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Titlemax Payment Options »
This federal government loan forgiveness system has refused 99% of borrowers up to now
投稿日 : 2020年7月9日 最終更新日時 : 2020年7月9日 投稿者 : サイトデフォルト カテゴリー : Titlemax Payment Options
Published: Sept 23, 2018 8:55 a.m. ET
Just 96 folks are contained in the very first cohort of borrowers of people provider Loan Forgiveness program
JillianBerman
Up to now, approximately 99percent of prepared applications for forgiveness under a federal government program targeted at assisting general general public servants handle their student-loan that is federal debt their applications rejected.
At the time of June 30 of the 12 months, about 28,000 borrowers submitted 33,300 applications to possess their loans discharged underneath the Public provider Loan Forgiveness system, an effort launched in 2007 that enables borrowers who operate in certain kinds of public solution to own their federal figuratively speaking cleaned away after decade of repayments. Wednesday of the roughly 29,000 applications processed so far, 96 borrowers have had about $5.52 million in debt discharged under the program, according to a government report released.
Associated with approximately 29,000 applications prepared thus far, 96 borrowers have experienced about $5.52 million with debt released beneath the program.
Specialists expect the sheer number of authorized applications to go up considerably within the coming years. If the program launched in 2007, there clearly was small promotion or quality around it. What’s more, most of the payment programs that borrowers may use when they like to be eligible for a the scheduled system weren’t yet available then. It’s likely few servants that are public advantageous asset of it straight away and would currently be eligible for forgiveness. Fall 2017 ended up being the https://www.titlemax.us very first time borrowers could connect with have their loans released underneath the system.
Nevertheless the rate that is high of highlights the difficulties of this program. Numerous whom watch PSLF closely have now been worried for a long time that its mix that is complicated of would allow it to be problematic for borrowers to get into. There’s also probably a big cohort of borrowers who thought they’d find a way to claim forgiveness underneath the system — and maybe organized their jobs and economic life around it — but weren’t conscious of or had been confused by its numerous needs, making them ineligible.
Follow this link for more information on Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Significantly more than 70percent of this borrowers whoever applications had been rejected didn’t meet at least one of several eligibility demands for the system, in line with the government’s report. To be eligible for that loan release under PSLF, a debtor should have Direct Loans — a specific sort of federal student loan — be into the proper payment system (most of the government’s payment programs don’t be eligible for PSLF), and work with the proper kind of task, which include federal government work and work at particular kinds of nonprofits.
Borrowers should also make at the least 120 on-time monthly payments — or 10 years’ worth — on the figuratively speaking to meet the requirements to own them forgiven.
Borrowers should also make at the very least 120 on-time monthly payments — or 10 years’ worth — to their figuratively speaking to meet the requirements to own them forgiven. There are a variety of explanations why a debtor that has the type that is correct of, work and payment plan may have a payment maybe not qualify. Including, when borrowers put a lot more than their needed month-to-month repayment towards their loan, usually the deadline with regards to their following payment is much more than four weeks later on than if they overpaid. It is referred to as paid-ahead status. Any re re payments borrowers make while they’re compensated ahead don’t be eligible for a PSLF.
“It’s apparent that a wide array of individuals which couldn’t meet with the demands failed to recognize that they weren’t fulfilling what’s needed, ” said Clare McCann, the deputy manager for degree policy within the think tank New America’s training policy system. “The complexities when you look at the program’s design imply that you will find likely to be many people whom think they’re eligible for PSLF and they’re perhaps perhaps not. ”
Betsy Mayotte, who regularly works together with borrowers while the president regarding the Institute of scholar Loan Advisors, said she ended up beingn’t astonished by the number that is relatively low of authorized, considering that we’re still during the early phases of borrowers also becoming qualified to receive forgiveness and therefore numerous regarding the qualifying repayment programs weren’t available whenever PSLF first established.
But Mayotte said she’s additionally concerned with the big share of rejections.
“If you had expected me personally yesterday to anticipate the amount of rejected applications they received i’dn’t have come near that quantity, ” she said. “That’s troubling, that simply suggests that most of us in the market have actually much more strive to do interacting in regards to the guidelines of PSLF. ” in line with the national federal government report, 28,624 applications had been refused.
Debtor advocates have actually reported for many years that the federal government additionally the servicers it employs to handle its education loan profile have actuallyn’t done adequate to offer details about this program. In many cases, including in legal actions, borrowers have actually alleged that servicers offered them flat down incorrect information regarding PSLF. Officials said they’re reaching out to borrowers who may be eligible for a short-term expansion of pslf launched previously this season aimed to aid borrowers.
Besides the a lot more than 70% of applications rejected because borrowers had been ineligible, another 28% regarding the applications for forgiveness had been refused simply because they had been incomplete, in accordance with the federal federal government. Officials recommended these borrowers to submit complete applications.
To possess loans forgiven under PSLF means it became available and worked in public service for 10 years straight that you enrolled in the program when.
To own loans forgiven already under PSLF means which you signed up for this program bsinceically the moment it became available and worked in public places service for ten years right, a member of family rarity, McCann noted. We don’t know anything in regards to the borrowers whoever applications happen authorized for forgiveness from the federal federal government information, except the common level of debt forgiven — about $57,500 — a sign numerous likely had the kinds of big student-loan balances indicative of a graduate degree. McCann said she’s positive that the promotion surrounding this program in modern times, the increased availability of qualified payment programs additionally the bigger amount of borrowers with qualifying loans will temper the amount of refused applications in the future years.
Nevertheless, Natalia Abrams, the director that is executive of Debt Crisis, an advocacy company that conducts month-to-month webinars to greatly help borrowers comprehend PSLF, said she frequently encounters relatively savvy borrowers — sometimes with higher level degrees — whom think they’re following a program’s needs, but really aren’t. “These are individuals who think they’ve dotted each of their ‘i’s or crossed their ‘t’s she stated.
Abrams suggests that borrowers looking to steer clear of the shock of rejection after a decade in public solution file a jobs official official Certification Form each year. These kinds, which borrowers fill out with the aid of their boss and send down with their servicer for approval, would be the best way for borrowers to learn how close these are generally to using their loans forgiven beneath the system.
“That’s the finest thing people may do now, ” she said.
← Next thing: Material and methods
Their face reddened since that he characterized the methods by which their daddy belittles him as well as undermines him running a business. →
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Is Brian Jean the right choice for Wildrose leader?
With the Alberta election underway, newly minted Wildrose leader Brian Jean has already began to come under heavy scrutiny. I think we're about to see how much "pretty and female former TV personality" blunted Wildrose criticism over the past few years.
I heard the first rumblings about it last week, literally within 72 hours of the March 28th election where he took the reigns. In a phone conversation, my mother was telling me about a problem both she and her brother had been sharing when they "attended" the Red Deer leadership forum ["attended" meant in this sense that forum was attended by one and watched streaming by the other, and I'm not allowed to tell you which did which. -ed]. I hadn't paid it much attention, I knew that both of them had decided to vote for Drew Barnes and just dismissed it as a bit of the trash talking people always do of the guy they have consciously and intentionally voted against. They didn't like how he presented himself in his address, his answers to a couple of questions, his demeanor towards the other candidates, etc. It's really boilerplate stuff, I had some of the same things to say about Danielle Smith on October 17 2009, and I wouldn't necessarily put too much faith in them. [Then again, when you saw them in Smith it was a prelude of times to come, wasn't it? -ed]
Additionally, Kurn is gung-ho to vote Wildrose and keep sodomy out of his children's schools, but he was tempered by the news that Brian Jean donated to Jim Prentice's leadership campaign and also a few comments where Jean didn't go very far in criticizing the Premier he once closely worked with in a federal cabinet.
Further comments and more specific issues with Jean was given on Twitter Tuesday by Spruce Grove's Trevor (Trevor? I seem to remember his name being Travis) Norris:
@LeighPatrick @FACLC He used his son's illness and death to promote himself during WRPldr. Need I say more?
— TNorrisSG (@TNorrisYEG) April 8, 2015
The election pronouncement is part of a rough week for the new Wildrose leader. On Monday controversy developed when Fort McMurray-Athabasca MP David Yurdiga distanced himself from Jean after it was implied that a combination federal PC/Wildrose sign-making party was an endorsement of the new leader. While there have been no explicit statements to date, in 2012 the Prime Minister permitted his MPs to campaign for any party (read: PC or Wildrose) in the Alberta election they wished to but that explicitly the federal Conservative party would not permit any MPs to claim the federal party preferred either of its provincial counterparts. One can assume in 2015 a similar situation will arise. In other words, there's little to believe that Yurdiga is in danger of facing any Conservative Party of Canada sanctions for his sign making event, even if he did publicly state he supported Jean. That makes the "no this wasn't an endorsement" move all the more interesting, since it seems to reflect that Yurdiga was concerned about the external politics of being seen supporting Jean -- that is to say that he feared supporting Brian Jean would risk his own reelection possibly later this year. Say what you will about politicians, but when they make this sort of a decision it's worth considering they know something about the candidate and/or the pulse of the electorate. [Then again, Danielle Smith... -ed]
Jean has also promised a leadership where he brings up the issue that cost Ed Stelmach the Premiership (to Wildrose's benefit): "reforming the oil patch" by bringing in more and vaster and longer-term government controls. It's definitely not clear where he thinks the votes are going to come in from such a scheme.† Alienating the natural Wildrose constituency (people of all socioeconomic strata who make money from Alberta producing and selling oil-related products) by promising short- to medium-term uncertainty doesn't seem to be a wise political move. Are that many potential Wildrose voters in Didsbury concerned with what seems to be purely local issues stemming from the oilsands and how Fort McMurray is staffed and populated? Enough to get over the obvious degree of "ick" they're going to experience being asked to support massive government intrusion in the private sector? Even if they buy Jean's spin that we already interfere in the economy, so why not interfere in the economy even more as long as we think we're doing so "smarter"? John Galt? Murray Rothbard? Who??
† You might find yourself thinking "well, maybe his plan is a good idea". Pace Kim Campbell, elections aren't the time for candidates to have ideas, that's where political bloggers come in. More critically, Jean is talking openly about Wildrose forming government, which means if he wants to flout this scheme it means he intends for it to bring in more votes than it loses.
The controversy continues with the announcement during the election kick-off where Brian Jean would require Wildrose MLAs sign a contract vowing not to defect to another party. Critics pretty quickly lept on how silly and untenable such a deal was, how it was at odds with a Westminster Parliamentary System, and how it reflects an unfortunate top-down managerial style.
Jean said if the Wildrose forms the government it would introduce legislation to prohibit any member of the legislature from crossing the floor to join another party.
He said he has taken steps to make sure that only one person can sign the papers of Wildrose candidates.
If there's any Wildrose consolation, it's that Drew Barnes was facing astroturf objections to his robocalling fiasco.
Labels: #ableg
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Follow @pkafka
Recent Posts by Peter Kafka
Universal Music Taps Talenthouse to Help Music Acts Find Free Help (and Publicity) on Facebook
July 21, 2011 at 7:45 am PT
Facebook has 750 million users. Some of whom are willing to work for their favorite celebrities for free.
That’s the pitch behind Talenthouse, a start-up designed to leverage the social network’s ever-expanding user base to help celebrities and brands run “social crowdsourcing competitions.”
The idea is that artists like Lady Gaga can use the service to find bloggers who will document her tour, or someone to design T-shirts, etc. But the real point of the competitions is the competitions themselves, which are supposed to become mini-“American Idol”s: They’re meant to drive exposure for the celebrities — and advertisers that back them — on Facebook.
Two-year-old Talenthouse has been signing up a steady stream of celebrities to use its platform, and today it is bringing in another slug of them, via a deal with Universal Music Group. The world’s largest music label has agreed to provide more than 100 of its artists for Talenthouse campaigns in a revenue-sharing deal.
Universal can’t compel any artists to use Talenthouse, so this doesn’t mean the service will get access to the likes of Jay-Z or U2. But it at least gets the chance to pitch them on the idea. The fact that the start-up has already worked with Universal star Lady Gaga won’t hurt.
Tagged with: Facebook, Lady Gaga, Talenthouse
Twitter Asks You How You Use Twitter While You Watch TV, While You’re Watching TV and Using Twitter
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Happy Holidays! Facebook Stuffs More Ads in Its Stockings.
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Netflix Doesn’t Have the Market Cornered on Binge TV: Zombies + Walter White Help AMC Win the Fall VOD War
I’m a giant vat of creative juices.
— David Pogue on why he’s joining Yahoo
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In what way is astrology congruent with the paradigm shift we are currently undergoing?
The philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn suggested that paradigm shifts occur in science when too much anomalous data accrues that cannot be accounted for under existing assumptions, theoretical models, and hypotheses. The anomalous data amassed over the twentieth century in various scientific disciplines was of such magnitude that the fundamental assumptions of classical science had been comprehensively undermined.
Bell‘s theorem of nonlocality; the great contributions to quantum mechanics from Bohr, Heisenberg, and Schrodinger; Einstein‘s theories of relativity; the sciences of complexity and chaos; Lovelock‘s Gaia Hypothesis; and the mounting evidence of ecological damage and impending environmental catastrophe have all suggested that the metaphysical assumptions of the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm and the value system underneath its auspices are in need of fundamental change and revisioning.
Previous revolutions in worldview share a common bond with the current epistemological and ontological upheaval: revolutions of this magnitude do not occur overnight but only are integrated into societies through slow, successive stages of acceptance.
