editorial Staff" section.
Social Harms
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The Iceman Cometh; What’s Putin Doing in Mideast? (Part II)
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Saudis Must Reopen Embassy in Tehran to Mend Ties: Analyst
Repercussions of Riyadh’s Definite Defeat in Yemen Invasion
Iran to Name New AI Innovation Centre after Plane Crash Victims
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David Mareuil/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Chanel & Hermès Owners Are Part of the Top 25 Richest Families in the World
While the Walton family of Walmart Inc. earns $100 million USD per day.
By Pauline De Leon Aug 13, 2019
Last week, Bloomberg released a list of the top 25 richest families in the world, ranking the Walton family of Walmart Inc. in first place. The publication has revealed the American retail corporation’s impressive numbers: $70,000 USD per minute, $4 million USD per hour and $100 million USD per day – making that a grand total of $190.5 billion USD since June 2018. Coming in second place, owners of the famed chocolate brand Mars are at a current total of $127 billion USD.
Chanel and Hermès take the fifth and sixth spots on the list, who are worth $57.6 billion USD and $53.1 billion USD respectively. The French fashion house owned by siblings Alain and Gerard Wertheimer “introduced the ‘little black dress’ to the world and had revenue of $11 billion USD in 2018.” Hermès, now run by artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas and company chairman Axel Dumas, has recently reported that the company exceeded sales expectations following a rush of demand in Asia. Skincare brand Estée Lauder takes spot number 23 with a net worth of $32.3 billion USD which now sells $14 billion USD of cosmetics and fragrances.
To find out who else made the list, head on over to Bloomberg‘s website for the full report.
In other entertainment news, Missy Elliott will finally receive MTV‘s Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award at the 2019 VMAs.
ChanelHermesEstée Lauder
Cult K-Beauty Brand Dr. Jart+ Was Just Bought by The Estée Lauder Company
The 10 Best Skincare Products to Invest in for Beginners
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Fendi's Baguette iPhone X Case Cross-Body Bag Is Your New Staple Accessory
A must-have.
7 Wedding Hairstyles Inspired by Celebrities: Kim Kardashian, Karlie Kloss and More
From side-swept curls to messy updos.
Nike Deconstructs the N110 D/MS/X, Featuring a Neon Pink Swoosh
Find out the release date here.
An Effortless, Luxe Hairstyle Is Complete With Gucci's Logo Hair Slide
Guess how much it costs.
By YeEun Kim Aug 12, 2019
Nice Kicks x adidas Consortium Pay Homage to the '60s Hippie Movement With Tie-Dye UltraBOOST
Named after Woodstock, the iconic music festival.
Converse Reveals Sustainable Chuck 70s Made With Upcycled Denim
The fabric is one of the most landfilled in the fashion industry.
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Win hearts at your next tailgate party: Margaritas for a crowd.
Sure, beer is the official beverage of the great American tailgate party. But it’s time to step out of the rut and add a little flair to this year’s festivities.
Every tailgate crew has that one person who has a signature tailgate dish. Well, this year it’s your turn to take the spotlight.
You’ll have people waiting all year for tailgating season just to wrap their lips around the salted rim of one of your frosty margaritas.
Whether your tailgate crowd is nibblin’ on sponge cake or somebody had the good sense to bring a huge platter of nachos, you, my friend will be toting the frozen concoction of everybody’s dreams.
History of the Margarita
It’s hard to believe, but there is nobody to thank for this classic Mexican cocktail. Yes, there are plenty of people that want the credit, but nobody is quite sure which one of them is the creator.
Back in the mid-1930s a bartender named Willie, from Matamoros, Mexico, was smitten with one of the bar’s regular customers. Her name was Marguerite Hemery. Legend has it that Willie concocted the first margarita in Hemery’s honor. But, if that’s so, why don’t we drink marguerites?
Then there was Danny Negrete, a bar owner who created the margarita as a wedding gift to his future sister-in-law. Another tale is that he made it for his girlfriend, who was fond of salt in her drinks.
Bastante Gutierrez is said to have created the margarita to honor his favorite actress: Margarita Cansino, whom we know as Rita Hayworth.
Finally, we have Francisco “Pancho” Morales, to whom the Mexican press gives credit for inventing the margarita. Seems a customer ordered a drink he’d never heard of. Rather than asking the lady what was in it, he created his own concoction. She loved it and it became the margarita.
Types of Tequila
At one time only wine and scotch and, more recently beer, had snooty aficionados. Today, tequila has joined those ranks. There are two main types of tequila: 100 percent agave and Mixto, which is a blend of at least 51 percent blue agave and other stuff – which varies according to manufacturer
These two types are further broken down into:
· Silver, also known as blanco, white and platinum. This is pure blue agave; it’s clear but not aged.
· Gold tequila is typically a mixto type of tequila, although there are exceptions. It’s also generally less expensive than the pure forms of tequila.
· Reposado is a lightly aged agave – usually stored for between two and 11 months. Sometimes stored in wood barrels, the tequila may take on the flavor of the type of wood
· Añejo is agave tequila that is aged for at least a year. Before pure agave tequila can bear the Añejo label it must be aged in barrels that hold a maximum of 600 liters. Añejo is a darker colored tequila.
· If it’s aged more than three years it can be called Extra Añejo, for “ultra aged.” Barrel capacity requirements are the same as for añejo. After aging, the tequila is quite dark in color and extremely smooth. This is definitely a sippin’ tequila.
Concoct It, My Friend
The basic margarita mix, according to the drink masters at Jose Cuervo, contains tequila, Cointreau (a high-end brand of triple sec), and fresh lime juice.
You won’t, however, be famous for your tailgating margaritas if you stick with the basics, now will you? Here are two margarita mixes to get you started:
Sin City Top Shelf Margarita
Courtesy of an ace bartender at Las Vegas’ famed XS Nightclub. This recipe is for one cocktail so you’ll need to multiply the ingredients by the amount of margaritas you want to make.
3 oz. sweet & sour
1 oz. añejo tequila
¾ oz simple syrup
½ oz Grand Marnier
Fresh limejuice from ½ lime
Shake all the ingredients except the limejuice in a cocktail shaker. Squeeze the lime over the top before serving.
Wastin’ Away Again Margaritas
Thanks to Portland’s Clyde Common bar manager Jeffrey Morgenthaler for this margarita mix for the masses. Although the recipe is his, the name is mine.
6 cups of your favorite tequila
2.5 cups triple sec
2.5 cups fresh lime juice
2.5 cups fresh lemon juice
2 cups simple syrup
Mix ingredients together in gallon container – such as a clean one-gallon milk or water container. Keep it refrigerated until the tailgate party. Makes 20 margaritas.
By the way, Jeffrey says that you’ll need two 750 ML bottles of tequila and you’ll have a bit left over after you measure out the 6 cups. You’ll need one 750 ML bottle of the triple sec.
If you don’t happen to have simple syrup in your pantry, whip some up.
Bring 2 cups of water to a full boil.
Slowly pour in 2 cups of granulated sugar. Stir until the sugar is completely dissolved and the mixture is clear. Allow the syrup to cool and then pour it into a bottle.
For the designated drivers in the group
Call it a virgin Margarita if you like but we prefer the term “mockarita” for this one.
2 oz. simple syrup (see recipe above)
1 oz. lime juice
1 oz. lemon juice
1 oz. orange juice
lime wedge
Combine the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake vigorously.
Pour into a mason jar for easy transport. Refrigerate until game day.
When serving, garnish with a lime wedge.
Who Pays for Termite Inspections in FHA Loans?
Warning: We’re about to give you the creeps. It’s termite swarming season – that time of year when subterranean termite…
Whether you live in a condo with a water view or a multi-million-dollar beach house, there is an ever-present temptation…
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YNAP works to boost women's fashion tech careers as research shows low uptake
Yoox Net-A-PorterGroup (YNAP) is continuing its campaign to boost young women’s awareness of tech careers as new research shows that very few think tech is relevant for those seeking careers in fashion, retail and luxury.
The company is a major source of jobs for women and also relies heavily on technology to run its business. Its overall talent pool is two-thirds female, more than double that of tech-based companies on average.
A new survey showed that while young girls are aware of the availability of careers in technology, half think it would be “unexciting” and over two-thirds associate tech jobs with sectors such as gaming and IT consultancy.
YNAP said its survey results proved that girls/young women also associate tech roles with careers in engineering, architecture, telecommunications and even finance. But as far as the more creative industries such as retail, luxury, travel, fashion and beauty, are concerned, they all come bottom of the list in terms of their relationship with technology roles.
Most young men see tech careers as ‘exciting’ and have a more open approach towards STEM or ICT-related subjects.
Despite its intrinsic link to apps, social and online platforms, only 8% of young women think that technology careers have a role to play in fashion, only 7% associate it with retail and just 5% think tech has a place in luxury. This is similar among young men, but they have a slightly broader view of the roles involved.
The research was based on interviews with 1,000 young people aged 11 to 16 and 1,000 parents of such children.
The study follows a series of events powered by YNAP to encourage young people – especially young women – to consider careers in technology. This included a hackathon hosted at the company’s West London Tech Hub where dozens of schoolchildren used coding to explore what tech careers could look like through a fashion lens, as part of its Imperial CodeLab initiative.
The partnership between YNAP and Imperial College London helps young people to learn about tech through the lens of fashion. And the company said that it’s therefore "encouraging to find that almost 40% of young women who took part in the research said that they would be further motivated to study tech-related subjects at school, including science and maths, if they knew it could lead to careers in the fashion industry.”
YNAP’s chief people officer Deborah Lee said: “It’s common to think of someone working in isolation, writing line-after-line of code when we think about careers in tech, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Today, tech is a creative and flexible discipline, where consumer products and experiences are designed in a collaborative environment. This is especially true of tech and fashion, which together offer a wealth of opportunity which can only increase as these two industries continue to converge through e-commerce.”
Importantly too, the young people interviewed said that parents are major influencers on their career choices but the research showed that parents also rarely link fashion, retail and luxury with tech.
Parents are four times more likely to associate the world of finance with tech careers than they are to think about fashion, even though consumers interact with the finance industry in a very similar way to fashion, through apps and online platforms.
Equally, fewer than 5% of parents in the UK associate the fashion industry with a successful career in tech, also believing that tech roles are primarily for gamers and IT consultants. However, it is encouraging to see that this issue is purely around awareness, as the research found that 36% of parents would encourage their children to study tech-related subjects if they knew it would lead to a career in fashion.
Richemont sales rise offsets Q3 Hong Kong weakness, but fashion ops dip
New YNAP Middle East CEO will drive "localised experience"
Karl Lagerfeld CEO Pier Paolo Righi on showing at Pitti, booming worldwide and the house becoming custodian of Karlʼs legacy
Yoox teams with celebrity DJ Peggy Gou for first-ever capsule collection
YNAP opens tech hub in Bologna
Cartier CEO Cyrille Vigneron on managing change on multiple fronts
One-year-old 8 By Yoox success sees extra data investment, becomes more eco
Design brand Seletti opens first Dutch store in Amsterdam
YNAP supports young designers and artisans with The Prince’s Foundation
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Fact-checking Jon Wedger
When we first began listening to Jonathan Wedger’s stories of life as a cop in the rough underbelly of London, we noticed a few clangers, but given his apparent earnest sincerity we were inclined to think that perhaps he was just confusing a few small details, which would iron themselves out.
However, as his relentless campaign of self-promotion has worn on, with porky piled on porky, it’s become increasingly clear that something is very, very wrong.
For example, yesterday we watched Part 3 of his July interview with Redpill Phil. (Hey, better late than never.)
Starting at about 11 minutes, Wedger describes his work (should we say “alleged work”?) on the canalways of London:
Phil: You basically mentioned how a lot of paedophilia stemmed from canalways, because it was easy, because they’re old, they’re not really manned, I think that was the word that kind of stuck out to me. Do you still feel that now?
Jon: Yeah yeah yeah, I mean there’s loopholes….
Because the canals, I mean, they’re ancient transit routes, I mean [gestures at canal behind them] that thing there, it was 1798 that was set up. And because it’s so old, they go on to become parish boundaries, which then become local authority boundaries. In London, we’ve got boroughs, and each borough is its independent policing district.
Now we only have that in London. If you go to, say, Nottingham, Nottingham itself is one policing district. And to Leicestershire, that would be a policing district, right? So when the Sex Offenders Registry Act come out, someone who had either been convicted or cautioned for a Schedule 1 sexual offence, or had served time for one, had to sign on as a sex offender.
And they didn’t want to do that, for so many reasons. They also knew that at some point it’s going to come clamping down, and maybe they’ll get disclosed. So they were going missing. So they had a vast amount of sexual offenders going off the radar.
Some of them were transient, they would live in cars, and they were driving about, but it’s difficult in a car, you know, the police are going to stop you, it’s not taxed, you’ve got no land address, and it’s an uncomfortable life. But one of them [points to canal boat], they’re a self-contained unit. You can get water from a garage, there’s a garage over there, you get your electricity from a generator, you can buy your petrol over there, and you can move about.
Sounds pretty reasonable so far.
Oh, except that two years ago, Wedger told the Daily Star: “I found a lot of paedophiles were going off the radar. There was a loophole in the law that allowed them to live on canal boats without being on the electoral register.”
Not the Sex Offenders Registry, the electoral register. A small but important distinction. And funny that in two years it should morph from one to the other.
Canal rules and regs
Wedger goes on to describe how sexual offenders evade the law:
And in London, because of the borough system, that [over there] could be one borough, say that’s the borough of Hackney, and over here could be the borough of Newham. In the middle of that canal would be a borough boundary. And it will be in the middle. So that boat….
A sex offender has 28 days to register, from the policing district where they reside. So on Day 27, that man, all he’s got to do is put his boat over there, and he’s not broken the law. And that is what was happening.
Again, reasonable on the surface of it. It sounds like a clever way to avoid being tracked. Except that it’s not true.
We owe this insight to Twitter user @SouthLondonJohn, who pointed out that Wedger claims that the maximum time for a stay is 28 days. But within London, “short-term berths are in such demand that the maximum time for a stay is seven days’ time, but is usually only one day”.
Even outside London, the maximum time for a stay is 14 days.
Berths are much in demand, and if someone were to turn up at their pre-booked berth and find another boat there, “the Canal and River Trust (CRT) Enforcement Team would be on them”.
SouthLondonJohn also informed us that Wedger’s claim that the boats only had to move from one side of a canal to the other to evade the law is a practice known as “shuffling”, which is much frowned upon by the CRT.
We’re not saying that the CRT would catch every boater who violated this rule, but certainly along the busy canalways of London, they would be disinclined to overlook those who flouted the rules, if only to keep some semblance of order.
Jon: And the other thing about these boats—kids love ‘em.
Phil: I remember you talked about “Rosie and Jim”.
Jon: “Rosie and Jim”, yeah, so what you’d have on the windows of some of these boats, you’d have dolls. One of them is a fleur de lys badge, a Scout badge, so a Scout is taught that if you see that, it’s a safe haven. And again, look how much the scouting system has come to notice. They’re set up with benevolence, to help kids in deprived areas, but of course it gets hijacked, like everything gets hijacked. And of course kids would be drawn to it.
And I was told, ‘Look, there might be one or two on there, go and look for them, we’ll give you a few months, if you can get another two we’re happy’.
Well, within the first month I found 90. [1] And it was getting bigger and bigger. But then it started expanding onto the River Thames, and the boats on there, and then it started having links to, erm, all sorts of people.
And one of them became quite high profile. I think it was Charles Napier, that was linked into Peter (Hayman) and very high up people, [2] and you could see where it was going.
And I went into work one day, and the chief inspector said, “Jon, it’s closed”.
And I went, “Why?”
It was just unbelievably successful. And I was getting backing from the Paedophile Unit. [3] So much so, was my success on this unit, they actually took the legislation for judicial review, and got the initial registration for the first 28 days reduced to 14 days. [4] And then every month after that was 28 days, because of this problem that I’d highlighted. So that shows the impact it had.
Having established his basic lack of understanding about how the canalways of London operate, Wedger dives headlong into a series of bloopers. We’ve numbered them for easy reference.
[1] “Within the first month I’d found 90”.
90 what? 90 paedophiles? 90 unregistered sex offenders living on the canals? He doesn’t say. From the preceding paragraph, it seems he’s referring to paedophiles, but we can find nothing about gigantic canal-based paedophile rings on Google…except Wedger’s own claims.
However, assuming that he meant “90 unregistered sex offenders”, surely that would only have involved going to the CRT and asking for access to the names of licensed boaters. Possibly a day’s task, and hardly a brilliant bit of detective work.
[2] And one of them became quite high profile. I think it was Charles Napier, that was linked into Peter Hayman and very high up people.
The Charles Napier/Sir Peter Hayman link first became public in 2014. If Wedger is trying to claim that he had something to do with discovering this, we’d question how truthful he’s being.
By his own account in the Daily Star article, it was following his amazing success at catching (paedophiles and/or unregistered sex offenders) on the canals that he was transferred to the Vice Unit, which took place prior to 2010:
DC Wedger then said he was transferred to the Metropolitan Police’s clubs and vice unit but was told not to arrest underage girls.
He said he then found a magistrate who used to let off a specific pimp if she was pulled in by police, and he wrote a report on it in 2010 but was summoned to a senior officer’s office.
So perhaps we’ve misjudged Wedger. Maybe he’s really Dr Who, and we just didn’t recognise him without the TARDIS.
Incidentally, and we’ve pointed this out before, when a person is sent to magistrates court, they don’t have a choice of judges. And the judges there don’t choose their cases; they take what’s assigned to them. So how that “specific pimp” was consistently let off by one magistrate we really could not say.
[3] “I was getting backing from the Paedophile Unit”.
According to Wikipedia, “The Paedophile Unit is a branch of the Metropolitan Police Service’s Child Abuse Investigation Command, based at Scotland Yard in London, England. It operates against the manufacture and distribution of child pornography, online child grooming, and ‘predatory paedophiles online’, and organised crime associated with these”.
The focus of the Paedophile Unit seems to be online child sexual abuse, and nothing to do with the registration of sex offenders.
[4] “…they actually took the legislation for judicial review, and got the initial registration for the first 28 days reduced to 14 days”.
Wedger is referring here to the Sex Offenders Act 1997. In fact, the time allowance for initial registration under that Act was originally 14 days.
In 2003 that was revised to three days:
So it went from 14 days to three, not from 28 days to 14. Given that Wedger seems to think this was quite the achievement on his part, you’d think he’d remember that little detail.
It’s difficult to say whether Wedger’s factual errors are deliberate on his part, or whether they stem from mental illness, or a combination of the two. He has stated that he was put on sick leave with PTSD, and since we don’t know the details of that, we can’t comment on whether it could have left him with an inability to recall basic details in a coherent manner.
Unfortunately, though, he’s put himself in the public spotlight, and is fundraising on the basis of the stories he tells. Given that people have and will continue to donate to his various crowdfunding efforts, we believe that it’s important to fact-check his statements. His donors deserve at least that much.
16/08/2018 in Assorted knobheads. Tags: Charles Seven, child trafficking, Jonathan Wedger, lies, paedophiles
Ex-Met Detective John Wedger provides final nail in Hampstead SRA hoax coffin
← Why did Maloney spurn the Hampstead SRA hoax?
Angela & Heather videos target HR commenter with credible death threats →
105 thoughts on “Fact-checking Jon Wedger”
Dubious claims from a very questionable man. The degree of confusion and almost complete separation of his cobblers and actual facts are disturbing. That he openly knocks around with skilled boxer and garden gnome witchcraft enthusiast baloney Maloney is a definite nail in the coffin as far as his credibility goes. The crap he talks and his dismissal are most likely linked.
He does seem to be a bit confused about the details doesn’t he. 😦
Anyone who is promoted by Maloney is either as manipulative as he is or others really want it all to be true, or are vulnerable and don’t know any better. Some so called anti child abuse activists, are so manipulative, they know the art of grooming better than any paedophile. They are anti abuse activists in reverse, they are totally unable to debate anything and their only argument in defence of them selves to use the word paedophile protector
P.C Peel says:
Very illuminating and I’m going to be kind here and say Mr. Wedger is either somewhat confused or perhaps suffered from stress due to his work as he has made some very odd claims here and factual discrepancies.
I had a friend in The Met who for several years was in charge of one district for registering & monitoring those who had signed on to the Sex Offenders Registry. Areas all over the country are broken up into districts and each one comes under the supervision of one officer.
Now, these officers are chosen very, very carefully because they must be extremely discreet as the whole idea is to encourage those who have to sign on to not be afraid to liaise with that officer and place their trust in him/her as they ONLY deal with that officer during their term on the Register.
While details of registration, address etc are obviously recorded on the police computer these details ARE NOT accessible by just any other police officer except those at a very senior level such a chief inspector and even then they cannot access all details, they must, in turn, contact whichever officer is in control of that district. The whole notion of that register is for it to be confidential and in fact, the complete opposite of the USA system where the public can look people up.
ONLY that officer can access details although he may deputize another officer/s to make one of those discreet and unannounced calls upon an offender. Even then the officer in charge will only choose a PC who can be trusted to not reveal details to anyone else (and this is an offense in the force).
And no matter how many times fanatics ( I’m putting Wedger in this category) or politicians looking for a cheap newspaper headline (like the infamous Geoffrey Dickens MP who was all bluster and wind when waving his so-called “dossiers” in the air that proved to be nonsense) for a public style register ALL senior police have nipped that in the bud as being the very opposite of good policing which would make their job ten times harder.
So unless Wedger was at some time one of these officers in control of a certain area he could not possibly know the details of any registered offender or where they did or didn’t live. He could not access that information on the police computer or if he did, that is an offense in itself. There is no way he would know if one or 100 offenders lived on canal boats, or in Spain or in a barn and he could only know the names of those in a particualr area.
Speaking of Geoffrey Dickens: Wedger seems to be in this category. All Dickens so-called ‘evidence” was largely from fanatics writing him letters saying there was a Satanic Cult in the local Anglican Church or Mr. Blogs down the road had ten children hidden in the basement and so on. Dickens wasn’t stupid. He lived in a time when tabloids would run any old nonsense without proof. He waved his thick dossiers around as though they were real (another MP peeked in one once and said it was all blank paper) and the only time he was basically forced to hand over his dossier to authorities it proved to be just that- a compilation of gossip.
But in a sense that just fuels the imaginations of fanatics as when police or a Minster looks at the stuff and conclude there is basically nothing they can pin down, it’s then called a Cover-Up by The Mob.
# My friend was in that position for 5 years before he left the police to emigrate to Canada. Those in charge of Registers also are on general duties and he found the Register work pretty dreary as 95% of those on the Register comply with their obligations and it ends up being a lot of form filling and going back over old ground.
I can see Wedger probably formed these notions in his head without facts or evidence and it became an obsession which is the opposite to good policing as calm and considered minds are needed.
This is most definitely a fantasy:
Once again that is a specialist unit that is also very discreet for obvious reasons and they do not share information with other units unless there is some sort of crossover while investigating a suspected crime. An example may be a suspected drug dealer is also a suspected child sex offender. It’s a fantasy to say they would “give backing” to some other officer.
Wedger must think people are complete fools if they also don’t know units in The Met are very protective of their own turf.
Wedger keeps giving away clues that his time in the force must have been at a reasonably low level. While he may have been a DC he is exaggerating his position as senior officers from specialist unit s only deal with similar rank if they need to speak to another unit.
Indeed, the ex-copper in the Savile matter and the recent King discarded prosecution is renowned for calling anyone who dares to question his motives or actions a “pedophile protector”. And that includes senior Barristers who may question his methods. It’s the fall-back accusation of choice.
This fanatical mob who have ramped up the notion of protected SRA cults and so on have really thrived during the internet era where it’s spread like a wildfire. I’ve always thought that at some stage they will come a cropper. They are now attacking IICSA who have the unfortunate task of separating fact from fantasy and
collectively they have driven expensive lunatic investigations like the Ted Heath rubbish ( much of it is a hatred for the Tories) and disgracefully attacked a great war hero who is worth 1000s of these wretches.
Nice digging, EC 🙂
19:51 – “Don’t talk to me like I’m a conspiracy theorist, coz I’m not.”
Hmm. I’m starting to understand why Wedgie fell out with his superiors.
Catriona Selvester of the FSF once again demonstrating how well informed she is. Sigh…
This is awesome! Thanks for the link, Sheva 🙂
Things just got weird:
S Schulle (aka Raquel 88) – the gift that keeps on giving…
(I’m not ‘God’s G.A.Y. son’, btw.)
Still, at least everyone else on there is sane and rational.
Well, that’s the proverbial hit the fan.. it’ll be interesting to see what Angela makes of that video.
Angela will probably say that Flo D. is working for GCHQ or she was ‘honey-trapped’, or something along those lines. 😀
Great video.
ROFL, LMAO, PMSL.
Flo D! My new hero!
Leave this woman alone! She’s a company director!
I find the most effective way to stay off the Electoral Register is simply not to register. It’s how I dodged the Poll Tax and I certainly didn’t have to live on a canal barge to do it.
The home owner/renter used to be responsible for ensuring that all those living there were registered, but guess what, nobody ever came into your home and checked. Now the individual is responsible to ensure they are registered, so it’s even easier not to be on it.
Are we really to believe that paedophiles on the run would allow or put themselves on the Electoral Register?
Michael Hames’ “The Dirty Squad” details the initial development of a dedicated Pedophile/ Child Sexual Abuse Images investigations unit within the Obscene Publications branch, which he oversaw & directed. I recommend it! But he retired in 1993, so it only covers the early history.
The “Spotlight On Abuse” archive of historic CSA reporting covers many dozens of cases & operations over the years. You can look for yourself, but I don’t recall ANY cases that involved unregistered offenders living in canal boats:
https://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/
Certainly, the recent football coach abuse tragedies don’t mention boats, nor the grooming gangs that exploited teen girls through fast-food outlets, nor the pedophilic clergy and boarding school cases.
I’d say Mr Wedger is full of crap, personally.
I wouldn’t recommend to anyone not to register, as it would wreck their credit rating. They’d struggle to get credit cards, loans or mortgages if they weren’t on the register.
Good luck with that, Neelu. Sigh
By the way, her allegations about that police officer being involved in child porn is way over the line, imo.
For anyone who missed the Angie-Heather video last night:
Good luck trying to find one single thing they say that’s true. And that’s not a joke – I mean that literally.
And as well as an abundance of bullshit, this one also contains a number of death threats to Steve Keys and his wife. Yup
I call BS on Wedger. We only have his uncorroborated word for any of his claims and, being nice, that has proved time and time again to be suspect.
In keeping with not letting the nut jobs trying to harass contributors to this site have more personal information than is necessary, I’m not going to reveal how but I have experience in regards to canal management.
Just try being an itinerant on a canal boat and see how far you get!
That’s so true Farmer Giles, that’s why it is impossible to try to talk to any of them, They seem to have a block in their brain and just will not look past that block.
A report has been sent to the relevant authorities regarding ITCCS’s intentions to arrest the Pope………. again.
Just a bit, I’d say.
Yes, if you counter their arguments, they just expand their lies.
That’s fascinating info about your police friend. I had no idea that this is how the list is regulated, but it makes sense.
So he couldn’t have gone looking for offenders who weren’t on the list, as he would not have known who was or was not on it in the first place! In other words, his story is completely 100% made up nonsense.
LOL yes, I had to stop before I got to that bit, as this post’s word count was getting out of control. But I love how deeply sincere and stern he looks as he claims not to be a conspiracy theorist, right after having delivered a truckload of invented conspiranoid nonsense to his viewers.
Ah Scat, right on top of things as usual.
Fred the Weather Man Tolbot abused boys on a boat, on a trip to Scotland, and a former Head Master of a Prep School in Harpenden sexually abused boys on a canal boat, but it wasn’t any kind of ring or anything. What is this about the fascination with these Bullshiiters about abusing kids on boats? Certain people including Baloney have gone on for years about boys being raped on boats then thrown over the side, really? Where are the witnesses? Where are the bodies? If this was a true fact why isn’t/wasn’t anyone searching for these alleged boys drowned in the water? Even Baloney managed to tiie it in with the Hollie Hoax saying that Downs children where raped and drowned at sea. He said that on Lou Collins Radio thing, when he used to come on all out of breath blah blah blah. Seriously they are all full of shit.
Any guesses about what that was in aid of? I’m stumped.
You know, I wonder whether commenters like this are just religious nutters looking for a place to indulge their fantasies of being able to say all the filthy things that come into their heads? It’s almost as if they save them up and unload them on videos like this one.
Yes, I have absolutely no doubt that sexual abuse has taken place on canal boats (and boats in general), but Wedger’s fantasies are just made-up nonsense. Good question about why the nutters are so fascinated with this.
A Lawyer Writes.. says:
So Neelu is now adding serious defamation to her list of transgressions.
My advice to Sergeant **** of Barkingside is: get your solicitor now to send her letter notifying her you reserve the right to take legal action against her libels and that you will pursue her for legal costs.
As she now has a property undergoing repossession and she undoubtedly has several £100Ks tied up in equity your solicitor can always get a lien on the balance due to her until the matter is settled.
I’m not the foremost fan of the British police in its current state but no innocent officer deserves to be traduced in this manner or be defamed by some nutter on the internet.
You deserve REMEDY!
I had a friend who lived on a barge on the Thames in Chelsea but he had to move eventually because of the huge, humongous, frigging great rats that would emerge at low tide that frightened the life out of his small children (his- not kidnapped ones). It’s not the romantic lifestyle it’s cracked up to be. Pedo or not.
A pontificater writes.. says:
Yes, the way it works as my pal explained to me one night it actually makes a lot of sense. Remember most of the police are sane & sensible and understand that despite the media’s hyperventilated promotion of “pedos” offenses etc, the coppers just want the whole system to work.
The vast majority of those on the Register tend to be one-time offenders ranging from extreme offenses to relatively minor but nonetheless- they have to sign on. And the police have a job, under the legislation. to monitor these people. But they do understand it’s best to deal with them in a civil matter and to encourage them to fulfill their obligations under the law. Apart from the fact most police deal with some pretty sick stuff in their time so they don’t want to make their job any harder.
Mistakes happen but in reality, there is little reason for any offender to go ‘underground”. Why?. It just makes them vulnerable to further arrest and more punishment. The police actually prefer neighbors etc don’t know someone next door has a conviction (unless there is some child involved under the legislation) as it’s just another headache for them if locals start harassing them.
And furthermore, Mr. Wedger’s claims re canal boats etc is pretty wacky stuff. The vast majority of those on the Sex Offenders Register tend to be working class or at best middle class. They either live in council housing or their own homes and the notion of upping stakes, for no reason, is a real complication. They have jobs etc and moving is a big deal.
One of my pal’s real beefs was that he thought all the monitoring, in the end, did not prevent crime as he thought a real determined pedophile could be so cunning he could plot and plan a crime and no-one could really stop him (her) or at the other end of the scale, someone could commit an on-the-spur offense and all the monitoring in the world could, sadly, not prevent it.
Mr. Wedger seems to have come up this quite wacky thesis and perhaps drove his superiors mad.
# the cop who manages the register is usually the Crime Manager.
I noticed that Wedger brought up the subject of Rosie and Jim from Tots TV he just happen to name drop them in for good measure, what a load of old bollocks. I have a suspicion he will eventually disappear like the rest of em in the end, five minutes of fame, mugs and tee shirts and all that.
Obviously, but paedophiles on the run don’t have those concerns.
It’s unfortunate (but understandable for mental illness) that the police can’t issue statements about why people “leave”, specifically when they go on to make claims such as this.
Members of the public generally hold the view that police officers tell the truth, so when one says they “left” because of [insert whistle-blower story here], being an ex-copper adds weight to their story.
Look at how troofers salivate over Ray Savage being an “ex-detective” during the Hampstead hoax.
Course you have, luv…
LOL, one of her mates has called her out on her bullshit 😀
This could get interesting…
Interesting thing to hear from someone who frequently promotes Aangirfan, Butlincat and Lift the Veil…
LOL, I see Malcolm and Belinda have kissed and made up:
I wonder whether Belinda condones Malcolm’s slander, death threats, bullying and misogynism.
Yes, I think people like Wedger know the public are fascinated by police lore, so they play on that. I noted that at one point he was referencing Serpico, who to my knowledge really was a whistleblower in the States.
The “standard” baseline for being on the register is 2 years for accepting a police caution; minimum 5 years for a guilty plea/court verdict; 10 years for middling offences and usually lifetime for anything involving contact with a minor (grooming and upwards).
Employment legislation and Universal Credit rules also makes it pretty tricky to “disappear” unless an offender can magic up a new National Insurance number and if they can do that then they are most likely to be the sort where a register wouldn’t be a deterrent anyway!
He’s acting out the video of when the Police came to his home and warned him a death threat regarding him had been received by the Police. He wouldn’t let them in and made them stand behind the bins and read it to him.
In this though, he’s implying the Police told him a lie. Not sure why though.
FD is very perceptive!
I hope Brian Harvey sees this.
EastofEden says:
People say Baloney works for Ian Puddick.
I think Baloney and his group are far more dangerous than people assume. They targeted Brian Harvey deliberately causing paranoia which could have led to Harvey comitting suicide.
Plus it would not surpise me if people who did that to Harvey also used the old cult tactic of spiking Harvey with LSD.
Angie v Arfur, round 94…
Mate of Steve Keys says:
Yes, isn’t it awful when people talk about someone’s family without their permission, Angela
More Slimegate charmers…
Eddie seems blissfully unaware that it was his hero Nathan Stolpman who got his dear leader arrested.
Yes, assuming the person either has to ‘sign on’ or receive some kind of state benefits it would be difficult for them to disappear wouldn’t it. That’s a good point.
The cover photo on the video – a completely mad loon and her drunken friend?
Wedgie’s not happy with his critics, lol:
She doesn’t want Arthur to post on her family profile, would that be her public profile that she posts all her conspiracy rubbish, false flags, etc. on!
That’s not being a very nice friend Angela, do you think Arthur isn’t good enough for your personal family profile? Tut, tut, tut!
And on which she frequently posts crap about her family! Go figure
Someone bored.. says:
And that’s what makes his claim so bizarre.
Even being on the Register won’t stop a person offending if they are determined. How could it?. They don’t keep tabs on them 24/7. Just their address, if they move, contact details, car rego, perhaps social media accounts, their job, if they travel abroad or elsewhere for more than a certain time and so on. But none of that is going to stop a person abusing. They only “sign on” once a year but can have spot checks.
I reckon Wedger has dreamed up a scenario and convinced himself Britain’s canals are awash with pedos inviting kids aboard. Maybe a tugboat captain was mean to him when he was young and it’s festered away over the decades. Kids are pretty savvy these days. Can’t see them being enticed aboard a big barge by some gentleman.
Isn’t that where he took his famous bike ride? Along the canals?. Maybe it’s still a real obsession. Why didn’t Baloney go with him and film Wedger’s covert detecting of the Pedo Barges? Make a good film. With any luck, they’d get attacked by a huge hideous rat that lives by the canal which would make fab filming.
I’m sure Joanna Lumley and Jennifer Saunders would be delighted their images have been used as the thumbnail on such a nasty video…NOT.
Are they on Twitter? Maybe they should be told.
Exactly, I would hazard a bet that her ‘estranged’ family are having a good laugh at that bit of hypocrisy!
Get those reporting fingers ready, folks…
…and the popcorn
😂 😂 😂
Anyone know what Blabberpsycho’s banging on about here?
Ready and waiting!
Is it just me, or is his hurt puppy look starting to wear a bit thin?
… and here it is:
Another fantastical post from Tracey, whatever happened to all her other ‘cases’, she’s a bit like an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
I can just see Maloney investigating boats in his inane histrionic manner . . . Look at that, they’ve got a flower painted on the side, the sick nonces. This one here has a nodding dog in the window, that’s to attract kids. There’s one there with a brush. That’s representative of the brooms witches use to fly, that’s evidence of witchcraft. This one here is black and has red stripes, that a nazosadist paedomaniac color scheme.
That Muppet can find evidence of satanosexual abusery with the flimsiest of excuses, err I mean evidence.
The Battle for Planet Sanity says:
According to Pikey, Malone’s jumped aboard the Hampstead bandwagon:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/truth-transparency-all-we-people-require-from-bill-maloney-devine/?published=t
More hilarious dot joining… and more nasty threats to Steve too.
@Farmer Giles
In addition to those cases you mentioned involving abusers acting alone involving abusing kids on boats, there is unfortunately evidence of at least two organised networks who abused kids on boats or yachts – I speak of the Azimuth Trust cases, and the abusers who infiltrated the Jersey Sea Cadets (see links below).
That is not to say I take the likes of Baloney seriously. If he has any evidence of such activity encompassing not just kids being abused on boats, but thrown aboard also, then he should go to the cops. Blabbing about it on social media as he does actually is worse than useless, as it essentially tips off the perpetrators (if indeed there are any) to destroy any evidence (if indeed there is any).
https://spotlightonabuse.wordpress.com/category/azimuth-trust/
https://statesassembly.gov.je/AssemblyReports/2017/R.59-2017%20Independent%20Jersey%20Care%20Inquiry%20Report%20%20-COMPLETE-.pdf
And as well as the death threats, Heather appears to be boasting that she had some guy killed and put in an unmarked grave. I’m sure the police will be interested in that one.
Btw, are Baloney and Wedger bringing Ted Heath into all of this?
Fwiw, I downloaded all the contemporaneous reports from the Daily Mirror regarding the drownings of two yachtsmen when Morning Cloud 3 went down. The conspiracy theory that Heath was throwing kids over-board from his yachts after abusing them SEEMS to have arisen because there was some understandable confusion initially over how many yachtsman were lost, and one of the bodies was never recovered.
The yachtsmen weren’t kids, they were stout hearty yachtsmen in their thirties who died tragically. I am no expert on boating, but as I understand it, there simply wouldn’t have room to stash kids in the galley in the types of yachts that Heath owned. It simply wouldn’t have been logistically possible, even if Heath had wanted to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_Cloud
Regardless of whether one liked or loathed Heath’s policies, to bring all this up again is an insult to the families of the yachtsmen, and the people mounting the conspiracy theory should stop it. If they have any actual evidence of a cover-up, and if they genuinely believe what they are saying, they should go to the cops.
Some really nasty, slanderous stuff about Sheva @ 52:53
Just to correct myself, one of the yachtsmen who tragically drowned was 23 – Heath’s godson, Christopher Chadd. Not in his thirties, but not a juvenile either.
El Coyote, I have emailed you the contemporaneous news reports from the Express.
Guidance roping Eddieisok into the Hampstead case:
Nurse Ratched says:
Total nutters. All they need is a backyard fence.
Guidance is groomsteading Eddie, just like Pikey is groomsteading Maloney.
Yep, the Andy Garcia film ‘Serpico’, Wedgie reckoned he’d had talks with the real Serpico……….. I don’t believe much of what he says, anymore.
LOL:
They talk about HR towards the end.
Bliss! I have not laughed so much in ages! LOL
No, I think it’s pretty well established that he is a complete fantasist.
https://hoaxteadresearch.wordpress.com/2018/07/05/jon-wedger-bill-maloney-and-the-rains-list/
While I don’t know that Wedger and Maloney have explicitly brought Heath into it, the above is our discussion on the infamous RAINS list, which contains Heath’s name among many others.
Or Hampgrooming?
She certainly encouraged it.
See the boat…. what boat ????? It’s normal isn’t it, for a boat to go alongside a swimmer ????? So where’s the films of actual swimming ? Maybe someone should let the Jersey press know and check with their lifeguarding people, if they are aware of this swimathon, for his safety and success ! LOL.
Oops, Scilly Isles for his silly swim, if it’s as real as the bike ride……….. unless all those people who waved and shouted and cheered for him along the way, can share their photos, please ……..surely they are all over Facebook, no ?
Utter garbage, if I hadn’t come so far, that could really be damaging….Just proves they stalk survivors groups to troll, harrass and humiliate them, like abusers do. She’s taken bits and twisted, left things out, added bits, vile cnut…… That is the kind of treatment that we get from abusers and everyone that knows how it works will see that…………. I will make sure that all networks that I can reach get this and warn their members…..Not that any havn’t already got Angie & co on their radars.
Eddie is NOT ok………. using children as clickbait, like so many others, disgusting……… Brian Harvey, please wake up and don’t let them use you to further Belinda Muckenzies’ sick campaign.
I don’t get the problem above with Wedger not getting all his facts right. He’s a copper after all.
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Pickled Egg (@eggpickled) says:
Guidance still talking in his Tim Westwood/Ali G style I hear. Did you see this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwmZ75t1pQ8
CatChairInTheRye says:
The guy she’s saying is Guidance isn’t him. I heard that guy who called himself an ‘Independent Journalist’ being interviewed outside the Court on another video and he sounded absolutely nothing like Guidance.
Anonymous Reflector says:
Jonathan Wedger is a bizarre fantasist and a useless actor. I think he is a fake Christian with a shady Police background. No one has seen any film footage of his Scilly Swim Challenge around the Scilly Isles. He is scared of a confrontation with Brian Harvey because he knows Brian will ask him some very direct questions that will immediately expose Jonathan Wedger as a fake, a fraud and a subversive nasty individua who hangs around Bill Maloney because they are psy-op shills. Many people are now questioning whether Wedger actually worked for the Metropolitan Police for 25 years. In one interview he did, Wedger mentioned he ‘retired’ from the Police in August 2017. Yet he states he met Bill Maloney from Lewisham, 8 years prior to his retirement. So does that mean he has known Bill Maloney since August 2009? Wedger says he met Bill Maloney in 2010. Something does not make sense in his statements because his backstory is bullshit and because his memory is so bad he cannot recollect information correctly. Maloney sure is worried and has gone underground again and many think he and Maria Maloney are hiding out in their caravan at Leysdown-On-Sea on the Isle of Sheppey in East Kent, whilst Wedger has become his replacement and is doing an even more useless job than Baloney did.
Something else that most people should know about Jonathan Wedger is that he is an alcoholic and a heavy smoker. Now if he was a devout Roman Catholic Christian, he would not drink or smoke. Frankly his usage of the Christian moralizer persona is both pathetic and silly. He comes across as humble but under the surface is malicious and likes to blame people like Brian Harvey for his own personal dysfunctionalities. In reality Jonathan Wedger is an evil lunatic who has caused all his own problems concerning the negative criticism he has brought upon himself. Wedger stated he was ‘taking on the might of the British Establishment’ in that pompous and arrogant video he did. The British Establishment is the British Royal Family, the House of Windsor. So if he is getting alot of flack, then that is because he has inferred that they are basically Satanic paedophiles. What a joke. Both him and Bill Maloney should be prosecuted and sent to prison for the sick psy-op they have created. Andrew Ashworth was bullied and verbally abused by Bill Maloney. Jonathan Wedger used to pick Andrew up from Kings Cross Station after he had traveled from Kingston-Upon-Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Wedger would then drive Andrew to Bill and Maria’s ex-council flat in Lewisham where Maloney would script Andrew.
Both Maloney and Wedger are psychopaths and as usual Shill Baloney has gone to ground again and this time has left his protege Nathan Numnuts in the limelight. Bill Maloney has friends and contacts in Chatham in the Medway Towns in North Kent, Margate and Cliftonville in Thanet, South Kent and hangs out in the Isle of Sheppey alot. Like many other people I believed in Bill Maloney but he is a traitor to the real UK Truth Movement who has destroyed the credibility of real CSA survivors and now Jonathan Wedger is doing exactly the same. Where are the other 299 Police Whistleblowers then John? Where are their testimonials? What has the ITNJ achieved? Why don’t you phone Brian Harvey and make amends for the way you have treated him? Your a fake Wedger and you know it.
My apologies for not approving this comment sooner. It got stuck in the spam filter and I only just saw it.
Thanks for your views on Wedger. I agree that he’s a poser and a hypocrite, and that Maloney has done more harm than good. However, I’ve had to remove a statement in which Wedger is accused of an illegal activity, since we have no evidence that this is so, and we don’t make this sort of claim against people, no matter how much we disapprove of them.
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The series of yachts ted heath owned, all called morning cloud, were state of the art racing yachts designed for speed. she spent every spare hour when not being prime minister with his various crew members and other yacht enthusiasts. Such boats are stripped down bare bones affairs and never had the additional kit to sail single handedly so always needed at least 3 crew to properly sail. plus heath always had close protection operatives around him. anyone saying he had kids smuggled aboard is talking crap. A performance racing yacht with a crew of burly sailors and an ex sas team always in the vicinity plus the massive crowds of nosey blazered yacht types at the marinas and bays is a virtually impossible place to sneak kids around. whatever you feel about heath’s politics is fair comment but him being a Pederast who murdered kids under the noses of his crew while people on land including the media flocked to watch through binoculars ? the most important politician in the country had zero privacy yachting.
The series of yachts ted heath owned, all called morning cloud, were state of the art racing yachts designed for speed. He spent every spare hour when not being prime minister with his various crew members and other yacht enthusiasts. Such boats are stripped down bare bones affairs and never had the additional kit to sail single handedly so always needed at least 3 crew to properly sail. plus heath always had close protection operatives around him. anyone saying he had kids smuggled aboard is talking crap. A performance racing yacht with a crew of burly sailors and an ex sas team always in the vicinity plus the massive crowds of nosey blazered yacht types at the marinas and bays is a virtually impossible place to sneak kids around. whatever you feel about heath’s politics is fair comment but him being a Pederast who murdered kids under the noses of his crew while people on land including the media flocked to watch through binoculars ? the most important politician in the country had zero privacy yachting.
Jon Wedger?
If someone threatens to expose the criminal activity of evil doers they will do their utmost to discredit that persons credibility..
I wonder how many of Jon wedgers attackers have canal boats and or indulge in the vile sexual abuse of young children.
Ah, there it is. I’d wondered how long it would be before we got the inevitable “you disagree with him so you must be one of the people he’s ‘exposing'”.
It’s an old trick, well-worn but apparently durable.
But since you’re here, perhaps I could ask you to tell us exactly which of Wedger’s critics have canal boats or have been convicted of child sexual abuse? This would be very useful and enlightening information, I’m sure.
I did like their use of “and/or” which implies they think that merely owning a canal boat is the epitome of criminal evil! 🤣🤣🤣
P.S. As a former canal trustee, that accolade is only awarded to those who leave lock gates open and drain a section. 👹
P.P.S. I have never owned a canal boat! 😏
Anonymous Commentator says:
When Jonathan Wedger mentions canal boats being shunted across the canals to the other side, this is total B.S. Firstly canal boats are usually narrowboats. In a huge city like London the nature of the canal networks means that it is viitually impossible to shunt a narrowboat across the other side of the canal because most parts of the canal networks have the boats moored upon one side whilst the canal traffic uses the other side as the waterway. Shunting a narrowboat across the canal would cause an obstruction and also other boat owners would either politely confront the boat owner or report them to the UK Canal & River Trust (CRT) which took over from British Waterways in 2012. They would then take their details anyway and regularly did that in the 1970s and 1980s because the boating community is actually very close knit and therefore anonymity would be out of the question. Jonathan Wedger has largely fabricated his ‘canal boat story’ and it is badly researched. If Numbnuts had done his research he would know that anyone who owns a narrowboat or a widebeam boat on the canals must have a canal licence with the CRT which they have to renew every 12 months. Hence their details would be recorded and they would lose their anonymity.
Another B.S. aspect to Wedger’s waffle is the idea that the canal networks in London were somehow discreet hideaways and the Metropolitian Police didn’t go near them. Actually there are regular police patrols along the towpaths in London. If there were paedophiles sexually abusing children on narrowboats then the police would increase their presence in those areas. Jonathan Wedger comes across as arrogant and yet I do not think he is actually a very intelligent man. Again that is another sign something is wrong because a man who apparently worked for the police at New Scotland Yard for 25 years would be alot more savvy and intelligent than he has shown himself to be and would recall facts with far more accuracy. He seems to be a very bad judge of character and also he cannot take criticism very well. Where are all his police buddies who were apparently going to become valiant police whistle blowers? He sure is desparately wanting to be noticed and obviously wants to reinvent himself. At least Bill Maloney attended the Rose Bruford College in Sidcup, Kent and learned his rather average acting and film making skills there. Wedger does not even have any of these ‘talents’ and yet he tries to pass himself off as constantly being credible when in reality he is a ridiculous individual.
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Epigenetic Drug Development
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Team Profile: Pilot (Views: 2242)
By: IPC Admin
Jan 25, 2019 - 8:22 PM
While there are a few emerging storylines after the opening round of games in the 2019 Ylvisaker Cup, there was arguably one team that stood above the rest due to a dominant performance in their season debut. Pilot (Curtis Pilot, Matias Gonzalez, Lucas James, Facundo Pieres) turned the heads of spectators and tournament opponents with an overwhelming 16-7 victory over Tonkawa, that saw them begin the game on a 12-2 run in the opening half.
The strategic attack of Pilot throughout the first half proved to be a winning formula, with Facundo Pieres on the ball, Gonzalez and James blocking the close defenders and Curtis Pilot blocking downfield. The result was open runs for Pieres into space, leading to five goals in the opening two chukkers for the 10-goaler. The difficulties for Tonkawa defensively magnified even further when Pieres also accumulated assists on the three other goals in the first two chukkers, directly contributing to all of Pilot’s first eight goals.
Pieres returns to the International Polo Club Palm Beach (IPC) after a memorable 2018 season that saw him capture multiple notable tournaments including the C.V. Whitney Cup, USPA Gold Cup, Cartier Queen’s Cup and Hurlingham Open. While, the offensive prowess of Pieres, along with the entire Pilot team was noticeable, their success in the opening game was in large part due to their throw-in dominance. The team effort in the throw-in line-up allowed for Pilot to produce a controlled attack after nearly every goal, continuing the relentless offense that Tonkawa was unable to slow down. The throw-ins nearly mirrored the score, with Pilot winning 14 of 16 throw-ins in the opening half, which ultimately was the downfall for Tonkawa.
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Entering Sunday’s feature 3pm game, Pilot enters an intriguing match-up against an undefeated Dutta Corp. Yet to play against a player of Facundo Pieres’ stature, Dutta Corp may be focused on preventing a repeat performance from Pieres, but the game may ultimately be decided by the play in the middle of the game. After joining Pilot for last year’s Carlos Gracida Cup, Lucas James enters this season in a crucial #3 position, acting as a secondary scorer for Pilot along with covering defensively for Pieres when he drives forward. Shooting a perfect 4 for 4 from the field, James executed his role perfectly, converting with accuracy alongside Matias Gonzalez. Representing Team USA in the 2017 FIP World Championships, along with a strong 2018 season in Dubai, Gonzalez enters the high goal season at IPC with valuable experience to provide Pilot with a strong 3-goal player. Gonzalez displayed a high level of play against Tonkawa, scoring four goals on six shots and blocking effectively for his teammates, providing that extra player beyond the top backline of Pieres and James, that can make the difference in a closely matched contest.
Lastly, patron Curtis Pilot enters the 20-goal season for the second consecutive season and produced a strong showing in his opening game, scoring on his lone shot attempt. Often tasked with marking the last defender downfield, the work of Curtis Pilot can go unnoticed, but isn’t without value, as the team depends on the space provided by Pilot to produce their potent attack. Sunday’s game is a highly anticipated match-up with Dutta Corp looking to continue their undefeated run through the 20-goal and capture their fourth consecutive win on the U.S. Polo Assn. Field 1, while Pilot provides a stern test coming off the dominant nine-goal victory.
To purchase tickets to watch Pilot compete this Sunday, click here!
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Inside Venture Capital (Nov 7th, 2019)
Today's Goldilocks features Ali Moloo, CEO and co-founder of US/Sri Lanka-based myDigitalOffice, which recently raised $4M and provides an end-to-end management platform. Scroll down to reads Ali's thoughts on united disparate teams' goals, and more.
SoftBank Notches a $6.5 Billion Loss on Plunging WeWork and Uber Valuations: Fortune reports.
The evolution of the Spanish VC ecosystem — 2019 edition: Jaime Novoa of the Madrid-based K Fund breaks down the internal numbers and compares them to international norms.
Coveo (Canada), AI-based customer experience platform for scaled companies: $27M led by Omers Growth Equity, participation from Evergreen Coast Capital, FSTQ, IQ.
MaaS Global (Helsinki, Finland), route-planning, booking, ticketing and payment options for various modes of transportation: $59.5M from BP Ventures, Mitsui Fudosan, Mitsubishi Corporation, Nordic Ninja.
Bowery (Kearny, NJ), indoor farming company: $50M B from Temasek.
Immersive Labs (Bristol, UK), on-demand gamified cyber skills training platform: $40M led by Summit Partners, participation from Goldman Sachs.
Eight Sleep (New York, NY), temperature, data, etc.-based sleep health platform: $40M led by Founders Fund, participation from Craft Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, 8VC, Ryan Petersen, Kevin Hartz.
Pops Worldwide (Vietnam), digital entertainment firm: $30M from Eastbridge Partners, Mirae Asset-Naver Asia Growth Fund, Mirae Asset Financial Group, Naver Corporation.
Acticor Biotech (Paris, France), treatment for acute phase of thrombotic diseases: $24.7M led by Go Capital, participation from Newton BioCapital, CapDecisif Management and Anaxago.
Productiv (Palo Alto, CA), SaaS application engagement analytics platform: $20M B led by Norwest Venture Partners, participation from Okta Ventures, Accel.
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Funded companies today include a social network for African American professionals, and more.
--Goldilocks--
Featuring: Ali Moloo
myDigitalOffice is an end-to-end information management platform for sourcing, processing and storing hospitality data in the cloud. Our SaaS solutions help hotel owners, operators, franchisees and hospitality REITs manage property and portfolio performance to a tee. The visibility, connectivity, and control delivered by our cloud-based dashboards, document management software and integrated data feeds allow teams to reach greater levels of productivity, ensure regulatory compliance, and reduce environmental impact while optimizing profitability.
1. What was the inspiration for myDigitalOffice? Were there any personal situations you encountered that gave you the idea, or was the reasoning something you saw in the market?
Running an office product company, I had quite a bit of exposure to a wide array of business challenges and how companies were attempting to solve them. Companies of all sizes were our core customers, purchasing tons (literally) of paper products.
To me, massive amounts of paper indicate a weighty reliance on manual processes. From an environmental standpoint, the paper and toner supply chain needs to be cleaner for the health of our planet and its people. All this paper purchasing for paper processes was unsustainable for business growth and for the environment. I decided I wanted to be part of the solution, and I wanted to do it right.
I started picking our customers’ brains and learned they truly wanted to go paperless - some were even partially paperless - but available digital systems lacked compliance and security. In this, I identified a need for a formal process. Next, I widened my voice of the customer approach, speaking with many more business owners and managers. From that due diligence, I learned I would need to go deep to provide a meaningful solution in a cost-effective manner.
I did more research about the differences between industries, including standards and regulations, and realized there was no choice but to pick an industry to start with. I had personal exposure to the hospitality industry and saw a painful need for back-office transformation there. It was shocking and exciting all at once, and it was the clear direction to pursue.
2. You raised a $4M round led by FINTOP, what were you looking for with your new funding? How has your business plan changed with the fresh capital?
Leading up to our Series A, we experienced significant revenue growth due to a few calculated decisions and some dumb luck. At that point, our Series A was going to be all about scaling sales and marketing. Once we connected with FINTOP - the lead investor for our Series A - and had deeper discussions, our objective evolved. Now we’re more focused on accelerating the product roadmap.
3. Did you find the investors you were looking for, or did you find funding in an unexpected place?
We didn't have any surprises and it was all according to plan in terms of the sources. In addition to FINTOP, we had repeat investors from our seed round who doubled down on their belief in myDigitalOffice for the Series A. It’s a great feeling to know they have strong confidence in the company, the leadership team, the market opportunity, and our technology.
4. How did you pitch your company? - What were the metrics you were most inclined to put forward, which did you think didn’t show you in such a good light?
We led with the pain that our solutions solve - and we tried to show it in our imagery. We talked about total addressable market, projected EBITDA from the current business at specific growth rates, and potential new revenue streams. We also shared quotes from current customers and illuminated their personas so potential investors could understand our key audience demographics and psychographics.
5. Were there any ‘I can’t believe that just happened’ moments during your pitches? Was there a moment when you knew that an investor was going to make an offer?
It all happened so fast, which was the biggest ‘I can't believe that just happened’ moment. We pitched a bit, got strong interest with real follow up, and wrapped up the round. The key was that we had a market-validated product by that point. myDigitaOffice solutions were in use at over 700 properties, and we were in the middle of implementation for a global brand with another couple thousand properties. When you have validation like that, the ask to investors becomes much more straight forward because business viability is proven.
6. How is it to operate both in Sri Lanka and the United States? What problems and advantages do you encounter being active in both countries?
The challenge with distributed teams is cultivating shared objectives, accountability and a sense of urgency. We’ve recruited immense talent in both Sri Lanka and the US, and it shows. Our problems are mostly limited to coordinating national holiday schedules between the two countries. The teams in both Sri Lanka and the US have intuitively adopted a rhythm, processes, and tools to collaborate successfully.
7. What do you feel like your competition is? What sort of plans do you have to further distinguish yourself from other startups?
We compete with legacy tools like spreadsheets, early industry technology from the 1990s, and many homegrown situations - and “situations” is the right word for that. We have direct competitors as well. I take selfies with those folks at tradeshows - it’s friendly competition. We’re differentiated in several important ways. First, we have a defined company culture in service of digital transformation, integrity, diversity, passion, purpose and environmental sustainability. Second, we’re relentlessly lean in the way we operate, invest and spend. Third, we constantly listen to the voice of the customer, consider the input and iterate. It’s working for us.
Today's funding was broken down into 16 categories.
Inside VC's writer/curator Stephen currently lives in Berlin and is pursuing a Master's degree in philosophy. He otherwise enjoys cooking Indian/Southeast Asian cuisine, received his Bachelors in NYC, and lived almost two years in Bucharest.
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Home Antenes, David Last, DJ Speedstick
Antenes, David Last, DJ Speedstick
Robinia Courtyard 829 E. Washington Ave., Madison, Wisconsin 53703
press release: Molecular Ontology: Dark, immersive, and otherworldly productions to connect you to the fundamental nature of being.
Antenes (L.I.E.S. Records / The Bunker New York) | Brooklyn
https://soundcloud.com/antenes
DJ, producer and electronics artist Antenes operates a laboratory of self-made sequencers and modular synthesizers built in the name of rhythmic, sonic, and spatial exploration. Tracing the lineage of synthesizer operation to vintage telephone equipment and inspired by the Buchla 100, her curious studio discipline of manipulating repurposed switchboards was fueled by the desire to breathe new life into long-silenced machines, transforming signal paths through which voices once traveled into sequences that burst with percussive energy and evolving textures, bouncing sound through sound like so many distant AM radio stations on a late night drive. Her 2015 solo production debut, The Track of a Storm EP on L.I.E.S. reveals three tracks of otherworldly techno infused with “lazer shot synthwork,” “ghostly noise layers,” “muscular bass shapes and sparking percussions," appearing on the 2015 best-of lists for Juno and Fact magazine.
A Brooklyn resident by way of Chicago, Antenes' eclectic DJ sets dive into acid-laced techno, shimmering electro, shadowy atmospheres and beyond. In 2018, she’s kept busy behind the decks of underground events globally, including The Bunker New York, De School Amsterdam, Tresor Berlin, Corsica Studios London and more.
David Last (Last Faith Studio) | Madison
https://soundcloud.com/davidlast
David Last came up in Brooklyn in the early '00s and its vanishing genre boundaries. His work on albums and singles with The Agriculture, Bpitch Control & Staubgold gained praise with tough-to-please critics like Pitchfork and De:Bug. After the close of Devotion Gallery, an art space co-founded with friends in NYC, he worked at scoring Japanese fine-art animation and an Imax kids cartoon, recently composing soundtracks for George RR Martin’s bizarre psychedelic Disneyland in Santa Fe, Meow Wolf. Since the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland which took the life of his partner, Chelsea Faith (Cherushii), he has played only a handful of performances. Madison, where his family lives, is his current home.
DJ Speedsick (BANK Records NYC / Breathing Problem Productions) | Madison
https://soundcloud.com/speedsick
Harsh-noise, nostalgic rave techno, and punk sensibilities abound from the Wisconsin-born and based recording artist.
10 - close
We strongly encourage a NO PHONES ON THE DANCE-FLOOR policy. If it can’t wait, please step to the side or sit down at one of the many available seating areas. Don’t kill the vibe.
Location Robinia Courtyard 829 E. Washington Ave., Madison, Wisconsin 53703
Event Categories Music
Date & Time Jan 12, 2019 10:00 PM Jan 28, 2017 12:00 AM Jan 26, 2017 12:00 AM Jan 21, 2017 12:00 AM Jan 14, 2017 12:00 AM
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Kaunas Artists' House Lithuanian art news website
Kamanė's texts
Artists / Institutions
Golden fund
Scene Cinema and Photography Fine Arts Sound Literature Architecture Remark History City meetings
English version of Kamane.lt will no longer be updated
Readers are invited to browse the archives for information about Kaunas artists, past events and critical reflections.
Rebuilding and restoring historical architecture (Part III) 2016-11-04
Marius Vyšniauskas
The last part of the series on rebuilding and restoring historical architecture deals with the problems of rebuilding Western and Eastern European architectural heritage in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Rebuilding and restoring historical architecture (Part II) 2016-10-07
The continuation of the article series on rebuilding and restoring historical architecture. Trakai Castle restoration was not limited to the rebuilding of the brick walls - the research on the surviving frescoes required a more intense supervision. The sources indicate that Trakai Castle interior was a combination of different styles that were prevalent in the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Rebuilding and restoring historical architecture (Part I) 2016-09-05
The Venice Charter that supervises the protection of historical monuments defines restoration as a specific operation which aims to preserve and reveal the monument’s aesthetic and historic value; it has to be based on natural material and authentic documents. However, in reality, the work faces many obstacles. In the series of three articles, focusing on royal residences' restoration in Lithuania and the world, we will analyze not only the problems that arise in restoring heritage, but will also discuss the positive examples.
About the orchestration in architecture 2016-08-26
Interview by Jurga Tumasonytė
Rūta Barisaitė is a young architect based in Kaunas. After graduating from Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, for several years R. Barisaitė worked at the firm of architects G. Natkevičius and Partners and currently she is developing homes for people individually. She describes her generation as the "youngest of those who used to record favorite songs on cassettes and the oldest of those who no longer know Russian language." We talk about memories, contemporary architecture and the ledges of the hometown.
Kaunas Central bookstore is waiting for changes 2016-08-01
Laura Rimkutė
Heated debates sparked this spring on the future of the long-existing Kaunas Central bookstore. The concerned part of society was frightened that the bookstore will be destroyed after the planned privatization, just like other public places. While this story is full of political issues, I will try to distance myself from them and to look at the problem from the cultural heritage point of view.
The importance of identity for the city of Kaunas 2016-02-09
Kaunas does not have a strong face. The general public, not the residents of Kaunas or representatives of cultural heritage, often associate Kaunas with Žalgiris basketball team. However, this is not the true identity of the city, which should consist of history, culture and social areas. In recent years, the actions carried out by both Kaunas City Municipality and Architecture and Urban Research Center in respect to Kaunas interwar period modernism contributes to the shaping of the somewhat different image of Kaunas.
Kaunas interwar modernist architecture shone bright in the sky of cultural heritage 2015-08-12
In April of this year, Kaunas was ceremoniously awarded the European Heritage Label after assessment of the application submitted by municipality named "Kaunas of 1919 - 1940." Lithuania has a lot of valuable material cultural heritage but let us see why specifically Kaunas interwar modernist architecture deserves the recognition and what obligations this assessment brings.
The builders of Modern Kaunas 2015-07-30
Kaunas - the provisional capital of the first Republic of Lithuania in the memoirs of contemporaries is full of picturesque epithets, for example, "little Paris", or "little Brussels." This paper will review the people who created the "New Kaunas" because of their work the interwar period architecture today is awarded the Western European Heritage Label. Since it is impossible to write about everyone, I will focus on a several biographies.
Forts "protecting" Kaunas: present and future 2015-05-20
After visiting Kaunas forts, it becomes obvious that Kaunas has a great treasure of heritage. Although Fort was not beneficial during the First World War, if fully arranged now, Kaunas could boldly appear next to European heritage. Not only famous for great interwar architecture, but also as a unique example of military history with its intriguing legends.
Lithuanian Interior - depth, heights and reflections of life 2015-05-05
Elvina Baužaitė
Interior architect Lina Preišegalavičienė defended her doctoral thesis in 2014 on "The interior of the interwar Lithuania: factors, forms, trends (1918-1940)." Looking at the twenty-fifth anniversary of Lithuanian independence through the point of view of interior design art historian touches upon the lifestyle characteristics - marking the turning points and drawing the curves of the change.
Next » 1 2 3 4
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Home / News / Two book deal with Headline for Christina Courtenay!
Two book deal with Headline for Christina Courtenay!
We’re delighted to share a 2 book deal for Christina Courtenay with Headline (Hachette).
The first book, ECHOES OF THE RUNES, a Viking timeslip adventure, will be published in March 2020.
Editor: Kate Byrne
Agent: Lina Langlee
Courtenay, a romance writer who has previously had 11 titles published by Choc Lit, said: “I’m so delighted to be working with Kate and her team on this new series and, being half Swedish, it is especially thrilling to be able to bring this period of history into the spotlight. Vikings have had a bit of a ‘bad press’ and I’m looking forward to showing a different side to them. Dual-time and time travel stories have always been my favourites and to have both Kate’s and Lina’s support and enthusiasm for this project is just amazing! I am beyond excited and can’t wait to get started.”
Byrne added: “As a huge fan of both dual-time and timeslip novels, the prospect of working with Christina on Echoes of the Runes and her planned Viking series is a dream come true. I absolutely love the fact that Christina’s own heritage adds such great authenticity and affection for the Viking period and her heartfelt love stories are complemented by page-turning plot and history brought vividly to life which makes for a dazzling read.”
For more info on the book and to pre-order a copy: https://amzn.to/2JVZnFK
Douglas Skelton makes the McIlvanney Prize longlist
Lily’s Just Fine on The People’s Book Prize list
Cover reveal: HER DARKEST FEAR by Nina Manning
Happy publication Terri Nixon and A CORNISH INHERITANCE (Piatkus)
Deal News: Two more Rebecca Connolly books from Douglas Skelton!
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Jewish Community Relations Councilof San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin, Sonoma, Alameda and Contra Costa Counties
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News about JCRC
Why Can’t We Hear Each Other Out?
Posted by: Jason Steckler, JCRC Intern
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
--Socrates
San Francisco Hillel hosted Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat at San Francisco State University on Wednesday, April 6th. Within minutes a crowd led by the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) took over the room, screaming, “Israel is a terrorist state!” and “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free!” and “Long live the intifada!” until the audience was unable to hear him. I don’t think the GUPS actually anticipated staying in there for as long as they did, but university police stood by without taking action and there was a lack of direction from school authorities to Hillel. No one thought to redirect the protesters outside to a designated area. And as the protest grew larger and louder, those of us who were brave enough to stay to hear the mayor’s point of view ended up huddled in a circle near the center of the room in order to continue listening.
As an SFSU student, I’m ashamed. This was the second event in two weeks that went viral and brought media attention to the absence of civil discourse on our campus (the first being an altercation over a student’s dreadlocks). Recently the campus has not been an inclusive safe space. We are here to learn and to question, to engage in discussion, not to have our voices silenced by whoever can scream the loudest.
SFSU President Leslie Wong issued a statement which said that SFSU needs to be a place “where the entire SF State community can feel welcome and safe to engage in the free exchange of ideas and views,” but a lack of enforcement shows that the President’s words are not being implemented. President Wong has promised a full investigation into the violations of campus policy. We also need to hold University staff accountable.
The SF Hillel community, of which I’m a part, has shifted its strategy toward inclusion, listening, and dialogue. It’s great we have changed our strategy. Now it’s time for campus to rally around this as well. The mayor of Israel's largest, most populated and most religiously diverse city travelled across the world and a small group of protestors was allowed to shout at him unfettered for just as long as they pleased. This shows a huge lack of respect to this foreign dignitary and to the community that invited him. We students need our university to uphold its own code of conduct.
I’m also worried that the intergroup partnerships on campus are deteriorating. If the current state of affairs is allowed to continue, student organization may begin to be hesitant to partner with other faith-based or ethnic groups. They will fear the political flare-ups and backlash that can come with asking questions about controversial issues. Our campus is becoming a place where dialogue is unconstructive, hurtful, and fails to deepen understanding. It’s risky to have public conversations on topics that can get people defensive. The videos that inevitably emerge give the world a skewed vision that perpetuates the cycle.
Why is it so hard to hear out each other’s viewpoints despite our internal opinions of the individuals or positions taken?
I can only hope current and future students are not deterred in applying to SFSU by the media attention given to this situation. I hope they will walk onto campus open-minded and open to other viewpoints. For my part, I will continue to further the partnerships Jewish students have made with other communities and I will continue learning about other communities’ meaningful issues.
PHOTO: “San Francisco State University sign” by Runner1928, © 2014.
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Latest Incidents
Layne Incident
Incident Name: Lanyne Incident
Incident Time:
3:52:00 a.m.
Incident Date: 5-05-2019
Equipment Assigned:
KCFD: Engines 41, 42; Truck 41; Battalion 4; Safety 6; PIO
BFD: Engines 2, 6, 8; Trucks 1, 7, Battalions 1
Cause: Undetermined
Injuries: Minor injury to firefighter
Structure Value Saved: $300,000
Structure Value Lost: $100,00
Total Personnel: 29
At approximately 3:52 this morning, the Kern County Fire Department responded to the report of a structure fire in the 400 block of Layne Street. The first crew arrived on scene and reported an out building fully involved with fire and threatening the main home and a mobile home behind the residence. The crew made an aggressive attack on the out building and the mobile home which had become involved with fire. Additionally, a grass fire started on the lot where the out building was located due to over grown weeds. A primary and secondary search were completed in all 3 structures and an all clear was given. There was one minor injury to a fire fighter who was transported to a local hospital for treatment. The cause of the fire is under investigation at this time.
The Kern County Fire Department would like to remind all residents to make sure they have safe clearance of weeds and all combustibles from around their homes and properties.
Assisting Agencies: Bakersfield Fire Dept., CHP and PG&E
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Wednesday, Apr 6 2016
Election-Year Dynamics Could Derail Mental Health Reform Legislation
Meanwhile, a Senate panel faces a deadline for its medical innovation bill.
Los Angeles Times: Despite Bipartisan Support, Mental Health Reform Bill Could Be Derailed
Mental health advocates are pressing Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill not to abandon a push to modernize the nation's ailing mental health system amid rising partisan tensions over President Obama's Supreme Court pick. The effort has picked up crucial bipartisan support in the Senate and galvanized dozens of groups representing patients, physicians and state and local leaders. The Obama administration has also backed calls for reform, proposing more than $500 million in new federal spending to expand mental health services nationwide. But election-year politics and uncertainty over funding are fueling concerns that years of collaborative work by lawmakers from both parties may not bear fruit. (Levey, 4/6)
Morning Consult: Senate Health Committee Faces Deadline For Medical Innovation
The Senate faces a tight deadline if it’s going to pass a medical bill this year designed to speed drug and precision medicine developments. The legislation needs to be smoothed of kinks and on the floor within two weeks unless GOP leaders alter their overall schedule for the year. The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold its third and final votes on a series of small bipartisan bills on Wednesday, but there’s still no deal on the most important issue — additional funding for the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration. (Owens, 4/5)
The Hill: Collins: Drug Pricing Bill Not Likely At Innovation Hearing
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) says that her bill aimed at fighting high profile drug price spikes will likely not be considered as part of a health committee session on Wednesday. “I don't think it's going to come up tomorrow, but I'm assured by the chairman that it will be considered at some point,” Collins said Tuesday, referring to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). The health committee is holding a markup Wednesday on the last batch of a series of innovation bills aimed at speeding up the FDA’s approval process for drugs. That package has been seen as a possible vehicle for some sort of provision related to drug prices, which have been a hot button issue on the campaign trail and elsewhere. (Sullivan, 4/5)
In other news —
The Washington Post: VA Formally Proposes New Limits On Appeals Rights For Its Executives
Senior executives at the Department of Veterans Affairs overseeing health care programs could appeal disciplinary actions against them only through internal department channels, under a formal proposal the department has sent to Congress. While other VA executives still could bring appeals to the Merit Systems Protection Board, that adjudicatory agency would have to give more deference to the department’s decisions, under the proposal. (Yoder, 4/5)
This is part of the KHN Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.
Today, January 22
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HomeLabyrinth the board game by River Horse Games
Labyrinth the board game by River Horse Games
April 15, 2016 April 15, 2016 Killer Kitsch Pop Cultureboard games, Hoggle, Jareth, Jim Henson, Labyrinth, Ludo, River Horse, Sarah, Sir Didymus
Developed by the team at River Horse, Jim Henson’s Labyrinth the board game is a simple, fun game that allows 1 to 5 players to join forces in an attempt to rescue Toby from the Goblin King.
“You have thirteen hours in which to solve the labyrinth, before your baby brother becomes one of us… forever.”
Players must navigate the maze to save Sarah’s baby brother. Each game is different with the blank card spaces being filled with the magical encounters and monsters that are depicted on the deck of cards that comes with the game, this ensures a great deal of replayability and unpredictability in the game, giving the Labyrinth its signature feel.
The game consists of two distinct stages, one where the group must adventure through the labyrinth trying to find the goblin city whilst keeping their willpower as high as possible (nobody wants to fall into the oubliette!), and a second action packed stage where the players must fight their way into Jareth’s castle where Sarah must say the magical words that will release her brother.
“You have no power over me.”
The playing pieces are beautifully detailed as seen below in the pre-production images. The game is scheduled for a summer release and you can find you more via River Horse’s website, Facebook Page and rapidly expanding Facebook Group.
Check out beautiful Labyrinth inspired artwork by Aelia Petro on my next blog post.
Please don’t forget to like Killer Kitsch on Facebook and Follow me on Twitter @killer_kitsch for the latest geeky updates on current and retro movies, television, toys, games, art, anime and pop culture!
← Neon Horror by RetkiKosmos
Practical Visitor’s Guide to the Labyrinth by Aelia Petro →
One thought on “Labyrinth the board game by River Horse Games”
Practical Visitor’s Guide to the Labyrinth by Aelia Petro | Killer Kitsch says:
[…] Check out the new Labyrinth board game by River Horse Games on my previous blog post. […]
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Hydrazine radical formation catalyzed by rat microsomal NADPH-cytochrome P-450 reductase
Atsuko Noda, Hiroshi Noda, Ayako Misaka, Hideki Sumimoto, Kiyoshi Tatsumi
Bioregulation
Using NADPH-cytochrome P-450 reductase purified from rat liver microsomes, the oxidation of hydrazine to its radical was proved to proceed smoothly. The catalytic effect of NADPH-cytochrome P-450 on the radical formation in the hepatic microsomes obtained from phenobarbital-pretreated rats was also supported by the fact that Hz radical formation was stimulated by flavin adenin dinucleotide or methyl viologen and markedly inhibited by superoxide dismutase, however, carbon monoxide showed no effect. Expectedly, anti-NADPH-cytochrome P-450 IgG decreased the radical formation. The present study provides the first evidence for the NADPH-cytochrome P-450 reductase catalyzed oxidation of hydrazine to its radical in the presence of O2 and NADPH.
Cytochrome P-450 Enzyme System
Noda, A., Noda, H., Misaka, A., Sumimoto, H., & Tatsumi, K. (1988). Hydrazine radical formation catalyzed by rat microsomal NADPH-cytochrome P-450 reductase. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, 153(1), 256-260. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0006-291X(88)81216-6
Hydrazine radical formation catalyzed by rat microsomal NADPH-cytochrome P-450 reductase. / Noda, Atsuko; Noda, Hiroshi; Misaka, Ayako; Sumimoto, Hideki; Tatsumi, Kiyoshi.
In: Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, Vol. 153, No. 1, 31.05.1988, p. 256-260.
Noda, A, Noda, H, Misaka, A, Sumimoto, H & Tatsumi, K 1988, 'Hydrazine radical formation catalyzed by rat microsomal NADPH-cytochrome P-450 reductase', Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, vol. 153, no. 1, pp. 256-260. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0006-291X(88)81216-6
Noda A, Noda H, Misaka A, Sumimoto H, Tatsumi K. Hydrazine radical formation catalyzed by rat microsomal NADPH-cytochrome P-450 reductase. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. 1988 May 31;153(1):256-260. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0006-291X(88)81216-6
Noda, Atsuko ; Noda, Hiroshi ; Misaka, Ayako ; Sumimoto, Hideki ; Tatsumi, Kiyoshi. / Hydrazine radical formation catalyzed by rat microsomal NADPH-cytochrome P-450 reductase. In: Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. 1988 ; Vol. 153, No. 1. pp. 256-260.
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AB - Using NADPH-cytochrome P-450 reductase purified from rat liver microsomes, the oxidation of hydrazine to its radical was proved to proceed smoothly. The catalytic effect of NADPH-cytochrome P-450 on the radical formation in the hepatic microsomes obtained from phenobarbital-pretreated rats was also supported by the fact that Hz radical formation was stimulated by flavin adenin dinucleotide or methyl viologen and markedly inhibited by superoxide dismutase, however, carbon monoxide showed no effect. Expectedly, anti-NADPH-cytochrome P-450 IgG decreased the radical formation. The present study provides the first evidence for the NADPH-cytochrome P-450 reductase catalyzed oxidation of hydrazine to its radical in the presence of O2 and NADPH.
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Review: New Book Reveals Untold Queer Labor History
January 07, 2015 / Kate Ekman Enlarge or shrink text login or register to comment
Out in the Union: A Labor History of Queer America, by Miriam Frank, Temple University Press, 2014.
The comprehensive new history Out in the Union: A Labor History of Queer America reveals previously uncollected stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer labor activists and activism for LGBTQ equality.
Author Miriam Frank, a master teacher of humanities at New York University, identifies the little-known milestones that have together defined queer labor organizing, both inside and outside unions, from 1965 to the present. Those milestones: coming out in the union, gaining nondiscrimination clauses in contracts, and overcoming obstacles between LGBTQ and straight workers to forge alliances.
In the 1930s and ’40s, the Marine Cooks and Steward union became likely the first to welcome and encourage a racially and sexually diverse leadership, reflecting its workforce. But that move in its time was rare and radical.
In Out in the Union, we learn about labor activists in the second half of the century who were in the closet or went through a (sometimes involuntary) coming-out process. Their fights for leadership roles in their unions were difficult. Some faced ugly anti-gay opposition and smear campaigns, but ultimately won out—relying on their records of success fighting for other workers.
These new union leaders did not, at least at first, typically fight for LGBTQ inclusion in contracts or at the national union level. As time went on, though, those who took leadership roles began working to push their unions forward into a new era of recognized racial, sexual, and gender diversity.