However, the crucial difference with the current deconstruction of worldview is that it is occurring from the inside out. Whereas previous world turnings have occurred when an unsuspecting band of marginal, disenfranchised but brilliant outsiders–Christ’s apostles, the early scientists–challenged and clashed with the authority of its day, this current revolution is occurring by way of the cultural authorities and institution themselves. Science is deconstructing its own assumptions through its own methodology.
The building blocks of the Newtonian-Cartesian paradigm are being taken away by its own proponents bit by bit to allow for something new that transcends but includes the models of classical science. The edifices of the Enlightenment and classical science–linear, solid, firm, and right-angled–are being removed for the structures of the new paradigm–organic, dynamic, fluid, shape shifting, and ambiguous.
More specifically, the metaphysical assumptions of Classical science, namely, that matter is primary, subjectivity and objectivity are radically split, the universe is completely contingent and mechanistic in character are being replaced with new ultimate assumptions with how the ways “are” and how the way things “work”: consciousness is primary to matter, subjectivity and objective realities may be causally linked and fundamentally two sides of one dimension, and that the universe is purposive, creative, and emergent.
As historians of astrology are quick to point out, astrology was not conclusively discredited by science but dismissed out-of-hand due to a complete disagreement on metaphysical foundations. The circular metaphysical “peg” of astrology didn’t fit into the square metaphysical “hole” of science and thus was stripped of any legitimacy it once attained.
The assumptions of the emerging new paradigm are much more congruent with the philosophical and methodological assumptions of astrology. If consciousness is indeed primary (or at least in relationship to matter and not a byproduct of the brain) it is much more comfortable to see human beings and planets as resting upon, or an external manifestation of, consciousness or awareness.
If one assumes that the observer dependence and nonlocality of the quantum level is applicable to the macroscopic plane of reality, then the immense physical distances between earth and the other planets of the solar system isn’t an issue that negates astrological suppositions. Finally, if the universe is an ensouled, purposive, and creative flux of energy then one’s subjectivity and life enfoldment can be seen as isomorphic and congruent with the larger dynamics of the universe-at-large.
It is this “seeing through” by way of scientific methodology that has allowed a complete, yet continuing, deconstruction and transformation of old frameworks and assumptions that is opening a visionary porthole into the deep structures of consciousness and the universe. These deep structures1–ambiguous, animated, evolving, protean, and congruent with the astrological conception of the universe–may never be observable. However, the intuition of mystics, philosophers, and theologians that some ground of being that pulses the radical diversity of the universe into being may just now be in the process of being scaffolded by the new sciences.
Last updated on February 18, 2017 at 1:42 pm. Word Count: 647
Astrology Club » Astrology » What Is Astrology? » In what way is astrology congruent with the paradigm shift we are currently undergoing?
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INTERVIEW WITH A SHEEPLE
HOW TO DESTROY AMERICA
Liberal Indy?
Judicial Tyranny; Why Your Vote REALLY Doesn't Count
IF IT AIN'T BROKE, FIX IT 'TIL IT IS
Election 2006 Postmortem
Here at Benandbawb’sblog we managed to track down and corner an average American Sheeple in his native habitat, the shopping mall. In the interest of taking the pulse of the country, we conducted a short interview to see what the man in the street is thinking. Our conclusion is that he isn’t.
BBB: The whole point of this blog has been to illustrate the evils of the 2-Party Oligarchy. Basically, both the Republicans and the Democrats are nothing more than different rooms in the same whorehouse.
S: My side good! Other side baaaaaad!
BBB: But both sides have been ridden with scandals, dirty deals, broken campaign promises, shady practices and pork projects. Both sides lie like a rug.
S: My side tell truth always. Other side lie! Baaaaaaad!
BBB: It would seem you are playing right into the hands of the power mongers. That’s right where they want us. Have you ever considered a Third Party to break the deadlock of corruption and give us a chance at real change?
S: (Pause for long blank stare): Um, throwing vote away! Cannot be on winner’s side! Man on TV say so.
BBB: The programming seems to be working quite well. Um, OK. Shall we address some other issues. One of the few mandates actually given to the Federal Government by the Constitution is to secure our borders. Instead, they let in millions of illegal aliens and do very little to stop them or to punish those who employ them illegally.
S: They are just here to do the jobs Americans can’t or won’t do. Essential to American economy. Man on TV say so.
BBB: According to the LA Times, only 2% of illegals are picking crops while 29% are on welfare. Forty percent of all workers in LA County are illegals getting paid cash under the table and contribute zero taxes. Over two thirds of the births in that county are illegals on Medi-Cal, paid for by the taxpayers. Ninety five percent of murder warrants in LA are for illegals, 75% of the people on the most-wanted list are illegals, and half of the gang members are from south of the border. The cost of illegal immigration to the U.S. taxpayer by 1997 (Professor Donald Huddle, Rice University) was $70 billion.
S: Racist! Xenophobe! Bigot! Nazi!
BBB: Er, yeah. How about education then? Judged against scores of students from other industrialized nations, American students do very poorly indeed. Our colleges have begun teaching what used to be high school level subjects. Some people point out that the purpose of the American educational system is more to produce good worker drones who do not question authority, than to educate or teach independent thinking and critical reasoning.
S: Professor spout Party Line. Koko repeat Party Line back. Koko get banana. Mmmmm, banana goooood.
BBB: So you found your university education useful, then?
S: Me have Liberal Arts Degree, $80,000 in student loans, and JOB! You want fries with that?
BBB: Uh, how about current events? What item in today’s news do you find to be of the most concern?
S: Brad and Angelina fighting over living room décor! How terrible! Boo-hoo! Such tragedy! Woman on TV say so.
BBB: On the subject of economics…..
S: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
BBB: OK, never mind economics. The Second Amendment is near and dear to us here at BBB. What do you say to the fact that when England and Australia enacted draconian gun control laws, their violent crime rates skyrocketed? Or how about Washington, D.C. having the strictest gun control laws, yet the highest crime rates in the country? Conversely, where states have enabled ordinary citizens to carry concealed weapons, crime rates drop.
S: Guns baaaaaad! Guns hurt people! Guns not needed in modern age! Man on TV say so!
BBB: If they are unnecessary, how come “Men on TV” like celebrities and politicians have swarms of armed bodyguards?
S: (Jaw goes slack, eyes glaze over, emits streamer of drool.)
BBB: Maybe we’ll get back to that later. The Middle East is a hotbed of crisis and has been for years. We’ll try to keep this simple. Can you name three Middle Eastern countries?
S: Iraq. (Long pause). Europe. (Very long pause, triumphantly) Guantanamo!
BBB: Super. How about neutral politics, no parties involved. What do you see as the role of government in our country?
S: Government gooood. Government my friend. Government give treats. Government take care of me and all my earthly needs from cradle to grave. Goooood. Woman on TV say so.
BBB: Where do you suppose all that money comes from to take care of you from womb to the tomb?
S: Simple. Government take from you, give to me. Goooood. Man on TV say so.
BBB: How about security issues, like terrorism? What do you think of the Patriot Act and law enforcement abuses and judges who have to answer to no authority giving government more and unlimited power to skate around all Constitutional safeguards and restraints in place to keep them in check?
S: Government good! Government protect me from everything. I not worry. They look out for me. Government always know best. They not abuse power. Man on TV say so.
BBB: So the likes of Hitler’s Nazi Germany murdering 21 million civilians, Stalin’s Soviet Union killing 20 million citizens, Mao’s sixty million…..
S: Stop talk! Must go! New episode of Survivor on tonight! Must see TV. Man on TV say so.
BBB: (Heavy sigh.) Bye-bye. Enjoy the Kool-Aid!
I know in the opinion of many of today's products of our so-called education system, of which a recent study found only 20% of high school grads could find the Pacific Ocean on a map, only redneck hicks from Fly-Over country still read the Bible. Other early writings, such as Herodotus' Greek history and Caesar's Gaelic Wars, of which maybe 8-10 original copies exist, are regarded by modern "experts" as the gospel truth. But the New Testament, which the ancients found important enough to make 5,000 Greek, 10,000 Latin and 9,300 other copies of, is just superstitious hogwash. Yet some of us rubes in the hinterlands still read it.
I was recently struck when perusing Genesis 11:1-8, the story of the Tower of Babel. When God wanted to dismantle that whole civilization and keep them from doing great things, all he had to do was scatter them and give them all different languages and ways.
Fast forward to modern America. I came across some information given in a speech by former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm at an immigration overpopulation conference he spoke at in Washington, D.C. His last point includes mention of a book by Victor Hansen Davis entitled Mexifornia, which explains how unchecked illegal immigration is destroying California already and spreading to other border states rapidly and will eventually destroy the American Dream nationwide.
So without further ado, here are Governor Lamm's steps guaranteed to destroy this country. All quotes are his.
"First, to destroy America, turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country."
Second: "Invent 'multiculturism' and encourage immigrants to maintain their culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal. That there are no cultural differences. I would make it an article of faith that Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due soley to prejudice and discrimination by the majority. Every other explanation is out of bounds."
Third: "We could make the United States an 'Hispanic Quebec' without much effort.....I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with the salad bowl metaphor. It is important to ensure that we have various cultural subgroups living in America enforcing their differences rather than, as Americans, emphasizing their similarities."
"Fourth, I would make our fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated, and antagonistic to our population. I would have this second underclass have a 50% dropout rate from high school."
Fifth: "...get big foundations and business to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of 'Victimology'. I would get all minorities to think that their lack of success was the fault of the majority. I would start a grievance industry blaming all minority failure on the majority population."
"My sixth plan for America's downfall would include dual citizenship, and promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity over unity. I would stress differences rather than similarities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating eachother; that is, when they are not killing eachother. A diverse, peaceful or stable society is against most historical precedent...'E. Pluribus Unum'; from many, one. In that historical reality, if we put the emphasis on the 'pluribus' instead of the 'unum', we will balkanize America as surely as Kosovo."
Seventh: "I would place all subjects off limits; make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of 'diversity'. I would find words similar to 'heretic' in the 16th century that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like 'racist' and 'xenophobe' halt discussion and debate."
"Lastly, I would censor Victor Hanson Davis's book Mexifornia. His book is dangerous. It exposes the plan to destroy America. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don't read that book."
Posted by Bawb at 11:07 AM No comments:
I grew up watching Indiana Jones films, so I was excited to see that they are beginning work on a fourth installment. It has been said that they are going to use old-fashioned stunt work and camera tricks instead of computer-generated special effects, so that the film will have the same “feel” as the first three. I like the sound of that, but I’m worried that they might ruin the franchise anyway. You see, Indiana Jones director Steven Spielberg has become increasingly liberal.
I think there’s something in the water in Hollywood (and Capital Hill) that makes you more of a liberal loony, the longer you’re there. When Spielberg released "E.T." on DVD he went back and digitally removed all those nasty, evil guns from the film. Now the federal agents that chase E.T. and Elliot are toting innocuous things like walkie-talkies, rather than guns. (By the way, Janet Reno has been toiling away in the studio for the last several years trying to do the same thing to the tapes of the Waco non-assault, digitally replacing agents' sub-machineguns with teddy bears, teargas canisters with cans of “chicken and stars” soup and replacing tanks with large, Seuss-looking “tickle-machines.” But I digress.)
Spielberg also recently released his much-heralded film “Munich” in which the Israeli agents sent to kill the terrorists who murdered the Israeli Olympics team are portrayed as being no better than the terrorists they dispatch. As I said, he’s been getting loonier and loonier.
So I thought I’d help Spielberg out and give him some ideas on how he could make the fourth Indiana Jones film more compatible with his liberal world view. I present(with apologies to David Letterman):
Ben’s Top 10
Ways Spielberg Can Liberalize Indiana Jones 4
10) Indy gets disemboweled by an Arab swordsman while struggling with the mandatory trigger-lock and bio-metric identifier on his pistol.
9) Short-Round insists on being called “Vertically Challenged.”
8) After jumping from a flying airplane in an inflatable raft, rather than landing on a snow-cushioned slope, Indy splatters into bare rock due to global warming.
7) Indy realizes that there are no such thing as “Good Guys” and “Bad Guys,” only cultural misunderstanding. Indy lays down his arms and tells the Nazis that he means them no harm. (In return, they torture him with a red-hot poker and shoot him in the head.)
6) When Indy finds himself in a fight, he “redeploys” himself in the opposite direction, just as fast as his legs will carry him.
5) Indy ditches his leather jacket in favor of a “Meat Is Murder” tie-dyed tee-shirt.
4) Indy and Sallah do it.
3) Instead of fighting the Nazis, Indy attempts to teach that little monkey sign language so he can ask it how to heal our Earth.
2) When government agents ask Indy to capture a religious artifact before the Nazis do, Indy refuses, explaining that there is a “wall of separation” between church and state.
And the number one way Spielberg can liberalize Indiana Jones 4 is… UP TO YOU. Post your suggestions below.
Posted by Ben at 10:36 PM 6 comments:
"Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything."
Joeseph Stalin
I thought we had enough troubles as it was. A two-party oligarchy that does everything to screw with ballot access laws to keep Third Parties down and non-viable. A "mainstream" media that's about as impartial and unbiased as Joseph Goebbels. Massive voter fraud that never gets punished. Illegals voting. Touch Screen voting machines with no paper trail wide open to skilled hackers. The City of Chicago.
And now our beloved judiciary, aka The Men in Black, is getting into the game as well.
Here in Montana, there were six citizen initiaives and Constitutional amendmnets on the ballot for "we the people" to vote on, right there in black and white.
Constitutional Initiative 98 provided for much greater power for the people to recall (read fire) incompetent, out-of-control, or legislating-from-the-bench judges.