NONDISCRIMINATION KEY
Frank considers the fights for nondiscrimination clauses in union contracts and constitutions to be the cornerstones of LGBTQ worker rights. These protections were especially important for workers in states without anti-discrimination laws—still the majority of U.S. states.
The protections never came automatically. Her research provides numerous examples of how workers gained them.
James Mitchell, a gay teacher from New York, introduced a gay rights resolution at the 1969 American Federation of Teachers convention. It was defeated by a vote within the human rights committee, and never made it to the convention floor. But the matter was referred to the union’s executive council, which in 1970 released what was considered a more watered-down resolution, stating that the AFT would “protest any personnel actions against any teacher solely because he or she practices homosexual behavior in private life.” At the time, it was still an extraordinary affirmation.
In 1985, workers at Columbia University negotiated a contract including sexual orientation protection—costing the university nothing, as long as it didn’t discriminate. From that point on at Columbia, the negotiating committee was able to fight incrementally for additional protections and benefits, such as inclusive health insurance and bereavement leave.
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For years LGBTQ labor activists were isolated and disconnected from one another. But the culmination of decades of experiences was a groundbreaking 1990 organizing handbook called Pride at Work: Organizing for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Unions, featuring accounts of union-based AIDS work and union-negotiated domestic partner benefits.
The book began building coalitions and sharing resources. Groups formed, and the name stuck. In 1997, Pride at Work was first recognized as an official constituency group of the AFL-CIO. It became the organizing center for LGBTQ labor issues, with local chapters around the country.
ALLIANCES WORKED
With so much shared history, what can we learn from instances of labor support (or lack thereof) for the political struggle for LGBTQ rights? The book details some of the major coalition work between unions and LGBTQ groups at local, state, and national levels—both wins and losses.
Beginning in the late 1970s, conservative groups led a series of “Save Our Children” campaigns to overturn municipal non-discrimination clauses and ban gay teachers. In 1977, unions stood by as the Miami-Dade County, Florida, non-discrimination ordinance was repealed by popular vote.
But the following year, recognizing that allowing discrimination against one group of workers would be a slippery slope to allowing discrimination against others, unions in California stood with LGBTQ rights groups against these ugly efforts. Today’s activists should take note: when unions stood against discrimination, they typically defeated such measures.
As LGBTQ workers began coming out, getting elected to leadership roles, and fighting for reform from within, many of America’s unions transformed. Recently unions have been key players in state marriage equality fights.
As a queer labor activist, I appreciate the hard work documented in Out in the Union. Most histories tend to “heterowash” any LGBTQ person’s truth—if their stories are told at all. This significant book uncovers the truths too often hidden away, adding the experiences of many LGBTQ leaders to labor’s collective history.
These stories are essential to a contemporary understanding of union solidarity. We should draw on the examples in Out in the Union as we fight for economic justice for workers of all backgrounds.
Kate Ekman is president of Pride at Work Chicago and membership coordinator at UNITE HERE Local 1.
Fifty Years after Stonewall: LGBTQ Workers Seek Equality »
George H.W. Bush: Not So Civil After All »
Out of the Closet: A Sanitation Worker Fights Discrimination »
Defend (and Understand) Your Transgender Members »
Review: How the Early Flight Attendants Fought Sexism and Homophobia »
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Author any.S., C Adams, W.W. ADAMS, WW Ade, H. Agrawal, A.K. AGRAWAL, AK Al-Hashimi, Mohammed Amir, R.J. Amir, E. Amir, Roey J.Anderson, J.R. Anthony, John Anthony, J. Anthopoulos, Thomas D.Anthopoulos, T.D. Antonuk, LE Apte, R.B. Arai, T. Arai, Tomoya Arias, A.C. Arnold, F.E. Arnold, FE Ashraf, R.S. Atassi, Amalie Bailey, C. Banerjee, Kaustav Bannock, J.H. Bao, Z Barlow, Stephen Barraza, Brian Barreda, O. Barreda, Omar Bartels, Joshua M.Baruah, Tunna Baruah, T. Batara, N.A. Bates, Christopher MBazan, G.C. Beaujuge, Pierre Bechtel, Jonathon S.Bechtel, J.S. Bernstein, David P.Biddle, P.H. Biddle, Perry H.Blackburn, Jeff L.Boudouris, Bryan W.Brady, Michael A.Brady, M.A. Brauman, J.I. Bredas, Jean-Luc Bredas, J.L. Breiby, Dag W.Brgoch, J. Brocorens, Patrick Brown, S.J. Brunetti, F.G. Bubel, S.L. Buck, David Buck, D. BUNNING, TJ Bunning, T.J. Burke, Daniel J.BURKETTE, J Burkette, J. Burkhardt, Martin Cabral, Joao T.Cabral, J.T. Cahill, David G.Campos, Luis M.Carpenter, Joshua Carpenter, J. Cervelli, F Chabinyc, M.L. Chabinyc, Michael LChabinyc, Michael L.Chan-Park, M.B. Chan-Park, Mary B.Chang, W.B. Cheetham, Anthony KChen, XX Chen, Zhihua Cheng, C.M. Cheng, Cheng-Maw Chesnut, Eneida Chiu, C.Y. Chiu, Kar HoChiu, K.H. Chiu, Chien-Yang Chiu, DT Chmelka, Bradley F.Choi, S.H. Chow, E. M.Christian, JF Chu, V Clancy, P. Clancy, Paulette Clark, Kyle Cochran, J.E. Coelle, Michael Coffin, Robert C.Coffin, R.C. Cohen, AE Collins, B.A. Collins, Sam Collins, S. Cornil, Jerome Cotta, R. Cotta, Robert Cowart, John J.Cowart,, J.S. Craig, SL Crawford, GP Crouch, David J.Cruciani, Federico Dahlman, Clayton JDahlman, Clayton J.Daniel, Jurgen Daniel, Juergen H.Daniel, J.H. Dantelle, Geraldine Dantelle, G. Davidson, Emily C.de Alaniz, Javier Readde Alaniz, Javier Readde Mello, J.C. de Villers, B.J.T. DeCrescent, R.A. DeCrescent, Ryan A.DeCrescent, Ryan ADelaire, Olivier Delaney, K.T. Delaney, Kris T.Delaney, K.R. DeLongchamp, D.M. Di Pietro, R. Dibb, George F.Dimitriou, Michael D.Doan-Nguyen, Vicky V. T.Doan-Nguyen, V.T. Donovan, Matthew M.Douglas, J.D. Douglas, Jessica D.Dudis, D.S. Dudis, DS Duffy, Warren Duong, Duc T.Duong, D.T. Durrant, James R.Durrant, J.R. Dylla, Maxwell T.Echegoyen, Luis Echegoyen, L. Ediger, M.D. Eisenmenger, N.D. Endicott, F. Evans, C.M. Evans, H.A. Evans, H.A. Even, Jacky Everest, Michael AEyans, Hayden A.Fabini, D.H. Facchetti, A. Facchetti, Antonio Fagenson, Ryan Fagenson, R. Fan, Jian Fang, H. Fang, Haiyu Faria, G.C. Faria, Gregorio CoutoFARMER, BL Farmer, B.L. Fearn, Sarah Fei, Z. Ferguson, Andrew J.Fink, R. Fischer, D.A. Flynn, MJ Forster, Jason D.Fratini, A.V. Frechet, Jean M. J.Frechet, J.M.J. Fredrickson, G.H. Fredrickson, Glenn H.Frisbie, CD Fronk, S.L. Gahill, David G.Gahill, D.G. Ganapathysubramanian, Baskar Ganesan, V. Ganesan, Venkat Gann, E. Gardner, Sandra Gaspera, Enrico DellaGaspera, Della Gatev, G.G. Gatev, GG Geluz-Aguilar, V. Genevicius, K Glaudell, Anne M.Glaudell, A.M. Glaudell, Anne MGomez, Jaritza Gomez, J. Gordeyev, Sergey Guide, Michele Gujral, A. Gundlach, D.J. Haag, R Haasch, R Hamadani, Behrong Hamilton, R. Han, Yang Han, Y. Hartmeier, B.F. Hauser, Adam J.Hauser, A.J. Hawker, Craig J.Hawker, C.J. Hawker, Craig JHawker, C.J. Hebert, Claire-Alice Hebert, C.A. Heeger, A.J. Heeney, M.J. Helgeson, Matthew E.Hexemer, Alexander Hexemer, A. Higgins, Simon J.Hiszpanski, A.M. Ho, Victor Holmlin, R.E. Houk, Ken N.Houk, K.N. Hsu, B.B.Y. Hu, N. Hu, Jerry Hu, Nan Huang, Ye Huang, Chengbin Huang, Z. Huang, Y.C. Huang, C. Huang, Wei Huang, Zhenggang Hub, C. Ismagilov, RF Jacobs, Andrew R.Jacobs, H.O. Janaway, G.A. Jasieniak, J.J. Jaye, Cherno Jiang, Jing Jiang, J. Jimison, Leslie H.Jinnai, Hiroshi Jo, Jang Johnson, MA Jones, Seamus D.Junk, Matthias J. N.Kahn, A. Kahn, Antoine Kanatzidis, Mercouri GKang, Stephen D.Karger, AM Katan, Claudine Katsumata, Reika Ke, Weijun Kennard, Rhys MKennard, Rhys M.Kiefer, D. Kiefer, David Kim, Chunki Kim, C. Kline, R.J. Koelln, L.S. Koelln, Lisa SophieKoldemir, Unsal Kopidakis, N. Kopidakis, Nikos Kotiuga, Michele Kovnir, Kirill Kozycz, Lisa M.Kraemer, Stephan Kramer, E.J. Kraya, L. Kraya, Laura Krusor, B Ku, S.Y. Kunze, F. Labram, J.G. Labram, John GLabram, John G.LACY, N Lacy, N. Lai, Wen-Yong Lazzoroni, Roberto Lee, Byoung HoonLee, In-Hwan Lee, B.H. Lehner, A.J. Levi, Adam ELi, Yao Li, Z. Li, Zhe Li, Xiangchun Lieberman, M Lim, E. Lim, Eunhee Liman, C.D. Limb, Scott Lin, E.K. Liu, X. Liu, Wei Liu, Xiaofeng Liu, P. Liu, Jun Liu, Shengjian Liu, J. Loo, Yueh-Lin Loo, Y.L. Love, J.C. Lu, JP Luettich, Franziska Luettich, F. Lujan, R.A. Luo, Yingdong Luo, Chan Luo, C. Lynch, Jared Ma, Biwu Macdonald, I MacKenzie, Roderick C. I.MACYS, DA Macys, D.A. Madhu, S. Mahdi, Ali Mai, C.K. Malik, Jennifer A. NekudaMalliaras, GG Mao, Lingling Marder, Seth R.Marohn, John A.Martin, Jaime Martin, Joshua Martin, J. Martinez, TJ Mates, T.E. Mayer, Andy Mazaheripour, Amir McCulloch, Bryan L.McCulloch, I. McDearmon, Brenden McDearmon, Brenden McDonald, JC Mcgehee, MD McNeill, C.R. Meager, I. Meager, Iain Menyo, M.S. Menyo, Matthew S.Metallo, SJ Meyer, S.Y. Miao, Mao-sheng Miao, M.S. Michels, Jasper J.Michels, J.J. Miller, Levi Miller, Rachel Miyazaki, S Momose, Tatsuya Moncino, Kai Moncino, K. Montarnal, Damien Moudgil, Karttikay Mujica, V Mukherjee, Sanjoy Mukherjee, Kunal Murai, Masahito Murai, M. Murray, Christopher B.Nakayama, Hidenori Nasrallah, I. Nasrallah, Iyad Nathan, A Neaton, Jeffrey B.Neher, D. Neher, Dieter Nelson, Jenny Ng, T.N. Nguyen, Thuc-Quyen Nguyen, T.Q. Nielsen, Christian B.Nielsen, C.B. Ninomiya, Naoya Northrup, J.E. Nuzzo, RG O"Hara, Kathryn O'Hara, K.A. O'Hara, Kathryn O'Hara, Kathryn AOlson, Dana C.Olson, D.C. Ong, B.S. Ortiz, Brenden R.Ostrowski, David P.Ostrowski, D.P. Ostrowski, David PO’Hara, Kathryn O’Hara, Kathryn A.Page, Zachariah A.Parkin, S.R. Parkin, Sean R.Patel, Shrayesh N.Patel, S.N. Patel, Shrayesh NPaul, K.E. Peelaers, H. Pemmaraju, C.D. Pemmaraju, C. D.Perez, Louis A.Perez, L.A. Perko, T.J. PERKO, TJ Perry, Erin E.Perry, E.E. Peterson, Kelly APeterson, Kelly A.Pho, T.V. Pokuri, Balaji Sesha SaraPopere, B.C. Popere, Bhooshan C.Prendergast, D. Prendergast, David Prentiss, MG PRICE, GE Price, G.E. Purushothaman, B. Queen, Wendy L.Rampi, M.A. Ratner, MA Rawlings, Dakota Ready, S.E. Regan, CK Reid, Obadiah G.Reid, Obadiah Resch, TJ Resch, T.J. Reynolds, Veronica GRichter, L.J. Riveranevares, J.A. Rivnay, Jonathan Robb, M.J. Robledo, Isaac Rogers, James T.Rumbles, Garry Rumer, J.W. Russ, B. Russo, Beverly Saathoff, Jonathan D.Saathoff, J.D. Sadhanala, A. Sadhanala, Aditya Salleo, A. Sambandan, S. Sanoja, Gabriel E.Schauser, Nicole S.Schelhas, Laura T.Schlitz, R.A. Schlitz, Ruth A.Schmidt, Kristin Schmidt, K. Schneider, Julia ASchroeder, B.C. Schuettfort, T. Schuller, Jon A.Schuller, J.A. Schuller, Jon ASegalman, Rachel ASegalman, R.A. Segalman, Rachel A.Sellinger, Alan Seo, Jung HwaSeok, Jaewook Seshadri, Ram Seshadri, R. Shah, Manas Shaheen, S.E. Shaheen, Sean E.Shaheen, Sean EShaw, Leo Shaw, L. Sherman, J.B. Sherman, Jes B.Sherman, J. Shinar, R Shkunov, M. Shuttle, C.G. Sieval, Alexander B.Sieval, A.B. Sirringhaus, Henning Sirringhaus, H. Sivanandan, Kulandaivelu Skabara, Peter J.Skulason, H Smiadak, David M.Smith, Gordon Smith, Paul Smock, S.R. Smock, S.R. Snyder, Jeffrey Socci, E.P. Song, H.H. Sparks, Taylor D.Sparrowe, D. Spitzer, Daniel Stemmer, S. Stemmer, Susanne Stimes, Jacob Stingelin, Natalie Stingelin, N. Stoumpos, Constantinos CStreet, R.A. Stroock, AD Su, G.M. Su, Wei-Fang Su, Gregory M.Sun, H. Sun, Yanming Sun, Haitao Takacs, C.J. Takacs, Christopher JTakacs, Christopher J.Tan, C.H. Tan, Ching-Hong Teicher, Samuel M LTerfort, A Thomas, Elayne M.Thomas, Elayne MThomas, E.M. Thomsen, L. Thomsen, Lars Thywissen, JH Tierney, S. Toberer, Eric S.Toma, F.M. Toma, Francesca M.Toney, M.F. Tong, Minghong Traore, Boubacar Treat, N.D. Treat, Neil D.Trohalaki, S. Tuladhar, P.S. Tuladhar, Pabitra S.Tumbleston, John R.Uchiyama, Takumi Urban, J.J. Van de Walk, C.G. Van de Walk, C. G.Van der Ven, Anton Van der Ven, A. Van Vooren, Antoine Vance, TA Vance, T.A. Varotto, Alessandro Venkatesan, Naveen R.Venkatesan, Naveen RVenkateshvaran, D. Venkateshvaran, Deepak Vogt, BD von Hauff, Elizabeth VONMINDEN, DL Vonminden, D.L. Wagner, R Waite, J.H. Waite, Herbert Wang, He Wang, Jian Wang, C. Wang, Xiaojia Wang, H. Wang, M. WANG, CS Wang, S. Wang, Hengbin Wang, Sarah Wang, Mingfeng Wang, C. Watson, Anne Wei, Zitang Weiss, T.M. Weiss, Thomas M.Welch, Gregory C.Westacott, P. Whitesides, G.M. Wolfe, DB Wong, W.S. Wu, G. Wu, Guang Wu, G. Wu, Y.L. Wudl, Fred Wudl, F. WYMAN, JF Wyman, J.F. Xie, Renxuan Yan, H. Yang, MS Yang, J Yau, C.P. Yavuz, Ilhan Yavuz, I. Ying, L. Ying, Lei Yu, Lian Yu, L. Yu, L. Zan, HW Zevalkink, Alex Zhang, W.M. Zhang, WM Zhang, Yuan Zheng, Y. Zheng, Yonghao Zhong, Weimin Zhong, Cheng Zhong, M.L. Zhong, C. Zhong, ML Zope, Rajendra Zope, R. Zwanziger, J.W. Zwanziger, Josef W.
Filters: Author is M.L. Chabinyc [Clear All Filters]
J.B. Sherman, K. Moncino, T. Baruah, G. Wu, S.R. Parkin, B. Purushothaman, R. Zope, J. Anthony, and M.L. Chabinyc. "Crystalline Alloys of Organic Donors and Acceptors Based on TIPS-Pentacene." JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C 119 (2015): 20823-20832.
B.B.Y. Hsu, C.M. Cheng, C. Luo, S.N. Patel, C. Zhong, H. Sun, J. Sherman, B.H. Lee, L. Ying, M. Wang et al. "The Density of States and the Transport Effective Mass in a Highly Oriented Semiconducting Polymer: Electronic Delocalization in 1D." ADVANCED MATERIALS 27 (2015): 7759-7765.
Z. Fei, R.S. Ashraf, Y. Han, S. Wang, C.P. Yau, P.S. Tuladhar, T.D. Anthopoulos, M.L. Chabinyc, and M.J. Heeney. "Diselenogermole as a novel donor monomer for low band gap polymers." JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY A 3 (2015): 1986-1994.
J.W. Rumer, R.S. Ashraf, N.D. Eisenmenger, Z. Huang, I. Meager, C.B. Nielsen, B.C. Schroeder, M.L. Chabinyc, and I. McCulloch. "Dual Function Additives: A Small Molecule Crosslinker for Enhanced Efficiency and Stability in Organic Solar Cells." ADVANCED ENERGY MATERIALS 5 (2015): 1401426.
C.K. Mai, T. Arai, X. Liu, S.L. Fronk, G.M. Su, R.A. Segalman, M.L. Chabinyc, and G.C. Bazan. "Electrical properties of doped conjugated polyelectrolytes with modulated density of the ionic functionalities." CHEMICAL COMMUNICATIONS 51 (2015): 17607-17610.
S.L. Bubel, A.J. Hauser, A.M. Glaudell, T.E. Mates, S. Stemmer, and M.L. Chabinyc. "The electrochemical impact on electrostatic modulation of the metal-insulator transition in nickelates." APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 106 (2015): 122102.
A.J. Lehner, H. Wang, D.H. Fabini, C.D. Liman, C.A. Hebert, E.E. Perry, M. Wang, G.C. Bazan, M.L. Chabinyc, and R. Seshadri. "Electronic structure and photovoltaic application of BiI3." APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 107 (2015): 131109.
A.M. Hiszpanski, J.D. Saathoff, L. Shaw, H. Wang, L. Kraya, F. Luettich, M.A. Brady, M.L. Chabinyc, A. Kahn, P. Clancy et al. "Halogenation of a Nonplanar Molecular Semiconductor to Tune Energy Levels and Bandgaps for Electron Transport." CHEMISTRY OF MATERIALS 27 (2015): 1892-1900.
A.M. Glaudell, J.E. Cochran, S.N. Patel, and M.L. Chabinyc. "Impact of the Doping Method on Conductivity and Thermopower in Semiconducting Polythiophenes." ADVANCED ENERGY MATERIALS 5 (2015): 1401072.
C.P. Yau, S. Wang, N.D. Treat, Z. Fei, B.J.T. de Villers, M.L. Chabinyc, and M.J. Heeney. "Investigation of Radical and Cationic Cross-Linking in High-Efficiency, Low Band Gap Solar Cell Polymers." ADVANCED ENERGY MATERIALS 5 (2015): 1401228.
S.N. Patel, G.M. Su, C. Luo, M. Wang, L.A. Perez, D.A. Fischer, D. Prendergast, G.C. Bazan, A.J. Heeger, M.L. Chabinyc et al. "NEXAFS Spectroscopy Reveals the Molecular Orientation in Blade-Coated Pyridal[2,1,3]thiadiazole-Containing Conjugated Polymer Thin Films." MACROMOLECULES 48 (2015): 6606-6616.
G.M. Su, E. Lim, E.J. Kramer, and M.L. Chabinyc. "Phase Separated Morphology of Ferroelectric-Semiconductor Polymer Blends Probed by Synchrotron X-ray Methods." MACROMOLECULES 48 (2015): 5861-5867.
J.B. Sherman, B. Purushothaman, S.R. Parkin, C. Kim, S. Collins, J. Anthony, T.Q. Nguyen, and M.L. Chabinyc. "Role of crystallinity of non-fullerene acceptors in bulk heterojunctions." JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY A 3 (2015): 9989-9998.
S.L. Bubel, M.S. Menyo, T.E. Mates, J.H. Waite, and M.L. Chabinyc. "Schmitt Trigger Using a Self-Healing Ionic Liquid Gated Transistor." ADVANCED MATERIALS 27 (2015): 3331-3335.
Y. Zheng, M.S. Miao, G. Dantelle, N.D. Eisenmenger, G. Wu, I. Yavuz, M.L. Chabinyc, K.N. Houk, and F. Wudl. "A Solid-State Effect Responsible for an Organic Quintet State at Room Temperature and Ambient Pressure." ADVANCED MATERIALS 27 (2015): 1718+.
A. Gujral, K.A. O'Hara, M.F. Toney, M.L. Chabinyc, and M.D. Ediger. "Structural Characterization of Vapor-Deposited Glasses of an Organic Hole Transport Material with X-ray Scattering." CHEMISTRY OF MATERIALS 27 (2015): 3341-3348.
J.B. Sherman, C.Y. Chiu, R. Fagenson, G. Wu, C.J. Hawker, and M.L. Chabinyc. "Suppressing crystallization in solution-processed thin films of organic semiconductors." MRS COMMUNICATIONS 5 (2015): 447-452.
J.G. Labram, D.H. Fabini, E.E. Perry, A.J. Lehner, H. Wang, A.M. Glaudell, G. Wu, H.A. Evans, D. Buck, R. Cotta et al. "Temperature-Dependent Polarization in Field-Effect Transport and Photovoltaic Measurements of Methylammonium Lead Iodide." JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY LETTERS 6 (2015): 3565-3571.
C.K. Mai, B. Russ, S.L. Fronk, N. Hu, M.B. Chan-Park, J.J. Urban, R.A. Segalman, M.L. Chabinyc, and G.C. Bazan. "Varying the ionic functionalities of conjugated polyelectrolytes leads to both p- and n-type carbon nanotube composites for flexible thermoelectrics." ENERGY & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE 8 (2015): 2341-2346.
J. Brgoch, A.J. Lehner, M.L. Chabinyc, and R. Seshadri. "Ab Initio Calculations of Band Gaps and Absolute Band Positions of Polymorphs of RbPbI3 and CsPbI3: Implications for Main-Group Halide Perovskite Photovoltaics." JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C 118 (2014): 27721-27727.
E. Amir, M. Murai, R.J. Amir, J.S. Cowart, Jr., M.L. Chabinyc, and C.J. Hawker. "Conjugated oligomers incorporating azulene building blocks - seven- vs. five-membered ring connectivity." CHEMICAL SCIENCE 5 (2014): 4483-4489.
T.V. Pho, F.M. Toma, B.J.T. de Villers, S. Wang, N.D. Treat, N.D. Eisenmenger, G.M. Su, R.C. Coffin, J.D. Douglas, J.M.J. Frechet et al. "Decacyclene Triimides: Paving the Road to Universal NonFullerene Acceptors for Organic Photovoltaics." ADVANCED ENERGY MATERIALS 4 (2014): 1301007.
B.C. Schroeder, Z. Li, M.A. Brady, G.C. Faria, R.S. Ashraf, C.J. Takacs, J.S. Cowart, Jr., D.T. Duong, K.H. Chiu, C.H. Tan et al. "Enhancing Fullerene-Based Solar Cell Lifetimes by Addition of a Fullerene Dumbbell." ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION 53 (2014): 12870-12875.
N.D. Eisenmenger, K.T. Delaney, V. Ganesan, G.H. Fredrickson, and M.L. Chabinyc. "Improving Energy Relay Dyes for Dye Sensitized Solar Cells by Increasing Donor Homotransfer." JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C 118 (2014): 14098-14106.
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Books & Anthos
Digital Credits
eBooks & Kindle
Lawrence Dagstine: Author
Exploring the worlds of the Fantastic, the Bizarre, and Dark Mainstream Literature
Category Archives: Free Fiction
Tell-Tale Press: “five short stories, five acceptances…”
I have recently sold five short stories to the new publishing press/editing service, TELL-TALE PRESS. That’s right, five acceptances! Very few reprints, mostly all new stories to read from the Genre Library section of their website. I’ll leave individual links below. Be sure to check out my work and the many others Tell-Tale’s authors have to offer. Andrea Dawn is a professional editor who runs Tell-Tale, and the site is also publisher to horror anthologies with a “seasonal” theme or vibe to them (in print and digital). These anthos usually sell out too at cons real quick, such as Phoenix Fan Fusion. I’ve appeared in one such antho of theirs so far. As for the short stories on their website? FREE READING TO THE PUBLIC. Be sure to check out my latest tales, “Small Favors” and “The Acrylic Man” where horror fiction is concerned. Remember, clickable links below.
TELL-TALE PRESS
Publisher/Editing Service: Andrea Dawn
“5 Dagstine Stories Available”
TELL-TALE PRESS LINKS:
Main Website Page:
http://www.telltalepress.net
Genre Library (Pick Author):
http://www.telltalepress.net/the-library
“Small Favors” by Lawrence Dagstine:
https://telltalepresshorrorlibrary.blogspot.com/2019/09/novelette-small-favors-by-lawrence.html
“The Acrylic Man” by Lawrence Dagstine:
https://telltalepresshorrorlibrary.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-acrylic-man-by-lawrence-dagstine.html
More Lawrence Dagstine Stories:
https://telltalepresshorrorlibrary.blogspot.com/search/label/Lawrence%20Dagstine
Other New Entries: “Acceptances”
Categories: 450 Publishing Credits, Andrea Dawn, Authors, Chilling Tales, Dagstine, Dagstine 2019, Dagstine 2020, Dagstine Stories, Dark Fiction, Dark Stories, Digital Stories, Editing Services, Feature Authors, Feature Fiction, Fiction, Fiction Appearances, Fiction Writers, Forthcoming Fiction, Free Fiction, Free Horror, Generational Horror, Genre, Genre Fiction, Horror, Horror Authors, Horror Fiction, Horror Novelettes, Horror Promotion, Horror Stories, Horror Websites, Horror Writers, Horror-Watch, Lawrence Dagstine, Lawrence Dagstine 2019, Lawrence Dagstine 2020, Lawrence Dagstine Stories, New Fiction, New Publishers, New Stories, Novelettes, Paranormal Stories, Phoenix Fan Fusion, Popular Fiction, Publication Credits, Publishing, Publishing Credits, Scary Stories, Short Fiction, Short Stories, Short Story Acceptances, Short Story Readings, Short Story Writing, Small Favors by Lawrence Dagstine, Small Press, Small Press Horror, Speculative Fiction, Supernatural, Supernatural Tales, Surprising Stories, Tell-Tale Press, The Acrylic Man by Lawrence Dagstine Tags: Andrea Dawn, Creepy Stories, Dagstine, Dagstine 2019, Dagstine 2020, Dagstine Stories, Dark Fiction, Dark Stories, Editing Services, Fiction Acceptances, Free Fiction, Free Short Stories, Horror, Horror Fiction, Horror Literature, Horror Short Stories, Horror Stories, Horror Tales, Horrror Novelettes, Lawrence Dagstine, Lawrence Dagstine 2019, Lawrence Dagstine 2020, Lawrence Dagstine Fiction, Lawrence Dagstine Stories, New Fiction, New Horror Fiction, New Horror Stories, Novelettes, Paranormal Stories, Phoenix Fan Fusion, Publishers, Publishing, Short Stories, Short Story Acceptances, Stranger Things, Tell-Tale Press, www.telltalepress.net
Crimson Streets: “Island in the Sky” by Lawrence Dagstine… (appearances)
My pulp adventure story ISLAND IN THE SKY is now uploaded, as of August 20th 2017, at the weekly pulp adventure-pulp noir fiction webzine CRIMSON STREETS. Edited by Janet Carden. Island in the Sky is a story of zeppelins and floating islands and a race of savages amongst the clouds. Inspiration for this one comes from such timeless movies as Indiana Jones, Rocketeer, and even the Tom Baker Doctor Who story, The Power of Kroll. Not to mention paying respect to such classic authors as Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and Jules Verne.
Crimson Streets publishes a new short story every single week, fifty-two weeks per year. Hard, gritty fiction, which packs a punch. The story has an illustration by Toe Keen. I’ll leave a direct link and banner down below. Enjoy.
CRIMSON STREETS
Edited by Janet Carden
“Island in the Sky”
by Lawrence Dagstine
CLICK HERE: http://www.crimsonstreets.com/2017/08/20/island-in-the-sky/
With Illustration by Toe Keen
More short stories coming soon…
New Entries: “Appearances”
Categories: Adventure, Adventure Tale, Adventure Tales, Airships, Crimson Streets, Dagstine 2017, Dagstine Stories, Feature Authors, Fiction, Floating Islands, Free Fiction, Genre, Genre Fiction, Genre Magazines, Genre Markets, Lawrence Dagstine, Lawrence Dagstine 2017, Lawrence Dagstine Stories, Lawrence Dagstine: Author, Magazine Appearances, Magazines, New Fiction, Noir, Noir Publications, Online Magazines, Publication Credits, Publications, Pulp Adventure, Pulp Magazines, Pulp Noir, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Short Stories, Science Fiction Stories, Science Fiction Writers, Short Fiction, Short Stories, Small Press, Speculative Fiction, Webzines, Weekly Webzines, Weird Tales Tags: Adventure, Adventure Stories, Clark Ashton Smith, Crimson Streets, Dagstine, Dagstine 2017, Fantasy, Fiction, Free Fiction, Horror, Janet Carden, Jules Verne, Lawrence Dagstine, Lawrence Dagstine Stories, Pulp Adventure, Pulp Noir, Pulp Stories, Robert E. Howard, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Webzines, Weekly Webzines
Digital Science Fiction: “The Starship Hanoi” by Lawrence Dagstine – Now up!
I have a story currently up at the digital reprint market, DIGITAL SCIENCE FICTION. Also known as Digital Fiction Pub, since they do publish fantasy and horror (they deal in speculative fiction as a whole). You can read my “QuickFic” category story, The Starship Hanoi, online. It’s a tale about Vietnam in the far future. Other authors this period, in the “QuickFic” category, include: Krystal Claxton, Deborah Walker, Holly Schofield, Jeff Hill, Jay Caselberg, Melanie Rees, Kevin David Anderson, Brian K. Lowe, and Thomas Kleaton. Just click the link below the banner.
DIGITAL SCIENCE FICTION
Digital Fiction Pub: “QuickFic” (stories under 3,500 words)
LINK: http://digitalfictionpub.com/category/quickfic/
More stories coming soon…
Entries: “Appearances”
Categories: Dagstine, Dagstine 2017, Reprint Markets, Digital Science Fiction, Digital Fantasy, Digital Horror, Digital Fiction Pub, Quickfic, Quick Fiction, Online Stories, Online Fiction, Short Story Authors, Short Story, Dagstine Stories, Fantasy, Free Fiction, Horror, Lawrence Dagstine, Magazine Acceptances, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Short Stories, Science Fiction Stories, Science Fiction Websites, Science Fiction Writers, Short Stories, Short Story Magazines, Short Story Writing, Vietnam, Vietnamese Fiction
Tightbeam #268, November 2013… (appearances)
My science fiction story, The Starship Hanoi, is in the current issue of Tightbeam. Tightbeam is the official zine of the National Fantasy Fan Federation (N3F), an organization created in 1941 with a very large audience in SF fandom (it’s also a club with dues); Tightbeam has been around since 1960, and has a pretty healthy circulation at numerous SF/F conventions. They have fiction, non-fiction, book reviews (all mostly unsolicited), and con reports between their pages. My story is about The Vietnamese Life Cycle and what inertia will bring to an Asian colony (and culture) in the far future. It’s a story of the burdens of technology and progress, really. Links to free download and N3F website below (also in print). Issue #268, edited by David Speakman.
TIGHTBEAM #268
***November 2013***
Official Zine of the National Fantasy Fan Federation
The National Fantasy Fan Website (est. 1941):
http://www.N3F.org
Tightbeam (est. 1960, free download):
http://n3f.org/2013/10/tightbeam-268/
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Free Ebooks: “Family Reunion” by Lawrence Dagstine – Aug. to Sept. 2013 ONLY!
Autumn is almost here! And September is suspense month! If you like taut thrillers in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock and Mary Higgins Clark, then for the next 40 days you might like my family dynamic-inspired novella, Family Reunion. But only from August 20th thru September 30th (up till midnight), and only through Smashwords (Mobi, Epub, etc.). After that, Family Reunion goes back up to the already low price of $1.99. Own a Kindle or a Nook? Just enter the following coupon code at Smashwords.com: BS62W …And meet “Howard” for free, the man who would KILL to be a husband and father, and for forty days and forty nights. Most of all, happy reading.
A Family-Based Suspense Thriller
FREE for Aug/Sept. 2013, FREE thru Smashwords
SMASHWORDS COUPON CODE: BS62W
When Kendra was a teenager, she got raped and knocked up more than once. When she finally found the courage to run away with the children, she went back to school, got a job, and set up a nice life for herself far away. The children are now eight, and Howard has come ‘home’ for what he feels belongs to him. He swears he’s a changed man, he wants to get married and be a dad. Even if it kills! He wants this reunion to be one that Kendra and the kids will never forget… should they live to tell about it.
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Smashwords: “The Paraplegic” by Lawrence Dagstine – Now Available!
For only 99 cents, you can now own my vampire novelette, The Paraplegic. Available at Smashwords. Just click on the picture below, or, see what other low-cost titles I have available. I even have a free science fiction story you could try out, and in the coming months I will be downloading more stories at no cost (usually under 5,000 words); I’ll also be coming to Kindle, Nook, Apple, Sony, Kobo and Nexus. Novelettes and novellas will always be at the right price. Quality, plot-driven stories, characters we care about: because that’s what matters first and foremost. Science fiction, fantasy, horror and more in Mobi, ePub, PDF, and a variety of other formats. You’ll be able to order them direct from here (eBooks & Kindle), or be redirected. Also be sure to follow me on social media platforms such as Facebook & Twitter. There will be cool contests in the coming months and free reading material will go out to my 5,000th Facebook follower and my 500th Twitter follower. Cover art by Bob Veon.
THE PARAPLEGIC
Now Available at Smashwords – ONLY 99 cents!
When Herbert was told he had amnesia, he knew things were bad. When he couldn’t feel anything below the waist, he got scared. When the doctor told him he’d be paralyzed for life, he got depressed and wanted to die. After all, no one wants to be a paraplegic. But what made him crippled so suddenly? Did somebody do this to him? And if so, why? Now in the hospital, undergoing intensive surgery, little does Herbert know that the force responsible isn’t done with him, not by a long shot! Something’s coming back. There’s a little unfinished business to take care of, and it comes in the form of vampires.
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Fiction Excerpt: “Vampires in America” – Part 8
Welcome back to the Official Homepage of writer/artist Lawrence R. Dagstine. Stay tuned here in the future for lots of wonderful free fiction, essays and excerpts, and most of all, digital releases you can download at cheap prices. Get your Kindles, Nooks, and other eReaders ready. Below is an installment from Part 8 of a work in progress, entitled: “Vampires in America.” Historically rich, definitely weird, and what will be an unforgettable adventure in its entirety.
VAMPIRES IN AMERICA
Part 8. Fiction Excerpt.
Bruce turned it into a hard day, bullying and ragging the other vampires. He made Tom his special target. Tom took the abuse without any attempt at fighting back.
In Fort Wayne a new locomotive came on, and so did a new crew. The conductor was a nervous man, small and dumpy, constantly checking his watch. The engineer, a homely, lanky young man, stood outside the train trading jokes with the fireman.
There were also several new passengers: a bearded preacher, a printer from Peoria, and a fearsome-looking riverboat man named Joe Tide, a burly fellow in a red shirt and yarn suspenders.
Tower wandered out from the lunchroom and came back to the boxcar, where J.C. was sitting in the open door. He offered her half his sandwich. She refused him without a word, jumping down and running off to join Samantha at the outdoor pump.
“So when are you going to tell them?” Samantha asked.
“Tell them what?” J.C. said.
“That you’re a female.”
“When I feel like it. If I feel like it.”
“I’m sure most of them know. The way they stare at you.”
“Let them think what they want,” J.C. said.
Finally the engineer and the fireman climbed up into the locomotive and the train started. Some time after ten in the evening the train began to slow down. The vampires awoke and opened the door to peer out into the dark countryside. “What is it, Miss Simpson?”
“There ain’t no town here, Miss Simpson. Look.”
The train came to a full stop. When J.C. and Langley leaned way out the door, they could see lanterns bobbing far down the track. A man on horseback and a horse-drawn wagon came into view. Two bearded men got down from the wagon, and the engineer went out to meet them. The vampires whispered amongst themselves: Were they outlaws? Was it a robbery? Even worse, were they vampire hunters?
The two men walked back to their wagon and returned carrying a pine box about four feet long. The baggage car door was opened and the box put aboard. Then the horseman and the wagon rode off.
As the engineer climbed back up into the cab, J.C. suddenly jumped out of the boxcar and dashed toward the baggage car.
“J.C.!” Emily shouted after her. “Get back in here!”
“I want to sleep by myself once. I’m not hurting anybody, Miss Simpson.” Grabbing the corner of the door, J.C. scrambled up into the car.
The train shuddered, slipped forward, shuddered again. Emily took a deep breath and leaned against the slats of the boxcar. She would talk to the vampire again in the morning.
J.C. was alone in the dark baggage car. It was a little frightening, even for a vampire. She groped her way through the car and found an old blanket that she folded up to use as a pillow. She slid several trunks around until she made herself a nest.
As she slipped closer to sleep, her mind began to move back to the afternoon with the actors, their gestures, their bright costumes, their bits of song. She had been crazy to get up and sing with Drew. She didn’t want to have anything to do with actors or dancers, with their fake tears and their motioning protests of love. She was moving west, where there were no theaters or dance halls, no orchestras or ballets, away from her mother’s crying, away from the arguing voices. The high-hatted men standing in the half-closed door, not letting her mother close that door, not letting J.C. sleep. J.C. was going away, into some wilderness, where there was stillness.
She woke with a start. There was a sound in the baggage car, the sound of something moving. J.C. lay very still. It wasn’t a rat; no, it was something heavier.
She heard it again. This time J.C. moved quickly and silently among the trunks. She knelt beside the pine box that the bearded man brought aboard. She put her ear to the box. She heard breathing.
J.C. sat silent for a moment. There was something alive inside. Perhaps another vampire? An animal? It made her angry. It was terrible to nail up an animal like that; there weren’t even any air holes.
She knocked softly on the box. The sound of breathing stopped. J.C. knocked again; there was only stillness, the click of the rails beneath her.
J.C. felt along the dirty floor of the car, patting the bags and trunks till her fingertips found the handle of a hoe. Using the sharp edge as a wedge, J.C. pried under one of the boards. Finally she pulled the board free and stared into the eyes of a man curled tight inside the box.
“Who are you?” he hissed at her.
J.C. moved back, grabbing the hoe and displaying her fangs. “Who are you?”
The man began to work his way out of the box, squirming painfully. He was black. “Yo’ one creepy little man. What side you workin’ fo’?”
J.C. held up the hoe in a swinging position. “I’m not working for any side.”
The man stretched, grimacing as he felt the lower part of his back. He was almost six feet tall, in overalls, no shoes. He scrutinized J.C. “You’re just a young vamp, ain’t ya?”
“Anything wrong with that?”
“No. Just that you should look what you’re doing with that hoe. You’re likely to bang somebody back of the head.” J.C. lowered the hoe a bit. “What’s your name, vamp?”
“J.C. What’s yours?”
“My name’s Nester.”
“Where you coming from, Nester?”
“Now, why would you want to know that?”
“No reason,” J.C. said. “Where you going, then?”
Nester sat down on one of the trunks. “Same direction as you, I guess. I’m going north, to Canada.”
“Nope,” J.C. said, putting down the hoe. “You’re going west. To Danville.”
Nester frowned. “West? Well, there’s a reason, I know there is. They’ll put me on another train. I been on so many trains, you wouldn’t believe it.” He went to the door and peered out into the night. “They wouldn’t be trickin’ me. Ain’t no way to be runnin’ an underground railroad, though, you gotta say it.”
“So you’re not a vampire yourself?” J.C. asked.
“Heck no. I’m human as human gets. Why?”
“Vampires sometimes sleep in coffins. It’s something I heard once. Don’t know if it’s true or not.”
Nester looked back at J.C. “I heard the same thing. But what are you doin’ in here?”
“I got tired of the others,” J.C. said.
“What others is that? Oh, wait—”
“We’re all orphans. Really nasty vampires made us like this. You know, turned us. So they’re giving the young a second chance. They’re placing us out on farms with human families. They think it’ll make us better citizens. But they’re all no-good vampires, and I couldn’t stand ’em anymore.”
“I can see that,” Nester said. He arched his back, feeling with his hand. “Oww, I got a crick back here. Anybody in charge of you orphans?”
“There’s a lady in charge of us.”
“Is she human?”
“Unfortunately.” J.C. rolled her eyes.
Nester laughed. “Don’t sound like you like that lady.”
“She’s a little churchy, but she’s all right. Just that I don’t know that I should trust her. She says she’s gonna find us homes. And she doesn’t know, really.”
“If she says she will, she will,” Nester said firmly.
“Oh, come on, you don’t know any more than she does!”
“You believe in her, that’s all I’m sayin’. That’s the only chance you’ve got, young man.”
The car swayed. Nester stumbled and then regained his balance. “If we can’t believe in people, we all stuck. You take me now, J.C. I made the break to freedom. But to make it all the way, I need other folks, all kinds, black ones and white ones. Green ones if I got to. Folks I never laid eyes on in my life.”
“Hmm,” J.C. said skeptically.
“Only thing I can do is trust, young man, and not be prejudice back. I been hidin’ in barns, bumpin’ along in wagons with all kinds of octoroons, mulattoes, not knowin’ which way we was headed. If I can get in a box and have ’em nail me up like I was dead, well, that’s puttin’ yourself in people’s hands.” J.C. looked sour. “You ain’t gonna give up, are you?”
“Did I say I was giving up?”
“You’re gonna find a home, same as me.”
“Mmm,” J.C. said.
Nester draped himself across a pair of trunks. “It’s nice to jus’ stretch out for a little while.”
They both fell silent, the only sound the clicking of the wheels. An hour could have passed, or even two. J.C. was almost asleep when she realized that the time between clicks was growing. The train was slowing down. She sat upright and looked around wildly. It was still night. Nester sat, alert.
“What is it, Nester?”
“I dunno, but I figure I better be cozyin’ down in my box again. I’m trustin’ you, son, to hammer me back in real good.”
“Sure,” J.C. said, her voice a little frightened.
Nester folded himself back into the box, tucked his head in just as the brakes screamed. J.C. picked up the loose board with trembling hands.
Nester grinned at her. “It’s okay, son. You come up to Canada sometime and I’ll take you for a ride on a moose.”
J.C. fitted the board in place. With the back of the hoe she quickly hammered down the nails. The train had stopped. She went to the door and looked out. There was a group of men on horseback, lanterns at their sides. One of the men rode down the track, the horse picking its way gingerly. In the lantern light J.C. saw a badge on the horseman’s chest.
She jumped down, shut the baggage car door behind her, and walked slowly toward the vampire car. She was greeted with jeers. “Too dark for ya, J.C.?” and “Kinda skeery?” She plopped down on her blanket and said nothing.
The sheriff climbed into the passenger car. Another of his men poked his head into the vampire car. He was lean and young, with a big smile. “They tol’ me there was a load of vampire orphans back here and damn if it isn’t true. ‘Scuse my language, miss.”
Emily had pulled her duster around her in her most haughty manner. “May I ask why you’re disturbing us?”
“Oh, we’re just looking through the train, miss. The sheriff’s received a complaint. Sorry for waking you up like this.”
The sheriff jumped down from the passenger car, and he and an older deputy walked to the baggage car. J.C. watched them, holding herself back. The sheriff stood aside and let his man pull open the baggage car door. The young deputy noticed J.C. staring back toward the baggage car, and he looked back, too. There was the sound of breaking wood and then a shout.
J.C. leaped out of the boxcar and ran. The young deputy stepped in front of the door, his hands held out in warning, but the vampires slipped by him on every side. Finally he gave up and went loping to the baggage car.
The train’s passengers—human and vampire—gathered in a semi-circle in front of the baggage car. In the doorway, held by a deputy, was a gaunt black man with a stubble of white beard. The younger deputy held a crowbar. Pieces of the shattered pine box lay on the floor behind them. The sheriff bent down to hand the lanterns to one of the passengers, then jumped to the ground. “Well, that’s it for tonight,” he said. “You can all go back to bed.”
“You can’t take him!” J.C. said.
“What’s that, young feller?”
“Young man’s right,” said Joe Tide, the burly riverboat man, pulling his yarn suspenders. “It’s a free state.”
“That’s right, it’s a free state,” J.C. said. “Isn’t it, Miss Simpson?”
Emily could only stare at the face of the sheriff.
The sheriff answered. “There’s a law, I’m afraid, young man. It’s called the Fugitive Slave Act. Any runaway slave that’s caught, free state or not, goes back to his owner.”
The two deputies were trying to get themselves and Nester down from the baggage car without letting go of his arms, and it was about as awkward as a potato-sack race. They finally all tumbled out, one of the deputies landing on his knees. J.C. went up to Nester, put her hands on his arms above the deputies’ hands.
The first gray streaks of dawn had appeared on the eastern horizon. A couple of heads still peered from the windows of the train, but most of the passengers who’d come out to take a look began to drift back toward the passenger car. Frank Tower and Joe Tide and a few others held their ground.
“Let the man go, Sheriff, what’s it to you?” Tower said.
“The slave people payin’ you off, Sheriff?” It was the fireman. The engineer tugged on the fireman’s arm, but that wasn’t about to stop the young man. “What’d they give you?”
The sheriff’s face reddened. “You listen to me, you railroad people. There are laws here, and they apply to everybody. You, too, Sam,” he said to the engineer. “We’ve been keepin’ our eyes on you. You run your train through my town, you’re goin’ to abide by those laws. This here slave is goin’ back.”
J.C. pressed against Nester, staring at the crowd. No one moved. Didn’t any of them see? These were the same people who had cried at Uncle Tom’s Cabin, who had applauded when the slaves were freed. How could they not understand?
J.C. spun and kicked one of the deputies in the shins. “Run, Nester, run,” she shouted. She pivoted smartly and hit the second deputy in the belly with her fist. The man bellowed, then let go with a sweeping uppercut, catching J.C. under the right eye. Suddenly she was down on her back in the dirt.
Tower threw himself at the deputy, the force of his rush tumbling the two of them to the ground. The sheriff tried to move to help, but Joe Tide stepped up and wrapped his massive arms around the sheriff’s middle, lifting him like a bag of flour, squeezing agonizing groans out of him. The young deputy pulled his pistol, and, as he did so, the fireman crouched down to pick up the crowbar. Nester stood stock-still, uncertain whether to run or join the fight.
The engineer grabbed Nester by the arm. “You’re coming with me.” He reached over and slapped his young fireman on the shoulder. “Billy, put that thing down and let’s get the steam up. We’re movin’ this train out of here.”
The fireman let the crowbar drop, and the three of them raced toward the front of the train.
The young deputy was frantic. He ducked and darted, gun in hand, afraid to shoot into the tumbling, twisting fighters, and finally, in frustration, fired a shot in the air. Instead of stopping anyone from fighting, the shot seemed to galvanize the bearded preacher, who picked up the crowbar and started running at the deputy. The young man dropped his gun and ran down the track with the preacher in hot pursuit.
Emily tried to herd the vampires back toward the boxcar, holding the crying J.C. by one arm. Tower and the other deputy were on their feet now, their hands at each other’s throats. “You really don’t want to make me angry,” Tower said.
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
“Because I could just tear your head off if I wanted to.”
The train whistle pierced the air. The engineer leaned out, waved for people to get on board. The other passengers and the vampires started running for the train. Tower had his deputy down on the ground again, and Joe Tide, the sheriff grasping in his arms, staggered toward them. With a great shout, the boatman dumped the sheriff on the deputy and then secured the pile by throwing himself on top of them. He shouted to Tower, “Go on, get on the train, I got ’em!” Sprawled across the two lawmen, the boatman held them fast.
“Wish I’d thought of that,” Tower said.
The train made a jolt forward. Down the tracks, the preacher dropped the crowbar and came running. There was a sprint now for the slow-moving train, Tower in the lead, the preacher behind. Heads at every window of the train urged the runners onward. Joe Tide staggered up and started running, too.
Emily and the vampires pulled Tower and then the preacher up into the boxcar. Joe Tide, slower on his thick boatman’s legs, seemed to be losing ground, with the sheriff and his deputies only paces behind. The vampires leaned out of the car, exhorting the boatman forward. Gasping, he summoned up one last burst, caught Tower’s hand, and struggled up.
The train picked up speed. The young deputy kept gaining; he was running alongside. When he tried to climb aboard, a kick from the preacher sent him sprawling. The train, under full steam now, sounded its whistle in triumph.
Inside the boxcar bedlam reigned. The vampires piled on Tower and Nester and Joe Tide and the preacher, shouting over one another for attention. Only J.C. sat by herself on a bench, sobbing softly. It was Emily who first noticed.
“J.C., are you all right? That man didn’t hit you hard, did he?”
J.C. looked up and tried to stifle her sobs, but couldn’t entirely. Emily’s mirror lay across her legs. J.C. picked it up and stared into it. There was no reflection. “I don’t even know what a puffy eye looks like!” she said.
“You can’t be worrying about how it looks, J.C.,” Tower said. “You handled yourself like a real man out there.”
“But I’m not a man!” J.C. sobbed. “I’m a female! A female monster!”
“A what?” Tower said. Bruce laughed.
“Oh, J.C.!” Emily said. The vampires all stared at J.C., but she refused to look back at any of them, instead gazing in the mirror and wishing that a reflection of her could have gazed back.
“Now doesn’t that just beat everything, Pledges,” Langley said. “J.C.’s a bloody faker.” Emily quickly hushed them both, and the only sound then was the rocking of the car.
It was Nester who finally spoke, glaring at Langley and Bruce. “You think that’s funny? If she says she’s a female, she’s a female. This here vampire got me out of the hands of that jailer, so you all leave off gawkin’ at my friend.”
“Come now,” Emily said. “Let’s settle down. You all need some rest.” The vampires slowly went to their blankets, casting sidelong glances at J.C.
When the train came to a halt again, the prairie was ablaze with a fierce morning sun. There was not a building in sight. A number of exhausted passengers stumbled out into the sunlight. The engineer and Tower and Nester walked a distance from the train. They stood talking quietly. The passengers lined up along the car, speculating on the conversation among the three.
Dr. Walcott said, “That engineer’s just loco. His job is gone once the railroad hears about this, you can bet on that.”
“He’s a brave young man, if you ask me,” said one of the other passengers.
Nester turned and shook hands with Tower and the engineer, then raised his hand toward the train. J.C. raised her hand in return. Joe Tide and finally, reluctantly, Dr. Walcott did the same.
Then, as naturally as a man would slip into a pool of water, Nester bent down over the side of a ridge and vanished.
Ten miles east of Danville, a dozen armed horsemen and a couple of wagons were gathered around the water tank. As the train eased to a stop, a strong-looking man with a mane of wavy white hair hitched up his belt and walked toward the locomotive. He wore a sheriff’s badge.
The engineer and the fireman climbed down from their cab, eyeing the horsemen. The sheriff took off his hat and scratched at his wavy white hair. “Hello, Sam,” he said. “We heard there was a little trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” the engineer said.
“What we got over the telegraph was that there was a slave on the train, and when the sheriff from the county over there tried to take him off, some of you boys got in his way.” The sheriff narrowed his eyes. “Tell me, Sam, you had a slave on this train?”
“And he’s not on the train now?”
“No, sir.”
“And do you know where he got off?”
“Mighty puzzling.” The sheriff turned slowly and faced the passengers crowded together on the steps of the train. “Any of you know where that slave might have got off?”
No one spoke. Wind rustled the trees down by the stream.
“It’s a mystery, I tell yuh.” The sheriff rubbed his nose. “Sam, I’m afraid you’ll have to be comin’ with us. If any of the others here were involved, well, that’s none of my business. They didn’t put it on the telegraph, but I’m going to tell you something, Sam, you can just bless your stars that you got arrested in the right county.”
“What about us, Sheriff?” shouted one of the passengers.
“Folks, I hate to slow down your trip this way, but we’re arrestin’ your engineer. Anybody that wants to ride into town with us and make other connections is welcome. Otherwise, sit tight, and they’ll have another crew out here this afternoon.”
Emily decided it was best that she and the vampires would stay with the train. The other passengers were leery about being stranded out in the country. All of them except for Frank Tower, Joe Tide, and the preacher elected to take the wagons into Danville.
There was a great flurry of activity as baggage was lugged onto the two wagons. Joe Tide was fuming, ready to fight this bunch of lawmen, too, but the engineer calmed him down. They’d gotten a man free, that was the point, and, anyway, if there was going to be a trial, he had a better chance in Danville than a lot of places.
The vampires looked on in awe as the horses and wagons rumbled off. The engineer waved back, grinning, then pointed across a field, where a quail was flying low, heading for safety.
When the horses and wagons disappeared from view, Bruce spat, then kicked at the ground. Tower broke the silence. “I’ve never seen such a sad bunch of faces. If you ask me, you should be proud of yourselves. There’s a man free somewhere north of here, and maybe he wouldn’t be if it weren’t for you. You should be proud of this train.”
“So? So what if we are?” Bruce said.
“So maybe you’d like to have your picture taken,” Tower said. “It’ll be my going-away present to all of you.”
The words stuck in Emily’s heart. She stared at Tower. He smiled back. “Emily, I want you in the picture, too.”
The vampires’ spirits rose instantly. They lined up in front of the boxcar, squeezed in when Tower told them to squeeze in. Eventually they were all as gravely still as anyone could ever want, holding until Tower told them that was it, and then they let out a whoop.
They crowded around the mercury bath, badgering him with questions. When the plate was mercurated and washed, Tower let the vampires decide on a case. After a fierce debate, they chose one that had a harp embossed on the outside and purple silk lining inside. Tower handed the finished daguerreotype to Emily.
They all pressed around. Didn’t J.C.’s shiner finally show up good now, Langley said. And wasn’t Langley’s grin weird, like a skunk eating sand, Pledges said. After they had tossed all the barbs they could think of, they went running off into the woods.
Emily stayed behind. Tower was busy repacking his equipment. Emily stood fingering the harp-embossed case. As she watched him snapping down the legs of his tripod, she felt enormously drawn to him. There was so little time, she thought, and she was letting it slip away.
Suddenly he turned back to her. “You know what I would like, Miss Simpson? I’d like to take a walk with you, before the new crew shows up. Just you. No vampires. How does that sound?”
There was no mistaking her look. Her face was shining. “It sounds wonderful, Mr. Tower.”
As Tower leaned his tripod against the passenger car, there was a shout. “Miss Simpson! Look what I brought you!” Samantha ran across the clearing, waving a nosegay she had made out of mullein, stock, and cornhusk twisted with grass. Pledges was a minute behind her, walking carefully with his hands full.
“Look here, Miss Simpson!” Pledges held up a handful of acorns. “There are lots more.” Pledges suddenly eyed the two of them. “Where are you going?”
“Mr. Tower and I were going for a walk.”
“What for?” Pledges said.
“We thought we’d look for some of those acorns.”
Samantha wrinkled up her nose. “By yourselves?”
“But how can you find the acorns if we’re not along?” Pledges pleaded.
“I don’t think we could,” Tower said, smiling. He took Samantha’s hand, then put his arm around Emily’s waist. “So I think you two should come with us.”
End of Part 8.
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Current: THE AUTUMNLANDS sets out on new story a…
THE AUTUMNLANDS sets out on new story arc
New York Times bestselling writer Kurt Busiek (ASTRO CITY, MARVELS) and rising-star artist Benjamin Dewey (I WAS THE CAT, TRAGEDY SERIES) will launch the second story arc of the high-fantasy epic THE AUTUMNLANDS in November.
Previously in THE AUTUMNLANDS, a secret enclave of wizards reached into their forgotten past to bring back a legendary hero to save their dying lands. But instead of the savior they’d hoped for, they got a completely unexpected kind of hero.
In THE AUTUMNLANDS #7, our lost and wounded heroes seek safety, but instead find something...bizarre.
Said Busiek: “There are answers, there are questions, there are clues about the nature of the world and how it changed from Learoyd’s era to the Autumnlands. And there’s beer. A breakfast. And angry goats. It’s our first look at the wider world of the Autumnlands, and it’s not what anyone was expecting. Least of all Learoyd and Dusty.” He added, “As usual, Ben Dewey’s making miracles happen on the page—and Jordie Bellaire’s taking it even further. I’ve got to up my game just to do justice to what they’re delivering. It’s stunning, stunning work.”
“Issue seven ends with one of the most ambitious spreads I've ever done and I have to build a model of it so I can make sense of it for any subsequent appearances!” said Dewey. “The [plot] details [Kurt] has revealed to me will be challenging, exciting and fun to manifest. I really hope that we are able to welcome some new readers to the series by expanding the scope and introducing unexpected characters. Current readers ought to enjoy seeing the world they've come to know unfold more and in surprising ways.” He continued, “I'm always excited to see what Jordie and JG will do overtop the raw inks to improve what Kurt and I establish. We've switched up some formatting elements and moved outside the cityscape so it should be a whole new playground for them to practice their wizardry.”
THE AUTUMNLANDS #7 (Diamond Code SEP150520) hits stores Wednesday, November 11th. Final order cutoff deadline for retailers is Monday, October 19th.
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Criminal Matters legal definition of Criminal Matters
https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Criminal+Matters
Collateral Estoppel
(redirected from Criminal Matters)
A doctrine by which an earlier decision rendered by a court in a lawsuit between parties is conclusive as to the issues or controverted points so that they cannot be relitigated in subsequent proceedings involving the same parties.
Collateral estoppel is an Affirmative Defense that must be pleaded by a defendant in civil actions. The similar affirmative defense of Res Judicata differs from collateral Estoppel in that it completely precludes the relitigation of a claim, demand, or Cause of Action, as opposed to an issue or controverted point, in a subsequent proceeding between the same parties to an earlier action.
The application of the collateral estoppel doctrine promotes the speedy administration of justice by preventing the continuous, duplicative litigation of fruitless claims when relitigation of them is unlikely to change the original decision made regarding them.
Issues or findings of fact, not conclusions of law, are subject to collateral estoppel only in certain cases. The issue against which collateral estoppel is claimed must be identical to an issue already litigated in the earlier case and must have been fully litigated at that time. In addition, the court must have actually decided the issue. The decision on the issue must have been integral in the outcome of the original lawsuit. This last requirement assures the issue was vigorously litigated so that it is fair to prevent its relitigation in a second action because there is little likeli-hood that the results will be different the second time.
If an action has been settled by the agreement of the parties, most jurisdictions will not apply collateral estoppel, since the issues have not been fairly and fully litigated.
Persons Affected
Collateral estoppel is binding only upon those parties to the first action in which a decision was made and anyone who might be regarded as in privity with those parties, such as a bailor and bailee or a principal and his or her agent. In many jurisdictions a party in a lawsuit who is not subject to the estoppel effect of a prior judgment because the party was not a party to the original action in which the judgment was rendered can, in certain instances, use that judgment to bind his or her adversary who had been a party in the former action.
A defendant who, in a second action, pleads the defenses of collateral estoppel against the plaintiff uses it defensively. In many jurisdictions this use of the doctrine is considered fair because the plaintiff has the advantage of selecting the defendant and the forum in which the case is to be decided. The decision to commence the second lawsuit is based, in part, upon the findings or issues in the first action, and, therefore, it is not unreasonable to bind the plaintiff by the issues or findings made in that case.
In contrast, a plaintiff in a subsequent lawsuit who asserts collateral estoppel against a defendant uses the doctrine offensively to buttress his or her cause of action. Fewer jurisdictions, however, permit its offensive use since the defendant against whom it would be applied has neither the choice of forum nor of adversary.
Collateral estoppel has limited applicability in cases where the issues raised in the court where the action was first heard were beyond its jurisdiction. In antitrust cases brought in federal court, which has exclusive jurisdiction over such matters, prior state court rulings concerning antitrust violations made during the course of deciding the legality of a contract will not be given collateral estoppel effect. Courts reason that the punitive and exclusive nature of the federal remedy in antitrust cases precludes collateral estoppel based upon state court decisions.In contrast, federal courts have applied collateral estoppel in patent cases to any underlying facts decided by state courts but not to facts alleged to prove the issue of patent validity or infringement.
The availability of collateral estoppel is also limited by changes in the law that take place between the original and subsequent action. Collateral estoppel will not apply if modifications in the applicable law alter the operative facts needed to obtain a favorable ruling. To do otherwise would deny an individual Equal Protection of law merely because of the luck of the person who obtained the previous ruling.
Jurisdictions differ on whether to give an estoppel effect to a criminal conviction of a party currently involved in a civil lawsuit. Traditionally, estoppel was not permitted, since the plaintiff in the civil action was not a party to the criminal proceeding. Today, a number of states give full collateral estoppel effect to a previous criminal conviction. Acquittal of a crime is not given collateral estoppel effect in a civil proceeding because the plaintiff in the civil suit was not a party to the criminal proceeding and could not offer evidence against the defendant. This rule prevented O. J. Simpson from using his acquittal of murder as a defense in the civil trials brought against him by the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman following the murder trial.
In addition, the difference between the Beyond a Reasonable Doubt standard of proof necessary for a criminal conviction and the Preponderance of Evidence standard in civil actions would make it unfair to allow the acquitted defendant to use his or her acquittal to bind the opponent in the civil matter in which the standard of proof to obtain a judgment is not as stringent.
n. the situation in which a judgment in one case prevents (estops) a party to that suit from trying to litigate the issue in another legal action. In effect, once decided, the parties are permanently bound by that ruling. (See: estoppel)
<a href="https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Criminal+Matters">Collateral Estoppel</a>
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It was still more impossible to remain in the department of the Oise, one of the most open and strictly guarded in France; this was quite out of the question, especially to a man like Andrea, perfectly conversant with criminal matters.
It seems that the old man has been out in the hills, and has shot a buck this morning, and that, you know, is a criminal matter in the eyes of Judge Temple.”
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Omer Ahmed said in his address before the 7th session of Conference of Parties to United Nations Convention Against Corruption in capital of Austria, Vienna , Tuesday, that Sudan witnessed important constitutional development by establishment of the General Prosecution as independent power representing the state and the society in litigation in criminal matters , indicating that members of the general prosecution carry out their duties without bias and give more concern to corruption issues without any organ influence .
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Advocate Choudhary is an expert in matters of taxation and debt recovery, while advocate Deo is deft in criminal matters and advocate Kumar specialises in service matters and is a retained counsel for Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS).
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The second draft law which ratifies the co-operation agreement in criminal matters, was voted for by 136 deputies with one abstention.
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Translation Comparisons » Final Fantasy Adventure
Seiken Densetsu / Final Fantasy Adventure Translation Comparison
Posted on August 17, 2019 by Clyde Mandelin ‧ 16 Comments
In July 2019, I streamed Final Fantasy Adventure (Game Boy) on Twitch. Specifically, I compared its English translation with the game’s original Japanese script. The whole playthrough took about fifteen hours and was spread across seven different days.
Just like my previous live comparison translations, I used a custom Wanderbar plugin to make the comparison easier and more interactive:
My Wanderbar plugin displays handy info on the side as you play the game. This made it easy for me to highlight points of interest in the game's localization in real time.
Whenever a line in the English script appears, the equivalent Japanese line is displayed in the sidebar. Hovering over the Japanese text brings up an auto-dictionary too.
Enemy info is displayed live as you encounter and defeat them. Names, illustrations, quotes, stats, and more are all taken from the official Japanese guides. and/or straight from the game's data I also live-translated the guides' longer enemy descriptions as we encountered each new enemy.
My Wanderbar plugin also incorporates other supplemental guide material, more than I can list here.
I haven’t released my Game Boy Wanderbar stuff (including this plugin) just yet, but I do plan to upload them here sometime soon.
Part 1: Game Start to Airship
I hadn’t really played Final Fantasy Adventure in about 25 years, so I wasn’t sure how far I’d get after this first stream. I wound up getting about twice as far as I had anticipated. You can watch this day’s archived stream here:
In the notes below, we’ll look at some key things I noticed during this day’s playthrough, but I actually cover many more translation changes during the stream. So if you find this stuff interesting and want to dive even deeper, definitely check out the video!
Pre-Release Peeks
At a couple points during the stream series, I shared some translation screenshots from before Final Fantasy Adventure was released.
We can see how text was cut before the final version was released
Here, we can see how "Shadow Knight" was too long, so the localizers tried to go with "Darknight" instead, but eventually settled on "Dark Lord" before the final release
I find stuff like this fascinating, so if you know of any other pre-release translation screenshots from the game, let me know!
Content Policy Changes
During this stream, we encountered a number of things that were changed to adhere to Nintendo of America’s content policies at the time.
References to death and violence were rephrased. In this example "don't die!" was dropped entirely
Another reference to dying was removed here - he originally said he wanted to see the tree at least once before he dies
References to "blood of a virgin" were replaced with "new victim" in more than one place
All mentions of slaves and slavery were changed or dropped. In this example, "slaves" was replaced with "fighters"
Here, we can see how the coffins were changed for the original English localization. But it appears the recent re-release changes the coffin symbol yet again, even in the Japanese version. (original comparison image courtesy of TCRF)
Similarly, the symbol on the magic circles changed during the localization back in 1991. Then the symbol changed yet again for the recent re-release, even in the Japanese version.
Text Quality
It probably goes without saying, but the English text in this game is full of issues. Grammar and spelling mistakes abound, and awkward, unnatural wording is everywhere.
A typo right off the bat: "name" instead of "named". Multiple simple, understandable typos like this appear in just this early part of the game alone
The English manual actually includes a screenshot of this typo. Other things in these screenshots changed before the final release, so I guess simpler things slipped through or couldn't be addressed in time
Even when mistakes aren't present, stilted phrasing is found everywhere in the script
Some things are unintentionally funny, like learning "Slep" from the "Book of Sleep". Of course, things like this aren't really anyone's fault and were the norm at the time
These kinds of text problems persist throughout the game. In fact, they actually get worse as the game progresses – I’m guessing it’s because the earliest content received the most post-translation attention.
Inconsistent Changes
A lot of text was trimmed down or dropped entirely during the translation process. Even gameplay hints and details were affected, right from the start of the game.
The second window of text in the Japanese version is missing completely in the English translation, and it contains a hint. You're supposed to talk to this knight over and over until he says something different, but that info is missing in the English text. I assume it was cut due to data storage limitations, but...
...Strangely enough, other lines in the translation add unimportant new text not found in the Japanese script. The first English sentence in this window is a simple example
Sometimes gameplay tips and reminders are inserted into the translation where they didn't exist in the Japanese script, such as this reminder about an important mirror
This line was changed entirely and wound up more helpful than the Japanese line. Originally, this girl said "Up ahead is the cathedral." but in the English version she says "Cibba's in here!". Finding Cibba is the main goal of the game at this point, so this is good to know
Basically, beyond the issues mentioned above, the game’s English script is filled with little, inconsistent changes everywhere.
Screen space and cartridge space was very limited on the original Game Boy, so many things throughout the game were renamed during localization to accommodate these limitations. Other names were changed for other, unclear reasons.
In Japanese, this game was known as Seiken Densetsu, which means something like "Sacred Sword Legend" or "Legend of the Holy Sword"
I was surprised to see that the Japanese game's box includes the subtitle "Final Fantasy Gaiden" above the game's main title. I originally thought the game was part of a completely different series that was forced into the Final Fantasy series when released outside of Japan
The evil empire is called グランズ ("Granz") in Japanese, but "Glaive" in English. I'm not sure why it was changed and actually made longer, though. I wonder if it was transcribed as "Glans" in the first draft of the translation and someone was like "nope, we can't call it that"
As noted above, the villainous "Shadow Knight" was renamed to the shorter "Dark Lord"
Naming the Characters
At the very start of the game, you’re asked to name two characters: the hero and the heroine of the story. There are no default names, however. This isn’t really a problem for the player, but it becomes a problem when fans want to discuss the game.
If you were playing Seiken Densetsu when it was first released, how would you determine what the heroes’ official names were? You’d probably turn to the game’s manual and/or the game’s strategy guides.
Unfortunately, official names aren’t given in the manual’s text. Still, some tiny screenshots do feature the placeholder name すくえあ (sukuea, "Square") for the guy and すくえり (sukueri, "Squari") for the girl. The name “Michael” appears as well:
The main character's name is partially entered in this screenshot from the Japanese manual
Later in the Japanese manual, we see that the main character is named "Square" almost everywhere
The Japanese manual also includes a screenshot of these save files, in which the main Japanese character is named "Michael"
Apparently the names “Duke” and “Elena” became semi-official when the Game Boy Advance remake was released in Japan, but I haven’t looked heavily into it myself. I’ve also read that the game’s Japanese novelization used “Duke” and “Elena”, but I haven’t obtained a copy to confirm it yet.
Japanese novelization of Sword of Mana, Part 1
Part 2 of the Japanese novelization - the online descriptions of the book everywhere do specifically name "Duke" and "Elena", but I don't have copies of the book to check for myself
Despite these potentially new, official names, the characters’ names remained unclear in the Vita remake of the game released a decade later:
The Vita remake of Seiken Densetsu uses "Hero" and "Heroine" as their default names
If you were playing Final Fantasy Adventure when it was first released, how would you determine the heroes’ official names? The English manual, which is quite different from the Japanese manual, was the only official supplemental material available.
Similar to the Japanese manual, official names don’t appear in the main text of the English manual. There are only some tiny screenshots with the names “Sumo” and “Fuji” visible:
The North American manual shows the name "Sumo" entered for the main character, and "Fuji" for the heroine
Tiny screenshots throughout the guide continue to use the "Sumo" and "Fuji" names
The guide mentions that their names will change to match what you name them at the start, though
Maybe we should call the main character Jeff?
My assumption is that someone in the company – maybe this mysterious Jeff – was assigned to take screenshots for the English manual and was just like “I dunno what to call these guys from this Japanese game, what’s something Japanese I can call ’em?” and went with “Sumo” and “Fuji”.
Whatever the case, English-speaking fans have called them Sumo and Fuji ever since. The Sumo name even got a shout-out in the trailer for the Collection of Mana release:
From the official trailer for the 2019 Collection of Mana compliation
This “let’s name this unnamed character based on game manual screenshots” reminds me a lot of how the main character of the first MOTHER game wound up with the name Ninten.
Anyway, all of this is a long-winded way of saying that the “Sumo” and “Fuji” names are an entirely outside-of-Japan thing. They have their own sorta-but-not-really official names in Japan, but they’re completely different for different reasons.
I noticed a couple interesting translation changes during the whole level-up sequence.
First, the Japanese “you leveled up!” message is very colloquial and is phrased like someone is actually saying it to you. In contrast, the English message is a generic user interface message:
The Japanese level-up message is roughly something like "Whoa, you leveled up! Man, you've really grown!"
Next, whenever you level up, all your stats get a boost, but you get to choose a stat that gets an even bigger boost:
In the Japanese version, you choose which "job type" you want, and that choice will improve your stats in different ways
In Japanese, you’re asked to “choose a job type”, and you get to choose one of these four:
Warrior type – extra boost to Strength
Wizard type – extra boost to Wisdom
Monk type – extra boost to Stamina
Sage type – extra boost to Mind
Note that these Final Fantasy -style job types, so “monk” for instance refers to the type of Yang-like martial arts monks seen in those games. Final Fantasy was a huge phenomenon in Japan by this point, and multiple games in the series had already been released.
In the English version of this game, however, there’s no mention of job types anymore. The text was rephrased so that you simply choose a stat name instead. I assume this simplification was done in part because Final Fantasy was still very new at the time for audiences outside of Japan – only the NES game had been released prior to Final Fantasy Adventure . Final Fantasy II for the Super NES hadn’t been released yet.
Anyway, this job type stuff did survive the localization process in later remakes of the game, as we can see here:
Choosing job types during a level up sequence in the GBA remake
Final Fantasy-style job types were left as-is in the Vita remake
Horror Homage
Early in the game you visit a spooky mansion with werewolves, monsters, and even a big vampire boss.
"Count Lee" became "Mr. Lee" in translation
Here's Mr. Lee's true form!
First, the owner of the mansion – who turns out to be the big vampire boss – is named リィはくしゃく (rii hakushaku, "Count Lee") in Japanese.
The ending to Castlevania is a hoot if you're a horror movie fan
My first impression was that this was a reference to Christopher Lee, who famously played Dracula in many movies. The only thing is, リー (rī) is how the “Lee” in “Christopher Lee” is usually spelled, while the in-game name is an ever-so-slightly different way of spelling “Lee”. It kind of reminds me of how the ending of Castlevania (NES) featured intentional misspellings of famous horror movie icons.
Next, in the English script, the mansion is called “Kett’s”. I never knew what this meant or if it signified anything, but in Japanese, it’s known as ビンケットのやかた (binketto no yakata), which can be translated as something like “Vinquette’s Manor”, “House of Binkett”, or something along those lines.
This was neat info to learn, but it still left me wondering if “Vinquette” has any significance. And then I realized that maybe it’s a misspelled allusion to another horror/thriller film legend: Vincent Price.
Christopher Lee as Dracula
Vincent Price in Theatre of Blood
Many of Vincent Price's movies were released in Japanese, including one of his most famous ones, House on Haunted Hill
House of the Long Shadows, with both Vincent Price and Christopher Lee, received a Japanese release
Of course, this is just a weak theory that came to mind as I was playing the game live on stream, but it hit me as soon as I saw the names together. I later did an online search to see what Japanese fans have said about the names, but there isn’t much about them at all. So maybe they are just random names and not references to anything, but I thought I’d share my theories anyway.
Incidentally, the GBA remake and the Vita remake both translate the name of the mansion as “Vinquette”.
Lambs and Rams
In the English version of this game, the “Pillow” item casts a sleeping spell on enemies. In the original Japanese version, it’s called the ラムジィ (ramujii). This could be translated as “Lambsy” or “Ramsy”.
When I first saw this item’s name, I assumed it was a reference to ラムヂーちゃん (ramujīchan, "Lambsy-chan"), the Japanese localized version of Hanna Barbera’s “It’s the Wolf” cartoons. Some Japanese fans think this is the case too.
The Japanese intro song for "Lambsy-chan". This and a number of other classic Hanna Barbera cartoons were actually quite popular in Japan
Still, the item’s animation produces sprites that look like rams more than lambs, and the Japanese guide has an illustration that matches that, so I’m not as confident about that connection anymore. If anyone has more insight, please let me know!
Wait, don’t feel aslep! We’ll take a look at Part 2 soon, which includes changes that mimic Final Fantasy IV’s original English localization, Moogles, booze, monkey babies, and more.
There’s also a ton of bonus Seiken Densetsu/Final Fantasy Adventure content on the Legends of Localization Patreon!
Dwarf Cave → Mt. Rocks »
Game Start → Dwarf Cave
Dwarf Cave → Mt. Rocks
Golem Cave → Legendary Sword
Dime Tower → Ending
press start to translate [Final Fantasy IV]
A funny and insightful look at *why* it's a bad idea to let a computer translate a video game!
Coda August 17, 2019 at 4:37 pm
Couple of little proofreading mistakes here. すくえあ is “sukuea”, not “sukea” (likewise with “sukueri”), and you called the actor “Vincent Prince” once.
The Seiken series has always been one of my true loves of video gaming. I’m excited to read more of this one.
Blackdrazon August 17, 2019 at 6:41 pm
For an even bigger reach on Vinquette, I was always reminded of another “V” word that would work in this spot: Viscount. “Vicount’s Manor” actually makes a certain degree of sense as the home of a stereotypical vampire Count. But I can’t imagine how anyone actually making a big enough spelling mistake to pull that shit off unless it was deliberate, and your theory about a deliberately mispelled “Vincent” makes a LOT more sense.
Bob August 17, 2019 at 11:37 pm
Interesting, the item that inflicts Sleep status in Final Fantasy III (Famicom) is known as ひつじのまくら. I always thought it went by the same name in Seiken Densetsu.
Diane August 18, 2019 at 9:08 am
I figured it was called SLEP due to character restrictions in that particular menu… would SLEEP have fit? Of course, it’s pretty goofy to put it as SLEP in the dialogue box.
MasterMarkus August 19, 2019 at 10:24 am
This is an insanely specific pull, but “Slep” always makes me think of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU9DKaFP5yQ where at around 8:35 Stuart Ashen reads a Norwegian article that’s been Google Translated and somehow mangled a sentence about an unsuccessful Justin Bieber concert into something that sounds more like a failed blood-ritual involving a deity called “Slepp the Idol”.
Half Skim Milk August 18, 2019 at 6:02 pm
You really have to admire the level of carelessness and poor quality translation that went into Adventure of Mana’s U.S. debut. Of course the Japanese version’s script is no award winner either.
Whelkman August 20, 2019 at 11:38 pm
Don’t worry about falling aslep. The spell never works in Square games.
cream tangerine August 22, 2019 at 9:08 am
I never understood why someone would care. Their names are whatever you called them. Otherwise why let you choose?
Fir413 August 23, 2019 at 6:28 am
How would you yo
talk about the characters otherwise? In this game it doesn’t matter much cause it’s not as plot heavy? but can you imagine Final Fantasy VII threads whwre people discuss wheather Spiky Blonde Big Sword Guy can revive Dwad Flower Girl?
Excuse u I think u mean Boyo and Gorl
Shaun Crocker August 23, 2019 at 5:50 pm
Is Dragon Buster a reference to the Namco arcade game or just a coincidence?
Clyde Mandelin August 24, 2019 at 12:27 pm
I think it’s just a coincidence, ___ Buster is a pretty common thing in Japanese entertainment it seems.
rihito August 28, 2019 at 12:21 am
So they changed the magic circle from a religious symbol to another religious symbol, and then changed it again into something that’s also a religious symbol.
(That square-ish magic circle in the re-release version is an Islamic symbol called Rub el-Hizb)
That Guy If September 1, 2019 at 10:24 am
…So, uh, when are you going to continue FFIV?
HylianFox September 2, 2019 at 11:28 pm
This is great, FFA is one of my all-time favorite GB games. I must have played it a hundred times. It also started my tradition of naming female characters the inverse of my real name (with the hero being my real name, of course)
I was never all that fond of the GBA remake, though. Even if it is a bit more accurate to the original Japanese (i.e. Granz, Vinquette, Warrior/Monk/Mage/Sage etc)
Yeah, the translation is pretty damn clunky though. “Now, Glaives have her in our hands!” is such a confounding line.
bestringtoness.com September 21, 2019 at 2:37 pm
@Gowtu_Games It was called Mystic Quest Legend, not Mystic Ques 61 t. The name is taken from both the Game Boy Final Fantasy games (which never made it to Europe). Mystic Quest taken from Seiken Densetsu (Final Fantasy Adventure) and Legend taken from SaGa! a.k.a. Final Fantasy Legend.
Leave a Reply to Half Skim Milk Cancel reply
You know how the news media (and general audiences) get games, science, and technology stuff wrong all the time? I feel the same way when it comes to entertainment and video game translation, so I decided to use my professional experience to shed light on this mysterious topic.
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Archive for ‘Braemar’
Soup, Bread & A Cup of Coffee – Foodbanks 19thC style
Guest blog from Textor
Lena’s recent fun and games with Tory recipes is a timely reminder that class society in subtle and at times not so subtle ways betrays prejudice, arrogance and condescension. But even Poor-house Perkins and Half-pay pudding would have been treats for some when commerce and industry were beginning to put their stamp on not only the face of the city but the throats and bellies of Aberdeen’s 19th century’s poorest.
The Bible tells us The poor you will always have with you and for Aberdonians of the 1840s it must have seemed that yet again the Holy Book was spot on. Charitable giving might be a Christian duty but the Good Book seems to imply poverty could be mitigated but not abolished.
Aberdeen’s former soup kitchen
Aberdeen of the 1840s was a city of growing splendour. It boasted of its Union Street which struck westward from the heart of the old city. It proudly displayed the fruit of its burgeoning stone industry: sparkling granite buildings dotted the landscape. Town houses, commercial buildings, churches and civic grandeur all seemed to say no matter how far the city was from the capitals of Edinburgh and London, no matter how “remote” in so-called North Britain Aberdeen was a place of wealth and good taste.
Paradoxically this revolution in the built landscape was founded not on the thrusting factory system which is usually associated with early industrialisation but on a stone-working industry of hand-craft skills with steam power augmenting only a few deeply laborious processes (polishing and sawing in particular). It was the merest hint of a factory system but nonetheless value producing and profitable. If a visitor wanted to see the fruit of Aberdeen’s factory system it was not to be found in the marvels of Alexander Macdonald’s granite yard on Constitution Street but in the large buildings in the Green, at Broadford and by the River Don at Woodside. There you would find textile mills.
Hadden’s textile mill at the Green
Grandholm works
Where granite yards and quarries might have multiples of dozens employed (all men and boys) textile mills gave work to women, children and men by the thousands with much of their labour dictated by the turns of water wheels and the drive of steam. But as fundamental as these were in determining the rhythms of daily work and the sheer exhaustion of what could be a fourteen-hour day in hot, noisy and dusty workshops “hands” also faced the uncertainties of business cycles. A worker at any of the mills might end a day’s labour overcome by fatigue knowing that the following day meant more of the same but had the “satisfaction” of drawing a day’s wage; just about enough to keep absolute destitution at bay. In the hardest of times even a day’s wage was not be enough to keep hunger from the door – as state of affairs replicated in the 21st century with its so-called gig economy. Back in the 19th century years of poor harvests and the seasonal impact of winter deepened poverty by pushing up the price of meal beyond the pockets of labourers.
Food Banks are the current charitable response to poverty; the 19th century equivalent was the soup kitchen. Established half a century earlier soup kitchens came into their own in 1847-48 when thousands in Aberdeen suffered absolute destitution. First opened in 1799-1800 in St Mary’s Chapel, part of St Nicholas Kirk, for some six months a soup kitchen provided something like 51,000 portions of beef broth and bread. The following year demand was even greater. Admittance was by ticket and those poor lucky enough to get a ticket were charged one penny per serving. As many as 600 per day sat down for what would have been their only meal of the day.
For some thirty years the seasonal kitchen regularly opened at the Chapel, eventually moving to the area of the Vennel, and on to Loch Street where many of Aberdeen’s poorest lived. Having raised enough money in 1894 for a brand-new building the Kitchen remained at the Loch street site for about one hundred years.
But back to the plight of thousands in 1847, a time when the menace of Chartism and radicalism appeared to threaten the very existence of Victoria’s Britain. This was a time authorities feared the strength of discontent would be harnessed by and coalesce under the banner of working class democracy. When the projected Aberdeen railway ran out of cash labourers working on it were thrown out of work and they and supporters, about 200 people, gathered on the south side of the Dee then marched on the Town House where they commenced yelling and causing considerable disturbance. Magistrates hurried to reassure them that they had spoken to grain merchants and were assured that they would not seek to profit from high prices by exporting grain from the city except where they were by law bound to fulfil.
Grain supplied basic and essential food for the poor in the form of bread but grain merchants had no interest in human need only human greed and sold their grain to the highest bidder and stored it until shortages raised its price. If grain could command higher prices outside the city then they would export it.
Of course the railway’s Irish and Highland navvies well knew the practices of grain merchants and refused to be placated. As the Aberdeen Journal reported In the course of the afternoon the crowd attacked some carts on their way to the Quay, and one of the principal ringleaders, while in the act of cutting one of the sacks and rolling it from the cart, was taken prisoner by Mr Barclay, of the police, and lodged in prison. Railway navvies were not alone in suffering the pangs of hunger. Across Aberdeen thousands in and out of work were forced to resort to public charity. Two kitchens were opened; the main one in Loch Street and another in the east end where soup, bread and coffee were sold. In one six-day week in February 1847 over 6,500 meals were served. Local textile magnet Gavin Hadden feeling something like sympathy for his workers proposed a third kitchen be opened near the city centre as it was problematic for his workers to find time in the “dinner hour” to travel far afield for sustenance. His charity did not extend to paying enough to keep them from the Soup Kitchen.
Further afield, and more charitably, Milne, Cruden & Co of Gordon Mills, outside the city boundary at Woodside, decided to open their own soup kitchen. As a voice of the city’s elite the editor of the Journal hoped that the kindness and attention of the employer have produced increased gratitude and fidelity on the part of the employed.
But things got harder for operatives as financial crisis hit. Women,children and men were put on short hours. Wages collapsed and yet more soup kitchens were opened. By April even with the worst of the winter passed Bannermill works in Aberdeen opened its own canteen and once again the local newspaper editor extolled the charitable virtues of the employer: when the factory bell rings, 600 to 700 of the servants . . . find a warm and comfortable breakfast or dinner ready for them . . . a kindness, on the part of the employer, which we trust they duly appreciate. What would the workers have done without this kindness?
One Factory Inspector was much taken by the utility and efficiency of the canteen, reported that normally workers struggled to make ends meet: provisions . . . consisting very often of nothing else than a piece of dry oat cake. Having no house to go to, and no means of getting a more nourishing diet, the poor people subjected to this state of matters suffered much in bodily health and strength, being often quite exhausted before the labours of the day were over. These consequences, so injurious to the employers and employed, have to a great extent been obviated by the plan which has been happily fallen upon in these northern factories. With pressure of time within the factory and the need to keep production flowing the kitchen could serve, Inspector Walker said, 400 meals in twenty minutes. And then it was back to the grind.
No matter how fast meals were served the kindness so-called was brought to a halt as the crisis in the textile industry deepened. Factory canteens were a viable response – viable in employers’ terms – only so long as some kind of profit could be ground from the workforce and available markets. But when mills closed, canteens closed. Unemployment burgeoned. Two new charities were established: Aberdeen Operatives and Labourer’s Fund and Woodside and Neighbourhood Fund.
1848 dawned for thousands with no prospect of things improving. Across Europe revolution threatened. On the 10 March hundreds suffering, it was said, starvation gathered at the Castlegate. Knowing of recent major disturbances in Glasgow Aberdeen’s magistrates decided to take no chances. Property needed protecting. Eight hundred special constables were enrolled. In the event “order reigned in Aberdeen”. Some charitable help was doled out but it still left the problem of how to keep the peace with so many thousands suffering. How to keep the loyalty of the poor, employed and unemployed.
Woodside ministers of the Established and Free Churches came forward and asked that the canteen at Grandholm mills, shut when work ceased, be made available. These kirk men offered a stark view of Woodside’s communities: upwards of two thousand persons have been deprived of all means of subsistence and this being disastrous more especially to the numerous helpless females at Grandholm, there is no other prospect, but the extremity of destitution . . . famine and its concomitants, disease and death, must stalk through our streets. The starving of Woodside were hit, it was claimed, harder than those of the city to the extent that there was only a small wealthy middle class locally. Most shopkeepers and merchants of the area relied upon the earnings of the textile workers so when they were thrown out of work everyone suffered.
In Aberdeen itself suffering continued. A meeting of close to 1,000 unemployed women and men complained of the soup kitchens failing to meet their needs. Kitchens ran out of soup, tickets which were necessary to gain admittance were, they said, being given to undeserving cases who were themselves drawing on the meagre dole of the Poor Law. Those administering the charities no doubt all with full-bellies decided that the bona-fides of applicants would no longer need the signature of a past employer but all – all! that was needed was the signatures of two respectable householders. One Council member spoke of fearful destitution and misery in the city and gave voice to concern of the threat of revolution. Westminster he said needed to act more especially at a time when there is great political excitement abroad, and when the distress in which they are plunged may make them susceptible of impressions, not calculated by any means to advance the peace of society.
The coming of summer saw no improvement. At Woodside “deserving” cases were being given a daily pound of meal but only after strict enquiry into the circumstances of the applicants. Meanwhile in Aberdeen the kitchens were doling out over 1,000 portions per day. This continued into autumn by which time it was costing as much as £100 per week to finance the Aberdeen fund, with a running total bill of £1540 in mid-October against receipts of £1,380. Managers of the fund were at a loss, the more they collected the more was required and they conceded that not only was debt increasing, but there was upwards of a thousand persons unprovided for on the roll; deserving men and women and children who could not be fed.
Winter meant the probability of hard weather, the ending of any casual agricultural work, restricted supplies of fresh vegetables, local fishing became uncertain – dire prospects which faced thousands of the local population already suffering from weakened physical condition. Such was the state of male labourers at the time, that is men who were fortunate enough to be given permission to draw on the kitchens, that the managers of the unemployed fund recognised weakness and debility now stalked the workforce, meaning potential labourers were incapable of any strenuous work, that even if the languishing Aberdeen Railway was restarted there were not half a dozen of these poor people fit for labour.
Victoria and Albert arrive in poverty-stricken Aberdeen in 1848
Seeing no end to the call for charity fund managers proposed, and it does sound so contemporary, that any males so benefiting should be expected to give something in return – this, said Ballie Nicol, had the double advantage of getting work out of the destitute and at the same time deterring “lazy” poor from trying to get something for nothing. And yet another of our contemporary tropes is found among 19th century free-market liberals when it was proposed that the local state might become a major employer. Provost Thompson said that the principle of any community or government providing employment for the people is a bad one, and that we must revert to the principle of using our funds merely for the purpose of preventing starvation, and giving the smallest amount of assistance compatible with bodily support, and by giving it purely as charity. In the midst of such a bleak economy Provost Thompson was, dear reader, able to greet Queen Victoria’s and Albert’s arrival in the Aberdeen in September when he presented her with silver keys to the city. A right Royal Circus at one side of town and bread at the soup kitchen if they were ‘lucky’ for unemployed starving women, men and children at the other.
Victoria visits a poor woman in her rain-leaking cottage at Braemar
There was no revolution. Unemployment and poverty remained hallmarks of the system. Crises pass albeit at the expense of life and hopes of individuals, families and whole communities. By 1849 British capital was entering a period of growth and greater stability as institutions evolved to cope with the forces of the free market.
Loch Street Soup Kitchen? The building still stands; a reminder to present-day food banks that what was, is.
Posted in Aberdeen, Aberdeen City Council, Aberdeenshire, Braemar, politics, Poor Law, Poor Relief, Poorhouse,, Scotland, Scottish history, Uncategorized, Weird and Wonderful | Leave a Comment »
Tags: 1848, food banks, hunger, soup kitchen, Tory policies, welfare state
Timber Rafting on Scotland’s rivers
In my blog on the Braemar poacher Sandy Davidson there was a reference to the practice of floating timber down river to sawmills to sell on for – shipbuilding, houses, furniture, barrels, cart and carriage wheels, bridges later for mine and railways sleepers and a host of other uses and it was suggested I write more about this unusual method of transportation, so here goes.
Forests which supplied timber for industry were often some distance from where timber was required. Wood is heavy and awkward to move and before railways and indeed roads in many instances taking great tree trunks, some very old and very very large, was a mammoth task which would have been carried out noisily with much shouting, laughter and not a few oaths uttered in Gaelic, the language spoken by the many of the lumber men who lived in simple wooden shacks which they erected in a matter of hours in each area of forest they worked. Their food was frugal for such physical labour – doubtless a bowl of brose to begin the day and during working hours they were sustained by bannocks (similar to oatcakes) and cheese washed down with drams of whisky.
In Scotland, certainly around the rivers Dee and Spey as well as in places around the world, Canada, America, Sweden, Germany the answer was to get these huge logs to a river and let them float downstream where incidentally the value of a felled tree doubled by the time it left a sawmill. Given the sheer bulk and weight concerned a good flow of water was needed and anyone familiar with the Dee will know it isn’t a large river by any stretch and so floating had to be carefully planned to take place in spring when snow melted on the high hills up Deeside or after sufficient rains swelled the river.
St Devenick’s Bridge over the Dee
Floating banks were constructed where the river water was naturally deepest and at these spots the adjoining banks would be cleared of trees and rocks so tree trunks, their boughs and branches having been trimmed off, might be prodded by long poles and rolled down to the water from where they were piled up at the top of the bank. Imagine this hard labour on a freezing cold morning when frosty logs were slippery and hands attempting to shift them numb with cold. Creating open runs for the timber was no easy task for the banks themselves were thick with trees and huge boulders and had to be painstakingly cleared to make slides and even before this part in the process the timbers had to be taken from where they were growing in forests often far afield and up hills closer to the river.
Every stage from tree felling, dressing the tree by stripping of all those unwieldy branches to dragging each trunk to the river bank was carried out by man and horse power. The land wasn’t exactly co-operative for in the 18th and 19th centuries this part of Scotland was dotted with large pools and gigantic boulders, remnants of the last ice age when pieces of rock split, splintered and slid vast distances till finally grinding to a halt in the most awkward places. Tracks, rough drag roads, were cut through forests along which small armies of men and horses trudged with their loads – some so heavy they pushed at them from behind determining the speed of both horse and man. The loss of horse shoes was an everyday occurrence for the going underfoot was so uneven and difficult and with no time to get to a distant blacksmith the foresters learnt to replace shoes so the work could continue without interruption.
At last the river was close and the tree trunks were uncoupled from horse chains and stacked near the slope where the bank dropped to the river in preparation for the float. Certain points and features were used to estimate the depth of water, for example at the Boat of Kincardine when a distinctive large black boulder was submerged floating could begin. At Glen Derry a dam was constructed in 1820 for water to accumulate in preparation for floating timbers.
One by one the stacked trunks were rolled from the top of the riverbank down into the river. There raft men waited waist deep in freezing water to arrange them for the float. Each raft was made up of two halves forming two rows each containing about twenty trees lined up and lashed together with ropes, strung through rings on iron dogs that had been driven into the trunk ends. Where trees were much thinner at one end they might only be strapped together with rope wound around a smaller tree set horizontally and used as a cross spar. Each timber raft had a forward and stern and was roped up to enable the raftsman who would be balanced on top to steer it with an iron pole. It was essential to get this right as the Dee had its share of rough waters – the Falls of Potarch (where one raft rider was drowned in a floating accident and there’s an amusing [sorry] anecdote on this in the chapter Gentlemen Drank Deep in Secret Aberdeen), the Salt Vat at Cairnton and the Mill Rush nearer to Aberdeen.
Floating was a rough, tough, hugely physical and dangerous occupation and liberal imbibing of whisky taken by floaters to see them through their task. They would pull in at each of the riverside inns on their way downstream such as one run by Meggie Davidson, sister of the Braemar poacher Sandy Davidson who at one time bought a piece of forest at Glen Derry and had the dam mentioned above built. He hired a squad of men and provided them with ropes, dogs, poles and so on to float down the Dee but at the end of the day he never got paid – but that’s another story. Deeside’s floaters were hard-drinking men and much boozing went on during their stops down river and they whiled away time playing the cairts such as Bawbee Nap, till ready to move on.
Possibly the best known of the floaters was the artist John Blake Macdonald whose father ran a timber business on Speyside and Macdonald floated there for him but he also did several stints on the Dee. Well-known as a portrait painter his reputation spread among wealthier farmers on Deeside who employed him to paint their portraits.
John Blake Macdonald’s painting of Bonnie Prince Charlie leaving Scotland, Lochaber No More
Where there were great unwieldy timber rafts on a fast-running river there were dangers not only to life but the bridges in their way. Scotland’s narrow rivers spanned by arched stone bridges were vulnerable to damage in a collision. At Potarch near Kincardine O’Neal a bridge under construction by Alford builder William Minto in 1812 was badly damaged by fast travelling timbers on the Dee. Actually the trees that took down the bridge weren’t bound together and weren’t manned but had been released tree trunks sent in to float down on their own. Because of the risks involved in this practice an act was passed in 1813 to prevent damage to bridges by banning floating of unmanned timbers in certain Scottish rivers and generally controlling floating.
In that entertaining and informative book Memoirs of a Highland Lady, 1797 – 1827 by Elizabeth Grant of Rothiemurchus there is a fine description of the number of lumber men involved in logging and floating timber – “a busy scene all through the forest, many rough little horses moving about in every direction, each dragging its load…” and she wrote of a floaters ball in a barn at Christmas with woodsmen and their families, some 100 of them. For hours before the ball men would play a game – the ba’ – an early form of shinty in which piled up plaids set out the goal boxes. The ball began with a meal of beef and mutton followed by a dance with music supplied by fiddlers and thirst quenched by punch made in washing tubs. The thumping noise of the dancers’ feet reportedly heard a mile away.
It was around 1881 that floating timbers down the River Dee ended for by then there were safer and alternatives means to move the area’s forests.
Just a final word on wood. Apparently the best timber comes from felled trees while wind-blown trees tended not to have the same quality – I imagine but don’t know that a weaker, more sickly tree is easier blown over. When major changes were being made to the land in Scotland during the 18th century under estate owners such as Farquharson on Deeside and most famously Archibald Grant on Donside at Paradise Woods new species of trees were introduced here from abroad. It is thought the first larches brought to these islands, at the beginning of the 18th century, were taken, possibly as seed, from their native Russia and certainly a muckle larch estimated to be some 150 years old was blown down at Invercauld near Braemar in the great gale of 1879. It was bought by David Gray, a cartwright from Aberdeen, who used one of its sides to make a large wagon two feet deep to carry traction engines.
Posted in Aberdeenshire, Braemar, Doric, Scotland, Scottish history, Uncategorized, Weird and Wonderful | 2 Comments »
Tags: Archibald Grant, Deeside, forestry, Gaelic, John Blake Macdonald, Kincardine, larch, log rafts, Potarch, River Dee, Rothiemurchus, Sandy Davidson, shinty, shipbuilding, Speyside, St Devenick's, timber floating, timber rafts
Who owns this landscape? The Braemar poacher who would not be a rich man’s flunkey.
The year is 1843 and on the 25th of August a party of gunmen come upon a corpse; cold and stiff on the moors of Glencairney at Creagan Sgor in the wilds of Glenbuchat, a pointer dog docile at its side.
“Brave Sandy, art thou dead?” Word spread like wildfire through the Highlands.
Sandy – Alexander Davidson – a poacher, famed, renowned, notorious and, aye, a dancer of great reputation had lain down one last time never again to rise up at first light and set out over the springy heather to claim his dinner.
Sandy was a mountaineer – a mountain man – whose home was the purple heather-clad hills of Scotland. He rejected the habiliments (clothing) of the Sassenach preferring ‘the garb of Old Gaul’ which he would close about him at night under the shelter of a rock or thicket to sleep the sleep of the just, his dog Charlie a quiet and attentive guard.
It’s easy to romanticise the poacher of the past and in truth there is a difference between those who took an animal from need and those men and women who take to the hills for the thrill of the kill, a handsome payout for a saddle of venison from a none-too-fussy restaurant owner or in other parts of the world those who indifferently help wipe out whole species for the sheer fun of it or slaughter to satisfy a yearning for horn for remedies or decoration – and I accept some of that is done by very poor people who have few alternatives to scrape a living.
I like to photograph the graceful roe deer I encounter near here and hate to hear blasts from rifles I know are targeting these little creatures and shake my head when I come across their tiny hooves and discarded hides at a roadside. I’m fairly sure I know someone round here who does this, and it isn’t from want.
Poacher and Dancer
Alexander Davidson was born at Mill of Inver by Crathie (close to Balmoral) in 1792 and as a child was put to learn the art of gamekeeping possibly with Farquharson of Finzean*. Farquharson was a reluctant politician preferring to while away his time taking pot-shots at game on his lands. He was great friends with Lord Kennedy, a fellow ‘sportsman’ by choice who one October (of many) was ‘much amused with a wild boar hunt’ at which he shot both tusks off a fine specimen eventually felled by volleys of shots from his gentlemen companions ‘but so tenacious was he (the boar not Lord Kennedy) of life, that he did not yield it until after receiving six shots through the head and body.’
In a normal week of ‘sport’ Kennedy, Farquaharson and their gentrified mob would bravely slaughter several ‘very fine red deer’ from the safe end of a rifle and at the end of a good season would go on to celebrate at a grand ball in Braemar’s Fife Arms Inn.
Sandy Davidson also loved the thrill of a chase and kill but he had the misfortune to have been born into poverty and not upon a soft bed belonging to a family whose lands and titles came to them because of battles fought long ago or ‘arrangements’ between similarly fortunate families. Having grown up knowing these people Sandy developed a healthy loathing of toadyism and proclaimed he was not designed to doff the cap to the gentry, “sooner than be in any way a flunkey, I’d rather go and beg my bread” – admirable sentiments which upped my opinion of the man, albeit he was a poacher. And being something of a Sabbatarian, though lapsed due to his way of life on the muirs, Sandy Davidson objected to being ordered out to shoot on a Sunday by the laird so turned his back on paid employment as a gamie. Having to live somehow, Sandy – Roch Sanie – turned to smuggling of which opportunities were ample up Deeside and Donside – for venison but mainly for whisky and while his new occupation was fraught with more dangers than that of a rich man’s flunky it was very lucrative and did not involve humiliating himself in the service of another man who regarded himself superior.
Sandy was fit, well-built and handsome with a ‘finely chiselled face’ and ‘hairy as an ox.’ In summer he dressed himself in a kilt, cotton shirt and thin tartan coat with Forfar brogues on his feet and when winter came he changed into trousers; a style of clothing he adopted out of patriotism to Scotland he explained and possibly for that same reason he generally spoke the native Gaelic although his English was very good. Gaelic was the language of the glens up Deeside until the ’45 and the Union of Parliaments determinedly set about undermining it by insisting on English being spoken in schools until most traces of it, bar place names, were near completely eliminated.
Sandy was also renowned as a dancer; a graceful dancer with great lightness of feet and wouldn’t that be an advantage in a poacher? His Highland reels and other dances won him prizes at Highland Games and competitions around Scotland including the Caledonian Hunt Club in Edinburgh, an organisation designed to preserve Highland culture – dance and games – after decades of attempts by government to snuff it out.
At a time when Deeside’s forests provided vast amounts of timber for building and ships felled tree trunks were dragged to the banks of the River Dee strapped together in great rafts and floated down river with men on board to provide timber for Aberdeen’s shipbuilding yards. Sandy Davidson leased a section of forest from the Earl of Fife at Glen Derry and hired men to help with the treacherous river journey but this attempt to earn a legal living came to nought when the Earl of Fife was made bankrupt and failed to pay Sandy.
Having been burned once too often by the titled and wealthy estate owners Sandy picked up his bag and gun and for 20 years roamed the Highlands as a ‘free forester’ of ancient times claiming privilege of the unalienable right of a free-born Scot.
Each March found him fishing the best salmon pools on the rivers Dee and Spey and fearlessly he would walk into the water, up to his neck, irrespective of the cold and wait till he caught something or it became clear he would catch nothing.
Charlie was trained to remain quiet at the approach of strangers for the last thing Sandy Davidson wanted was to alert a gamie of his hiding place when he was in possession of a bag filled with hare or fowl. But one time Charlie did his job too well and Sandy was discovered fast asleep in the heather by a laird who demanded his name.
“My name is Alexander Davidson; what is your name?”
“My name,” replied the other, “is George MacPherson Grant of Ballindalloch, and I require you to follow me.”
Sandy was duly taken to court and fined £5. In retaliation Sandy made sure he poached the moors of Ballindalloch thoroughly after that.
He was polite and his manner encouraged the gentry to treat him with more care than they might otherwise but their laws were there to protect their property so they wouldn’t let him away with taking anything that had a price. On his ‘annual tour’ around estates he would sometimes approach a big house and ask permission to cross the land, to keep to a straight line and only kill what he required. Any laird who refused him could expect him to take his revenge in bagging as many animals and birds as he was able for cross the estate he would irrespective of an officious owner.
Said to be fearless, generous and kind-hearted Sandy Davidson became the stuff of legend.
His foot was foremost in the dance,
His laugh the loudest rang;
Nae e’e could match his mirthful glance,
Nane sung so sweet a sang.
from Norman MacCaig ‘s A Man in Assynt
Despite tensions in his relationship with lairds several had a sneaking regard for him and invited him to entertain their guests with his dancing; his notoriety no doubt adding to his attraction.
Many a chase on a muir ended with him slipping into a bog, a moss-pot, his nose all that remained above the water till a perplexed gamie gave up the chase. But he did not always evade them and whenever he was overcome he offered no resistance but would go with the laird’s lackey for another appearance before the law. The last time this happened Sandy Davidson was apprehended near Dufftown and taken by his pursuers to Elgin via every public house along the way.
This “perfect child of nature – as complete a Hawkeye of the old country as the times would admit of” had no home but everywhere was his home across the broad bonny face of the Highlands. One day his gun would ring out in Perthshire, another in the wilds of Lochaber, or on the muirs under the black shadow of the Cairngorms, around Inchrory where the Avon** and Don gather water or at Strathspey and the hills of Moray and Inverness.
Like Walter Scott’s Bertram he possessed:
“The steady brain, the sinewy limb,
To leap, to climb, to dive, to swim;
The iron frame, inured to bear
Each dire inclemency of air,
Nor less confirmed to undergo
Fatigue’s chill faint, and famine’s throe.”
In 1820 Farquharson of Finzean and Lord Kennedy had a £50 bet – £50 in 1820 was worth around £1500 in today’s value – with Davidson that he would not run without clothing from Barclay Street in Stonehaven to the gate of Inchmarlo near Banchory, a distance of around 20 miles, within a given time. Davidson had almost made it but the men had paid a posse of women under the stewardship of a Mrs Duncan to guard the Brig o’ Feugh at Banchory to prevent Davidson crossing. Duncan was paid a generous 20 shillings and the others something less to fill their aprons with stones and other missiles to chuck at the exhausted man as he attempted to run over the bridge. Mrs Duncan was also armed with a heavy knotty stick she intended to use against Sandy Davidson. As Davidson neared the brig and paused to catch his breath he noticed the trap and at the same time his enemies spotted him and began pelting him with their stones but bounding with renewed vigour the fleet-footed Davidson evaded them and crossed to the other side of the river. Later Mrs Duncan complained Sandy Davidson to be “not a man but a beast” whether from his hirsute appearance or from peak because he had foiled her efforts who knows. At any rate Sandy Davidson reached Inchmarlo within the given time and pocketed the £50.
Behind occasional sport of this kind Davidson’s chosen lifestyle was fraught with danger. He had to go out of his way to make himself into a character to evade the tyranny of Britain’s Game Laws passed by members of parliament who as landowners created laws to benefit themselves and preserve their property rights including the wildlife that passed across the lands they claimed as theirs. Their lackeys, game keepers and river ghillies, rarely shied away from carrying out their duties irrespective of whether a rabbit or bird was being taken to prevent a family starving. For those caught a hefty fine awaited and for any who repeated the crime the prospect of transportation somewhere across the oceans. Magistrates and sheriffs fulfilled their roles to serve the wealthy, their own people, and rarely extended sympathy to the impoverished and desperate brought before them.
Temptation must have been great for a parent living close to land teeming with food denied to them wholly on grounds they were the property of one family and were wanted for sport, a pastime, for their exclusive enjoyment. Out of necessity many risked capture and the courts to take something for the pot, and sometimes more, from under the noses of the gentry and were loudly and soundly condemned by the great and the good who regarded poaching as the nursery of robbers and murderers and poachers as desperate characters who infested the hills.
As for Sandy Davidson he lived a charmed life in many ways. He refused to kowtow to those accidentally privileged whose fortune was to be born with political rights they could use to enhance their own interests at the expense of the rest of the population.
John Stuart Blackie
Radical, humanitarian and Scottish nationalist John Stuart Blackie commented in the mid-1800s on how far removed were the privileged few from the morality of the New Testament. He was writing about the hypocrisy of the landed interests who trotted into church on a Sunday to sing psalms and pray about goodness and mercy who went back to their mansions to dine while their lackeys denied a starving child a mouthful of food. And Blackie implicated the church for its willingness to conspire with the ruling classes to maintain such inequality.
“A minister of sacred things,
He bound together, by higher ties than human law,
The men that shared his faith with awe;
He had his seat at power’s right hand,
And lords and ladies of the land
Did call him brother.”
John Stuart Blackie’s The Cottage Manse
Sandy Davidson has long gone and so too has John Stuart Blackie but their sentiments that emerged from a different time have echoes today for here in Scotland the landed estate maintains its swagger as it endeavours to retain the privileges of power of a rotten system of elitism and inequality.
“Who owns this landscape? –
The millionaire who bought it or
the poacher staggering downhill in the early morning
with a deer on his back?”
from Norman MacCaig’s A Man in Assynt
(Sandy Davidson 1791 – 1843)
*Finzean – pronounced Fingin
** Avon – pronounce An
See also for John Stuart Blackie – O Albin! O my country!
Posted in Aberdeenshire, Braemar, Clearances, Doric, Land Reform, politics, Scotland, Scottish history, Scottish Nationalism, Uncategorized, Weird and Wonderful | 7 Comments »
Tags: Alexander Davidson, Ballindalloch, Balmoral, Banchory, Brig of Feugh, Crathie, Deeside, Donside, Farquharson, Finzean, Game Laws, Inver, Norman MacCaig, Perthshire, poacher, Sabbatarian, Speyside, sporting estate
Cycling through thirties Aberdeen
Cyclists parade at Aberdeen beach in an event to raise cash for the new infirmary at Foresterhill 1936
Cycling was promoted as a cheap and enjoyable form of recreation and transport rolled into one by Aberdeen Council in the 1930s. Bicycles were becoming lighter and more easily handled by children as well as men and women and a host of cycling clubs sprouted up all around Scotland as people took to the road at weekends and on their annual summer holidays. Aberdeen Wheelers became one of Scotland’s prominent clubs winning numerous national championships that attracted astonishing numbers of competitors. At the Northeast of Scotland’s time trials, its 7th annual rally, held at Rothienorman in 1936 there were over 8,000 participants.
A couple of years earlier it was noted that summer sports were booming in Aberdeen with many participating in football, bowls, angling, golf, athletics, rowing, swimming, tennis and cricket – and not forgetting cycling.
Between 1934 and 1938 the cycling craze saw the establishment of lots of groups several attached to the Northeast of Scotland Time Trials Association (NSTTA): Aberdeen Wheelers, Bon-Accord (the Bons), Barmen, Woodside and District, Bucksburn and District, Footdee and District and Caledonian and from farther north clubs from Keith, Elgin, Grantown, Inverness, Strichen, Ellon and Deveron Valley as well as many more not attached to the NSTTA. One cyclist stood out above the rest – he was George Lawrie and he was a member of Aberdeen Paragons Cycling Club.
Among his many successes Lawrie smashed the Scottish record for the 100 mile time trial held by Dundee CC member Chick Moncur by 11 mins 50 secs in a time of 4hrs 37mins 14secs on the North Deeside Road. That season he broke records for all three distance runs – 25, 50 and 100 miles time trials making him Britain’s second best all-rounder.
The Bon-Accord Cycling Club’s own 25-mile low gear (63 and under) time trial along the South Deeside Road was won by the Bons James Cameron in a time of 1 hr 12mins 20 secs beating the more fancied Stanley Bennett and Robert Penny. Meanwhile Woodside and District’s 25-mile conditional time trial on the Oldmeldrum Road got delayed twice by flocks of marauding sheep adding precious minutes to the winning time of 1hr 15mins 52secs by Alex Murray. The Stonehaven – Laurencekirk road saw a 5-mile scratch time trial prize taken by Stonehaven and District CC with all riders finishing in under 16 mins.
Torry Wheeler Tom Corall c1935 came second to the Scottish champion in the Aberdeen to Braemar race
George Lawrie came first in Perth’s Amateur Open annual 25 mile time trial one wet and windy day in 1936. He set a new cycle record in the June at the NSTTA’s 50 miles time trial along the North Deeside Road coming home in 2 hrs 9mins 46 secs beating his record of 8 days previously by 1 second.
Aberdeen council continued to encourage participation in the sport with a programme of fun cycling events in the city’s Music Hall with Cycle Roller competitions including children’s races. G Adams took honours in the message boys’ race on bikes that weren’t exactly sporty. The Music Hall extravaganza was an opportunity for family participation as well as to be impressed by serious cyclists and unsurprisingly it was Lawrie who shone above all others.
A consignment of bicycles being transported from the railway station to Alexander’s, 339 Union Street. A common sight in the city during the ’30s
In March 1937 Aberdeen Paragon CC’s 20 mile rough riders time trial took place over a difficult course around Netherley district. The winning time of 54 mins 50 secs belonged again to George Lawrie some 3mins 27secs ahead of William King.
Lawrie put in another impressive performance in the Forfarshire Roads CC Open taking first in the 25-mile medium gear time trial held at Dundee in a time of 1hr 5mins 7secs beating the record by over 3 mins. Seventeen riders from Aberdeen took part and again Lawrie’s club mate Willie King put in as strong showing.
July saw 4,000 turn out for a Sunday meeting of the Newmachar annual rally organised by cycle agents and traders in Aberdeen. The youngest competitor was William Chapman aged 6 years.
William from Ruthrieston Crescent in Aberdeen, dressed in white shorts and jersey, competed on a miniature racing bicycle. He and his keen cyclist dad waited on Marischal Street in Aberdeen for the signal to begin their run out to Newmachar. Groups of between 10 and 12 were released by the organisers to prevent congestion on the roads and when William and his dad were waved forward William jumped onto his bike and began pedalling down Marischal Street in the wrong direction. He quickly sorted himself out and was soon confidently cycling along Union Street on the start of his ten mile run.
Men, women and children made up the 4000 competitors – including one small child. A few that day opted for tandems for the competition was a mixed bag – more a day off for some from the usual run of inter-club rivalry although serious challenges did take place.
The boys’ race winner was E. Chessor with J. McKinnie and R. Thomson second and third. M. Morrice took first place in the girls’ pursuit with M. Ferguson and N. Don running in second and third. The women’s slow bike race was won by P. Flynn and the men’s by A. Dickie of Stonehaven.
You didn’t even need a bike to be a winner. J. Dalgarno hopped in first in the women’s sack race and J. Dalgarno took honours for the men. I don’t know who won the wheelbarrow race but J. Bell and G. Black picked up the prizes for the tyre-bursting competition.
Multiple-talented women from the Sun Touring Cycling Club beat Clarion women in the women’s five-a-side football competition by one corner while the Torry Wheelers defeated Woodside and District for the men by a single goal in extra time. Clarion women got their own back overwhelming Sun Touring women in the tug-o’-war by 2 pulls to one while Bon-Accord won it for the men against Sun Touring men by two pulls to nil.
Stone age tandem riders raise money for the new infirmary in 1936
Remember the tandem riders? Winner of the slow race was J. McLeod of Aberdeen Paragon who used the novelty as relief from training for a 12 hour time trial but strangely there is no mention of his partner.
Team honours for the day went to Aberdeen Bon-Accord (the Bons) over Aberdeen Paragon but the Paragon’s George Lawrie showed his mettle by taking first place in the 25-mile race in 1hr 4mins 32 secs. One of Britain’s top riders Lawrie established a new record at Dundee of 1hr 2mins 16secs over 25 miles.
On a lovely day in May the Strichen Wheelers 25-mile time trial was held on the Peterhead road with predictably George Lawrie setting the pace in a time of 1hr 3min 26 secs. James Sinclair and Jack Porter of the Bons ran him a close second and third and Lawrie’s dominance was about to wane. The new kid on the block was another Paragon, 20 year old James Smith.
Within 6-months most of those competing in the 1939 NSTTA open would be in uniform and facing an uncertain future for Britain entered World War Two early in September but that April the focus was on the 25-mile run along the Deeside road. John Whyte of Forres and District came in first in a time of 1hr 5min 32secs, his time hampered by strong winds. Fred Murdoch a novice rider with the Torry Wheelers took the Glegg Trophy with ease and another first year member of the Torry club, Alex Sangster, took the second handicap prize.
At the Inverness Clachnacuddin Open 25-mile time trial on the 7th August Aberdeen clubmen showed the Highlanders a clean pair of heels, taking 6 out of the 7 prizes. Torry Wheelers took their sixth successive team championship, squeezing Paragon by 11 seconds. Alistair McKenzie was fastest over the 25-mile race at 1hr 5min 21 secs and Torry Wheeler brothers David and James Ogilvie came in close behind.
Following the race competitors assembled at Elgin’s Masonic Hall to listen to Aberdeen cyclists Alex Christie, Archie Christie, A J Finlayson, L Emslie and CC Russell discuss the sport.
At the outbreak of war club stars – George Lawrie of Paragon, twice holder of the Scottish short distance championship, went into the army as did his team-mate Willie King, holder of the Aberdeen to Inverness and back record. Jack Porter of the crack Torry Wheelers joined the RAF.
Aberdeen’s Paragon, Sprite Club, Cyclists’ Touring Club, Bon-Accord, Clarion, Torry Wheelers all went into abeyance during the war. A few survived it – but not all their pre-war members did. The Northeast of Scotland Time Trials Association never re-emerged after May 1940.
A proposal that bike mad Aberdeen build a sports stadium was opposed by a councillor Mackintosh as too ambitious. Dearie me isn’t it the truth that Aberdeen councillors have a track record of being nothing if not lacking in ambition? If the peoples’ representatives in the council were incapable of building on the accomplishments of the city’s citizens local people at least recognised George Lawrie as a major sportsman who deserved recognition and respect for his achievements in the saddle.
Cycling was popular at Braemar Gatherings
Finally a cycling tragedy that occurred in 1936 which had nothing to do with racing.
Three brothers from Tullos Crescent in Aberdeen set off for a day’s fishing at Cove. They were making their way along the grassy cliff top and had just passed the Aulton fishers’ bothy where the path narrowed when two dismounted their bikes while the third brother, 21 year old Thomas Stoleworthy, happily cycled on ahead. His pedal caught on the grass and his brothers alerted by a shout from Thomas watched horrified as they saw him hurtle over the cliff. As the younger boy ran back to the salmon fishermen’s bothy to raise the alarm the other brother climbed down to Thomas, lying in a pool of water, badly injured but conscious. Both his legs and an arm were broken but Thomas told his brother, ‘I haven’t shed a tear yet.’
Fishermen quickly arrived by boat and transferred the injured man to their bothy. Having alerted the coastguards at the Gregness station Thomas was taken on an improvised stretcher to an ambulance and on to the Royal Infirmary in Aberdeen where two hours later he died. He had been due to be married later in the summer.
Posted in Aberdeen, Aberdeen City Council, Aberdeenshire, Braemar, Scotland, Scottish history, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
Tags: 1930s, Aberdeen Paragon, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Cove, cycling, George Lawrie, time trials, Torry Wheelers
The day young Byron was nearly lost in a snowstorm
Engraving of Byron as a boy based on a painting by John Kay
Into the midst of a great snowstorm and winds of unusual strength emerged a group of schoolboys. It was a wild wintry day during the late 1790s and the folk of Aberdeen had never before seen anything like the ferocious gusting blasts swirling hale and the driving snow that fell with such intensity that stepping out into it was fraught with danger. Yet at twelve mid-day pupils from Aberdeen’s Grammar School set off as usual towards the St Nicholas Street school where they were due to attend Mr Duncan’s writing class.
The Grammar School was in Schoolhill and the boys thought to follow their normal route cutting through St Nicholas kirkyard. By luck the high wall there offered a degree of protection from the windstorm and drifting snow but still progress was tricky. It was when they came to where the wall finished, to the gate, the boys were taken by surprise by the intensity of the tempest, a hurricane it was described, against which the smallest boys could make no progress but were driven backwards and scarcely able to keep their feet. So they retreated to the relative safety of the wall too petrified to move. One of the wee boys was George Gordon Byron.
Two of George Gordon Byron’s bigger classmates took hold of the his hands and they tackled the blinding snow together but the ferocity of the wind proved too much and it became every boy for himself. Poor wee George Gordon’s hands were let go of and he was swept back into the graveyard by the hurricane.
When by evening he failed to return home one of the servants was sent out in search of him. At the home of one of his fellow-pupils she was told about the struggle at the height of the snowstorm and how it might be the poor lad was still in the churchyard, hiding under one of its many large flat ledger tombstones.
Ledger tombstones in St Nicholas Kirkyard
A party of men was hastily dispatched, lanterns in hand, to search the now dark St Nicholas kirkyard and eventually they found the lost and tearful George Gordon Byron shivering and on the point of collapse under a ledger. And so the world of poetry was not deprived of a genius of verse.
However, as an old man, another of Byron’s school friends told a different version of the incident.
“No such thing! I was with him,” he recalled, “the weaker boys could not get into the churchyard at all. We could not leave the Schoolhil, and we found shelter in Mr Leslie Cruickshank’s hosiery; in whose kitchen we were dried and warmed, and sat waiting till our friends fetched us in the evening, when they could get to us, and found where we were.”
Of course both accounts could be largely true; that the boys battling through the unrelenting storm were so exhausted and frightened they gladly retreated to the warmth of the hosiery while the bigger loons (Aberdeen Doric term for boys) continued on to Mr Duncan’s writing class. And there is no dispute that several boys, including George Gordon Byron, had still not made it home by the evening.
One of George Gordon Byron’s fellow- pupils, of the name Cruickshank, remarked many years later that it was while sheltering at the hosiery they became aware of Byron’s ability as a story-teller when he captivated them with his rendering of “a beautiful tale out of the Arabian Nights.”
As an adult George Gordon Byron’s behaviour was frequently looked on askance so it is little wonder he was a mischievous wee devil as a child in Aberdeen.
Late in his life one that knew George Gordon Byron at the Grammar School criticised him for having a “most damnable disposition” and told of the day they were sitting together in a classroom when Byron cut the buttons off the boy’s coat. He added that he gave the young Byron a “good hiding” in return.
The same man also recalled that Byron loathed ‘dumpy women’ although this man commented that Byron’s own mother was ‘the dumpiest woman I ever saw in my life.’
Byron spent his childhood in Aberdeen close to his mother’s family estate north of the town and loved the bonnie countryside out to the west* – returning there to renew acquaintances and walk up the hill of Morven one last time. It was in Aberdeen he learnt to swim and became an accomplished swimmer by all accounts; as an adult he swam the Hellespont Strait between Europe and Asia. In Aberdeen he also became a proficient boatman.
George Gordon Byron and his mother left Aberdeen when he was ten and became the 6th Baron Byron of Rochdale. The boy’s friends discovered his inherited knighthood when the attendance was being taken at the Grammar school and instead of the teacher calling him George Gordon Byron he referred to him as Georgi, Baro de Byron. Instead of his usual reply Adsum (I am present) the boy burst into tears and ran out of the classroom.
His nurse May Gray stayed behind when Byron and his mother left for the south and young George Gordon gave her his watch as a parting gift along with a full length portrait of him painted by Kay of Edinburgh in 1795 in which he posed with a bow and arrows and long hair falling about his shoulders.
Finishing his education in England Byron then left for Lisbon and the Mediterranean at the age of 21, famously taking part in the Greek civil war and it was in Greece he died in 1824 aged 36.
*Lochnagar
Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses!
In you let the minions of luxury rove;
Restore me the rocks where the snow-flake reposes,
Though still they are sacred to freedom and love;
Yet, Caledonia, beloved are thy mountains,
Round their white summits though elements war;
Though cataracts foam ‘stead of smooth-flowing fountains,
I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na Garr.
Ah ! there my young footsteps in infancy wandered;
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid;
On chieftains long–perished my memory ponder’d,
As daily I strode through the pine–covered glade;
I sought not my home till the day’s dying glory
Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star;
For fancy was cheered by traditional story,
Disclosed by the natives of dark Loch na Garr.
“Shades of the dead! Have I not heard your voices
Rise on the night–rolling breath of the gale?”
Surely the soul of the hero rejoices,
And rides on the wind, o’er his own Highland vale.
Round Loch na Garr while the stormy mist gathers,
Winter presides in his cold icy car:
Clouds there encircle the forms of my fathers;
They dwell in the tempests of dark Loch na Garr.
Ill–starr’d, though brave, did no visions foreboding
Tell you that fate had forsaken your cause?
Ah! were you destined to die at Culloden,
Victory crowned not your fall with applause:
Still were you happy in death’s earthly slumber,
You rest with your clan in the caves of Braemar;
The pibroch resounds, to the piper’s loud number,
Your deeds on the echoes of dark Loch na Garr.
Years have rolled on, Loch na Garr, since I left you,
Years must elapse ere I tread you again:
Nature of verdure and flowers has bereft you,
Yet still you are dearer than Albion’s plain.
England! thy beauties are tame and domestic,
To one who has roved o’er the mountains afar:
Oh for the crags that are wild and majestic!
The steep frowning glories of dark Loch na Garr.
George Gordon Byron
Mad, Bad and Dangerous
Posted in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Braemar, Doric, Scotland, Scottish history, Uncategorized, Weird and Wonderful | 2 Comments »
Tags: Aberdeen, Ballater, George Gordon Byron, Lochnagar, Lord Byron, Morven, poetry, snow, St Nicholas graveyard, tombstones
O Albin! O my country! John Stuart Blackie
As with all nineteenth century national cultures Scotland’s was an area of contestation. Scotland had lost its identity as a sovereign political state having been subsumed within in the larger formation of Great Britain and the United Kingdom; but at the same time the country retained its distinctive spin on law, education and religion. Added to these characteristics was the legacy of destruction of clan systems, some of which had challenged the rule of the Hanoverian settlement. Into the nineteenth century the question of what it meant to be Scottish had become one with numerous possible answers.
Before the half-century had gone, for example it stretched from the view of Walter Scott who recognised that something of value had been lost in the integration of Scottish life to the larger world of Britain but believed that the benefits of a more peaceable, stable and wealthy society outweighed the losses. In this way he was able to paint pictures of aspects of Scotland’s past as distinct, noble and worthy of praise but now anachronism. Scots could mourn their loss but history had moved on. Get over it.
However, with the rapid and radical changes in social and economic life strainsof political thought developed which challenged what we might call the Tory radicalism of Scott. By far the most contestationist were those Chartists who used Scottish history to promote their cause of political and economic rights, who called up the ghosts of the past, in particular William Wallace, to rally opposition to all the corruption and injustice of pre-1850 Britain. Chartists challenged basic political power across Britain and gave voice to ways forward which would have appalled the historical novelist.
On the other hand there were those who came from the enfranchised middle class, those who had gained from extension of political power in 1832. They had found a place in the sun and at the same time, through education and religious attachment, were well aware of Scotland’s unique cultural history. Whilst these elements did not challenge the basic political and economic fabric of Britain it would be a mistake to see them as wholly complacent in the post 1832 settlement. One of the challenges they faced was the inherited rights and privileges of landed interests, not that they wanted to overturn the right to private property just that sometimes land use was called into question often manifesting itself as urban and rural rights of way entanglements.
Lion’s Face Drive near Invercauld – the scene of a rights of way battle in 1891
Which, at last, takes us to John Stuart Blackie. JSB was born in 1809 into a middle class family, his father was a banker. He was educated at Peter Merson’s school in Aberdeen’s Netherkirkgate where, so the story goes, he would daily gaze on the sculptured figure of a knight mounted high on the town house known variously as Benholm’s Lodge and the Wallace Tower. What matters here is that JSB claimed this became the basis of his fascination and enthusiasm for Scottish culture and history. He like so many others mistakenly believed the figure to represented William Wallace.
Leaving the Netherkirkgate school in 1821 he began attending classes at Marischal College. In the same year his mother died. The poor women in her fourteen years of married bliss had given birth to ten children, six outlived her.
Wildly compressing his years as a young man: JSB dropped out of university in 1824, tried his luck in a lawyer’s office but gave this up following spiritual turmoil akin it seems to the protagonist in Confessions of a Justified Sinner or the angst of Kirkegaard. Death became a fixation and religion the answer. He had been raised in a relaxed Presbyterian home, religion was there but as a guide rather than a dictator. But now he had religion and entering the ministry was to be his salvation, or so he thought. Hence it was in 1825, with his father’s permission and money he travelled to Edinburgh to find certainty and salvation. Interestingly he not only prayed deeply and frequently with his cousin Archy Gibson but also believed that good works were important which led him to the poorest parts of Edinburgh.
Restlessness once again overtook him and he was back in Aberdeen in 1826, still studying theology. This lasted until 1829 when his intellectual curiosity, and his father’s money, took him to Germany the most important event in his life; and before the year was out had given up all thoughts of becoming a minister and worse, at least for those who had hopes of him becoming a leading Scottish Divine, he rejected the Westminster Confession of Faith and turned instead towards a more liberal, historical and humanist doctrine which he was finding in Germany; he also discovered beer and Greek. From being a young man configured with thoughts of death, atonement and redemption he travelled across the liberal divide to arrive at the opinion that Scottish Presbyterianism was silly and pernicious, threatening to stunt the spirit and intellectual lives of children. This was balanced, if balance is the correct term, by his Scottishness, by his continuing sense of pride in the distinct contribution that Scotland had made in religion and despite his criticisms would have none of the bigotry of English High Churchism.
For a moment he toyed with Roman Catholicism but soon gave this up preferring Scottish Sabbatarianism to racket and rattle, fiddling and frivolity . . . and tasteless mummery. His antipathy to aspects of English culture was heightened by his experiences in Germany where he found that John Bull . . .speaks no German . . . is not a great favourite . . . proud selfish and has a mercantile spirit.
Illustrating his secular turn of mind, on a walking tour to Florence he took the opportunity of studying peasant farming and landholding using this to ask questions of Irish land law; and he expressed his support for parliamentary reform and read Shelley’s “Queen Mab” with enthusiasm. However, he was given little time to speculate on possible social injustices as his father had grown weary of the Continental Jaunt.
JSB was summoned home in 1831 where he was told to return to Edinburgh University to study law, which he did. A hateful experience which resulted in his admission in 1834 to the Society of Advocates. At the same time his father stopped JSB’s allowance. It was now sink or swim by his own abilities.
Resenting spending time on the minutiae of Scots Law Blackie resolved to earn a living from writing aiming at the burgeoning market for learned reviews but his central goal was find a university post in Scotland. Aberdeen at the time was a city being run by middle class, liberal Whig men. Blackie’s father Alexander was of this ilk and had the ear of these men. One of the ways of extending influence across the city and beyond was to have a university Chair filled by a sympathetic academic or even, as happened in Aberdeen, canvas for creation of a new Chair and connive to have a suitable candidate win the post. A Chair in Latin was created at Marischal College of which Blackie said a Whig job it unquestionably was, not that this made him unhappy, far from it. With strong political friends he had every chance of winning the Chair. There was one fly in the ointment: his rejection of the Westminster Confession of Faith. He was horror-struck, for to accept the post meant signing up to Calvinism, a condition of teaching at universities.
JSB was no fool. He had the wit and the legal training to get round issue, a little deceit and fancy footwork was the answer. He signed the Confession which was accepted and ratified by the Presbytery. To the Church of Scotland’s horror the new Professor then admitted that signing of the document was not a statement of his own beliefs simply a statement that his teaching would be within the bounds imposed by the Confession. A storm blew-up but in the end the blast of a trumpet for secular education was heard and Blackie began his university career in 1841.
JSB found teaching at Marischal too constrained and hidebound. He wanted a bigger and more stimulating environment for his pedagogic skills. With Greek being his first intellectual love he set up the Hellenic Society, took to lecturing to working men and women outside the university bounds where he found a more receptive audience; in contrast the university had a low standard of attainment and ambition. With this opinion it is hardly surprising that he was on the lookout for a post away from Aberdeen. But it took years for him to find a job which he eventually did in 1852 when he was appointed to the Chair of Greek at Edinburgh University, this after again undergoing questions as to his religious affiliation which he had said was the gospel of the heart as found in the New Testament. Unlike the youth of the 1830s he now had no interest in going into a corner to look at the point [of my nose] and solve the mystery of the Trinity. Nonetheless, he might not be interested in biblical nasal gazing but some men who influenced university appointments were concerned and it took hard canvassing by Blackie to win the post but win it he did. He remained at Edinburgh University until retirement in 1882 and died in 1895.
Within the sixty odd years of active intellectual life JSB displayed an amazing ability to at one and the same moment be the odd man at the table, the one who looked and sounded wrong to men and women of conventional wisdom yet always seemed to be welcome at the table. Perhaps it’s a bit like fellow Scotsman Thomas Carlyle (Blackie described him as a notable monster) who cried misery to Progress and so much of what Victorian Britain stood for yet was keenly read and listened to by both a middle class and working class audiences.
Blackie differed in many ways from Carlyle, he had a joy of good living of company and the pleasures life, including female company (he had married in 1841 with a most unconventional romance). Unlike the London based “Sage” he was not miserable. But he did, like Carlyle, betray that willingness to express affection for working men and women, for their capacity to deal with adversity, their willingness to labour and to grasp at learning. But again like Carlyle grasping could only go so far. Under the tutelage of enlightened men such as himself industrious classes could find a better world, unease only emerges when working men and women begin to formulate alternatives generated by themselves. As with so many of the middle class reformers of the 1830s JSB could not get his head around the notion that Chartists might be proposing alternatives which needed to be taken intellectually seriously. Attending a Chartist meeting in 1843 he heard a meagre scarecrow of a man extolling Carlyle’s critique of industrialisation, pouring out floods of real natural eloquence on the triumphs of democracy. Much impressed by the physical looks of the orator and the voice the Professor of Latin pulled back from full endorsement, perhaps not wishing to be deceived as he had deceived the Presbytery of Aberdeen. Appearance and sound was all very well but what of the Chartist substance? And this was found wanting.
Glen Callater
Democracy, there was truth there too, but more than half-a lie. I believe the majority are good-but are they wise can a multitude of passion-moved men be wise? His answer was no. Critical thought and wisdom of any value could not come from mass movements rather it was to be found with a solitary sage in a chamber. Having said this when in 1843 the Scottish Church split Blackie sided with the dissenters, which in Aberdeen was all the ministers in the city, describing the men who walked out of the Church as noble but these men were of course from a respectable class.
But to return to his Scottishness, apart from wearing a plaid as everyday dress he asserted his national if not his class identity by questioning land usage in the Highlands. Addressing the problem first broached in the 1830s he turned to the medium of poetry to show his distaste for families being cleared from land. Like his one-time colleague at Marischal College, William MacGillivray, Blackie walked Scotland. This gave him ample opportunity to see the cleared land and with him learning Gaelic in the 1860s was able to speak directly to men and women forcibly driven from crofts.
The poems he published in 1857 under the title “Braemar Ballads” gives vent to his anger and sadness at viewing deserted and ruined clachans across the landscape: Where the stump of a stricken ash tree/ Shows the spot, where the home of the cottar should be. Villain of the piece is the destruction of social unity which, he said, had underpinned Highland clan society being replaced first by sheep farming then deer forest. It’s not great poetry but the message is clear, the chieftains are gone, the kind lords of the glen have left the heather muirs, they bartered the rights of the brave Highlandman putting what should be a Scottish heritage into the hands of stalkers of deer . . . lordlings that live for the pleasure to kill. Make no mistake the man hostile to organised Chartism makes a searing indictment of clearances: O heartless lords, O loveless law, with calculation cold / Ye sold the mighty force, that glows in faithful hearts, for gold . . . Woe unto you, the grasping crew . . . By Heaven, it is a lawless land! We boast that we are free. And he asks how and why this has happened. Having pretty well jettisoned the ideology of Providential acts with his turn to the morality of love he squarely puts the blame on the drive for wealth and money and the absolute right of an owner to dispose of property as he or she saw fit.
Clearances, he said were a man-made phenomena, one that his beloved Scotland needs hang its head in shame: O Albin! O my country! O my dear Highland home/ The lust of gold hath ruined thee, the lust that ruined Rome. Absentee proprietors he wrote These be the masters, Scotland! Commerce was the problem. A society which centred its activity in manufacturing for profit rather than expanding the moral worth of individuals was bound to slip towards treating men and woman as numbers in an accounting ledger. This was a theme he had touched on in the 1840s when he encouraged Aberdeen male shop assistants to treat with both customers and employers for the restriction on what we would now call unsocial working hours. Long working days Blackie said gave little time for education and appreciation of the better things of life. Interestingly the shop men found a great deal of support for their request amongst Aberdeen’s great and good but there was little similar enthusiasm for improving the working conditions of men and women employed in more industrial enterprises. With this moral stance it should come as no surprise that JSB was hostile to utilitarian philosophy.
Land use and tenure had to change, one remedy was to find men in Parliament to represent the needs of small farmers and find some way of restricting the spread of large farms; to bring back the form of close relationship which had at one time, he believed, typified clan society. Absentee landlords could have no feeling for the men and women of the land and being a Gaelic speaker he excoriated those who lived in the Highlands but would not learn the native tongue. We should remember that the university professor had got his first step up the academic ladder with the assistance of Aberdeen’s Whigs, men who favoured (without being absolutists) the free play of the market and the right of capital to make capital. Clearly any whiggism retained by Blackie was held within his moral critique. His liberal view of religion and pedagogic humanism melded with the large ethical stance to make him a man well-able to sit with academics across Britain and beyond, to flirt (literally) with women of the highest social standing, be invited to the houses of great landowners and give talks on politics, literature to working men. Looking at JSB it is easy to conclude that for all that he made the call to action a central issue of his philosophy he was sufficiently distant from it to actually upset the social circles he inhabited. But this would be unfair. For all his deviousness in rising to his first professorship he did raise publicly the issue of the right to teach without affirming membership of or agreement with the Church of Scotland; this was a conscience issue which he resolved by being cleverer than his opponents. Similarly his outspoken attack on clearances could have threatened to close many doors in his face. Indeed following the publication of the poems he was encouraged to write a letter The Times setting out his views; this was no shrinking sentimentalist, my whole breakfast table was deluged with papers about the desolation in the Highlands. In 1883 Blackie demonstrated his continued commitment to reforming Scotland’s land laws; he gave evidence to the Napier Commission where he called for fair rents with fixity of tenure for small tenants; called on restrictions on both large sheep farms and deer forests and for a Royal Commission to look into some way of redistributing land to the benefit crofters. These and other points made by him showed that the example of Ireland with soul-destroying poverty and rapacious landlords and Gladstonian liberalism’s attempt to relieve the conditions of the poor farmer was not lost on JSB. Unlike some of his contemporaries he did not blame Popery for the sad state of Ireland it was, he said, down to the English . . . [who] sucked the blood systematically out of the people; the English were filled with measureless greed. Scots it seems had nothing to do with the state of Ireland which sounds a bit like his plea that it was English landlords who brought the Highlands down, move along no Scots here. Paradoxically for all the denunciation of clearances he had a very good relationship with the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, one of the most kind-hearted easy-going . . . creatures that I have ever met . . . a sweet blooded race these Sutherlands. There is surely a question mark over this view of the family notorious for its clearances. Probably the solution to the tensions and dissonances in Blackie’s social policies is that on the one hand he wanted to avoid materialism (philosophical and otherwise) of liberalism and the closed reactionary bulwarks of the Tories. Thus he would swing between them, looking for spiritual values, liberal education and decent treatment of the poor. Liberals gave so much as did Tory paternalism, at one point he wrote that Tories are the best landlords and true friends of the crofters; and the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland would have fallen into being the best of the lot as they were drawn from the old heads of houses and clans. Flying between the two poles of liberalism and Toryism of course left him adrift from the one philosophy of action emerging from outside his class, namely socialism. For all the progressive things he stood for he was constrained within the limits of his class vision forced to search for solutions and salvation in the world of commerce.
Posted in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Braemar, Clearances, Land Reform, politics, Scotland, Scottish history, Scottish Nationalism, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Tags: Chartistm, crofting, Gaelic, Highland Clearances, John Bull, John Stuart Blackie, land ownership, Land Reform, landed estates, Marischal College, Napier Commission, Presbyterian, rights of way, Thomas Carlyle, Walter Scott, William MacGillivray
Hares to the Slaughter
Once upon a time in a land of snowy peaks and heather muirs there lived a hare whose pelt could change with the seasons. This hare was called Blue or Mountain for it had a tint of blue when the weather was fine and it turned as white as swan down when ice and snow were brought to the land of Scotland on the tail of a wind from the north.
Blue or Mountain was sometimes known as Lupus Timidus for Lupus meant hare and Timidus told what a gentle and timid creature this was.
One day evil spirits, known as the agents of darkness, claimed Blue’s land belonged to them and from that time Blue and all the other creatures of the muir lived in fear that the evil ones would hunt them down for the evil ones liked nothing better than destroying the animals of the muir for it made them feel heroic. But none of the evil ones were as fleet of foot as the creatures they stalked so they chased them on motor vehicles and fired at them with guns that could blast them to smithereens at long range or else they set metal traps that sprang shut trapping the foot of a grazing animal that might starve to death unless clubbed over the head as an alternative.
One day a bird sat at an open window and overheard the evil forces talk of what they would do to Blue if they caught him for they blamed the hare for spreading tics which brought disease to their grouse and, they said, no other creature had the right to kill grouse who wasn’t prepared to pay to ‘bag’ them. The bird learnt that grouse were what was called property and not free birds of the sky and muirs like her.
When the bird told Blue what she had overheard Blue at first planned to escape but where could he go? The muirs were his, he thought, for generations of hares had lived in the mountains of his native Scotland for thousands of years which Blue knew was a very long time and longer than the evil spirits who claimed to own the land and the sky above into which grouse were released before being promptly shot back out of it.
The animals of the muir living in a place called the Cairngorms National Park gathered together to discuss what could be done to put an end to the persecution of Blue by the mob of evil ones. First to speak was a rook, who was a very intelligent bird, and told of something called the BBC which told stories it wanted people to believe and one of them was how landowners, who the rook explained was another name for the evil forces, sought to reassure the public that mountain hares must be culled. The rook told how the BBC had UNDERLINED words which meant they must be believed and it accused Blue of endangering plants, though it never provided any evidence for this claim.
“An organisation representing landowners has sought to reassure the public on the culling of mountain hares.
The Scottish Moorland Group has responded to concerns raised earlier this month about the shooting of the animals in the Cairngorms.”
All the assembled animals gasped for Blue’s future sounded bleak as it was widely known that when the evil forces spoke of culls it was for the animals own good though none at the meeting had ever spoken to a culled creature who had returned to tell the good it had done them.
A red deer that had been nibbling at grass during the discussion spoke up – “I lost my brother to an evil one who admired his antlers so much he said they would look better hanging on a wall in his castle,” she reported sadly. “When I asked questioned him the evil one and his friends laughed and waved their rifles at me and told me it was legal and when things are said to be legal for people it often spells bad news for us animals.” The deer then lay down and listened to the others.
“I’ve had to flee persecution,” whispered a fox recently arrived in Scotland from England.
The fox’s words were met with a growl that was traced to a sleek black dog whose mouth hung open revealing a jaw full of sharp teeth. “Too many like you makes a need for culls,” he snarled.
The other animals studied the dog who some suspected lived with the evil ones. “Culls are only necessary when too many of one kind of animal lives in these parts,” it barked underlining its message that responsibility for culls lay with the animals and not those who did the culling.
“Who decides there are too many?” enquired an owl.
“Those who manage the land,” snarled the dog, “it is a responsibility they take very seriously. Land doesn’t just look after itself it has to be managed and that means everything on it. Only insiders know what’s best for the land not external commentators.”
“It used to manage itself very nicely,” said a Golden eagle, “back at a time there were many like me, now I fly for miles without seeing another of my kind.
“I don’t want anyone deciding if I live or die, I’d prefer to do that myself,” remarked the owl but by now the black dog had slunk away.
The rest of the animals sighed for they could see no escape from the evil forces, specially now they learnt what they did was LEGAL. They suspected for all of them there was a season when they might be killed LEGALLY even though they believed the land belonged to them as much as it did to the evil forces.
What will happen once Blue is killed? asked a voice from the back. Surely a Scottish muir without Blue would be less beautiful for us all? They turned to the rook for an answer.
“If Blue was property his death might be delayed but he is what is known as vermin and the evil forces are sworn to remove vermin whenever they choose, LEGALLY,” explained the rook sagely. He looked over at the deer who was paying no attention.
“My family were hunted to near extinction in a time called feudal,” purred a wild cat, “are we still living in feudal times?” it asked.
“Oh I think we are,” chirped a grouse, looking over its shoulder in the direction the black dog was last seen.
As jagged-tooth traps snapped and guns blasted both day and night the creatures of the muirs ran for their lives in all directions. The last they saw of their friend Blue was him running uphill as fast as his legs could carry him with the forces of evil on his heels.
The Raptor blog https://raptorpersecutionscotland.wordpress.com/tag/mountain-hare/
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14340402.Outrage_of_landowners_mass_killing_of_mountain_hares/
Posted in Aberdeenshire, BBC, BBC Scotland, Birds and animals, Braemar, Land Reform, politics, Scotland, Scottish history, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Balmoral, blue hare, Cairngorms, cull, hare, Land Reform, mountain hare
Francis Godolphin Osborne Stuart of Braemar
1870s F.G.O. Stuart photograph of the House of Commons
One of Britain’s most prolific postcard photographers was Francis Godolphin Osbourne (sometimes Osborne) Stuart, who for obvious reasons went by the name F.G. O. Stuart.
Unlikely as it might seem Francis Godolphin Osbourne was born in or around Braemar, in October 1843 into the family of a gamekeeper on the Mar estate which goes some way to explain the child’s name. The father did, however, or perhaps it was the mother, have the sense to omit D’Arcy (which might have created issues for a young laddie in the Highland village) for it appears the boy was named after the Duke of Leeds then currently renting the Mar estate from its owner the Duke of Fife. Neither of their seats of close proximity to Braemar.
Seaweed hut
Francis was born at the time men such as his father’s employer were throwing local people out of their homes and off their farms to create deer forests so they and their friends could indulge in the gentlemanly sport of hunting … for what was the point of owning large tracts of land if not to use it as one’s plaything?
By 1872 100,000 acres of deer forest had been created in the district and the glen people surely disabused of any notion that the land they worked and which had sustained their folk for centuries might belong to them in any way.
Photograph image of a painting of the flotilla at Southampton meeting General Booth of the Salvation Army
Local sheep and cattle farmers and their families were put out, cleared out of houses, communities scattered so deer and the laird’s sheep might graze the muirs instead. The numbers forced out were considerable though you would be hard-pressed to believe that now for little evidence of destroyed settlements, clachans that once rang to the voices of their inhabitants, remain even as rickles of stanes – places on maps and on the tongues of a few remind us where people lived. Braemar and Inverey were all that survived of any size as sporting activities ousted the rest in the interests of restricting hunting and fishing for rich men’s pastimes instead of providing food for hungry bellies.
Adams photograph of the Duke of Gordon Statue in the Castlegate, Aberdeen
Young Francis left home to find work in Aberdeen, as a cabinet maker and photographer with Andrew Adams, photographer of Rettie’s Court. Adams ran one of several photographic studios in Aberdeen, George Washington Wilson’s being the most famous. However A. Adams also had a good reputation as a portrait photographer and many went to his photographic rooms to have their pictures taken. It is likely Francis’ carpentry involved making the bulky wooden cases which housed early cameras.
The Temple Bar, London F.G.O. Stuart
In 1872 Francis was living and working in London and a decade later he settled in Southampton where he established a thriving photography business mostly based on photographing townscapes and village scenes around the south of England. By the turn of the 20th century he was a prolific producer of postcards.
There’s no doubt Stuart had an excellent eye for composition and it’s little wonder his images proved so popular. He used an excellent German printer, Carl Gottlieb Röder of Leipzig, a music publisher and printer and the first to successfully use lithographic printing for his musical scores, to produce high quality images though you won’t always find the German printer’s mark on cards for many were removed, presumably for political reasons.
Stuart, who was a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, carried out all kinds of photographic work, including portraiture and his pictures were used in travel guides. During World War One he became an official war office photographer recording damage to Southampton docks. Of course by this time he had dropped his German printer for an English one of poorer quality.
A colour tinted version of Stuart’s photograph of the Titanic
The world had changed by the time of Stuart’s death in 1923 – in some ways. Fewer people send postcards increasingly preferring to take their own on smart phones instead but the muirs around Braemar remain empty and the landed estates still reign supreme.
Posted in Aberdeenshire, Braemar, Clearances, Francis G O Stuart, politics, Scotland, Scottish history, Titanic, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
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Lenny Pozner
Why NorCal School Might Soon be Turning to San Jose Armed Guards?
Filed to:Sandy Hook Shooting
In the wake of recent tragedies like Sandy Hook Shooting, schools around the country are taking action. Shortly after the shocking event, Wayne La Pierre, vice president of the National Rifle Association (NRA), urged schools to take action by hiring San Jose armed guards and allowing school administrators to carry concealed weapons. While his comments sparked debate among gun enthusiasts and gun control proponents, politicians in Indiana were drafting a bill following La Pierre’s logic.
Hours before the NRA released their “National School Shield Report,” Indiana’s House Education Committee proposed a measure that would allow school employees-including teachers-to carry guns. If the measure passes, Indiana would be the first state that requires public schools to have armed people within schools during school hours. The bill enables any school employee to carry a firearm after completing a training course; the specifications of the course are yet to be determined. Opponents of the measure are disturbed by its vague wording; the amendment doesn’t offer any specifics regarding the type of firearms employees must hold or whether the weapon can be concealed.
Sandy Hook Parents Are Now Suing Alex Jones
After years of Jones suggesting the school shooting was a hoax, several parents are fighting back.
Although Second Amendment defenders like Jim Lucas, the sponsor of the Indiana bill, believe mass shootings can only be prevented by more firearms, many people remain skeptical. According to Lucas, educators have confided in him that they want the right to carry firearms in schools; however, national polls show the opposite to be true. As the nation waits for the lengthy legislative process to run its course and decide the fate of gun control, public schools around the country are turning to armed guards for safety.
Though allowing armed guards to patrol schools is a less severe idea than requiring school employees to carry guns, the idea is still controversial. Parents and faculty alike find the motion to increase police presence as an accident waiting to happen. Nonetheless, public schools are employing guards at an increasing rate.
Some NorCal parents and school officials are satisfied with the measures to hire security guards, citing the background checks and hours of training a guard needs to undergo. Although employing San Jose armed guards isn’t the final step in ensuring school safety; NorCal parents are confident it’s an effective step.
Overview of Violent Video Games
Following the acceptance of video games in the society in the 1990s, many youths became withdrawn…
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Cross of a Different Kind: Cancer & Christian Spirituality
Cross of a Different Kind, written by Anthony Maranise, dives into the relationship between cancer and Christianity. A “field guide” for those affected by cancer, Cross of a Different Kind was created for those who have cancer, those who know someone affected by cancer and for the survivors of cancer. Each person will find solace in this novel, regardless of what part of the journey you are on and feel a connection of both faith and hope through the inspiring words and reflections. It’s a reminder of the light in the darkness and how God can bring spiritual comfort and acceptance in a time of loss, sadness and grief.
Cross of a Different Kind is a novel based on the ideologies of Christianity, written especially for those experiencing cancer themselves. The book is split into different sections with each part addressing the different stages of cancer that someone may be in.
The author, Anthony Maranise, tells of his battle with childhood cancer and the feelings surrounding his family, relationship with God and what it meant to find hope in some of his darkest hours. Maranise words are raw, honest and inspiring, allowing the reader to develop a sense of trust and gratitude for the words he writes. At times I felt as though I was sitting in a room, listening to him tell his story as it opened up the pathway to reflect on our personal experiences with cancer.
With statistics such as 69% of cancer patients praying for their health regularly, it is clear that Cross of a Different Kind is a novel that will connect with many people who have been touched by cancer. There are many Christianity references, but they are used to inspire hope, clarity and acceptance in a time of great trauma and stress. Cross of a Different Kind talks about how the journey of faith has helped the author and many others against the tough battles brought on by cancer.
So many of us know someone or have even experienced cancer ourselves and will find the feelings and reflections in the novel provide a sense of solace and comfort in the times of great stress and alarm. One of my favourite sentiments was that it is important to grieve and mourn the loss of our loved ones (even if we believe we will meet them again). Another idea the author presents is that those experiencing cancer are soldiers in their own way, battling the sadness, anger and trauma brought on by sickness that steals happiness and joy. This idea instills a sense of comradery and connection with the book, allowing the reader to feel acknowledged and understood in regards to their own personal battles with cancer.
Cross of a Different Kind will bring the reader a sense of spiritual comfort, understanding and information for those who are experiencing the journey that comes with cancer. I would recommend this for all Christians who are suffering from the burdens of cancer- whether it is themselves or their loved ones.
Pages: 188 | ISBN: 0692974148
Posted in Book Reviews, Four Stars
Tags: anthony maranise, author, authorlife, authorlove, authors, authorsofinstagram, bible, book, bookaholic, bookblogger, bookclub, bookgeek, bookhaul, bookish, booklovers, bookme, booknerdigans, booknookstagram, booknow, booksbooksbooks, bookshelf, booksofinstagram, bookstagram, bookstagramer, bookworm, cancer, childhood, christian, Cross of a Different Kind: Cancer & Christian Spirituality, disease, ebook, faith, field guide, god, goodreads, grief, ilovebooks, jesus, journey, kindle, kobo, literature, mirjana walther, nonfiction, nook, novel, prayer, publishing, read, reader, reading, religion, sadness, shelfari, spiritual, spirituality, story, writer, writerlife, writers, writersclub, writerscommunity, writerscommunityofinstagram, writerscorner, writing
The Dragon Grammar Book: Grammar for Kids, Dragons, and the Whole Kingdom
The Dragon Grammar Book: Grammar for Kids, Dragons, and the Whole Kingdom, by Diane Mae Robinson, is a handy writing tool for kids in one neat, little package. Robinson presents readers with a succinct list of terminology, ten chapters covering everything from subject and verb agreement to dangling participles and misplaced modifiers. Throughout the grammar guide, readers are treated to engaging illustrations of Sir Princess Petra and Snarls, the dragon. From beginning to end, The Dragon Grammar Book, provides readers with everything they need to address those most common questions they encounter as budding writers.
Robinson begins her grammar guide with a very useful and well-organized grammar terminology section. Teachers, students, and parents will find the opening 15 pages of the book an extremely helpful tool for quickly skimming and finding definitions and examples of each of the parts of speech, punctuation, along with a few writing terms tossed in for good measure.
Let’s face it, kids can shut down at lightning speed when a textbook comes into sight. The Dragon Grammar Book provides the perfect amount of information presented in short bursts that don’t overwhelm the reader. Accompanying explanations for each rule are not too wordy, and hold the reader’s attention long enough to make a point. The ongoing dragon theme is tucked into each of the example sentences throughout the book.
As a teacher, I appreciate the wide variety of topics covered in the fairly short text. The author has chosen to include some areas students will encounter as their writing develops over the course of several years. Chapter One’s focus on confusing words was a breath of fresh air to this teacher. Arranged alphabetically and featuring brief, easy-to-understand examples, this portion of the book is simple to navigate and covers each and every roadblock young writers encounter as they learn to proofread and edit their work.
I give The Dragon Grammar Book: Grammar for Kids, Dragons, and the Whole Kingdom 5 out of 5 stars. Having a useful resource that engages students and includes a wide variety of grammar rules with short, fun examples is difficult to find. Robinson has produced a winner with this easy-to-navigate, all-inclusive, grammar guide for kids.
Pages: 140 | ASIN: 198871401X
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The Outcasts: The Blood Dagger
Misty Hayes, author of The Outcasts: The Blood Dagger Volume: 1, is handing readers a unique take on the vampire stories of late. Her main character and narrator, Larna Collins, relates a tale deeply woven in history, family secrets, and bloodlust. Larna, quite the social outcast in her high school, graduates and embarks immediately on a mission to find her estranged father in England. Using her father’s journals and her own burning desire to find answers to her endless string of questions about his sudden disappearance, she leaves Texas just as her lifelong friend, Corinth, reveals his desire to be more than a tried-and-true confidante.
The Outcasts: The Blood Dagger Volume: 1 is written to appeal to young adult readers, but is so exceptionally written and full of wit and wisdom it easily resonates with a much larger audience. The idea of the socially downtrodden heroine is not a new one, but Hayes manages, quite successfully, to fashion Larna Collins into character unlike any readers will encounter within other books in the same genre. Larna is thoughtful, and the reader is privy to all of her emotions, anxiety, and, ultimately, her pride and power.
Character development appears to be Hayes’s forte. Dropping little hints throughout the plot, the author draws robust images of each character from Paul the Volkswagen/taxicab-driving vampiric sidekick to Gabriel–the devil incarnate. Each of Hayes’s characters adds a rich element to the story, and she masters the plot twist with the best of the action/adventure writers out there.