Constitutional Initiative 97 provided for a cap to the state increasing tax appropriations.
And Initiative 154 was in response to the disgusting Supreme Court Kelo Decision and would have put limits on government takings of private lands.
The votes for these citizen initiatives were never even tallied. You see, judges ruled them "unconstitutional" before they could even be voted on. It was too late to reprint the ballots, however. So the initiatives stayed there on the ballots for the citizens to see what might have been, except for judicial tyranny.
Modern judges, which, in case you haven't noticed, bear more resemblence to Moe, Larry and Curly than to wise King Solomon, usually at least wait until after the citizens pass an initiative or amendment before they over-rule it and spit in our faces. Now they aren't even going to allow us the facade of voting for them.
An old friend of mine once told me there were three "boxes" when it comes to changing things; the soap box, the ballot box, and the cartridge box. I am starting to think of him as my wise old friend, now.
Well, the Libertarians did alright here in Montana, too, garnering over 10,300 votes in the hotly contested Senate race between (D) Jon "I Have a Flattop Haircut So You'll Think I'm Conservative" Testor and incumbent (R) Conrad "Look How Much Pork I Brought Home" Burns. Yes, I voted for Mike Fellows (L).
But recent experiences working for the Federal Government have set me to a-wondering. Even if we could get a Third Party with some brains and common sense and the Founding Fathers' intent in power, is it too late to ever significantly change the fat, bloated, inefficient, wasteful, asinine, self-perpetuating labyrinthine bureaucracy our government has become?
I won't even go into BATF abuses or the Patriot Act or the Army general who had 3 helicopters and two twin-engined executive planes at his personal disposal or even how in our vaunted Welfare System only 10 cents on the dollar goes to the recipients and the rest is gobbled up by the bureaucracy. I'll stick to some minor things in a minor agency I am personally familiar with.
Out here in the hinterlands of "Fly-Over Country", those who still follow the Forest Circus old motto, "Caring for the Land and Serving the People", are stretched increasingly thin on an ever-smaller budget. For instance, I know of someone (who shall remain nameless) who is currently attempting to clean, care for and maintain some 17 campgrounds, 10 fishing accesses, 6 picnic areas, 6 rental cabins, dozens and dozens of "dispersed campsites", and hundreds of road and trails signs, spread out over 3 Montana counties (and counties are pretty big out here...check the mileage from Wilsall to Cooke City, MT, all inside Park County) all by himself. Obviously a slacker, the powers-that-be cut his budget by 30% for Fiscal Year 07. Those in the Supervisors' Office, also known as the Ministry of Truth, want to lay off this last lone ranger for the winter and just close down everything he takes care of to the public. Who cares about the citizen and taxpayer, anyway? We got papers to shuffle and mandates to create and mandatory Civil Rights training to come up with.
I am NOT saying, however, that the Forest Circus needs more of your hard-earned tax dollars. I am saying that they need to spend what they have wisely and efficiently, but from personal experience I expect that to happen immediately after a pig flies past my window.
In a recent article, a retired FS whistle-blower pointed out that 85% of the $$$$ allotted to care for our National Forests never gets out of Washington, D.C. Of the remainder that trickles down, each National Forest's Supervisors' Office (which generally employs more people than all of the Ranger Districts and field staffs combined) automatically takes another 25% off the top for "administrative costs". Which leaves very little at the bottom of the totem pole to hire somebody to clean the toilet and pick up the garbage and paint the picnic tables in your favorite campground.
A recent clever budget-cutting measure enacted did away with the CSEP program. This program provided summer jobs for retired folks who did a great deal of good, hard on-the-ground work for the public and got paid a pittance. So the powers-that-be cleverly shit-canned the lowest paid personnel who did the most work. We just can't find any deadwood to cut in all the office-dwelling bureaucrats, you know.
I recall a recent audit of the Circus by the Government Accounting Office. They were literally millions of dollars, and numerous vehicles, and a twin-engined aircraft unaccounted for. This kind of fraud, abuse and waste obviously could not be tolerated, and with these vast amounts of funds involved the culprits must be at the bottom of the pay scale. Government inspectors really cracked down. The only example I am personally aware of in the big shake down was a guy who almost got fired for "using government property for personal gain". He took a beautiful landscape picture that got published in a magazine. Someone going over the photo with an electron microscope spotted part of a government canoe in the photo. Well, they spanked him but good, and that took care of the problem. Last I knew, though, the aircraft is still MIA.
I could go on and on and make this column approximately the length of War and Peace but blogs are designed for modern Americans with really short attention spans.
Just let me point out that the Forest Circus is just a teensy weeny tiny little fragment of the US Department of Aggravation (which employs 11 people for every farmer and rancher in the United States), which in itself is just a teensy weeny tiny little fragment of the Fed Gov as a whole. I recently read an article about the Department of Homeland Security unable to account for about $80 million, but government investigators decided it was not worth vigorously pursuing such a small amount of money.
That's just running the government here at home.Now toss in the billions each year we give in hand-outs to piss-ant Third World Hellhole nations who hate our guts. You're beginning to get the picture of what a huge, bloated, uncontrollable monstrosity our Federal government truly is.
Can anything stop or even slow down such a juggernaut? Even a Third Party rise to power? Is this the government our Founding Fathers intended? Does anyone even believe the government serves the people anymore?
More importantly, does the American public even give a rat's ass anymore? Oh never mind, I gotta run to the store and get a 12-pack and some smokes before Survivor comes on.
Here in Iowa, Republican Jim Nussle lost to Democrat Chet Culver by over 85,000 votes in the governor’s race. Libertarian candidate Kevin Litten received about 5,000 votes, which means each person who voted Libertarian could have voted for Nussle 16 times each and Nussle would have still lost. I would imagine that margins like that were pretty common across the country. So I don’t want to hear any Republicans whining that the Libertarians split their vote and cost them the election. The Republicans were perfectly able to lose this one themselves. But why?
Of course the elephant in the room is the war in Iraq. But we were in Iraq in 2004 and Iowa went to Bush, the Republicans retained their majorities in Congress, and South Dakota even gave Senate Democrat Leader Tom Daschle his walking papers.
So what changed since ‘04? Answer: The Republicans alienated their base. Back then the paleo-conservatives and libertarians in the party had plenty of bones to pick with the elected Republicans, most notably the fact that they were spending money like whores in a crack house. But in ‘04 many of us were willing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iraq and give the Republicans one last chance to put their house in order. They did not.
If there was one moment when I slapped my forehead and realized that the Republican Party had completely abandoned its guiding principles, it was shortly before Hurricane Katrina hit. I remember driving home from work and hearing President Bush on the radio hailing the new waste-ridden monstrosity of a transportation bill he had just signed. This was the one with 6,371 pork projects tacked onto it, including the now infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska. Bush said it was a good bill that would provide jobs. D’oh!
The conservative response to this is, “How many jobs would have been created if those billions of dollars had been retained by those who earned it, to buy manufactured goods from retailers or to save and invest?“ I had to wonder if it was F.D.R. or L.B.J. that I was hearing, but no, it was G.W.B. To add insult to injury, after Katrina struck, Bush said they would spend “whatever it took” to rebuild the Gulf Coast. This was the straw that broke the elephant’s back. Fiscal restraint, states’ rights, the 10th Amendment, and limited government all were gone from the Republican lexicon.
During the primaries heading into ‘06, the RNC actively slit the throats of conservative candidates in favor of moderates that they felt were more “electable.” (If you think being a moderate made you “electable” during this election, go talk to Iowa’s own incumbent wet-noodle-Republican Jim Leach, if you can find the Wendy’s that he’s working at now.) It was obvious that the RNC had been co-opted by neo-conservatives who didn’t care a whit about any constitutional or ideological issue. They only cared about one thing: consolidating their power. And now that power is gone.
It appears I picked a good year to come over to the Libertarian Party, the Republican boat seems to be sinking. They may have to throw some ballast overboard. I suggest they start with a few neo-cons.
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Swiss Super League Attendance Map, 2006-’07 season.
Filed under: Switzerland — admin @ 7:19 pm
In Switzerland, attendance is up, for the 2007-’08 season. Last season (which this map depicts), the Swiss Super League averaged 9,763 per game. This season, the average, after half the season, is 11,063. Back-to-back champions FC Zurich boast the highest percentage increase, with a 34% rise in gate figures (from 10,871 to 14,594).
The Swiss Super League has 10 teams in it. [The clubs in the league, this season, happen to be numbers 1 through 10, on this attendance map.] The last place finisher each season is relegated to the second level, which is called the Challenge League. The ninth-place finisher in the Super League must play a playoff, with the second-place finisher in the Challenge League.
At the present time, FC Basel have a 6-point lead in the Super League, over FC Zurich, and BSC Young Boys. FC Aarau are in 4th, and newly promoted FC Xamax are 5th. FC Sankt Gallen are in danger of being relegated. They are in last, four points below the safety zone. Sankt Gallen is a rather large club to be playing in the second tier, so it should be interesting to see how the table ends up. **{See the Swiss Super League Table, here.}
Currently leading the Challenge League is the southern Swiss club AC Bellinzona. As you might surmise from their name, the club is in the Italian section of this multi-lingual nation. Italian clubs like to loan out players to this club, particularly AS Roma. **{Click here, for the Swiss Challenge League Table.}
Bellinzona only lead the league by 2 points, though. FC Wil, FC Wohlen, FC Winterthur, and the Liechtenstein-based FC Vaduz are all in touching distance. As my cut-off point for this map was 1,000 avg. gate, 3 of these 5 clubs didn’t make the map… FC Wohlen (989 avg. gate) are due east of Aarau. FC Wil (975 avg. gate) are just west of Sankt Gallen. FC Vaduz (904 avg.gate) are southeast of Sankt Gallen. {Click here to see where Liechtenstein is.} {Here is Wikipedia’s entry on FC Vaduz.}
Switzerland is joint-hosting, with Austria, Euro 2008. (The actual name of the competition, which no one uses, is the 2008 UEFA European Football Championship). Basel, Bern, Zurich, and Geneva will be the Swiss host cities. **{Click here for UEFA’s website, on Euro 2008. And/Or click here, for Wikipedia’s entry on Euro 2008 (there’s a good map, here)}.
{Swiss Super League website {translated}: (axposuperleague[dot]ch).}
This map was made in connection with The Home of Football/ Fussball-blog von Frau B. website (http://fraub.ch). {For the text-only, translated version, click here.}
My Swiss attendance map was first posted on http://fussballblog.espace.ch {Click here, for a translated version of the site.}
And a huge Thanks to Herr C. …Grasshopper-supporter, and West Bromwich Albion fan, for the opportunity to be in Swiss cyberspace.
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Mindeli Art Prints
Mindeli was born in 1976 in the town of Tbillisi, a republic of Georgia, Russia. As a child, she first began drawing in the studio of her father, a renowned artist and designer. It was there that she found her skills and her interests in this study flourished. The cultural turmoil of her homeland influenced her greatly and she began to truly understand the meaning of expression through drawing and painting. In 1992, Mindeli enrolled in the Tbillisi State Academy of Fine Arts where she studied art history and fine art. The presence of other creative minds encouraged her desire to express herself further. The art world had finally embraced her and she yearned for cultural stimulus to liberate her talent. She graduate in 1997 and moved to America to further her horizons. Her new-found freedom of expression and her love of nature have been melded together to create her intricate floral designs. Mindeli looks forward to exploring her artistic talents and developing new and exciting images. She plans someday to return to her homeland to pay her respects to the environment from whence her gift originated.
Paperwhites I
Del Sol I
Lago Gardi 1
Arabesque I
Stately Palm II
Day Lily I
Paperwhites II
White Tulips I
White Tulips II
Jour d'Ete 1
Del Sol III
Del Sol V
Del Sol IX
Del Sol X
Del Sol XI
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Making sense of sacrifice: Sensory experience in Greco-Roman cult
Fig. 33: East Greek black figure hydria (the “Ricci hydria”) (525-500 B.C.E., now in the
Villa Giulia, Rome). Van Straten 1995, fig. 122.
Fig. 34: Attic black figure pyxis (c. 530 B.C.E., now in the Akademisches
Kunstmuseum, Bonn). Van Straten 1995, fig. 120.
Title Making sense of sacrifice: Sensory experience in Greco-Roman cult
Author Weddle, Candace Cherie
Author email candaceweddle@gmail.com; weddle@usc.edu
Degree program Art History
School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Advisor (committee chair) Pollini, John
Advisor (committee member) Yasin, Ann Marie
Bitel, Lisa
Abstract Performing a sacrifice was one of the most sensorially full actions undertaken in the Greco-Roman world. The production and control of the correct movements, scents and sounds were prerequisites for summoning, communicating with and propitiating deities. Sacrifice was also ubiquitous, occurring on an almost continual basis as a range of sacrificial activities were celebrated publicly and privately in a variety of locations in urban areas. Cultivating a multi-sensory understanding of the full range of sensory elements that accompanied ancient cult rites – visual and auditory cues, things smelled, tasted and touched - provides a platform for achieving a more thorough knowledge of the meanings of the rites.; This dissertation examines the archaeological, literary and epigraphical evidence for the role of the senses in Greek and Roman sacrifice in order to analyze the social and ritual importance of the senses, the impact of sacrificial rituals within ancient urban spaces, and the sensory experience of the ancient worshiper. Given the ephemeral nature of much of the evidence for sensory elements of worship, as well as the subjectivity inherent in representations of sensory experience in literature and art, this dissertation argues for the necessity of crossing disciplinary boundaries in order to appreciate the sensory impact of ancient sacrifice. Therefore, in addition to utilizing traditional historical and art historical approaches, methodological tools from the field of anthropology and evidence from studies in the animal behavioral sciences and consumer sciences are employed. For example, I suggest that greater understanding of the experience of ancient sacrifice may be acquired through an autoethnographic investigation of modern religious sacrifice. To that end, I analyze my experience of the slaughter of large numbers of bovines during the Islamic Kurban Bayram sacrifices in Istanbul to make suggestions concerning certain elements of the sensory experience of ancient blood sacrifice. I focus not only on the sensory experience of humans participating in (or within range of) sacrifices, but also on that of the animal victims. Given the immense ritual importance of the behavior of sacrificial animals in antiquity, I suggest that it is possible to identify some sensory aspects of the sacrificial process that may have been intentionally manipulated in order to control the reactions of the victims as far as possible.; Particular attention is paid to mundane aspects of the process of sacrifice not often addressed in ancient literary sources or represented in art that would have resulted in notable sensory impacts on areas surrounding urban temples, for example the removal of sacrificial refuse. I conclude not only that these elements of sacrifice formed an important part of the sensory experience of Greco-Roman cult, but also that their effects were more far-reaching – in terms both of how great an area they affected and how long they lasted – than has previously been recognized. Using fresh interdisciplinary approaches to well-known examples of texts and images, this dissertation employs a more visceral approach to the study of the sensory experience of ancient sacrifice than is possible when considering textual and archaeological evidence alone.
Keyword archaeology; autoethnography; cult; Greece; religion; Rome; sacrifice; senses
Geographic subject (city or populated place) Rome
Geographic subject (country) Italy; Greece
Coverage date circa -0600/0600
Coverage era Greco Roman
Rights Weddle, Candace Cherie
Filename etd-Weddle-4363
Archival file uscthesesreloadpub_Volume48/etd-Weddle-4363.pdf
Full text 240 Fig. 33: East Greek black figure hydria (the “Ricci hydria”) (525-500 B.C.E., now in the Villa Giulia, Rome). Van Straten 1995, fig. 122. Fig. 34: Attic black figure pyxis (c. 530 B.C.E., now in the Akademisches Kunstmuseum, Bonn). Van Straten 1995, fig. 120.
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And the dead shall walk the earth: Zombies and the politics of death
Yes, white voodoo-style zombies were never truly socially dead, and their black
counterparts remain in their state of exception, but zombiism in these texts often played
with issues of miscegenation and corruption in ways that actually provided a space for
contemplating life outside the binaries of black and white and American and foreign.
Moreover, often those using zombies were, in their own ways, social outcasts trying to
claim some power from dominant systems. That they were ultimately shut down does
not erase their attempt.
Romero- and video game-style zombies are where the desire for the in-between
becomes even more visible. In making over some zombies as sympathetic, these zombies
are rescued from social death, but these rescued zombies never come to inhabit the
position of non-zombie living humans. They therefore are able to occupy a position both
inside and outside, and for some—the socially dead or the outcast, for instance—the
fantasy of that kind of transformation, although it is never complete, may be enticing and
somewhat empowering: it shows that one does not have to be fully beholden to dominant
systems to be humanized and to be seen.
This is why to be the living dead or the dead living is an act of rebellion, whether
that means choosing to become a zombie, choosing a zombie paramour, or simply, in the
face of zombies, choosing to defy gender and racial norms. It not only allows one access
to both the inside and outside of dominant systems, but it necessarily renders visible the
Title And the dead shall walk the earth: Zombies and the politics of death
Author Kee, Chera Dezarae
Author email ckee@usc.edu; ckee211@gmail.com
Degree program Cinema-Television (Cinema Critical Studies)
School School of Cinematic Arts
Advisor (committee chair) Marez, Curtis
Advisor (committee member) Kinder, Marsha
Hoskins, Janet
Abstract In October 2009, five pale, blood-stained teenagers sat on a curb in Newhall, California. They were not crime victims nor movie extras. Rather, these teens were “zombies,” waiting to participate in a Zombie Walk. These events, where groups of people dressed as zombies lumber through the streets, have been happening globally since 2001 and entice up to several thousand participants for each walk. Zombies are familiar characters in comic books, video games, television and film, but with thousands of people dressing as zombies and taking to the streets, it becomes clear that the kinds of work zombies do in U.S. culture provides insight into how we approach death, try to diffuse its potency, and use it to make political interventions into everyday life. Zombies are critical repositories of social fears and desires related to capitalist wage slavery, race, gender, and the political power of the masses, and as such, they demonstrate how representations and performances of death, in widely different forms, have served remarkably consistent functions in the United States throughout the past two centuries.; This project seeks to show that the zombie, as a creature of both/and—both slave and master, both living and dead, both black and white—is often positioned as that which invades the normative space of the living, a space that is generally conceived of in terms of whiteness, patriarchy, and heterosexuality. In forcing those who exist in this space to face a being who can encompasses both their ideals and that which their society rejects, the zombie can be used to try to support heteronormative ideals and the status quo while also undercutting those same ideals—often within the same text.; Chapter one provides a survey of zombie scholarship and describes the history of the figure in U.S. popular culture. Chapter two places zombies in their historical context, considering their ties to Vodou belief and U.S-Haitian relations. Examining travelogues, magazine articles, and official documents about Haiti circulating in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the zombie is identified as one in a long line of figures used in debates surrounding dependent territories, self-rule, and the limits of U.S. democracy. Early film zombies thus come to symbolize the paradoxes of capitalist democracy in the United States and as such, offer a potentially liberating imaginative escape from dominant systems. However, this idealistic feature of zombies is restricted by racism in early zombie films.; Chapter three considers how the zombie state in film is marked by race and gender, arguing that while the zombie can be terrifying, it also presents a fantasy of escape from white, heteronormative patriarchy. This fantasy state is often racialized, positioning blackness as more attractive than normative whiteness, and female characters frequently offer a point of identification with it. Many zombie films are therefore sites for staging conflicts over non-heteronormative desires, both promoting and punishing the transgressive and non-normative, often within the same text.; The fourth chapter considers the connection between the spectator’s relationship to images of death in 19th century presentations, like phantasmagoria shows and séances, to that same relationship in contemporary zombie video games. Arguing that certain visual technologies can encourage a sort of doubling of consciousness that empowers spectators/players, this chapter maintains that this empowerment, when placed in the context of representations of the dead-come-back-to life, allows spectators/players to enact desires that show death not as final, but as something that can be transcended, which ultimately robs the zombie of some of its inherent political potential.; The fifth chapter examines Zombie Walks. These events present a contemporary example of death being introduced into the world of the living to unsettle assumptions of how public space should be used. Public performances of zombiness disrupt the normative capitalist expectations of the spaces in which “zombies” walk while simultaneously allowing walkers to reject Western beauty ideals by dressing up as rotting, ugly corpses. In this way, zombie walkers offer an important example of the contemporary carnivalesque.; The final chapter of this project illustrates that while the zombie can stand as something that is both comforting and threatening, in either guise, it carries with it the potential of another way of imagining human society, and as such, it can represent the aspirations of any who feel that they are made over as slaves, cannibals, the infected, or the abject by their society’s standards. Thus, often, in the form of the zombie, death is not only made attractive in U.S. popular culture, it is made politically useful as well.
Keyword zombies in film; zombie video games; Zombie Walks; voodoo in film; U.S./Haiti relations; race in film; gender in film; phantasmagoria; spiritualist phenomena; zombies and the carnivalesque
Rights Kee, Chera Dezarae
Filename etd-Kee-4414
Archival file uscthesesreloadpub_Volume51/etd-Kee-4414.pdf
Full text 379 Yes, white voodoo-style zombies were never truly socially dead, and their black counterparts remain in their state of exception, but zombiism in these texts often played with issues of miscegenation and corruption in ways that actually provided a space for contemplating life outside the binaries of black and white and American and foreign. Moreover, often those using zombies were, in their own ways, social outcasts trying to claim some power from dominant systems. That they were ultimately shut down does not erase their attempt. Romero- and video game-style zombies are where the desire for the in-between becomes even more visible. In making over some zombies as sympathetic, these zombies are rescued from social death, but these rescued zombies never come to inhabit the position of non-zombie living humans. They therefore are able to occupy a position both inside and outside, and for some—the socially dead or the outcast, for instance—the fantasy of that kind of transformation, although it is never complete, may be enticing and somewhat empowering: it shows that one does not have to be fully beholden to dominant systems to be humanized and to be seen. This is why to be the living dead or the dead living is an act of rebellion, whether that means choosing to become a zombie, choosing a zombie paramour, or simply, in the face of zombies, choosing to defy gender and racial norms. It not only allows one access to both the inside and outside of dominant systems, but it necessarily renders visible the
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Category: Libraries & Demo
The magician 1926 games
Written by Kigajin on 06.12.2020 - Libraries & Demo
The Magician ( film) The Magician is a horror film directed by Rex Ingram about a magician's efforts to acquire the blood of a maiden for his experiments to create life. It was adapted by Ingram from the novel The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham. It stars Alice Terry (the director's wife), Paul Directed by: Rex Ingram. Learn how to make some tricks in this unique game! Use your mouse to point and click causing a chain of actions and reactions that will unlock another trick. - The Magician Free Online Game. Learn how to make some tricks in this unique game! Use your mouse to point and click causing a chain of actions and reactions that will unlock another trick%(K).
Directed by Rex Ingram. With Alice Terry, Paul Wegener, Firmin Gémier, Iván Petrovich. A magician/alchemist, seeking to create life, finds that he needs the. Almost 20 years later, Rex Ingram brought The Magician to the silver hero says when he first meets the sorcerer, giving the game away. A description of tropes appearing in Magician. A silent horror film directed by Rex Ingram. Margaret Dauncey (Alice Terry) is a young woman in Paris who. This finely filmed and acted obscure horror film, exploiting great imagery, was loosely based on the novel by the young Somerset Maugham. Feb 9, . W. Somerset Maugham's famous "The Magician" was crafted into a now obscure silent thriller by MGM in Produced and directed by Rex Ingram, who. The Magician is one of Ingram's more overlooked films. is in some respects ahead of the game in regards to cinematic horror, only Margaret's. The Magician is a American silent horror film directed by Rex Ingram about a magician's efforts to acquire the blood of a maiden for his experiments to. We stand behind our products and services to deliver to your doorsteps within the promised delivery window. We appreciate your business for any questions or. Satyr in The Magician, Daenerys TargaryenGame Of Thrones CharactersStatueGamesFictional CharactersSilent FilmThe MagiciansHorror Filmss.
See This Video: The magician 1926 games
Michael Powell - The Magician, time: 7:52
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CDHRVTA > Blog > News > Despite improvements, up to 1.3 million people in Somalia face acute food security Crisis
Despite improvements, up to 1.3 million people in Somalia face acute food security Crisis
February 3, 2020 Newsadmin
Source: Famine Early Warning System Network, Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit
Sustained large-scale humanitarian assistance is currently preventing more severe outcomes. Deterioration in the food security situation is expected between April and June 2020.
More than 960 000 children likely to be acutely malnourished
February 3, 2020, Mogadishu/Washington – Despite above-average national cereal crop production and improved livestock production following a largely favorable Deyr (October-December) rainy season, up to 1.3 million people across Somalia are expected to face food consumption gaps or depletion of assets indicative of Crisis (IPC Phase 3)1 or worse outcomes through mid-2020. In addition, nearly 963 000 children under the age of five are likely to be acutely malnourished through December 2020. Sustained and large-scale humanitarian assistance is currently preventing more severe outcomes in many areas. However, deterioration is expected in the food security situation between April and June 2020 in some areas where food and income sources are not expected to be sufficient to meet minimum kilocalorie requirements. Thus far, Desert Locust damages to pasture is limited and localized to central regions, as average to above average rainfall regenerated pasture and browse in most areas. Similarly, Desert Locust damages to the 2019 Deyr harvest are localized and limited to late-planted crops (milking stage). The risk of Desert Locust damages to both pasture and crops remains high and critical throughout 2020 given the ever-expanding areas affected, continued hatching and formation of hoppers and swarms. These findings reflect the outcome of the 2019 post-Deyr seasonal food security and nutrition assessment conducted across Somalia during November and December 2019. The assessment and the subsequent analyses was jointly led by the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit for Somalia (FSNAU, a project managed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET, a project funded by USAID) with the active participation of Government institutions, UN and NGO partners.
Prior to the start of the Deyr 2019 season, many poor households in northern and central Somalia were still recovering from the loss of food and income source during the severe 2016/2017 drought and the 2018/2019 drought. In addition, at least 2.6 million people in Somalia have been displaced due to conflict, drought, floods, or similar factors. Food insecurity remained elevated in late 2019 due to floods that occurred during the Deyr season, which disrupted livelihood activities, caused large-scale population displacement, and resulted in significant crop losses in riverine livelihood zones.
The 2019 Deyr rains began earlier than normal between mid-September and early October, expanding to cover most parts of the country between mid-October and early December. Overall rainfall performance in terms of amount and distribution ranged from average to 400 percent above average in southern Somalia and most of central and northern Somalia. However, excessive rainfall in October and November resulted in extreme river floods as well as flash floods, which affected 570,000 people and caused crop damage in riverine livelihood zones along the Shabelle and Juba rivers. However, favorable rainfall in rain-fed agropastoral areas has contributed to a significant increase in crop production and livestock productivity in these areas. 2019 Deyr season cereal production in southern Somalia is estimated at 113 800 tons, including 9 100 tons of off-season harvests expected in late March/early April. The total cereal harvest in southern Somalia is the largest Deyr harvest since 2016 and 16 percent higher than the long-term average for 1995-2018. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of the 2019 Deyr cereal production comes from sorghum in agropastoral livelihood zones, while the rest (27%) consists of maize, which is mainly cultivated in riverine livelihood zones. River floods and lack of farm inputs have contributed to lower maize production in riverine livelihood zones during the 2019 Deyr season. In the northwest, where favorable Karan rains in August and September improved production prospects, the 2019 Gu/Karan cereal production is estimated at 33 800 tons, which is still 19 percent below the 2010-2018 average.