Hayes provides a captivating mixture of budding romance and action sequences. In addition, she takes literary risks with her characters’ fates. She, by no means, sticks with what the reader expects. At every turn, Hayes delivers something new and unexpected, but more than appreciated. The tension between Corinth and Larna and the ever-present question of romance between Larna and Alastair keep the reader guessing from beginning to end.
Hayes offers an originality with her presentation of the vampire tale. She successfully juxtaposes the deteriorating architecture of old England with present-day Texas and tosses in a healthy amount of technology and modern references–all easily within the schema of the young adult audience. Those expecting to find the vampires of the Twilight series will be pleasantly surprised to find a quite different vamp sketched before them as Hayes offers up a down-to-earth creature with far-reaching abilities and deep-rooted emotions.
I am giving The Outcasts: The Blood Dagger Volume: 1 a solid 5 out of 5 stars. Hayes offers a well-written, smooth read which mesmerizes readers from the first paragraphs. The relatable struggles of its main character, Larna, take an unexpected turn early on and pull readers in for a ride like no other. Hayes will soon find herself with a growing fan base yearning for more from Larna and her crew. By giving her audience the story they want with a cast of characters far-removed from those of the typical vampire tales, Hayes has succeeded in paving the way for her band of outcasts.
Pages: 356 | ASIN: B077XL9WHH
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Abuse Of Trust: The Hidden Conflict Of The Abuse Of Power Within The Church
How a church wrongfully uses the Word of God to their own advantage for the unreasonable exercise of power and exploitation.
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Brian Gallagher Author Interview
I found Vatican Protocol to be a grand journey that crosses over the Atlantic to Europe in a search for answers. What was your inspiration for this thrilling novel?
The inspiration was a combination of the terrific novels by Robert Ludlum where multiple plots converged at the end. There are so many questions regarding Nazis, UFO’s, religious and governmental conspiracies I had as much fun doing the research as I did writing the book.
The book follows Sean who seems like a regular man with very irregular friends. How did you set about creating Sean’s character and what was most important for you to get right?
Sean is similar to me. He is the coordinator and orchestrates activities and watches what swirls around him. Because he is somewhat like me, I didn’t want him to be the hero, which would have felt contrived. Instead he brings together his band of associates and keeps the ball moving forward without being the main focus.
I enjoy reading conspiracy theories that involve the church and global cover-ups. What is your favorite genre of books to read and how do you think that influences your writing?
My favorite genres are conspiracy and crime thrillers. I like Michael Connelly, John Sandford, John Grisham, Stuart Wood, James Patterson and many others. I like surprises and interesting characters. I’m also partial to recurring characters from one novel to the next.
What is the next book that you are writing and when will it be available?
Since the release of Vatican Protocol I’ve had two novels published. Serial K and Serial K Returns. These are in the crime genre and have both won awards. The next one to be released is named Real Monsters and will be available late Q1, 2018 or early Q2.
Struggling writer and nearly bankrupt Sean O’Shea is searching for the blockbuster story from which he can create a best seller. The goal is to regain his financial independence and self-esteem. When he learns of a horrific 1936 UFO crash in Germany’s Black Forest, he chases the story to its origin. The discovery of insidious Nazi involvement piques his interest and when he unearths secret assassinations of previous investigators, he is hooked. As his probe continues, witnesses are murdered and he becomes the target of deadly agents sent by the most powerful man in the Vatican-The Black Pope. The cover-up is greater than he ever imagined. When he discovers that UFO’s, Nazis, Wewelsburg Castle and the Vatican are connected, he has the killer story he envisioned, though it just may kill him to get it published.
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Something Never Imagined
Roxanne Burkey Author Interview
The Enigma Ignite is filled with technological advancements, drama, and humor while it assembles an interesting cast of characters to solve a problem with high tech communications. What was the inspiration for the theme of this novel?
Communications avenues have evolved to the point where we can speak over almost any device, often with video included. In our line of professional work using cell towers, satellites and SIP opens up more avenues for conversations to be monitored or masked. Each of our stories focus on the technology capabilities as well as how we use and abuse technology. Those who want to see what is occurring and yet they themselves hide under the radar are only limited by their imagination. A lot like a fictional author, right?
Technology is a lot like art in that it can inspire different interpretations in each person. The difference however is that with technology if you see dark thoughts you can use the product for dark actions. Enhanced communications for the battlefield, the main theme for this story, is just exactly what we were trying to illustrate. We create this brilliant researcher, Su Lin, trying to improve food production and the bad guys have seen the possibilities of her development efforts, yet have mapped it to their purposes in the dark net. The point we are trying to drive home is that no matter what your intentions were there will be some entity capable of morphing it into something never imagined. The problem then becomes how to put the genie back into the bottle?
Charles Breakfield
Your work is able to effortlessly switch between drama and humor. Is that because of the two of you working together? Which one of you do you find lends more levity to your writing?
We do have fun working together to continue the aspects of drama and humor. Burkey has continually tried to learn humor over the years and is improving. The subtle aspects of the humor for the most part in the early stories of the series is Breakfield, however as you get further into the series Burkey comes up with some winning humor aspects. Over the years we have had a lot of humor in heavy drama circumstances when stuck in a horrific late night upgrade. Like the time we had talk down an engineer that ran screaming out of the building with our emergency chocolate pieces. You just can’t make that stuff up. Of course, we can’t tell you who wrote which portions because then we would need to arrange an unfortunate accident for you in a future story.
I found Su Lin and Franklin’s story line to be intriguing all the way around. What was your inspiration for the characters and relationship?
In our experience pigs are creatures who can bind with people, like a dog. They also have some physiology that makes that ideal for this kind of experimentation. Su Lin needed a new way to focus her creative efforts and do something for humanity that would make her feel like the valuable individual she is. Her brilliant character has evolved in the series and we wanted to give her some additional dimension. We honestly felt that putting the two together would interesting. Perhaps we were slightly influenced by the long ago story of a family, a pig, and a spider.
The Enigma Ignite is the third book in the Enigma series. What did you do different in this story to keep things fresh?
The technology keeps our series fresh as it keeps changing and we are in a position to observe its applications. However, it is the characters that give the series a very unique perspective. We have a subject rich pool of people and technology for our award winning techno thriller series. We incorporate the numerous characters, aka business professionals, we have encountered and it simply allows our imaginations to run rampant. Nanotechnology, drones, and military superiority as a mix seemed to play right into our process. The technologies alone don’t matter without the human interactions. The human interaction is more inspiring when they help paint a great story. We believe we balance a great combination of the technologies, research and characters to keep it fresh. We are so delighted you enjoyed it. In subsequent stories some characters, good and bad return, and some simply earn their just desserts. New technology continues to evolve our stories.
Author Links: Twitter | Facebook | Website
What does research to improve animal husbandry to boost global food supplies have in common with next generation high-tech military communications? A Texas university professor, quietly working in her field of study, finds her unconventional communication techniques have put her in the cross-hairs of multiple interested parties. Her applied research of nanotechnology, coupled with new programming methods has gotten her more attention than she wanted.
When the world’s biggest powers compete for superiority, it’s not larger weapons or greater numbers of soldiers that top their wish lists. Instead, it’s leveraging the latest technology improvements: nanotechnology,dynamic programming algorithms, and drones, working together to build the next generation of military communications. But what challenges do they face before emerging as the tall hog at the trough?
As Keith Austin Avery scouts new technology and new applications under his military contract his research draws the attention of a powerful terrorist group, with traumatic consequences for him and his subcontractor Eilla-Zan Marshall. Will they be forced to reveal the confidential military plans? Or is all this information already out on the Dark Net?
The R-Group is engaged to locate terrorists and their captives. Marshaling all data and using sophisticated analytics, they uncover more than they planned. Is there government corruption? Are secrets kept from those who can help? Most importantly, how many will lose their lives in the fight to perfect advanced battlefield communications?
This fast-paced third installment of the Enigma Series,TheEnigma Ignite, has the R-Group’s Jacob Michaels and Petra Rancowski working closely with a powerful and talented team to uncover the newest technological inroads. The technology programs they uncover results in a race against time to save lives.
Award winning authors, Breakfield and Burkey, provide a solid espionage thriller, that incorporates a satisfying balance of technology, tension, surprisingly sensitive romance,and the blurred lines that surround the age-old conflict between good and evil.
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We Are Only Left With Loyalty
B.C.R. Fegan Author Interview
Titch the Itch is the tale of an animated little itch who wants nothing more than to make friends. How did you come up with the idea to anthropomorphize an itch?
The idea was born when I was ‘chasing an itch’ around my wife’s back. Every time I scratched a spot, the itch seemed to move. I thought the idea of an itch playing games would make a fun concept for a children’s book so I set about to develop the story.
There are many fun and funny moments in the book. Were there any moments that made you laugh out loud while creating the book?
I’m not actually a laugh out loud kind of person. I’m one of those annoying people who internalises humour – so no one is actually sure whether I’m finding something funny. I know… I’m working on it. But yes, there were quite a few moments that I found quite fun.
There are probably two main aspects of the story that stand out to me as funny. The first is Titch’s desperate but authentic attempts to make friends, juxtaposed with the exaggerated but real-world reactions of his new acquaintances. The second is Titch’s completely innocent disregard for anyone’s personal space.
Lenny Wen, the illustrator, also did an outstanding job capturing the humour. Probably my favourite page is when Titch spots a ‘rich-looking lady with a tiny white poodle’. She has managed to illustrate someone who typifies dignity and stoic behaviour. It is the anticipation of Titch’s desire to make friends with her that I think prepares readers for a good laugh out loud moment (if that’s their thing of course).
This story of an itch looking for friendship is perfect for teaching young readers about the value of friends and loyalty. What do you hope readers take away from this story?
I tried to write something that was a little different to most books on friendship. Often we think of friendship as something that we accept based on someone’s desirable qualities. I wanted to challenge that, and ask the question, what if friendship has more to do with someone else’s acceptance of us.
Titch ends up being a really interesting case study in friendship, because he is annoying by nature. In essence, the desirable qualities that we normally associate with friendship have been stripped away. We are only left with loyalty. I also purposefully avoid concluding the book in consonance, as it transfers this question to the reader.
At the end of the day however, this question is only a subtle thread in an otherwise simple and humorous adventure of an Itch. More than anything else, I hope that readers of Titch the Itch just enjoy the imaginative qualities and have fun reading!
The next book to hit the shelves is called Don’t Ever Look Behind Door 32. It is about a brother and sister who are invited to explore a mysterious hotel with some unusual guests. Readers will be able to linger on each page and count the hidden objects as they make their way towards the forbidden door. I really look forward to hearing what children (and adults) think of it.
It is currently available for pre-order, and will be available on March 14.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Website
Titch is an itch who just wants to be wanted.
When Titch discovers that no one in his family wants him, he sets off on a journey to find someone – anyone – who would be willing to live with an itch. With every step he grows less hopeful. That is, until he meets an old friend.
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Intense Chemistry Between Them
Shari Nichols Author Interview
Karly is a medium hired to get rid of a ghost haunting an Inn but is caught between her job, the sexy innkeeper, and her painful past. What was the inspiration for the setup to this exciting novel?
The hero, Thayne Harper, heir to one of the largest hotel chains in the country comes from a world of wealth and privilege. His inn is a reflection of his upbringing. Karly, on the other hand, has had to work and struggle her whole life. When she has no choice but to move into the inn to banish the ghost, she becomes a fish out of water, which leaves her feeling vulnerable and brings up past insecurities and doubts. I think everyone can relate to being in such an uncomfortable position on some level. From there, I try to add in as much conflict as possible by using the ‘what if’ factor. What if someone that didn’t believe in ghosts found himself living in a haunted inn? What if there was this intense chemistry pulsing between him and the medium he was forced to hire to banish said ghost? The more ‘what if’s’ I add to the mix, the more dimensions it lends to the characters. The goal is torture them through this journey before they reach that HEA. Hopefully, it’s what makes readers turn the pages long into the night.
The relationship between Karly and Thayne is visceral and sultry. How did you develop their relationship and what themes did you want to capture?
I do a lot or prewriting beforehand but the relationship really took shape as I wrote the story. The physical attraction between the two polar opposites was undeniable and so fun to write! Granted, it was not love at first sight, but it was incredible lust at first sight, which I do believe in, the kind of chemistry with another person that literally knocks you on your ass. In terms of a theme, I wanted to really drive home the concept of letting go of the past before you can move forward. Both characters are holding onto past wounds that prevent them from ever fully committing to another person. Only when both have worked through their issues are they able to finally come together and open themselves up to love.
This is a fantastic romance novel, but I also enjoyed the paranormal-horror aspect that really increased the tension. Where did the idea for the ghost come from and how did it change as you wrote?
The idea for the ghost is actually based on two separate ghost stories combined into one. A friend once told me about a custom home that was built by his step father as a present to his mother. He had pieces flown in from a very old estate in England. Apparently, some of those pieces came with a ghost that floated through the walls of the house and left cold spots in his room. The Logan inn in New Hope, which is featured in the first chapter of HAUNTED has been known to have a resident ghost that resides in room number six I incorporated certain nuisances and interesting details about that ghost into the story. The ghost changed as I wrote mainly due to the fact that I had to create a believable backstory for her, so the reader understands what caused her to become this way. Yes, she’s a villain, but she was also a victim in her time as well. I actually wrote a short story from the ghost’s point of view to make sure her motivations were warranted. When you truly understand what she’s been through you can then empathize with her story. I had to add layers to make her a three dimensional character. I’ve been asked by many readers to know more about her and where she came from. Who knows, maybe I’ll create a novella for the ghost of Emily and you will really get to see her story.
What is the next story that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’m working on a three book series at the moment. It’s a contemporary revolving around three best friends, all who are navigating high-powered careers and love in the Big Apple. I cannot say at this point, but you will be the first to know! Thank you Literary Titan so much for having me!
Author Links: Website | Blog | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | GoodReads | Newsletter
When medium Karly Matthews agrees to move into a haunted inn, she’s not sure what’s more dangerous, the ghost or the sexy innkeeper she tries to resist. She can’t deny the intense rush of desire she feels every time he’s near. When she agrees to embark on a no-strings-attached relationship, she finds herself thrust into a world of mind-blowing pleasures. Now she must face the aching truths of her past.
Hotel heir Thayne Harper has a laser-like focus on success that doesn’t include the help of his family. He’s always been the black sheep, living in the shadow of his dead brother. His dreams are put to the test when a supernatural entity threatens to ruin everything. The one bright spot is the woman who intrigues his mind and heats his blood. If only he can convince her that, despite his bad-boy ways, he can change for the good. Her love becomes his only salvation. Passion burns white-hot as a dark threat looms. The ghost doesn’t want them to be together and sets her sights on Thayne, luring him to a place that goes beyond death. Will Karly be able to save him before it’s too late?
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Developing the Human Spirit
Glenville Ashby Author Interview
In Anam Cara you speak of the ‘soul friend’ as the bridge to enlightenment and creativity. How did you discover your ‘soul friend’ and how has it helped in your life?
The soul friend can emerge at any point of time in your life. There is hardly a need to go out and seek a soul friend. Doing so makes the process artificial and inauthentic. There is a saying: When the student is ready the master will appear. This principle applies to the Anam Cara. There are times in our lives when we are challenged, tested and at the very point of folding someone appears to listen, to guide and counsel. The Anam Cara does not provide us with answers but his or her presence facilitates the learning process. Notable is that the Anam Cara is not a spirit guide or discarnate being. The key attribute of the Anam Cara is the power of listening and the ability to subtly guide others toward discovering their own truths.
I have been fortunate to have a number of Anam Caras and do believe that their presence in my life has accorded me the ability to experience and explore truths without criticism and condemnation.
In this audio book you guide readers through 42 confessions to the soul. Why do you think these are essential for spiritual growth?
The 42 confessions are comprehensive and pertain to every aspect of human consciousness. The principles are timless, cross-cultural and aim at developing the human spirit with virtue, righteousness and kindness.
How do you see Anam Cara working in conjunction with, or supplementing, Buddhist and Christian principles?
The Anam Cara is neither Christian nor Buddhist. In fact the Anam Cara is found in every culture and clime The Anam Cara can only strenghten the principles of the great faiths. I am here reminded of St Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises where the Anam Car is referred to as a confessor.
My next book, “In Search of Truth: A Course in Religious Psychology” will be available in March 2018. It offers incredible insights into metaphysics, philosophy, religion and spirituality. The reader is encouraged to conduct his or her own research and to challenge the various themes presented. The subjects covered will no doubt stir debate.
This essential reading teaches us how to transform our lives by showing gratitude, acceptance and forgiveness. Your Anam Cara or Soul Friend, or confessor is never is judgmental and facilitates this process by listening and listening.When we remove our psychic blockages and barriers we begin to experience the fathomless potential of our soul, the very source of creativity ad intuition. Eric Ober, media consultant and former President of CBS News, calls Anam Cara, “an inspirational book that will maximize our quality of life.”
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An Apology For Shakespeare
An Apology For Shakespeare is a humble attempt to show that there is a need of awareness about Poetry in our life.
Study of poetry and its manifold forms need to be encouraged. It voices against the negative and indifferent attitude to virtues and good qualities. This book aims to create a conscience among the people about the vanishing values and ideals from many of us. The study of classics is significant in this end as they provide much knowledge and wisdom and have grave and serious themes.
If you meet William Shakespeare all of a sudden, unexpectedly, infront of you and he is ready to talk to you, what all topics would be coming up on?
The author addresses William Shakespeare whom he considers to be one of the greatest poet of all time, He seeks help to counter the vices and he expresses his weaknesses to do the same. He tells many topics to the great Master of Arts.
Tags: An Apology For Shakespeare, art, author, authorlife, authorlove, authors, authorsofinstagram, book, book trailer, bookaholic, bookblogger, bookclub, bookgeek, bookhaul, bookish, booklovers, bookme, booknerdigans, booknookstagram, booknow, booksbooksbooks, bookshelf, booksofinstagram, bookstagram, bookstagramer, bookworm, classic, ebook, goodreads, ilovebooks, kindle, knowledge, kobo, literature, nook, novel, poem, poetry, publishing, read, reader, reading, sa joseph, shakespeare, shelfari, story, trailer, virtue, wisdom, writer, writerlife, writers, writersclub, writerscommunity, writerscommunityofinstagram, writerscorner, writing, youtube
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MarketersMEDIA / Newsroom / LaShonda Schofield’s Lead Single “Calamity” Shows the Way to True Love, Warns Against Pitfalls of Online Dating
LaShonda Schofield’s Lead Single “Calamity” Shows the Way to True Love, Warns Against Pitfalls of Online Dating
‘Calamity’ blends a harmonious mix of R&B/Soul and Trap, with catchy lyrics revealing a direct path to requited love.
November 8, 2019 — African American singer/songwriter, LaShonda Schofield has written and recorded a number of songs for herself as well as for others, but her new single ‘Calamity’ excites her just like her first recording. ‘Calamity’, the lead single of her EP project titled, “Salt and Sugar”, will be released on November 8, 2019, and the EP will be distributed around the world in Spring 2020 by her label, 3 OH! 9 Music Group, LLC.
‘Calamity’ blends a harmonious mix of R&B/Soul and Trap. The concept of ‘Calamity’ is centered around the pitfalls of online dating, and the lyrics present a cautionary tale for those who are exploring love through direct messaging and social media.
“In a melodic and catchy way, LaShonda gives the listener a clear lesson in courtship and a direct path to requited love in an effort to “kiss a queen someday” to restore the prospective lover’s chivalry and confidence. This ear candy will leave listeners 3 to 99 singing the lines, ‘...baby, baby, baby,’” said a spokesperson for 3 OH! 9 Music Group.
LaShonda Schofield is the first artist to be signed by 3 OH! 9 Music Group. 3 OH! 9 Music Group is a group of professional songwriters, producers and collaborators. They consider music an opportunity to communicate human expressions in the form of lyrics and melodies. The aim is to eventually create hits that transcend the current genres.
“Calamity” Song Credits
Written By: LaShonda Schofield, Conrad Rosser, and Christopher Rosser
Produced By: Conrad Rosser, Christopher Rosser
Publishers: 3 OH! 9 Music Publishing and Them Rosser Boys Music
Vocal Arrangement: LaShonda Schofield
Recorded By: Kingsley Adeyemi and Chris Alexander, Barron Studios, Houston, Texas
Mixed By: Shawn James, Studio 501 Atlanta, Atlanta, GA
Mastered By: Pete Novak
LaShonda Schofield is a multi-talented recording artist and professional songwriter with a collective number of songs in her catalog. As a member of ASCAP, her catalog of music transcends all genres; and includes Writing, Licensing and Artist Development, and performance. She writes songs for theatrical performances, film, and works with others where they collaborate to compose.
For more information, please visit: www.3oh9music.com
Name: Aletrice Fort
Organization: 3 OH! Music Group, LLC
Website: http://www.3oh9music.com/
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Flicker / Peter
Produced in partnership with NPR Scicommers
The brain treats questions about beliefs like physical threats. Can we learn to disarm it?
Street epistemologists are trying to give people 'the gift of doubt'
Jonathan Rydberg
Education: Science and the Public
January 11, 2018 Comment 2 peer comments
Anthony Magnabosco has an unusual interest that consumes all the time he can give to it. It’s not something he collects, nor is it something he makes. It’s something he tries to inspire in others: healthy skepticism. He calls himself a street epistemologist, and in a quest for truth, he’s trying to better his understanding of what people believe and why. "Epistemology" is a philosophically complicated subject, but it’s essentially the study of knowledge – what it is, and how it’s formed.
“I have a hobby where I chat for five minutes,” Magnabosco says. His conversations are spontaneous: people he meets while hiking, or at public universities in and around San Antonio, TX. “We select a belief that you form, that you’re sure is true, and I ask questions to see how you can be so sure.”
Magnabosco and other proponents of street epistemology claim it is a casual, ideally neutral method of questioning to determine how a person has come to accept a particular belief as true. Interestingly, science is shining a light on exactly what is happening in the brain when deeply held beliefs are challenged.
Accurate determination of what is biologically occurring when a person is examining their own beliefs could lead to a better understanding of how an idea might most effectively be challenged. In an information ecosystem that grows ever more politically siloed, such lines of study are worth pursuing.
Questions and self-defense
Jonas Kaplan is an assistant research professor of psychology at USC's Brain and Creativity Institute. He studies the human brain using fMRIs to observe how it responds to, among other stimuli, challenges to predisposed beliefs.
In a study that he and his research team published in Scientific Reports last year, they studied the scans of people undergoing simultaneous questioning, and demonstrated the physical effects that take place within the brain during periods when political beliefs were questioned.
The study uncovered a correlation: when a belief is directly challenged by new information, parts of the brain that typically show activity for physical threats expressed greater activity in people who tended to be more resistive to changing their minds.
“The brain can be thought of as a very sophisticated self-defense machine," Kaplan told me. "If there is a belief that the brain considers part of who we are, it turns on its self-defense mode to protect that belief.”
Kaplan argues that this demonstrates that the brain reacts to belief challenges in the same way that it reacts to perceived physical threats. This would help explain why minds are so resistant to change the beliefs that form one’s perception of reality.
'The gift of doubt'
In his 2013 book A Manual for Creating Atheists, philosopher Peter Boghossian of Portland State University advocates using the Socratic method to question a claim’s reliability. Boghossian told me via email that street epistemology "is a way to help people become more humble about what they think they know. It’s a method of giving the gift of doubt.”
In Magnabosco’s experience, the beliefs people choose to defend are quite varied: “I’ve talked to people about ghosts, voodoo, karma, a political issue; a lot of people pick God.”
Sometimes people choose not to engage, and there it ends. However, for many others, curiosity and the prospect of earnest inquiry gets the better of them, and they agree to a short discussion. He’s posted hundreds of these conversations on YouTube to demonstrate how perfect strangers can peaceably assess personal beliefs through conversation.
He usually begins a chat by establishing a self-reported confidence level from the interviewee (0-100) for any claim they believe to be true. Then, through intense listening, quiet pauses, and repetition to demonstrate an accurate grasp of their justifications, he begins to question the falsifiability of the claim, thus requiring the subject to account for their reasoning.
He isn’t conducting formal academic research of the effects of his conversations in preparation for official peer review. For now, it remains a hobby. His goal in recording these talks is to demonstrate to laypeople and researchers alike how effective Socratic questioning is in counteracting that ingrained human resistance to changing our minds – the hobby counterpart to Kaplan's work.
We need to arm ourselves with the ability to think critically about information we might otherwise take on faith
This is important work in the internet age when, according to the Pew Research Center, there exists not only deep (and widening) political divisions among Americans, but also evidence of ideological fractures among members within each political party. We need to be arming ourselves with the ability to think critically about information that we might otherwise consume without proper concern for who produced the content, and with what motive.
As for Magnabosco, the brain’s biological resistance to "attack" (i.e. changing personal beliefs) is no deterrent. Practicing street epistemology with members of his community has become a kind of “belief examination triage," as he puts it.
In one exchange exemplary of many others, the subject begins with total confidence of his reasoning in support of his theological positions. After discussing them for 10 minutes, Magnabosco sensed his subject had realized some flaws in his logical arguments, so he chose to end the chat to give the space to think it all over. He considers this to be a success.
Although he trudges through such discussions one interlocutor at a time – what he calls "placing pebbles in shoes" – Magnabosco does so with great enthusiasm (perhaps optimism?) of providing people with improved, effective skepticism.
I like the premise and eventual conclusion of this article. It’s tempting to think that we understand how beliefs are formed and how they can be challenged successfully. After all, this is something all of us scientists would like to be able to do: convince climate-change skeptics, anti-vaxxers, and anti-GMO activists to challenge their own beliefs.
However, I find myself (perhaps ironically) skeptical of “street epistemology” itself. As the author notes, it’s just a hobby of one man, with no studies of effectiveness – hardly a sound basis for advocating its adoption.
Similarly, the science cited in the article relies almost exclusively on fMRIs and correlation analysis. It must be noted that fMRI studies have come under increasing criticism and scrutiny recently. And it should also be made clear that fMRIs measure blood flow, not direct neural activity.
In this light I think the authors of the paper seem to overstate their rather preliminary findings. In their abstract they conclude that their results "highlight the role of emotion in belief-change resistance.” This is hardly breaking news to anyone who’s tried to change their own mind, or a friend/family member's!
I would love to see a more rigorous analysis of both ‘street epistemology’ and the neurobiology of belief-change.
Allison Fritts-Penniman
This is such an important thing to think about. I agree with Devang that more study is needed to really know what’s going on inside people’s brains when their ideology is challenged, but I think the casual street epistemology is useful too. Scientists always want to throw more science at a problem, but a controlled experiment isn’t necessarily the best way to connect with people and guide them towards being comfortable with questioning their own beliefs, especially when talking to science-deniers. Placing the conversation in the context of a scientific study could actually be counter-productive to the broader goal of changing people’s minds.
Perhaps it would be best to start with people who understand and appreciate the scientific process, yet still have beliefs that are not founded in science. Or, to go even farther- I would love to see brain scans during a conversation between scientists whose work supports opposing hypotheses, to see how people who think scientifically react to evidence that counters what they are used to seeing.
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Creationism helped push climate skepticism into classrooms
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The Palaces in Florence
Candy Blackham January 26, 2017 2 Comments
Renaissance Florence was politically and economically extraordinarily powerful and the ruling élite built suitably grand homes for themselves in the centre of the City.
The Strozzi Palace was built in the 15C for Filippo Strozzi the Elder, a political rival to the Medicis. The Palace was intended to underline the family’s status and power, and it certainly achieves that. The family also endowed the Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella.
The Strozzi Palace (middle distance)
The Strozzi Palace
The Corsini Palace facing the River Arno was built in the 17C-18C with almost unbelievable opulence. It is still privately owned.
The Palazzo Corsini
The Davanzati Palace dates to the 14C and was built and occupied by various wealthy merchant families.
The Davanzati Palace
The Davanzati Palace, coat of arms
Building work on the Antinori Palace started in the 15C and a member of the family still lives in the building. It dates to the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent and a time when Florence was a political and economic powerhouse.
The Antinori Palace
The Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni was built in the 16C and is now in private ownership.
The Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni
The Rucellai family were powerful bankers in Florence and their ‘work-live’ home reflects this power and wealth.
The Rucellai Palace
The Spini Ferroni Palace was built in the 13C for wealthy bankers, and is now home to Ferragamo – in the basement.
The Spini Feroni Palace
The facade of the Spini Feroni Palace
The Spini Ferroni Palace entrance
There are many more of these wonderful 15C buildings in Florence, all demonstrating the wealth and power of the City in the Renaissance.
CategoriesFlorence, Home, Italy
TagsCorsini, Davanzati, Florence, Palace, Renaissance, Strozzi
The Piazza della Signoria, Florence
Walking around Florence
Lucid Gypsy November 10, 2017 at 17:50
Imagine being able to see inside the ones that are being lived in!
Candy Blackham November 10, 2017 at 20:51
Thank you for visiting! I am pleased you enjoyed the posts in Florence – a wonderful city. I am currently travelling in Brittany – a magical part of France.
I would love to hear from you! Cancel reply
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Posts Tagged ‘scuba’
INAUDIBLE’S BEST OF 2010
INAUDIBLE is overjoyed to unveil his 2nd annual end of year listy list!
25. Luke Abbott – Holkham Drones (Border Community)
Norfolk England producer Luke Abbott offers up a strong selection of electronic tracks that are modest yet immediately rewarding. Similar in a way to Boards of Canada, it’s rare that music primarily composed on a computer can also move a listener emotionally, striking between the invitation to dance or the opportunity to deliberate without diluting either approach’s effect. Abbott’s songs build in linear fashion, exploring psychedelic melody and synth-fuelled beats. I guess you could call it IDM, if people are still tossing that moniker around. Either way, it’s a smooth listen that works whether you’re both bobbing your head at a party or sunk comfortably into the couch.
Fave track: “Brazil”
24. Pausal – Lapses (Barge Recordings)
Pausal are a duo from Hampshire UK, and they create warm and impressionistic ambient soundscapes. Like Stars of the Lid, Mountains, and Marsen Jules, Pausal’s music has a sense of weightlessness and calm that washes over the listener, and the result is immersive and reflective. Lapses has sailed me off to soft slumber on many a night, and greeted many a morning with me as well. Warm and welcome layers of drone that pulse subtly and beautifully.
23. Pantha du Prince – Black Noise (Rough Trade)
Hendrik Weber made a strong return this year with the follow-up to his much acclaimed This Bliss avec Black Noise and it does not disappoint. With chimes and marimba acting as aural touchstones throughout, Black Noise shows the further evolutions of Weber’s melodic-robotic dichotomy and his penchant for deep and infectious bass. And speaking of infectious, “Stick To My Side”, Weber’s collaboration with Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox will leech itself into your memory banks and have you humming and singing it for days. Weber does a great job of melding 4/4 hitters alongside of more sedate and moody tracks, and the effect is captivating.
22. Toro Y Moi – Causers of This (Carpark Records)
2010 truly was a breakout year for chillwave and glo-fi musicians. I still find these names for sub-genres absolutely ridiculous, but Chad Bundick’s debut as Toro Y Moi is a slowburn of an album that just kept growing on me until I was completely smitten. I love his use of tape-hiss loops, cheap homemade beats, familiar samples, deep bass, and voice (not for the actual lyrics but for they way he uses his voice as added layers of sound). And although there are many other artists in the genre doing relatively the same sort of thing, Causers of This was the album I returned to most throughout the year. Fun, sunny, haphazard, and guaranteed to put a smile on any a hipster’s mug.
21. Bonobo – Black Sands (Ninja Tune)
Simon Green aka Bonobo released his fourth full length album and managed to somehow breathe new life into the weary genre of “chill out” and/or “downtempo”. Black Sands is no radical departure from his earlier musical palette, but Smith incorporates his love of world sounds, great string arrangements, a little dubstep, and amazing vocals from Andreya Triana, and fills the void left in the absence of new material from The Cinematic Orchestra. Black Sands is a groove-laden album that is sexy and introspective. Perfect for romantic dinner dates at home, where after the second bottle of wine, you’re up and shaking booty in the kitchen, making room for dessert. Check it.
Fave tracks: “Stay The Same”, “Kong”, and “Animals”
20. Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma (Warp Records)
Let’s be honest here, Fly Lo’s space odyssey is pretty damn dope and sprawling and ambitious, but it just never got the heavy rotation on my stereo that Los Angeles did. I know he felt he needed to rise above the countless producers who’d been biting on his style since 1983 and Los Angeles came out, and also wanted to create an aural homage to his musical family tree, and overall I think he was successful in those two realms, but in the end his late 2010 EP Pattern+Grid World had me more excited than Cosmogramma. That said, I still think he does a helluva job meshing drum-n-bass, hip-hop, jazz, psychedelia, and house to smashing effect, but at the end of the year, it just didn’t blow my head up the way I had originally anticipated. And to be honest, I think a lot of it just sounds like Squarepusher. There I said it. I’ve somehow managed to diss one of the most creative electronic artists alive today. But let me give him props by saying I look forward to all his future evolutions, be they missteps or the right steps.
19. Beach House – Teen Dream (Sub Pop)
Baltimore’s Beach House followed up the lovely Devotion with Teen Dream and revealed the perfect evolution of their sound, adding steady drums to the mix and offering up a mature collection of groovy and sexy tunes. Victoria Legrand’s voice has never sounded stronger or more emotionally assertive. The interplay between Alex Scally’s guitar and Legrand’s keyboards is smooth, gloomy, and warrants repeat listens. “Norway”, “Take Care”, and “Lover of Mine” are my favourite tracks, and what’s perhaps most telling is that the album is a generational crossover smash, inspiring teens and seasoned adults alike. Dream pop at its finest.
18. Onra – Long Distance (All City)
Onra changes things up with Long Distance, casting aside the old world samples that became his trademark in Chinoiseries, and 1.0.8, and adopts a smooth 80′s vibe instead. I imagine it being the sound of the 1980′s New York underground, and Onra lays it on thick and chilled. Dirty funk bass, hand clap beats, soul breaks, old skoool scratching, Lionel Ritchie guitars, moments reminiscent of J.J. Fad and bad 90′s muzak, plus some great guests makes this definitely one to check out. His live show in Toronto with Buddy Sativa was a bass-heavy throwdown and a live highlight of the year for me. I love everything this man has put out and look forward to his next shit.
17. Mount Kimbie – Crooks and Lovers (Hotflush)
While not quite as absorbing and heart stopping as their earlier EP’s Maybes and Sketch on Glass, Mount Kimbie‘s full-length debut still found itself on heavy rotation in my living room this year. I just kept putting it on again and again. It’s one of those albums that you can choose to either get completely absorbed in or just have on in the background as you do your thang, and its slowed down dubstep inflect is just right. As dubstep continued to grow, Mount Kimbie were a breath of fresh air in an oversaturated genre, because the young duo have their own definitive style which makes them stand out. Seeing them play live also revealed their strengths as they chose to play without laptops and did a fantastic job of recreating their bass-laden style in front of a crowd. Dig it!
16. Beach Fossils – Beach Fossils (Captured Tracks)
Beach Fossils emerged out of the hipster muck of Brooklyn and crafted a beautiful self-titled debut album, that effortlessly played out as the soundtrack of the summer. Comparing them to the xx seems a bit of a stretch, but just as the xx’s debut was the soundtrack to the grey days of last summer, Beach Fossils’ debut plays out as a pristine pop album for your pool party on a sunny day. There’s a bit of a surf rock feel, a bit of indie rock, Halifax pop, and a touch of Joy Division, making it an incredibly easy and fun record to listen to. That said, it breaks no new ground or boundary, but it’s a definitive grower of an album and comes highly recommended for a day at the beach or with a few drinks in the backyard.
Fave tracks: “Wide Awake” and “Daydream”
15. Scuba – Triangulation (Hotflush)
Hotflush head honcho Paul Rose aka Scuba continued his label’s thrilling run with a proper full-length of fluid, melodic dubstep that sounds beautiful and aggressive in equal measure. The album flows brilliantly building on dark mood, melodicism, and grimy beats. “Three Sided Shape” works alongside the territory Burial carved out, using cavernous bass drops and haunting vocals, while “You Got Me” leads in with propulsive bass that is perfect for crowded and dark dancefloors. “Lights Out” could find itself on any Echochord release or even as an old Theorem B-side and is the perfect closing track. Scuba’s had a great year, also putting out his Sub:stance mix in the early months of 2010, which is a fantastic set and a perfect primer into the world of dubstep, bass heavy music, and Hotflush records.
14. Darkstar – North (Hyperdub)
James Young and Aiden Whalley take a bold leap forward and backward with their debut album North, and help their label Hyperdub diversify in the process. The two-step beats and funky grime you’ve come to expect from Darkstar, have been replaced with cold synth lines and dark pop vocals courtesy of James Buttery. Essentially what we have here is a synth-pop album in the style of Junior Boys, yet where Junior Boys have worn their formula ragged, hackneyed, and thin, Darkstar add new life in the genre. Early standout track “Deadness” illuminates this quite well, with smooth synth, gently processed vocals, and an amazing darkwave guitar-line coda that evokes plenty of emotion and rainy day pathos. North is an emotional album full of slick production and great vocals.
13. Foals – Total Life Forever (Sub Pop)
UK scenesters, Foals, returned with Total Life Forever, the follow-up to their 2008 debut Antidotes and offered up a softened version of their sound with a fairly mature collection of songs. The first four tracks start the album off at a great pace, mixing moments reminiscent of Talking Heads with the earlier Foals sound to great effect. “Black Gold” is my fave track on the album and reveals the band’s new found maturity when it comes to composition. “Spanish Sahara” is their breakout hit, a slow-downed, mournful seven-minuter, that blasts into a cathartic emo kick in the end. Although, it was not where I expected their sound to go, I have returned to it many times during the year, and find it packs an emotional punch, while still retaining the inherent groove of a good rock album.
12. Crystal Castles – II (Fiction)
I don’t care about any of the hype or the bad press or the douchebaggery or the hoopla, I just care about the songs. Crystal Castles’ sophomore album is punk rock electro clash awesomeness. 8-bit beats and dirty and gorgeous analogue. Their sound is slightly less abrasive and a bit more poppy here than on their debut, but I find it a solid evolution of their Aphex-inspired DIY punk rock aesthetic. Alice Glass’ vox sounds great meshed in with Ethan Kath’s haphazard yet infectious production. The album was recorded at various locations, including a church in Iceland, a cabin in northern Ontario, and an abandoned convenience store in Detroit. This adds to the DIY pulse I dig so much. They can keep pissing off whoever they like, and I’ll just keep on listening.
Fave tracks: “Suffocation” and “Violent Dreams”
11. Pawel – Pawel (Dial Records)
Pawel’s self-titled long player was years in the making, but well worth the wait, because it’s a surprisingly tight and refreshing collection of smooove tech-house beats reminiscent of Audion, Theorem, and his Dial buddies Sten and Pantha du Prince. Tracks like “Coke” and “Dawn” get things cooking with that classic Kompaktesque four on the four vibe that’ll have you up and dancing, until he slows it all down with “Mate”, a beautifully atmospheric and subdued composition marking the album’s middle. He then turns it right back up with “Muscles” and “Crillon”, the disc’s heaviest hitters, and closes shop with two excellent tracks: the emotive and pulsing “Kramnik” and the fantastic, vocally-charged, “Wasting My Time”, which may actually be the album’s highlight. Dial Records has been incredibly relevant this year and Pawel started it off just right. More please.
10. The Fun Years – God Was Like, No (Barge Recordings)
Ben Recht and Isaac Sparks, the duo that make up The Fun Years, returned this year with the follow-up to the much revered Baby It’s Cold Inside with the excellently titled God Was Like, No. From the opening minutes of this album, when the minor chord guitar begins you immediately get pulled into their world — and it’s a bleak place, full of moody drones and post-rock guitar. This is a dark album, one that sucks you in and holds you there, yet never by force, because once it starts you want to hear it through to the end.
The album is broken up into eight tracks, but the whole thing flows as one 40 minute movement into the darkest post-rock and sensorial abduction. One could argue The Fun Years sound like a slowed down, pitch dropped Mogwai circa their Come on Die Young days. However I guess more genre specific references would be Ben Frost or Fennesz — still the post-rock vibe flows throughout, and may be one reason why I love it so much. Like their debut Baby it’s Cold Inside, God Was Like, No is unsettling music, but all I can say is, as the weather’s grown colder this album’s been on steady rotation. Here’s to a frozen and bleak next couple of months…
9. The Green Kingdom – Prismatic (Home Assembly)
Michael Cottone has been quietly making music under The Green Kingdom moniker since 2006, and with each release he further refines his brand of introspective ambient bliss. Cottone skillfully uses digitally enhanced acoustic guitar, strings, bells, and a myriad of samples and field recordings to create his compositions. Within his arrangements, melody and space work in tandem in an attempt to manifest what Cottone has called an “optimistic nostalgia” for the listener — an aural experience that can provide a momentary reprieve from the frenetic, fast-paced world that surrounds us. And indeed his music is perfect for contemplative mornings and quiet evenings, where the vibe is to “slow down” and to “reflect”. Prismatic is one of the finest ambient albums of 2010, and a prime example of electronic and organic sounds working together so effortlessly. Fans of Helios, Nest, The Boats, Kiln, and Susumu Yokota should check out The Green Kingdom immediately.
Fave tracks: “Wetlands” and “Radiance Reflected”
8. Local Natives – Gorilla Manor (Frenchkiss)
Local Natives appeared on the scene early in 2010, and at year’s end feel as if they’ve been around for years. Upon first listen, their influences seemed a little too apparent. They sounded a bit like Fleet Foxes, a bit like Grizzly Bear, with a touch of Pinback and Band of Horses — but after a few more spins, one quickly realizes Gorilla Manor possesses a dark, spiraling beauty. The band is perfectly capable of delivering big anthems strong on memorable hooks — the likes of “Shape Shifter” and brilliant opener “Wide Eyes” are sure to swim around the listener’s head for days. The rhythm section is tight, the guitars interweave wonderfully, yet the young band’s best asset are their strong and varied vocal talents. Quieter tracks like “Cards and Quarters”, “Cubism Dream”, and “Who Knows Who Cares” reveal their voices best, remind me of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and offer up some lovely and emotional hooks.
Seeing them live made me appreciate their debut even more, as they presented their songs without a hint of pretension or rock-star attitude. They were just five young dudes having a fucking blast on their first headlining tour, and they played an amazingly tight set. In the end, Gorilla Manor is no classic — it’s still too indebted to its makers’ influences for that. But it is a strong, striking debut that exceeds expectations and should open enough doors for the band to ensure that their second album be one of the most anticipated records of the year. Lovely.
7. Nest – Retold (Serein)
Otto Totland, one half of neo-classicist duo Deaf Center, teamed up with Serein label head Huw Roberts and released Retold, a subtle masterpiece in piano-based ambience. Even on first listen, this record excels on every level as a piece of cinematic, modern classical composition. Each song is slow and deliberate evoking mood and solitary wonder. Using piano as the cornerstone for each song, samples, and strings are gently meshed to startling result. “Trans Siberian” features the distant blare of a locomotive, wintry drones, fractured strings, and what sounds like drops of rain hitting a piece of paper and the crackle of a fire, as it swirls moodily along. Retold is truly a special album and one that you must discover for yourself, as it grows with each successive listen and yet always sounds fresh. I’ve returned to this album time and time again, and consider it the finest in the genre of modern-classical released this year.
6. Wild Nothing – Gemini (Captured Tracks)
I’ve really loved the indie pop 80’s revival that has been becoming more and more prominent in the last year or so, and no one does it better than Virginia native, Jack Tatum, the man behind Wild Nothing. So often in these cases, where bands are attempting to sound like the heroes of their youth, I end up saying to myself, well shit, I’d really just rather listen to The Smiths or New Order, than some dudes who are trying to sound like them. But with Wild Nothing, even though his influences are startlingly apparent, there’s still something riveting about it. Because after I recognize the outside influence on a track (The Smiths, Cocteau Twins, The Cure, New Order, Belle and Sebastian, et al.), I forget about it and it becomes all Wild Nothing.
Gemini and the recently released Golden Haze EP are pure pop genius. Tatum possesses a keen ear for melody and composition and plays the bass just as well as the guitar. Chugging and veering basslines in “Confirmation”, “The Witching Hour”, and “Your Rabbit Feet” from Golden Haze carry the tracks from really good to fucking awesome. His guitar work is also worth mentioning as he tends to use two weaving guitar lines accentuated by synth and he uses distortion and reverb to great effect.
The fact that Tatum plays all the instruments on the album, allows him to always stick to his musical vision, and also reveals his uncanny ability to write songs that stick in your head but never get stale. I’ve listened to Gemini so many goddamn times this year it’s embarassing, and yet I keep going back again and again. “Pessimist”, “Chinatown” and “The Witching Hour” are fantastic pop songs that everyone should have stuck in their heads. I look forward to new material in the coming year, as well as, his first live show in Toronto in February. Shoegazers unite!
5. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Def Jam)
I have a lot of guilty pleasures when it comes to mainstream music. Rihanna: Love her. Aaliyah: Would’ve died for her. Katy Perry: Secret shame. Usher? Craig David? Justin Timberlake? Jay-Z? They’ve been known to set me off as I get ready to go out for the night. I can’t help it. I grew up listening to cheesy pop music and bad R&B, so how can I turn it off now? I cannot and I will not.
Now, I’ve always had a soft spot for Kanye West. Ever since College Dropout came out you could occasionally find me blasting his tunes, learning his weak rhymes, and dancing to his ever slick production. And even though with each release he was becoming more and more a caricature of himself in the media, his music kept getting stronger and stronger. The man is a sponge, sucking up influences from all over and he’s got the money to make it happen. When I moved from Montreal to New Brunswick, Late Registration was my soundtrack, and when I left NB to move to Toronto, it was Graduation that I was playing as my outro from the Maritimes.
Flash forward to 2010. Kanye’s media attack has really been nothing short of brilliant. From his impromptu a-capella rap at Facebook HQ, to his “Power” it’s not a video it’s a painting, to his incessant Tweets, to his 30 minute beautifully shot, terribly acted, yet no less captivating short film, “Runaway”. And with each one of these media plugs he slowly gave us tastes and snippets of his new opus, and in the process he effectively sucked me in.
The excitable folks over at Pitchfork decided to give Fantasy a perfect 10, and while it’s a far cry from a perfect album, it is still one of the most exciting listens of the year. “All of the Lights” is an absolute banger, that is so undeniably thrilling I truly cannot believe it. The second half of “Runaway” reveals some of the most innovative work written with Auto-tune thus far. “So Appalled” is fucking ridiculous but I still love it. Opener “Dark Fantasy” features a perfect hip-hop beat and helps us all find bravery in our bravado. “Lost in the World” with Bon Iver is an amazing crossover hit and a fitting closer. And overall, the album plays out smooove from start to finish. Truly, the “Runaway” short film helped make this album what it is — its viewers craved the best moments of the album before it was released, and it revealed Yeezy is more than just a musician, he really is an “artist”, even if he has an entire team of people helping him become one.
At the end of the day, I don’t care, yo. I still love this album.
To paraphrase CyHi Da Prynce from the album: “If God had an iPod, Ye’d be on his playlist.”
4. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs (Merge Records)
The Suburbs is an album that blossoms a bit more with each successive listen, and one that is full of dynamic and proper indie rock songs that subtly recall your favourite musicians from the last 30 years. A small list: The Boss, The Beatles, The Byrds, The Who, The Doors, Heart, Cyndi Lauper, U2, Yo La Tengo, Broken Social Scene, Bon Iver, David Byrne, oh yeah, and Arcade Fire. It is an amazingly calculated and mature collection of songs that immediately churns up a strong sense of nostalgia and emotion. But for this listener, the reason The Suburbs is such a genuine winner, and the reason it rests near the top of my list for 2010, is the lyrics. They really resonate with me.
I am unsure if a twenty-year old listener would feel the same way, but I wonder: what contemporary album has had lyrics that actually, truly speak to my generation? “A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido?” I think not. The Suburbs is the Nevermind of twenty years later, where we no longer want to oh well, whatever, nevermind — now what we want to do is remember the past, and take hold of all the stupid mistakes and amazing strides we made to get to exactly where we happen to be now. To reflect on the past and laugh and shake it all off and keep on keeping on whatever good paths we’ve set for our futures…
“Month of May”, “Ready to Start” and “We Used to Wait” are solid and tight rockers that you can blast in your living room and get swept away in. “Modern Man” and “Rococo” are also great songs with strong lyrics, and “The Suburbs”, “Deep Blue”, “Suburban War”, “Sprawl I / II” pack the emotional wallops with tight changes and great orchestral accompaniment to boot. And then the lyrics of the end reprise sums it all up beautifully:
If I could have it back
All the time that we wasted
I’d only waste it again
You know I’d love to waste it again
Waste it again and again and again
3. Ben Swire – From Here to There (Preservation Records)
San Francisco based musician Ben Swire came out of nowhere this year and released the gorgeous From Here to There — a sweeping album of enveloping ambience and thoughtfully processed acoustic instrumentation. Swire skillfully weaves electronic elements, field recordings, and conventional instruments (guitar, bass, percussion) into fluid, meticulously arranged set-pieces that retain an experimental edge without losing sight of musicality and melodicism.
There’s a jazz motif and a minimal techno pulse that runs throughout the album as well, making it by far the smoothest album of the year for me. From Here to There has been my soundtrack to writing essays for school, studying, reading, waking, sleeping, long walks, trudging streetcar rides, and more. It’s an album that defies defintion, being moody, dark, light, airy, and carrying a strong pulse and steady rhythm throughout. Not surprisingly, it is my most listened to album of the year according to my computer’s playlist, and one that will continue to be played wholeheartedly in 2011. L’amour it!
2. Autechre – Oversteps / Move of Ten (Warp Records)
In honour of the fact that Autechre have been making robots dance for two decades, Rob Brown and Sean Booth released twenty new tracks in 2010 split onto two separate albums, both just as equally captivating and haunting. Oversteps and Move of Ten are melodic and strangely emotive records that emit far different sonic vibrations than the duo’s last three full-lengths.
There’s no conscious way one can fully understand the compositional mind of Autechre, you just put them on and know that patience will reward. But with their new work, the duo’s vibe will immediately pull you in and have you convinced machines must feel love before Oversteps opener “r ess” is done. Their signature klings, klangs, and syncopated rhythms are in full effect here, and with repeated listens they become infectious, full of darkened corners strobed with light. Autechre is one of the reasons I fell in love with electronic music in the first place. Tri Repetae, along with Music Has the Right from Boards and Aphex’s Richard D. James album (the Warp trifecta), effectively helped foster my love of electronic music, and helped me push the boundaries of my own musical pallette. Music need not be linear or have build-ups and crescendoes, it just needed to eke out emotion, and somehow Autechre’s always been able to do that for me, even though their methods have been completely methodical and computer-based.
Years ago, Jake Mandell put out an album entitled Love Songs for Machines, and with Oversteps and Move of Ten, Autechre have truly done exactly that. Two decades of pushing the boundaries of composition and leaving hundreds of copycat artists in their wake, none even remotely close to them in style and execution and fear and emotion.
Both Oversteps and Move of Ten are not beat heavy albums at all, in fact the tempo is more subdued and textured throughout, which reveals a definite maturation of the duo’s sound and synthesis. As usual, both albums are not the easiest of listens, yet will reward the patient listener and become much more than just the sum of their parts, in fact they become Autechre’s strongest output in half a decade. Furthermore, in many ways Autechre have put out homages to the other heroes of the Warp trifecta — “nth Dafuseder.b” sounds very much like a BoC track, while “M62” could have been mined from Aphex’s archives. Still, their strongest tracks are ones that are abstract and build on the strange digital emotion they are able to pull out of the wireless air. Tracks like “O=0”, “see on see”, and “iris was a pupil”, reveal this the best.
I hope to see Autechre on my top list again in another decade, and wonder if their music will have morphed into an inaudible sensation that one experiences remotely from space. Thank you Ae and Warp for twenty years of groovy mindfuck. More please. New Boards in 2012 is my friend Mat’s call. Let’s hope we make it there.
1. Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz (Asthmatic Kitty)
I was really quite surprised not to see this album on many top lists this year. I wonder if Sufjan had instead released a sprawling opus to Massachusetts or Wisconsin or Texas and stuck to his earlier indie-rock sensibility and sensitivity if this album wouldn’t be resting high on the top of the big lists this year. But alas, it is not, and I can only believe it is because listeners didn’t give it enough of a chance. And to be sure, I remember feeling overwhelmed and spent after my first complete listen of The Age of Adz. Like the title of the album’s second track, it really felt like “too much” — but I knew it was full of magic and amazing production and uncompromising emotion on a grand scale. And so I kept listening.
The new material from Adz is above and beyond anything Sufjan has produced thus far, mixing folk, electronica, pop, cinematic orchestra and indie rock, and filtering it all through the sensibilities of a Broadway musical. Its production value is what makes it a challenge, as it’ll take a few listens for you to take it all in, but what makes it brilliant is that by the second listen, you’ll already find the melodies glued to your brain. You’ll wake up humming the chorus to “I Walked” and end up singing the coda of “Vesuvius” in the shower. The repetitive nature of the lyrics and the simple melodies hidden under the surface makes Adz a highly accessible album, yet some may still find it too “electronic” or “layered” for their tastes, but for me I couldn’t have asked for a better amalgamation of my ear’s favourite things — electronic production smashed together with perfect pop melodies.
The album is book-ended brilliantly, beginning with “Futile Devices”, Sufjan alone with his guitar, pulling at your heartstrings immediately, before the album veers off into more abstract territory. At the end of the 25-minute “Impossible Soul”, the old Sufjan resurfaces out of the esoteric splendour, and closes the album alone again with just his voice and guitar. In five minutes out of seventy, he effortlessly reveals he is still one of the finest singer-songwriter’s out there, with the uncanny ability to make you want to cry, yet cheer for the future. But he has bigger aspirations, and no longer needs to write an album full of emotive ballads anymore.
Highlights for me are “Get Real Get Right”, “Vesuvius”, Too Much” and “Impossible Soul”. “Impossible Soul” is my favourite song of the year, as it embraces and exploits practically every genre of the last fifty years — from 60′s rock to Disney-esque orchestra to hip-hop to techno to simple folk. What other song features a raunchy guitar solo, an inspirational sing-a-long, and some kick ass Autotune? And more importantly, what other song smashes all these genres together and does it so effectively? I’ve yet to find any other.
My attempt to describe this album falls way short of articulating the true grandeur of what occurs throughout the span of the record. His live show was the best concert of the year for me, just as The Age of Adz is my favourite album. It’s not an album I can put on at any time of the day or night, but it’s one that will be played time and again for the rest of my life. Give it a real listen and discover its beauty.
Yes! I made it to the fucking end!
HONORABLE AUDIBLES
Loscil – Endless Falls (Kranky)
Marc Houle – Drift (Minus Records)
Pop Ambient 2010 (Kompakt Records)
Donato Dozzy – K (Further Records)
Erik K Skodvin – Flare (Sonic Pieces)
The Besnard Lakes are The Roaring Night (Jagjaguwar)
Oneohtrix Point Never – Returnal (Editions Mego)
Ikonika – Contact, Love, Want, Have (Hyperdub)
Shed – The Traveller (Ostgut Ton)
The Chap – Well Done Europe (Lo Recordings)
The Sight Below – It All Falls Apart (Ghostly International)
R.I.P. Jay Reatard (1980-2010)
Thanks for reading everyone!
Tags:albums 2010, arcade fire the suburbs, ben swire, best albums of 2010, best of 2010, black noise, bonobo, causers of this, cosmogramma, darkstar north, flying lotus, foals total life forever, gorilla manor, green kingdom, hotflush records, indie rock, kanye west, local natives, luke abbott, luke abbott holkham drones, my beautiful dark twisted fantasy, ninja tune, onra, oversteps, pantha du prince, pausal, pausal lapses, pawel dial records, prismatic, scuba, scuba triangulation, serein records, sub pop, sufjan steven the age of adz, sufjan stevens, teen dream, the age of adz, the fun years, toro y moi
Posted in electronica, hip hop, music | 10 Comments »
Elsewhere on the Interwebs
INAUDIBLE has expanded a touch as of late and is now writing music reviews for Juno Records. Click on the album covers to check ’em out. The Scuba mix is dope and the new Pantha du Prince is fucking fantastique!
Scuba – Sub:stance Pantha du Prince
I also had the pleasure of doing an interview with Rameses III and reviewed the band’s latest album “I Could Not Love You More” for Headphone Commute. Click on the cover to magically take you there. And thanks for reading everyone.
Rameses III
Tags:black noise, headphone commute, juno records, mmmlele, pantha du prince, rameses iii, reviews, rough trade, scuba, scuba substance, sub:stance, type records
Posted in electronica, music, Words | 3 Comments »
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PC Mag Middle East | Consumer Electronics | HDTVs & Home Theater | News
Eyes On: Philips 9 m01F OLED TV With Ambilight
Sept. 3, 2016, noon
Philips' first OLED TV is a stunner that projects ambient light on the walls around it.
Philips' first entry in the OLED TV world tries to be much bigger than a 55-inch set. Yes, it's a 55-inch, 4K screen, known as the 901F and coming to market in the fourth quarter. Philips adds Ambilight to the mix here, though. That's the company's proprietary edge-lighting system, which uses three sets of LEDs to spill the TV's image onto the wall around it. We got a look at it at IFA.
The 901F is a complete system. The TV itself is almost bezel-less, with a very minimal frame and a relatively generic silver stand. The most notable visual element is the 30W soundbar below it, which has very noticeable drivers visible through the silvery grille. I didn't really get to hear it, because trade shows are noisy. The TV uses Philips' Android TV platform, with a quad-core processor running various over-the-top video services and games.
SEE ALSO: Huawei to Launch the P9 Limited Edition at IFA 2016
But the key element, of course, is the screen and the lights around it. The 55-inch OLED panel hits all the marks: It's an LG OLED (like the Editors' Choice LG Signature OLED65G6P), with an excellent color gamut and terrific viewing angles. The Ambilight 3 lights around the sides and top of the back of the set match the colors in whatever image is being shown on the screen, giving your room an eerie, atmospheric glow. Ambilight also has modes for music playback and room mood lighting; the music mode can pulse the lights with the beat of the music.
If you haven't seen Ambilight before, it's pleasantly creepy and, after a few minutes, addictive. It's really for people who want to watch their sets in dark rooms, though; the more ambient light you have around Ambilight, the more it's wasted.
Philips didn't say whether this TV will come to the US, but we hope it does. The initial price is being widely reported to be around $4,000.
HDTVs & Home ...
IFA Berlin
LG Signature OLED65G6P
Report: Facebook Developing New Streaming Video App for TVs
'OK, Google' Arrives on Vizio TVs, Speakers
TV Gimmicks Are Dead. 2017 Is the Year of Real Next-Gen Television
Samsung Teases Smart Toys, New TV Features
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Gold Like Tears
Author: Zimraphel
Nominator: unknown
2004 Award Category: Times: The Silmarillion - First Place
Story Type: Other Fiction ✧ Length: unknown
Rating: PG-13 ✧ Reason for Rating: N/A
Summary: Spanning three Ages, the story of an ill-starred golden bead as it passes from one hand to the next.
Review scores are not available for 2004.
Reviewed by: Viv ✧ Score: N/A
"It was like embracing the moon." Gah. Nothing I can say in a review will do this story justice, so I'll just ramble on here a while until I can collect coherent thoughts. First, the physical doohickie of the bead: thank you, thank you for choosing something so unique and unassuming. Not a ring. Not a sword. Not a jewel. In fact, it's such a simple yet representative thing, Tolkien would probably approve. Like Tolkien's simple golden ring, this bit of gold grows more sinister as the story progresses, and by the end, it seemed to spell certain doom, even if it were given in love. Definitely both unsettling and touching.
Reviewed by: Thundera Tiger ✧ Score: N/A
Wonderful and chilling little tale. Tolkien has made a few references to the Morgoth element in various works, and while I'm not sure this is an example of that phenomenon, it certainly brought it to mind along with all its implications. And that's what really makes this story work, I think. One little token (in this case, a bead) holds so much meaning and history and grief. It shows up and the entire scene darkens. It becomes a character in its own right, and it holds its own in scenes that include the likes of Elrond, Elros, Glorfindel, Aragorn, and Arwen.
Reviewed by: Ainaechoiriel ✧ Score: N/A
Oh what sad little beads. I didn't recognize Glorfindel in the first chapter, though I suspected, and I was very glad to see Voronwe in the second though sad to once again see Glorfindel dead. Ondello went with us to the next chapter, passing the remaining bead to Elros, who carries it to the next chapter and passes it to Elrond back to Glorfindel and then to Arminas, unknowingly. And still unknowingly, Arminas recasts it into a brooch which Aragorn delivers to Arwen. I like that not only the bead passes from one chapter to the next, but a person does as well. Form follows plot. Very cool. And perhaps Glorfindel was right. Sadness followed that little bead.
Reviewed by: ElenaTiriel ✧ Score: N/A
Ah, Zimraphel, I loved this story the first time I read it, and I still love it. The golden bead is so full of portents and sadness, yet is such a thing of beauty and craftsmanship (craftsElfship?) to delight all who see it. The line of griefs that follows it throughout the years tug at my heart: Glorfindel losing his brother, then his own life; the loyalty and devotion of Ondollo, who comforts Glorfindel and later dies protecting Elrond and Elros; and the separations of Elrond and Elros, Elrond and Celebrían, Elrond and Arwen and Estel. This tale, like the Silmarillion, is too fraught with grief to read, yet too involving to stay away...
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news | Jan 8, 2018
California's Cannabis Distribution Network May Not Be Able to Meet the Demand for Legal Weed
Despite these concerns, California regulators believe that the cannabis industry will survive these growing pains.
by Chris Moore | news | Jan 8, 2018
Recreational cannabis sales in California are off to a strong start, but some industry insiders are concerned that the state's cannabis distribution infrastructure may not be able to support the high demand for legal weed. "There's going to be huge bottleneck in the distribution network in California at some point," Terry Blevins, co-owner of a SoCal cannabis distribution company, told The Washington Post. Blevins said that he doesn't "believe there are enough businesses to handle" the billions of dollars of product the industry is projected to move this year.
The cannabis industry in California was largely unregulated for years, and dispensaries were able to make simple, private arrangements with cultivators and processors to deliver their product. Now, cannabis products can only be transported by licensed distributors, and some industry experts are concerned that a dearth of distributors could leave cultivators with products rotting in their warehouses and dispensaries without stock to sell. A similar situation occurred in Nevada last year, when unprecedented demand for legal weed left dispensaries' shelves barren within days of the start date of legal sales.
Under California's new recreational cannabis regulations, distributors are tasked with more responsibilities than their counterparts in other canna-legal states. Not only do they have to safely transport cannabis from cultivators to processors and dispensaries, they also must ensure that these products are lab-tested for safety. Additionally, distributors must collect state excise taxes from retailers and cultivation taxes from growers.
Despite these concerns, Lori Ajax, chief of the California Bureau of Cannabis Control, believes that the recreational cannabis industry is robust enough to survive these growing pains. Ajax told The Washington Post that state regulators will ensure that distributor licenses are kept widely available, so that new distributors can jump into the market if necessary. "I'm feeling pretty good that we are going to be OK," Ajax said.
BusinesspoliticsLegalizationcaliforniabusinessdispensariesmedical marijuanalegalization
Chris Moore is a New York-based writer who has written for Mass Appeal while also mixing records and producing electronic music.
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mrschristine.com
234. The Guard
Title: The Guard Director: John Michael McDonagh Year: 2011 Run time: 1hr 36
Things that attracted me to this movie: It’s set in Ireland, it looks kinda fun, it’s short.
1:51 - Ireland is so pretty. 3:16 - This film is made in association with a lot of people and I’ve not heard of any of them except the UK Film Council. 5:47 - “The significance of the pot plant has me somewhat perplexed.” 14:34 - It looks very cold though, it’s nice he has a big warm police coat. 17:32 - What kind of rubbish slide system is it that he has to say next each time!? 23:30 - Applying for the post of International Drug Trafficker. I wonder what that job interview is like. 25:26 - Some call him rude, others would say honest. Actually, probably only he would call it honest. 27:37 - Ooh, that is a nice dressing gown. 29:26 - His front door slides, rather than opens. 33:28 - “Why do you keep repeating everything I say?” 40:04 - Didn’t take him long being in Ireland to start hitting the Guinness. 41:47 - It’s like RoboCop. He got “whacked” on his first day too. 42:45 - He’s hard enough to understand sober, I do not enjoy this drunkenness! 46:12 - “Big map, people pointing, it must be important.” 51:23 - Why is the FBI’s Behavioural Science unit so famous? 56:59 - Milkshake headache!! 1:02:08 - They keep putting the bad guys in beautiful and peaceful locations. 1:06:23 - Is it sugar cubes that he keeps eating? That’s quite gross. 1:12:52 - Running with the bulls is definitely not on my bucket list. 1:16:03 - That kid is always around! 1:17:03 - New interesting job interview: henchman. 1:23:43 - He really is a good shot. 1:28:20 - I am enjoying all these Irish names in the credits.
I quite liked it, which comes as a surprise to me because in the first few minutes I wondered what I’d let myself in for. There’s plenty of stuff that goes against the grain, and all the characters drop the F-word ever three seconds, and that’s only once you get in the zone and start understanding what they’re saying. But, it was laugh out loud funny in places, had a great cast of characters and a good ending. Plus, it made me want to go to Ireland again.
My gut instinct tells me this film is a 3 out of 5, but the scene with the milkshake is worth a whole point in itself.
**Rating: **4⁄5
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© Copyright 2002-2019 Christine Blachford. All rights reserved.
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Industry says prioritize business; Doctors say calculate future cost in hearing on sale of flavored nicotine
A Girl Scout troop, a pastor, a pediatrician and a state epidemiologist this week asked the Multnomah County Board of Health to restrict the sale of flavored nicotine, all in the name of improving public health.
Girl Scouts as the Board to restrict the sale of flavored nicotine products
Tobacco retailers and lobbyists, meanwhile, claimed they were the real public health victims. Poor parenting is to blame for the rise in teens who vape and use flavored tobacco, retailers said, recommending the Board charge youths for possessing tobacco rather than pass a sales restriction that retailers worry could harm their bottom lines.
“To those who blame us for their children's behavior or bad habits, I say, ‘Shame on you for the poor job you’re doing raising your children’,” said Rafa Hazza, owner of Vape Spot. “Teach them what’s wrong for right.”
More than 50 people testified the evening of Dec. 3, during a second public hearing on a proposal to restrict the sale of flavored nicotine products. The first hearing was Nov. 13. No future hearings are scheduled, but people can still submit written comments online.
The Board is considering a number of options including restricting sales of:
Flavored e-liquids
Flavored tobacco including menthol cigarettes
All flavored nicotine products
All flavored nicotine products with a carve-out for adult-only businesses.
Eric Pinnell, owner of the Lane County shop Oregon Vape Society, said he relies on his own approach to parenting to keep his kids from taking up smoking or vaping. “I tell my daughter, ‘If I catch you, community service will be your life,’” he said Tuesday. “I raise my child, and now I’m being punished because other parents aren’t raising their children.”
Janna Collingwood, who works at Vape Spot in Portland, said the County should support a policy of harm reduction rather than abstinence. Teens are going to do things we don’t want them to do, she said. “We believe in harm reduction not abstinence. Abstinence doesn’t work,” she said.
The Board is considering whether to restrict the sale of flavored nicotine products.
Jason Weber owns e-liquid manufacturer Vape Crusaders in southern Oregon and sells to stores in Multnomah County. He said he prepares flavors including birthday cake. But he creates them for adults, he said.
“We are the truth tellers,” he told the Board. “We’re the public health victims.”
Paul Bates, owner of Division Vapor, told the Board they should know his name. After all, he said, he’s sued the state twice — first for adopting rules prohibiting e-liquids from depicting images or words that might appeal to minors, and again after Gov. Kate Brown declared a moratorium on the sale of flavored vaping liquids in the face of a vape-related lung illness that has caused two deaths in Oregon.
“I want to ask how you want to be remembered,” he said. He likened restrictions of nicotine to the War on Drugs, and chided the Board for considering a rule aimed at keeping teens healthy that would limit some choices for adults.
He asked why the Board wanted to restrict sales, anyway. “To protect the children?” he asked. “It doesn’t work.”
Research suggests, however, that sales restrictions do work. Consider:
The nation saw a drop in the probability of youth smoking and number of cigarettes smoked after the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which banned flavors (except menthol) in cigarettes.
Following enforcement of a flavored tobacco ban in Providence, Rhode Island, high school students’ e-cigarette use decreased 7 percent.
Lowell, Massachusetts, logged a 70 percent drop in availability of flavored tobacco products, a 5.7 percent drop in the use of flavored products by teens and a 6.2 percent drop in non-flavored tobacco products by teens just six months after restricting sales of flavored tobacco products, compared to a city that did not restrict sales of flavors.
In New York City, sales of flavored tobacco products among teens, and the odds that teens had ever used either a flavored tobacco product or any tobacco product, declined significantly after enforcement of a ban began in November 2010.
Business First
Many store owners asked the Board to prioritize business interests over public health concerns. Maher Makboul, owner of Mak’s Mini Mart, said he’s been in business since 1980, but that regulations are making his work more difficult.
“We work our tails off to make sure we don’t sell to kids. We are there for adults,” he told the Board. “With so much stuff, from taxes to licenses to fees, it’s becoming hard to do business in the City of Portland.”
“We are responsible retailers,” said Doug Peterson, a convenience store owner who said 22 employees depend on him for their income. “Think about the economic impact.”
Vape shop owner Paul Bates, left, tells Board not to restrict sale of flavored e-liquids.
Daniel Layme, a lobbyist for the tobacco industry, including U.S. Smokeless Tobacco and the distributor Republic Tobacco LP, argued restricting sales in one county will simply be a boon for neighboring counties. “If you want to ban flavors of tobacco, let's ban all flavors attractive to youth,” he said, including liquor and marijuana.
“Let’s ban them all,” he said. “It levels the playing field.”
Carve out a caveat
Some industry representatives asked the Board to exclude their businesses from any restrictions on sales.
Art Way traveled to Oregon to represent R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, maker of Newport, the leading brand of menthol cigarettes. He asked the Board not to include menthol in any sales restriction. “The primary question is whether a ban is more beneficial than targeted public education,” he said. “When it comes to menthol, I don’t think it’s more beneficial.”
Cam Dekany, general manager of 82nd Ave Tobacco & Pipe, asked the Board to carve out an exemption for adult-only shops like his.
“No way anyone is going to find a bag of pipe tobacco in their high schooler’s backpack,” he said.
John Hill of the Oregon Cigar Association recommended that if teens are caught using nicotine, government should charge those teens with a violation instead of punishing the store that sold the product. Regardless, he said, teens don’t use pipes or premium cigars.
“For Pete’s sake, leave premium cigars and pipe smoke out of it,” he said.
But an analysis of compliance records from Multnomah County tobacco retailers shows that adult-only stores actually have a higher rate of selling illegally to minors than the County average.
While one-in-four tobacco retailers have failed at least one inspection since the state’s legal minimum sales age law went into effect, nearly one-in-three vapes shops have failed, while 40 percent of the County’s 12 cigar bars and smoke shops have failed.
Consider future costs
Parents, doctors, health officials and community leaders asked the Board to consider more than the immediate cost to businesses that may be required to curb sales. The future cost to government will be far higher if industry continues to cultivate a new generation of nicotine addicts.
“Tobacco accounts for $3 billion in healthcare costs and lost productivity in Oregon alone,” said Christopher Friend, a lobbyist for the American Cancer Society, which has strongly encouraged governments to restrict the sale of all flavored nicotine products.
Friend also noted that some industry leaders now offering support for Oregon’s Tobacco 21 law Tuesday had actually opposed it when it was passed in 2018 — also out of fear for their bottom lines.
“Many business owners were in Salem saying T-21 would put them out of business,” he said. “They’re making the same argument here tonight.”
Djimet Dogo, right, director of Africa House, asks Board to restrict sale of flavored nicotine products.
Djimet Dogo, director of Africa House at the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization, said African refugee youth are becoming addicted to nicotine because they think vaping is safe.
“They don’t know anything about vaping,” he said. “They see this little shiny thing you can plug into your laptop, and they’re told by peers that it doesn’t have tobacco, it won’t cause health issues.”
Among the teens who turned out Tuesday was Emma Cady, a senior at Beaverton High School and a member of the anti-smoking teen advocacy group Rebels with a Cause.
“I have seen classmates Juul in class. These small and easily accessible products are taking over teens’ lives,” she said. “We need to start speaking about the harmful effects of these products on our bodies.”
Four sixth-graders from Girl Scout Troop 40357 echoed those concerns.
“We think we should ban flavors in e-cigarettes,” said Gabriella, one of the Scouts.
“Companies say they don’t market to kids,” said troop member Alexi, but she said they make flavors like strawberry, cherry and watermelon — the same tasty flavors kids get in their multivitamins.
Emme, another Scout, held up a Ziploc bag with 12 DumDum lollipops, each one sharing a flavor with an e-liquid.
“Please, for our generation, ban flavors on vaping products,” she said.
School teacher Michael Choppie Grice applauded the courage of the youth who spoke Tuesday. “Their voice is very authentic,” he said. “Our kids are targeted, and more vulnerable than business owners here.”
Shon Neyland, the senior pastor at Highland Christian Center, said he also supports restrictions on the sale of flavored products.
“Oregon is getting in line and doing the right thing,” he said. “I do have sympathy for those retailers. However, we must take into consideration the lives of the children. It is time for us to make the change before more lives are lost.”
Dr. Dean Sidelinger, a health officer and epidemiologist with the Oregon Health Authority, rebutted industry arguments that e-cigarettes help people quit tobacco. Data is mixed on whether e-cigarettes help people quit. In Oregon, more than half of those who took up vaping to quit smoking now do both.
In fact, he told the Board, no e-cigarette company has even tried to get their product approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a smoking cessation device.
“People should have access to safe, effective ways to quit nicotine addiction,” he said, “E-cigarettes are not an evidence-based way to quit tobacco, and they are not free.”
Sidelinger encouraged residents to visit the Oregon Tobacco Quit Line for free cessation counseling and FDA-approved medications.
“When someone who uses tobacco enters a store and sees a massive display, that is a direct trigger for their addiction, leading to unplanned purchases, cigarette cravings and a lower likelihood of quit-success,” he said. “We can create environments that are less triggering and more supportive in our communities, and Multnomah County’s proposed ban on flavored tobacco products is a significant step in that direction.”
Health risks of flavored tobacco, vaping liquids
More than 80 percent of youth who have ever used tobacco report they started with a flavored product. Comment on a proposal to stop sales.
Public Comment on flavored tobacco restriction
The Board of Health seeks public comment on Public Health recommendations to restrict the sale of flavored tobacco and vaping products.
Restrict sale of flavored tobacco products — including menthol — health officials ask Board of Commissioners
Board seeks public comment at public hearings, online
County to consider ban on flavored tobacco, limiting tobacco sales near schools
The Public Health Advisory Board also asked Commissioners to prioritize healthy food, safe streets
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Theatre Journal
Waiting for Godot (review)
Michael Y. Bennett
10.1353/tj.0.0308
Purchase/rental options available:
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Waiting for Godot. By Samuel Beckett. Directed by Anthony Page. Roundabout Theatre Company, Studio 54, New York City. 11 April 2009.
Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot has had two labels firmly placed upon it: absurd and existential. But this particular production of the play raised two key questions: How can existentialism be so funny? How can seeming despair leave one in such a good mood? Anthony Page’s Waiting for Godot made every attempt to obliterate the existential and absurd overtones normally associated with the play. In other words, in this production, the play was neither an existential cry from the abyss nor a meditation on despair, any hint of which was removed by peels of laughter. Philosophy was no consolation; consolation took the form of diversion, especially with friends. Page removed the tragic from the tragicomedy through casting, staging, and by emphasizing Estragon’s joyful pronouncements over Vladimir’s forlorn comments. The comic components not only undermined the existential and absurd elements often read into this play, but also changed the dynamics between Estragon and Vladimir: Vladimir was not the wise philosopher who guided the two; instead, it was Estragon’s joy and fun-loving nature that kept them going.
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Roundabout Theatre Company’s Waiting for Godot. (Photo: Joan Marcus.)
The casting of three prominent comedians—Nathan Lane, John Goodman, and Bill Irwin—pushed Page’s production in the direction of comedy. Nathan Lane played Nathan Lane reading Estragon; in other words, as is typical of much of Lane’s work, he acted Estragon as a lovable, loud buffoon, whose physical gestures and movement were demonstrative and sure. John Goodman portrayed Pozzo as a bigger-than-life, bloated robber baron; with a quasi-British accent, Goodman’s voice pierced the stage with a self-amused grandiloquence. Bill Irwin’s Vladimir was stuttering and uncertain. His philosophical utterances were meek and unsure, his accompanying gestures and movements equally hesitant. John Glover played Lucky as a skeleton of a man, wheezing and stumbling about the stage, except when he came to life in his grand monologue.
The effect of these interpretations was to change the dynamics of the characters. Whereas scholars commonly read Estragon as semi-dependent on the wiser, philosophical Vladimir, Estragon’s joy of life and folly seemed to comfort Vladimir, whose voice shook, when philosophy failed to provide him with unshakable answers. Physical humor and slapstick comedy triumphed in the end for both Vladimir and Estragon, as the audience’s hysterical laughter punctuated the performance. Furthermore, Pozzo’s booming voice was echoed in Estragon’s loud outbursts, which seemed to situate Estragon as master to Vladimir, a mirror of Pozzo’s master–slave relationship with Lucky.
The crucial line in this production was not “nothing to be done,” as this line was often mumbled and understated, but Lucky’s repeated, energetically delivered, “and I resume.” The greatest moments of joy and audience laughter were a ruckus dance (“how time flies when one is having fun”) and the normally tongue-in-cheek, but this time [End Page 110] joyfully serious, “that passed the time” after Pozzo and Lucky left. The opportunistic line, “a diversion comes along, let it not go to waste,” apparently exemplified the performance’s thematic thrust. Do not miss an opportunity to laugh, Page seemed to say—and the audience did not.
The staging offered the final key interpretation. The stage directions read, “A country road. A tree.” In this production, however, the country road ran through a bowl-shaped mountainous pass. Surrounded by rocks, Estragon and Vladimir could not get lost in an endless expanse. Their friendship felt like a fortress, a impression highlighted in the last moments when the mood turned somber and, bathed in a spotlight, Estragon and Vladimir stood side by side, motionless. Then Estragon, the stronger of the two, reached out to Vladimir and held his hand for comfort. But we laughed not at the characters. The audience did not experience schadenfreude; rather we laughed at the lovable interaction of complicated relationships. Think of Lucy and Desi, Abbot and Costello, and the Odd Couple, among...