Pasture, browse and water availability have improved greatly across the country. Current resources are expected to support and sustain livestock needs until the start of the Gu rains in April. In northern and central pastoral areas, where significant livestock loss occurred during the 2016/2017 drought, the availability of saleable animals has continued to gradually improve. However, many poor households are still unable to meet their minimum food needs without selling their animals to the point of endangering the sustainability of their herds and their livelihoods. Milk availability and access to milk have improved food access for a majority of pastoral households. Livestock-to-cereal terms of trade remain generally favorable, providing pastoralists with more than one bag (50kg) of cereals for the sale of one goat. Further improvements in the terms of trade are expected as market supply from the current Deyr harvest increases and places downward pressure on local cereal prices, and as livestock prices improve due to the anticipated, seasonal increase in demand in the lead up to and during the Ramadan and Hajj festivities between May and August.
Provision of emergency food assistance has continued between July and December 2019, reaching an average of 1.7 to 2 million every month according to data obtained from the Somalia Food Security Cluster. Sustained large-scale food assistance is likely preventing more severe food security outcomes in many areas. In the presence of assistance through March 2020, most of rural Somalia is classified as Stressed (IPC Phase 2). However, Addun Pastoral of central Somalia is in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) given poor households’ persistently low livestock holdings and little access to humanitarian assistance to mitigate food gaps.
Currently, an estimated 2.6 million people across Somalia remain internally displaced and highly impoverished. Deyr assessment results indicate that the 11 major Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) settlements are in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) or Stressed (IPC Phase 2) in the presence of humanitarian assistance. In most urban areas, food security outcomes are Stressed (IPC Phase 2) or Minimal (IPC Phase 1). However, households in urban areas in Burao (Toghdeer) and Kismayo (Lower Juba) regions are facing food consumption gaps and are classified as Crisis (IPC Phase 3), driven by high cost of living and limited income-earning opportunities.
In the presence of humanitarian assistance, approximately 1.1 million people are currently facing Crisis or worse (IPC Phase 3 or higher) outcomes through March 2020. An additional 2.9 million people are Stressed (IPC Phase 2), bringing the total number of people experiencing acute food insecurity to 4 million.
The consensus climate forecast released in late January by the Greater Horn of Africa Climate Outlook Forum (GHACOF54) indicates a greater likelihood of normal to above-normal rainfall performance across most of Somalia during the March to May 2019 Gu rainfall season. The rains are expected to improve pasture and water availability, crop cultivation, livestock production and reproduction, and access to agricultural employment. However, heavy rainfall could cause flooding and disruption to agricultural activities and trade flows in riverine and low-lying areas. In the far northwestern part of the country, where below average rainfall is expected, Gu season crop cultivation and livestock production and reproduction could be negatively affected.
Between April and June, food security is expected to deteriorate in some parts of northern and central Somalia, with Crisis (IPC Phase 3) outcomes expected in Guban Pastoral, East Golis Pastoral livelihood zones of Sanaag region, and Addun and Hawd Pastoral of central Somalia, as poor households with limited livestock are expected to be unable to fully meet their minimum food requirements on their own. This does not factor the potential impact of food assistance as information on planned and funded food and cash assistance through June 2020 was not available at the time of the analysis. Food security is also expected to worsen among IDPs with Crisis (IPC Phase 3) outcomes expected across most of the main IDP settlements as significant proportions of IDP households are unable to meet their minimum food needs without external assistance.
In summary, 1.3 million people across Somalia are expected to face Crisis or worse (IPC Phase 3 or higher) outcomes between April and June without sustained humanitarian assistance. An additional 2.8 million people are expected to be Stressed (IPC Phase 2), bringing the total number of people facing acute food insecurity to 4.1 million. Humanitarian assistance must be sustained through June 2020 to prevent Crisis (IPC Phase 3) or Emergency (IPC Phase 4) outcomes for 1.3 million people. Livelihoods support is also required for people that are Stressed or worse (IPC Phase 2 or higher).
High levels of acute malnutrition persist across many parts of Somalia, according to results from 48 separate nutrition surveys conducted by FSNAU and partners in November and December 2019. Contributing factors include high morbidity, low immunization and vitamin-A supplementation, and poor care practices and food insecurity. At the national level, the median prevalence of Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) in the 2019 Deyr was found to be 13.1 percent indicating a sustained Serious phase compared to 2029 Deyr (12.6.%). Morbidity remains high and vitamin A supplementation and measles vaccination remain well below the recommended SPHERE standard in most of the population groups that have high levels of acute malnutrition. Urgent treatment and nutrition support are required for approximately 963 000 children under the age of five years (total acute malnutrition burden), who will likely face acute malnutrition through December 2020, including 162 000 who are likely to be severely malnourished. Integrated interventions should be provided to support recovery and prevent deterioration in the nutrition situation.
Thus far, Desert Locust damages to pasture has been limited and localized (central regions) due to the positive impact of average to above average rainfall in improving pasture and browse across most parts of the country. Similarly, Desert Locust damages to the 2019 crop harvest has also been localized and limited to late-planted crops (milking stage) as most of the crops were planted on time or early, with farmers taking advantage of timely and favorable rainfall conditions. The latest report from FAO indicates that locusts will increase further as a new generation of breeding starts. In northeast Somalia, hopper bands are present, and swarms are laying eggs where hatching and further hopper band formation are imminent. Other swarms have been reported in southern Somalia, near the border with Kenya. Therefore, the risk of Desert Locust damage to both pasture and crops remains high and critical throughout 2020 and requires continued close monitoring and urgent scaling up of control measures given the ever-expanding areas affected, continued hatching and formation of hoppers and swarms.
The foregoing analyses did not consider significant damage of Desert Locust to pasture and crops, significant flooding, or poor rainfall performance during the 2020 Gu season as a most likely scenario. However, under scenarios in which the forthcoming April to June Gu rains perform poorly, river and flash floods cause significant damage to crop cultivation, or the ongoing Desert Locust outbreak causes significant damage to pasture and crop cultivation, the food security situation across Somalia could become worse than indicated above.
Areas and Populations of Concern Population groups classified as Crisis (IPC Phase 3) or worse require interventions aimed at reducing food consumption gaps, eradicating acute malnutrition, saving lives, and protecting and saving livelihoods.
The following are considered areas of concern and are in need of urgent nutrition and health support interventions. They currently have or are projected to have a Critical GAM prevalence, indicated by a weight-for-height z-score of 15-29.9% or by a Mid-Upper Arm Circumference below 125 mm of ≥10%: Hiraan Riverine Pump Irrigation, Hiraan Southern Agropastoral, Hiraan Southern Inland Pastoral, Riverine Gravity Irrigation of Middle and Lower Shabelle, Bay Sorghum High Potential Agropastoral, Bay Low Potential Agropastoral, Southern Inland Pastoral of Elberde district in Bakool, Juba Riverine (Pump & Gravity) Irrigation, Bosasso IDPs, Garowe IDPs, Galkacyo IDPs, Beletweyne IDPs and Urban, Baidoa IDPs, and Mogadishu IDPs.
FSNAU and FEWS NET will continue to monitor conditions and outcomes and report on the situation. All information will be made available through www.fsnau.org and www.fews.net. For more information, please contact: Alberto TrilloBarca, Communications Officer, FAO Somalia, Tel: + 252 619 154 103/+254 768 055 361, Email: Alberto.TrilloBarca@fao.org or Mike Bennett, Communications Director, Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), Email: fews.media@fews.net.
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The Changeling Canary Wharf
In 1988 work began on the Canary Wharf Development. The intention was to create an outlying extension of the City of London. Taking advantage of the area’s designation as an enterprise zone, Canary Wharf was to be exclusively a business district.
Since then, the imperatives of development have altered. No longer is it enough just to crowd together blocks of offices. Questions are being asked as the nature of modern development changes.
One Canada Square
Captivated by Colour (detail) – Camille Walala
What kind of atmosphere does the development have? Are there open spaces and greenery to encourage wellbeing?
Is the development encouraging nature – or art?
And does it attract visitors and sightseers – and residents?
Moreover, what about the remnants of the West India Docks? This dock complex started London on the way to becoming the greatest port in the world in less than a century.
This tour explores the flagship development in the regeneration of London’s redundant Dockland area. Art and nature, retail and residential – all have become a part of the mix. The changing requirements of modern development are making a changeling of Canary Wharf.
Once One Canada Square raised its shining steel presence over the East End as a beacon of the future. Now Canary Wharf is changing to match the demands that very future is making.
The story of the West India Docks features on my tour To Blackwall and Beyond
You’ll find more East End Charnowalks by clicking HERE.
Details – The Changeling Canary Wharf
MEET: At the exit for West India Dock Road, Westferry DLR Station
Finish: at the Museum of London, Docklands, by West India Quay DLR Station
Pictures © 2020 David Charnick
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Level set methods: An overview and some recent results, (2001)
by S Osher, R Fedkiw
Venue: Journal of Computational Physics
A Multiphase Level Set Framework for Image Segmentation Using the Mumford and Shah Model
by Luminita A. Vese, Tony F. Chan - INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMPUTER VISION , 2002
"... We propose a new multiphase level set framework for image segmentation using the Mumford and Shah model, for piecewise constant and piecewise smooth optimal approximations. The proposed method is also a generalization of an active contour model without edges based 2-phase segmentation, developed by ..."
We propose a new multiphase level set framework for image segmentation using the Mumford and Shah model, for piecewise constant and piecewise smooth optimal approximations. The proposed method is also a generalization of an active contour model without edges based 2-phase segmentation, developed by the authors earlier in T. Chan and L. Vese (1999. In Scale-Space'99, M. Nilsen et al. (Eds.), LNCS, vol. 1682, pp. 141--151) and T. Chan and L. Vese (2001. IEEE-IP, 10(2):266--277). The multiphase level set formulation is new and of interest on its own: by construction, it automatically avoids the problems of vacuum and overlap; it needs only log n level set functions for n phases in the piecewise constant case; it can represent boundaries with complex topologies, including triple junctions; in the piecewise smooth case, only two level set functions formally suffice to represent any partition, based on The Four-Color Theorem. Finally, we validate the proposed models by numerical results for signal and image denoising and segmentation, implemented using the Osher and Sethian level set method.
A Hybrid Particle Level Set Method for Improved Interface Capturing
by Douglas Enright, Ronald Fedkiw, Joel Ferziger, Ian Mitchell - J. Comput. Phys , 2002
"... In this paper, we propose a new numerical method for improving the mass conservation properties of the level set method when the interface is passively advected in a flow field. Our method uses Lagrangian marker particles to rebuild the level set in regions which are under-resolved. This is ofte ..."
In this paper, we propose a new numerical method for improving the mass conservation properties of the level set method when the interface is passively advected in a flow field. Our method uses Lagrangian marker particles to rebuild the level set in regions which are under-resolved. This is often the case for flows undergoing stretching and tearing. The overall method maintains a smooth geometrical description of the interface and the implementation simplicity characteristic of the level set method. Our method compares favorably with volume of fluid methods in the conservation of mass and purely Lagrangian schemes for interface resolution. The method is presented in three spatial dimensions.
...ication of level set methods to a wide variety of problems including fluid mechanics, combustion, computer vision, and materials science is discussed in the recent review articles by Osher and Fedkiw =-=[20]-=- and Sethian [34] as well as the recent books of Osher and Fedkiw [21] and Sethian [33]. The great success of level set methods (and other Eulerian methods) can be attributed to the role of curvature ...
Filling Holes In Complex Surfaces Using Volumetric Diffusion
by Steve Marschner, James Davis, Matt Garr, Marc Levoy , 2001
"... We address the problem of building watertight 3D models from surfaces that contain holes---for example, sets of range scans that observe most but not all of a surface. We specifically address situations in which the holes are too geometrically and topologically complex to fill using triangulation al ..."
We address the problem of building watertight 3D models from surfaces that contain holes---for example, sets of range scans that observe most but not all of a surface. We specifically address situations in which the holes are too geometrically and topologically complex to fill using triangulation algorithms. Our solution begins by constructing a signed distance function, the zero set of which defines the surface. Initially, this function is defined only in the vicinity of observed surfaces. We then apply a diffusion process to extend this function through the volume until its zero set bridges whatever holes may be present. If additional information is available, such as known-empty regions of space inferred from the lines of sight to a 3D scanner, it can be incorporated into the diffusion process. Our algorithm is simple to implement, is guaranteed to produce manifold non-interpenetrating surfaces, and is efficient to run on large datasets because computation is limited to areas near holes. By showing results for complex range scans, we demonstrate that our algorithm produces hole-free surfaces that are plausible, visually acceptable, and usually close to the intended geometry.
Fast surface reconstruction using the level set method
by Hong-kai Zhao, Stanley Oshery, Ronald Fedkiwz - In VLSM ’01: Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on Variational and Level Set Methods , 2001
"... In this paper we describe new formulations and develop fast algorithms for implicit surface reconstruction based on variational and partial differential equation (PDE) methods. In particular we use the level set method and fast sweeping and tagging methods to reconstruct surfaces from scattered data ..."