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Chinese vase found in pensioner’s home sells for £230,000 at auction
James HockadayMonday 19 Aug 2019 4:06 pm
The vase sold well above the ‘conservative’ estimate of 100 quid (Picture: DiamondMills/BNPS)
If you’re in need of some extra cash, it might be worth having a rummage around your attic.
A rare 18th century Chinese vase uncovered during a house clearance has sold for £230,000 – well over its pre-sale estimate of £100.
The auctioneer who flogged it was left ‘shaking’ after the fierce bidding war over the 10.75 inch antique.
The antique belonged to a local pensioner who was selling items in his house to move into a care home.
The vase was snapped up by a Chinese buyer when it went under the hammer at the Diamond Mills auction house in Felixstowe, Suffolk.
Would-be buyers were desperate to get their hands on the vase, despite it having a small hairline crack to its neck and a firing crack to its base.
You never know what could be lurking in your attic (Picture: DiamondMills/BNPS)
The pensioner inherited it several years ago from his aunt who once lived in the Far East and brought the vase back with her.
It is thought to originate from the Yongzheng period of the Qing dynasty, dating from 1723 and 1735.
The vase is decorated in delicate flowers of varying colours and sits on a hardwood stand, which may or may not be original.
The true story of the Indian Army in WW1 and why Laurence Fox is wrong
The auction house said it was ‘staggered’ by how much they raked in from the vase, which dates from the Doucai period of Chinese porcelain.
The antique achieved a hammer price of £200,000, with extra fees taking the overall figure paid to £230,000.
They had given it a ‘conservative’ pre-sale estimate of £100, as they did not think it was in the ‘top league’ of Imperial Chinese antiquities.
Auctioneer Nigel Papworth said: ‘With pieces of porcelain like this there are a lot of copies about and it’s tough to tell what’s what.
The auctioneer who sold the 18th century vase was left ‘shaking’ (Picture: DiamondMills/BNPS)
‘We gave it a typically conservative estimate but when we saw the bidding going up and up we couldn’t believe it. When I put the hammer down at £200,000 I was shaking.
‘I suppose it was its unusual design which made it outstanding, although we did not think it was in the top league of Imperial Chinese antiquities.
‘The buyer was Chinese, as is usually the way with these things, and I’d expect it to take it back over there and sell it on down the line.’
The rest of the vendor’s collection of Chinese antiques and furniture sold for £7,000.
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THE TWO PATHS – 4 PART 4  It was now twenty years after Uche and Femi separated and an election year. The air was tense and hectic with violence and assassinations. Three political parties were prominent for the highest Federal seat. Femi’s seemed most likely to get the seat having won the heart and favour of the global society; Femi was his party’s candidate while Uche was the candidate of one of the other two. The party Uche belonged to was fronting him a second time after losing the first by a whisker. Voters had liked Uche at the time for his intelligence and amiable looks. His reaction to his mother’s death won him more affection than criticism about her declaration. Still, the other majority party’s maneuvering of votes paid off. While Uche and Femi fought hard for their individual interest in their debates and campaigns the public had no clue of their secret feelings towards each other. And even though the attempts on Femi’s life and those of his families’ and his party members’ persisted but failed, Femi became the ...
THE TWO PATHS – 3 PART 3  At his corner of the world, Femi immersed himself for five years in his work with the UNESCO in different parts of the world as his job designated. He found Martha, whom he shared common values and married her. Their values were beyond the job they shared and were founded in God as their basis, life and end. They raised a family together traveling to wherever he was redeployed, upholding their Christian faith to live, teach and give in the love of God. At the expiration of his contract with the UNESCO five years after and with his wife’s cooperation, they settled in Britain, his wife’s country of origin, and Femi returned to school for another degree in Political Science in a British University, while his wife secured a teaching job in the same University. His desire to serve mankind redirected to a focus in mending his country. He was greatly saddened by his people’s worsening poverty and shamed by the mockery from the different countries he travelled. They mocked the fact that his country was endowed with many minerals and crops, yet it focused on one which it would not utilize effectively but clandestinely to the insane enrichment of some political juggernauts and to the detriment of the common man. It put the administration of the minerals into the exclusive arm of government and left them dormant. Secondly, they mocked the incapability of his people to curb the corruption of their leaders and the fact that they could not produce a couple of sincere and principled leaders with purpose to serve country and people. Although the couple was aware of the danger inherent in his country’s politics, they decided to trust in their instinct, purpose and in God’s help to whom they prayed fervently. Hence, enthused by his wife’s support ... https://milipadarose.com/2019/02/18/the-two-paths-3/
THE TWO PATHS – 2 PART TWO IN THE PHASE OF TWENTY YEARS  Uchenna lived lavishly among his debauched politician friends. He soon learned to climbed the political ladder by dancing to the tune of their godfather and the team. The regions of rule by the political party he belonged continued to suffer by continuous decline in the standard of living while the party members in government positions milked the public fund lean for themselves and for their members. Having pleased his party for over fifteen years, they decided to front him to become the next President of the country, banking on branding him as the youngest democratic candidate at the age of 45; this was because the country’s public had fallen for the international criticism against Africa’s prevalence of old leaders, and so clamoured for a young President.... https://milipadarose.com/2019/02/11/the-two-paths-2/
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Whatever Neil Woodford's record, there's no guarantee his new fund will perform
There's no denying fund manager Neil Woodford has been proved right time and again. But that's no guarantee he'll get it right this time.
by: Merryn Somerset Webb
I can't take much more of Neil Woodford. He's been promoting his new fund theWoodford Equity Income Fund absolutely relentlessly over the last few weeks. That has meant lots of press releases offering his comments on all things pharma related.
But it has also meant a torrent of press releases from every wealth management firm and stock broker he has stopped in to see on his road show around the UK.
There are currently 30 Woodford-themed emails in my inbox and that's not for want of deletions. So here's what I know.
I know that Hargreaves Lansdown has secured the lowest fee on the new fund for Vantage investors on their platform (0.6% vs 0.65/75% elsewhere) something that goes a small way to offsetting the 0.45% platform fee they put on top.
I know that he thinks the pound is overvalued. I know that he'd soon like to launch a fund that invests only in unquoted companies. I know that he is keen to make sure that he keeps costs for investors low and that the management fee he quotes includes more costs than most others do.
I know that he isn't convinced by the strength of the UK recovery and thinks rates will be lower for even longer; that he thinks the next five years will be "challenging"; that tobacco and pharma will be key themes in his new fund, but that he will be taking high conviction holdings in smaller firms as well as large cap sectors just as he did at Invesco; that he hates most banks, but he likes HSBC; that he is targeting an income yield for the fund of around 4%; that he thinks he can get "high single digit" returns from the fund regardless of the environment; and that he believes that his "passion and energy have never been stronger" (or so he told Whitehouse Securities anyway).
I also know that he has really got the hang of this PR stuff (check out his video). But here's what I don't know how his fund will perform over the next five, ten, 15 or even 20 years.Much of the PR would have you think that outperformance is a given. But it isn't.
Defenders will say that Woodford has proved himself over and over again avoiding the tech bubble and the banking meltdown and picking up on undervalued sectors time after time.
Nonetheless, as Fundexpert.co.uk point out, while over the last ten years Woodford's Invesco Perpetual Income Fund (which he intends to more or less replicate so as to give investors "continuity") has been a top performer,over the last five years it is placed only 33rd.
Widen the comparision to include growth funds (which seems reasonable given the amount of the fund taken up by smaller companies) and over 10 years, the fund comes in 17th. Over five years, it comes in 123rd.
As Fundexpert says, "ouch". All good managers have periods of underperformance and bad luck (look no further than Anthony Bolton in China) and Woodford may soon be back on form.
But before you pile in on the back of this tsunami of publicity, it is worth remembering that you can't buy past performance only the hope of future performance.
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The most important number to look at before you buy any fund
Many investors get distracted by past performance when they buy a fund. But there’s something else to consider that will have a much bigger influence …
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Tracker fund
Tracker funds (also known as index funds or passive funds) aim to track the performance of a particular index, such as the FTSE 100 or S&P 500.
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Investment trusts: the Cinderella of investment arrives at the ball
Investors should look beyond the market noise of a single year and examine the bigger picture. Max King explains what we can learn from 25 years of in…
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What is FES?
We would like to welcome our partnership with Amanda Perla!
At Myolyn, our vision is to improve health and human performance by empowering people to move. We are proud to announce a new partnership that will strengthen our vision and enhance our mission in Powering Your Potential! Meet Amanda Perla, the new Brand Ambassador for Myolyn.
After a motor vehicle accident 10 years ago, Amanda sustained a spinal cord injury, leaving her a C6 quadriplegic. After going through in-patient rehabilitation and outpatient physical therapy, Amanda found the goals to be extremely limited. It was then that she began to do research to find a more aggressive recovery program.
Her research paid off when she found the MyoCycle. MYOLYN’s founders, Matt and Alan, brought a MyoCycle to NextStep Orlando, where Amanda was able to experience the MyoCycle first hand. After six months of using the MyoCycle, Amanda noticed a positive change and felt like the FES cycle was a great source of cardio and really helped to keep her body healthy.
Now, Amanda and Myolyn have come together in a partnership that will bring awareness to the benefits of Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) and Myolyn’s FES products. As a speaker and representative for NextStep Orlando, she plays a vital role in their recovery program just as she will play a vital role at Myolyn as the Brand Ambassador. With this new partnership, Myolyn and Amanda hope to be able to help others to stay happy and healthy by empowering them to move.
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Shocking changes at Zaytuna College, California USA
August 6, 2012 Sheikh Nazim 75 Comments
Shocking changes in attitude at Zaytuna College
Not so long ago, back in the late 90’s, around 1998/99, i remember zaytuna college, the foremost Islāmic establishment in America to preach & teach traditional Islam, looking like this:
where there used overwhelming spiritual benefits pouring out of the highly charged and inspiring Islāmic environment built within the confines of zaytuna’s classes. They used to lay special emphasis on the Islāmic mannerism’s and code of ethics. Segregation was at the top most priority. (As you can translate from the above picture).
The whole atmosphere was a good reflection of the contents being taught. Generally, the whole setting, lighting and the general ethos of people was an integral part which helped to deliver zaytuna’s promises. That being, teaching traditional Islam to its western audience. It was a place to escape from the fast paced, dog chase of the western life. With everyone being constantly busy and having no time to reflect, relax and re-connect with their lord. From the picture alone one can gather numerous understandings. The place was full of serenity, with students and teachers alike dressed in sunnah, the thowbs, beards and hats, it helped a person get into the Islāmic mind frame, to learn true love and to be truly loved by the teaching of Islam and the sunnah. The environment helped a person be taken back and transported to the times of classical Islam. To the times where Islāmic lifestyle was at its highest. It gave a taste of what it must have felt like, to learn the Islāmic sciences from people like Imam abu Hanifah, and to learn the sciences of medicine from people like Imam ghazali. One even felt you were in a truly Islāmic environment where the mannerism’s being taught were implemented and clearly viable on the students and teachers alike. The environment was a spiritual backbone which catapulted the success of the early zaytuna days.
It further helped a person escape into an surreal Islāmic world where the whole environment was different to the norm of the day.
Unfortunately, as with everything in life, the highly inspiring Islāmic environment which was once so prevalent in zaytuna college’s classes seems to be deteriorating very rapidly! and i lay the emphasis on the word ‘rapidly’.
This is what it has become now:
The presence of a physical barrier has been completely removed and thrown right back into the garden shed!
The post 9/11 era has really battered the idea of ‘traditional and classical’ Islam being taught in the western world. I remember zaytuna being at the forefront in teaching traditional Islam which our greatest generation of the past, used to practice and teach.
Now the idea of traditional Islam has been replaced with an idea of ‘liberal Islam’, an Islam which shows to its non-Muslim onlookers ‘look we too can do things like you. We do not need to have classes which segregate the men and women. Or, have to avoid dressing in ‘normal’ western attire of skin-tight jeans and shirts. We too have classes where the men and women sit side by side and interact with each other, often times sharing jokes and having a good college life’.
As sad as it is, zaytuna college looks more like a typical western college/university. It simply has a Muslim name or a tagline to it. Other than that, there is hardly anything Islāmic about it. Its classes, the students, the teachers in many aspects, and the whole approach at zaytuna now, is western. In every sense of the word!
Don’t give me excuses why they have become like this. ‘Its out of their control, they have no choice but to be like this. It’s no longer a ‘Islāmic’, school but a ‘liberal arts college’. Even if that’s the case, and they have changed their outlook from classical Islam, to modern, toned-down version of Islam. It is still in the control of the board of directors (one of them being Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, the founder and patron of zaytuna college) to enforce the lost Islāmic environment they had, in the classes. As the whole campus of zaytuna college belongs to the muslim community. So, they have the right to present and teach in classes the way they see fit. Whatever happened to the freedom of religion and the freedom of rights America champions itself with everywhere?
Lastly, with the media downplaying the madrasah systems in the Muslim world to being ‘terrorists training camps’ and ‘places where extreme teachings are taught’. These leading western Islāmic institutions, like zaytuna, are quickly distancing themselves from appearing to ‘look’ like these much hated ‘madrasahs’ of the Islāmic world. Where there are only boys or men in one room and there is no sight of a woman amongst them.
Zaytuna college distancing themselves into this; a ‘new’ and modern, ‘liberal arts’ Muslim school. Where there are both Muslim men and women learning side by side:
The greatest fear of humans has always been the fear of the unknown. This is what is eating up these leading Islamic institutions in the west. Fear that they ‘might’, just ‘might’, get called a ‘madrasah’, the feared ‘training camps for extremists’ in the western world.
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75 thoughts on “Shocking changes at Zaytuna College, California USA”
Shihab says:
That is just like any other college and school , no way near traditional madrasa except they teach the subject
Abdur Rahman ibn Faiz says:
Very, very sad.
May Allah guide us.
abdullatif says:
INNALILLAHIWAINNAIALAHIRAAJIOOON:(((
Muhammad M. says:
So these are the future ulama and muftis that Hamza Yusuf is producing to guide the Muslims of America?
MyBeliefs.co.uk says:
The terribly alarming thing is, these are the very people who are supposed to lead others once they qualify towards ‘traditional Islam’. If their teachers are so relaxed on exercising shariyah rules. – On segregation and modest dressing, then what would these ‘future’ ulema would do. They would go one step further. Maybe even introducing unislamic ethics/practices in their classes and lessons. Making many of the haram, halal.
Noori says:
It has become knowledge for the sake of knowledge, more like the secular schools or it’s going to that level
Mufti Sadiqur Rahman says:
Allahumma ahfazna fainnaka kairul hafizeen
Farzeen says:
Assalaamu’alaykum wa rahmatullah
Is ghiba part of this “straight up, telling like it is” approach to blogging? I appreciate that you have insights into how things might be changing and I think it’s important for teachers and students of knowledge to consider these things. I, however, can’t take you entirely seriously when your words are also giving people reason to suspect the worst of fellow Muslims. You come off as completely condescending and judgmental. While you have every right to express an opinion, let Allah be the one to judge and quit planting false ideas with things like “maybe they’ll go to the point of considering halal haram.” That’s Shaytan’s job, and he does a fine job of it by himself. For believers, such comments are out of line.. along with comments like, “what’s next, music classes?” What benefit did that serve?
Part of the sunnah is to address others with good words. If you really care for the state of the ummah and the change in Islamic schools in the west, then speak TO not AGAINST your brothers and sisters. Don’t backbite (and yes, what you’ve done on this blog is backbiting, don’t kid yourself thinking otherwise). Criticism is fine, but if it’s not done constructively it will be destructive.
This “us against them” attitude will not serve our ummah. In fact, it’s not a wonder that the Muslim world is in the situation we see now given that we are neglecting to work with each other and instead opt to work against each other.
If you have criticisms, fair game. Share them with those who can address them and make changes. If you’re not brave enough (or simply not prepared) to do that, then save yourself from falling into haram i.e. bad mouthing and judging, and instead go and do the work of educating Western Muslims as you feel it should be done. “If you’re gonna knock it, then be ready to rebuild it.”
I read your post with interest hoping for your constructive feedback.. it never came.
I do hope that you hope to have a part two where you can OFFER something to the ummah instead of trying to annihilate what you believe to already be a broken leg.
May Allah guide us all, ameen!
Thank you for your opinion on this matter. Regarding the issue of a quote ‘what next, music?’ was not something I wrote. Someone must have used this username as a means to vent their own anger. I will when given the chance remove this comment and make amends. Secondly, inshAllah I will be doing a part two in due course. This was an initial post to being attention to the matter. I have in previous attempts tried to directly witer contact the relavent people concerned but I was completely blanked and blocked from many of the usual routes to contact. Seeing no way through this, it was the only option I had at my disposal.
@Farzeen
Walaykum salam.
First of all, let it be noted that there are many different kinds of backbiting (gheeba). In some cases, gheeba is certainly permissible – for example, when speaking about a marriage or business reference. Warning others of this kind of danger (as shown above) is certainly one of the conditions in which backbiting is allowed, especially when the offending party acts openly and without scruple, and ignores all calls to dialogue and reformation.
I myself graduated from Berkeley (when Zaytuna College was starting up and moving to Berkeley), used to go to the Lighthouse Mosque, was roommates with brothers working/volunteering for Zaytuna, and am known by some of the shuyookh there. I have incredible respect for the shuyookh such as Imam Zaid and Sh Abdullah Ali, and loved the feeling of serenity when spending time with Imam Zaid. I do believe there can be much potential benefit from Zaytuna and Zaytuna College insha’Allah.
At the same time, if we would like to get our actions accepted by Allah (`azza wa jall), we (as one of the pious predecessors said) must ensure that they are in accordance with the Sunnah and Shari’ah. After all, who are we trying to please? Our actions must have so much ikhlaas that they are done solely with the intention of pleasing Allah (SWT), and no one else. A Hadith Qudsi relates that Allah (SWT) is so independent of His creation, that any action which is done for His sake and for the sake of anyone else, is rejected. If we desire to please Allah (SWT) alone, then it follows that the action should be done the way Allah (SWT) desires – that is, following the Sunnah and Shariah. How can we expect Allah (SWT) to accept our actions if they are done in a way that He has clearly forbidden?
When Habib Umar (may Allah protect him) visited the US not long ago, his parting advice was to make sure our actions have ikhlaas – that is, ensure that they are done solely with the intention of pleasing Allah (SWT). If you’ve ever been to Hadramout (in Yemen), you’ll know that they have a strong emphasis on separation of genders – and this solely for the purity of the hearts. Allah (SWT), in the Qur’an, tells the wives of the Prophet (S) to “speak to them (non-related males) from behind a curtain” – why? “That is purer for your hearts and for theirs.” Which women could have purer hearts than the wives of the Prophet (S), and which men could have purer hearts than the Sahaba (RA)? Do we believe that our hearts are purer than theirs? That is why the commentators of this verse have noted that, while it is addressed to the wives of the Prophet (S), it, in fact, applies to all Muslims.
We only need to look inside our hearts and look at what our hearts are telling us. I have been in some mixed classes (i.e. neither barrier nor separation of genders) of Zaytuna before, and honestly, although there was good “information” to be gained, Wallahi my heart was not at rest. On the other hand, one only needs to go to a gathering in which people are following the Sunnah, inwardly and outwardly, and in which one’s glance is free from the poisonous arrow of Shaytan, to feel that his/her heart is being filled with Noor. There are such gatherings in the Bay Area. Anyone who peers into his/her own heart can see the difference. You yourself can feel your internal state. Don’t lie to yourself – accept what your heart reveals to you, though your nafs may not like it.
My humble plea is for the shuyookh of Zaytuna to go back to the ways of their own teachers, true masters of sulook and spirituality – the shuyookh of Yemen and Mauritania, of the Haba’ib and of the ulemaa of Mauritania. We are but students – they are the teachers. Let’s not fool ourselves by calling ourselves Shuyookh in light of them. Let us take their advice and consultation, and act in a pure way which truly shows the noor of Islam.
Assalaamu’alaykum wa rahmatullah brother Ahmed
Thank you for your response. I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree in how these criticisms against Zaytuna College is presented. I do not know the stories of those who have attempted to engage in dialogue around this situation nor what occurred, but in my heart of hearts this method is unproductive and treading a fine line between khayr and shar.. wa Allahu ‘alem.
I read half of your comment before I needed to attend to other things, and I thought about it before returning to read the rest. You asked if we believe our hearts purer than theirs.. who made such a claim? None.
I understand your sentiments entirely as I wouldn’t be at ease sitting next to brothers, but I don’t believe it warrants enveloping judgment on the teachers and that one can thus suggest it’s foolish to call these teachers shuyukh/scholars.
You must remember that situations and circumstances change approaches that people might take.. As I see it now, while having not spoken to anyone whose opinion I trust on the matter yet, I’m considering the changes you see a beginning approach. For better or worse, lifestyles such as those in Yemen and Mauritania and the like cannot be introduced to mainstream American Muslims immediately – or perhaps ever. The students sit in mix-gendered classrooms for hours with teachers in university, and while I’m not saying that it’s the best approach in an Islamic class, I’m saying that a lot of those students are more comfortable in such a setting and opening the door to them allows them a chance to seek that knowledge. I’m glad you brought up the content of the lessons because a continued discussion about the outward alone is in vain.
This situation, as I see it now, is analogous to meeting a believer who is a good person, calls to good, but perhaps he’s blemished.. maybe he even imposed this blemish on himself like a tattoo. The reason I say this is that some part of practice in the shariah is upon the student too and I think it unfair to put sole responsibility on organizers. There is again a lot of room for discussion about why things are the way they are there, but I don’t accept that these “changes” remove these shuyukh of their positions of respected scholars in the West nor does it discredit the worth of the school and what it aims to teach. Having a discussion where there is no room for excuses or “I see this and think this, but submit to there being some hole in my thinking” (i.e. giving some benefit of the doubt) calls others to engage in gheeba. My heart of hearts, since you asked me to go to that, tells me that what meets the eye is uncomfortable, but it’s not the full story, and judgment is not for me to pass .. I will not allow myself to do so.
So I cannot agree with your assessments and judgments.
With regards to Habib Umar.. Allahu yahfazuhu.. do you know how things started at Dar Al Mustafa? The young men in Tarim at the time didn’t come knocking on his door, he went to them. And in doing so, he invited them to attend lessons after spending time with them while they played soccer. And during the first few meetings, he left them as they engaged in behaviour that is blameworthy.. then they learned to appreciate his non-judgmental ways and they studied with him. They are our shuyukh today. Sometimes teachers have to “drop” to the level of others before others can understand what’s going on and step up to the plate of the ideal sunnah behaviour.
Don’t be deceived about women in Yemen. Tarim is an exception, but the rest of Yemen is not “beautiful cloaks of black all following the sunnah.” There is more to it than meets the eye. It’s not our place to point fingers. If there is some benefit for some Muslim American students to gain from Zaytuna, then there is khayr in it. If it doesn’t suit you, then go elsewhere and guard your tongue or wagging fingers.
I think if you made mention of this to Habib Umar in the way it’s done here, he might still advise us to have ikhlaas.
Wa Allahu ‘alem.
Your remarks of “…For better or worse, lifestyles such as those in Yemen and Mauritania and the like cannot be introduced to mainstream American Muslims immediately – or perhaps ever”. Typifies the reasons why I had to write this piece.
This sort of new-age/neo Sufi ideology is almost redefining Islam. People who have an approach of ‘live and let be’ is alien to our pious predessosers, the saliheen and the awliyah!
I find it strange how prior to 9/11 Zaytuna and other institutions, managed to successfully hold classes with 100% segregation with physical barriers in place. (As the first picture speaks for it self) and it was not an issue at all. No one then, saw that “lifestyles such as those in Yemen and Mauritania and the like cannot be introduced to mainstream American Muslims immediately – or perhaps ever”.
Amazingly after the 9/11 era we seem to be up in arms as it were. That we need to take down the barriers, take down the established frameworks of interaction and introduce ‘new’ ideas, completely strange to the sunnah, just to appease the non-Muslim on looker.
Were the people who converted or lived in the west prior to 9/11, not from the west or ‘mainstream america?’. Were they aliens who came from some other planet?
It is silly to suggest this, ‘lifestyles such as those in Yemen and Mauritania and the like cannot be introduced to mainstream American Muslims…’
As I mentioned already, the 9/11 episode has really battered the idea of the once-held-in-high-regard, ‘classical Islam’.
People are afraid to be seen, heard and even thought of being a Muslim. Most institutions, especially in the west, like Zaytuna are introducing frankly speaking, childish excuses to compromise the very fabric of Islamic fundamentals. segregation and modest dress code are just the tip of the iceberg. It is as if they are afraid to be classed as being the dreaded ‘madrasahs’ of the middle eastern Muslim world. As I mentioned before.
You see, once you let down one barrier to sin and lust. Rest of the barriers then start to fall one after the other. The ‘multiplier effect’. Many people say, segregation is not such an issue to worry about, or hardly ‘shocking’. Well, if one has a low sense of shame and modesty there is nothing that a person will see as ‘shocking’.
During the hight of the Muslim influence in the world around the mid 18th to 19th centuries. When muslims were the leading lights in science, literature, art, poetry etc. People from the west would go and learn from leading institutions of learning. In bagdad, chiro, morocco etc. There was no special place allocated to these people from the ‘west’ that they will find it hard to fit into the Islamic styled classes, which had full segregation etc. No! That was not the case.
In fact many western academics who learned at the hands of the Muslims were so influenced that when they came back to teach in places like Oxford and harvard. They had full beards, turbans and used to wear thowbs. Just like the muslims. To the extent many people would ask them have you accepted Islam? Just by seeing the drastic change in them.
This the impact of doing dawah with actions. There is no point in simply doing dawah with words. How can we show the non Muslims, how the pious predecessors lived without having the infrastructures in place?
For example, a person can never know how a mango tastes without being given the chance to taste it. No matter how much you explain it’s qualities or the taste. He or she will NEVER know how a mango tastes without being placed in the situation. – giving him a mango.
Assalaamu’alaykum
You’re right..mashaAllah. I was venturing a guess as perhaps that this is the beginning route for those who wouldn’t even enter an Islamic class only because of the separation and thus classes that allow for it give them an opportunity to at least learn and then take it from there. But I really don’t know.
Lifestyles of segregation in Morocco and Yemen and even Syria (at least 12 years ago) are also harder to come by.. less so in Yemen because their culture is separation, but from it, subhanAllah, you’d be shocked at how people find ways to engage the opposite gender, both men and women. Where there is action without understanding, there are a lot of opportunities for sin. Wa Allahu ‘alem.
I appreciate your effort in explaining the angle you’re coming from. It really is more fruitful.
May Allah guide us to that which is pleasing for Him and to work together to strive in such endeavours, ameen.
There will always be avenues for sin. What matters is the number of avenues we close, which leads that way. Barriers and such generally prevent fitna from occurring. Making it harder to “come by” to commit sin. For instance: An open door of a house will always be more inviting for a burglar to steal. Than a house with a closed door.
Zaytuna Staff says:
Ameen.
Sunni_Revival says:
Ameen.. to what exactly?
Siraj ahmed says:
Well said farzeen. The contributor seems to be in denial that the world is changing and it is up to us Muslims to accommodate that change within the true spirit of Islam. If zaytouna don’t want to have their classrooms as they may be in Pakistan or Arabia or Indonesia, then so be it. Hamza yousef is an American Muslim and is free to excercise his cultural leanings and diversity within the Islamic spirit. It is still Islamic.
Islams strength comes from its diversity. Our unity comes from a belief in Allah.
On another note ( but sort of not) My wife is a convert to Islam and is sick of all the Pakistani food wheeled out at every function we attend. Next, the contributor will be telling her that that’s how it is in the east and that she shouldn’t ask for a light chicken soup ( her pallet is different) as this is not eastern and away from Islam… She is English and Western after all. This is the level that this guys objections are at. Islam is for east and west and the Quran is for all peoples and all times.
Shamsul Abbasi says:
Typical lukewarm and sloppy words bro. I get what you saying just not a strong enough argument. Yes the world is changing this calls for us to be more closer to the sunnah and the blessed ways of the best companions.
Islamically, it is not ‘ghiba’ if you are complaining about injustice or warning muslims of zulm. Please do not speak on topics you have half-knowledge of.
Mansurah Maddison-ketterige says:
Classical response of the munafiq!
Hafiz Kamal says:
Sorry sister Farzeen it was me writing about “what next music classes ” I take that back and also I mistakenly wrote on the NAME part the web address of this blog instead of my name .
May Allah unite our hearts for the love of the beloved Nabi s.a.w
Your website is \”mybeliefs.co.uk\” How do you know so much about Zaytuna? Are you a student there? Isnt your website showing you are from UK? How can you write about US? Please dont mind me asking.
In our world, we have something called ‘planes’. Using these vehicles of transportation we can travel from country to country. So, several years back a number of the brothers, (prior 9/11) around 98/99 (like i mentioned in the article). Had the chance to go to Zaytuna from UK and learn at the blessed shuyukhs there. Secondly, for your information to write about a country or an institution anywhere. There are several ways a person can do this; 1) Traveling there. 2) Research. 3) First hand accounts of people who went/go to these countries/institutions.
muhammod says:
‘planes’ comment is an insult. Are we losing traditional islam now?
Isnt insults like this from the west?
Did lay people in the classical days expressed their views about organisations like this?
I wonder if my comments are a insult?
Salams,
Thank you Sr. Farzeen for your comments. I couldn’t agree more.
To the blogger, I really think it is people like yourself that are part of the reason why Muslims are in the condition we are in today- disunited and under attack.
These Shuyukh have sacrificed their time, health, wealth, family life so so much to build this colle, and I believe they have really done it for the sake of Allah and instead of receiving love and support and even constructive criticisms from fellow Muslims they receive blogs filled with sarcasm and bitterness criticizing their hard work?!
I agree with Sr. Farzeen. If you have some constructive criticism, please share it. Call the school, write them a letter, maybe even ask questions trying to understand why things appear to look so “liberal”. There is nothing wrong with that. But bashing them online and getting other people worked up against the effort of some of the greatest and most sincere ulama of the West, that is a shame. May Allah (swt) help you and guide you and show you how to push forward His message and the message of our beloved (saw) in a beautiful way, not by what you just did above.
I really don’t understand when we are going to start putting each other down and will instead help build one another be successful and improve as an ummah. This not only makes me angry it makes me really really sad for the state of the Muslims.
Masalam.
umm dujaanah says:
you can think of a million excuses – some totally invalid others ludicrous – but nothing can beat what those pictures say.
hamza yusuf has continuously proven himself to be a good house slave, wish him the best of luck with that in the Akhirah. The fact that he’s studied does not mean we cannot question him, it just means more sinful than those pour souls in the pic who are deluded into thinking they are gaining islamic knowledge, when simply, they are sinning.
Shafi Khaled says:
SubhanAllah – a house slave! The Rasul (sm) said that some people when they came to “debate”, they actually were looking to insult. Name calling is not allowed in Islamic tradition for sure.
Umu Abdurrahman says:
Subhanallah. I say again Subhanallah. You need to do a lot of istigfar you know sis. You already judged when you yourself will be judged. no one knows his or her end, not even you!
Pingback: Announcement Shocking changes at Zaytuna College, California USA
Mohsin@hotmail.com says:
How do you recognize a scholar? He doesn’t just turn up out the blue. He is known to his people, I have also seen pictures of Shaykh Hamza Yusuf with Shaykh Dabbagh. Check the link below and find out how to seek out true scholars.
We’re is the link brother
Here are the qualities of a good shaykh:
1. He possesses necessary religious knowledge.
2. His beliefs, habits and practices are in accordance with the Sharī‘ah.
3. He does not harbour greed for worldly wealth.
4. He has himself spent time learning from a good shaykh.
5. The scholars and good mashā’ikh of his time hold a good opinion about him.
6. His admirers are mostly from among the people who have good understanding of the religion.
7. Most of his followers follow the Sharī‘ah and are not seekers after this world.
8. He sincerely tries to educate and morally train his followers. If he sees anything wrong in them, he corrects it.
9. In his company, one can feel a decrease in the love of the world and an increase in the love for Allāh ta‘ālā.
10. He himself regularly performs dhikr and spiritual exercises.
In searching for a shaykh, do not look for his ability to perform miracles (karāmāt) or to foretell the future. A very good shaykh may not be able to show any miracles. On the other hand, a person showing supernatural feats does not have to be a pious person, or even a Muslim. The prominent Shaykh Bayazid Bustami says: ‘Do not be deceived if you see a performer of supernatural feats flying in the air. Measure him on the standards of the Sharī‘ah.’
after having all these qualities, the shaykh or person must know the A-Z of path to Allah and how to guide and take people there. The person may be pious or wali himself however, he is not qualify or doesn’t have the ability to guide people. “everyone can eat but not all people can cook”
thecivilmuslim says:
So the sign of a good school is one in which you dont see any sight of a woman? This is a judgmental article, may Allah forgive you. Ah yes, indeed it’s the lack of barrier, thobe, and turban that has led to our demise! Not the judgmental attitudes that run people from the mosque, nor the women’s unequal access to scholars and speakers, nor the rampant abuses that we minimize/hide under the rug. Talk about self-Orientalization: Iif you need the token symbols of Islam around you to be in an “islamic state of mind” then you have completely missed the boat.
Riaaz says:
It seems your knowledge in Islaam is seriously deficient.
And remain in your homes,and do not make your selves a display like the women of former times ! i.e Jahilliyah (ignorance) Qur’aan.
There is no such thing as female emergence from the home to attend mixed classes at the hands of deviate scholars…
Good u raised this issue. However your article mentions 2 things that has been lost and only 2? That doesn’t mean they lost traditional islam yet?
if this is the level of Islam in practice being shown by thepeople who are meant to be bastions of thedeen then what hope .Shame.These people seem to be a sign of the coming of the prophetic hadith (nearest meaning) There will come a time when the muslims will follow the christians and jews to such an extent that even if they were to enter a lizard hole they would follow behind
I AGREE WITH YOU !
adis says:
Adis Duderija the author fails to see that there changes might be internal and reflect an evolution in the thinking on behalf of its directors. for me these are welcome changes which are more in the spirit of what i consider to be the normative Qur’an and Sunna teachings. also we must problematise the Islamic vs western dichotomy the author is using here.
Does anyone know their Islamic history? “truly Islāmic environment” was when men and women were NOT segregated! Where men and women interacted, where women served side by side with men! Yes, Islam IS liberal.
You are kidding, right?
I guess women did not participate in sustaining the early Muslim community? What did Khadijah do? How about Aishah? How about proving your point with facts instead of some male chauvinistic view point.
You have completely missed the point of the discussions here. – Signing from a completely different hymn sheet to everyone else. I wonder if you even read what i wrote or just simply jumped to the comments sections. ill advise you to start from the top and work your way down. – The logical way of joining a discussion on the net.
Aisha R.A. totally forbade female unnecessary female emergence from the home for even mandatory prayers.
Go back into Islamic history and do your research
THE QUR’AN IS A PATRIARCHAL BOOK AND THE RELIGION OF ISLAAM IS A PATRIARCHAL RELIGION.
DO YOUR RESEARCH THEN COME AND EXPRES YOUR STUPID VIEWS.
I did read what you wrote. You are aghast at the evolution of the de-segregating process (thus your heading “Shocking Changes…”). You attribute that to trying to ‘fit in’ with Western values. Sorry. We were there 1400 years ago. I am claiming Islam as enlightened, where men and women sitting and working together was the norm back then. The way men and women in Muslim communities are forced into segregated spaces today is NOT Islam.
Most kids in US have been learning in an integrated classroom since their childhood. The problem is not that people are scared of being labeled. The problem is that most Muslim people in the US are no longer inspired by institutions that are “traditional.”
Syed Hasibur Rahman says:
Assalam-o-Alaikum Author,
This post reeks of sermonizing, self-righteousness and holier-than-thou attitude directed against an organization and its people who have dedicated their lives, despite all hardships, for the cause of Islam. Do you think the shuyukhs who teach at Zaytuna are not God fearing? If something about them is surprising to you, should not you first ask them, express your concern and wait for their reply? You are passing your judgement on them even without giving them a change for explanation. If their reply and justification does not convince you and you have equally valid and strong arguments to back your view, then you have every right to express your opinion whithin the manners of sunnah.
>> You wrote in one of comments: “…I have in previous attempts tried to directly witer contact the relavent people concerned but I was completely blanked and blocked from many of the usual routes to contact. Seeing no way through this, it was the only option I had at my disposal.”
=>> Did you tried to message them on their facebook page? They are as reponsive. Or may be you can fly to Zaytuna sometime? After all you are an alumni and its your alma mater. And what could be better than an in-person discussion? And you said you wanted to bring this to attention. Attention of whom? People who cannot do anything about it and can only discuss online the way millions of Muslims do world wide every day and nothing changes on the ground about the pathetic state of affairs of Muslims around the world.
>> You wrote: “… now the idea of traditional Islam has been replaced with an idea of ‘liberal Islam’, an Islam which shows to its non-Muslim onlookers ‘look we too can do things like you. We do not need to have classes which segregate the men and women. Or, have to avoid dressing in ‘normal’ western attire of skin-tight jeans and shirts. We too have classes where the men and women sit side by side and interact with each other, often times sharing jokes and having a good college life.”
=>> How did you know they are following liberal Islam? I have never heard them using the term ‘Liberal Islam’. And how did you know this is their definition of liberal Islam? Actually this is your definition of liberal Islam through which you judging them.
>> You wrote: “…As sad as it is, zaytuna college looks more like a typical western college/university. It simply has a Muslim name or a tagline to it. Other than that, there is hardly anything Islāmic about it. Its classes, the students, the teachers in many aspects, and the whole approach at zaytuna now, is western. In every sense of the word!”
=>> Now this is what is called ‘Hasty Generalization’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasty_generalization). Based on just few pictures, you gave the verdict. And what is the problem with ‘western’? West is not all bad. It has many good things to offer the world. No body is saying to copy-cat them but if there something good that does not go againt Quran and sunnah , what is the problem in adopting it. And about “…there is hardly anything Islāmic about it”, besides the couple of points you raised (and we are yet to hear from Zaytuna what they have to say about it), what else do you not find Islamic?
>> You wrote: “The greatest fear of humans has always been the fear of the unknown. This is what is eating up these leading Islamic institutions in the west. Fear that they ‘might’, just ‘might’, get called a ‘madrash’, the feared ‘training camps for extremists’ in the western world.”
==> Again a case of hasty generalization. How did you know that they have these ‘fears’? Have you done a study or survey on these Islamic institutions or talked with staffs?
I am not sure if you have studied about sociology and how does social changes come into being. Society does not change overnight and it takes generation for people to adopt to a new mind set and culture and code of living (you may quote few exceptions to these but exceptions don’t make rule). Only a gradual change is deep and permanently enters the heart.
The Quran came down over a span of 23 years. The complete sharia came over period of 23 years. For e.g. prohibition of alcohol came in three stages and similarly with many other things. Many of earlier rulings were abrogated and replaced by new rulings. The theme of the meccan period of life of Prophet (pbuh) was about individual correctness, morality and spirituality and that of medinian period was of muslims as a community and flag bearer of kalima of Allah. If Allah would have willed, He could have send Quran and the full sharia in one go and would have made prophet(pbuh) change the tribal Arabia into the likes of sahabas (r.a) overnight. But He did not did so. Ever wondered why? Is there some wisdom behind it that Allah is teaching us? In the treaty of hudaibiyyah, Prophet(pbuh) did many compromises and agreed even to change his addressing from ‘prophet of Allah’ to ‘son of abdullah’. Why? Is there some widom in this that Allah is teaching us through sunnah of his beloved prophet(pbuh)?
I am sorry and apologize if I sounded rude. I do not intent it. I was in my office and happend to come on to your post during my lunch time. And after reading it, I was very sad and could not stop myself from commenting.
The same way you could not help but to comment on this blog ,i too cannot sit back and let you propound your modernistic beliefs to ignorant and unwary Muslims deviating them further into the lizards hole.
The person who started this blog is a 100% correct in all he said.
A picture SPEAKS A THOUSAND WORDS (even though taking it was Haraam)
In Islam there is no way males and females can mix together in any situation
ALLAHS Curse descends down upon the gathering where these men and males and females mix so freely
Allah says so emphatically in the Qur’aan
And remain (Resolutely/Glued) in your homes, and do not make a display of yourself like the women of Jahilliyah (Ignorance) !
1)What is best for Women ? Answering this question Faatimah R.A said neither should they look at males nor allow males to look at them !
(The so called scholars of zaytuna could adhere to this advicee of Faatimah with which the Prophet S.A.W said i happiness ”Faatimah is part of me”)
2)Many will be the women who wore clothing in the world, but will be naked in the Akhirah (that is because of the evil styles of their worldly garments).”
3)Never will prosper a nation who hand over their affairs to a woman
4)When a woman applies perfume (or adorns herself with garments of pride,show and fashion) then passes by a gathering of men (i.e in public) she is like an ADULTERESS !
Islaam does not say a Women cannot be educated !
There are rules and regulations to follow in order for these women to receive the necessary knowledge needed to get through this temporary life.
You and many others on this blog speak and think from warped mind.
A mind that is infatuated with The love and awe of a satanic cult.
The satanic cult of western and eastern liberalism.
It iss better you repent now and revert back to the original Orthodox and fundamental Islaam, than to carry on with this nonsensical modernistic/satanic attitude which will result in your life wallowing away only to result in the Angel of death ripping your soul very harshly from your body !
WASALAAM
In Islaam we don’t need to adapt to a western/modernist/deviated mindset.
The only mindset we have to adopt in Islaam is the mindset of the Sahabaah whose lives and example are still gleaming at us after 14 hundred yrs !
Today your talking about a different mindset, tomorrow you will talk baout a different Shariah !
what ! do you reject part of the book and accept part of it ! Al Quraan !
Your statements are very unthought of and leading you down the slippery slope of Irtidaad (Kufr)
Munib Altaf says:
Bravo. Well said brother. These people need to be grabbed by their shoulders and shuck violently. So they wake up from their misguided ways.
for the people of those times Islam was sent in stages.
for us it has been sent fully/completed !
We are expected to follow the shariah or if we cant fully then at least try to..
What we should not do is try to justify something that the prophet and the Sahaabah made HARAAM into HALAAL.
That is termed Istikhfaaf AND ISTIKHFAAF LEADS YOU TO KUFR !
THE BROTHER JUDGED THEM BY WHAT HE SAW.
THE PICS SPOKE A THOUSAND WORDS AND HE SOUNDED THE ALARM ND MAY ALLAH REWARD HIM FOR THAT !
If there was no proof (pic) then we can claim ”do not judge them”
The pics are a gleaming shiny example of liberal deviates leading future liberal deviates.
This post is a major joke. How dare you pass judgement on people who have more taqwa in their finger nail than you have in your entire body?
You and your ilk are the terrorists blowing up fellow Muslims. Please go apply your neanderthal version of reality in Saudi Arabia and let the rest of us live in peace and civility. Thank you and good night.
Read this https://mybeliefs.co.uk/2012/09/06/progressive-muslims-a-new-fitna-on-our-shores/
and next time be more considerate and mature in your approach to dealing with other Muslims.
by saying the following ”Please go apply your neanderthal version of reality in Saudi Arabia and let the rest of us live in peace and civility. Thank you and good night”
You are implying that the Holy Prophet S.A.W. was a ”neanderthal” the companions were all ”neanderthasl”
You are such a stupid idiot.
You just lost your Imaan !
If your married your Nikaah is now broken and you are living in Sin !
IT’S THE NEANDERTHAL VERSION OF ISLAAM THAT WAS COMPLETED 14 CENTURIES AGO !
IT WAS THE NEANDERTHAL VERSION OF ISLAAM THAT HAS BEEN FOLLOWED FROM THE TIME OF THE SALAF E SALIHEEN !
IT IS THE NEANDERTHAL VERSION OF ISLAM THAT WILL GAIN YOU SALVATION ON THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.
THE SUNNAH IS THE NEANDERTHAL METHOD WHICH WILL GAIN YOU ALLHS LOVE
THE NEANDERTHAL BOOK (QUR’AAN) IS THE ONLY BOK THAT WILL PROTECT YOU..
WHAT UTTER STUPIDITY YOU PEOPLE BLURT OUT..!
MAY ALLAH GUIDE THE UMMAH FROM FURTHER DEVIATION !
Believer says:
Zaytuna college is an islamic college open to those who are muslim as well as non-muslim. The way it’s structured is necessary for a situation like that. The purpose to zaytuna college is not to embrace a certain form of Islam but simply to embrace islam and not only to muslim but non-muslims as well. If we want to embrace islam to non-muslim we must first show them our similarities to make them more open to our religion and not strictly show them the “classical islamic ways” that you talk about that would just close them off to our religion.
Bubu says:
some of these comments are just lol… Such Aashiq’s and Lovers of the Sunnah. The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam never changed the Methodology of Dawah to Non Muslims… so why do we feel we should…? Forget your own aqal, your own intellect, and use the Intellect of RasulAllah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, and that intellect was his Blessed Sunnah, which were the Greatest gifts he had given to his Ummati, SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Author has been left speechless by Syed Hasibur Rahman
I have not been made ‘speechless’ as you say. The reason I did not bother to reply to hasib is, he (like others) are continuously regurgitating the same arguement and points. Which I have on almost countless occasions given a rebuttal. To be frank and straight to the point, I have no time to play a tag game which children play in school yards. I have made my points clear. People should read these. Despite them being there, they ‘still’ express the same arguments and sentiments.
I am a person who prefers not to reinvent the wheel!
I took care of Habib and his false views !
Really? says:
“During the hight of the Muslim influence in the world around the mid 18th to 19th centuries. When muslims were the leading lights in science, literature, art, poetry etc. People from the west would go and learn from leading institutions of learning. In bagdad, chiro, morocco etc.”
You are joking right? Who were the leading lights? Please name them. Who were the westerners who went to these so called places of learning? The universities of Europe outstripped any progress that Islamic institutions ever made during the middle ages after religious conservatism, which you applaud took over. The Muslim world didn’t even have a printing press until the 18th century. Illiteracy was rife and still is in the Muslim world. We are talking about backward nations here, who still practice slavery due to so called religious reasons. Hardly progressive. If Muslim nations were the leading lights of learning, why have they regressed so far? It is completely illogical and you are talking fairy stories here.
During the Ottoman Empire – the guilds of writers had denounced the printing press as “the Devil’s Invention”, and were responsible for a 53-year lag between its invention by Johannes Gutenberg in Europe in c. 1440 and its introduction to the Ottoman society with the first Gutenberg press in Istanbul that was established by the Sephardic Jews of Spain in 1493 (who had migrated to the Ottoman Empire a year earlier, escaping from the Spanish Inquisition of 1492.) However, the printing press was used only by the non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire until the 18th century. In 1726, Ibrahim Muteferrika convinced the Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim Pasha, the Grand Mufti, and the clergy on the efficiency of the printing press, and later submitted a request to Sultan Ahmed III, who granted Muteferrika the permission to publish non-religious books (despite opposition from some calligraphers and religious leaders.) Muteferrika’s press published its first book in 1729, and, by 1743, issued 17 works in 23 volumes (each having between 500 and 1,000 copies.) Not much considering the volume of work now circulating throughout the Western world. How many books are published in the Middle East each year apart from the Koran?
BTW, the Europeans invented modern paper, along with the fountain pen and the pencil which has been adopted worldwide. Contact with the Muslim world during the period mentioned was connected to trade, not to learning. No European would willingly try to become a visitor to any of the Muslim lands due to safety reasons and the subsequent Barbary war, fought over the white slave trade that had been in practice since the middle ages. Escapees describe a cruel and backward society, not your imaginary utopia.
Places of learning can only flourish in an open atmosphere and this began during the Renaissance period in Europe with the exchange of ideas – mostly through publication of books via the printing press which was unheard of in the Muslim world. The institute you are criticizing is doing just this – providing an atmosphere where ideas can flourish. And in case you missed it, the Renaissance was able to progress due to the Reformation of religion and the ideas of personal and religious freedom that began to manifest in the Europe. This is impossible under the type of Islam you promote. Otherwise, why are the places where your type of Islam is practiced so backward in literacy, science and the arts? For heaven’s sake, you even have people on here opposed to music!
LOL at your cultural advancement. You would plunge people back into the Dark Ages with your mindset.
Aisha Peterson says:
You must be retarded!
”Places of learning can only flourish in an open atmosphere and this began during the Renaissance period in Europe with the exchange of ideas”
Your kidding us all with this type of garbage right..lol
It clearly shows that you lack knowledge in Islaam !!!!!!!
Go back to the time of the ilustrious companions of the Holy Prophet S.A.W
and the first 3 golden ages of Islaam (described by the beloved master himself S.A.W.) you will see places of learning that flourished and ideas the wonderful ideas that were exchanged.
It seems that you also like many deviates on this blog speak from a mind that prefers the ways and methods of education of the Kuffar over the wonderful ways,methods and education of scholars that formulated laws of the Shariah in the first three centuries of Islaam.
There is a Hadith to the nearest meaning:
There will come a time when the Masaajids will be full of people praying (if your a women then because your not allowed in the Mosque-at home-) not one person will be a Mumin !
People like you on this blog have helped materialize this very conspicuous sign of Qiyaamah !
May ALLAH guide us all from deviation !
HAFIZ Mumin says:
Check here: (your limited knowledge of islamic contributions to the western world left me no room but to reply) –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_contributions_to_Medieval_Europe
http://www.medievalhistory.net/scientia.htm
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_were_the_contributions_made_by_Muslim_scholars_in_science_geography_mathematics_medicine_art_and_literature
http://www.1001inventions.com/
The internet is full with information as the ones presented above. These few links are just the taste of the actual food of muslim contribution available to read on the net. do a simple google search and you’ll see the results.
Check again. There is a vast difference between the time of the Middle Ages and the 18th century. Try about 500 years. But so what anyway? Your society did not prove to be fertile soil for it to grow and develop as in the West, where science and logic did away with the absurdities of religion.
Again. How many books apart form the Koran are published in the Middle East using “the Devil’s Invention”?
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Brazilian Caraval says:
People create Barriers, not God………… Get over yourself…….. This is a great move for this University to end gender segregation…. And for those that do not like it, well don’t go there…
As far as the traditional Medressa’s are concerned. I have been to many and i have observed as a child and now as an Adult the amount of BS things that happen. For instance; child abuse and inappropriate touching by the molana.
This is the 21 century if you hate the west so much then go back,.,……
I agree with you when you say bad things happen.
But you must have heard of the saying (to the nearest extent)
”The majority is not evil, only the very minority is”.
well the same goes for the evil things that happen in the traditional madrasaahs you hate so much !
Allah is the God that made Islaam a Patriarchal Religion and created barriers in the Qur’aan between males and females ! if you actually took the time and studied the Qur’aan/Islaam with a proper Maulana you would have been educated in that aspect !
You must have been the problem and the magnet for evil because i have also been to many traditional places of learning/Madrasahs and not ever seen any evil perpetrated on my watch,.
and btw,
How can you brand the traditional Makaatib and Madaaris all evil when a small minority of deviates in all of these places you attended were involved in HARAAM EVIL !
Whether you like it or not.it was from these Places of learning that Islaam flourished around the world and it will be from these institutions of learning that Islams greatest scholars will be born until the day of Qiyaamah !
People with your mindset have come and gone with their stupid hybrid views.
they have never been successful enough to lead the masses in Islaam the way the products of the institutions you hate so much have !
Rashed says:
Gender segregation IS ACTUALLY UNISLAMIC. It’s cultural that got mixed up with Religion. End of story, Show me one verse in the Quran that says gender segregation should be applied at schools and public places??
Gender Seperation is as ISLAAMIC as black is black and white is white..
It seems your knowledge in Islam is very weak..
There are only four ways/principles to establish proofs in Islaam.
1)The Qur’aan
2)Sunnah
3)Ijma (Consensus)
4)Qiyaas (Analogical reasoning of the Fuqaha-professional jurisits.
Without these four principles there is no way to understand the laws of Islaam.
You cannot dig directly into the Qur’aan or evn Hadith for answers.
You must look at hadiths proofs and the Noble Sunnah (way) of the prophet S.A.W. and his companions to establish what the Qur’aan says.
for example (and he answer to your stupid comment)
ALLAH COMMANDS WOMEN IN THE QUR’AAN TO
REMAIN (GLUED) IN THE HOME, AND DO NOT MAKE A DISPLAY OF YOUR SELVES LIKE THE WOMEN OF JAHILLIYAH (IGNORANCE)
HIjaab means concealment-total concelament.
(Hadith) A women is an object of concealment, when she emerges (unnecessarily) from the home shaytaan waits in ambush for her !
Sunnah of the Prophet and his companions was total segregation
IJMA/QIYAAS of The jusrists (of all four schools of thought viz,Hanafi,Shafi,Maliki,Hambali) are unanimous of the opinion that Women are an object of concealment therefore their (unnecessary) emergence (because it warrants fitnaah) is not allowed AT ALL.
= Segregation !
(i can quote more but i have no time to argue with uninformed deviates like you.)
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EbuSinan says:
Consulting an qualified Expert, The Mufti of Egypt Shaykh Ali Gomaa (may Allah preserve him):
Is it permissible for a female to teach males the science of Qur`anic recitations and its related topics such as the [variant]recitations, Qur`anic orthography and classical religious books since there are no males specialized in this science in our area?
There is no legal objection to men teaching women or vice-versa. Muslims have always maintained that the mere presence of women in the same place as men is not prohibited in itself. The prohibition only concerns the manner of mixing when it contradicts the guidelines of Islamic law such as men and women exposing those parts of their bodies which must remain covered, males and females gathering for an unlawful purpose or an unlawful seclusion between the sexes [being alone together in a place where no one could have access to them] or touching.
Evidence from the sunna
Sahl ibn Sa’d al Sa’idy, may Allah be pleased with him, said: “Abu Usayd invited the Prophet [pbuh] and his Companions to his wedding feast and his wife, Um Usayd, served them food and drink herself” [Related by al-Bukhari and Muslim].
Al Bukhari placed this hadith in a chapter which he entitled On [the permissibility] of a woman serving [food and drink to] men at her own wedding.
Al Qurtuby stated in his exegesis of Qur’an: “Our scholars said: The report demonstrates the permissibility of the bride serving [food and drink to] her husband and his friends at her wedding.”
Ibn Batal said in his explanation of Bukhari’s collection of authentic hadith: “Separating between men and women [when they are in the same place and in direct interactions] is not obligatory for Muslim women in general but was specific to the wives of the Prophet; Allah says:
And when you ask [his wives] for something, ask them from behind a partition. [Qur’an 33: 53]
Ibn Hajar, the scholar of hadith, said in his book Fath al Bari: “The hadith demonstrates the permissibility of a woman serving [food and drink to] her husband and his guests. There is no doubt that this permissibility is valid only when the legal guidelines (lack of temptation and a woman covering what must be concealed) are met.”
The two foremost scholars in hadith, al-Bukhari and Muslim, mention a report about Abu Talha al-Ansari and his guest: Abu Talha and his wife invited a guest into their home. As they did not have enough food to go around, they pretended to eat, and spent the night hungry. In the scholar Ibn abu Dunya’s version, Anas narrated that Abu Talha told his wife: ‘Crumble the bread and put it in butter, and tell the servant to blow out the lamp.’ Then they pretended to share the food with their guest.” It is apparent from this report that they were all eating from the same dish. The Prophet [pbuh] told Abu Talha:”Allah is pleased with what you did tonight.” The following verse was sent addressing this event:
They love those who emigrated to them and find not any want in their breasts of what the emigrants were given but give [them] preference over themselves, even though they are in privation. [Qur’an 59: 9]
Abu Juhaifa, may Allah be pleased with him, said: “The Prophet [pbuh] established a bond of brotherhood between Salman and abu al Dard’a. Salman visited Abu al Dard’a and found his wife, Um al Dard’a disheveled. “What’s wrong?” he asked her. She replied: “Your brother, Abu al Dard’a, has no worldly desires…”
Commenting on this hadith, Ibn Hajar said: “This hadith includes some benefits … the permissibility of talking to non-mahram women and asking about that which concerns their life.”
Women teaching men
The Prophet’s [pbuh] wives used to teach Islamic law and spread religion. This was mentioned in the books of Sunna as well as the fact that later generations of women delivered religious knowledge and men reported hadiths from them. In his book, Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalani mentioned 1543 women from among female scholars, hadith narrators, and literary figures.
Muslim women participated with men in public life while observing Islamic decorum. Some females from among the Companions of the Prophet [pbuh] were even in charge of looking after the morality of the city.
Nur Ferdus says:
Jazzallaah hu khair brother for giving this valuable piece of answer. However, I have to say you have got the wrong end of the stick here. No one is discussing the validity of men teaching women or vise versa. For it was the mothers of the believers, (the ummul munimeen) who would teach from behind a veil. What seems to be the problem with the people on this blog and elsewhere is the way in which men and women are now freely interacting with each other. More than just out of need or necessity. Teaching and learning the sacred sciences of Islam, the way in which many non-muslim institutions of learning do. Where men & women sit side by side and learn knowledge. The sunnan way of applying and doing things, for example women teaching men behind a veil and vise versa. Have been left behind and a foreign approach has been adopted.
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Attorney General Jerry Brown Covers Superior and State Court Corruption, D A Tom Orloff, Oakland City Attorney John Russo Extrinsic Fraud Upon the Court!
http://NowTruth.WordPress.com/
EMAIL: nowtruth1@gmail.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/nowtruth
August 7, 2009, Oakland, CA:
Martin Silverman, newsnow1@gmail.com;
Toussaint LeToure
California Attorney General Jerry Brown, responsible for carrying out investigation of Alameda County Superior Court and State Appeals Court judges, District Attorney Tom Orloff, Oakland City Attorney John Russo and various corporate defendants is himself defending some of the criminals and covering up the very same corruption he is supposed to be investigating and prosecuting! Full Story with Videos and Documents on this blog or at http://tinyurl.com/ljk8av
Abdul-Jalil al-Hakim, the Uber-successful sports and entertainment agent with Superstar Management, filed a federal complaint with the United States Attorney General, Department of Justice, of a hate crime of Islamophobia and Xenophobia committed against him during a trial in Superior Court of Alameda County, California. More on al-Hakim on his Profile Page on this blog or at http://SuperstarManagement.WordPress.com/
The complaint, drafted and filed by al-Hakim in pro per, has broad based support from Democrats and Republicans, was submitted by Congresswoman Barbara Lee with the offices of Congressmen John Conyers, and Charles Rangel, reviewed by several legal experts, with advocacy by former Republican Senator J. C. Watts, a client of al-Hakim’s, is moving forward with the investigation and charges of criminal extrinsic fraud upon the court of the State of California, fabricating and planting fabricated evidence, spoliation of evidence, and the doctrine “unclean hands” against defendants/hostile intervener AAA Insurance; Ronald J. Cook, Randy Willoughby, Alex Stuart, Bradley Bening and others of the law firm Willoughby, Stuart & Bening; Stephan Barber and others of the law firm Ropers, Majeski; and many others.
The complaint addresses concern that Superior Court Judges’, defendants, defense counsels and others conduct rose to the level of consideration for a Federal Crime and a Civil Rights violation because the bench upon which the judge rules is “under the color of law” and certainly the violation of anyone’s civil rights is a federal crime, perhaps even more importantly, not only requested Merrily Friedlander, Chief of the Civil Rights Division, to make an investigation of a judicial hate crime, but also the many other civil rights and due process violations of judicial misconduct, and attorney extrinsic fraud upon the court and law that are themselves directly the matters complained.
After review in the U. S. A. G. Office, the case was thought of as being so egregious that even the infamous Bradley Schlozman, whom is now fired and facing Federal indictment with resigned former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez for removing Democratic attorneys from the U. S. Attorneys Generals offices nationwide, sent al-Hakim a letter referring the matter (because of jurisdictional limitations) to the California State Attorney General, California State Bar Association, the California State Judicial Council, and California State Insurance Commissioner for investigation and prosecution. And these were Republican Judges and attorney’s being complained of! Full Story with Videos and Documents on this blog or at http://tinyurl.com/ljk8av
The requested depositions and investigation concerns trial Judge David C. Lee’s allowance of the illegal product of fabricated and planted evidence, spoliated evidence and unclean hands by defendant/hostile intervener AAA Insurance; Cook and Willoughby, Stuart & Bening; defense counsel Steve Barber and the law firm of Ropers Majeski; the other underlying defendants; and the Oakland City Attorney’s Office run by John Russo to be admitted as evidence, subjected to testimony, and fostered it’s use to prejudice the jury. During the trial, testimony revealed that there were numerous documents and photos of a very damning nature to the defense and AAA as the hostile intervener, that were missing, altered, or incomplete.
Now, however, the very same California State Attorney General, Jerry Brown, responsible for carrying out the investigation of these crimes is himself defending these and other criminals and covering up the very same corruption he is supposed to be investigating and prosecuting!
Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff’s Extrinsic Fraud Upon the Court, Prosecutorial Misconduct, Willful and Malicious Prosecution, Conflict of Interest, Obstruction of Justice, Denial of Due Process, Willful and Intentional Fabrication and Authoring False Evidence; Misrepresentation and Concealment of Material Facts
al-Hakim had to file an action against Tom Orloff and the Alameda County District Attorney’s (DA) and the Alameda County Department of Child Support Services (ACDCSS) because for over 15 years they repeatedly failed and refused to enforce the courts own orders for the fair and proper application and accounting of payments al-Hakim made in trust to the DA in their fiduciary capacity for the minor al-Hakim child depriving al-Hakim and the minor child of over $2,000 of monies paid, thus creating a “mythical” arrearage and open account in al-Hakim’s name and on his behalf owed to the minor child, then illegally charging al-Hakim with the crime of violating the child support statute for nonpayment, reporting the alleged violation to the State of California for Collection and the State Department of Motor Vehicles for suspension of his driving privilege for nonpayment and illegally tossing al-Hakim into “debtors prison”, suspending his drivers license, revoking his passport, and ruining his credit. ACDCSS actions and claimed “right” to perform in this manner are not contained in any State or Federal statute, regulation, or other legislative act and therefore, do not have the force of law and renders it constitutionally infirm and no court officer can merely “grant” a ruling in their favor to cover getting caught having done so. Full Story with Videos and Documents on this blog or at http://tinyurl.com/ljk8av
Attorney General of The State of California Substituted In for DA Tom Orloff
On January 22, 2008 Attorney General Jerry Brown and the Office of The Attorney General of The State of California substituted in as attorney of record in this case for the Alameda County Department of Child Support Services allegedly “in the interest of justice”. What justice is there in the Attorney General defending, concealing and thereby further complicitly committing the admitted willful and intentional extrinsic fraud upon the court; prosecutorial misconduct; willful and malicious prosecution; misconduct; conflict of interest; obstruction of justice; denial of due process under the law; willful and intentional fabrication and authoring false evidence; misstating and mischaracterizing evidence; misrepresentation and concealment of material facts with knowledge of the truth with the intent to induce the court’s act or reliance; harassment; and intimidation on behalf of District Attorney Tom Orloff, Maureen Lenahan, Valgeria Harvey, counselors L. Lavagetto, Ms. K. Pendergrass, Ms. Adler, Kris Ferre, and accountant Mr. Lovelady and others unnamed in the DA’s office and Commissioner Oleon’s abuse of discretion, willful misconduct, conduct prejudicial, illegal ex-parte communications and bias that resulted in error.
This was done to excuse and protect the Alameda County Department of Child Support Services from their ongoing conflict of interest in their alleging to represent the interest of Joette Hall, whom they had defrauded along with al-Hakim of the funds paid to the DCSS in trust for their minor child.
The Alameda County Department of Child Support Services was never representing the al-Hakim Hall family, they were defending and covering up their extrinsic fraud upon the state and the families. The Alameda County Department of Child Support Services wanted to conceal their attempted coercion of al-Hakim to pay the arrearage they created in his name.
al-Hakim and his family had complained many times each year about the misapplication of the funds tendered to the Department of Child Support Services in trust for the al-Hakim Hall family.
Now Brown………
***IMPORTANT RELATED STORIES****
Miscreant Judge Jon Tigar’s Mental Meltdown On Bench When Served Scathing 750 Page Indictment For Cause! Strikes It Without Reading It, Libels Testimony and Authors Perjurious Order! See Respective Page on this Blog for Full Story with Videos and Documents!
Oakland City Attorney John Russo and the City Attorney’ Office has committed EXTRINSIC FRAUD, FRAUD UPON THE STATE, SUBORNATION AND SOLICITATION OF PERJURIOUS TESTIMONY, PROVIDING LITIGATION CASE FILES AND EVIDENCE TO DEFENDANTS, SPOLIATION OF EVIDENCE, FABRICATING EVIDENCE AND PLANTING FABRICATED EVIDENCE IN LITIGATION CASE FILES , ATTEMPTING TO DECEIVE THE PUBLIC IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANTS LIGITATION THEORY, CALUMNY DECEIT by giving the case files to defendant Stephan Barber and others of the law firm Ropers, Majeski, and Ronald J. Cook, Randy Willoughby, Alex Stuart, Bradley Bening and others of the law firm Willoughby, Stuart & Bening for nearly a year; then clearly constructed fraudulent fabricated evidence in 1999 and planted that evidence favorable to the defendants in the files SIX years AFTER the case was closed; engaged in spoliation of remaining evidence in the court files from 1991; and fostered witness testimony based on this planted evidence in the al-Hakim v CSAA and the underlying Rescue Rooter case that was created thru EXTRINSIC FRAUD with accompanying testimony procured thru admitted suborned and solicited perjurious acts by John Russo and others, they engaged in actions to destroy the litigation of al-Hakim’s legal case; they engaged in actions to coverup their unlawful acts; they comitted, aided and abetted this criminal activity with this unpardonable breach in the chain of custody of the court files! Read Full Story with Videos and Documents on this Blog!
Specious Judge Jon Tigar Employed Judicial Council, Alameda County Court Administration and County Sherriffs With His Co-Defense Counsel/Defendant’s Stephan Barber and others of the law firm Ropers, Majeski, and Ronald J. Cook, Randy Willoughby, Alex Stuart, Bradley Bening and others of the law firm Willoughby, Stuart & Bening to Investigate Plaintiff al-Hakim! Read Full Story with Videos and Documents on this Blog!
Oakland City Attorney John Russo, the quintesential mayorial “want to be”, has committed political suicide by a self inflicted corruption wound to the temple and can never win an elected posistion with the revelation of undeniable evidence of criminal wrong doing as protest and demands for his resignation and payment of damages are insurmountable and gaining meteoric momentum! These revealing examples of the real John Russo clearly exhibit his true beliefs as they pretain to blacks, minorities and racism; his being above the law with his self-percieved White Male Upper Class and Socio-Economic Priviledge; Bigotry and inciting Islamophobia in feeding fear and hatred of Islam and Muslims! Read Full Story with Videos and Documents on this Blog!
Miscreant Judge Jon Tigar Aborted Witness Testimony of The Honorable Judge Leo Dorado Because He and His Co-Defense Counsel/ Defendants Stephan Barber and others of the law firm Ropers, Majeski, as well as Ronald J. Cook, Randy Willoughby, Alex Stuart, Bradley Bening and others of the law firm Willoughby, Stuart & Bening, Feared al-Hakim Would Explore Corruption, Collusion, And Misconduct Of Judges And Lawyers Reported To U. S. Attorney General In al-Hakim Case! Tigar Did This IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANTS LIGITATION THEORY! Read Full Story with Videos and Documents on this Blog!
California State Court Corruption and Alameda County Presiding Court Judge Yolanda Northridge Conceals Corruption! This Was Done IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANTS LIGITATION THEORY! Read Full Story with Videos and Documents on this Blog!
Specious Judge Jon Tigar Aborted The Testimony of His Co-Defense Counsel/Defendant Ron Cook to destroy the litigation of al-Hakim’s legal case for his Co-Defense Counsel/Defendant Stephan Barber and others of the law firm Ropers, Majeski, and Ronald J. Cook, Randy Willoughby, Alex Stuart, Bradley Bening and others of the law firm Willoughby, Stuart & Bening al-Hakim still manage to get over 20 critical admissions of undeniable guilt of Stephan Barber and others of the law firm Ropers, Majeski, and Cook, Randy Willoughby, Alex Stuart, Bradley Bening! Read Full Story with Videos and Documents on this Blog!
Oakland City Attorney John Russo’s Office Withheld Ron Cook’s “Discovered” Note From City of Oakland File Refutes Rescission of Insurance Policy! Proves Tigar’s Co-Defense Counsel/ Defendants Stephan Barber and others of the law firm Ropers, Majeski, as well as Ronald J. Cook, Randy Willoughby, Alex Stuart, Bradley Bening and others of the law firm Willoughby, Stuart & Bening committed EXTRINSIC FRAUD, FRAUD UPON THE STATE, SUBORNATION AND SOLICITATION OF PERJURIOUS TESTIMONY, PROVIDING LITIGATION CASE FILES AND EVIDENCE TO DEFENDANTS, SPOLIATION OF EVIDENCE, FABRICATING EVIDENCE AND PLANTING FABRICATED EVIDENCE IN LITIGATION CASE FILES , ATTEMPTING TO DECEIVE THE PUBLIC IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANTS LIGITATION THEORY, CALUMNY DECEIT! Read Full Story with Videos and Documents on this Blog!
Oakland City Attorney John Russo’s Partners In Crime And Tigar’s Co-Defense Counsel/ Defendants Stephan Barber and others of the law firm Ropers, Majeski, as well as Ronald J. Cook, Randy Willoughby, Alex Stuart, Bradley Bening and others of the law firm Willoughby, Stuart & Bening Can Not Evade Established Evidence They Committed EXTRINSIC FRAUD, FRAUD UPON THE STATE, SUBORNATION AND SOLICITATION OF PERJURIOUS TESTIMONY, PROVIDING LITIGATION CASE FILES AND EVIDENCE TO DEFENDANTS, SPOLIATION OF EVIDENCE, FABRICATING EVIDENCE AND PLANTING FABRICATED EVIDENCE IN LITIGATION CASE FILES , ATTEMPTING TO DECEIVE THE PUBLIC IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANTS LIGITATION THEORY, CALUMNY DECEIT! Read Full Story with Videos and Documents on this Blog!
Miscreant Judge Jon Tigar Libels Testimony and Authors Perjurious, Deceptive, Fraudulent, Bereavement and Trial Ending Orders to Destroy the Litigation of al-Hakim’s case in Support of His Co-Defense Counsel/ Defendants Stephan Barber and the law firm Ropers, Majeski, as well as Ronald J. Cook, Randy Willoughby, Alex Stuart, Bradley Bening and the law firm Willoughby, Stuart & Bening It! This Was Done IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANTS LIGITATION THEORY! Read Full Story with Videos and Documents on this Blog!
Oakland City Attorney John Russo Above The Law, FRAUD UPON THE STATE, Racism, Bigotry, Exercising White-Male-Upper-Class-Priviledge! Read Full Story with Videos and Documents on this Blog!
Attorney General Jerry Brown, District Attorney Tom Orloff, Oakland City Attorney John Russo’s Failed Campaign Promises, Racism, Selective Prosecution, White Class Priviledge, Brokers for White Collar Crime! Read Full Story with Videos and Documents on this Blog! http://tinyurl.com/nggupv
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J. Gibson (x)
OLD MAP of the CONTINENT according to the greatest diametrical Length from the Point of East Tartary to the Cape of Good Hope
J. Gibson
Map depicts Africa, Asia, Europe, Greenland, and Russia centered on the longest length north to south. North faces uppermost left of map. Greenland is shown as very small proportionately. The map title is enclosed in an elaborately drawn frame.
New and Accurate Map of the Isles of GUADALOUPE, MARIE-GALANTE &c. from the Best Authorities
Map of Guadeloupe Island showing adjacent islands of Marie-Galante, Da Destrade, and The saints. Channels are marked as are three rump or loxodrome lines.
MAP of MARTINICO, from the latest and best AUTHORITIES
Map shows forested areas, shoals on the coast, anchorages, water mills, sugar works, and towns. Inset map depicts Guadeloupe Island.
MAP of the NEW CONTINENT according to its greatest diametrical Length from the River la Plata to beyond the Lake of the Assiniboils
MAP of the Cape of GOOD HOPE & the Country adjacent
Map of Cape Colony in the mid Eighteenth century. Of note: triangulation for measuring the arc of the meridian at Cape Town. Map illustrates an article on Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille's survey to determine the shape of the earth at the Cape of Good Hope. Interestingly, despite flawless calculations and precise measurements, his results indicated that Earth was pear-shaped, an error caused by failure to take into account the Newtonian gravitational effect of the Cape mountains on the plumb bob.
Accurate Map of the BRITISH EMPIRE in N'TH AMERICA as settled by the Preliminaries in 1762
Relief shown pictorially on map depicting settlements in North America by 1762. Shaded countries are those formerly claimed or possessed by France and Space and now ceded to Great Britain at the end of the French and Indian War. Capes, bays, and islands are etched including the Great Fishing Bank. Inset map depicts the mouth of the Mississippi.
Particular MAP, to Illustrate Gen. Amherst's Expedition to MONTREAL; with a Plan of the Town & Draught of the Island
Map depicts General Amherst's expedition along St. Lawrence River from Quebec to the Thousand Islands and onto the Niagara River, also a plan of the city of Montreal. Included on the map are the names of First Nations such as Iroquois, Senekaa, Cayugaes, etc. An inset map details the plan of the city itself including major streets and fortifications.
[Europe, Germany, Sheet no. 28]
Untitled map of Germany detailing pathways, churches, villages, towns, forests, and rivers. Small etched crowns appear at prominent town. For example: Schwiednitz. Regions named: Weichbild,Landeshutisch, Bolckenhayn
Untitled map of Germany detailing pathways, churches, villages, towns, forests, and rivers. Small etched crowns appear at prominent town. For example: bottom left at Loewenberg. Regions named: Weichbild, Leignitzisch and vicinity of Lignitz.
Untitled map of Poland and Germany detailing Breslaw and surrounding regions including forested areas, churches, mountains, lakes and rivers.
Untitled map indicating cities of Dresden and Meiseen. Etchings of mountain, forests, rivers, and pathways embellish surrounding region.
Untitled map of Germany detailing pathways, churches, villages, towns, forests, and rivers. Regions named: Rath, Goerlizer
General MAP of SAXONY and BOHEMIA, With the adjacent Countries, including all SILESIA
Map of the kingdom of Bohemia divided into districts by strong lines. The region remained in Austrian hands after 1763. It contains the sources of the Oder and Moravia rivers. Originally part of Moravia, it became a separate crown land of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1849. Czechoslovakia gained the larger part of it by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Germany seized it 1938, and then it was returned to Czechoslovakia in 1945. It is now part of the Czech Republic.
Correct Chart of the IRISH SEA, &c. exhibiting a View of the several Islands & Bays, lately touch'd at by M. THUROT, in his Attempt upon IRELAND
A nautical chart of the region along the coastlines of the British Isle including Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. The "Nymph Bank" is highlighted and a tiny fleet of ships is located between the Isle of Man and Belfast. A fleur-de-lis and rhumb lines embellish the chart.
Map of Part of BRANDENBURG, including BERLIN, and the Country Pillaged by the Russians
Map is detail of the area from Temlin in the Upper Marck to the north, south to Iuterbock, and East to Land Sternberg and New Marck. Named cities include: Drossen, Sonneburg, and Lippen.
Map Shewing the Situation of the FRENCH & ALLIED ARMIES in GERMANY, and to illustrate their late Engagements
Map depicting routes of French and Allied armies in Germany during engagements by dash lines.
Untitled map of Germany detailing pathways, churches, villages, towns, forests, and rivers. Regions named: Weichbild, Grot, Principatus Bre, Monsterbergensis
Map of Germany and part of Czechoslovakia. Map has detailed etchings of towns, pathways, rivers, and churches.
PLAN of the SIEGE of the HAVANA, Drawn by an OFFICER on the Spot 1762
Plan indicates besieged camps, General Elliots Camp, Col. Hows Camp, The Governor's Fort in Havana. Plan is distinguished by positional etchings of 20 warships in the Bay of Havana and at least 108 warships moored along the coast. Numbers indicate depth soundings.
Accurate MAP of the WEST INDIES, with the Adjacent Coast
Map detailing known islands in the West Indies including Avis, Guadalupe, Porto Rico, St. Domingo, Jamaica, Cuba, Bear Islands, Barbardoes, and many more. Of note is a dotted line "The Tract of the Galleons from Spain" and "The tract of 9 Galleons from Carthagene to the Havana" and "The Tract of the Flota from Vera Cruz to the Havana" amd "The Return of the Galleons to Old Spain". Many gulfs and Bay's are depicted. Small arrows pointing southwest might indicate prevailing winds.
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DEATH-CHASE KIDS WERE ON HUNT: COPS – 4 BUSTED IN NYU STUDENT’S DEATH
By Jamie Schram
April 10, 2006 | 4:00am
A marauding band of teen thugs – including two baby-faced 13-year-olds – were sadistically stalking their Harlem neighborhood for an “easy mark” to rob when they cornered an NYU student who was fatally struck by car as he fled, cops said yesterday.
While the chilling case had been believed to be a hate crime – with the black punks allegedly screaming, “Get whitey!” as he ran into traffic – police insisted that the group was instead a vicious “organized robbery team” on the prowl for any victim.
In chilling new details released yesterday, police said the pack of punks at first had planned to rob a Hispanic man as he walked toward them around East 125th Street before 8 p.m. April 1 – but were scared off by a passing police cruiser. Moments later, doomed NYU junior John Broderick “J.B.” Hehman emerged from a subway station, on his way to play video games with a friend.
The gang, which also included two 15-year-olds, followed its new victim for about a block as they plotted how they would bring him down, cops said.
At least two of the young thugs went around in front of the 20-year-old student, while another two followed him from behind, police said.
The group made its move outside a Popeye’s fast-food joint on East 125th Street, allegedly surrounding Hehman just after he bent down to give a dollar to a man in a wheelchair.
Deputy Inspector Michael Osgood said one of the teens grabbed Hehman while another rifled through his pockets and punched him in the face. Hehman broke free and fled as three of the thugs chased him. The NYU student then ran into the street, where he was hit by a passing Mercedes. He died at the hospital.
The teens were charged as adults for second-degree murder and attempted robbery, police said.
While they allegedly yelled, “Get whitey!” or “Get the white boy!” while chasing the white student, cops said they are backing away from any hate-crime charges because racial bias was not the motivating factor for the attack.
“The evidence is just overwhelming that it was economic and not a hate crime,” said Osgood, who works in NYPD Hate Crime Task Force. “In essence, what you have is an organized-robbery team going into a conspiracy.”
The suspects were identified as Hassan Mayfield and Andre Johnson, both 15, and Denzel Fell and Bobby Guzman, both 13. A fifth suspect is still at large.
Cops said a McDonald’s video led them to the suspects. Days before the attack, a group of teens trashed the fast-food restaurant, overturning cash registers and intimidating customers and employees. The incident was caught on tape, and police said at least some of those suspects were the involved in Hehman’s death.
The four teen suspects in custody made no comment as police escorted them from Harlem’s 25th Precinct yesterday.
Their relatives described them as a group of teens who are good students and had never been in trouble with the law.
“A person who is guilty is not going to just turn himself in,” said Natasha Jenkins, whose son, Mayfield, went to the precinct to talk to cops. “Hassan went to the cops voluntarily on two occasions to tell his side of the story.”
Guzman’s uncle said his nephew was not involved in the chase. “I don’t know what’s going on,” the uncle said. “He’s not a murderer.”
Adam Freedman, a lawyer for Johnson, said the suspects were interviewed outside the presence of their parents. “The police have not told me anything about his statements or any one else’s statements or even if they made a statement,” Freedman said.
There was lingering disappointment that the NYPD didn’t follow through on hate-crime charges. “They defined him based on his race, and when you do that, that’s an example of a hate crime,” said civil-rights lawyer Norman Siegel.
Eric Adams, of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, agreed, saying the department was falsely protecting New York’s image as a “wonderful mosaic.”
Additional reporting by C.J. Sullivan and Larry Celona
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State Representative Questions State Regent’s Representation in Opioid Appeal
Home / In the Press / Legislative Press Releases / News / Oklahoma Dems / Oklahoma House / Press Releases / State Representative Questions State Regent’s Representation in Opioid Appeal
by Angela A in In the Press, Legislative Press Releases, News, Oklahoma Dems, Oklahoma House, Press Releases
Contact: State Rep. Collin Walke
OKLAHOMA CITY – State Rep. Collin Walke (D-OKC) released the following statement questioning Oklahoma Regent for State Higher Education Andrew Lester’s involvement in the current opioid litigation on behalf of Johnson & Johnson:
“I am absolutely astounded that a member of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education is working on behalf of the very people who are responsible for Oklahoma’s opioid nuisance and who is hoping to reduce or completely nullify the historic judgment that will help bring restitution and recovery to our citizens.”
Andrew Lester is a regent and is also a partner at Spencer Fane. Mr. Lester recently entered his appearance on behalf of Johnson & Johnson and Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the defendants and appellants in the recent opioid trial in Oklahoma.
“The universities of this state will be integral in helping to abate the nuisance that Mr. Lester’s clients caused, just look at the opioid settlement money being utilized in conjunction with Oklahoma State University’s National Center for Wellness & Recovery.”
“Unless Mr. Lester is representing Johnson & Johnson pro bono, which I doubt, I fail to see how there isn’t a potential conflict of interest. This is especially surprising given the fact that in an Attorney General’s opinion from 1980, it was explained that ‘when addressing questions with respect to a possible conflict of interest, it appears that a standard which may be derived from authorities is that public policy is contravened when a public official places himself in a position which is inconsistent with his public function or which interferes with his unbiased performance of his duties or has a tendency to induce him to violate such duty regardless of whether it can be shown that the public actually suffered any detriment.’”
“If Mr. Lester wins the case for his clients, Oklahomans lose. So, I want to know who holds Mr. Lester’s loyalty? The universities, its students, and the public at large, or Johnson & Johnson? If it is the latter, then Mr. Lester should decide to avoid the appearance of impropriety and step away from the regents.”
House Completes Bill Filing Process for 2020 Session
by Angela A Jan 17 2020
Legislation Filed To Tackle Homeless Youth Quality-of-Life Issues
Provenzano Files ‘Student Borrower Bill of Rights’ Legislation
Dunnington Legislation Looks to End Oklahoma’s Death Penalty
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!Top Shelf!
A Familiar Stench Wafts Up from Alabama
by Andrew Donaldson · April 22, 2019
I thought we were done with this but apparently not.
Roy Moore is poised to jump into the Alabama Senate race in a bid to earn a rematch with Sen. Doug Jones, the Democrat who handed the former judge a stunning defeat in a 2017 special election.
Moore this past weekend told a gathering of grassroots Republicans that he would announce his 2020 plans in a matter of weeks. The 72-year-old perennial statewide candidate would enter the Republican primary the front-runner, according to a fresh poll.
Moore lost to Jones in deep-red Alabama amid revelations of sexual misconduct from decades ago. But the former chief justice of the state Supreme Court is champing at the bit for a do-over, believing he was treated unfairly and that voters, with the passage of time, would agree.
“The people of Alabama were hoodwinked; Jones had a free pass,” Moore confidant Dean Young told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. “I would not be surprised if Judge Moore gets back in it.”
Moore is the one candidate that makes Republicans in Washington nervous.
Past allegations of sexual misconduct and what some regard as extreme right-wing positions limited Moore’s appeal against Jones in the December 2017 special election and could do so again. For that reason, both establishment insiders and conservative operatives are prepared to oppose Moore in the primary if he runs.
“The NRSC’s official stance is ABRM: anyone but Roy Moore,” Kevin McLaughlin, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said in February, after Moore started making the rounds to gauge another run. “The only thing Doug Jones and I agree on is that his only prayer for electoral success in 2020 is a rematch with Roy Moore,” McLaughlin said.
Hoodwinked? Did that man say hoodwinked? Hoodw…hell, no, they weren’t hoodwinked; they had just had enough of Roy Moore. What a criminal misuse of the term hoodwinked.
Long before the 2017 primary that saw Roy Moore ride off on the horse that had brought him in a metaphor brought to life, the twice-defrocked judge was already unfit for office. He was twice removed from his position on the Alabama Supreme Court, first in 2003 and again in 2016 for breaking the law he was sworn to uphold. He was unfit for any further office based solely on either of those instances of him flouting the law for his own gain. And Moore and his supporters can couch it in whatever terms he wants, it was for the gain of Roy Moore. It wasn’t saving the Ten Commandments, it was the Ten Commandments as saved by Judge Roy Moore, righteous savior of Alabama Christianity. He wasn’t just advocating for family values, it was Judge Roy Moore Saves Political Christendom, Inc from the evil hordes. He wasn’t just for traditional marriage, he was Judge Moore vs all the gays who want to destroy you poor defenseless, politically active, and donation friendly simplefolks if not for the righteous law-breaking judge to stand up and stop them. The common thread is that Roy Moore is always chiefly concerned with Roy Moore, and if you attack Roy Moore it’s not because of Roy Moore’s many flaws but because you hate God, America, or whatever other righteous crusade is ongoing at the time.
Such heavy-handed self-righteousness is apparently good enough for some folks in Alabama and elsewhere to continue supporting the disgraced former judge. They are free to do so, but the rest of us that have a smattering of discernment have a long, thick, and disturbing book on who and what Roy Moore is, and all of it cries out for him to be kept as far from elected office as possible. To such as man as Moore, his own beliefs trump everything else, his will and desire is the paramount guide to what is right and wrong, and therefore any criticism is both unwarranted and probably downright un-American. He doesn’t have a problem with women and underaged girls; that is just Satan and money from the media. He cannot break state and federal law if he is following God’s law, but is quick to insist people who are not breaking the law are when it suits him.
And failing all that, and at attaining high office, and in conceding defeat like a man to now-Senator Doug Jones, he resorted to trying to monetize his grievances, and in doing so confirms how it really is all about him, no matter how much religion or patriotism he tries to dress himself up in.
“The liberal media, in association with some who want to destroy our Country,” he wrote, “… are doing everything they can to stop me.
“Gays, lesbians, and transgenders have joined forces with those who believe in abortion, sodomy, and destruction of all that we hold dear. Unless we stand together we will lose our Country,” he continued.
He said that “Christians can no longer afford to remain silent in these ‘perilous’ times,” taking aim at “covetous,” “unthankful,” “unholy” and “incontinent” “lovers of pleasure.”
“When I stood to bring these values and truths to Washington D. C. I was forced to fight the Washington establishment, the Republican Party, the Democrat Party, the ultra-liberal media and people such as George Soros, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and many others who fear the truth,” he wrote.
And by “We” he means him. And only him. So send money.
But a country, a state, and a faith that “needs” Roy Moore is one that isn’t worth having in the first place. It’s a lascivious lie born out of the gigantic ego of a warped mind determined to wave the flag and a Bible at people and expect them to throw all logic and reason away, and thank Roy for the privilege of being saved from “those people” by happily enslaving yourself to the cause of Moore.
To hell with that, and to hell with Roy Moore.
Christianity doesn’t need him, the people of Alabama deserved better than him, and our country certainly doesn’t need one more self-centered scandal-ridden politician with a martyr’s complex. Folks who love the flag and care about their faith, and the country that represents and protects both, should be leading the charge to keep Roy Moore right where he is — marginalized. The people have already judged Roy Moore, and found him wanting, as they should have.
Now go away, Roy Moore, with or without the horse you rode in on. Preferably without; the horse deserves better, too.
Tags: 2020AlabamapoliticsPrimariesRoy MooreSenate
Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire.
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pillsy
I hope Moore gets wiped out in the primary, as he deserves. This may mean a candidate who has a better chance to defeat Jones runs in his place, but I think it’s bad for everybody when a major party nominates someone as flagrantly unfit for the office he seeks as Roy Moore.
That being said, if he wins the primary, a lot of the blame will fall on the activists and media figures who desperately wanted him to beat Jones and deciding to make all the evidence of his unfitness part of some insidious liberal plot.
One of the problems with a strategy that depends on relentlessly deceiving your own supporters is that sometimes it works.Report
LTL FTC
We keep waiting for Moore’s *last* last stand, and it hasn’t been forthcoming, so let’s hope the primary marks the end of it.
That said, what do you do about an awful guy whose main appeal seems to be that all the “wrong” people talk about how awful he is? It’s like he and Trump absorb the vitriol of the opposition and turn it into enthusiasm (and cash) by some sort of troll photosynthesis. Silence seems negligent, and would have probably consigned Doug Jones to the scrap heap of Great Dem Southern Hopes. But the current strategy doesn’t seem to ever slay the beast.Report
Mike Schilling in reply to LTL FTC
If Jones merely loses, her’ll have been lucky. Alabama’s previous response to a Great Dem Southern Hope was to railroad him into prison.Report
There is no way the Alabama Republican primary voters will be dumb enough to give him the nod again. Just no way in hell.Report
CJColucci in reply to North
Maybe, but people said the same thing before.Report
Slade the Leveller in reply to North
HehReport
Philip H in reply to North
My neighbors one state to the east are not dumb, and Jones has caucused enough with the Republicans that he can point to actually representing his constituents. We will have to see who runs with Moore in the primaries, but he’s not going to get the backing of the Republican establishment, which still msotly matters in southern politics.Report
pillsy in reply to North
I hope not. We’ll see. Republican primary voters haven’t exactly been covering themselves in glory lately.Report
Michael Siegel
Just wanted to say Yes to all of this. Moore is garbage masquerading as virtue.Report
Saul Degraw
I disagree with North and I think I disagree with you. I loathe Roy Moore and am glad Doug Jones won but his victory was a bit of a perfect storm of everything going right for him. Wikipedia confirmed my suspicion that Doug Jones had a within the margin of error victory. He won “673,896 votes (50.0%) to Moore’s 651,972 votes (48.3%) with 22,852 write-in votes (1.7%).” This is only because Alabama Republicans decided that Moore was their man. If Alabama Republicans were really tired of pompous bigot Roy Moore, we would be talking about Senator Luther Strange whenever mentioning the junior senator from Alabama.
Can history repeat itself and Doug Jones gets reelected in 2020 because he went against Roy Moore? Yes but it is a coin toss especially during a Presidential election year when Trumpian voters are going to be out in full force. Plus Doug Jones breaks even in the approval/disapproval ratings at 45/44 respectively.Report
North in reply to Saul Degraw
I dunno Saul. In the unlikely event the GOP primary voters nominate Moore again Jones could quite possibly win. He beat Moore before without an incumbency advantage and 45/44% approval for a Democratic Senator in Ala-fishing-bama? That’s a pretty good number. Finally, Presidency elections are typically higher turnout and higher turnout generally favors Dems.Report
Saul Degraw in reply to North
If this were Texas or another purple-red leaning state, I’d say sure but this is Alabama and I think Jones was helped by being a special election too.Report
Yes and again, I repeat myself, I don’t think even Alabamans would nominate Moore again. I am pretty sure there’s at least one additional ambitious politician on the right in the heart of Dixie and a right leaning corpse should be able to beat proven loser Moore in the GOP primary there.Report
LeeEsq in reply to Saul Degraw
Just enough Republicans decided to stay home rather than go out and vote. This allowed Jones to win by a squeaker. Its better than Democratic politicians usually do in Alabama but in a sane political body, the victory would not be that close.Report
Am I the only one who sees the irony of this post dropping n the same day as the Polish Joke one?
Conservatives: “Why do liberals hold us in contempt?”
Roy Moore: “Hold my beer.”Report
Andrew Donaldson in reply to Chip Daniels
More a function of not wanting to drop a flamethrowing piece on Easter, since I had been sitting on it since Friday. And more than a few conservatives have spoken out about the loathsome Moore.Report
Chip Daniels in reply to Andrew Donaldson
Do any of them loath him enough to vote D?
Or are they more of the “I loathe him, but must vote for him” variety?Report
A good number either voted against or sat home, which functions as the same thing, in order for Jones to win. Those of us not in Alabama can only sling words at the grossness of the situation. As I did here.Report
North in reply to Chip Daniels
Based on Jones winning I’d say the answer pretty empirically yes Chip.Report
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Russian judge shot dead in Moscow
A judge in several high-profile cases was gunned down Monday as he walked out of his apartment to go to work, officials said.
Eduard Chuvashov had worked as a judge with Moscow's City Court for two years.
He specialized in handling complicated criminal cases and felonies, said court spokeswoman Anna Usacheva.
"We knew him as a very professional, decent and responsive person," Usacheva said.
In December 2008, Chuvashov sentenced a group of Russian teenage skinheads for carrying out 20 racially-motivated killings.
Seven defendants were handed prison sentences ranging from six to 20 years for killing non-Slavic migrants in Russia between 2006 and 2007.
When arrested, the leader of the gang, Artur Ryno, was only 17. The gang posted videos of their attacks on the Internet, readily admitted to their crimes in court and didn't repent.
Most recently, Chuvashov convicted 12 skinheads from a group known as the The White Wolves.
Russia's Interfax news agency quoted an official as saying the judge had been getting constant threats, and ultra-nationalist groups had urged their followers on Web posts to lynch the judge.
Post by: CNN's Maxim Tkachenko
Filed under: Russia • World
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Has The Trade War Taken A Bite Out Of China's Economy? Yes — But It's Complicated
By Jolie Myers, Ailsa Chang, Sam Gringlas & Mallory Yu • Oct 10, 2019
In the industrial city of Dongguan, China, the effects of the trade war on the Chinese economy are measured in idled machinery and empty bar stools.
"One year ago, you probably couldn't even get through the crowd because it would be so busy. But right now, even the smallest vendors can't survive," says Song Guanghui, the owner of Crowdbar, a tricked-out food stall in an open-air market in Dongguan.
Communist China Turns 70. Who Shares Its Economic Growth?
By Jolie Myers, Ailsa Chang, Mallory Yu & Sam Gringlas • Oct 1, 2019
Seventy years ago, Mao Zedong appeared on a balcony overlooking Tiananmen Square and conjured a new country into being. On Tuesday, Xi Jinping, arguably the strongest leader since Mao, appeared on that same balcony to reaffirm his vision of modern China.
That vision includes what Xi has repeatedly referred to as the "Chinese Dream," one pillar of which is the idea that all Chinese should have access to the shared prosperity of the nation.
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Site icons Menu button View on campus map Next Previous Expand Collapse More information Facebook Twitter Instagram Youtube Youtube Subscribe Pinterest linkedin envelope Footer Crest
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Researchers develop new approach that combines biomass conversion, solar energy conversion
Chemistry Professor Kyoung-Shin Choi (right) and postdoctoral researcher Hyun Gil Cha (left) have developed an innovative approach to combining solar energy conversion and biomass conversion.
Photo: UW–Madison Chemistry Department
In a study published March 9 in Nature Chemistry, University of Wisconsin–Madison chemistry Professor Kyoung-Shin Choi presents a new approach to combine solar energy conversion and biomass conversion, two important research areas for renewable energy.
For decades, scientists have been working to harness the energy from sunlight to drive chemical reactions to form fuels such as hydrogen, which provide a way to store solar energy for future use. Toward this end, many researchers have been working to develop functional, efficient and economical methods to split water into hydrogen, a clean fuel, and oxygen using photoelectrochemical solar cells (PECs). Although splitting water using an electrochemical cell requires an electrical energy input, a PEC can harness solar energy to drive the water-splitting reaction. A PEC requires a significantly reduced electrical energy input or no electrical energy at all.
In a typical hydrogen-producing PEC, water reduction at the cathode (producing hydrogen) is accompanied by water oxidation at the anode (producing oxygen). Although the purpose of the cell is not the production of oxygen, the anode reaction is necessary to complete the circuit. Unfortunately, the rate of the water oxidation reaction is very slow, which limits the rate of the overall reaction and the efficiency of the solar-to-hydrogen conversion. Therefore, researchers are currently working to develop more efficient catalysts to facilitate the anode reaction.
“ … since we knew that the impact of the study could be high when successful, we decided to invest our time and effort on this new research project at the interface of biomass conversion and solar energy conversion.”
Kyoung-Shin Choi
Choi, along with postdoctoral researcher Hyun Gil Cha, chose to take a completely new approach to solve this problem. They developed a novel PEC setup with a new anode reaction. This anode reaction requires less energy and is faster than water oxidation while producing an industrially important chemical product. The anode reaction they employed in their study is the oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) to 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA). HMF is a key intermediate in biomass conversion that can be derived from cellulose — a type of cheap and abundant plant matter. FDCA is an important molecule for the production of polymers.
Biomass conversion can offer a viable pathway to generate chemicals used in industrial processes without using petroleum products. Conventional biomass conversion processes use high-pressure oxygen for the conversion of HMF to FDCA at high temperatures. Choi and Cha, however, developed an efficient electrochemical method to oxidize HMF to FDCA at room temperature and ambient pressure using water as the oxygen source. Then they employed this oxidation reaction as the anode reaction of the PEC that produces hydrogen at the cathode. By doing so, they demonstrated the utility of solar energy for biomass conversion as well as the feasibility of using an oxidative biomass conversion reaction as an anode reaction in a hydrogen-forming PEC.
“Since the photoelectrochemical cell is built for the purpose of hydrogen production and HMF oxidation simply replaces oxygen production at the anode, in essence, no resources are used specifically for HMF oxidation,” says Choi.
In other words, FDCA is a bonus byproduct from a PEC that generates hydrogen. The production of FDCA, a valuable chemical, at the anode lowers the production cost for hydrogen. This new approach therefore presents new possibilities for research in both solar conversion and biomass conversion.
“When we first started this study, we were not sure whether our approach could be really feasible,” Choi says. “However, since we knew that the impact of the study could be high when successful, we decided to invest our time and effort on this new research project at the interface of biomass conversion and solar energy conversion.”
Developing and optimizing every piece of the full solar cell setup demonstrated in the study took the researchers about two years. Choi expects that the development of more diverse and efficient electrochemical and solar-driven biomass conversion processes will increase the efficiency and utility of solar-fuel-producing PECs.
—Libby Dowdall
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FBI: Hate crime murders hit record; anti-transgender crimes soar
Erin Donaghue
CBS News November 13, 2019
Hate crime murders in the U.S. reached a 27-year high in 2018, according to data released Tuesday by the FBI. Hate crime murders totaled 24, which includes the 11 worshipers slain last year at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the deadliest anti-Semitic crime in U.S. history.
New FBI statistics show hate crimes overall were down slightly in 2018 following three years of increases. Of 16,039 law enforcement agencies who participate in the hate crime data collection program, 2,026 agencies reported 7,120 hate crime incidents involving 8,496 offenses, meaning some involved multiple criminal charges. Most of the hate-crime incidents, 7,036, were "single bias," while the rest stemmed from multiple biases. The incidents involved 8,646 victims.
The FBI reported 7,175 hate crime incidents in 2017 and 6,121 in 2016.
Matthew Shepard's parents praise hate crimes progress despite "hypocritical" Justice Department
Daniel Elbaum, chief advocacy officer for the American Jewish Committee, said it's a positive to see slightly fewer hate crimes in 2017 than 2018, but he noted that about 110 fewer law enforcement agencies contributed data. He said it was disturbing to see a significant rise in hate crime murders.
Elbaum and other advocates point out that hate crime statistics — submitted voluntarily by local jurisdictions to the FBI — are incomplete and don't offer a full picture of bias crimes in the country.
"It's really hard to tackle a problem until you have a handle on how large of a problem it is," Elbaum said. "Nearly every expert on hate crimes agrees it's under-reported."
Of the single-bias hate crime incidents in the 2018 data:
57.5% were motivated by a race/ethnicity/ancestry bias
20.2% were motivated by religious bias
17% were motivated by sexual-orientation bias
2.4% were motivated by gender-identity bias
2.3% were motivated by disability bias
0.7% were motivated by gender bias
Of crimes motivated by race, ethnicity or ancestry, 46.9 percent were fueled by bias against African Americans. Anti-Hispanic crimes also again rose, spiking nearly 14 percent between 2017 and 2018.
Of crimes motivated by religious bias, most of the incidents, 57.8%, were anti-Jewish, according to the FBI. Anti-Sikh crimes tripled from 20 in 2017 to 60 in 2018, and crimes motivated by disability bias also soared from 116 in 2017 to 159 in 2018.
The 24 total hate crime murders recorded were the highest since the FBI began tracking and reporting on hate crimes in 1991, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
"It is unacceptable that Jews and Jewish institutions continue to be at the center of religion-based hate crime attacks," ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. "We need to take concrete action to address and combat this significant problem."
Crimes targeting the LQBTQ community increased about 6% from 2017, and the FBI reports a significant increase in hate crimes motivated by gender identity bias. The FBI said 184 hate crime offenses in 2018 were motivated by bias against transgender or gender non-conforming people — 157 motivated by anti-transgender bias and 27 motivated by bias against gender non-conforming individuals. In 2017, 118 were anti-transgender and 13 were anti-gender non-conforming.
Xavier Persad, senior legislative counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, said the data "reminds us of the importance of the work left to be done to protect LGBTQ people," particularly transgender women of color, who the group says is most at risk for violence.
Despite the slight decrease in reported hate crimes overall, Persad said the incidents "remain unacceptably high."
"We are talking about violence against people just because of who they are," Persad said.
Advocates point out a significant gap in the FBI's data which came to light because two of the most notorious hate crimes in recent years were never reported to the government, even though they were prosecuted as hate crimes. The killing of Heather Heyer in the 2017 Charlottesville car attack as she protested the "Unite the Right" rally, and the fatal 2016 shooting of Khalid Jabara in Tulsa by a neighbor who had terrorized the victim's Lebanese family, were both left out of national hate crime statistics collected by the FBI. Proposed legislation named for the victims, the Heather Heyer and Khalid Jabara NO HATE act, would provide incentives for hate crime reporting and grants for state-run hate crime hotlines.
"A year after the most deadly assault on the American Jewish community in history and with xenophobia and racism remaining front and center in our national dialogue, this bipartisan measure is necessary legislation," Sim Singh, senior manager of policy and advocacy at the Sikh Coalition, said in a statement. "If we cannot accurately track the problem of bias-motivated incidents, we will remain inherently limited in our efforts to combat them."
In 2018, at least 85 cities with populations exceeding 100,000 residents either did not report any hate crimes or reported zero hate crimes, according to the ADL. Alabama and Wyoming reported zero hate crimes for 2018.
The Justice Department has said that efforts are underway to improve investigation and reporting of hate crimes at the state and local level, including developing comprehensive training curriculums for local law enforcement, and providing resources on a new hate crimes website.
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Honoring a Local Nineteenth Century African-American Philanthropist
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On Sunday, Oct. 24, at 2:30 p.m., members of the Yale and New Haven communities will meet at the Grove Street Cemetery to dedicate a monument to an extraordinary New Haven philanthropist-a washerwoman by trade.
When Mary A. Goodman died in 1872, she bequeathed her entire life savings, amounting to nearly $5,000, to Yale’s Theological Department “to educate men of her own color in Yale College for the Gospel ministry.”
As the New Haven Palladium for February 2, 1872 reported, Mrs. Goodman’s motive in making this gift was as follows:
“Herself a member and regular attendant of the College Street church, and thus accustomed to intelligent preaching, she felt that the time was coming, in the rapid progress of her race and people, when they would require a more highly educated ministry, and it was after full deliberation and with real pleasure, that she consecrated to this object, nearly a year since, the entire earnings of her life.”
Speakers at the event will include Professor Howard Lamar, chair of the cemetery’s Committee of Proprietors; Bruce Alexander, vice president for New Haven and State Affairs; the Rev. Frederick J. Streets, University chaplain; the Rev. Richard J. Wood, dean of the Divinity School; and Judith A. Schiff, chief research archivist at Sterling Memorial Library.
“Too often the town/gown relationship is portrayed as one in which the university sustains the community,” says Yale Divinity School research scholar Peter Dobkin Hall. “Gifts like Mary Goodman’s call attention to the important ways in which the community has sustained Yale and, through its support, encouraged it to meet new challenges.”
In addition, notes Lisa R. Berlinger, director of the Program on Non-Profit Organizations at YDS, the Goodman Bequest reminds us of the important influence that even relatively modest philanthropy can have.
Goodman’s gift helped the Theological Department (now the Divinity School) broaden its mission to include training clergy as leaders in communities being transformed by emancipation, industry, immigration, and a widening gap between rich and poor. The bequest helped make the Divinity School a center – within an otherwise conservative institution – for scholars and citizens concerned with social justice.
Yale expressed its appreciation to Mary Goodman by giving her a grave in one of the college lots in the Grove Street Cemetery and by erecting a monument with the following inscription:
Mary A. Goodman
Of African descent, she gave the earnings of her life
to educate men of her own color in Yale College
for the Gospel Ministry.
Last fall, the Goodman stone, along with a number of others, was destroyed by vandals. A friend of the cemetery donated an uninscribed period marble monument (from the unsold stock of the old Thomas Phillips’ Sons Monument Company). John R. and Michael F. Nolan of Nolan’s Hamden Monuments contributed their skills to inscribing the stone. William Cameron, Grove Street’s superintendent, oversaw the process of design, carving and installation.
An endowed lectureship being established in Goodman’s memory: the Mary A. Goodman Lectureship in Community Ministry. This position will enable the Divinity School to broaden its offerings in the leadership and management of religious and civic communities and in social ministry.
For further information about the Goodman Lectureship, contact Peter Sipple, Director of Development, Yale Divinity School, 409 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511.
Dorie Baker: dorie.baker@yale.edu, 203-432-1345
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Renowned Iraqi maqam vocalist Hamid Al-Saadi performs Saturday
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Home POLITICS New flaw discovered on Boeing 737 Max, sources say
(CNN)A new flaw has been discovered in the computer system for the Boeing 737 Max that could push the plane downward, according to two sources familiar with the testing, an issue that is expected to further delay the aircraft’s return to service.
A series of simulator flights to test new software developed by Boeing revealed the flaw, according to one of the sources.
The latest versions of Boeing’s popular jet were grounded in March after two crashes — Lion Air flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 — that killed 346 people.
While the crashes remain under investigation, preliminary reports showed that a new stabilization system pushed both planes into steep nosedives from which the pilots could not recover. The issue is known in aviation vernacular as runaway stabilizer trim.
Boeing announced it could break the chain of events that led to both crashes by developing a software fix that would limit the potency of that stabilization system.
In simulator tests, government pilots discovered that a microprocessor failure could push the nose of the plane toward the ground. It is not known whether the microprocessor played a role in either crash.
When testing the potential failure of the microprocessor in the simulators, “it was difficult for the test pilots to recover in a matter of seconds,” one of the sources said. “And if you can’t recover in a matter of seconds, that’s an unreasonable risk.”
Boeing engineers are now trying to address the issue, which has led to another delay in recertifying the 737 Max.
“The safety of our airplanes is Boeing’s highest priority,” the company said in a statement.
Boeing said that the Federal Aviation Administration “identified an additional requirement that it has asked the company to address through the software changes that the company has been developing for the past eight months.”
“Boeing agrees with the FAA’s decision and request, and is working on the required software,” the company said, adding that “Boeing will not offer the 737 MAX for certification by the FAA until we have satisfied all requirements for certification of the MAX and its safe return to service.”
The sources say Boeing engineers are trying to determine if the microprocessor issue can be fixed by reprogramming software or if replacing the physical microprocessors on each 737 Max aircraft may be required.
Pilot training also undergoing update
In preparation for the airplane’s return to service, Boeing and the FAA are also working out details of additional training for 737 MAX pilots, which could include additional simulator time, the sources said.
Boeing and the FAA are working with the European, Brazilian and Canadian civil aviation authorities.
Boeing has proposed computer-based training which could be completed quickly and on an iPad. Pilots unions, as well as “Miracle on the Hudson” hero Chelsey Sullenberger, have said such training cannot be adequately experienced on an iPad.
The FAA is still actively considering whether more time consuming and expensive simulator training will be required, according to both sources.
Gregory Martin, an FAA spokesman, said Wednesday the regulator “is following a thorough process, not a prescribed timeline, for returning the Boeing 737 Max to passenger service.”
“The FAA will lift the aircraft’s prohibition order when we deem it is safe to do so,” the spokesman said. “We continue to evaluate Boeing’s software modification and we are still developing necessary training requirements.”
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Ilocos Sur: Calle Crisologo
A tour in the UNESCO Heritage town of Vigan City would never be complete if you won't visit Calle Crisologo. Also known as Mena Crisologo Street, Vigan's most famous tourist spot gives everyone a chance to see and experience life during the Spanish Colonial Era. If you're wondering where the street got its name, it was named after Mena Pecson Crisologo. He is a writer and a respected "son" of the Ilocos region. He wrote Minig wenno Ayat ti Kararwa, an Ilocano novel which many say is as passionate as Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere. Among Crisologo's works are Don Calixtofaro de la Kota Caballero de la Luna and Codigo Municipal. Calle Crisologo is famous for its cobblestone streets, century old houses, and calesas. Keep in mind that the street is closed to vehicular traffic and only calesas (horse-drawn carriages) are allowed there. Don't worry the whole the whole stretch of Calle Crisologo can be toured by foot too. By day the street is an enjoyable p…
Location: Vigan City, Philippines
Cebu: Crimson Resort and Spa Mactan
Located in Mactan Island in the province of Cebu, Crimson Resort and Spa Mactan is one of the high-end resorts found on the island.
Far from the noise and pollution of the city, Crimson Resort and Spa Mactan offer you a wide variety of activities and amenities fit for a king. If you want to experience living a life of class and luxury, this place is right for you.
On the other hand, if you want solitude, nothing beats the comfort of your own private beach. You heard that right, Crimson Resort and Spa Mactan offers activities in its own white sand beach. You could try the kayak, jet ski, and banana boat. If you want more adventure, try scuba diving, para-sailing, speedboat tours, and its tow rides.
However, if you're with your family, the kids (and even you're in-laws) would surely love what Crimson Resort and Spa Mactan have in store for them. While you and your sweetheart are enjoying the gym, send the kids to the Crimzone (kid's activity area) and your in-laws to the spa. I…
Location: Mactan Island, Philippines
Albay: Joroan Church
Located in the town of Joroan in Tiwi in the province of Albay. Joroan Church is more popularly known to pilgrims as Nuestra Señora de Salvacion which is the name of the miraculous statuette of the Virgin Mary.
It is said that the town of Joroan and Nuestra Señora de Salvacion are inseparable. Not to mention, the town of Joroan became famous because of the said image of the Virgin Mary.
The story about the miraculous statuette began when a man named Mariano Dacoba, a saltmaker and caretaker, was clearing the land that he was asked to watch over. He cut down a calpi tree to use as firewood. However, after a day he was amazed that the tree did not wilt nor die but instead remained fresh as it was before. He believed that it was a miracle. He shared the story to his master who in turn asked the friar to come over and see for himself the miracle that occurred. The friar in turn called a sculptor named Bagacumba. Out of the miraculuos tree, he carved three statuettes -Nuestra Señora de Salva…
Location: Tiwi, Philippines
Panagbenga Festival 2012: Cultural Adventure
Celebrated in Baguio every February until the first Sunday of March, Panagbenga Festival is one of the most anticipated cultural event in the Philippines.
Panagbenga is a Kankanaey term that means "season of blossoming, a time for flowering". Although the festival is a month-long celebration, most people would come to visit what most people would dub the highlight of the festival, which is the floral parade held during the fourth Sunday of February.
The event opens with showers of rose petals along Session Road. Your eyes would then feast upon beautiful floral floats, synchronized marching bands, lively street dancers, and the occasional celebrities and politicians that pass through selected streets up until the Melvin Jones Grounds.
When we attended the Panagbenga Festival, we made sure to leave manila at night to conserve our energy. Expect that your travel time could be extended up to 10 hours due to traffic.
Aside from that, book a hotel at least two months prior to the …
Location: Baguio City, Philippines
Location: Talisay, Philippines
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Bukidnon: Kampo Juan
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Albay: Parish Church of Guinobatan
Cavite: Dasmariñas Church
Pampanga: San Guillermo Parish Church
Cavite Adventure: Tagaytay City
A Guide to Backpack Adventures
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Japan Diaries 2: Day 0
It has been almost half a decade since we last visited Japan. This year, we are blessed to be given another chance to revisit this beautiful country and stay there for 22 days. Join me and my family as we recount the daily accounts of our trips and adventures to the Land of the Rising Sun.
Day 0(May 16, 2018):
Finally! Our long-awaited day has come. Our four years of planning and saving up finally bore fruit. It is probably safe to say that we missed the culture, food, and most of all our Japanese family.
We left Manila aboard Cebu Pacific flight 5J808 bound for Kansai International Airport (KIX) at around 2PM Philippine time. Since our flight was delayed for almost an hour we arrived in KIX at around 7:30PM Japan time. For those who do not know, Japan time is one hour ahead of Philippine time.
We were picked up at the airport by our Japanese godfather and he immediately drove us to his residence in Tsubasagaoka, Sennan-gun in Osaka Prefecture.
There, we were warmly welcomed by our Japane…
Location: Kumatori, Sennan District, Osaka Prefecture, Japan
Nueva Ecija: Stone 8 Resort
Located in the municipality of Gabaldon in Nueva Ecija, Stone 8 Resort is one of the most popular cold spring resort in the municipality.
Stone 8 resort started out several years ago when its owner Nestor Geronimo decided to come back to his hometown and invest his time, money, and energy to help boost his town's tourism. Since then, the resort has been frequented not only by the people of Gabaldon but also even those that come from Metro Manila.
Regarding the name of the resort, Stone 8 Resort got its name from "Kapitan" Nestor who was once a barangay captain of Barangay 88 Zone 8 Caloocan City. As for the "stone" part of its name, it came from... well, the place being very stony.
Location: Gabaldon, Nueva Ecija, Philippines
Top 10 Things to Do in Vigan City
A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Vigan City is one of the most visited places in Ilocos Sur. The city is known for its historical attractions which is visited by thousands of tourists every year.
If you're planning to visit Vigan City for the first time, here's something that might help you on you adventure:
1. Buy Souvenirs.
2. Head to Pinagburnayan and watch how a burnay is made.
3. Visit the Jose Burgos Museum
4. Eat at Hidden Garden
5. Check out the animals and the life-size dinosaur statues at Baluarte.
6. Eat Empanada at Vigan Empanadahan
7. Walk around Calle Crisologo at night
8. Spend Christmas and watch the city light up at night.
9. Visit Vigan Catedral.
10. Walk at the cobblestone street of Calle Crisologo during the day.
How about you? What are your top 10 things to do in Vigan City?
Location: Vigan City, Ilocos Sur, Philippines
First Timer's Guide to PH International Driving Permit
Although I highly promote backpacking and using public transportation when visiting other countries, I also encourage car or motorcycle rentals in some occasions.
Renting a vehicle abroad has its pros and cons alright (I will discuss these on a separate article) but this article would focus mainly on how we Filipinos could get the PhilippineInternational Driving Permit (PIDP) so that we could make use of our driving skills abroad.
Here are the things that you should know about the Philippine International Driving Permit:
> What are the requirements needed for application?
Philippine Driver's License (original and photocopy)Two pieces 2"x2" color ID picture white backgroundIn case of non-appearance, a letter of authorization and any valid ID of representativeP3,500 processing fee
> What countries honors the permit?
The Philippine International Driving Permit is honored in almost all countries that are signatories to the 1949 and 1968 United Nations Convention on Road T…
First Timer's Guide to PH International Driving Pe...
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Everything or nothing the untold story of 007 full movie
Posted on 27.02.2019 by Carla V.
Everything Or Nothing: The Untold Story Of 007 review
Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of 007
Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of 007 'Brosnan' Clip
A documentary to commemorate 50 years of James Bond films. Albert Broccoli, Barbara Broccoli, Dana Broccoli, Sean Connery, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig, Ian Fleming. Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Daniel Craig and Pierce Brosnan all add.
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Make sure all words and movie titles are spelled correctly and try again. From the mind of Ian Fleming to the tremendous franchise it is today, directors, actors, actresses, and singers all gather for a series of interviews, and shed some light onto the history of the James Bond franchise. Our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy have been updated, including how we handle legal claims. By continuing, you agree to both. Movies Browse by Genre.
Pal Region 2. Region: PAL Region 2. We want you to be happy with the goods and service you receive and so you have 28 days from receipt of goods to notify us if you wish to exchange an item or simply return it for a full refund, less the original delivery charge. To return an item, please attach the returns slip enclosed with your purchase and attach to the outer packaging. Simply return your parcel to the post office making sure to get a proof of postage.
Everything or Nothing: the Untold Story of Stevan Riley 93min. Review Our Score. James Bond fans may think they know everything about Britain's greatest secret agent, but this trawl through the history of the film franchise released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Dr No still feels like a refreshing affair. Not the usual wallow in girls, gadgets and villains, this instead chronicles the cultural icon through the prism of the lives of creator Ian Fleming and original producers Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. Director Stevan Riley Fire in Babylon skilfully illustrates the trio's relationship with a neat use of previously unseen archive, home movies and film clips, backed up by the best soundtrack you could ever wish to have - the franchise's themes and title songs.
Is there really such a thing as the 'Untold Story of '? Possibly, but you're unlikely to find it in Stevan Riley's officially-sanctioned documentary looking back at the history of the Bond movie franchise and its stewardship under Albert 'Cubby' Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. However, this doesn't mean that you should simply write off Everything or Nothing as little more than a hagiography produced to cash-in on the franchise's 50th anniversary. While the doc starts off with the usual Fleming biographical material that fans will know off by heart, Everything or Nothing quickly shifts its focus onto Broccoli and Saltzman and the passion and determination they showed in bringing the Bond books to the big screen. It's this partnership that dominates much of the film's minute running time, with various family members, actors and colleagues commenting on the productions and the hurdles that had to be overcome. The portrait it paints of the two men and the lives they built for their families on the back of the success of the Bond films is fascinating childhood memories of Sean Connery and Michael Caine hanging around the house all of the time, or going to school every day in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce. And when the rifts eventually come - between the producers and their original leading man, and the duo themselves when Saltzman is forced to sell his stake in the production company to United Artists - the film refuses to gloss over the issues or take sides.
For admirers or mere students of the series, the most interesting tidbits are front-loaded: how the studio pushed for a known star, such as Cary Grant or James Mason, to play Bond; how the Cuban Missile Crisis, and John F. Night Shyamalan, Julian [ Gordon Bressack, a prolific Emmy-winning writer of animated television series, has died. He was You were my mentor, my writing partner, my hero, my best friend, but most [ Valerie Harper was a fighter, and that may ultimately be her Hollywood legacy. That was true with her career, and also in her year battle with lung cancer.
Everything or Nothing focuses on three men with a shared dream: Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman, and author Ian Fleming. It's the thrilling and inspiring narrative behind the durability, popularity and survival of the longest running film franchise in cinema history since Mr. Bond hit the big screen in Our documentary and movie marathon is a great way for us to reach our viewers and we're pleased to partner with all our distribution partners to bring the background of this iconic spy to all their subscribers just in time for his latest adventure, Skyfall," said Mark Greenberg, EPIX President and CEO. For more information about EPIX, go to www.
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5 thoughts on “Everything or nothing the untold story of 007 full movie”
Luis B. on 02.03.2019 at 00:52 said:
James Bond is many things to many people.
Karen B. on 01.03.2019 at 14:33 said:
See full summary�. Director: Through vintage film clips of past Bond movie epics, and with the . Everything or Nothing: The Untold Story of See more� .
Goodwife4U on 28.02.2019 at 04:09 said:
Marco V. on 03.03.2019 at 22:28 said:
EPIX � Watch Thousands of Movies and Originals on Every Screen
Becca G. on 27.02.2019 at 23:01 said:
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Hatsune Miku Merchandise
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Hatsune Miku, whose name means "the first sound from the future," is the 16-year-old Vocaloid pop sensation with eye-catching turquoise twin tails! The android diva's legions of devoted fans love her for her beautiful voice, trendy style, and cute and captivating appearance.
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Monday, the real "Wolf of Wall Street", Jordan Belfort joins Piers Morgan in a live interview
Crook? Charmer? Or perhaps most likely, a bit of both? With his life's decadent downfall now playing out on the silver screen, on Monday evening the real-life version of “The Wolf of Wall Street” visits the "Piers Morgan Live" studio, as Jordan Belfort sits down for an exclusive interview.
The Academy Award-nominated film, which features Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role, chronicles the rapid rise and crumbling fall of the stockbroking scoundrel, in the process detailing the antihero’s less than noble path to success, and his notorious partying antics along the way.
Though Martin Scorsese's three hour feature has been an unequivocal box office success, many critics argue that the project inappropriately glorifies the villainous lifestyle of many Wall Street tycoons, including those who have yet to receive just retribution.
But DiCaprio, who has received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Belfort, denies that this was the film’s intention. In an interview with HitFix the man who has depicted everyone from Jay Gatsby to Howard Hughes to J. Edgar Hoover interprets the film's message differently:
“To me, this attitude of what these characters represent in this film are ultimately everything that's wrong with the world we live in," DiCaprio said.
How does the real Belfort feel about being played by one of Hollywood’s finest? And, what will he going to do with the money he earns from a film that has already grossed more than 74 million dollars?
For answers to these questions, and a complete collection of additional inquiries, tune to CNN at 9p on Monday evening.
Post by: Rebecca Bluitt
Filed under: Announcements • Piers Morgan Live
Jordan Belfort says on his website that his clients include G.E., Hewlett Packard, Virgin Atalantic and lo and behold the Federal Reserve. Really? The logos of these companies he includes on his client page look a little suspect to me. Piers, can you help get to the bottom of this?
Rob H
I just finished watching the movie, just fantastic, I'd like to know how accurate the scene of him driving home on the Lemmons are.
Also, what kind of percentage does he get from the movie?
montywolfcycling
Not sure about the scene, but from what I've read essentially all his proceeds from his book and the film go back to repaying his old clients. So he's getting very little, if anything.
Can't believe you can be a crook and still make tons of money selling BS. God bless America.
Jordan Belfort is nothing but white trash in a suit and tie. People who are happy with themselves and have self respect don't do the things this man does. This guy embodies the meaning of the term loser. If you think that the size of your bank account is indicative of your worth as a human being then I feel truly sorry for you.
defenseman13
spoken like a poor person
Belfort is only sorry he got caught. He sold all his 'friends' down the river to save himself from a long jail sentence. Wish the feds wouldn't make deals with this kind of trash.
Christa Marie
& also, Trash to Treasure Jordon. You are not and never were trash!!!
oh and PS... READ THE BOOK!!! This man is a diamond in the rough,,, I think God to see someone be honest. its about darn time people stopped hiding under a pile of lies. Past is PAST, I'm grateful he shared his story. It was funny, it was manipulative, it was crazy lunatic stuff, but then honestly what person on earth would be so BRAVE to share their crazy past on paperback. The book is inspiring. So I choose to look at the LOVE and HUMANITY part of this man's story and give him the credit of telling his side of the story HIS WAY!! I'm sure he's been crucified and for what telling a true story RAGS TO RICHES... I feel if any thing it should OPEN EYES and challenge humanity in all our lives. No one's perfect, and everyone can and deserves a second chance!! Bravo Jordon Belfort!! You've made peace with your past by being honest with yourself, which is the path to PEACE!!
How about proofread your article before publishing it? Rebecca blew it. "And, what will he going to do with the money he earns from a film that has already grossed more than 74 million dollars?"
Why not proof read your own stuff?? and who is Rebecca!!?
Jordan Belfort belongs in jail for life instead gets a movie
Why does Piers come off with this "holier than thou" questioning? If Jordan is making an honest attempt to pay these people back why does he have to meet with them? Piers always seems to be looking for some sort of contrition that he believes should be paid. Who is he to determine what should be done? Especially if the courts haven't.
nancimeek
Our family were victims of fraud thanks to Kelly Gearhart of San Luis Obispo who has been indicted for ripping off investors for over $400 million dollars. His attorney, Robert Jones forged our father's signature to gain control of his probate. They took over $650,000 after colluding with our stepmother to cash out our father's stocks right after he died. They put the money (so they said) into a phony indian casino called Pe ji Ho Ta. Why isn't anyone reporting on that story?
For more on Kelly Gearhart http://calcoastnews.com/2014/01/kelly-gearhart-james-miller-receive-another-reprieve/ and more on our story http://www.imokproductions.com
Chuck Lidell the UFC fighter was also a victim of the fraud http://mmavalor.com/2010/01/14/chuck-liddell-scammed/
He riped off the richest 1% of people these were all multimillionaires. You wold think that the richest people in america wouldbe alot smarter. Had he riped off the dumbest and poorest he would have never been arested instead he goes to jail for taking chump change from the richest people in america poo boo.
RealOscar
Excellent questioning. Bravo to Mr. Morgan. Belfort still sees only money and not the people and the pain that he caused. Belfort is trying, in the way that he does understand. Mr. Morgan got to the heart of the issue.
John Struggledork
the movie is like watching Rome burn whilst Nero plays the fiddle. The movie is insanity and stupidity at there very best.
Ron McKee
If CNN wants to really be of value to the public a follow up program of a psychologist experienced in psychopaths analyzing Jordan Belfort in his interview with piers Morgan would enlighten the public to the ever present "wolves" in society.
Belfort is highly charismatic; has no remorse (only targeted rich people); promises to pay it back (how much of the $12 million claimed paid back is true?); didn't occur to him to reconcile with victims but readily agreed to meet with some when suggested and showed no concern at all in facing those to whom he targeted...
The guy is a psychopath. Read "Without Conscience" by Dr. Robert Hare.
Let me inform you of my last trip, it was filled with adventures, please reading more here http://www.ligaamigoscolima.com/worried.php?UE9jb21tZW50K2U2eHVzd2Rkd3MyX2kyMGNhbGsxcjh0NkBjb21tZW50LndvcmRwcmVzcy5jb20-
Geoffrey Jernigan
Leave a Reply to Dana
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2019 Leg Session, Columnists, Electoral College, Gold Dome, Governor Polis, Jon Caldara, National Popular Vote, Politics
Caldara: Democrats are outsourcing the governing of Colorado
February 7, 2019 By Jon Caldara
Maybe I’m off base here, but I can’t help but notice a theme. Democrats in charge of our state government don’t want the people of Colorado to be in control of their own state.
Hell, the elected Democrats in charge of Colorado don’t even want themselves to be in charge of Colorado. They’re hell-bent to get out-of-staters to do the job.
Maybe that’s great delegation skills because it certainly isn’t expedient to push a leftist agenda.
Let me offer just three examples.
First, just before he moved out of the governor’s mansion, President-elect John Hickenlooper signed an executive order condemning Coloradans to follow the dictates of the governor of California. He “adopted” the California low-emission vehicle standards.
Fortunately, the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association has challenged this unconditional surrender in court, arguing that if Hick wants our car choices to be limited by Gavin Newsome’s whims, he needed to at least get the permission of our state legislature first.
In my quixotic quest to find the three remaining principled liberals of yore who still believe “the ends don’t justify the means,” I’m waiting for the Dems now in control of the legislature to support this legal challenge. While they may love the idea of forcing Coloradans to replace their pickups with Telsas at gunpoint, you’d think they’d want to do it themselves, via their legal authority.
If they’re fine with the governor giving their power away to another state’s governor, then Colorado lawmakers can’t whine when a future Republican governor lets Texas regulate our oil wells.
Second example. Our new Attorney General, Phil Weiser, plans to join other Democrat AGs to appeal a federal judge’s ruling in December that Obamacare cannot remain in place now that Republicans have removed the tax penalty for those who don’t have health insurance.
It wasn’t that long ago when former Colorado Attorney General John Suthers went to bat for Colorado, suing the feds on the principle they couldn’t control the insurance and health care policies of Colorado — that was up to our state lawmakers.
Fast forward to today and now our new AG is suing to make sure that bureaucrats in Washington control both our health-care policies and how the state spends our Medicaid funding.
This is particularly odd given our new governor’s love of socialized medicine, warmly called “Medicare for all.” Should the ruling by this federal judge t hat Obamacare is unconstitutional hold, it could give Jared Polis and his leftist legislature the legal and political room to socialize Colorado’s health care their way.
Third example. Our Democrat-controlled state Senate passed a bill to change the way we in Colorado vote for U.S. president, endorsing the “national popular vote.” If ultimately successful, this would force Colorado’s nine (likely to be ten after the next census) electors in the Electoral College to cast all their votes to the presidential candidate that received the most popular votes nationwide.
Or to put it differently, our electors could no longer vote for the president that the majority of Coloradans supported. This bill disenfranchises Colorado voters and makes us subservient to large population centers of New York and Los Angeles.
It creates a system the Founders wished to avoid where states race to inflate their vote counts. Today that could mean a state allowing 16-years-olds, felons, and undocumented immigrants to vote.
The bill goes even further. In order for the Colorado Secretary of State (SOS) to count who “won” the national popular vote, she must accept the vote counts reported by other state’s secretaries of state by a date certain. Even if some of the reports are uncertain or obviously falsified, she can’t wait for the matter to be legally resolved. She must use the vote count another secretary of state tells her to use.
Imagine a crooked Texas SOS (since we’re beating up on Texas) who “officially” reports 99 percent of all Texans, living and dead, voted for Trump. Before the courts might officially reverse his lie, our secretary of state must order our ten electors to cast their votes for him.
I get that the progressives now in charge of our state want what they want in the fastest, most expedient, heavy-handed way they can get it. Power is intoxicating.
But I ask them to take a step back and see they are disempowering all the power-hungry Colorado politicians to come. Oh. And the people too, if that matters.
Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.
Caldara: Let Coloradans decide National Popular Vote at the ballot
Rosen: Don’t let Colorado be an Electoral College dropout
Caldara: Senate President Garcia shows where his loyalties lie
National Popular Vote opponents register issue committee; Tom Tancredo: “I no longer support”
Tags: Jared Polis, Jon Caldara, National Popular Vote, obamacare
Author: Jon CaldaraJon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute
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Difference between revisions of "Governance"
EmoryFerguson (Talk | contribs)
Latest revision as of 22:21, 6 September 2018 (view source)
Wikiadmin (Talk | contribs)
=== <span style="font-size:medium;">Overview</span> ===
Please cite as: Hughes, Barry B., and José R. Solórzano. 2014. "IFs Governance and Socio-Cultural Model Documentation ." Working paper 2014.03.05.a. Pardee Center for International Futures, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, Denver, CO. Accessed DD Month YYYY <https://pardee.du.edu/wiki/Governance>
The most recent and complete governance model documentation is available on Pardee's [http://pardee.du.edu/ifs-governance-and-socio-cultural-model-documentation website]. Although the text in this interactive system is, for some IFs models, often significantly out of date, you may still find the basic description useful to you.
Governance is the two-way interaction between government and the broader socio-political or, even more broadly, socio-cultural system. Although our documentation and the IFs model itself focuses primarily on three dimensions of that governance interaction, we will need also to direct some attention specifically to that broader socio-cultural system and how it might change over time.
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The conceptualization of governance further divides each of the three primary dimensions into two sub-dimensions partly based on the desire to quantify them historically and to facilitate forecasting. For security those are the probability of intrastate conflict and the general level of country performance and risk. The two sub-dimensions of capacity are the ability to raise revenue and the effective use of it and the other tools of government—that is, the competence or quality of governance. We use corruption (that is, control of it) as a proxy for such competence. The first sub-dimension of inclusion is the level of formal democratization, typically assessed in terms of competitive elections. More broadly democratization involves inclusion of population groupings across lines such as ethnicity, religion, sex, and age; we use gender equity as a proxy for the second dimension.
See Hughes et al. (2014), especially Chapter 4, for more background on the development of the governance representations of IFs than this documentation provides. See also Hughes (2002) for earlier and/or complementary work in IFs on socio-political representations (domestic and international); for example, here we do not discuss the formulations for power, interstate threat, and conflict, but that is available in documentation on the International Political model of the IFs system. Finally, we not provide here the important information about the forward linkages of governance to other elements of IFs, including to the production function of the economic model and to the broader financial flows of the social accounting matrix representation. See documentation on the economic model for that information.
See Hughes et al. (2014), especially Chapter 4, for more background on the development of the governance representations of IFs than this documentation provides. See also Hughes (2002) for earlier and/or complementary work in IFs on socio-political representations (domestic and international); for example, here we do not discuss the formulations for power, interstate threat, and conflict, but that is available in documentation on the International Political model of the IFs system. Finally, we do not provide here the important information about the forward linkages of governance to other elements of IFs, including to the production function of the economic model and to the broader financial flows of the social accounting matrix representation. See documentation on the economic model for that information.
= <span style="font-size:xx-large;">Structure and Agent System: Governance</span> =
== <span style="font-size:x-large;">Dominant Relations: Governance</span> ==
The drivers of change on each dimension and sub-dimension of governance range widely. A quick summary (see also the table below) is that:[[File:Gov2.png|frame|right|Drivers of change on each dimension and sub-dimension of governance]]
*Probability of intrastate conflict is a function of past conflict, neighborhood effects, economic growth rate (inverse), trade openness (inverse), youth bulge, infant mortality, democracy (inverted-U), state repression (inverse), and external intervention (inverse).
*Vulnerability to intrastate conflict is a function of past intrastate conflict, energy trade dependence (as a proxy for broader natural resource dependence), economic growth rate (inverse), youth bulge, urbanization rate, poverty level, infant mortality, life expectancy (inverse) undernutrition, HIV prevalence, primary net enrollment (inverse), adult education levels (inverse), corruption, democracy (inverse), gender empowerment (inverse), governance effectiveness (inverse), freedom (inverse), inequality, and water stress.
*Government revenues are a function of past revenue as percentage of GDP, GDP per capita, and social expenditures (that is, inversely to fiscal balance).
*Corruption is a function of past corruption level, GDP per capita (inverse), energy trade dependence, democracy (inverse), gender empowerment (inverse), and probability of intrastate conflict.
*Democracy is a function of past democracy level, youth bulge (inverse), and gender empowerment; although normally disabled in the model, neighborhood effects and global leadership can also affect democracy level.
*Gender empowerment is a function of past gender empowerment level, GDP per capita, youth bulge (inverse), and adult educational attainment.
There are some general insights with respect to elaboration of the formulations (equations and algorithms) that drive change on each dimension and sub-dimension of governance:
*In almost each case there are path dependencies that supplement the basic relationships—social change has considerable inertia.
*The driving and driven variables clearly constitute a complex syndrome of mutually interdependent developmental interactions, not a simple causal sequence.
*There is a tendency for the dimensions of governance traditionally developing later to feed back to earlier ones, notably for inclusion to affect capacity via reduced corruption and also for inclusion and capacity to reduce the probability of internal conflict.
*Behaviorally, the bi-directional structures suggest the possibility that reinforcing processes may accelerate as governance strengthens, setting up a kind of tipping from one equilibrium to another; vicious cycles of deterioration would also be possible.
For detailed discussion of the model's causal dynamics, see the discussions of flow charts (block diagrams) and equations.
== <span style="font-size:x-large;">Structure and Agent Based System: Governance</span> ==
{| class="tableGrid" style="width: 100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" border="0"
| style="text-align: left; padding-left: 10px" align="center" | <div>Government spending on human capital, infrastructure, development generally; accretion of changes in governance over time</div>
| style="text-align: left" | <div>'''Key Aggregate ''' '''Relationships '''</div><div>(illustrative, not comprehensive)</div>
| style="text-align: left" | <div>'''Key Aggregate ''' '''Relationships '''</div><div><br/></div>
| style="text-align: left; padding-left: 10px" align="center" | <div>Probability of intrastate conflict is a function of past conflict, neighborhood effects, economic growth rate (inverse), trade openness (inverse), youth bulge, infant mortality, democracy (inverted-U), state repression (inverse), and external intervention.</div><div> </div><div>Vulnerability to intrastate conflict is a function of past intrastate conflict, energy trade dependence (as a proxy for broader natural resource dependence), economic growth rate (inverse), youth bulge, urbanization rate, poverty level, infant mortality, life expectancy (inverse) undernutrition, HIV prevalence, primary net enrollment (inverse), adult education levels (inverse), corruption, democracy (inverse), gender empowerment (inverse), governance effectiveness (inverse), freedom (inverse), inequality, and water stress</div><div> </div><div>Government revenues are a function of past revenue as percentage of GDP, GDP per capita, and social expenditures (that is, inversely to fiscal balance).</div><div> </div><div>Corruption is a function of past corruption level, GDP per capita (inverse), energy trade dependence, democracy (inverse), gender empowerment (inverse), and probability of intrastate conflict.</div><div> </div><div>Democracy is a function of past democracy level, youth bulge (inverse), and gender empowerment.</div><div> </div><div>Gender empowerment is a function of past gender empowerment level, GDP per capita, youth bulge (inverse), and primary net enrollment.</div>
| style="text-align: left" valign="center" | <div style="text-align: left">'''Key Agent-Class Behavior ''' '''Relationships'''</div><div style="text-align: left">(illustrative, not comprehensive)</div>
| style="text-align: left" valign="center" | <div style="text-align: left">'''Key Agent-Class Behavior ''' '''Relationships'''</div><div style="text-align: left"><br/></div>
| style="text-align: left; padding-left: 10px" align="center" | <div>Social sub-group relationships, especially historical conflict patterns and gender relationships; government revenue and expenditure<br/></div>
= <span style="font-size:xx-large;">Dominant Relations: Governance</span> =
*Vulnerability to intrastate conflict is a function of energy trade dependence, economic growth rate (inverse), urbanization rate, poverty level, infant mortality, undernutrition, HIV prevalence, primary net enrollment (inverse), intrastate conflict probability, corruption, democracy (inverse), governance effectiveness (inverse), freedom (inverse), and water stress.
*Government revenues are a function of past revenue as percentage of GDP, GDP per capita, and fiscal balance (inverse).
*Democracy is a function of past democracy level, economic growth rate (inverse), youth bulge (inverse), and gender empowerment.
*Gender empowerment is a function of past gender empowerment level, GDP per capita, youth bulge (inverse), and primary net enrollment.
= <span style="font-size:xx-large;">Governance Flow Charts</span> =
=== <span style="font-size:medium;">Vulnerability and Risk of Conflict</span> ===
The IFs treatment of societal/governance performance risk and related vulnerability to conflict does not involve an estimated formulation. Instead, like other such efforts, it involves the creation of an index. The figure below, a screen capture of the form (reached via Specialized Displays) uses variables related both directly to governance and to performance. A [[Governance#Performance Risk Analysis Form|specialized Help topic]] on this form is available.
The IFs treatment of societal/governance performance risk and related vulnerability to conflict does not involve an estimated formulation. Instead, like other such efforts, it involves the creation of an index. The figure below, a screen capture of the form (reached via Specialized Displays) uses variables related both directly to governance and to performance. A [[Governance#Performance_Risk_Analysis_Form|specialized Help topic]] on this form is available.
Although many users will be interested in the rankings of countries (see the Global Rank column for ranks on individual variables and the summary measure for overall, variable-weighted rank), others will be interested in the summary value across all variables, shown at the bottom of the first column. Those values are also available in the model as the variable named government risk (GOVRISK).
=== <span style="font-size:medium;">Government Revenues</span> ===
The ability to raise government revenues (GOVREV as a share of GDP) is one of the dimensions of capacity in governance. Its basic calculation is a very simple ratio. The key drivers of GOVREV, however, documented [[Governance#Equations: Broader Regime Capacity|elsewhere]], are very complex. For instance, GOVREV is responsive in an equilibration process to government expenditures, both transfer payments and direct government expenditures in categories such as military, health, education, and infrastructure, as well as to external revenues, notably foreign aid receipts.[[File:Gov42.jpg|frame|center|Visual representation of government revenues]]
The ability to raise government revenues (GOVREV as a share of GDP) is one of the dimensions of capacity in governance. Its basic calculation is a very simple ratio. The key drivers of GOVREV, however, documented [[Governance#Equations:_Broader_Regime_Capacity|elsewhere]], are very complex. For instance, GOVREV is responsive in an equilibration process to government expenditures, both transfer payments and direct government expenditures in categories such as military, health, education, and infrastructure, as well as to external revenues, notably foreign aid receipts.[[File:Gov42.jpg|frame|center|Visual representation of government revenues]]
=== <span style="font-size:medium;">Effectiveness of Government</span> ===
The central measure of governance effectiveness in Hughes et al. (2014) was defined to be corruption or GOVCORRUPT (actually the absence thereof, or level of transparency). The model computes several additional measures of effectiveness or capacity, however, including regulatory quality (REGQUALITY) and effectiveness (GOVEFFECT), both related to the World Bank's World Governance Indicator project (Kaufmann, Kraay, and Mastruzzi 2010). In addition, many analysts point to the level of economic freedom (ECONFREE) or liberalization as a measure of effectiveness, in spite of considerable debate around their doing so.
Among the drivers of governance corruption is resource dependence, for which we use as a proxy the value of energy exports (ENX) at energy prices (ENPRI) as a share of GDP. Energy exports tend to me the largest such category globally. Further drivers are the extent of gender empowerment (GEM) and the level of democracy (DEMOCPOLITY), both of which indicate the extent of inclusiveness but which make independent statistical contributions to corruption level.[[File:Gov5.jpg|frame|right|Visual representation of government effectiveness]]
Among the drivers of governance corruption is resource dependence, for which we use as a proxy the value of energy exports (ENX) at energy prices (ENPRI) as a share of GDP. Energy exports tend to be the largest such category globally. Further drivers are the extent of gender empowerment (GEM) and the level of democracy (DEMOCPOLITY), both of which indicate the extent of inclusiveness but which make independent statistical contributions to corruption level.[[File:Gov5.jpg|frame|right|Visual representation of government effectiveness]]
The drivers do not, of course, fully determine the level of corruption and there is much historical path dependence in societies related to other variables. The user can control the speed of elimination of such dependence and therefore of convergence to the basic formulation with a conversion years parameter ('''''goveffconv''' '').
There are times when the user will wish to introduce normatively controlled target values for corruption. One approach is use of the "brute force" multiplier on corruption ('''''govcorruptm''' ''). A second approach involves the specification of target values relative to a function of the key drivers estimated cross-sectionally across countries. This second approach allows, for instance, the [http://www.du.edu/ifs/help/understand/equations/specialized/setargeting.html specification of a target level] 1 or 2 standard errors (SE) above the level expected of a country given those drivers. The SE target parameter is '''''govcorruptsetar''' ''and the '''''govcorruptseyrtar''' ''carries the years to achieve the target. There are similar control parameters (not shown the diagram) for regulatory quality ('''''govregqualsetar''' ''and '''''govreqqualseyrtar''' '') and for effectiveness ('''''goveffectsetar''' ''and '''''goveffectseyrtar''' ''), but not for economic freedom.
There are times when the user will wish to introduce normatively controlled target values for corruption. One approach is use of the "brute force" multiplier on corruption ('''''govcorruptm''' ''). A second approach involves the specification of target values relative to a function of the key drivers estimated cross-sectionally across countries. This second approach allows, for instance, the [[Understand_IFs#Standard_Error_Targeting|specification of a target level]] 1 or 2 standard errors (SE) above the level expected of a country given those drivers. The SE target parameter is '''''govcorruptsetar''' ''and the '''''govcorruptseyrtar''' ''carries the years to achieve the target. There are similar control parameters (not shown the diagram) for regulatory quality ('''''govregqualsetar''' ''and '''''govreqqualseyrtar''' '') and for effectiveness ('''''goveffectsetar''' ''and '''''goveffectseyrtar''' ''), but not for economic freedom.
Theoretically, internal war (SFINTLWAR) could affect all of the capacity variables, but the only linkage identified in IFs is that to economic freedom. Setting the control switch ('''''confforsw''' '') to 1 turns on that impact.
=== <span style="font-size:medium;">Democracy</span> ===
Three variables dominate the forecasting [http://www.du.edu/ifs/help/understand/governance/equations/inclusion/gender.html formulation for democracy] (DEMOCPOLITY): the gender empowerment measure (GEM) as a measure of broad social inclusion (positive linkage), the youth bulge (YTHBULGE) as an indicator of the age structure of society (negative linkage), and the dependence of the country on raw materials exports, a negative linkage using energy export share (ENX) times energy prices (ENPRI) as a share of the GDP as a proxy. An exogenous multiplier ('''''democm''' '') allows the user to directly manipulate the democracy level.
Three variables dominate the forecasting [[Governance#Equations:_Gender_Empowerment|formulation for democracy]] (DEMOCPOLITY): the gender empowerment measure (GEM) as a measure of broad social inclusion (positive linkage), the youth bulge (YTHBULGE) as an indicator of the age structure of society (negative linkage), and the dependence of the country on raw materials exports, a negative linkage using energy export share (ENX) times energy prices (ENPRI) as a share of the GDP as a proxy. An exogenous multiplier ('''''democm''' '') allows the user to directly manipulate the democracy level.[[File:Gov6.jpg|frame|right|Visual representation of democracy]]
Two other variables can affect the democracy level but are turned off in the Base Case and will seldom be used. The first is the neighborhood effects of swing states in a regional neighborhood (e.g. Russia among former states of the Soviet Union). The swing states effect switch ('''''sweffects''' '') turns it on when set to 1.
The more complicated additional factor is that of democracy waves (DEMOCWAVE). Relative to the initial condition a democracy wave can add or subtract democracy to the basic formulation's calculation of it (an algorithm based on historical experience allows upward swings to be larger than downward ones depending on EffectMul). The basic magnitude of increments depends of an exogenous specification of the impetus provided to democracy by the leading power ('''''democwvus''' '') and by other powers ('''''democimpoth''' ''), the former's impact controlled by an elasticity ('''''eldemocimp''' ''). Because waves rise and ebb, another parameter controls the length ('''''democlen''' '') and still another sets the maximum rise ('''''democwvmax''' ''). A counter keeps track of the running and receding of a wave (DEMOCWVCOUNT) and a pointer keeps track of the direction its operation (DEMOCWVDIR); these two parameters are linked with the magnitude of the wave in a positive loop.
The calculation from the basic formulation, before the addition of wave and swing state or neighborhood effects, can also be overridden by the use of [http://www.du.edu/ifs/help/understand/equations/specialized/setargeting.html external targeting] directed by specifications of standard error targets relative to the formulation ('''''democpolitysetar''' '') to be achieved by a target year ('''''democpolityseyrtar''' '').
The calculation from the basic formulation, before the addition of wave and swing state or neighborhood effects, can also be overridden by the use of [[Understand_IFs#Standard_Error_Targeting|external targeting]] directed by specifications of standard error targets relative to the formulation ('''''democpolitysetar''' '') to be achieved by a target year ('''''democpolityseyrtar''' '').
[[File:Gov6.jpg|border|center|Gov6.jpg]]
=== <span style="font-size:medium;">Gender Empowerment and Freedom</span> ===
[http://www.du.edu/ifs/help/understand/governance/equations/inclusion/gender.html Gender empowerment (GEM)], a broader measure of inclusion, joins democracy as the second key measure of governance inclusiveness. Its three basic drivers are youth bulge size (YTHBULGE), GDP per capita as purchasing power parity (GDPPCP), and the years of formal education obtained by female adults (EDYRSAG15).
[[Governance#Equations:_Gender_Empowerment|Gender empowerment (GEM)]], a broader measure of inclusion, joins democracy as the second key measure of governance inclusiveness. Its three basic drivers are youth bulge size (YTHBULGE), GDP per capita as purchasing power parity (GDPPCP), and the years of formal education obtained by female adults (EDYRSAG15).
A user can control the progression of gender empowerment with a simple multiplier ('''''gemm''' '') or via setting a target value for it movement to some number of standard errors above or below a cross-sectionally estimated function ('''''gemsetar''' '') across a set number of years ('''''gemseyrtar''' '').
Although IFs uses the Polity measure of democracy (DEMOCPOLITY) as its main measure of more formal, electoral inclusion, Freedom House's freedom measure (FREEDOM) is a logical alternative and the second of that measure's sub-dimensions, civil liberties, is a more inclusive measure. We therefore compute it also, using again GDP per capita and educational years (of all adults, not just females) as drivers. And there is a brute force multiplier for it also ('''''freedomm''' ''). There is no SE targeting mechanism in place for the freedom variable.[[File:Gov7.jpg|border|center|Gov7.jpg]]
Although IFs uses the Polity measure of democracy (DEMOCPOLITY) as its main measure of more formal, electoral inclusion, Freedom House's freedom measure (FREEDOM) is a logical alternative and the second of that measure's sub-dimensions, civil liberties, is a more inclusive measure. We therefore compute it also, using again GDP per capita and educational years (of all adults, not just females) as drivers. And there is a brute force multiplier for it also ('''''freedomm''' ''). There is no SE targeting mechanism in place for the freedom variable.[[File:Gov7.jpg|frame|center|Visual representation of gender empowerment and freedom]]
== <span style="font-size:x-large;">Aggregate Governance Indicators</span> ==
The governance security index (GOVINDSECUR) is computed as an unweighted average of internal war probability (SFINTLWAR) and governance/society performance risk (GOVRISK). Similarly, the governance capacity index (GOINDCAP) is an unweighted average of government revenue (GOVREV) as a portion of GDP and government corruption, while the governance inclusion index (GOVINCLIND) averages democracy (DEMOCPOLITY) and gender empowerment (GEM). The overall governance index (GOVINDTOTAL) is a simple average of those across dimensions.
[[File:Gov8.jpg|border|center|Gov8.jpg]] In reality, creating the indices for each dimension requires some attention to scaling issues and valence. See the description of the equations for details.
[[File:Gov8.jpg|frame|center|Visual representation of governance index]] In reality, creating the indices for each dimension requires some attention to scaling issues and valence. See the description of the equations for details.
== <span style="font-size:x-large;">Life Conditions and the Human Development Index</span> ==
The condition of individuals and society are both the ultimate focus of governance and the font of it. The IFs system computes many of the relevant variables across its various models. It also aggregates a number of those into the widely used Human Development Index (HDI), based on heath (life expectancy), education or knowledge (both expectations for youth and attainment for adults), and GDP per capita.
[[File:Gov9.png|border|center|Gov9.png]]
[[File:Gov9.png|frame|center|Visual representation of life conditions and HDI]]
== <span style="font-size:x-large;">Social Values and Cultural Evolution</span> ==
The model uses country-specific data from the World Values Survey project to compute a variety of parameters in the first year by cultural region (English-speaking, Orthodox, Islamic, etc.). The key parameters for the model user are the three country/region-specific additive factors on each value/cultural dimension ('''''matpostradd''' '', etc.).
Finally, the model contains data on the size (percentage of population) of the two largest ethnic/cultural groupings. At this point these parameters have no forward linkages to other variables in the model. [[File:Gov10.png|border|center|Gov10.png]]
Finally, the model contains data on the size (percentage of population) of the two largest ethnic/cultural groupings. At this point these parameters have no forward linkages to other variables in the model. [[File:Gov10.png|frame|center|Visual representation of social values and cultural evolution]]
= <span style="font-size:xx-large;">Governance Equations</span> =
:<math>Educ25Term=EDYRSAG25_r</math>
If the value of the sfusehist parameter is 1, the historical values determine the initial level for forecasting, and the predictive functions are used to change that level over time. Again the equation is illustrative.
If the value of the '''sfusehist''' parameter is 1, the historical values determine the initial level for forecasting, and the predictive functions are used to change that level over time. Again the equation is illustrative.
:if <math>\mathbf{sfusehist}=1</math> then (use history)
The IFs project has created its own Performance Risk Index (see variable GOVRISK) along the lines of these approaches, and for the purposes of forecasting has uniquely made it responsive to endogenous long-term change in the underlying variables. Like those of other projects, the IFs measure draws upon social, political, economic, and security variables, but we impose a different conceptual or analytical structure on them (see the example risk analysis form provided here). We divide the variables of the index into three general categories: governance, (deep) risk drivers, and performance. We further divide the governance variables into our three dimensions of security, capacity and inclusion, the deep risk factors into demographic, environmental, and international categories, and the performance factors into economic, health, and education categories.
[[File:Govchart11.png|center|1080x728px|Govchart11.png]]
[[File:Govchart11.png|frame|center|1080x728px|Performance Risk Index]]
The Performance Risk Index (GOVRISK) and the probability of intrastate conflict (SFINTLWAR) provide quite different images of security in states, in part because the probability of intrastate war has a power-law distribution across countries and risk indices have a more nearly linear distribution (see Chapter 2 of Hughes et al 2014). In 2010 the correlation between the two measures in IFs has an adjusted R-squared of only 0.25. Presumably the probability of conflict measure should be the better indicator of its likelihood. In fact, beyond their drawing our attention to the highest ranked and therefore most fragile countries, risk indices seldom are used to identify conflict likelihood and more often suggest a wider variety of risks, including overall poor state performance, only some of which may be so severe as to lead to conflict.
Unlike our analysis with the probability of conflict, it is not possible to compare the IFs Governance Risk Index with other measures across the full 1960–2010 historical time period, because those other measures tend to be quite recent and to cover only a small number of years. For instance, the Brookings Institution's Index of State Weakness for the Developing World (Rice and Patrick 2008) was produced only for a single year (2008). The measures with the greatest time series are the Fund for Peace's Index of State Failure (2005–2012) and the Center for Systemic Peace's (CSP's) State Fragility Index (1995-2011); see Marshall and Cole 2008; 2009; 2011). In order to assess the risk index of IFs, we again did a historical run of the model, without any extraordinary interventions, from 1960 through 2010—the run computes the IFs Country Performance Risk Index for all years. The R-squared of 0.71 indicates the remarkably close correlation, even after 50 years of forecasting with the full integrated IFs model. In fact, the R-squared is 0.70 across all years for which the SFI is available.
For much more detail on the structure and computations of the Performance Risk Analysis form, see the separate discussion of it (see [http://www.du.edu/ifs/help/understand/governance/performance.html Performance Risk Analysis Form]).
For much more detail on the structure and computations of the Performance Risk Analysis form, see the separate discussion of it (see [[Governance#Performance_Risk_Analysis_Form|Performance Risk Analysis Form]]).
== <span style="font-size:x-large;">Governance Capacity Dimension</span> ==
=== <span style="font-size:medium;">Equations: Government Finance</span> ===
Government finance in IFs sits within a broader [http://www.du.edu/ifs/help/understand/economics/saminifs.html social accounting matrix (SAM) structure] that accounts for, and in the process balances, all domestic and international financial exchanges among firms, households, and governments. The IFs system is unique, not only in the representation of flows within and across so many countries of the world, but also in maintaining, insofar as the sparse data allow, stocks (accumulations of net flows, such as government debt and assets of firms) that provide signals for equilibration processes that require changes in flows (like [http://www.du.edu/ifs/help/understand/economics/equations/sam/govrevenue.html revenues] and [http://www.du.edu/ifs/help/understand/economics/equations/sam/govexpenditure.html expenditures]) over time. Like the goods and services markets of the economic model, the government finance representation in IFs (its representation of revenues and expenditures) does not seek an exact equilibrium in every time point, but rather [http://www.du.edu/ifs/help/understand/economics/equations/sam/govbalances.html chases equilibrium over time]. The variables computed (see the links) are GOVREV, GOVEXP (with direct government consumption or GOVCON as a subset), and GOVBAL. This approach is both more realistic and more computationally efficient.
Government finance in IFs sits within a broader [[Economics#Social_Accounting_Matrix_Approach_in_IFs|social accounting matrix (SAM) structure]] that accounts for, and in the process balances, all domestic and international financial exchanges among firms, households, and governments. The IFs system is unique, not only in the representation of flows within and across so many countries of the world, but also in maintaining, insofar as the sparse data allow, stocks (accumulations of net flows, such as government debt and assets of firms) that provide signals for equilibration processes that require changes in flows (like [[Economics#Government_Revenue|revenues]] and [[Economics#Government_Expenditure|expenditures]]) over time. Like the goods and services markets of the economic model, the government finance representation in IFs (its representation of revenues and expenditures) does not seek an exact equilibrium in every time point, but rather [[Economics#Government_Balances_and_Dynamics|chases equilibrium over time]]. The variables computed (see the links) are GOVREV, GOVEXP (with direct government consumption or GOVCON as a subset), and GOVBAL. This approach is both more realistic and more computationally efficient.
The desired IFs treatment of government is of consolidated or general government. Beyond our use of the OECD's general government expenditure data for its members, however, our main data source for finance is the World Bank's World Development Indicators (Kaufmann, Kraay, and Mastruzzi 2010), which appear to provide mostly data for central government. In fact, for most countries there are quite incomplete and inconsistent systems of national accounts on which to build social accounting matrices generally, or a full mapping of government finance more specifically. Thus the "preprocessor" in IFs plays a big role in creating a consistent and complete initial image of government finance.
With respect to government finance and the SAM more generally, the preprocessor both fills holes for missing data series of many countries, using cross-sectionally estimated functions or algorithms, and otherwise cleans and balances the SAM data. The preprocessor first builds on data to estimate total governmental revenues and expenditures for the model's base year and then uses available data on the breakdown of revenues and expenditures to calculate initial values of those streams consistent with the totals. Those who wish to understand the entire social accounting system, both initialization and forecast, should look to Hughes and Hossain (2003). More generally, the IFs [http://www.ifs.du.edu/assets/documents/preprocessorv1_0.pdf preprocessor's computational rules] assist in the initialization of all models within the IFs system and the connections among them, including reconciliation of physical systems such as energy and agriculture with financial ones.