In this paper we describe new formulations and develop fast algorithms for implicit surface reconstruction based on variational and partial differential equation (PDE) methods. In particular we use the level set method and fast sweeping and tagging methods to reconstruct surfaces from scattered data set. The data set might consist of points, curves and/or surface patches. A weighted minimal surface-like model is constructed and its variational level set formulation is implemented with optimal efficiency. The reconstructed surface is smoother than piecewise linear and has a natural scaling in the regularization that allows varying flexibility according to the local sampling density. As is usual with the level set method we can handle complicated topology and deformations, as well as noisy or highly non-uniform data sets easily. The method is based on a simple rectangular grid, although adaptive and triangular grids are also possible. Some consequences, such as hole filling capability, are demonstrated, as well as the viability and convergence of our new fast tagging algorithm.
... Sethian in [23] to capture moving interfaces and has been used quite successfully in moving interface and free boundary problems as well as in image processing, image segmentation and elsewhere. See =-=[22]-=- for a comprehensive review. Two key steps for the level set method are: (1) Embed the surface: we represent a surface?as the zero isocontour of a scalar (level set) function(x), i.e.?=fx:(x)=0g. Geom...
Ordered Upwind Methods for Static Hamilton-Jacobi Equations: Theory and Algorithms
by James A. Sethian, Alexander Vladimirsky , 2003
"... We develop a family of fast methods for approximating the solutions to a wide class of static Hamilton–Jacobi PDEs; these fast methods include both semi-Lagrangian and fully Eulerian versions. Numerical solutions to these problems are typically obtained by solving large systems of coupled nonlinear ..."
We develop a family of fast methods for approximating the solutions to a wide class of static Hamilton–Jacobi PDEs; these fast methods include both semi-Lagrangian and fully Eulerian versions. Numerical solutions to these problems are typically obtained by solving large systems of coupled nonlinear discretized equations. Our techniques, which we refer to as “Ordered Upwind Methods” (OUMs), use partial information about the characteristic directions to decouple these nonlinear systems, greatly reducing the computational labor. Our techniques are considered in the context of control-theoretic and front-propagation problems. We begin by discussing existing OUMs, focusing on those designed for isotropic problems. We then introduce a new class of OUMs which decouple systems for general (anisotropic) problems. We prove convergence of one such scheme to the viscosity solution of the corresponding Hamilton–Jacobi PDE. Next, we introduce a set of finite-differences methods based on an analysis of the role played by anisotropy in the context of front propagation and optimal trajectory problems. The performance of the methods is analyzed, and computational experiments are performed using test problems from computational geometry and seismology.
Fast Sweeping Algorithms for a Class of Hamilton-Jacobi Equations
by Yen-hsi Richard Tsai, Li-tien Cheng, Stanley Osher, Hong-kai Zhao - SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis , 2003
"... We derive a Godunov-type numerical flux for the class of strictly convex, homogeneous Hamiltonians that includes H(p, q) = � ap 2 + bq 2 − 2cpq, c 2 < ab. We combine our Godunov numerical fluxes with simple Gauss-Seidel type iterations for solving the corresponding Hamilton-Jacobi Equations. Th ..."
We derive a Godunov-type numerical flux for the class of strictly convex, homogeneous Hamiltonians that includes H(p, q) = � ap 2 + bq 2 − 2cpq, c 2 < ab. We combine our Godunov numerical fluxes with simple Gauss-Seidel type iterations for solving the corresponding Hamilton-Jacobi Equations. The resulting algorithm is fast since it does not require a sorting strategy as found, e.g., in the fast marching method. In addition, it provides a way to compute solutions to a class of HJ equations for which the conventional fast marching method is not applicable. Our experiments indicate convergence after a few iterations, even in rather difficult cases. 1
...on Hamilton-Jacobi equations have a rich pool of applications, ranging from those of optimal control theory, geometrical optics, to essentially any problem that needs the (weighted) distance function =-=[13]-=-. Examples include crystal growth, ray tracing, etching, robotic motion planning , and computer vision. Solutions of these types of equations usually develop singularities in their derivatives, and th...
Level set surface editing operators
by Ken Museth, Alan H. Barr - SIGGRAPH , 2002
"... Figure 1: Surfaces edited with level set operators. Left: A damaged Greek bust model is repaired with a new nose, chin and sharpened hair. Right: A new model is constructed from models of a griffin and dragon (small figures), producing a two-headed, winged dragon. We present a level set framework fo ..."
Figure 1: Surfaces edited with level set operators. Left: A damaged Greek bust model is repaired with a new nose, chin and sharpened hair. Right: A new model is constructed from models of a griffin and dragon (small figures), producing a two-headed, winged dragon. We present a level set framework for implementing editing oper-ators for surfaces. Level set models are deformable implicit sur-faces where the deformation of the surface is controlled by a speed function in the level set partial differential equation. In this paper we define a collection of speed functions that produce a set of sur-face editing operators. The speed functions describe the velocity at each point on the evolving surface in the direction of the sur-face normal. All of the information needed to deform a surface is encapsulated in the speed function, providing a simple, unified computational framework. The user combines pre-defined building blocks to create the desired speed function. The surface editing op-erators are quickly computed and may be applied both regionally and globally. The level set framework offers several advantages. 1) By construction, self-intersection cannot occur, which guarantees the generation of physically-realizable, simple, closed surfaces. 2) Level set models easily change topological genus, and 3) are free of the edge connectivity and mesh quality problems associated with mesh models. We present five examples of surface editing opera-tors: blending, smoothing, sharpening, openings/closings and em-bossing. We demonstrate their effectiveness on several scanned ob-jects and scan-converted models.
Rapid and Accurate Computation of the Distance Function Using Grids
by Yen-hsi Richard Tsai - J. Comput. Phys , 2002
"... We present two fast and simple algorithms for approximating the distance function for given isolated points on uniform grids. The algorithms are then generalized to compute the distance to piecewise linear objects. By incorporating the geometry of Huygens ’ principle in the reverse order with the cl ..."
We present two fast and simple algorithms for approximating the distance function for given isolated points on uniform grids. The algorithms are then generalized to compute the distance to piecewise linear objects. By incorporating the geometry of Huygens ’ principle in the reverse order with the classical viscosity solution theory for the eikonal equation |∇u|=1, the algorithms become almost purely algebraic and yield very accurate approximations. The generalized closest point formulation used in the second algorithm provides a framework for further extension to compute the distance accurately to smooth geometric objects on different grid geometries, without the construction of the Voronoi diagrams. This method provides a fast and simple translator of data commonly given in computational geometry to the volumetric representation used in level set methods. c ○ 2002 Elsevier Science (USA) 1.
...efined to be the smallest Euclidean distance of x to the points in K . Fast and accurate computation of the distance function is an important step in many applications. For example, level set methods =-=[14]-=- rely heavily on it to represent an interface, and in particular to keep the level set function well behaved during time evolution. In the surface interpolation model of [28], a surface interpolating ...
Level set based shape prior segmentation
by Tony Chan - In Proc. CVPR’05 , 2005
"... We propose a level set based variational approach that incorporates shape priors into Chan-Vese’s model [3] for the shape prior segmentation problem. In our model, besides the level set function for segmentation, as in Cremers’ work [5], we introduce another labelling level set function to indicate ..."
We propose a level set based variational approach that incorporates shape priors into Chan-Vese’s model [3] for the shape prior segmentation problem. In our model, besides the level set function for segmentation, as in Cremers’ work [5], we introduce another labelling level set function to indicate the regions on which the prior shape should be compared. Our model can segment an object, whose shape is similar to the given prior shape, from a background where there are several objects. Moreover, we provide a proof for a fast solution principle, which was mentioned [7] and similar to the one proposed in [19], for minimizing Chan-Vese’s segmentation model without length term. We extend the principle to the minimization of our prescribed functionals. 1.
...tion: À Ü � � � x�0 � x�0, and �� is a parameter that describes how large the length of the boundaries is permitted, since the term Ê ª �ÖÀ � � just represents the length of zero level set of � ( see =-=[14]-=- ). In [5], Cremers et al. adopted Paragios et al.’s method [16] to represent a shape. Let � be the level set function for segmentation, and � be the one embedding a given shape. Both are signed dista...
Approximation with Active B-spline Curves and Surfaces
by Helmut Pottmann, Stefan Leopoldseder, Michael Hofer , 2002
"... An active contour model for parametric curve and surface approximation is presented. The active curve or surface adapts to the model shape to be approximated in an optimization algorithm. The quasi-Newton optimization procedure in each iteration step minimizes a quadratic function which is built up ..."
An active contour model for parametric curve and surface approximation is presented. The active curve or surface adapts to the model shape to be approximated in an optimization algorithm. The quasi-Newton optimization procedure in each iteration step minimizes a quadratic function which is built up with help of local quadratic approximants of the squared distance function of the model shape and an internal energy which has a smoothing and regularization effect. The approach completely avoids the parametrization problem. We also show how to use a similar strategy for the solution of variational problems for curves on surfaces. Examples are the geodesic path connecting two points on a surface and interpolating or approximating spline curves on surfaces. Finally we indicate how the latter topic leads to the variational design of smooth motions which interpolate or approximate given positions. 1.
...contour of the signed distance function as the reconstructed implicit surface [1, 4]. The formulation of active contour models via level sets goes back to Osher and Sethian [42]. The level set method =-=[41, 53]-=- has been successfully applied to the solution of a variety of problems, e.g. for segmentation and analysis of medical images [36]. There are also several extensions to surfaces. An application to the...
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Gorillaz share statement on systemic racism: “White supremacy must end”
Gorillaz have shared a statement on systematic racism.
The Damon Albarn-fronted project, comprised of members 2-D, Murdoc, Noodle, and Russel, shared the statement addressing systematic racism via Instagram, in response to the death of George Floyd.
“Gorillaz are enraged at the death of George Floyd and many before him at the hands of systemic racism and police brutality,” the statement read. “It’s time to be the change and play an active part in the fight for justice and equality.”
George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man from Minnesota, was killed by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, on Monday 25th May. Footage of the arrest shows Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes, ignoring him as he repeatedly pleads, “I can’t breathe”.
See the full statement from Gorillaz below.
Earlier this month, Jay-Z issued a statement calling on politicans to bring those responsible for the death of George Floyd to justice.
Gorillaz are enraged at the death of George Floyd and many before him at the hands of systemic racism and police brutality. It’s time to be the change and play an active part in the fight for justice and equality. White supremacy must end. Black Lives Matter. Listen. Learn. Take action. More to follow. #bethechange #blacklivesmatter
A post shared by Gorillaz (@gorillaz) on Jun 3, 2020 at 2:34am PDT
Electronic artists and fans are among the hundreds to have donated to organisations and funds in aid of protesters in Minneapolis and black community initiatives following the killing of George Floyd.
Below, you will find some links to organisations/fundraisers you can donate to:
The George Floyd Memorial Fund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd
Black Visions Collective (BLVC): https://www.blackvisionsmn.org/
#JusticeforFloyd: https://act.colorofchange.org/sign/justiceforfloyd_george_floyd_minneapolis
The Minnesota Freedom Fund: https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/donate
Black Lives Matter: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ms_blm_homepage_2019
Reclaim the Block: https://secure.everyaction.com/zae4prEeKESHBy0MKXTIcQ2
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People & Planet: Biodiversity Loss and Wildlife
May 18, 2020 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
« People & Planet: Planetary Health
[Virtual Event] Probable Meets Possible: Bio-inspired futures rooted in the right now »
This People & Planet conversation brings together experts including Grace Ge Gabriel, Regional Director — Asia, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW); Dominic Travis, of the Department of Veterinary Population Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Minnesota; John Vidal, international journalist and former environment editor at the Guardian; and moderator Todd Reubold, Associate Director, IonE and Publisher, Ensia, to discuss the intersection of biodiversity loss, the global wildlife trade and the emergence of infectious diseases. The discussion will tackle questions such as:
What do we know about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic?
Where are the global hot spots for future outbreaks?
What role does the wildlife trade — both legal and illegal — play in the spread of infectious diseases?
What can be done to prepare for or prevent the next COVID-19 crisis?
RSVP here via Eventbrite to reserve your ticket and access the Zoom link!
I registered to attend this event. When will I get the Zoom link?
You will be notified when the digital link is added to your ticket. You can access the Zoom link by going to your ticket on Eventbrite (Menu: Tickets. Then, click on your ticket for this event). There is a button for “View Links” on your ticket page. This will bring you to another page with instructions, the webinar at the bottom of the page, and the Zoom link.
Will I be able to call in to the webinar?
We will be offering the option to join the webinar over the phone. Please contact ioneevents@umn.edu for further details.
How can I contact the organizer with any questions?
Please contact Events Manager, Kimberly Long (longx296@umn.edu).
http://environment.umn.edu/people-planet-conversation-series
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Poverty, protest and sport: poaching in the East Midlands c.1820-1900
Muge, Rosemary (2018) Poverty, protest and sport: poaching in the East Midlands c.1820-1900. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
PDF (Thesis - as examined) - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
In the East Midlands counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire levels of poaching equalled or exceeded those in many counties which are thought of as prime poaching areas.Using principally Criminal Registers, Game Laws Returns to Parliament, and local newspapers of the period, this study shows that people poached from three motives: because they were poor; because poaching was a sport; and as a protest. Day and night poachers,including night poaching gangs frequently involved in affrays, pursued their activities undeterred by the efforts at prevention of the landowners, police and courts. Poaching here was predominantly for ground game and declined in the last quarter of the century, but continued to be a source of anger and frustration for game preservers and the authorities to the end of this period. The poaching war in these counties, waged in an area with large aristocratic estates but where extreme game preservation was viewed critically, was not perceived as impacting on law and order in general. This was unlike Lancashire, where the activities of poachers were regarded as being a threat to the fabric of society. The causes of these differences between the East Midlands and Lancashire were rooted in police practice, attitudes to game preservation, and differences in gentry sport and hunting.