We make simplifying assumptions to move from limited data to initial values for total general government expenditures and revenues of all countries as a percentage of GDP. For OECD countries we have general government expenditure data (from the OECD), and we assume that the general government revenue share of GDP differs from the expenditures share by the same percentage as central government expenditure and revenue shares differ in WDI data; the implicit assumption is that local government expenditures and revenues are in balance For non-OECD countries we have only central government expenditures and revenues, and we estimate a size for local government revenues and expenditures that rises progressively from 2 percent for the lowest income countries to 14 percent for high-income countries—the latter being the contemporary average of OECD countries, and both the former and the rise being apparent in the data and discussion of North, Wallis, and Weingast (2009: 10).
We make simplifying assumptions to move from limited data to initial values for total general government expenditures and revenues of all countries as a percentage of GDP. For OECD countries we have general government expenditure data (from the OECD), and we assume that the general government revenue share of GDP differs from the expenditures share by the same percentage as central government expenditure and revenue shares differ in WDI data; the implicit assumption is that local government expenditures and revenues are in balance. For non-OECD countries we have only central government expenditures and revenues, and we estimate a size for local government revenues and expenditures that rises progressively from 2 percent for the lowest income countries to 14 percent for high-income countries—the latter being the contemporary average of OECD countries, and both the former and the rise being apparent in the data and discussion of North, Wallis, and Weingast (2009: 10).
In the forecasting itself, there is similar attention to revenues and expenditures, but also attention to the cumulative imbalance between them and how that imbalance affects their dynamics over time. The model represents five revenue streams from taxes on household and firm income: household income taxes, household social security/welfare taxes, firm income taxes, firm social security/welfare taxes, and indirect taxes. In the absence of cross-country data on other revenue streams such as property taxes, the preprocessor allocates them in the base year to household taxes, a category for which data are especially weak. Total domestic government revenue is computed from the five streams. Foreign assistance augments domestic revenue in computing the fiscal balance with expenditures.
[http://www.du.edu/ifs/help/understand/economics/equations/sam/govexpenditure.html Government expenditures] (GOVEXP) combine direct consumption expenditures (GOVCON) and transfer payments, especially to households (GOVHHTRN). Direct government consumption as a portion of GDP is computed from functions linking GDP per capita (PPP) to key elements of spending such as military, health, and education; total government consumption generally rises with GDP per capita. An additional optional term in the equation is a Wagner term (set to zero in the Base Case), after the discoverer of the long-term behavioral tendency for government consumption to rise as a share of GDP. The final division of government consumption into target destination categories, namely military, education, health, research and development, infrastructure (two subcategories) and an "other" or residual category, depends on a combination of functions and broader algorithmic and modeling elements specific to each spending category (including, for instance, demand for expenditures from the education and infrastructure models). The model normalizes across spending categories to assure that they equal total government consumption. As a general rule, transfer payments grow with GDP per capita more rapidly than does direct government consumption. And within the category of transfer payments, pension payments grow especially rapidly in many countries, particularly in more economically developed ones. Computation of government transfers involves integrating two different behavioral logics, a top-down one depending on general relationships to income and a bottom-up one. The bottom-up logic is especially important in the analysis of pensions, because it is responsive to the changing size of the elderly population.
[[Economics#Government_Expenditure|Government expenditures]] (GOVEXP) combine direct consumption expenditures (GOVCON) and transfer payments, especially to households (GOVHHTRN). Direct government consumption as a portion of GDP is computed from functions linking GDP per capita (PPP) to key elements of spending such as military, health, and education; total government consumption generally rises with GDP per capita. An additional optional term in the equation is a Wagner term (set to zero in the Base Case), after the discoverer of the long-term behavioral tendency for government consumption to rise as a share of GDP. The final division of government consumption into target destination categories, namely military, education, health, research and development, infrastructure (two subcategories) and an "other" or residual category, depends on a combination of functions and broader algorithmic and modeling elements specific to each spending category (including, for instance, demand for expenditures from the education and infrastructure models). The model normalizes across spending categories to assure that they equal total government consumption.
With completed computations of revenues and expenditures, it is possible to compute the [http://www.du.edu/ifs/help/understand/economics/equations/sam/govbalances.html government fiscal balance], an annual flow variable. That allows the update of cumulative government financial assets or debt and a calculation of their magnitude relative to GDP. IFs uses this cumulative total as a percentage of GDP in its equilibrating dynamics for annual government revenues and expenditures.
As a general rule, transfer payments grow with GDP per capita more rapidly than does direct government consumption. And within the category of transfer payments, pension payments grow especially rapidly in many countries, particularly in more economically developed ones. Computation of government transfers involves integrating two different behavioral logics, a top-down one depending on general relationships to income and a bottom-up one. The bottom-up logic is especially important in the analysis of pensions, because it is responsive to the changing size of the elderly population.
With completed computations of revenues and expenditures, it is possible to compute the [[Economics#Government_Balances_and_Dynamics|government fiscal balance]], an annual flow variable. That allows the update of cumulative government financial assets or debt and a calculation of their magnitude relative to GDP. IFs uses this cumulative total as a percentage of GDP in its equilibrating dynamics for annual government revenues and expenditures.
=== <span style="font-size:medium;">Equations: Broader Regime Capacity</span> ===
In the equation below, the basic IFs formulation, all terms are significant with T-scores above 2.0 in absolute terms. In earlier work we also explored a linkage to the survival/self-expression dimension of the World Value Survey, but have found that other development variables statistically force it out of the relationship.
<:math>DEMOCPOLITYBase_{r,t}=(13.4+11.4*GEM_{r,t}-9.73*YTHBULGE_{r,t}-0.232*(ENX_{r,t}*\frac{ENPRI_{r,t}}{GDP_{r,t}}))*\mathbf{democm}_{r,t}</math>
:<math>DEMOCPOLITYBase_{r,t}=(13.4+11.4*GEM_{r,t}-9.73*YTHBULGE_{r,t}-0.232*(ENX_{r,t}*\frac{ENPRI_{r,t}}{GDP_{r,t}}))*\mathbf{democm}_{r,t}</math>
''where''
:<math>DEMOCPOLITYBaseRev_{r,t}=ConvergeOverTime(DEMOCPOLITYBase_{r,t},DEMOCEXP_{r,t},\mathbf{polconv})</math>
The endogenous movement of this basic calculation can also be overridden by the users via the specification of a target value for democracy some number of standard errors ('''''democpolitysetar''' '') above or below the cross-sectional estimation of the formulation and the movement of the basic value to that target over a specified number of years ('''''democpolityseyrtar''' ''). Such targeting of important variables is done in an [http://www.du.edu/ifs/help/understand/equations/specialized/setargeting.html algorithm described elsewhere].
The endogenous movement of this basic calculation can also be overridden by the users via the specification of a target value for democracy some number of standard errors ('''''democpolitysetar''' '') above or below the cross-sectional estimation of the formulation and the movement of the basic value to that target over a specified number of years ('''''democpolityseyrtar''' ''). Such targeting of important variables is done in an [[Understand_IFs#Standard_Error_Targeting|algorithm described elsewhere]].
Additionally we built structures, largely algorithmic, that allow forecasting with waves of democratization influenced by the impetus provided by systemic leadership, computing the magnitude of the global wave effect for all countries (DemGlobalEffects). Those depend on the amplitude of waves (DEMOCWAVE) relative to their initial condition and on a multiplier (EffectMul) that translates the amplitude into effects on states in the system. Because democracy and democratic wave literature often suggests that the countries in the middle of the democracy range are most susceptible to movements in the level of democracy, the analytic function enhances the affect in the middle range and dampens it at the high and low ends.
The democratic wave amplitude is a level that shifts over time (DemocWaveShift) with a normal maximum amplitude ('''''democwvmax''' '') and wave length ('''''democwvlen''' ''), both specified exogenously, with the wave shift controlled by a endogenous parameter of wave direction that shifts with the wave length (DEMOCWVDIR). The normal wave amplitude can be affected also by impetus towards or away from democracy by a systemic leader (DemocImpLead), assumed to be the exogenously specified impetus from the United States ('''''democimpus''' '') compared to the normal impetus level from the U.S. ('''''democimpusn''' '') and the net impetus from other countries/forces ('''''democimpoth''' '').
The democratic wave amplitude is a level that shifts over time (DemocWaveShift) with a normal maximum amplitude ('''''democwvmax''' '') and wave length ('''''democwvlen''' ''), both specified exogenously, with the wave shift controlled by an endogenous parameter of wave direction that shifts with the wave length (DEMOCWVDIR). The normal wave amplitude can be affected also by impetus towards or away from democracy by a systemic leader (DemocImpLead), assumed to be the exogenously specified impetus from the United States ('''''democimpus''' '') compared to the normal impetus level from the U.S. ('''''democimpusn''' '') and the net impetus from other countries/forces ('''''democimpoth''' '').
:<math>DEMOCWAVE_t=DEMOCWAVE_{t-1}+DemocimpLead+\mathbf{democimpoth}+DemocWaveShift</math>
== <span style="font-size:x-large;">Governance Indices</span> ==
[http://www.du.edu/ifs/help/understand/governance/index.html IFs represents three dimensions of governance (security, capacity, and inclusion) and uses two sub-dimensions for each]. Just as the dimensions themselves show considerable conceptual independence, the sub-dimensions tend not to be highly correlated.
IFs represents three dimensions of [[Governance#Governance|governance]] (security, capacity, and inclusion) and uses two sub-dimensions for each. Just as the dimensions themselves show considerable conceptual independence, the sub-dimensions tend not to be highly correlated.
Thus there is value in creating an index for each of the three governance dimensions that integrates the two variables representing them as well as an overall index. We have taken the typical basic approach to index construction when there is no clear external referent against which to judge the validity of the resultant index; that is, we have scaled each variable from 0 to 1 and averaged the two variables that make up each dimension. The resultant indices, GOVINDSECUR, GOVINDCAPAC, and GOVINDINCLUS, each have a global average value near 0.5, but the distribution of countries across the component measures varies; for instance, because the intrastate conflict variable of the security index exhibits a power-law distribution, the global average of the security measure is slightly higher than that of the other two indices. The security index uses 1.0 minus the average of the probability of intrastate war and the IFs performance risk index—the relative infrequency of intrastate war causes many states to cluster near 1.0 in the former formulation.
:The Min Level and Max Level columns indicate the overall range over which each variable varies across counties and time. These levels are constant across years and countries. They are used in computing the Scaled Levels.
:The Scaled Level column uses the minimum and maximum levels to scale values for each country from 0 to 1. The scaling takes into account the valence of each variable (that is, infant mortality is bad and life expectancy is good). The Summary Measure in the last row of this column is a weighted average of the scaled levels on each variable; this computation is saved as the GOVRISK variable in our forecast files for each country and each year
:The Scaled Level column uses the minimum and maximum levels to scale values for each country from 0 to 1. The scaling takes into account the valence of each variable (that is, infant mortality is bad and life expectancy is good). The Summary Measure in the last row of this column is a weighted average of the scaled levels on each variable; this computation is saved as the GOVRISK variable in our forecast files for each country and each year.
:The Global Rank column indicates how each country ranks among all countries on each variable. The Summary Measure in the last row at the bottom of the column uses a weighted average of the ranks for each variable to compute the ordinal position of the country when sorting across all countries. Lower Ranks indicate higher risk levels (or worst performance). Clicking on any cell in this column provides a pop-up option for showing the rank of all countries on specific variables or the Summary Measure.
:The Weighting column determines how the variables are combined in computing the summary Scaled Levels and Global Ranks of a country. Clicking on any cell in that column allows the user to change the weight for the associated variable.
[[File:Govchart04.png|center|RTENOTITLE]]
[[File:Govchart04.png|frame|center|Performance Risk Index]]
:The color for each variable in the Value column indicates the position of the value relative to the alert and goal levels. Values between the alert and goal levels are yellow, values on undesirable side of the alert level (depending on the valence of the variable) are red, and values on the desirable side of the goal level are green. For the Summary Measure the color coding is a bit different: .red indicates the 40 countries performing least well in the aggregate (numbers 1 through 40 in the Global Rank column), green shows the 40 countries doing best; yellow indicates all other countries.
The second cluster of columns provides evaluation information. Evaluation can be either absolute or relative to income (actually GDP per capita), as determined by the menu option that toggles between those two forms (the column cluster heading changes also with the toggle value). The default approach is absolute evaluation, setting up comparison of countries and evaluation of their performance independently of their development level.
The relative or income-adjusted evaluation approach takes into account the GDP per capita of the country and has a "benchmarking" character. That is, evaluation of countries takes into account the GDP per capita at PPP of countries, expecting different performance at difference levels. The expectations upon which relative evaluation occurs are related to cross-sectionally estimated relationships of the Values for each variable across all countries. For instance, the cross-sectional relationship for Inequality using the Gini index (on the Y-axis) as a function of GDP per capita at PPP (on the X-axis) is the following:[[File:Govchart10.gif|border|center|Govchart10.gif]]
The relative or income-adjusted evaluation approach takes into account the GDP per capita of the country and has a "benchmarking" character. That is, evaluation of countries takes into account the GDP per capita at PPP of countries, expecting different performance at difference levels. The expectations upon which relative evaluation occurs are related to cross-sectionally estimated relationships of the Values for each variable across all countries. For instance, the cross-sectional relationship for Inequality using the Gini index (on the Y-axis) as a function of GDP per capita at PPP (on the X-axis) is the following:[[File:Govchart10.gif|frame|right|Inequality using the Gini index as a function of GDP per capita at PPP]]
Higher values indicate poorer performance or more risk and Colombia is shown on this figure as having a considerably higher than expected level of inequality. We would expect Colombia to be evaluated poorly on this variable both in absolute terms and relative to its income level.
The columns in the Evaluation cluster are:
:Goal and Alert Levels will change depending on the evaluation method. When using absolute evaluation, the level values will not vary across countries (we have set absolute Goal and Alert Levels exogenously based on our own analysis across countries). When using income-adjusted or relative evaluation, the values will be recomputed based on the GDP per capita level of a specific country in a given year. Specifically, in income-adjusted evaluation the Goal Levels are generally set at the value of the function for the GDP per capita of the country in the year being analyzed. The Alert Levels are generally 1 or 2 standard errors below or above the value of the function;<sup>[[http://www.du.edu/ifs/help/understand/governance/performance.html#footnote 1]]</sup> below or above depends on whether higher or lower values indicate better performance.
:Goal and Alert Levels will change depending on the evaluation method. When using absolute evaluation, the level values will not vary across countries (we have set absolute Goal and Alert Levels exogenously based on our own analysis across countries). When using income-adjusted or relative evaluation, the values will be recomputed based on the GDP per capita level of a specific country in a given year. Specifically, in income-adjusted evaluation the Goal Levels are generally set at the value of the function for the GDP per capita of the country in the year being analyzed. The Alert Levels are generally 1 or 2 standard errors below or above the value of the function;<ref>There is subjectivity in this. We mostly use 2 standard errors (11 times); next we use 1 SE (9 times: Elderly Bulge, Poverty Level, Inequality, Rate of per capita Growth, Infant Mortality, Life Expectancy, Malnutrition, Adult Education Years and Urbanization Rate); then use 0.5 twice: Democracy and Freedom,' and finally we use 0.2 for GEM.</ref> below or above depends on whether higher or lower values indicate better performance.
:The third evaluation column will show the Standard Deviation of Values for all countries around the global mean in the case of Absolute Evaluation and will show the Standard Error of all countries around the function in the case of income-adjusted evaluation.
:Using Countries/Regions is the default menu option geographically, but it toggles with click to Using Groups. Groups are displayed with ranks that weight country members by population (the group aggregations of Values use varying weighting variables; for instance, the climate change variable uses GDP).
[1] There is subjectivity in this. We mostly use 2 standard errors (11 times); next we use 1 SE (9 times: Elderly Bulge, Poverty Level, Inequality, Rate of per capita Growth, Infant Mortality, Life Expectancy, Malnutrition, Adult Education Years and Urbanization Rate); then use 0.5 twice: Democracy and Freedom,' and finally we use 0.2 for GEM.
= <span style="font-size:xx-large;">The Broader Socio-Cultural Context</span> =
Governance is rooted in a much broader socio-cultural context including the condition of individuals within society and the values and beliefs they hold. Much of that context is spread across the various modules of IFs. For instance, literacy and educational attainment are determined in the education model. Income levels and income distribution are in the economic model. Here we focus primarily on the aggregation of those into the summary HDI indicator and the expression of them in selected indicators of values and cultural orientations.
To read more, please click on the links below.
== <span style="font-size:x-large;">Human Development</span> ==
:<math>EDYRSSLEIND=EDYRSSLE/EDYRSSLEMAX</math>
:<math>EDYRSAG25IND=EDYRSAG25/EDYRSAG25MAX</math>
Although we have explored the forward linkages of value change to other variables, including democracy, the IFs project has not given either the forecasting of value/culture change nor the impacts of it the attention they deserve. This is a great opportunity for creative thinking and modeling in the future.
= <span style="font-size:x-large;">References</span> =
Barro, Robert J. and Jong-Wha Lee. 2001. "International Data on Educational Attainment: Updates and Implications," ''Oxford Economic Papers'' 53(3): 541-563.
Cilliers, Jakkie, Barry Hughes, and Jonathan Moyer. 2011. ''African Futures 2050: The Next 40 Years''. Pretoria, South Africa and Denver, Colorado: Institute for Security Studies and Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures.
Correlates of War Project. 2011. “State System Membership List, v2011.” Online, [http://correlatesofwar.org/ http://correlatesofwar.org ].
Diamond, Larry. 1992. “Economic Development and Democracy Reconsidered.” ''American Behavioral Scientist'' 35(4/5): 450-499.
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Esty, Daniel C., Jack A. Goldstone, Ted Robert Gurr, Barbara Harff, Marc Levy, Geoffrey D. Dabelko, Pamela Surko, and Alan N. Unger. 1998. “State Failure Task Force Report: Phase II Findings.” Study Commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency and George Mason University School of Public Policy. Political Instability Task Force, Arlington VA.
Freedom House, Inc. 2009. ''Freedom in the World 2009: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties''. Washington, DC: Freedom House, Inc.\
Goldstone, Jack A. 2010. “The New Population Bomb” ''Foreign Affairs'' (January/February): 31-43.
Goldstone, Jack A., Robert H. Bates, David L. Epstein, Ted Robert Gurr, Michael B. Lustik, Monty G. Marshall, Jay Ulfelder, and Mark Woodward. 2010. “A Global Model for Forecasting Political Instability.” ''American Journal of Political Science'' 54(1): 190-208. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2009.00426.x.
Hughes, Barry B. 2001. “Global Social Transformation: The Sweet Spot, the Steady Slog, and the Systemic Shift.” ''Economic Development and Cultural Change'' 49(2): 423-458. doi: 10.1086/452510.
Hughes, Barry B. 2002. "Threats and Opportunities Analysis," working document prepared for the Strategic Assessments Group, Office of Transnational Issues, Central Intelligence Agency. Available on the IFs project web site at [http://www.ifs.du.edu/ www.ifs.du.edu].
Hughes, Barry B., and Anwar Hossain. 2003. “Long-Term Socio-Economic Modeling: With Universal, Globally-Integrated Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs) in a General Equilibrium Model Structure.” Working Paper, University of Denver, Denver, CO. [http://www.ifs.du.edu/assets/documents/economyandsamdocument46.pdf http://www.ifs.du.edu/assets/documents/economyandsamdocument46.pdf]
Hughes, Barry B., Devin Joshi, Jonathan Moyer, Timothy Sisk and José Roberto Solórzano. 2014. ''Strengthening Governance Globally. ''vol. 5, Patterns of Potential Human Progress series. Boulder, CO, and New Delhi, India: Paradigm Publishers and Oxford University Press.
Huntington, Samuel P. 1991. ''The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century''. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma.
Inglehart, Ronald. 1997. ''Modernization and Postmodernization''. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press.
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Latest revision as of 22:21, 6 September 2018
Please cite as: Hughes, Barry B., and José R. Solórzano. 2014. "IFs Governance and Socio-Cultural Model Documentation ." Working paper 2014.03.05.a. Pardee Center for International Futures, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, Denver, CO. Accessed DD Month YYYY <https://pardee.du.edu/wiki/Governance>
The conceptual foundation for the representation of governance in IFs owes much to an analysis of the evolution of governance in countries around the world over several centuries. That analysis (see Chapter 1 of the Strengthening Governance Globally volume by Hughes et al. 2014) identified three dimensions of governance: security, capacity, and inclusion. It traced them over time and noted their largely sequential unfolding for currently developed countries and their currently simultaneous progression in many lower-income countries.
The three dimensions interact closely and bi-directionally with each other. They also interact bi-directionally with broader human development systems. The level of well-being, often captured quantitatively by GDP per capita or the more inclusive human development index, may be especially important, but is hardly alone in helping drive forward advance in governance; for instance, the age structures of populations and economic structures also interact with governance patterns both indirectly through well-being and directly.
Visual representation of governance
1 Dominant Relations: Governance
2 Structure and Agent Based System: Governance
3 Governance Flow Charts
3.2.1 Internal War
3.2.2 Vulnerability and Risk of Conflict
3.3 Capacity
3.3.1 Government Revenues
3.3.2 Effectiveness of Government
3.4 Inclusiveness
3.4.1 Democracy
3.4.2 Gender Empowerment and Freedom
3.5 Aggregate Governance Indicators
3.6 Life Conditions and the Human Development Index
3.7 Social Values and Cultural Evolution
4 Governance Equations
4.2 Governance Security Dimension
4.2.2 Equations: Internal Conflict or War Probability
4.2.3 Equations: Political Stability/Instability
4.2.4 Equations: Vulnerability to Conflict (and Performance Risk Analysis)
4.3 Governance Capacity Dimension
4.3.2 Equations: Government Finance
4.3.3 Equations: Broader Regime Capacity
4.4 The Inclusion Dimension
4.4.2 Equations: Regime Type
4.4.3 Equations: Gender Empowerment
4.5 Governance Indices
5 Performance Risk Analysis Form
6 The Broader Socio-Cultural Context
6.2 Human Development
6.3 Roots of Culture: Beliefs and Values
Dominant Relations: Governance
The drivers of change on each dimension and sub-dimension of governance range widely. A quick summary (see also the table below) is that:
Drivers of change on each dimension and sub-dimension of governance
Probability of intrastate conflict is a function of past conflict, neighborhood effects, economic growth rate (inverse), trade openness (inverse), youth bulge, infant mortality, democracy (inverted-U), state repression (inverse), and external intervention (inverse).
Vulnerability to intrastate conflict is a function of past intrastate conflict, energy trade dependence (as a proxy for broader natural resource dependence), economic growth rate (inverse), youth bulge, urbanization rate, poverty level, infant mortality, life expectancy (inverse) undernutrition, HIV prevalence, primary net enrollment (inverse), adult education levels (inverse), corruption, democracy (inverse), gender empowerment (inverse), governance effectiveness (inverse), freedom (inverse), inequality, and water stress.
Government revenues are a function of past revenue as percentage of GDP, GDP per capita, and social expenditures (that is, inversely to fiscal balance).
Corruption is a function of past corruption level, GDP per capita (inverse), energy trade dependence, democracy (inverse), gender empowerment (inverse), and probability of intrastate conflict.
Democracy is a function of past democracy level, youth bulge (inverse), and gender empowerment; although normally disabled in the model, neighborhood effects and global leadership can also affect democracy level.
Gender empowerment is a function of past gender empowerment level, GDP per capita, youth bulge (inverse), and adult educational attainment.
In almost each case there are path dependencies that supplement the basic relationships—social change has considerable inertia.
The driving and driven variables clearly constitute a complex syndrome of mutually interdependent developmental interactions, not a simple causal sequence.
There is a tendency for the dimensions of governance traditionally developing later to feed back to earlier ones, notably for inclusion to affect capacity via reduced corruption and also for inclusion and capacity to reduce the probability of internal conflict.
Behaviorally, the bi-directional structures suggest the possibility that reinforcing processes may accelerate as governance strengthens, setting up a kind of tipping from one equilibrium to another; vicious cycles of deterioration would also be possible.
Structure and Agent Based System: Governance
System/Subsystem
Organizing Structure
Three dimensions with two sub-dimensions each; highly interactive, bi-directional relationships among dimensions and with socio-economic development, demographics, and economics
Socio-economic development levels (e.g. level of education, gender relationships, size of the economy); past patterns of governance; also cultural patterns are a stock
Government spending on human capital, infrastructure, development generally; accretion of changes in governance over time
Key Aggregate Relationships
Probability of intrastate conflict is a function of past conflict, neighborhood effects, economic growth rate (inverse), trade openness (inverse), youth bulge, infant mortality, democracy (inverted-U), state repression (inverse), and external intervention.
Vulnerability to intrastate conflict is a function of past intrastate conflict, energy trade dependence (as a proxy for broader natural resource dependence), economic growth rate (inverse), youth bulge, urbanization rate, poverty level, infant mortality, life expectancy (inverse) undernutrition, HIV prevalence, primary net enrollment (inverse), adult education levels (inverse), corruption, democracy (inverse), gender empowerment (inverse), governance effectiveness (inverse), freedom (inverse), inequality, and water stress
Democracy is a function of past democracy level, youth bulge (inverse), and gender empowerment.
Gender empowerment is a function of past gender empowerment level, GDP per capita, youth bulge (inverse), and primary net enrollment.
Key Agent-Class Behavior Relationships
Social sub-group relationships, especially historical conflict patterns and gender relationships; government revenue and expenditure
Governance Flow Charts
We can show and briefly describe a block diagram for each of the three dimensions of governance and the two sub-dimensions of those: security (probability of intrastate or internal war and risk of conflict); capacity (ability to mobilize revenues and the effectiveness of their use); inclusiveness (formal democracy and broader inclusiveness, using gender empowerment as a proxy).
Internal War
Internal or intrastate war (SFINTLWAR) is heavily determined by a moving average of a society's past experience with such conflict (SFINTLWARMA) in what is a positive feedback system. The probability of such conflict will, however, typically converge to that determined by more basic underlying drivers, and the user can control the speed of such convergence by specifying the years to convergence (sfconv ).
Visual representation of internal war
The major driving variables in a statistical estimation are the level of infant mortality (INFMORT) as a proxy for quality of government performance and trade openness or exports (X) plus imports (M) as a share of GDP. In addition democracy level (DEMOCPOLITY) enters in a non-linear and algorithmic fashion, as do youth bulge (YTHBULGE) and a moving average of economic growth rate (GDPRMA).
Although less often used and turned off in the Base Case scenario, external interventions (wpextinterv ) and mass repression (sfmassrep ) can cause or at least temporarily dampen internal war, respectively.
Finally, the user can multiply resultant endogenous values of internal war (sfintlwarm ) in order to generate user-controlled scenarios.
The IFs system also includes a representation of instability short of internal war (SFINSTABALL and SFINSTABMAG), linking them to the category of abrupt regime change in the classification developed by Ted Robert Gurr and used by the Political Instability Task Force. The forecasting representation was developed before the revision and update of that for internal war, however, and we recommend less attention to it until its own revision is done.
Vulnerability and Risk of Conflict
The IFs treatment of societal/governance performance risk and related vulnerability to conflict does not involve an estimated formulation. Instead, like other such efforts, it involves the creation of an index. The figure below, a screen capture of the form (reached via Specialized Displays) uses variables related both directly to governance and to performance. A specialized Help topic on this form is available.
Variables related both directly to governance and to performance
The ability to raise government revenues (GOVREV as a share of GDP) is one of the dimensions of capacity in governance. Its basic calculation is a very simple ratio. The key drivers of GOVREV, however, documented elsewhere, are very complex. For instance, GOVREV is responsive in an equilibration process to government expenditures, both transfer payments and direct government expenditures in categories such as military, health, education, and infrastructure, as well as to external revenues, notably foreign aid receipts.
Visual representation of government revenues
Effectiveness of Government
Among the drivers of governance corruption is resource dependence, for which we use as a proxy the value of energy exports (ENX) at energy prices (ENPRI) as a share of GDP. Energy exports tend to be the largest such category globally. Further drivers are the extent of gender empowerment (GEM) and the level of democracy (DEMOCPOLITY), both of which indicate the extent of inclusiveness but which make independent statistical contributions to corruption level.
Visual representation of government effectiveness
The drivers do not, of course, fully determine the level of corruption and there is much historical path dependence in societies related to other variables. The user can control the speed of elimination of such dependence and therefore of convergence to the basic formulation with a conversion years parameter (goveffconv ).
There are times when the user will wish to introduce normatively controlled target values for corruption. One approach is use of the "brute force" multiplier on corruption (govcorruptm ). A second approach involves the specification of target values relative to a function of the key drivers estimated cross-sectionally across countries. This second approach allows, for instance, the specification of a target level 1 or 2 standard errors (SE) above the level expected of a country given those drivers. The SE target parameter is govcorruptsetar and the govcorruptseyrtar carries the years to achieve the target. There are similar control parameters (not shown the diagram) for regulatory quality (govregqualsetar and govreqqualseyrtar ) and for effectiveness (goveffectsetar and goveffectseyrtar ), but not for economic freedom.
Theoretically, internal war (SFINTLWAR) could affect all of the capacity variables, but the only linkage identified in IFs is that to economic freedom. Setting the control switch (confforsw ) to 1 turns on that impact.
Three variables dominate the forecasting formulation for democracy (DEMOCPOLITY): the gender empowerment measure (GEM) as a measure of broad social inclusion (positive linkage), the youth bulge (YTHBULGE) as an indicator of the age structure of society (negative linkage), and the dependence of the country on raw materials exports, a negative linkage using energy export share (ENX) times energy prices (ENPRI) as a share of the GDP as a proxy. An exogenous multiplier (democm ) allows the user to directly manipulate the democracy level.
Visual representation of democracy
Two other variables can affect the democracy level but are turned off in the Base Case and will seldom be used. The first is the neighborhood effects of swing states in a regional neighborhood (e.g. Russia among former states of the Soviet Union). The swing states effect switch (sweffects ) turns it on when set to 1.
The more complicated additional factor is that of democracy waves (DEMOCWAVE). Relative to the initial condition a democracy wave can add or subtract democracy to the basic formulation's calculation of it (an algorithm based on historical experience allows upward swings to be larger than downward ones depending on EffectMul). The basic magnitude of increments depends of an exogenous specification of the impetus provided to democracy by the leading power (democwvus ) and by other powers (democimpoth ), the former's impact controlled by an elasticity (eldemocimp ). Because waves rise and ebb, another parameter controls the length (democlen ) and still another sets the maximum rise (democwvmax ). A counter keeps track of the running and receding of a wave (DEMOCWVCOUNT) and a pointer keeps track of the direction its operation (DEMOCWVDIR); these two parameters are linked with the magnitude of the wave in a positive loop.
The calculation from the basic formulation, before the addition of wave and swing state or neighborhood effects, can also be overridden by the use of external targeting directed by specifications of standard error targets relative to the formulation (democpolitysetar ) to be achieved by a target year (democpolityseyrtar ).
Gender Empowerment and Freedom
Gender empowerment (GEM), a broader measure of inclusion, joins democracy as the second key measure of governance inclusiveness. Its three basic drivers are youth bulge size (YTHBULGE), GDP per capita as purchasing power parity (GDPPCP), and the years of formal education obtained by female adults (EDYRSAG15).
A user can control the progression of gender empowerment with a simple multiplier (gemm ) or via setting a target value for it movement to some number of standard errors above or below a cross-sectionally estimated function (gemsetar ) across a set number of years (gemseyrtar ).
Although IFs uses the Polity measure of democracy (DEMOCPOLITY) as its main measure of more formal, electoral inclusion, Freedom House's freedom measure (FREEDOM) is a logical alternative and the second of that measure's sub-dimensions, civil liberties, is a more inclusive measure. We therefore compute it also, using again GDP per capita and educational years (of all adults, not just females) as drivers. And there is a brute force multiplier for it also (freedomm ). There is no SE targeting mechanism in place for the freedom variable.
Visual representation of gender empowerment and freedom
Aggregate Governance Indicators
The major way of exploring the possible future of the three dimensions of governance is separately to use the two variables that represent each. But it is also useful to have more aggregate indices, first for each dimension and also across the three.
Visual representation of governance index
In reality, creating the indices for each dimension requires some attention to scaling issues and valence. See the description of the equations for details.
Life Conditions and the Human Development Index
Visual representation of life conditions and HDI
Social Values and Cultural Evolution
Understanding societies fully requires going even more deeply than their governance and social conditions in order to look at the values and cultural foundations. IFs computes change in three cultural dimensions identified by the World Values Survey (Inglehart 1997). Those are dimensions of materialism/post-materialism, survival/self-expression, and traditional/secular-rational values.
Inglehart has identified large cultural regions that have substantially different patterns on these value dimensions and IFs represents those regions, using them to compute shifts in value patterns specific to them.
Levels on the three cultural dimensions are predicted not only for the country/regional populations as a whole, but in each of 6 age cohorts. Not shown in the flow chart is the option, controlled by the parameter "wvsagesw ," of computing country/region change over time in the three dimensions by functions for each cohort (value of wvsagesw = 1) or by computing change only in the first cohort and then advancing that through time (value of wvsagesw = 2).
The model uses country-specific data from the World Values Survey project to compute a variety of parameters in the first year by cultural region (English-speaking, Orthodox, Islamic, etc.). The key parameters for the model user are the three country/region-specific additive factors on each value/cultural dimension (matpostradd , etc.).
Finally, the model contains data on the size (percentage of population) of the two largest ethnic/cultural groupings. At this point these parameters have no forward linkages to other variables in the model.
Visual representation of social values and cultural evolution
Governance Equations
Like the block diagrams for governance in IFs, the equations fall into the categories of the three dimensions (security, capacity, and inclusion), with detail for each of two sub-dimensions on each.
Governance Security Dimension
IFs represents two different types of measures related to domestic conflict and security. The first has roots in the work of the Political Instability Task Force (PITF); see Esty et al. (1998) and Goldstone et al. (2010). The PITF database allows us to see the actual pattern of conflict in countries over time and to use that historical conflict pattern to compute an initial probability of conflict. The second type of measure includes indices of vulnerability to conflict, generally presented in terms of rankings of countries with respect to their vulnerability (see Chapter 2 of Hughes et al. 2014, especially Box 2.3). Because these indices are not rooted as solidly in past conflict patterns, we cannot interpret their values or the rankings based on them as probabilities of conflict, but rather as propensities for conflict (and as indicators more generally of country performance and risk).
In order to establish forecasting approaches for both types of measures within IFs, we looked to earlier work (see Chapter 3 of Chapter 2 of Hughes et al. 2014), did our own statistical analysis to create an underlying base formulation for overt conflict probability, and augmented the basic approach via more algorithmic elements—algorithms or logical procedures, like recipes, help guide forecasting through steps that analytical functions cannot easily represent. The algorithmic elements are tied in part to our efforts to fit the IFs forecasting approach at least relatively well to historical data from 1960 through 2010. Chapter 4 of Hughes et al. 2014 elaborates more fully the development process for the representation of security provided in this Help system.
Equations: Internal Conflict or War Probability
The PITF defined state failure in terms of four different types of events (with specific magnitude thresholds)—namely, adverse regime change (such as coups), revolutionary wars, ethnic wars, and genocides or politicides (Esty et al. 1998). On the recommendation of Ted Robert Gurr, one of the founding fathers of the PITF data project and approach, IFs builds two categories of insecurity from those four types: instability (adverse regime change); and internal war (combining revolutionary war, ethnic war, and genocide or politicide).
Presence of any one of the three types of war, either as an initiation or continuation, leads us to code a country as 1; otherwise we code the country as 0. This distinction between instability and internal war helps differentiate among what Easton (1965) identified as regime, state, and polity levels within the sociopolitical system, by at least differentiating the regime level (where adverse regime changes occur) from the more fundamental state and polity levels. The forces of change and generally the extent of violence around change differ significantly at these different levels.
Looking at the historical patterns of conflict in global regions across time (see Chapter 4 of Hughes et al. 2014) and doing our own statistical analysis it is clear that the "usual suspect" variables will not explain those patterns, and that in many cases they cannot therefore be very effective in forecasting. We found:
Normed infant mortality proves statistically interesting, being associated with (explaining or being explained by, using a second-order polynomial form) about 12 percent of cross-country variation in intrastate conflict in the most recent data-year (8.9 percent in panel analysis across the 1960–2000 period). Thus in forecasting it may help us understand general propensity for conflict, but its slow variation over time means it cannot possibly explain the big historical surges of warfare within regions and their country members.
Trade openness (which we define as the sum of exports and imports as a percentage of GDP) can be helpful in understanding variations in conflict and does vary within countries more rapidly than infant mortality. In cross-sectional analysis with most recent data, infant mortality and trade openness (inverse relationship) together account for 15 percent of the variation in intrastate conflict (trade openness itself is associated with 11 percent of the variance within intrastate conflict in a logarithmic formulation). Moreover, its increase coincides with the reduction of conflict historically within the countries of East Asia. But openness perversely increased over time in South Asia as intrastate conflict also rose. And its statistical power is good but not great. Again, causality could run in either direction or be a spurious result of a third variable; for instance, the end of Indochina wars and a change in economic policy in socialist countries could have led to greater trade there.
Factionalism, which can have many bases, including ethnicity or the intensity of feelings around ethnicity, is of surprisingly little use in forecasting. Most underlying social divisions change very slowly over time. Although intensity of factionalism around those divisions may change much more rapidly (for instance, as "conflict entrepreneurs" inflame passions), we arguably cannot anticipate when that might happen. Nor do we believe we can we anticipate changes in other potential ideational drivers, such as ideologies. Further, historical measurement of change in factionalism risks using conflict as a proxy, thereby creating the danger that correlations between it and conflict are simply a tautological artifact of that measurement. Finally, our own analysis of various measures of ethnic and/or religious factionalism and intrastate conflict suggests lower relationship than we expected.
Youth bulges are a potentially more useful driver in forecasting because our demographic forecasts are stronger than those of variables like factionalism or even trade openness, and because demographic structures exhibit clear and non-monotonic variation over time. There were many bulges in East Asia during the 1970s, as there have been many recently in South Asia and as there are today in the Middle East and North Africa. In cross-sectional analysis of recent data, a linear relationship with youth bulge size accounts for 7 percent of the variation in conflict (in panel analysis since 1960, however, only 3.5 percent).
Consistent with studies that have found anocracy rather than autocracy primarily related to conflict, the relationship of measures of regime type with conflict has an inverted U-shaped character. Using a third-order polynomial, we found that the Polity measure of regime type explains 4 percent of variation in recent intrastate war. The Freedom House measure (see http://www.freedomhouse.org/) actually explains 10 percent, but we used the Polity Project measure (see http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm) because it is a purer measure of political democracy (rather than civil liberties as well) and because it is our primary measure of regime in forecasting.
Downturns in economic growth rates preceded the collapse of communism in Europe and Central Asia, the rise of internal conflict in both Latin America and the Middle East in the 1980s, and more recently the events of the Arab Spring. Analysis of the magnitude of downturn required to generate conflict and the lag between downturn and conflict is complex. We found, through experimentation directed at fitting historical conflict patterns (running IFs against historical patterns since 1960), that a 1.0 percent drop in a moving average of economic growth (carrying 60 percent of the moving average forward) is associated with a 0.04 point increase on a 0-1 scale for the rate of internal war.
Conflict begets conflict. We found, again through historical analysis, a 60 percent carryover of past conflict levels to current ones.
For IFs forecasting, we conceptualize and operationalize intrastate war not as a 0 or 1 outcome as in the data (no war or war), but as a probability of conflict in any country-year. We initialize country probabilities at the beginning of a forecast horizon with average conflict rates across the preceding 20 years. The development of our own basic forecasting formulation for these probabilities involved not just literature and statistical analysis, but testing of the formulation in runs of the model from 1960 through 2010 and comparisons of our historical forecasts with the data on intrastate war. We let the historical forecasts run without the frequently used annual adjustment/correction by the historical conflict data for the full 50 years. We experimented with a number of algorithmic elements in order to improve the historical fit. This analysis yielded the following basic formulation:
$ SFINTLWAR_{r,t}=((0.1420+0.0012*INFMOR_{r,t}-0.0006*TRADEOPEN_{r,t})+F(POLITYDEMOC_{r,t},YTHBULGE_{r,t},GDPMA_{r,t},SFINTLWARMA_{r,t}))*\mathbf{sfintlwarm}_{r,t} $
$ TRADEOPEN_{r,t}=(X_{r,t}+M_{r,t})/GDP_{r,t} $
SFINTLWAR=probability of internal war or state failure
INFMOR=infant mortality, normed globally
TRADEOPEN=trade openness ratio
X=exports in billion dollars
M=imports in billion dollars
GDP=gross domestic product in billion dollars
POLITYDEMOC=Polity’s 21-point scale of democracy; asymmetrical curvilinear relationship with a peak at 9 and a sharper fall than rise
YTHBULGE=population age 15–29 as a portion of all adults; algorithmic adjustment with GDP/capita explained in text
GDPRMA=gross domestic product growth rate, algorithmic moving average carrying forward 60 percent past year’s value; algorithmic adjustment with GDP/capita explained in text; inverse relationship
SFINTLWARMA=moving average of past internal war probability (i.e., carrying forward past forecast values, not past data values)
sfintlwarm=an exogenous multiplier for scenario analysis
Algorithm on regional contagion explained in text
R-squared = 0.22 in 50-year historical simulation without annual correction (see text for elaboration)
Our historical and extended analytical explorations of the core statistical formulation with infant mortality and trade openness led us to make a number of algorithmic changes to it in creating our basic formulation. We found that $18,000 per capita (in 2005 dollars at PPP) is a point above which economic downturns and youth bulges tend not to increase the probability of internal war, so we greatly dampened the affects of both of those variables above that level. We also found it important to add a regional contagion effect; courtesy of data provided by Paul Diehl we combined three of the Correlates of War Project distance categories (contiguous, less than 12 miles separation, and less than 24 miles separation) and added 0.1 to conflict probability for a country for each neighbor with computed conflict probability of its own above 0.2— because of conflict carryover across time, this algorithm can also lead to a positive feedback loop of neighborhood contagion.
We further found that the intrastate war formulation is sensitive to actual GDP levels, not just because of the growth rate term, but because within the broader IFs system GDP per capita also affects the endogenously calculated youth bulge and democracy variables (we will return to discussion of the latter). To deal with this sensitivity, we forced the IFs historical base to be historically accurate with respect to GDP growth—otherwise the entire historical forecast of IFs after 1960 was endogenously determined in recursive annual calculation only by initial conditions and formulations rather than with annual corrective terms often used in historical validation exercises.
This basic initial formulation generated a pattern of historical forecasts (which can be generated using the file HistoricalNoMassRepOrExtInterv.sce) of intrastate warfare probabilities that showed some of the characteristics of the historical data, including a peak for the Middle East and North Africa in the 1980s and one for developing Europe and Central Asia in the early 1990s (both related to growth downturns). Visual comparison quickly suggested, however, that the overall pattern was not a good historical fit. In particular, the bulges of conflict in East Asia in the early years and of South Asia more recently were missing; in addition, because of the infant mortality and economic growth terms, the model generated a bulge of conflict within Africa in the early 1980s (when growth and social advance was very weak) that did not appear in the data. Moreover, statistically, the forecasts correlated at the region level with data across the 1960-2010 time period with only a 0.19 R-squared level.
We therefore explored the bases of the historical patterns further, and concluded that additional factors were missing. One is the extreme or totalitarian repression that lowered conflict in developing Europe and Central Asia until about the time of General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev; we added a repression parameter (wpextinterv) for exogenous manipulation. More controversially perhaps, we also found it necessary to extend the suppression of conflict to sub-Saharan Africa in the middle period of the historical run; the underlying assumption is that the domestic prestige and power of liberation movement leaders, backed by their domestic and superpower supporters, helped dampen conflict significantly in the face of poor, and even deteriorating, domestic economic and social conditions.
A second type of factor missing in our basic statistical analysis is external interventions, such as those of the U.S. in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and those of the former USSR and then the U.S. in South Asia after 1980; we added another exogenous parameter (sfmassrep) to represent such interventions.
Although still not a terribly strong match to actual history, this revised historical forecast some remarkable similarities, including the initially high level of conflict in East Asia and the Pacific and a relatively high rate for South Asia in recent decades. The adjusted R-squared rises to 0.61 from 0.19 (before the addition of the repression and intervention variables). The major problems that remained in our historical forecast include the generation by the model of too much conflict for Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1980s, when economic and social conditions in that region deteriorated significantly; and the relatively high levels of conflict in sub-Saharan Africa beyond the end of the Cold War, again associated in our forecast with a combination of absolute and relative deterioration in socioeconomic conditions of many countries. Thus the additional parameters may be useful in scenario analysis.
It is possible that our relatively high historical forecasts for conflict in post-Cold War sub-Saharan Africa, even after formulation enhancements, may reflect the remaining omission of yet another systemic variable, namely regional and global efforts to dampen conflict there. There is no parameter to represent that variable, but the user can use the overall multiplier (sfintlwarm ) in scenario analysis.
Equations: Political Stability/Instability
The State Failure project has analyzed the propensity for different types of state failures within countries, including those associated with revolution, ethnic conflict, genocide-politicide, and abrupt regime change (using categories and data pioneered by Ted Robert Gurr. Upon the advice of Gurr, IFs groups the first three as internal war and the last as political instability. The model formulations for political instability are older and less well developed than those for internal war; we therefore recommend focus on internal war. Nonetheless, we document the approach to instability here.
The extensive database of the project includes many measures of failure. IFs has variables representing the probability of the first year or a continuing year of instability (SFINSTABALL) and the magnitude of a first year or continuing event (SFINSTABMAG).
Using data from the State Failure project, formulations were estimated for each variable using up to five independent variables that exist in the IFs model: democracy as measured on the Polity scale (DEMOCPOLITY), infant mortality (INFMOR) relative to the global average (WINFMOR), trade openness as indicated by exports (X) plus imports (M) as a percentage of GDP, GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (GDPPCP), and the average number of years of education of the population at least 25 years old (EDYRSAG25). The first three of these terms were used because of the state failure project findings of their importance and the last two were introduced because they were found to have very considerable predictive power with historic data.
The IFs project developed an analytic function capability for functions with multiple independent variables that allows the user to change the parameters of the function freely within the modeling system. The default values seldom draw upon more than 2-3 of the independent variables, because of the high correlation among many of them. Those interested in the empirical analysis should look to a project document (Hughes 2002) prepared for the CIA's Strategic Assessment Group (SAG), or to the model for the default values.
One additional formulation issue grows out of the fact that the initial values predicted for countries or regions by the six estimated equations are almost invariably somewhat different, and sometimes quite different than the empirical rate of failure. There may well be additional variables, some perhaps country-specific, that determine the empirical experience, and it is somewhat unfortunate to lose that information. Therefore the model computes three different forecasts of the six variables, depending on the user's specification of a state failure history use parameter (sfusehist). If the value is 0, forecasts are based on predictive equations only. The equation below illustrates the formulation. The analytic function obviously handles various formulations including linear and logarithmic.
if $ \mathbf{sfusehist}=0 $ then (no history)
$ SFINSTABALL_{r,t}=PredictedTerm_{r,t} $
$ PredictedTerm_{r,t}=ANALFUNC(GDPPCP_{r,t},DemocTerm_t,InfMorTerm_t,TradeTerm_t, Educ25Term_t) $
$ DemocTerm=DemoPolity_r $
$ InfMorTerm=\frac{INFMOR_r}{WINFMOR} $
$ TradeTerm=\frac{X_r+M_r}{GDP}*100 $
$ Educ25Term=EDYRSAG25_r $
if $ \mathbf{sfusehist}=1 $ then (use history)
$ SFINSTABALL_{r,t}=\frac{PredictedTerm_{f,t}}{PredictedTerm_{f,t=1}}*\mathbf{SFINSTABALL}_{r,t=1} $
$ PredictedTerm_{r,t}=ANALFUNC(GDPPCP_{r,t},DemocTerm_t,InfMorTerm_t,TradeTerm_t,Educ25Term_t) $
If the value of the sfusehist parameter is 2, the historical values determine the initial level for forecasting, the predictive functions are used to change the level over time, and the forecast values converge over time to the predictive ones, gradually eliminating the influence of the country-specific empirical base. That is, the second formulation above converges linearly towards the first over years specified by a parameter (polconv), using the CONVERGE function of IFs.
if $ \mathbf{sfusehist}=2 $ then (converge)
$ SFINSTABALLBase_{r,t}=\frac{PredictedTerm_{f,t}}{PredictedTerm_{f,t=1}}*\mathbf{SFINSTABALL}_{r,t=1} $
$ SFINSTABALL_{r,t}=ConvergeOverTime(SFINSTABALLBase_{r,t},PredictedTerm_{f,t},\mathbf{polconv}) $
$ PredictedTerm=ANALFUNC(GDPPCP_{r,t},DemocTerm_t,InfMorTerm_t,TradeTerm_t,Educ25Term_t) $
Equations: Vulnerability to Conflict (and Performance Risk Analysis)
The second approach to analyzing risk of violent internal conflict (and broader country risks) involves the creation of indices that tend to rank states according to generalized performance. The projects creating such indices—variously referred to as measures of state fragility, state weakness, political instability, or failed states—most often do not intend to convey a probability of violent internal conflict. Rather they try to suggest greater or lower propensities for conflict as well as broader country risk, for instance that which foreign investors might face with respect to socioeconomic conditions. .
Generally, these indices combine variables in four categories: social, political, economic, and security. Developers may supplement variables that mostly focus on the average values for countries with select variables focusing on distribution (such as the Gini index). They commonly weight variables within categories equally and/or weight the categories equally when aggregating them to final index values. While individual variables have theoretical and empirical links to conflict or lack of security, such simple combination of large numbers of highly intercorrelated variables into a formulation of conflict vulnerability is very difficult to interpret. Moreover, because reports generally present an index with no simple interpretation of scale, analysts focus heavily on rankings of countries.
Performance Risk Index
Because vulnerability or risk indices often include GDP per capita or other highly correlated indicators, they generally assign greater risk to poorer countries. Another way of using such risk information it to compare performance of countries to expectations that control for their level of GDP per capita (with a cross-sectional analysis). The column in the Performance Risk Analysis form showing standard errors helps us do that. In 2010 Angola's performance on infant mortality was 2.4 standard errors worse than the expected value. Thus its performance on that variable was not only very poor relative to other countries around the world, but also relative to countries at its own income level.
For much more detail on the structure and computations of the Performance Risk Analysis form, see the separate discussion of it (see Performance Risk Analysis Form).
Governance Capacity Dimension
The capacity dimension has two primary elements. The first is the ability to raise revenue. The second is the effective use of it and the other tools of government—that is, the competence or quality of governance.
Equations: Government Finance
Government finance in IFs sits within a broader social accounting matrix (SAM) structure that accounts for, and in the process balances, all domestic and international financial exchanges among firms, households, and governments. The IFs system is unique, not only in the representation of flows within and across so many countries of the world, but also in maintaining, insofar as the sparse data allow, stocks (accumulations of net flows, such as government debt and assets of firms) that provide signals for equilibration processes that require changes in flows (like revenues and expenditures) over time. Like the goods and services markets of the economic model, the government finance representation in IFs (its representation of revenues and expenditures) does not seek an exact equilibrium in every time point, but rather chases equilibrium over time. The variables computed (see the links) are GOVREV, GOVEXP (with direct government consumption or GOVCON as a subset), and GOVBAL. This approach is both more realistic and more computationally efficient.
With respect to government finance and the SAM more generally, the preprocessor both fills holes for missing data series of many countries, using cross-sectionally estimated functions or algorithms, and otherwise cleans and balances the SAM data. The preprocessor first builds on data to estimate total governmental revenues and expenditures for the model's base year and then uses available data on the breakdown of revenues and expenditures to calculate initial values of those streams consistent with the totals. Those who wish to understand the entire social accounting system, both initialization and forecast, should look to Hughes and Hossain (2003). More generally, the IFs preprocessor's computational rules assist in the initialization of all models within the IFs system and the connections among them, including reconciliation of physical systems such as energy and agriculture with financial ones.
Government expenditures (GOVEXP) combine direct consumption expenditures (GOVCON) and transfer payments, especially to households (GOVHHTRN). Direct government consumption as a portion of GDP is computed from functions linking GDP per capita (PPP) to key elements of spending such as military, health, and education; total government consumption generally rises with GDP per capita. An additional optional term in the equation is a Wagner term (set to zero in the Base Case), after the discoverer of the long-term behavioral tendency for government consumption to rise as a share of GDP. The final division of government consumption into target destination categories, namely military, education, health, research and development, infrastructure (two subcategories) and an "other" or residual category, depends on a combination of functions and broader algorithmic and modeling elements specific to each spending category (including, for instance, demand for expenditures from the education and infrastructure models). The model normalizes across spending categories to assure that they equal total government consumption.
With completed computations of revenues and expenditures, it is possible to compute the government fiscal balance, an annual flow variable. That allows the update of cumulative government financial assets or debt and a calculation of their magnitude relative to GDP. IFs uses this cumulative total as a percentage of GDP in its equilibrating dynamics for annual government revenues and expenditures.
Equations: Broader Regime Capacity
Forecasting of variables that relate to broader regime capacity in IFs has three elements: (1) a basic statistical formulation; (2) a recognition of country-specific differences (tied in part to path dependencies); (3) an algorithmic linkage to internal conflict. A fourth potential element could be factors external to the country including global waves and neighborhood effects, but we introduce those only through scenario analysis.
Corruption is one of the most powerful indicators of capacity (or more accurately, lack of capacity) as well as accountability. We rely in our analysis on the Transparency International index of corruption perceptions (CPI), which is actually a measure of transparency (higher values are more transparent or less corrupt). The basic formulation in IFs for corruption/transparency (below) contains four statistically significant drivers, which collectively account for nearly 80 percent of the cross-country variation in corruption in the most recent year of data. The first term, and the one identified with the most variation, involves a variable representing long-term development, namely GDP per capita (years of education plays that same role in forecasting formulations for some other governance variables, such as democracy).
Interestingly, a second very powerful driving variable is the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), which, in spite of its high correlation with GDP per capita, makes its own contribution and suggests the power of inclusion in affecting capacity. In fact, still another driving variable is the extent of democracy, further suggesting the power that inclusion may have to increase accountability and transparency, reducing corruption. A less-powerful but still-significant variable is the dependence of the country on exports of energy—in a few years, and in the aftermath of the Arab Spring beginning in 2011, this term may drop out of cross-sectional analyses of change in governance capacity but will still probably remain very important for those countries with low levels of development and inclusion. (We find that the same drivers work well (an R-squared of 0.62) for the IFs economic freedom variable, based on the Fraser Institute/Economic Freedom Network measure.) A multiplier for scenario analysis is the only exogenous element added to the basic formulation.
$ GOVCORRUPT_{r,t}=(1.576+0.1133*GDPPCP_{r,t}+2.270*GEM_{t,r}+0.02779*DEMOCPOLITY_{r,t}-0.04566*(ENX_{r,t}*(\frac{ENPRI_{r,t}}{GDP_{r,t}}))*\mathbf{govcorruptm}_{r,t} $
GOVCORRUPT= the Transparency International corruption perception index (for which higher values are more transparent or less corrupt)
GDPPCP=GDP per capita at purchasing power parity in thousand dollars
GEM=Gender Empowerment Measure (values below 1 indicate female disadvantage)
DEMOCPOLITY=Polity’s 20-point scale of democracy; inverse relationship
ENX=energy exports in physical terms (billion barrels of oil equivalent)
ENPRI=energy price per barrel
GDP=gross domestic product in billion constant 2000 dollars (market prices)
govcorruptm=an exogenous multiplier for scenario analysis
R-squared in 2010 = 0.75
We compute an additive adjustment term (not shown in the equation) on top of the basic formulation in the base year to capture any difference between the value anticipated in the formulation and the value from data. In most of our formulations we use additive or multiplicative terms in this manner, and the adjustment term introduces the impact of other variables not in the statistically estimated equation (such as historical path dependencies and cultural differences). The additive adjustment term gradually converges to zero over time in our forecasts. The logic behind such convergence is twofold: first, many differences from initial anticipated values are the result of transient factors and even data errors; second, ongoing global processes tend to lead to a convergence of patterns across countries.
There is every reason to believe that the presence of domestic conflict will reduce governmental capacity, including leading to lower levels of transparency (higher corruption). In fact, the inverse relationship between the IFs internal war variable (SFINTLWARALL) and transparency is strong. Even when added to the full equation above it remains quite strong (a T-score of -1.97). Because conflict tends to be quite variable over time, however, we undertook more analysis rather than simply adding conflict to the equation for corruption. Specifically, we experimented with different coefficients in analysis across the historical period (1960-2010). In doing so, we reinforced the result of the pure statistical analysis that a movement from 0 (no conflict) to 1 (conflict) appears to increase corruption (to lower the TI measure) by 0.6 points. We algorithmically overlaid this relationship on the basic equation above.
There are times when the user will wish to introduce normatively controlled target values for corruption. One approach is use of the "brute force" multiplier on corruption (govcorruptm ). A second approach involves the specification of target values relative to a function of the key drivers estimated cross-sectionally across countries. This second approach allows, for instance, the specification of a target level 1 or 2 standard errors (SE) above the level expected of a country given those drivers. The SE target parameter is govcorruptsetar and the govcorruptseyrtar carries the years to achieve the target. Relevant to the discussion below, there are similar control parameters for regulatory quality (govregqualsetar and govreqqualseyrtar ) and for effectiveness (goveffectsetar and goveffectseyrtar ), but not for economic freedom.
Looking beyond the corruption/transparency measure of Transparency International, IFs also forecasts a number of capacity-related variables from the World Bank's World Governance Indicators project (Kaufmann, Kraay, and Mastruzzi 2010) that we did not use to define the capacity dimension, but that are still of significant interest (used, for instance, in forward linkages to the building of infrastructure). These include the quality of government regulation and government effectiveness. The approaches are identical to those used for corruption and involve the same drivers. The R-squared values are again high (0.74 and 0.72, respectively).
$ GOVREGQUAL_{r,t}=(-1.018+0.726*ln(GDPPCP_{r,t})+0.2085*EDYRSAG15_{r,t}+2.5*\mathbf{govregqualm}_{r,t} $
GOVREGQUAL=government regulatory quality using the World Bank WGI scale, shifting it 2.5 points so that it runs from 0-5 instead of from -2.5 to 2.5
GDPPCP=GDP per capita at purchasing power parity
EDYRSAG15=average years of education for adults aged 15 or older
govregqualm=an exogenous multiplier for the model user
$ GOVEFFECT_{r,t}=(-1.1029+0.08*ln(GDPPCP_{r,t})+0.21205*EDYRSAG15_{r,t}+2.5*\mathbf{goveffectm}_{r,t} $
GOVEFFECT=government effectiveness using the World Bank WGI scale, shifting it 2.5 points so that it runs from 0-5 instead of from -2.5 to 2.5
goveffectm=an exogenous multiplier for the model user
We have also computed multivariate functions (using GDP per capita and education as drivers) for the other four WGI measures, voice and accountability, political stability, corruption, and rule of law. But we have not yet added them to IFs.
Turning to policy orientations, we compute an economic freedom variable based on the measures of the Economic Freedom Institute (with leadership from the Fraser Institute; see Gwartney and Lawson with Samida, 2000):
$ ECONFREE_{r,t}=(5.4097+0.5971ln(GDPPCP_{r,t}))*\mathbf{econfreem}_{r,t} $
ECONFREE= economic freedom using the Fraser Institute/Economic Freedom Network freedom indicator (higher values are freer)
econfreem=an exogenous multiplier for the model user
R-squared = .5038
The Inclusion Dimension
Inclusion has many elements that reach beyond democratization or regime type and gender empowerment. For reasons including conceptual clarity, data availability and parsimony, we limit our forecasting to those two elements.
Equations: Regime Type
As with capacity, the forecasting of regime type in IFs has multiple elements: (1) a basic statistical formulation; (2) a recognition of country-specific differences (tied in part to path dependencies); and (3) algorithmic specification of a number of additional factors, including global waves and neighborhood effects.
A look at the historical patterns since 1960 of democratization across global regions shows a substantial almost global increase in democracy levels in the late 1970s and 1980s. That suggests reasons that a multi-element and potentially algorithmic forecasting formulation can be useful. Most analyses of democratization place much emphasis on a developmental variable such as GDP per capita. Note, for instance, that the general upward movement of democracy across most developing regions could be forecast with a basic formulation tied to the traditionally-identified development drivers of democracy, including income and education increase. Again, however, this historical pattern, with a clear dip in the early years of the post-1960 period and an accelerated advance in the later decades is consistent with a global wave that a formulation tied only to quite steadily growing long-term developmental variables could not generate. Further, a formulation tied only to such drivers would be unlikely to generate initial conditions for 1960 or 2010 consistent with the actual history, because country and regional values in those years also reflect historical path dependencies.
In building an initial, statistically-based formulation, we looked, as usual, at the power of two highly-correlated long-term development variables (notably GDP per capita and average education years attained by adults). The better broad developmental driving variable proved to be years of adults' education. With additional exploration, however, we found a slight further advantage for the Gender Empowerment Measure, and so replaced the education variable with the GEM (which is, itself, strongly influenced by adults' education). On top of that we found the size of the youth bulge (YTHBULGE) and extent of dependence on energy exports (ENX times the price ENPRI) as a share of GDP to be quite useful (see the discussions in these variables in Chapter 3 of Hughes et al. 2014).
$ DEMOCPOLITYBase_{r,t}=(13.4+11.4*GEM_{r,t}-9.73*YTHBULGE_{r,t}-0.232*(ENX_{r,t}*\frac{ENPRI_{r,t}}{GDP_{r,t}}))*\mathbf{democm}_{r,t} $
DEMOCPOLITYBase=basic or initial democracy using the Polity scale (in our case a combined 20-point scale built from historical democracy and autocracy series)
YTHBULGE=the youth bulge, the population aged 15–29 as a portion of the entire adult population
GDP=gross domestic product in billion constant 2000 dollars, market prices
democm=an exogenous multiplier for scenario analysis
r=country (geographic region in IFs terminology)
The initial conditions of democracy in countries carry a considerable amount of idiosyncratic, country-specific influence, much of which can be expected to erode over time. Therefore a revised base level is computed that converges over time from the base component with the empirical initial condition built in to the value expected purely on the base of the analytic formulation. The user can control the rate of convergence with a parameter that specifies the years over which convergence occurs (polconv ) and, in fact, basically shut off convergence by sitting the years very high.
$ DEMOCPOLITYBaseRev_{r,t}=ConvergeOverTime(DEMOCPOLITYBase_{r,t},DEMOCEXP_{r,t},\mathbf{polconv}) $
The endogenous movement of this basic calculation can also be overridden by the users via the specification of a target value for democracy some number of standard errors (democpolitysetar ) above or below the cross-sectional estimation of the formulation and the movement of the basic value to that target over a specified number of years (democpolityseyrtar ). Such targeting of important variables is done in an algorithm described elsewhere.
The democratic wave amplitude is a level that shifts over time (DemocWaveShift) with a normal maximum amplitude (democwvmax ) and wave length (democwvlen ), both specified exogenously, with the wave shift controlled by an endogenous parameter of wave direction that shifts with the wave length (DEMOCWVDIR). The normal wave amplitude can be affected also by impetus towards or away from democracy by a systemic leader (DemocImpLead), assumed to be the exogenously specified impetus from the United States (democimpus ) compared to the normal impetus level from the U.S. (democimpusn ) and the net impetus from other countries/forces (democimpoth ).
$ DEMOCWAVE_t=DEMOCWAVE_{t-1}+DemocimpLead+\mathbf{democimpoth}+DemocWaveShift $
$ DemocimpLead=\frac{(\mathbf{democimpus}-\mathbf{democimpusn})*\mathbf{eldemocimp}}{\mathbf{democwvlen}} $
$ DemocWaveShift=\frac{\mathbf{democwvmax}}{\mathbf{democwvlen}}*DEMOCWVDIR $
Our historical analysis suggests the waves could have magnitudes (trough to peak) of as much as 6 points on the 20-point Polity scale of combined democracy and autocracy, although we found in historical analysis that downward shifts tend to be only one-third as great as upward movements. We found that the swings appear greatest in the anocracies, and that countries with higher incomes appear unaffected by them. We have structured and then "tuned" the general IFs representation of such effects so that the representation appears generally consistent with behavior over our 1960–2010 period of historical analysis. Nonetheless, we have no basis for forecasting the impetus that the U.S. or other systemic leadership might provide in the future, and we therefore set parameters for forecasting so that the effect is neutralized unless model users decide to introduce such an impetus on a scenario basis. The parameter for the U.S. impetus (democimpus ) is set equal to the parameter for "normal" impetus (democimpusn ), and that for other sources of impetus (democimpoth ) is set to 0.
On top of the country-specific calculation and the global wave effect sits an (optional) regional or swing state effect calculation (SwingEffects), turned on by setting the swing states parameter (swseffects ) to 1. The countries set as default neighborhood leaders are Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russian Federation, South Africa, Turkey, and the Ukraine.
The swing effects term has three components. The first is a world effect, whereby the democracy level in any given state (the "swingee") is affected by the world average level, with a parameter of impact (swingstdem ) and a time adjustment (timeadj ). The second is a regionally powerful state factor, the regional "swinger" effect, with similar parameters. The third is a swing effect based on the average level of democracy in the region (RgDemoc). The size of the swing effects is further constrained algorithmically by an external parameter (swseffmax ), not shown in the equation below.
$ SwingEffects_{r,t}=timeadj*\mathbf{swingstsdem}_{r=Swinger,p=1}*(WDemoc_{t-1}-DEMOCPOLITY_{r=Swingee,t-1}+timadj*\mathbf{swingstdem_{r=Swinger,p=2}}*(DEMOCPOLITY_{r=Swinger,t-1}-DEMOCPOLITY_{r=Swingee,t-1})+timadj*\mathbf{swingstdem_{r=Swinger,p=3}}*(RgDemoc-DEMOCPOLITY_{r=Swingee,t-1}) $
where timeadj=.2
$ WDemoc_{t-1}=\frac{\sum^RDEMOCPOLITY_{r,t-1}}{R} $
$ SwingEffects_{r,t}=0 $
David Epstein of Columbia University did extensive estimation of the parameters (the adjustment parameter on each term is 0.2). Unfortunately, the levels of significance were inconsistent across swing states and regions. Moreover, the term with the largest impact is the global term, already represented somewhat redundantly in the democracy wave effects. Hence, these swing effects are normally turned off (the sweffects parameter is 0 in the Base Case scenario) and are available for optional use.
Further, we anticipated and explored for an impact of internal war on democratization, as discussed in some of the literature. Although there is a cross-sectional relationship, it is weak. Further, when the variable is added to a formulation with a long-term driver such as GEM, it actually reverses sign (more war is associated with greater democracy) and the significance drops further. One of the analytical difficulties is that a number of countries, like India and Israel, are both democratic and prone to internal conflict. Internal conflict conceptualization and measurement probably need refinement to take into consideration the actual threat level that internal war poses to regimes. We have explored the relationship using the PITF data on conflict magnitude rather than simply event occurrence and have found similar difficulties. Given our analysis, we have not built a relationship from intrastate conflict into our forecasting of democracy.
Thus the final equation for democracy adds the global wave effects and the swing effects (both turned off in the base case) to the revised basic calculation of it.
$ DEMOCPOLITY_{r,t}=DEMOCPOLITYBaseRev_{r,t}+SwingEffects_{r,t}+DemGlobalEffects_{r,t} $
IFs has the capability of doing an historical simulation between 1960 and 2010 so that we can compare with data. We undertook such an analysis using the basic democratization formulation and wave-based modifications to it described above. Although we introduced an historical wave exogenously, no other interventions were made to affect the course of the forecasts for level of democracy. The R-squared in a cross-sectional analysis comparing the IFs regional forecast for 2010 against Polity data was 0.69 and the value across the entire time period was 0.78. That provides a false sense of the accuracy of our historical forecasts, however. At the country level the R-squared in 2010 was only 0.09 and the value over the entire 50-year period was 0.37. IFs expected higher values than proved to be the case for countries including Qatar, Singapore, Cuba, Kuwait, and Belarus. IFs expected lower values than Polity data show for countries including Nigeria, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Moldova.
Most significantly, IFs failed to anticipate the large rise in democracy in Africa in the 1990s. More generally, however strong our basic formulations for forecasting democracy may become, they are unlikely to foresee the timing of transitions toward or away from democracy. One approach to helping with that is to try to assess the pressures or unmet demand for democracy. As a small step in that direction, and using the concept of democratic deficit that Chapter 2 introduced, the model also computes an expected democracy variable (DEMOCEXP) directly from the equation above without exogenous multiplier or convergence to the function. This is useful for those who wish to see the magnitude of a country's democratic deficit or surplus by comparing DEMOC with DEMOCEXP. In fact, in advance of the Arab spring of 2011, IFs analysis (Cilliers, Hughes, and Moyer 2011) had identified the Middle East and North Africa as having exceptionally large democratic deficits.
Although we use the Polity democracy measure as our central indicator of regime type (including its use in the more general measure of governance inclusiveness) IFs also calculates in a simpler fashion a FREEDOM measure (combining the Freedom House political rights and civil liberties scales into one scale running from least to most free). Specifically, the drivers are GDP per capita and adult educational attainment, our two standard long-term development drivers. Interestingly, the R-squared between the democracy and freedom measures in 2010 (using data from both projects) is 0.686 and that in 2060 (using forecasts of IFs for both measures) is a nearly identical 0.689. This suggests that the long-term driver variables in our formulations are doing a quite good job of representing the similarities and differences in the two measures.
$ FREEDOM_{r,t}=(6.3718+1.6659*ln(GDPPCP_{r,t})+0.1293*EDYRSAG15_{r,t})*\mathbf{freedomm}_{r,t} $
FREEDOM=freedom using 14-point Freedom House scale (PL and CL summed), inverted so that higher is more free
freedomm=an exogenous multiplier for the model user
R-squared=0.402
Equations: Gender Empowerment
It is not surprising that a measure of women's inclusion, such as the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) of the UNDP, should correlate highly with GDP per capita or years of formal education of adult women. As we have seen, income and education are closely correlated and one or the other is almost invariably a key driver in our forecasts of change in governance. It is perhaps more surprising, in the formulation below, that together they both make statistically significant contributions to GEM. The relationship between GDP per capita and the GEM has shifted over time—the advance of global education, even in countries with low levels of income, helps explain that shift and almost certainly helps account for the independent contribution of education to higher levels of female empowerment. Interestingly, women's education does not differ in its statistical contribution from that of men; we nonetheless use that of women in our formulation.
One might expect a strong relationship between total fertility rate and GEM as women who bear fewer children rise in other ways in society. There is, in fact, a strong correlation. Interestingly, however, a stronger one inversely relates the size of the youth bulge to the GEM. The IFs formulation is:
$ GEM_{r,t}=(0.4429+0.003401*GDPPCP_{r,t}+0.0271*EDYRSAG15_{r,g=f,t}-0.506*YTHBULGE_{r,t})*\mathbf{gemm}_{r,t} $
GEM=UNDP Gender Empowerment Measure
EDYRSAG15=average years of education for females age 15 or older
YTHBULGE=youth bulge, the population aged 15–29 as a portion of the entire adult population
gemm=an exogenous multiplier for scenario analysis
R-squared in 2010=0.66
We experimented with a variation on the above formulation in which GDP per capita enters in a logged term, and found nearly as high an R-squared (0.64). However, a problem in longer-term forecasting with such a variation is that the saturation of the log of GDP per capita nearly stops growth in GEM for more developed countries, often well below parity for women.
Governance Indices
IFs represents three dimensions of governance (security, capacity, and inclusion) and uses two sub-dimensions for each. Just as the dimensions themselves show considerable conceptual independence, the sub-dimensions tend not to be highly correlated.
In computing the index for governance capacity, we do not attribute increased capacity to countries when the revenue to GDP ratio rises above 0.45. Migdal (1988: 281) and Joshi (2011) suggest that the appropriate upper limit is 0.30, but their focus is on central government; our own analysis suggests that local government can on average for high-income countries add another 0.15 (15 percent of GDP) to that ratio.
Finally, we compute an overall governance index (GOVINDTOTAL) as the simple average across the three dimensions. Just as the rankings of countries on the three dimensional indices provide some face or subjective validity to the indices, the rankings on the combined index likely correspond to the general perceptions that most analysts have.
Performance Risk Analysis Form
IFs includes a Performance Risk Index (GOVRISK) and an associated display to facilitate Performance and Risk Analysis, for instance by changing the weight of variables in the index. The design is intended primarily for analysis of single countries, but the form allows also consideration of country groups. It also facilitates comparison of alternative scenarios, mainly to display single country characteristics, but with the ability to switch to groups, compare different scenarios, different countries or groups.
The overall risk form and index build on nine categories of variables:
The first three categories correspond to the three dimensions of governance in IFs but do not use precisely the same sub-dimensional variables (in part because the performance risk index is itself a sub-dimension of security and that would create a circularity, but partly also because the risk index is meant to be a dynamic assessment vehicle that allows users to tailor the analysis to their own understanding of what constitutes risk. The three governance dimensions and variables used in the index are: security (instability and internal war); capacity (corruption and effectiveness); and inclusion (democracy, freedom, and the gender empowerment measure).
The next three categories in the index are associated with drivers that many analysts have associated with country risk. The categories and associated variables are: population (youth bulge, elderly bulge [with a 0-weighting for the developing country oriented analysis of interest to most form users], and urbanization rate); environment (water use as a portion of renewable supplies and climate change); international (power transition).
The final three categories in the index represent specific arenas of government and societal performance. Again with associated variables they are: the economy (poverty, inequality, resource export dependence, and per capita GDP growth rate); health (infant mortality, life expectancy, malnutrition and HIV prevalence); and education (primary net enrollment and years of formal education of adults).
Information about each country across variables is organized into two clusters of columns. The first cluster provides information about values and ranks:
The Value column is the actual IFs forecast for each specific variable (for instance, the life expectancy for Angola in 2010 reflects data and is near 50.
The Min Level and Max Level columns indicate the overall range over which each variable varies across counties and time. These levels are constant across years and countries. They are used in computing the Scaled Levels.
The Scaled Level column uses the minimum and maximum levels to scale values for each country from 0 to 1. The scaling takes into account the valence of each variable (that is, infant mortality is bad and life expectancy is good). The Summary Measure in the last row of this column is a weighted average of the scaled levels on each variable; this computation is saved as the GOVRISK variable in our forecast files for each country and each year.
The Global Rank column indicates how each country ranks among all countries on each variable. The Summary Measure in the last row at the bottom of the column uses a weighted average of the ranks for each variable to compute the ordinal position of the country when sorting across all countries. Lower Ranks indicate higher risk levels (or worst performance). Clicking on any cell in this column provides a pop-up option for showing the rank of all countries on specific variables or the Summary Measure.
The Weighting column determines how the variables are combined in computing the summary Scaled Levels and Global Ranks of a country. Clicking on any cell in that column allows the user to change the weight for the associated variable.
The color for each variable in the Value column indicates the position of the value relative to the alert and goal levels. Values between the alert and goal levels are yellow, values on undesirable side of the alert level (depending on the valence of the variable) are red, and values on the desirable side of the goal level are green. For the Summary Measure the color coding is a bit different: .red indicates the 40 countries performing least well in the aggregate (numbers 1 through 40 in the Global Rank column), green shows the 40 countries doing best; yellow indicates all other countries.
The relative or income-adjusted evaluation approach takes into account the GDP per capita of the country and has a "benchmarking" character. That is, evaluation of countries takes into account the GDP per capita at PPP of countries, expecting different performance at difference levels. The expectations upon which relative evaluation occurs are related to cross-sectionally estimated relationships of the Values for each variable across all countries. For instance, the cross-sectional relationship for Inequality using the Gini index (on the Y-axis) as a function of GDP per capita at PPP (on the X-axis) is the following:
Inequality using the Gini index as a function of GDP per capita at PPP
Goal and Alert Levels will change depending on the evaluation method. When using absolute evaluation, the level values will not vary across countries (we have set absolute Goal and Alert Levels exogenously based on our own analysis across countries). When using income-adjusted or relative evaluation, the values will be recomputed based on the GDP per capita level of a specific country in a given year. Specifically, in income-adjusted evaluation the Goal Levels are generally set at the value of the function for the GDP per capita of the country in the year being analyzed. The Alert Levels are generally 1 or 2 standard errors below or above the value of the function;[1] below or above depends on whether higher or lower values indicate better performance.
The third evaluation column will show the Standard Deviation of Values for all countries around the global mean in the case of Absolute Evaluation and will show the Standard Error of all countries around the function in the case of income-adjusted evaluation.
Useful information can be obtained beyond that apparent in the table by clicking on particular cells:
Cells within the Value, Scaled Level, and Standard Deviation/Standard Error columns can be displayed across time by clicking on them and selecting the pop-up menu option.
You can generate a rank-ordered list of countries based on a given variable by clicking on a cell in the Global Rank column and selecting the pop-up menu option.
Clicking on a cell in the Value column and selecting the option "Display All Years and All Countries Ranked" produces a table of all values for all countries across time with countries ranked left-to-right from riskier to less risky values in the selected year.
Clicking on any variable name provides a pop-up menu with useful information related to evaluation. The Cross-Sectional Relationship option on that pop-up shows the function for the variable and selected country's position relative to the function. The Provide Information option provides information on the Goal and Alert Levels for any specific variable; it also gives a set of information explaining the variable and bibliographic references when available. The Show Count option will display the number of countries in alert level, moderate risk or not at risk using absolute evaluation only.
Additional menu options exist on the form:
On the form called up by Select Multiple Scenarios holding down the Ctrl key allows selecting multiple scenarios. Once selected they can be displayed simultaneously, for instance by clicking on a cell in the Value column and selecting the pop-up option to Show Over Time.
On the form called up by Select Multiple Country/Regions or Groups holding down the Ctrl key allows selecting multiple countries or groups; again these can be displayed, for instance, by clicking on a cell in the Value column and requesting Show Over Time.
Using Countries/Regions is the default menu option geographically, but it toggles with click to Using Groups. Groups are displayed with ranks that weight country members by population (the group aggregations of Values use varying weighting variables; for instance, the climate change variable uses GDP).
The Broader Socio-Cultural Context
Human development measures invariable look to such variables as life expectancy, literacy or other indication of educational attainment, income, etc. These variables are computed in other IFs models, but provide a basis for socio-political analysis.
Literacy is a variable fundamentally tied to educational attainment. In IFs it changes from the initial level for a country because of a multiplier (LITM).
$ LIT_r=\mathbf{LIT}_{r,t=1}*LITM_r $
The function upon which the literacy multiplier is based represents the cross-sectional relationship globally between the percentage of adults who have completed a primary education (EDPRIPER from the education model) and literacy rate (LIT). Rather than imposing the typical literacy rate from this function (and thereby being inconsistent with initial empirical values), the literacy multiplier is the ratio of typical literacy given future adult primary completion percentage to the normal literacy level at initial primary completion percentage.
$ LITM=\frac{AnalFunc(EDPRIPER)}{AnalFunc(\mathbf{EDPRIPER}_{t=1})} $
At one time the IFs system represented an aggregate view of life conditions within a society by using the Physical Quality of Life Index (PQLI) of the Overseas Development Council (ODC, 1977: 147#154). This measure averaged literacy, life expectancy, and infant mortality, first normalizing each indicator so that it ranges from zero to 100.
The United Nations Development Program's human development index (HDI) has fully supplanted that early measure in the development literature. The HDI began as is a simple average of three sub-indices for life expectancy, education, and GDP per capita (using purchasing power parity).. The GDP per capita index is a logged form that runs from a minimum of 100 to a maximum of $40,000 per capita. The original measure in IFs differs slightly from the original HDI version, because it does not put educational enrollment rates into a broader educational index with literacy.
$ HDI_r=\frac{LifeExpInd_r+LitInd+GDPInd}{3} $
$ LifeExpInd=\frac{LIFEEXP_r-LIFEXPMIN}{LIFEXPMAX-LIFEXPMIN} $
$ LitInd=LIT_r/100 $
$ GDPInd=\frac{Log(GDPPCP_r*1000)-Log(100)}{Log(40000)-Log(100)} $
Although the HDI is a wonderful measure for looking at past and current life conditions, it has some limitations when looking at the longer-term future. Specifically, the fixed upper limits for life expectancy and GDP per capita are likely to be exceeded by many countries before the end of the 21st century. IFs therefore introduced a floating version of the HDI, in which the maximums for those two index components are calculated from the maximum performance of any state in the system in each forecast year.
$ HDIFLOAT_r=\frac{LifeExpInd_r+LitInd+GDPInd}{3} $
$ LifeExpInd=\frac{LIFEEXP_r-LIFEXPMIN}{HDILIFEMAXFLOAT-LIFEXPMIN} $
$ GDPInd=\frac{Log(GDPPCP_r*1000)-Log(100)}{Log(GDPPCMAX)-Log(100)} $
The floating measure, in turn, has some limitations because it introduces relative attainment into the equation rather than absolute attainment. IFs therefore developed still a third version of the original HDI, one that allows the users to specify probable upper limits for life expectancy and GDPPC in the twenty-first century. Those enter into a fixed calculation of which the normal HDI could be considered a special case.
$ HDI21stFIX_r=\frac{LifeExpInd_r+LitInd+GDPInd}{3} $
$ HDILIFEMAX21=\mathbf{hdilifemaxf} $
$ LifeExpInd=\frac{LIFEEXP_r-LIFEXPMIN}{HDILIFEMAX21-LIFEXPMIN} $
$ LogGDPPCP21=Log(\mathbf{hdigdppcmax}*1000) $
$ GDPInd=\frac{Log(GDPPCP_r*1000)-Log(100)}{Log(GDPPCP21)-Log(100)} $
In 2010 the Human Development Report Office of the UNDP changed its computation of HDI and the IFs model followed suit with a new version named HDINEW. That measure moved to a different aggregation of the components, one that uses a geometric mean of the component elements. It further changed the computation by creating a revised education index that is a geometric mean of two subcomponents, mean years of schooling of adults (EDYRSAG25) and expected years of schooling of school entrants (EDYRSSLE). It continues to use life expectancy (LIFEXP) and gross national income per capita at PPP, for which IFs substitutes GDP per capita at PPP (GDPPCP).
$ HDI_r=(LifeExpInd)^{1/3}*(EdInd)^{1/3}*(GDPInd)^{1/3} $
$ EdInd=(EDYRSSLEIND)^{1/2}*(EDYRSAG25IND)^{1/2} $
$ EDYRSSLEIND=EDYRSSLE/EDYRSSLEMAX $
$ EDYRSAG25IND=EDYRSAG25/EDYRSAG25MAX $
We further compute several global indicators including a world life expectancy (WLIFE) and a world literacy rate (WLIT).
$ WLIFE=\frac{\sum^RLIFEXP_r*POP_r}{WPOP} $
$ WLIT=\frac{\sum^RLIT_r*POP_r}{WPOP} $
Roots of Culture: Beliefs and Values
IFs computes change in three cultural dimensions identified by the World Values Survey (Inglehart 1997). Those are dimensions of materialism/post-materialism (MATPOSTR), survival/self-expression (SURVSE), and traditional/secular-rational values (TRADSRAT). On each dimension the process for calculation is somewhat more complicated than for freedom or gender empowerment, however, because the dynamics for change in the cultural dimensions involves the aging of population cohorts. IFs uses the six population cohorts of the World Values Survey (1= 18-24; 2=25-34; 3=35-44; 4=45-54; 5=55-64; 6=65+). It calculates change in the value orientation of the youngest cohort (c=1) from change in GDP per capita at PPP (GDPPCP), but then maintains that value orientation for the cohort and all others as they age. Analysis of different functional forms led to use of an exponential form with GDP per capita for materialism/postmaterialism and to use of logarithmic forms for the two other cultural dimensions (both of which can take on negative values).
$ MATPOSTR_{r,c=1}=\mathbf{MATPOSTR}_{r,c=1,t=1}*\frac{AnalFunc(GDPPCP_r)}{AnalFunc(GDPPCP_{r,t=1})}+\mathbf{CultShMP}_{r=cultural}+\mathbf{matpostradd}_{r,t} $
$ \mathbf{CultShMP_{r=cultural,t}}=F(\mathbf{MATPOSTR}_{r,c=1,t=1},AnalFunc(GDPPCP_{r,t=1}) $
$ SURVSE_{r,c=1}=\mathbf{SURVSE}_{r,c=1,t=1}*\frac{AnalFunc(GDPPCP_r)}{AnalFunc(GDPPCP_{r,t=1})}+\mathbf{CultShSE}_{r=cultural,t}+\mathbf{survseadd}_{r,t} $
$ \mathbf{CultShSE}_{r=culutral,t}=F(\mathbf{SURVSE_{r,c=1,t=1}},AnalFunc(GDPPCP_{r,t=1}) $
$ TRADSRAT_{r,c=1}=\mathbf{TRADSRAT}_{r,c=1,t=1}*\frac{AnalFunc(GDPPP_r)}{AnalFunc(GDPPCP_{r,t=1})}+\mathbf{CultShTS_{r=cultural,t}}+\mathbf{tradsratadd}_{r,t} $
$ \mathbf{CultShTS}_{r=cultural,t}=F(\mathbf{TRADSRAT_{r,c=1,t=1}},AnalFunc(GDPPCP_{r,t=1}) $
The user can influence values on each of the cultural dimensions via two parameters. The first is a cultural shift factor (e.g. CultSHMP) that affects all of the IFs countries/regions in a given cultural region as defined by the World Value Survey. Those factors have initial values assigned to them from empirical analysis of how the regions differ on the cultural dimensions (determined by the pre-processor of raw country data in IFs), but the user can change those further, as desired. The second parameter is an additive factor specific to individual IFs countries/regions (e.g. matpostradd). The default values for the additive factors are zero.
Some users of IFs may not wish to assume that aging cohorts carry their value orientations forward in time, but rather want to compute the cultural orientation of cohorts directly from cross-sectional relationships. Those relationships have been calculated for each cohort to make such an approach possible. The parameter (wvsagesw) controls the dynamics associated with the value orientation of cohorts in the model. The standard value for it is 2, which results in the "aging" of value orientations. Any other value for wvsagesw (the WVS aging switch) will result in use of the cohort-specific functions with GDP per capita.
Regardless of which approach to value-change dynamics is used, IFs calculates the value orientation for a total region/country as a population cohort-weighted average.
Barro, Robert J. and Jong-Wha Lee. 2001. "International Data on Educational Attainment: Updates and Implications," Oxford Economic Papers 53(3): 541-563.
Cilliers, Jakkie, Barry Hughes, and Jonathan Moyer. 2011. African Futures 2050: The Next 40 Years. Pretoria, South Africa and Denver, Colorado: Institute for Security Studies and Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures.
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Hughes, Barry B., Devin Joshi, Jonathan Moyer, Timothy Sisk and José Roberto Solórzano. 2014. Strengthening Governance Globally. vol. 5, Patterns of Potential Human Progress series. Boulder, CO, and New Delhi, India: Paradigm Publishers and Oxford University Press.
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↑ There is subjectivity in this. We mostly use 2 standard errors (11 times); next we use 1 SE (9 times: Elderly Bulge, Poverty Level, Inequality, Rate of per capita Growth, Infant Mortality, Life Expectancy, Malnutrition, Adult Education Years and Urbanization Rate); then use 0.5 twice: Democracy and Freedom,' and finally we use 0.2 for GEM.
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Home Opinion Op-Ed:Behind Flint Water Horror, a Corrosive Cynicism
Op-Ed:Behind Flint Water Horror, a Corrosive Cynicism
The basic story of the poisoning of the children of Flint, Mich., through the water they drink is now pretty well known, but as more details come out, it keeps getting worse.
Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, after passing a big tax cut for the rich and corporations on coming into office, had to find cuts to make up for the lost revenue.
In Flint and other cities, he essentially nullified democratic elections, deposed elected mayors and city councils and installed his own agents with virtually dictatorial powers.
The “emergency manager” of Flint decided that the city could save money by discontinuing its water supply from Lake Huron and instead drawing it from the toxic Flint River.
He then failed to treat the new water with additives needed to keep the city’s old pipes from leaching lead. When people objected to the brown, smelly water filled with particles that was coming out of the taps, the governor’s men reassured them the water was safe.
All of Flint’s children were exposed to water with elevated levels of lead.
Now we learn that General Motors complained to state officials that the water was corroding their auto parts. So the governor’s team gave GM its own hook up back to the water from Lake Huron — while still insisting to the residents of Flint that the water was safe for their children to drink.
State officials also acted promptly to respond to the bad water for one other constituency: state employees in Flint’s state office building. Even as it was reassuring residents that the water was safe to drink, Flint officials arranged for coolers of purified water to be set up on all the floors of the office building.
Flint’s residents — disproportionately Black and low income — were seen as disposable. And they are not alone.
The national statistics on lead poisoning, as Kevin Drum of Mother Jones details, show that African-Americans were poisoned at three times the rate of whites until recent times.
And, of course, low-income people are poisoned at higher rates than the more affluent; poor, urban African-Americans and Latinos suffer the highest rates of all.
Drum notes that while white children were severely afflicted in the postwar lead epidemic, it produced “nothing less than a carnage among Black kids.”
He argues that before lead was brought under control in the late 1980s, virtually an entire generation of urban Black teenagers was at risk of lower IQs, more behavior problems in school, higher rates of violent behavior.
This, of course, reinforced already vicious racial stereotypes of African-Americans, and of the poor. The only hope in Flint is that the children’s exposure was limited in time and intensity, but even that is grasping at straws.
And as Flint resident and documentary filmmaker Michael Moore points out, this isn’t just a crisis of water.
Flint’s residents now see the value of their homes wiped out and their hopes for jobs dashed. Few would consider buying a home in Flint now.
Few employers will want to set up shop there or expand there. The governor’s men have wreaked untold economic damage on the residents of Flint on top of the threat to their health.
The lessons of Flint are plain. Those who scorn government are the wrong people to elect to head it. Government capacity to enforce health and safety, to police environmental poisons and water safety, is essential to the security of our children.
As America gets more and more unequal, the cynical, unstated assumption that there are some who are simply disposable, who don’t deserve decent services, is likely to spread.
But Flint may end up showing something else as well. That cynicism is more corrosive than the toxic water coming from the Flint River. People aren’t going to put up with it.
They aren’t going to adjust quietly to the decline of basic services. The Flint calamity was exposed because the poorest residents objected time and again, despite the reassurances issued by authorities.
The failure of the governor’s local dictator and of the state officials themselves is now apparent.
Yet the reaction to the calamity still seems in slow motion. It is time for the federal government to step in.
Investigations should lead to indictments. Federal resources should be mobilized to rectify the water in Flint immediately, and to provide the city with a real plan for renovation and revival.
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BC-Agent Login Distributor Login
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PayNearby crosses daily 1 million transactions mark
In a remarkable feat, PayNearby, India’s leading hyperlocal FinTech network, has achieved the milestone of daily 1 million transactions on its platform. This achievement goes hand in hand with the company’s mission to empower kirana store owners, termed as ‘Digital Pradhans’, while facilitating mass scale financial inclusion in India. Since its inception in 2016, PayNearby has empowered over 527,239 retailers pan-India, enabling them to provide banking and financial services to over 4.28 crore citizens across the country.
Through its platform, PayNearby enables local retail stores to provide basic digital financial and non-financial services such as Aadhaar ATM, SMS Payment, EMI Collection, Khata Service, Prepaid Cards and soon activating Mutual Funds, small deposits & Insurance and UPI transactions amongst others. The company’s primary aim has been to enable assisted digital financial services to the masses which are tech oblivious. The company works on sachetizing, granularising and universalising the high end technology for benefit of the low income segments along with under banked or unbanked population.
With its roadmap for pre-calibrated relevant service offerings for this segment, PayNearby has made it possible for every person to utilise digital payments and banking services with ease at a nearby retailer by harnessing the new age contextual technology in an agile manner. Since this is usually carried out at the kirana store that they frequently visit, there is the added factor of trust when making the shift to this new mode of transactions and services.
Owing to the extent and scale of its ‘Har Dukaan Digital Pradhan’ initiative, the platform trains its retailers to fulfil daily transactions for its Aadhaar Banking, Bill Payments, Card Not Present or SMS payment, Domestic Money Remittance, EMI Collection, Financing Retailers, Gold, HyperLocal, Insurance (ABCDEFGHI) services. It has recorded Domestic Money Transfer (DMT) of INR 1,437 crores and AEPS (Aadhaar ATM) monthly transactions of INR 2,686 crores, further indicating the acceptance and usage of digital services across the country.
Speaking on the milestone Anand Kumar Bajaj, Founder and CEO, PayNearby said, “We are delighted to have crossed the mark of 1 million transactions. This is a proud moment for us at PayNearby. It has been our aim to empower local retailers across the country, especially in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, to leverage technology for a smoother and simpler rendition of banking and financial services to the tech oblivious segment.
Over the course of its existence, PayNearby has been addressing the need-gap towards financial inclusion in the country through its array of financial services and extensively expanding network. We are confident that we are heading in the right direction in order to fulfil our goal of growing this network to include 50-lakh retail partners to digitally and financially empower the common man.”
Since its inception, PayNearby has been significantly contributing towards the ‘Digital India’ movement by simplifying access to digital financial services for the masses via its network of ‘Digital Pradhans’. Crossing 1 million transactions marks another significant step towards the company’s goal of creating the world’s largest hyperlocal FinTech network in India.
About PayNearby
Incepted in April 2016 by Anand Kumar Bajaj, Subhash Kumar, Yashwant Lodha & Rajesh Jha, PayNearby is a robust digital fintech company which offers digital financial/non-financial services to locals. It is registered under the Startup India initiative of the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP), Government of India. PayNearby works on a B2B2C model and facilitates a bouquet of financial services including aadhaar banking, domestic remittances, bill payments, card payments, granular investment and insurance assurance among others. It already has numerous technological tie-ups with financial institutions including YES Bank, RBL Bank, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, Axis Bank, CC Avenue, Bill Desk, NPCI, FASTag, NBFC and FMCG companies. It is also the sole technology provider for using Aadhaar Enabled Payment Services (AEPS) and IMPS to YES Bank, making them one of the only two fintech companies hosted by the National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI).
Publication – Zee Business
Published Date – June 4, 2019
Aadhaar ATM
Category Leadership
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PayNearby: Giving retailers a new identity
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Nearby Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Building India's Largest Hyperlocal FinServe Network
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British comedian Adam Buxton talks with interesting people. The rambly conversations are sometimes funny, sometimes more serious with funny bits. Adam makes the jingles and records the intros and outros for most episodes while walking with his dog friend Rosie in the East Anglian countryside where he lives with his wife and three children.
Adam has appeared in films such as Hot Fuzz, Stardust and Son Of Rambow as well as a variety of TV shows in the UK. Since 2007 he has hosted BUG, a live show that combines music videos and comedy that became a TV series on Sky Atlantic in 2012. From time to time he also does live shows featuring just his own material. Along with lifelong friend Joe Cornish he also is one half of award winning TV, radio and podcast duo Adam & Joe who have worked together since 1995.
You can find many of the insanely catchy jingles Adam makes for the podcast as well as amazing bonus material, beautiful merchandise and a selection of his incredibly funny and brilliant YouTube videos on the free Adam Buxton app.
Adam is writing this himself using the third person.
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Seeking political asylum in a country after being refused in another
What's the case of someone who sought asylum in a European country and got rejected, then moved to another European country and applied again.
Based Dublin Regulation the person will have their fingerprints checked against an EU database, then they will contact the first country that processed their asylum.
Now the questions are, if the first country accept to take charge or take back the person.
What will happen to them in the first country?
Are there any regulations to stop the second country from sending the person back?
Is there any chance they will send them back to home country (the one where there is a threat)?
european-union immigration asylum
JJ for Transparency and Monica
bomsnbomsn
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because identical question already asked, and answered on Travel stack exchange. – James K Jul 1 '19 at 22:01
@JamesK Do you mean this question? What happens if a person is deported to a country that previously refused asylum? – divibisan Jul 1 '19 at 22:44
If you notice the questions are different. – bomsn Jul 1 '19 at 23:01
@JamesK the answer on that question is not all encompassing and very narrow in scope, and this is much more of a legal question than a travel question - its much more at home here than there. This one shouldn't be closed - if anything, that one should be (or migrated here). – Moo Jul 2 '19 at 1:30
The EU asylum system is in a slight disarray because the southern and south-eastern member states could not cope with the numbers. The Dublin regulations are unfair to the EU member states on the south-eastern borders and the shores of the Mediterranean, who are supposed to handle all refugee matters. Some of them reacted by ceasing to even try, which is no solution, either. Meanwhile, eastern member states demand structural cohesion funds and protection from Russia, yet they wash their hands of the refugee problem.
How it is supposed to work:
A refugee arrives in one EU state. There he makes an application for political asylum. If the application is granted, he can stay. If it is declined, he gets deported to his homeland.
The application must be made as soon as the refugee reaches the EU.
The refugee has no right to travel within the EU to select where the application is handled. If he tries that, he is sent back.
The refugee has no right to make two applications in the EU. The decision of the first application is accepted by all EU members.
How it actually works:
Countries like Greece, the Balkans, and Hungary got overwhelmed by the numbers. Germany, Sweden, and others processed the applications by refugees who walked north instead of applying in their country of first arrival.
There is a time limit on sending people back to other EU states under Dublin. In some cases the northern countries were unable to complete the paperwork in time.
In a few cases, courts in northern Europe decided that sending refugees back to camps in southern EU countries was impossible because they were so overcrowded.
Still, they are trying to get back to an orderly Dublin process, and numbers are much lower now than they were in 2015.
To the specific questions:
If refugees are sent back to their first country of arrival, their asylum claim gets processed there.
There are a few exceptions to refugees being sent back. Close family already in the asylum process in the second country, medical inability to travel, the second country voluntarily deciding to hear the case.
If one EU country declined the asylum application, then the EU does not believe there is a threat, and it will send the applicant back to his home country or any country that will take him.
o.m.o.m.
"The Dublin regulations are unfair to the EU member states on the south-eastern borders and the shores of the Mediterranean..." I think that's debatable. It wasn't those negotiating the Dublin Convention that also had the inhumane idea of encouraging thousands of men, women and children cross the Mediterranean, with no assurance of safe travel or a place to reside, to their watery deaths. And I seriously doubt those regulations were put into place with such an event in mind. – ouflak Jul 2 '19 at 11:10
If anything, they were probably put in place with the idea of instability in Europe as a general assumption, something that is not historically unrealistic (such as the break up of Yugoslavia, or Russia invading the Crimea, etc...). – ouflak Jul 2 '19 at 11:10
Thanks for the detailed answer, just to understand a little bit more, I've read that rejection only lasts 4 years, after that if you're sent back to first country, are they going to re-consider your application? Allow you to go out...etc? Or, take you into a facility once you're in their hands and keep you there until they put you on a plan to your home country?. – bomsn Jul 2 '19 at 11:11
And for the cases where they can't send you, I've ready that this only applied if the first country didn't yet accept to take you back after that, there is nothing you can do, is that correct? – bomsn Jul 2 '19 at 11:13
"encouraging thousands of men, women and children cross the Mediterranean, with no assurance of safe travel or a place to reside, to their watery deaths" - well, the primary responsibility for that rests with the belligerents in Syria and Libya? – pjc50 Jul 2 '19 at 11:49
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged european-union immigration asylum .
What kind of country would offer Snowden the most secure asylum?
Can Austria deny non-Austrian EU citizens from taking a job?
What are the political arguments for helping refugees within the country rather than helping refugee camps abroad?
Can a political ally provide political asylum?
Can a EU country refuse to allow a car to circulate with plates from another EU country?
Are there some surveys for the motivation of Syrian asylum seekers preference for Germany (once they reach Europe)?
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Profitability and lifestyle quality can rise dramatically for dairy farmers who successfully switch from the confined-feeding system to the production system based on management-intensive grazing (MIG). Furthermore, because MIG systems improve profitability without increasing milk production either per farm or per cow, they offer an alternative to the higher production-lower price treadmill that dairy farming has been on for decades. The literature also suggests that adoption of the MIG system allows farmers to better conserve their soil resources. Few practices improve soil quality and protect against soil erosion as well as permanent grass vegetation. However, research in several locations, including the Northeast, has questioned the environmental impact of some MIG systems with regard to their potential losses of nitrogen and phosphorus to ground water.
Such questions about environmental impacts could serve as a major roadblock to acceptance of MIG systems as best management practices (BMPs) by regulatory agencies and thus, a roadblock to the adoption of such systems by more dairy farmers. The project will collect data on the environmental and economic performance of three well-managed farms in central Maryland — two grazing-based and one confined feeding-based farms. The project will use piezometer wells and stream sampling to measure year-around nutrient losses by leaching in two small watersheds on each of the three farms. The project will also focus on the economic impacts of MIG by conducting a cost-returns analysis of each farm.
The results of the project will be communicated to small to medium-sized dairy farmers, through the use of farmer-authored fact sheets and presentations at workshops in Maryland and Pennsylvania. The results will also be presented to the regulators (State Depts. of Agriculture and Depts. of Environment or Natural Resources) and extension agents with the aim of providing sufficient information on the nutrient issues to allow appropriate state programs to be developed for MIG systems. If the environmental findings are favorable, and the outreach efforts successful, the project should substantially contribute to improving the diversity, profitability and environmental impacts of dairy farming in the Northeast.
Performance targets:
Maryland and Pennsylvania nutrient management regulators (state policy makers, state and private nutrient management advisors, extension agents, and conservation district personnel) that learned about the environmental and economic impacts of grazing from this project will plan to promote grazing under certain conditions as a sustainable agricultural practice that will contribute to their state’s nutrient management goals.
Forty of the confinement-feeding dairy farmers in Maryland and Pennsylvania who learned about the environmental and economic impacts of grazing from this project will take steps to learn more or switch to grazing.
In order that there be information on the environmental impacts of grazing to disseminate, it is necessary that the research phase of the project precede the outreach phase. In spring and summer of 2001, we successfully installed some 57 piezometer wells and 36 tension lysimeters in six watershed transects on three dairy farms, two grazing-based and one confined feeding based. In addition, we established ten sampling stations along two streams that bisect two of the grazing watersheds.
The original work plan called for sampling groundwater during the fall 2001 and winter 2002 leaching season. The nitrate and phosphorus contents of these samples were to be determined and the data analyzed to provide information on the environmental impacts of the two dairy farming systems. However, rainfall during summer 2001 through March of 2002 was at a record low and the region had unheard of winter conditions so dry that the water table never rose up to the level of even our deepest piezometers until the fall of 2002. Although we did install several deeper piezometers in Fall 2002 to ensure access to groundwater, the negative water balance for the entire period meant that no meaningful leaching samples could be collected. The two streams being studied also went dry during summer 2002. Therefore, we could not generate the groundwater nutrient loading data that was to be presented at various workshops and meetings originally planned for 2002.
During this time, we collected data from farmer records on nutrient inputs and outputs and made a preliminary nutrient balance analysis for the three farms. We also developed a laboratory digestion method that allows us to examine not only the nitrogen leached as nitrate, but also that leached as dissolved organic nitrogen, a soluble nitrogen form of potentially of major significance that has usually not been investigated in agricultural pollution studies. We also were able to collect and analyze a limited number of stream samples during spring 2002. Fortunately, beginning in early October 2002 rainfall patterns returned to normal or even above normal. As a result the groundwater rose in fall 2002 in the normal manner. We therefore were able to collect samples for October, November and December from both streams and from piezometers in all six watersheds. By the end of the year, we had analyzed the nitrate and phosphorus content in most of these samples, allowing us to schedule a workshop meeting to discuss the environmental impacts measured. We arranged this meeting as a session at the annual Farming for Profit and Stewardship Conference sponsored by Future Harvest CASA and Maryland Cooperative Extension and scheduled for January 2003 where we plan to reach both farmers and regulator and agency people.
Although the environmental results data for the planned workshops were not yet available in 2002, project collaborators held a number of field days, meetings, and pasture walks in which the project, grazing, and its environmental implications were discussed. Stan Fultz, project extension partner organized 11 pasture walks in Frederick and Baltimore Counties, one farm tour to Pennsylvania, one classroom meeting, and 12 individual farmer meetings related to the grazing systems aspects of the project project, reaching a total audience of 306. In addition, David Martin, another project extension partner, discussed grazing, soil, and pasture management in a meeting for 150 equine owners at the Horse World Expo. Bruce Mertz of project partner organization, Future Harvest CASA, also began planning for a series of workshops planned for 2003 to reach both farmers and regulators with the environmental results.
Outcomes: Preliminary nutrient balances and water quality data produced.
We did a preliminary analysis of the nitrogen and phosphorus balance on the three farms, using mainly farmer records, but also some of our data on pasture composition. The results suggest that all three farms are running a positive balance in both nutrients – that is they are importing more N and P from all sources than they are exporting in managed outputs (milk, meat, etc.). Therefore, there is probably some accumulation or leaching and runoff losses taking place. The preliminary ratios of inputs to outputs are not too different among the farms (ranging from 1.8:1 to 2.9:1). However, the absolute amount of excess inputs was smaller (45 lb N and 6 lb P per acre) for the Frederick County grazing based farm than for the other two farms (average of 125 lb N and 13 lb P per acre).
Nitrate in the groundwater was below 10 ppm for 95% of the fall 2002 samples from grazed watersheds. The groundwater nitrate data were similar on all six watersheds. The dissolved reactive phosphorus in groundwater was much lower in both Baltimore County grazed watersheds than in the four Frederick County watersheds, suggesting that the difference may be more related to parent rock types (limestone under much of Baltimore County farms) than to management. About one out of five of the groundwater samples from Frederick County (both grazing and confinement farms) had greater than 0.025 ppm dissolved reactive P.
Stream water in both streams on the Baltimore County grazing dairy farm showed little change in N or P from where the stream enters to where it leaves the farm during base flow, but there were changes during storm flow. Winter camping areas and cow access to the stream resulted in increased P and N loads in the samples downstream from these points.
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Iñigo Pascual ‘steps up’ to defend Julia Barretto
Iñigo Pascual maintains that Julia Barretto is a kind person.
BY MAUREEN MARIE BELMONTE
Twitter: @MissHappyWriter
Teen star Iñigo Pascual stood firm on his recent post defending his friend and And I Love You So co-star Julia Baretto.
Inigo recently took to his Instagram account to affirm how “strong” and “kind” Julia was amid recent controversies claiming that was cozying up to James Reid at a restaurant in BGC.
“I just felt the need to do that because she can’t do that, she can’t say, ‘Stop, guys,’” Iñigo said in an interview during the recently-concluded press conference of their upcoming show And I Love You So together with Miles Ocampo.
He further explained, “I just had to step up and just show that this girl is real and hindi totoo ang sinasabi ng mga tao.”
Inigo stressed that he also did it because Julia is his friend and “That’s really the best way to show a friend that you care; by being there for them.”
Piolo Pascual’s only son also added that hasty comments still “affect” them.
“We don’t show na deep inside we’re hurt because we’re humans and every time we get bad comments about us siyempre masasaktan kami,” he said.
He maintains that Julia is just “misinterpreted” even if "Julia is real. Julia is one of the kindest people."
“Na-misinterpret siya as mataray or whatever because she came from that type of family na they speak English. They’re actually kind, really down to earth people,” he said. “It’s just the way they are."
Despite all the issues, Iñigo is confident that it won’t affect their upcoming TV pairing.
“In this job naman I don’t think you should let any personal stuff affect it. To be honest, I don’t know anything going on about her personal life and vice versa, so it’s not my business to talk if there’s anything going on,” he said.
“So we just work kung ano man ang ibigay sa amin, and we have that friendship. Basta we work together and we know what we want,” Inigo ended.
Catch Julia and Iñigo together with Miles, Angel Aquino, Dimples Romana, and Tonton Gutierrez on And I Love You So starting on December 7 in the Kapamilya afternoon block.
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Hammered Trump-Hating Rapper Blindsided By Brutal Reality After Calling Airline Racist
An anti-Trump celebrity rapper just went public calling out an airline for being racist after what happened to him on a flight. It’s funny how celebrities throw the race card whenever they get in a bind and things don’t go their way. We’ve come to expect it. What we don’t expect is what happened to this guy after he pitched a fit on American Airlines.
The celebrity was none other than the extra-mouthy rapper who is famous for his “F-ck Donald Trump” song and who in turn just got hit with a surprising dose of karma on an American Airline flight. He got smacked with some reality as the anti-Trumper was tossed off the flight, allegedly appearing to be intoxicated, but that’s not all he did. He then went straight to Twitter and posted a nasty message, calling out the airline, saying they’re racist, and he had a little video to go with it.
It seems like the anti-Trump rapper was intoxicated and that might be why the airline removed him, but then he went full out on Twitter as I said before. The worst part of this is the karma that YG received for behaving as he did. As soon as he posted his message on Twitter and people saw it, they then started calling out the rapper for being in the wrong.
The disgruntled rapper probably thought he was in the right, but according to a lot of the Twitter posts, it seems like the public is calling him out for his behavior and standing up for the airline.
YG posted this on Twitter, accusing the airline of being racist.
Fuck @AmericanAir THEY RACIST pic.twitter.com/JshmySUa0k
— STAY DANGEROUS (@YG) August 14, 2018
Funny enough, people called him out on it. After watching his little post, people knew he was probably in the wrong and they had no problem calling him out for it.
In our culture, every interaction with a customer or team member should be grounded in respect. Please meet us in DMs with more info.
— American Airlines (@AmericanAir) August 14, 2018
sit this one out blood… pic.twitter.com/erqrpd071z
— medusir ???????? (@DarrinBakerSAB) August 14, 2018
you lost this one fam lol. pic.twitter.com/ydRwtKIkn9
— todd gurley fan acct (@hoodiebran) August 14, 2018
when you wanna be on YG side but you know damn well he drunk ???? pic.twitter.com/ry50KIkE5R
— Ny Dolla $ign (@Nyayiel) August 14, 2018
https://twitter.com/TrendingViews1/status/1029783734831271937
Breitbart reported on YG’s escapade and getting tossed off the flight:
“American Airlines claims it removed rapper YG from a flight Monday because he was drunk, but the rapper claims it is all about racism.
“Taking to Twitter, YG exclaimed in a video from the gangway, “F*** American Airlines,” he said. “They kick me off the plane and talkin’ ’bout I’m drunk… I’m sober than a muthaf***a!”
“He even tried to blame President Donald Trump by saying “F*** Donald Trump,” PageSix reported.
“But a representative for American Airlines pointed out that the video itself proved their case for having the rapper removed, PageSix said.
“The 28-year-old “F*** Donald Trump” rapper was trying to catch a flight from Los Angeles to New York, according to reports.
“American Airlines said the rapper was asked to deplane because he was drunk and belligerent at around 8:37 PM. But the carrier also responded to the rapper’s accusations with a tweet saying, “In our culture, every interaction with a customer or team member should be grounded in respect. Please meet us in DMs with more info.”
“YG later added that he was able to catch a Delta flight to make his concert in New York.”
This is what happens when people in Hollywood think they’re untouchable and above everyone else. This is the entitlement mentality. YG is just another civilian who needs to follow the rules like everyone else.
When people exhibit unacceptable behavior, then they should face consequences just like everyone else.
What would happen to anyone else in the same situation?
At one point the rapper thought the Secret Service was after him. Spin covered an article on it:
“FDT,” a source of anti-Donald Trump joy for many, is now becoming a headache to YG. TMZ caught up with the Compton rapper and asked him how he felt about the impact about the Nipsey Hussle collaboration has had. YG said he’s now, in fact, under the Secret Service’s lens.
“’The Secret Service holla’d at the label,” YG said in mild annoyance. “They asked to see the lyrics to my album… Because if I’m talking about [Trump] on my album, they’re going to try to take it off the shelves.”
“But the album, YG’s sophomore effort, still doesn’t have a release date almost a year after buzz single “Twist My Fingaz” dropped. One would imagine the Secret Service would get off his case if the project comes out in December and Trump already lost the election.
“The Secret Service isn’t the only authority ruffled by “FDT.” The song’s video shoot in early April was shut down by Los Angeles police, according to TMZ. One Instagram user claimed that officers brandished firearms at the scene.
“’We was all in a peaceful F**K DONALD TRUMP mood,” the user said.'”
He doesn’t sound that peaceful. Has this rapper donated any of the money he earned while singing an anti-Trump song? Does he help the people who are his fans or does he just make money by running his mouth?
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Tag: psychotropic drugs
Boulder Psychiatrist Accused Of Overdrugging Female Inmates Loses License
Part of the ongoing series:
A Boulder psychiatrist accused of overdrugging female inmates at the correctional facility where he worked – in some cases causing them to become delirious – has permanently surrendered his license to practice, under an agreement reached with the Colorado Medical Board.
According to Board documents, Charles F. Clark started patients on multiple psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs simultaneously, prescribed initial dosages in excess of the recommended starting dosages, and rapidly increased the dosages of multiple drugs simultaneously. He reportedly ignored potentially dangerous drug interactions and reports from staff at the facility that inmates were experiencing adverse side effects and were even delirious.
Clark allegedly also prescribed psychotropic drugs that were not justified and were sometimes contraindicated by information documented in the inmates’ medical records, as well as restarted inmates on psychotropic drugs that had been stopped by other providers.
Such actions constitute unprofessional conduct as defined in the Colorado Medical Practice Act.
The Medical Board received a complaint concerning Clark’s actions in 2016. Clark denied the allegations, but agreed in December to cease practicing while the Board investigated further.
Then in a Board order dated July 20, Clark waived his right to a formal hearing and agreed to permanently surrender his license to practice in the state of Colorado.
If you or someone you know has been overdrugged or otherwise harmed by treatment from a psychiatrist or other mental health worker, we want to talk with you. You can contact us by clicking here or by calling 303-789-5225. All information will be kept in the strictest confidence.
Author CCHR COPosted on August 8, 2017 Categories News for Colorado, Ongoing Series, You be the Judge...Tags Charles F. Clark, Colorado Medical Board, Colorado Medical Practice Act, overdrugging, psychiatrist, psychotropic drugs, unprofessional conductLeave a comment on Boulder Psychiatrist Accused Of Overdrugging Female Inmates Loses License
Please Sign CCHR’s Petition Demanding Investigation of Link Between Psychiatric Drugs And Violence
Image by Circe Denyer
In all the speculation about what is causing the recent wave of shootings, the one thing they have in common has been largely ignored when it should be receiving urgent attention: the shooters have received psychiatric treatment, which these days almost always means psychiatric drugs with known links to violence:
International regulatory authorities have issued 22 drug warnings on psychiatric drugs causing hostility, aggression, mania/psychosis, homicidal thoughts and harm to others. These warnings have been issued in the United States, European Union, Japan, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.
From 2004 to 2011, over 12,700 reports of violent side effects from psychiatric drugs were reported to the FDA. (Only 1%-10% of side effects are ever reported to the FDA, so the actual number of violent side effects from these drugs could easily be 10 to 100 times higher.)
A study by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices found that 8 of the top 10 violence-inducing prescription drugs are psychiatric drugs.
At least 14 school shootings were committed by individuals taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs. (In other school shootings, the shooters’ mental health history was not made public.)
The New York State Senate recognized the violence-inducing side effects of psychiatric drugs as far back as 2000, citing “a large body of scientific research establishing a connection between violence and suicide and the use of psychotropic drugs.” [Psychotropic drugs = mind-altering psychiatric drugs]
CCHR is calling on U.S. lawmakers to immediately open an investigation into the role of psychiatric drugs in school shootings and similar acts of violence, given that supporting data has to date been ignored by the U.S. government and the mental health agencies.
Please click here to read and sign CCHR International’s petition calling for this investigation.
Author CCHR COPosted on January 6, 2013 January 15, 2017 Categories News for ColoradoTags CCHR, FDA, investigation, petition, psychiatric drugs, psychiatric treatment, psychotropic drugs, shootings, side effects, violence, warnings4 Comments on Please Sign CCHR’s Petition Demanding Investigation of Link Between Psychiatric Drugs And Violence
The Aurora, Colorado Tragedy—Another Senseless Shooting, Another Psychotropic Drug?
As the world’s leading mental health watchdog, CCHR has for decades investigated hundreds of acts of senseless violence in coordination with the press and law enforcement as well as in legislative hearings, such as those held following the 1999 Columbine massacre (ringleader Eric Harris was found to be under the influence of the antidepressant Luvox, Dylan Klebold’s autopsy reports were never unsealed). And while there is never one simple explanation for what drives a human being to commit such unspeakable acts, all too often one common denominator has surfaced in hundreds of cases—prescribed psychotropic drugs which are documented to cause mania, psychosis, violence, suicide and in some cases, homicidal ideation.
Between 2004 and 2011, there have been over 11,000 reports to the U.S. FDA’s MedWatch system of psychiatric drug side effects related to violence. These include 300 cases of homicide, nearly 3,000 cases of mania and over 7,000 cases of aggression. (Note: By the FDA’s own admission, only 1-10% of side effects are ever reported to the FDA, so the actual number of side effects occurring are most certainly higher.)
There have been 22 international drug regulatory warnings issued on psychiatric drugs causing violence, mania, hostility, aggression, psychosis, and other violent type reactions. These warnings have been issued in the United States, European Union, Japan, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada.
In determining what would prompt James Holmes, identified as the 24-year-old gunman in the Aurora, Colorado shooting, to commit such a brutal and senseless crime, the press must ask the right questions, including: What, if any, prescribed psychotropic drugs Holmes may have been on (or in withdrawal from).
Author CCHR COPosted on July 20, 2012 July 20, 2012 Categories News for ColoradoTags antidepressants, Aurora Colorado theater shooting, Colorado, Columbine, James Holmes, medication, movie theater, psychiatric drugs, psychotropic drugs, shooting1 Comment on The Aurora, Colorado Tragedy—Another Senseless Shooting, Another Psychotropic Drug?
Pueblo City Schools To Correct Non-Compliance With State Law Safeguarding Children
Two months after the Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Colorado (CCHR) first contacted the office of the Superintendent of Pueblo City Schools, the school district will begin to take action on adopting policy to safeguard schoolchildren that has been required by state law since 2003.
(See “Pueblo School District Fails To Explicitly Prohibit Teachers From Pushing Psychiatric Drugs.”)
C.R.S. 22-32-109(1)(ee) requires school district Boards of Education to adopt policy that explicitly “prohibit[s] school personnel from recommending or requiring the use of a psychotropic drug for any student.” The law further mandates that behavioral testing of students requires prior written permission from the parents and prior written disclosure to the parent of what will be done with the test results.
The response from the office of Superintendent Maggie Lopez to CCHR’s initial public records request was slow and vague. CCHR then sent a complaint to the president of the district’s Board of Education, in keeping with guidelines set by the Colorado Department of Education. A complete response was received from the school district today.
The first reading of policy revisions containing the required statutory language will occur at the August 4 Board meeting, according to Greg Sinn in the district’s public relations office. The third and final reading necessary for adoption is expected in September.
Psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs carry dangerous, even life-threatening side effects, especially for children. (Adverse reactions to psychiatric drugs, as detailed in research studies, warnings from international regulatory authorities and reports to the FDA, can be accessed through CCHR International’s psychiatric drug side effect search engine.)
Psychiatric drugs also do not address the real, underlying problem(s) the child is experiencing, which may be a lack of additional instructional help, poor nutrition, or an undiagnosed physical condition.
Due to CCHR’s efforts, Pueblo City Schools becomes the twenty-first Colorado school district to date taking steps to remedy a long-standing non-compliance with this state law.
If you or someone you know has been pressured by school personnel to put a child on psychiatric drugs, we want to talk to you. You can contact us privately by clicking here or by calling 303-789-5225. All information will be kept in the strictest confidence. We welcome your comments on this article below.
Author CCHR COPosted on July 28, 2011 December 11, 2011 Categories News for Colorado, SchoolsTags children, Maggie Lopez, pressure, psychiatric drug side effects, psychologist, psychotropic drugs, Pueblo, Pueblo City SchoolsLeave a comment on Pueblo City Schools To Correct Non-Compliance With State Law Safeguarding Children
Pueblo School District Fails To Explicitly Prohibit Teachers From Pushing Psychiatric Drugs
Policy Protecting Schoolchildren Has Been Required By State Law Since 2003
Pueblo City Schools is apparently in no hurry to adopt policy safeguarding children that has been required by state law since 2003.
An examination of Pueblo City Schools Board policy by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Colorado (CCHR) found that the School Board is in violation of state law by not having adopted policy explicitly prohibiting school personnel from recommending or requiring psychiatric drugs for any student.
CCHR first brought the noncompliance to the attention of the office of Superintendent Maggie Lopez on June 6, following guidelines set by the Colorado Department of Education. Since that time, agendas for the school district’s Board of Education meetings – including the meeting scheduled for this evening – have not included any mention of action on adoption of this policy.
Several readings of a policy are required at Board of Education meetings before it can be adopted for Pueblo City Schools. Thus, it appears that some 23,000 schoolchildren in the district will be starting yet another school year without this statutory protection in place.
C.R.S. 22-32-109(1)(ee) requires school district Boards of Education to adopt policy “to prohibit school personnel from recommending or requiring the use of a psychotropic drug for any student.”
The law further requires policy that “School personnel shall not test or require a test for a child’s behavior without prior written permission from the parents or guardians or the child and prior written disclosure as to the disposition of the results or the testing therefrom.”
The law was passed by the Colorado State Legislature eight years ago to protect against teachers, principals and other school personnel pressuring parents to put their children on psychiatric drugs. These mind-altering drugs carry dangerous, even life-threatening side effects. (Adverse reactions to psychiatric drugs, as detailed in research studies, warnings from international regulatory authorities and reports to the FDA, can be accessed through CCHR International’s psychiatric drug side effect search engine.)
CCHR has sent Colorado Open Records Act requests to school districts throughout the state, requesting copies of the policy or policies that comply with this state law.
To date, CCHR has identified 21 school districts that did not have Board policy with the clear language of C.R.S. 22-32-109(1)(ee). Twenty of the 21 districts indicated to CCHR that steps were immediately being taken to remedy the long-standing non-compliance with state law.
Only Pueblo City Schools has been vague about when it will adopt the required statutory language.
Pueblo is home to the psychiatric drugging center known as the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo.
Because a response from the superintendent was unclear as to when Pueblo Schools will act to bring its policy into compliance with the 2003 law, CCHR forwarded a complaint directly to the president of the Pueblo City Schools Board of Education, again following guidelines set by the Colorado Department of Education.
Author CCHR COPosted on July 26, 2011 January 15, 2017 Categories News for Colorado, SchoolsTags children, Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo, Maggie Lopez, psychiatric drug side effects, psychotropic drugs, Pueblo, Pueblo City SchoolsLeave a comment on Pueblo School District Fails To Explicitly Prohibit Teachers From Pushing Psychiatric Drugs
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WORD CHRISTCHURCH’S ‘SHIFTING POINTS OF VIEW’ BRINGS IMPORTANT CONVERSATIONS TO OUR CITY
By PANZ August 1, 2019 No Comments
WORD Christchurch is pleased to announce its spring season of events, Shifting Points of View, which runs 18 August – 14 September.
Fifteen events over four weeks cover topics as diverse as the Trojan War, racism and activism, the New Zealand Wars, politics, engineering, crime fiction and the history of New Zealand comedy.
Headlining speakers include Simon Winchester, author of such books as Pacific, The Surgeon of Crowthorne and The Map That Changed the World, and his latest book Exactly: How precision engineers created the modern world; Natalie Haynes, host of the BBC radio show Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics, with a feminist retelling of the Troy story; DeRay Mckesson, American activist and a founder of the Black Lives Matter movement; Val McDermid, Scottish crime writer; New Zealand historian Vincent O’Malley and scholar Marilyn Waring.
Some of comedy’s movers and shakers, including Madeleine Sami, will appear live on stage to discuss the history of New Zealand comedy as portrayed in the current television documentary series Funny As, and the new book of the same name.
The season closes with a special celebration of the 2019 Ngaio Marsh Awards for crime writing on 14 September. Finalists Liam McIlvanney, JP Pomare and Fiona Kidman will appear alongside fellow crime writers Val McDermid, Paul Cleave and Vanda Symon in The Great Ngaio Marsh Game Show, where two teams will compete for the title of Sharpest Knives. The show will be followed by the presentation of the awards in the categories of Best Novel, Best First Novel and best Non-Fiction. The full list of finalists will be announced by the organisers tomorrow (1 August).
“Shifting Points of View is about challenging audiences to look at things a little differently,” says WORD Christchurch Programme Director Rachael King. “While there is plenty of entertainment in this season, there is also the opportunity to feed your brain, and maybe even change your mind about the world around you. We have a fantastic array of internationally acclaimed speakers to engage you on a number of issues.”
WORD Christchurch thanks its major funders: Christchurch City Council, Creative New Zealand and the Rata Foundation; platinum partners Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and Heartland Bank; and Shifting Points of View partners the New Zealand Listener, The Arts Centre, UC Arts and TEDx Christchurch.
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Do you cook with cast iron?
November 14, 2019 Lauren
Need a gift idea for the holidays? How about a cast iron skillet? Do you currently use one? They are super beneficial to cook in, and way better for your health than "non-stick" pans.
Here is a list of reasons from Lily Nichols on why you need to start using one!:
https://lilynicholsrdn.com/6-benefits-of-cooking-in-cast-iron/
1. Naturally Non-stick
Non-stick pans made with Teflon are everywhere these days, but they aren’t good for our health. When heated to high temperatures, and especially when the pan is dry (like when you’re preheating a pan before searing meat or stir-frying), they release chemicals into the air called perfluorinated compounds (PFCs). Scratched non-stick releases even more PFCs into your food. Studies have linked certain PFCs, namely PFOA and PFOS, to numerous health problems relating to hormones, liver dysfunction, and brain health. PFCs are particularly important for mothers to avoid, as it passes through breastmilk. (Environ Sci Technol, 2006)
PFC bioaccumulation has become an increasing public health concern as emerging evidence suggests reproductive toxicity, neurotoxicity and hepatotoxicity, and some PFCs are considered to be likely human carcinogens. – Public Health, 2010
These chemicals not only make their way into your food, but they end up down the drain and in landfills, polluting waterways and ending up back in the food chain (like fish that live in contaminated water). Even worse, they take many years to biodegrade.
But, back to the bright side… When “seasoned” properly, cast iron pans are naturally non-stick, just without the chemicals. For more on seasoning and caring for cast iron, see #2.
2. Easy To Clean
I grew up cooking in cast iron, mostly because that’s what my mom used, and I got used to how easy it is to clean. I remember the first time I cooked a meal in a stainless steel pan I couldn’t believe how much “elbow grease” I had to use to scour off the brown bits. With cast iron, food releases from the pan easily, making clean up a breeze.
Some people find cast iron difficult to care for, so here’s my simple solution. Once your food is ready, simply serve up, emptying the pan. With the pan still hot (and presumably holding it by the handle with a hot mitt) take the pan to the sink and under hot running water, scrape off any food bits with your metal spatula. Return the pan to the stove to dry, wipe with a paper towel dipped in a little oil, and enjoy your meal. (That last sentence is how you maintain the seasoning on your cast iron pan. If you don’t dry the pan and add a little oil, the pan can rust.)
The above method literally takes 30 seconds and saves me from having to scrub the pan and damage the seasoning. If I happen to be lazy and leave the pan dirty, no big deal. I’ll do the above (wash, dry, wipe with oil) and set the pan on the stove on low for 5 minutes to restore the seasoning. Lodge also has a great tutorial on caring for cast iron.
3. Fortifies Food With Iron
How would it sound to have a pan that actually fortifies your food?
Cast iron is it!
While it’s well accepted that cast iron increases iron content of food, few sources actually quantify the change, which always made me question if that was an old wives’ tale. In a little known study from 1965, researchers measured the iron content of 7 foods cooked in cast iron or glass. Acidic foods and those cooked for longer periods of time accumulated the most iron. Tomato sauce, for example, had 87.5 mg of iron when cooked in a cast iron pan, but a mere 3.0 mg when cooked in a glass pan (per 100g serving, which is less than ½ cup). Even non-acidic and quick cooking foods, like eggs and fried potatoes, averaged a five-fold increase in iron content when cooked in an iron skillet.
This is especially good news for menstruating females or pregnant moms who have increased iron needs or, for whatever reason, don’t eat enough iron-rich foods.
4. Cheap
Cast iron remains some of the most inexpensive cookware on the market. A brand new 10 inch cast iron skillet is a mere $25 (and probably $5 at a thrift store). On the other end of the spectrum, a quality heavy-bottomed stainless steel pan that same size will run you over $100. And, because cast iron lasts forever, it’s a one-time purchase. I’ll explain in #5.
5. They Are (nearly) Indestructible
Let me paint you a picture to illustrate my point. A few years ago, I came across a cast iron pan that had been sitting out in the elements for at least a decade. This thing was so corroded, it was almost beyond repair. I’m not really sure what inspired me to attempt to refurbish this thing. A metal scraper was too wimpy to take off the centimeter-thick layer of iron oxide, so I resorted to a thick chunk of scrap steel to scrape off the worst of it (do I sound like a hobo yet?). Then with a little help from a wire brush and a lot of determination, I had that pan looking good as new in an afternoon.
That same pan is part of our outdoor gear and is regularly placed directly over a campfire when we car camp. Like I said, nearly indestructible. And unlike any other cookware, cast iron improves with age. With each use, the cooking surface becomes more smooth, allowing oil to seep into the surface and continually improve the seasoning (or as some like to call it, the patina).
But Teflon coated non-stick pans? If you use a metal spatula by accident once, the thing is trashed. Really though, stop cooking with scratched non-stick (see #1) Even if your non-stick is unscratched, any cookware that requires you use plastic utensils is icky. Cooking with a plastic spatula melts tiny bits of plastic into your food. Ew! Really, there’s no reason to own a non-stick pan (or plastic spatulas) when you have cast iron!
6. Even Cooking Temperature
Cast iron pans are noticeably hefty and their weight is part of their magic, allowing them to hold heat longer than most other pans. This works well, whether you’re searing a steak at a high temp, or simmering a stew on low. If you don’t have the most reliable stove, a cast iron pan can help prevent you from accidentally burning dinner. Non-burnt dinner is always a win!
"Climbing Annie"
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Bobby Evans Wade Phillips Jalen Ramsey John Sullivan Cooper Kupp Brian Allen Dante Fowler Jr. Aaron Donald Sean McVay Joseph Noteboom David Edwards Todd Gurley Austin Blythe Josh Reynolds Andrew Whitworth Greg Zuerlein Clay Matthews Brandin Cooks Rob Havenstein Malcolm Brown Jared Goff Sports Athlete injuries Athlete health NFL football Professional football Football
Chicago Bears Pittsburgh Steelers Los Angeles Rams
Rams' O-line woes worsen with injuries to Allen, Havenstein
By GREG BEACHAM - Nov. 11, 2019 09:50 PM EST
Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay meets with reporters following the teams' NFL football game against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Pittsburgh, Sunday, Nov. 10, 2019. The Steelers won 17-12. (AP Photo/Don Wright)
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — The Los Angeles Rams' offensive line is coming apart, and so is their season.
The durable unit that was the bedrock of the Rams' offensive success over the past two years is an injured, inconsistent shadow of its once-dominant self. The Pittsburgh Steelers' defense proved it repeatedly Sunday night in the Rams' 17-12 loss, their fourth in six games overall.
The news got even worse Monday. Center Brian Allen is out for the season after injuring his left knee in Pittsburgh, and right tackle Rob Havenstein will miss at least two weeks with an injured meniscus in his knee.
That means the Rams (5-4) will face the Chicago Bears on Sunday without three offensive linemen who started against San Francisco just four games ago. Guard Joe Noteboom also is out for the season.
"I think it's a great challenge," coach Sean McVay said Monday. "Let's use this as an opportunity to try to see if we can put guys in better spots, and ultimately find a way to win the game as a team."
But the Rams are particularly unequipped to handle this rash of injuries because of their offseason decision to rely on untested youngsters both as new starters and as backups along the line. After two seasons in which no offensive line starter missed a game that mattered, the Rams' decision to press their good luck hasn't worked out — although the line wasn't even playing that well before the injuries mounted.
"It's one thing when you have it happen when you're at a place where you've got a lot of veteran linemen for backups," left tackle Andrew Whitworth said. "Around here, it's a lot of guys that nobody has ever played, so it's a learning process a bunch of different ways."
Rookie David Edwards already moved into the starting lineup at guard after Noteboom went down. Guard Austin Blythe will move to center, but McVay isn't sure how he will fill the gaps at guard and right tackle. Rookie Bobby Evans might get a chance after playing just three offensive snaps all season long.
Allen's injury is particularly brutal, given that the Rams have been adjusting to a new center leading the communication after John Sullivan played the past two seasons at the spot.
"All of a sudden, communication and those little things you take for granted become something that's a lot harder to pull off than you think," Whitworth said. "But you know what? It's not an excuse. It's the reality of the situation, and we've got to work together."
WHAT'S WORKING
After outscoring the offense in Pittsburgh, the Rams' defense is clearly surging. Los Angeles has given up just 57 points in the past four games. The Rams' defense held the Steelers to 273 yards with six tackles for loss while scoring on a fumble recovery and a safety. The loss of three secondary starters and the midseason addition of Jalen Ramsey have been handled smoothly. Wade Phillips' group is rolling, but overwork generally leads to problems for any defense, and the Rams' offense is providing little help.
WHAT NEEDS HELP
The Rams' offensive ineptitude could be measured in many ways, but perhaps the ugliest number was next to receiver Cooper Kupp, who had no catches on just four targets. One game earlier, he had seven catches for a career-high 220 yards against the Bengals in the latest standout performance of his banner season. Even after quarterback Jared Goff and McVay failed to get the ball to Kupp in Pittsburgh, he still ranked fifth in the NFL with 792 yards receiving.
Clay Matthews returned from a three-game absence with a broken jaw and recorded 1½ sacks. Matthews and Dante Fowler are providing a strong pass rush when opponents double-team Aaron Donald. Fowler also scored the Rams' only touchdown on a fumble recovery.
STOCK DOWN
McVay was down on himself after the Rams' inexplicable decision to remove Todd Gurley from the lineup in the fourth quarter of perhaps his most effective performance of a poor year. The Rams have repeatedly insisted they aren't limiting Gurley's carries to preserve his health, but they had Malcolm Brown on the field instead of Gurley for the Rams' first two drives of the fourth quarter. McVay blamed it on a normal player rotation Sunday, claiming he saw nothing strange about having his franchise running back on the sideline.
"Not to take anything away from Malcolm," McVay said Monday. "But if you knew that that was going to be the last possession you get until 2½ (minutes) left, you probably would say, 'I would have preferred to have Todd get into more of a rhythm and maybe get some touches there.' And there's nobody to blame there but me."
Wide receiver Brandin Cooks will miss at least another week while he recovers from his second concussion of the season. Josh Reynolds had three catches for 49 yards while starting in Cooks' spot at Pittsburgh.
KEY NUMBER
5: Greg Zuerlein's total missed field goals this season after his 56-yarder was off target at the halftime gun. That's more than he has missed in any season since the Rams moved to LA.
The Bears visit the Coliseum on Sunday night in another eminently winnable matchup for the Rams, but Chicago's defense is ranked ninth in the NFL.
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Nick Johnson Clinches First Thompson Speedway Late Model Title
October 29, 2018 by Staff Report Leave a Comment
(Press Release from Thompson Speedway)
Nick Johnson celebrates his first Thompson Speedway championship (Photo: Courtesy Thompson Speedway)
When you look at the final NASCAR Whelen All American Series Late Model point standings at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, you see four drivers who captured a checkered flag. In fact, those four drivers were the only competitors to celebrate in Victory Lane this season in a division that saw 29 drivers take the green flag at least once.
But, at the top of those standings, the eventual champion of the 2018 season had a zero in the win column. Nick Johnson, a native of Rehoboth, Massachusetts, is celebrating his first Thompson championship in the No. 6, even though he didn’t visit Victory Lane. Johnson finished in the top five in all seven races, including a fifth-place in the season-finale, which helped him seal the crown.
Johnson was the only driver to score top five finishes in every event, and also the only driver to finish inside the top-10 in all seven races. He defeated Tom Carey III by just a mere three points in the closest battle across all four of the Whelen All American Series divisions at Thompson.
“Not at all,” Johnson said when asked if he thought he could win the title at the beginning of the season. “My immediate thought was I just wanted to come and win. We didn’t even think we were going to run a full-time schedule but one thing leads to another, and here we are.”
Entering the finale, Johnson knew he wasn’t going to win the title by just comfortably riding around the .625-mile oval. He started deep in the back, and watched Tom Carey III, his closest challenger, pull away from him. Carey got all the way to the front, and finished third, just inches behind Buddy Charette for that spot.
Even though he finished in front of Johnson on the track, it wasn’t enough to get the title.
“Honestly, going into the season, the goal was really to win races. We didn’t achieve that goal, but it ended up leading to the championship,” Johnson said. “Once we ended up leading the championship standings, it was going to be hard to back away from it. We decided to just run with it and see what we could do.”
In the end, after seven months, Johnson’s decision turned out to be the right one. While he defeated Carey but just three, Mark Jenison, who won the final race of the season, ended just 13 points out after doing everything he could.
William Wall was fourth, 15 back, while Ryan Morgan, who won a season-high three races, rounded out the top five.
“Those few laps, I was just watching the yellow car (Carey) and making sure I stayed with it,” Johnson said. “There were a few times where I had no where to go, and I was fast enough to pass, but it’s not really a track you can run three-wide. I just had to have patience, wait, and when the opportunity presented itself, I took it. I was pretty surprised to be honest.”
Johnson will be officially crowned champion at the 2018 Banquet & Awards Celebration, with a date to be announced at a later date.
Filed Under: News, Thompson Speedway
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(Photo By: Ahron R. Foster)
Tony Shalhoub & Katrina Lenk: Back on Broadway in ‘The Band’s Visit’
Last season, it swept all the awards off-Broadway. Starting previews on Broadway, Saturday, October 7, "The Band's Visit," is considered the early favorite to win the Tony Award for Best Musical this season. It stars Golden Globe and three-time Emmy winning actor Tony Shalhoub, known to TV audiences as quirky detective Adrian Monk. The son of Lebanese-American parents, the Green Bay, Wisconsin native, established an award for Arab- American filmmakers. He plays the conductor of an Egyptian police band that winds up in a remote Israeli village by mistake. Northwestern University grad Katrina Lenk, who won raves in last season's Tony-nominated play "Indecent," plays opposite Shalhoub as an Israeli cafe owner who finds shelter for the stranded band members. One critic said her performance "will break your heart."
FOX's Jane Metzler talks with the two co-stars about a show that features unusual music, unexpected conflict and a cast that includes both Arab-American and Israeli actors.
For more information on "The Band's Visit"visit them on Facebook, Twitter: @TheBandsVisit and Instagram
(FOX's Jane Metzler)
Follow Katrina Lenk on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter: @TheKatrinaLenk
Thomas Byrne
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February 15, 2019 - Friday February 15, 2019 - Friday Jeggit Ireland, Politics, Scotland
Ireland Can Show Scotland the Way
THIS IS NOT ABOUT POKING the Scottish National Party or the independence movement, rather it is quite the opposite. The truth of the matter is that Sinn Féin – whatever we think of it and the dark and painful history of political violence in Ireland – has been at this exact game far longer than the SNP. The struggle for Irish freedom has been, from its beginning, a struggle against a Britain unmasked of its pretence to civility and democracy. With England’s absolute refusal to negotiate with Ireland, every single attempt made by the people of Ireland to liberate themselves from British rule was met with the same hammer blow of executions, exiles, reprisals, and brutal repressions. The rebellions of 1798, 1803, 1848 – “the Famine Rebellion,” 1867, and the Easter Rising of 1916 followed the same pattern: A demand for liberty, a British refusal, an Irish rebellion, and an overwhelming demonstration of raw military violence from the British Empire.
Irish Republicanism was never the preserve of Irish Catholics or “nationalists.” Republicanism and the aspiration for Irish independence – for an “Irish-Ireland” – was never about sectarianism. It was the effort to cast off the divisions Britain had introduced by force as part of its colonial project. In fact, the fathers of Irish Republicanism – and to this day the greatest heroes of Republicanism – were, to a man, Irish Protestants; men like Theobald Wolfe Tone, Belfast man Henry Joy McCracken, Lord Edward FitzGerald, and Robert Emmet. These were the men praised to the heavens by Pádraig Pearse, the leader of the 1916 rising who read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic outside the General Post Office in Dublin at the beginning of the rebellion.
Irish Republicanism was begun by Irish Protestants like Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet. A united Ireland will be Green… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Britain’s narrative of the Irish “Troubles,” as evinced in its rare coverage of its crimes in Ireland on the BBC and its flat refusal to teach these events to its children, presents a skewed vision of Ireland’s struggle. It frames it quite deliberately as an Ulster conflict, thus making it foreign and frightening to those who seek independence for Scotland and Wales. The “Ulsterisation” of Ireland’s independence struggle forces this conflict to be about religious differences and an internecine dispute between “communities.” But this was never the truth.
Ulster, the northernmost province of Ireland’s four provinces, is in reality the final theatre of an independence process for the whole of the island of Ireland that began on the 24 May 1798. And it was in response to this now active will on the part of the Irish people that the British government started to favour and support the early Orange institutions – first established against the background of land agitation in Armagh in 1795, some 105 years after the Battle of the Boyne. The hope then – as it remains still – was to manufacture an anti-Catholic sectarian bitterness within the Republican movement and in so doing turn Ulster Protestants into useful idiots, “Ulster Loyalists.”
We are wrong to accept England’s narrative of Irish independence as a toxic and bigoted violent clash of different religious communities – one we do not wish to see introduced into Scottish politics. This narrative is already at the heart of Scottish politics. It was there before any of us were born, and it was not imported by Irish Catholics or Republicans. This narrative parades through streets in Scotland every July and August, and it was inserted into Scotland by the same imperial power that forced it upon Ireland. Rather, we must accept the true and historical narrative of Irish independence – a national campaign for independence from Britain waged for the entire nation and not merely those parts of it considered of little value to London. This all-Ireland narrative (1798 to the present) – independence for the whole nation and all its communities – is exactly analogous to the current narrative of the Scottish and Welsh independence movements – movements that Great Britain is working overtime to Ulsterise.
If police are needed to protect a church, the march shouldn't be permitted in the first place. Orange marches shame… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Ross Greer (@Ross_Greer) July 08, 2018
Sinn Féin, an all-Ireland Republican party, has been where the SNP and Plaid Cymru are now. It has played the talk-deflect-stall game of negotiation with Britain, it has been told “Now is not the time,” it has won elections and been denied its democratic demands, and it has experienced the full force of Britain’s broken temper. When An Uachtarán Sinn Féin, Mary Lou McDonald, speaks of the arrogance of the British Prime Minister and the intransigence of the British state when it comes to respecting the democratic decisions of the people of Ireland, she knows what she’s talking about. McDonald comes from a tradition of experience of British arrogance, intransigence, hostility, and violence reaching back all the way through the Troubles, through the Civil War, through each of the rebellions, and all the way back to the revolt of the Republican United Irishmen.
Sinn Féin knows and understands this cat-and-mouse politics of negotiation with Britain. It knows that Britain has always and without a single exception acted in bad faith and broken its promises. Right now, it is doing it again – “the Tans are at it again (a reference to the “Black and Tans” sent by Britain to terrorise the Irish population from 1919).” Not only has the current British government entered into an alliance through bribery with the DUP – one of the belligerents in the Troubles, it is working hand-in-glove with Ulster Loyalists to undo the Good Friday Agreement. British lies and broken promises, British media spin and anti-Irish propaganda are nothing new to Mary Lou and Sinn Féin in every part of the island of Ireland. Sinn Féin – in fact, every woman and man in Ireland – has come to expect nothing from Britain but lies and bad faith.
Scotland has not quite learned this yet. Of course, there are many of us in the Scottish independence movement who are well aware of the lies, the deceptions, and manipulations of England, but still the Scottish government, the SNP, and various other well-meaning independentistas are operating like innocents – believing, in spite of the now overwhelming evidence, that British politicians can be trusted, that the BBC will provide a fair and balanced platform, and that in the end Britain will honour the democratic decisions of the Scottish people. The whole of Europe knows that Britain is not to be trusted. This is not just a matter of Irish anti-Britishness. This is cold hard experience. Britain cannot be trusted to be honest and act in good faith.
Should SNP be boycotting #BBCQT until their credibility is restored ? .. (open question) twitter.com/Dr_PhilippaW/s…
Angus B MacNeil MP (@AngusMacNeilSNP) February 14, 2019
Today, SNP politicians are asking on social media if it is time to start boycotting BBC Question Time – one single politics panel show on the BBC! Not only is it time to boycott this one performance, it is time for the Scottish government, the SNP, and the whole of the independence movement in Scotland to turn their backs on the BBC, Westminster politics, and Great Britain. There is nothing – nothing – Scotland can achieve by taking up seats in Westminster. It too is an infantile performance, designed to humiliate and control a defeated and subjugated Scotland.
It is time for Scotland to learn from Sinn Féin and follow its lead. Yes, of course, we are right to recoil from the violence of the past. Sinn Féin has itself recoiled from the violence of the past. We too had violence in our past, and – like the Irish – we have enshrined that violence in fond cultural memory. But those days are past now, and in the past they must remain. The Irish Republicans are playing a shrewd political game that will now see a united Ireland before another Scottish independence referendum, and they have done this not by following the rules laid down by Britain – a foreign power, but by rejecting them. We too must reject Britain’s rules and all the trappings that trap us that we might be mature and rise now and be the nation again.
Sinn Féin’s Leader on Why Brexit Threatens the Peace Process in Ireland
Tagged BBC, Britain, British State, England, Great Britain, Independence, Independence Movement, Independence Referendum, Ireland, Irish History, Mary Lou McDonald, Media Bias, Pádraig Pearse, Scotland, Scottish Independence, Scottish National Party, Sinn Fein, The Troubles, United Kingdom, Wales
19 thoughts on “Ireland Can Show Scotland the Way”
February 15, 2019 - Friday at 06:16
Jason, this is where you really excel. Its like you set off a massive field of dominos in my brain as new facts force me to re-process what I thought I knew before. Its amazing how far back in my memory these Westminster narratives are lodged…all the way back to childhood.
Not only Ireland, but the entire Brexit process has revealed Westminster as a glassed jawed bully when it doesn’t get to set the rules. It can’t help falling over itself due to its misplaced exceptionalism. However, Scotland can not rest easy – a bully embarrassed is a danger to those it can still lord it over as it lashes out to restore its bruised pride.
Derek Cameron says:
Timely and inspirational Jason. Thank you.
Thomas Moore says:
This is not a ramble! It is a serious warning. It is serious as a firing squad!
And still the SNP is trying to rescue England!
Very very incisive analysis of the process in which Scotland finds itself. Ireland has been where we currently are. Where Ireland has trodden; we might have to tread in turn. Very sad, but it will not be our choice. English duplicity and intransigence will take us there.
maxstafford60093 says:
Jason.
This is the truth that too many Scots are too afraid to hear.
England will not leave Scotland to go in peace. As with everywhere, they will stir sectarian and racial hatred, poison the well and probably even try to partition our country as they did Ireland.
The British State is arguably the most disgusting body on the planet.
Arrogant, exceptionalist, ignorant bullying venal thugs.
We will need to very very strong to withstand what they unleash upon Scotland when they finally lose Ireland.
Thomas P May says:
February 16, 2019 - Saturday at 11:34
Brilliant article,the Ulsterisation of Scottish politics is ongoing and frightening to a West of Scotland person born in the early 50’s, please can we make it stop!!!
Doug Rumbles says:
Great report Jason but why do you like many others keep referring to British ,Britain ,why not say it as it truly is which is English ,England.
yes we know that the British nationalists treat British as meaning English but throughout your report you appear afraid to say it is England it is the English that you are referring to in this report when you say “Ireland can show Scotland the way”.
Stop saying British stop saying Britain,it’s England that stops the reunification of Ireland and England that fights against Scottish independence.
I suspect you and so many other journalists have the same fear, you are frightened to say it’s England you are frightened to say it’s the English ,I think you fear the kind of backlash mr blackford got for calling may a liar, you fear being called anti English ,let’s face it if you are against the British state you are against England, if you criticise the British state you criticise England.
Eric McCandlish. says:
And that needed to be said.
February 20, 2019 - Wednesday at 19:31
Terence, I understand and appreciate what you are saying and to an extent I agree. However, “Britain” and “British” carry political connotations England and English lack. Other than being a simple geographical term, Britain is a state-political entity and – more importantly – an ideology; unionism in Scotland, Wales, and the six counties, and imperialism in England. It is this I wish to address when I speak of Britain and the British state.
James scott says:
February 17, 2019 - Sunday at 00:29
At last someone telling the truth,wake up Scotland,this is our land not skives to all English rule,it’s time to be Free of these shackles.
100% agree
Anne Duff says:
Every Scot should read this to fill in the truth about Ireland that they were never told at school
An excellent article and very thought provoking. Much of what you said I have thought about but not taken my thoughts on it far enough. You’ve shown me where I was heading with it all and it now makes such a lot of sense…. if THAT makes sense! Thank you for putting it so clearly and so succinctly.
What you write is a little bit scary – but if the Irish folks can do it, I’m sure we can too, if we follow their lead. Freedom has always been hard won. But it’s always worth it. Let’s do this, I say.
Fergus MacPhail says:
February 18, 2019 - Monday at 12:23
A well written and truthful article about the sorry state we are currently in and where we need to be quickly before it’s too late to escape this debacle
Janette Hogg says:
Couldn’t agree more!
Prepare Yourselves for the Worst
Brexit’s Neon-Nazis
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by Sharon Warchol
Contact Author - Sharon Warchol
This author participates in our Book Donation Program. Click here to learn more.
Sharon spent twelve years as a middle school math teacher and three years as a school administrator. After having her third child, she retired from education to become more active on the cook/maid/chauffer/homeroom representative/nurse/party planner/counselor circuit. Sharon's three kids, Luke, Zack, and Jillian, love reading everything she writes and always inspire her to flex her creative muscles.
Sharon lives with her hubby, Dave, and the three kiddos in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, PA.
Reviewed by Kristine Hall for Readers' Favorite
Thirteen-year-old Jackson Sheppard would like nothing more than to live under the radar, spending time with his best friend, Andie, and adding to his chewed gum collection. His aspirations seem easy enough, but the truth is he has some powers that he can't very easily control and they can empty a room and end friendships pretty fast. When Jax, Andie, and Jax's little brother Sebastian sneak out for a late night swim at the local pool, disaster strikes when Sebastian dies, and Jax is thrown into the mysterious world of the Kaptropoten -- a mirror that has been broken into seven pieces, each giving an extraordinary power to the possessor. When Jax learns that all seven fragments together can even resurrect the dead, he goes on an epic journey that takes him around the world and beyond, where he learns who he really is, and aims to set things right by bringing back his brother. Along the way, Jax makes new friends and finds he has evil enemies, discovers fantastic creatures and magnificent places, and finds that he must rely not only on the strength he has from his powers, but an inner strength that he isn't sure he has. In Sharon Warchol's Jax Sheppard and the Seven Mirrors, readers will travel to a parallel, mystical world of danger and deception where things are often not what they seem.
When I agreed to read this book, I scheduled myself to read it about ten days after I received it. I downloaded it and decided to take a quick peek at it -- and ended up reading it straight through! That's how Jax Sheppard and the Seven Mirrors rolls. In it, author Sharon Warchol gives readers just enough background and introduction to get a feel for our protagonist and his life, but then she immerses readers right into the story. One endearing quality about Jax is his humor and how it squeaks out of him at even the most inappropriate of times. Sharon Warchol masterfully wrote very real characters, despite some of their fantastic outward appearances, whose unique styles and personalities will resonate with readers. And Warchol has a real gift for writing imaginative scenarios and uses figurative language to make descriptions even richer. For example: “. . . and darn it if a sneaky, nasty guilt didn’t creep up my leg and around my torso. It snaked over my shoulder and into my ear, poisoning my brain with its venom.” Even the titles of the chapter sub-headings are cleverly written.
Jax Sheppard and the Seven Mirrors has twists and turns and a steady stream of hints to create a satisfying ending that also leaves readers begging for more. I highly recommend this book for tweens and teens, and reluctant readers of all ages.
Author Anna del C. Dye
Jax Sheppard and the Seven Mirrors, Book One by Sharon Warchol is an excellent mid-grade/pre-teens story to entertain young readers that enjoy stories with magic and low-key kids who become heroes. Jax has a couple of special powers that only he and his grandfather know about. He can run super fast, but why and what causes him to be different from his friends? All seems well until the day his younger brother is killed and he can’t live with the guilt. He and his best friend, Andi, get sucked into a strange tale with an even stranger bunch of people who live on an island.
They all think he is the Arc, but Jax knows better. All he wants is the rest of the pieces of a magical mirror so he can bring his brother back from the dead. The leaders pair him up with the most beautiful girl alive, Kat, her brother, William, Jax’s assistant, Cletus, and Andi and send them to save the world from the most powerful wizard alive. In their travels, Jax finds that not all those he calls friends are who they seem to be. He also learns that wishes don’t always come true.
It is a fast paced and age appropriate story that will resonate with kids between eight and fourteen. The characters are believable with real flaws and strengths. It is a clean read that talks about trust, family, friends and the right to choose to be better. A well paced plot is found between the pages of this book. This is a great book to read in summer at the beach, when camping, or on a wintry night in your favorite chair. Warchol did a great job in this story, one that promises much more to come in the sequel. Give it a try.
Michelle Mollohan
Jax Sheppard and the Seven Mirrors (Volume 1) by Sharon Warchol is a spell-binding (pun intended) tale full of magic and mischief. Jax has always wondered why he possesses super human strength, which has been somewhat of a burden at times (dropping a clown on your best friend can really destroy a friendship!). Sneaking out with his BFF Andie and younger brother Sebastian one fateful night, Jax is horrified when Sebastian meets his untimely demise. Suffering with guilt and remorse, Jax finds a mysterious piece of mirror that turns out to belong to an enchanted mirror with special powers. Jax learns why he has extraordinary strength and what his destiny holds as he embarks on a journey to find the rest of the mirror fragments in the hopes he can resurrect Sebastian. Danger lurks around every corner as he and his companions fight evil forces and an unexpected betrayal.
Packed full of intriguing characters, magical places and mystical beings, Jax Sheppard and the Seven Mirrors (Volume 1) by Sharon Warchol is a delightful, entertaining tale. Readers of all ages will enjoy getting lost in the depths of this story. Jax is a lovable klutz who stumbles along trying to find his path, making him an endearing and sympathetic character. Jax Sheppard and the Seven Mirrors (Volume 1) is a great edition to the fantasy genre and will be loved by fans of series such as Artemis Fowl and Harry Potter. I look forward to reading additional volumes as Sharon Warchol writes them!
Jack Magnus
Jax Sheppard and the Seven Mirrors is a fantasy for preteens written by Sharon Warchol. Jax Sheppard has special talents that he keeps to himself, mostly. He's super powerful and can run at incredible speeds; a talent his grandfather called 'flashing.' Jax lives with his grandmother now but before that, he lived with his mom, his dad and his little brother. Then his dad left, his mom and his grandfather died, and, after that, his brother died in a freak accident when the two boys and Jax's best friend, Andie, were swimming in the town pool after hours. Jax has always felt guilty about Sebastian's death because he was supposed to take care of him, and he wishes he had died instead. When he returns to the pool a month later, he sees something sparkling down on the bottom of the pool.
Sharon Warchol's preteen fantasy, Jax Sheppard and the Seven Mirrors, is an entertaining, quirky and fast-paced story. Jax collects vintage pre-chewed gum and has some rare specimens, but I could never figure out just how he was able to date his treasures. It's all part of a fun and slightly goofy story that's filled with action and adventure. Warchol creates a unique and compelling mythology around the seven fragments of a mirror, which is all-powerful, and the forces of good and evil contending for control of it. I especially liked the setting of the Island of Mirrors in the middle of the Adriatic Sea, and the mingled histories of the Murano glass artisans and the makers of the mirror. Jax Sheppard and the Seven Mirrors is the first volume in a series, and I'm looking forward to reading about Jax's further adventures. This preteen contemporary fantasy is highly recommended.
K.C. Finn
Jax Sheppard and the Seven Mirrors is a preteen fantasy novel by Sharon Warchol. It centres on thirteen-year-old Jax, a misfit with incredible strength and supernatural abilities, who is just trying to blend in at school when disaster strikes. After his brother is killed in strange, unfortunate circumstances, Jax sets forth with a fragment of a magical mirror that promises adventure and resurrection. What follows is an epic quest to recover the remaining pieces of Kaptropoten mirror where Jax’s abilities will be tested, along with his own sense of strength, and the insecurities he faces as someone who stands out from the usual crowd.
This was a stunning book. Easily placed among the realms of Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl and Darren Shan, author Sharon Warchol had created a voice which speaks to the child in us all. Jax’s adventures are fraught with intrigue and interest at every turn, and there is a never a dull moment in this well-told tale. Jax Sheppard and the Seven Mirrors will delight the young teens and more advanced tweens that it’s aimed at, but for those like me who hark back to the days of vivid, captivating fantasy tales with excellent characters, this is also a great read for adults. If it’s adventure, warmth and plenty of magic you seek, then I’d highly recommend Jax Sheppard and the Seven Mirrors as a whole-family read. The engaging plot and realistic characters of this talented author should serve to melt even the most critical heart.
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