Beckett, John
Gaunt, Richard
Nineteenth century poaching; east midlands; social history
D History - General and Old World > DA Great Britain
S Agriculture > SK Hunting sports
UK Campuses > Faculty of Arts > School of History
Muge, Rosemary
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Press Review April 8, 2005
Murphy’s Law Strikes Pulitzer Again
By Mark Ames Browse author Email
If there are any doubts left whether or not the Pulitzer Prize is as fundamentally corrupt and wrong-minded as the Oscars, then the recent awarding to Kim Murphy, the Los Angeles Times' correspondent here in Moscow, makes it painfully obvious.
To see why, start with the LA Times' comic description of why "Bigfoot" Murphy, as she is known by her colleagues, won the Pulitzer: "The veteran reporter's stories were driven, according to the Times' nomination, by a 'restless curiosity' that took her from the resurgent jazz clubs of Moscow ('Did Stalin have a boogie soul?' she wondered) to the oil boomtown of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (a place, she wrote, that 'Russia wears like a holstered gun on its eastern hip')."
So in her best and most restlessly curious moments, Murphy boldly visited Moscow's few jazz clubs--that is, clubs that play 100-year-old American music. And she came away from that experience by firing off a Pulitzer-pleasing zinger about Stalin's "boogie soul," a question as profoundly funny as anything ever quipped on The King of Queens--if that show ever decided to make light of Stalin's holocaust, that is. As you'll see, "Bigfoot" Murphy has a history of, shall we say, showing us that Holocausters are people too.
The oddest thing about the LA Times' article congratulating its Pulitzer-winning staffers is that it's just factually wrong. In the first place, Murphy used her holstered-gun metaphor to describe the shape of Sakhalin Island, and not the city Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Not that the analogy makes any more sense when applied to Sakhalin. In purely representational terms, Sakhalin looks nothing at all like a holstered gun--for one thing, there's no gun handle, just a long turd-shaped island. If Murphy had a grasp of real metaphor, she would have written, "Russia wears Sakhalin like a wet turd that it can't shake from its ass because it's too drunk to wipe properly." If that wouldn't qualify as "eloquent," then at least she could have opted for accuracy and written that Sakhalin is a place that "Russia wears like a holstered gun whose handle was mysteriously removed for the sake of my eloquent metaphor."
Murphy is to be commended for covering all of the big Russia stories of the last year, effected with all of the safe centrism expected of an "objective" American journalist. Indeed "Bigfoot" Murphy may go down in local legend as the most prolific American correspondent ever to work the Moscow beat. While nearly all writers, particularly talented writers, tend to suffer through every article, always missing deadline and skipping entire assignments in a screeching sweat-bath of whiny mental anguish, Murphy is an editor's dream. She moves the chains, three yards and a cloud of dirt, every time.
Her editor at the LA Times, Marjorie Miller, said as much: "She is so incredibly dogged and so good at what she does and has what I always think of as news in her blood," Miller told colleagues at an evening reception. "She just knows where to go and how to get there ahead of everyone else." If Chechens take hostages, she's there to cover the story. If there's no terror for a few weeks, she's at the jazz clubs waxing poetically about Stalin's wacky dance moves. She can even forge something as seemingly banal as weather into an article, as demonstrated in her January 14th, 2005 piece, "Hot and Bothered, Russians' Patience Melts With the Snow." In it, she quotes several Russians complaining about the weather. What a scoop! Russians complaining about weather! Yup, she's got news in her blood all right.
Separated at stable?
Popular TV horse Mr. Ed...
...and prolific media whore Kim Murphy?
Pages: Previous 1 2 Next
Browse author Email Mark Ames at editor@exile.ru.
Film Review: Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay :
Mother Russia Wins Again : A ringside seat at the first-ever Mrs. World pageant in Russia!
13 Scary Scenarios : Why 2008 is going to be the scariest year ever!
Eleven Years of Threats: The eXile's Incredible Journey : In a nation terrorized by its own government, one newspaper dared to fart in its face
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Creative catamorphisms
The bag of programming tricks that has served us so well for the last 50 years is the wrong way to think going forward and must be thrown out.
Last week, Guy Steele came in and did a guest lecture "The Future is Parallel: What's a Programmer to Do?" for my advanced symbolic class (6.945). It's a really excellent talk; such an excellent talk that I had seen the slides for prior to the talk. However hearing Guy Steele talk about it in person really helped set things in context for me.
One of the central points of the talk is the call for more creative catamorphisms. Well, what is a creative catamorphism? To answer this question, we first have to understand what a catamorphism is. The functional programming crowd is well familiar with a few relatively banal examples of the catamorphism, namely the left fold and the right fold. One way to think about folds is simply a "level of abstraction" above a loop one might write in an imperative language. Another way to think of the fold is replacing the type constructor for the list (the cons or : operation) with another function, as seen in Cale Gibbard's excellent diagrams:
The point of the catamorphism is that this doesn't need to apply just to lists; in fact, we can run a catamorphism on any recursive data structure! Just make a function for each constructor in the type, with the appropriate arity (so a ternary tree would require functions that take three arguments, and so forth), and let her rip! This is vitally important because the old left and right fold are the "wrong way to think"; by the very nature of their structure they require you to evaluate sequentially. But set things up in a binary tree, and you can evaluate all the subtrees first before combining them at the end.
So what is a creative catamorphism? It's when the original recursive data structure doesn't map cleanly on to the atoms that your computation wants to deal with. The example Guy Steele discusses in his talk is the time honored task of breaking a string into its words. A string is merely a list of characters, which only lets us handle it character by character (traditional sequential), or a naive transformation into a binary tree, which only gives us efficient bisection (parallelizable). The trouble with naive bisection is that it might split in the middle of the word, so our combining function has to account for this case. How to deal with this is left as an exercise for the reader (or you can go read the slides.)
In fact, this was the critical moment when I understood the global reasoning behind what Edward Kmett was talking about when he gave his (in my opinion pretty crazy) talk on "A Parallel Parsing Trifecta: Iteratees, Parsec, and Monoids". The goal of this code is to massively parallelize parsing by splitting up the input document into chunks and then recombining them with the parsing function. He has to deal with the same problems that showed up in the toy example in Steele's talk, and he pulls out all sorts of tricks to get things pumping.
I will admit, the work is complicated, and at times, it feels like overkill. But it's a brave new parallel world, and it's time we fully explore the designs and implications of it. With any luck, we will be able to write parallel programs as naturally we can write sequential programs, but it's a long way getting there.
Update (2013-05-21). Oleg writes in to tell me that there is actually a name for these types of tricks: an almost homomorphism. It is not surprising to see that the work described in the Skepara project collaborated with Guy Steele and the Fortress project; it is well worth checking out for a calculational approach for deriving these catamorphisms.
Haskell, Programming
One Response to “Creative catamorphisms”
Edward Kmett says:
Guy gave a similar talk at NEPLS a while back, which is what actually kickstarted my thinking about monoidal parsing.
Up until that point I’d been using monoids and groups to define traversals over distributed data structures, but the records there were much larger than the single characters involved in parsing problems. ;)
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Facebook ... Face Recognition Woes
Facebook is in the news yet again, this time for having to face a class action lawsuit for allegedly gathering biometric information without users' explicit consent, via facial recognition technology.
What Facial Recognition Technology?
A facial recognition technology feature in Facebook’s platform suggests who might be present in uploaded photos, based on an existing database of faces, and uses "tag suggestions" technology.
The feature works by trying to detect any faces in an uploaded photo, standardises and aligns those faces for size and direction, then, for each face, Facebook computes a face signature which is a mathematical representation of the face in that photo. Finally, the face signatures are run through a stored database of user face templates to look for similar matches
What’s The Problem?
The problem in legal terms is that the software allegedly gathers (and presumably stores) biometric information about individuals i.e. makes and stores face templates of them, without them giving their explicit consent for it to do so. This sounds as though it may breach Illinois state law - this is the state from which the class of people in the lawsuit question is made up.
The court order is reported to apply to Facebook users in Illinois for whom Facebook created and stored a face template after 7 June 2011.
What Are The Chances?
Although Facebook reportedly intends to fight the case and believes that it has no merit, the fact that the judge, James Donato, has ruled to certify a class of Facebook users, and has said that Facebook could be expecting billions in statutory damages, does not appear to bode well for Facebook.
Not Available Here
Privacy regulations mean that the facial recognition and tagging feature is not available in Europe or Canada, and can be turned off in settings for US users.
Facebook also said back in December 2017 that users would be notified if a picture of them was uploaded by someone else, even if they hadn't been tagged in it.
Hearing In A Crowd Technology Developed By Google
Just as Facebook appears to be in trouble over voice technology, Google has announced that its research team has just developed technology that can recognise individual voices in a crowd, just as a human can.
The tech giant has made a demonstration video for the technology. The video shows how, with lots of people talking at once in a room, a user can select a particular face and hear the soundtrack of just that person. Users of this technology can also select the context of a conversation, and only references to that conversation are played, even if more than one person in the room is discussing that subject matter.
The AI technology behind the feature was developed using data collated from 100,000 videos of lectures and training videos on YouTube.
With GDPR on the way, the case against Facebook's voice recognition technology is another reminder of how businesses need to get to grips with the sometimes complicated area of consent. Video images and face templates of individual faces are also likely to qualify as personal data that consent for collection and storage will be needed for under GDPR. Privacy, as well as security, is a right that is getting even greater protection in law.
The technology from Google that can recognise individual voices, and can follow individual conversations in crowds could unlock valuable business opportunities in e.g. improving the function and scope of hearing aids, or improving video conferencing tools by enabling them to take place in the middle of an office space rather than only in a separate, soundproofed meeting room (provided other visual distractions are minimised). It seems that new technology is beginning to be developed to help tackle age-old human challenges.
GDPR: Don’t Get Caught Out By Your Logfiles
Martin Lewis Fights Facebook In Court
WhatsApp Raises Age To 16 For GDPR
Half of UK Manufacturers Hit By Cyber Attacks
New Google ‘Chat’ SMS Message Replacement Rollout ...
Russia Suspected of Hacking Campaign
UK Launched Major Cyber Attack Against ISIS
Phishing Attack Simulator : Microsoft Goodies
Google, The Law and Your 'Right To Be Forgotten'
Facebook Notifies People Affected By Scandal
Digital Number Plates
1 In 10 Fooled By Social Engineering Attacks
Killer Bot Boycott
Apple Claims 100% Renewable Energy At All Data Cen...
Wearable Tech Could Help Solve Murder
Half Of Households Have Broadband Problems
Robots Not Coming For Your Job Just Yet, Says Report
Apple Hire’s Google’s AI Chief To Help Boost Siri
UK Universities Are Cryptojacking Targets
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Posts Tagged Women of Color
By Tiffany Diane Tso • 2 years ago
Moving Forward: Wrapping Up A Roundtable On Asian American Feminism
Over dinner one night, a group of New York-based Asian organizers, activists and scholars gathered to discuss the questions: “Is Asian American Feminism necessary?” and “Am I part of Asian American Feminism?”
By Amanda R. Matos • 2 years ago
Supreme Court Case Threatens Unions and Women of Color
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments for Janus v. AFSCME, a case that could disrupt the financial sustainability of union organizing in at least 22 states.
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments for Janus v. AFSCME, a case that could disrupt the financial sustainability of union organizing in at least 22 statesRead More
By Nia Evans • 3 years ago
Dear Betsy DeVos: Fighting for Survivors of Sexual Violence Is a Racial Justice Fight
For the past few months, I’ve seen several articles — almost exclusively written by white women — arguing that we shouldn’t enforce Title IX protections for survivors of sexual assault because the authors believe Black men are more likely to be accused. The narrative has been picked up by numerous media outlets and used by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to strip protections for survivors.
The idea that survivors’ rights are a threat to Black men leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
For the past few months, I’ve seen several articles — almost exclusively written by white women — arguing that we shouldn’t enforce Title IX protections for survivors of sexual assault because the authors ...
By Barbara Sostaita • 3 years ago
Five Gloria Anzaldúa Quotes to Inspire Your Resistance
Gloria Anzaldúa, feminist, queer, disabled, Chicana writer and activist, would’ve turned 75 today.
By Brianna Suslovic • 3 years ago
Police Officer Comforts White Woman by Saying “We Only Kill Black People”
Dashcam footage released last week shows a Georgia police officer telling a passenger during a traffic stop that cops “only shoot black people.” The video isn’t just a bad joke caught on camera. It reveals layers of historical and present police violence against black people – often in the name of making white women feel safe.
Dashcam footage released last week shows a Georgia police officer telling a passenger during a traffic stop that cops “only shoot black people.” The video isn’t just a bad joke caught on camera. ...
New Webseries Is the Intersectional Handmaid’s Tale We’ve Been Waiting For
Have a minute to spare? Looking for a new Instagram account to follow? One that also happens to be a webseries? @MENACEseries has you covered.
By tierney • 3 years ago
We Need to Fix Racism in Our Institutions, Not Black Hair
This month, we witnessed several instances in which black students were punished for wearing natural or black hairstyles to school. A Boston charter school gave multiple detentions to 15-year-old twin sisters who came to school with box braids, arguing that their hair extensions broke the school’s dress code. As punishment, the twins were pulled from their sports teams and banned from prom. In Florida, 17-year-old Jenesis Johnson was called to the assistant principal’s office and told that her afro was “extreme,” “faddish” and “needed to be fixed.”
This month, we witnessed several instances in which black students were punished for wearing natural or black hairstyles to school. A Boston charter school gave multiple detentions to 15-year-old ...
By Senti Sojwal • 3 years ago
The Feministing Five: Fatimah Asghar
Brown Girls is the web series everyone’s been talking about.
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The Age of Imperial Wars: From Regional War, “Regime Change” to Global Warfare
2015 has become a year of living dangerously.
Wars are spreading across the globe.
Wars are escalating as new countries are bombed and the old are ravaged with ever greater intensity.
Countries, where relatively peaceful changes had taken place through recent elections, are now on the verge of civil wars.
These are wars without victors, but plenty of losers; wars that don’t end; wars where imperial occupations are faced with prolonged resistance.
There are never-ending torrents of war refugees flooding across borders. Desperate people are detained, degraded and criminalized for being the survivors and victims of imperial invasions.
Now major nuclear powers face off in Europe and Asia: NATO versus Russia, US-Japan versus China. Will these streams of blood and wars converge into one radiated wilderness drained of its precious life blood?
Living Dangerously: The Rising Tide of Violent Conflicts
There is no question that wars and military threats have replaced diplomacy, negotiations and democratic elections as the principal means of resolving political conflicts. Throughout the present year (2015) wars have spread across borders and escalated in intensity.
The NATO allies, US, Turkey and the EU have openly attacked Syria with air strikes and ground troops. There are plans to occupy the northern sector of that ravaged country, creating what the Erdogan regime dubs a ‘buffer zone’ cleansed of its people and villages.
Under the pretext of ‘fighting ISIS’, the Turkish government is bombing Kurds (civilians and resistance fighters) and their Syrian allies. On Syria’s southern border, US Special Forces have accelerated and expanded operations from their bases in Jordan on behalf of the mercenary terrorists – funded by the monarchist Gulf States.
Over 4 million Syrians have fled their homes as refugees and over 200,000 have been killed since the US-EU-Turkey-Saudi-sponsored war against the secular Syrian government was launched four years ago.
Dozens of terrorist, mercenary and sectarian groups have carved up Syria into rival fiefdoms, pillaged its economic and cultural resources and reduced the economy by over ninety percent.
The US-EU-Turkish military intervention extends the war into Iraq, Lebanon and…. Turkey – attacking secular governments, ethnic minority groups and secular civil society.
The feudal, monarchist Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have invaded Yemen with tanks, launching air strikes against a country without any air defenses. Major cities and towns are devastated. Saudi ground troops and armored carriers are killing and wounding thousands – mostly civilians. The brutal Saudi air and sea blockade of Yemen’s ports have led to a humanitarian crisis, as ten million Yemenis face starvation deliberately imposed by a grotesque and obscenely rich monarchy.
The Yemeni resistance fighters, driven out of the major cities, are preparing for prolonged guerrilla warfare against the Saudi monsters and their puppets. Their resistance has already spread across the frontiers of the absolutist Saudi dictatorship.
The brutal Israeli occupation troops, in collaboration with armed ‘settler’ colonists, have accelerated their violent seizure of Palestinian lands. They have stepped up the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, Bedouins, Druze and Christian inhabitants replacing their communities with racist ‘Jews-only’ colonial settlements.
Daily assaults against the huge ‘concentration camps’ of Gaza accompany an armed blockade of land, air and water, preventing the reconstruction of the tens of thousands of homes, schools, hospital, factories and infrastructure, destroyed by last year’s Israeli blitzkrieg.
Israel’s continued annexation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian territory precludes any diplomatic process; colonial wars have been and continue to be Israel’s policy of choice in dealing with its Arab neighbors and captive populations.
Africa’s wars, resulting from earlier US-EU interventions, continue to ravage-the Continent. Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Libya are riven by bloody conflicts between US-EU backed regimes and armed Islamic and nationalist resistance movements.
Throughout North and Sub-Sahara Africa, US-EU backed regimes have provoked armed upheavals in Libya, Nigeria (Boko Harem), Egypt (ISIS, Moslem Brotherhood et al), Chad, Niger, South Sudan, Somalia and elsewhere.
Imperial client Egyptian and Ethiopian dictators rule with iron fists – financed and armed by their EU and US sponsors.
Imperial wars rage throughout the Middle East and South Asia. Hundreds of experienced Baathist Iraqi military officers, who had been expelled or jailed and tortured by the US Occupation army, have now made common cause with Islamist fighters to form ISIS and effectively occupy a third of Iraq and a strategic swath of Syria.
There are daily bombings in Baghdad undermining its US client. Strategic advances by ISIS are forcing the US to resume and escalate its direct combat role
The US-Baghdad retreat and the defeat of the US-trained Iraqi military in the face of the Baathist-Islamist offensive is the opening salvo of a long-term, large-scale war in Iraq and Syria. The Turkish air-war against the Kurds in Iraq will escalate the war in Northern Iraq and extend it into southeast Turkey.
Closer to ‘home’, the EU-US-backed coup (‘regime change’) in Kiev and the attempt to impose dictatorial-pro-West oligarchic rule in Ukraine have detonated a prolonged civil-national war devastating the country and pitting NATO’s proxies against Russian-backed allies in the Donbas.
US, England, Poland and other NATO powers are deeply committed to pushing war right up to Russia’s borders.
There is a new Cold War, with the imposition of wide-ranging US-EU economic sanctions against Russia and the organizing of major NATO military exercises on Russia’s doorsteps. It is no surprise that these provocations are met with a major counter-response – the Russian military build-up. The NATO power grab in Ukraine, which first led to a local ethnic war, now escalates to a global confrontation and may move toward a nuclear confrontation as Russia absorbs hundreds of thousands of refugees from the slaughter in Ukraine.
The US puppet regime in Afghanistan has faced a major advance of the Taliban in all regions, including the capital, Kabul.
The Afghan war is intensifying and the US-backed Kabul regime is in retreat. US troops can scarcely advance beyond their bunkers.
As the Taliban military advances, its leaders demand total surrender of the Kabul puppets and the withdrawal of US troops. The US response will be a prolonged escalation of war.
Pakistan, bristling with US arms, faces a major conflict along its borders with India and permanent war in its semi-autonomous Northwest frontier states with Islamist and ethnic Pashtu guerrilla movements backed by mass regional political parties. These parties exercise de facto control over the Northwest region providing sanctuary and arms for Taliban militants operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Armed ethno-religious conflicts persist in western China, Myanmar and northern India. There are large-scale popular resistance movements in the militant northeast Thailand opposed to the current military-monarchist dictatorship in Bangkok.
In the 21st century, in South and Southeast Asia, as in the rest of the world, war and armed conflicts have become central in resolving ethnic, social, tribal and regional differences with central states: diplomacy and democratic elections have been rendered obsolete and inefficient.
Latin America – On the Verge
Burgeoning violent extra-parliamentary right-wing movements, intent on overthrowing or ‘impeaching’ elected center-left Latin American governments face major confrontations with the state and its mass supporters.
In Ecuador, Venezuela and Brazil, US-backed opposition groups are engaged in violent demonstrations, directed toward ousting the elected regimes. In the case of Ecuador, ‘popular sectors’, including some indigenous leaders and sectors of the trade union movement, have called for an ‘uprising’ to oust President Correa. They seem oblivious of the fact that the hard-right oligarchs who now control key offices in the three principal cities (Guayaquil, Quito and Cuenca) will be the real beneficiaries of their ‘uprisings’.
The resurgent Right envisions violent ‘regime change’ as the first step toward ‘wiping the slate clean’ of a decade of social reforms, independent regional organizations and independent foreign policies.
‘Civil war’ may be too strong a word for the situation in Latin America at this time – but this is the direction which the US-backed opposition is heading. Faced with the mess and difficulty of dislodging incumbent regimes via elections, the US and its local proxies have opted for the choreography of street violence, sabotage, martial law and coups – to be followed by sanitized elections – with US-vetted candidates.
War and violence run rampant through Mexico and most of Central America. A US-backed military coup ousted the popularly elected, independent President Zelaya in Honduras. The ensuing US-proxy regime has murdered and jailed hundreds of pro-democracy dissidents and driven thousands to flee the violence.
The 1990’s US-brokered ‘Peace Accords’ in El Salvador and Guatemala effectively blocked any agrarian reform and income redistribution that might have led to the rebuilding of their civil societies. This has led to over two decades of mass disaffection, the rise of armed ‘gangs’ numbering over 100,000 members and an average of six to ten thousand homicides a year with El Salvador becoming the ‘murder capital of the hemisphere’ on a per capita basis. The annual murder toll under the US-brokered ‘Peace Accords’ now exceeds those killed each year during the civil war.
The real ‘carnage capital’ of the hemisphere is Mexico. Over 100,000 people have been murdered during the decade-long, US-backed ‘war on drugs’ – a war which has become a state-sponsored war on the Mexican people.
The internal war has allowed the Mexican government to privatize and sell the crown jewels of the national economy – the petroleum industry. While thousands of Mexicans are terrorized and slaughtered, the US and EU oil companies are curiously shielded from the drug lords. The same Mexican government, its police, officials and military, who collaborate with the drug lords in dividing up the billions of drug dollars, protect foreign oil companies and their executives. After all, narco-dollars are laundered by banks in New York, Miami, Los Angeles and London to help fuel the speculation!
From Regional to Nuclear Wars
Regional and local wars spread under the shadow of a looming world war. The US moves its arms, planes, bases and operations to the Russian and Chinese borders.
Never have so many US troops and war planes been placed in so many strategic locations, often less than an hour drive from major Russian cities.
Not even during the height of the Cold War, did the US impose so many economic sanctions against Russian enterprises.
In Asia, Washington is organizing major trade, military and diplomatic treaties designed to exclude and undermine China’s growth as a trade competitor. It is engaged in provocative activities comparable to the boycott and blockade of Japan which led to the Second World War in Asia.
Open ‘warfare by proxy’ in Ukraine is perhaps the first salvo of the Third World War in Europe. The US-EU-sponsored coup in Kiev has led to the annexation of Western Ukraine. In response to the threat of violence toward the ethnic Russian majority in Crimea and the loss of its strategic naval base on the Black Sea, Russia annexed Crimea.
In the lead-up to the Second World War, Germany annexed Austria. In a similar manner the US-EU installed a puppet regime in Kiev by violent putsch as its own initial steps toward major power grabs in Central Asia. The military build-up includes the placement of major, forward offensive military bases in Poland.
Warsaw’s newly elected hard-right regime of President Andrzej Duda has demanded that Poland become NATO’s central military base of operation and the front line in a war against Russia.
Wars and More Wars and the Never-ending Torrents of Refugees
The US and EU imperial wars have devastated the lives and livelihoods of scores of millions of people in South Asia, North and Sub-Sahara Africa, Central America, Mexico, the Balkans and now Ukraine.
Four million Syrian refugees have joined millions of Afghan, Pakistani, Iraqi, Yemeni, Somali, Libyan, Palestinian and Sudanese refugees fleeing US-EU bombs, drones and proxy mercenaries ravaging their countries.
Millions of war refugees escape toward safety in Western Europe, joining the millions of economic refugees who have fled free market destitution in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, the Balkans and other EU satellites.
Panic among the civilian population of Western Europe sets in as hundreds of thousands cross the Mediterranean, the Aegean and the Balkans.
Droves of refugees perish each day. Tens of thousands crowd detention centers. Local labor markets are saturated. Social services are overwhelmed.
The US builds walls and detention camps for the millions trying to escape the harsh consequences of imperial-centered free markets in Mexico, narco-terror and the fraudulent ‘peace accord’-induced violence in Central America.
As Western wars advance, the desperate refugees multiply. The poor and destitute clamber at the gates of the imperial heartland crying: ‘Your bombs and your destruction of our homelands have driven us here, now you must deal with us in your homeland’.
Fomenting class war between the refugees and ‘natives’ of the imperial West – may not be on the agenda . . . for now, but the future for ‘civil’ society in Europe and the US is bleak.
Meanwhile, more and even bigger wars are on the horizon and additional millions of civilians will be uprooted and face the choice of starving, fleeing with their families or fighting the empire. The ranks of seasoned and infuriated resistance fighters are swelling in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Ukraine and elsewhere.
The US and EU are becoming armed fortresses. US police deal with the marginalized citizenry as an occupying army, assaulting African-Americans, immigrants and dissidents – while looting poor communities . . . and protecting the rich…
War is everywhere and expanding: No continent or region, big or small, is free from the contagion of war.
Imperial wars have spawn local wars . . . igniting mass flights in a never-ending cycle. There are no real diplomatic success stories! There are no enduring, viable peace accords!
Some pundits may protest this analysis: They point to the recent US – Cuba rapprochement as a ‘success’. They conveniently forget that the US is still subverting Cuba’s biggest trading partner, Venezuela; that Washington’s major regional proxies are demanding regime change among Cuba’s allies in Ecuador, Brazil and Bolivia and that Washington is increasingly threatening Cuba’s alternative markets in Russia and China. The vision of the US flag flapping in the breeze outside its embassy in Havana does little to cover Washington’s iron fist threatening Cuba’s allies.
Others cite the US – Iran peace accord as a major ‘success’. They ignore that the US is backing the bloody Saudi invasion of neighboring Yemen and the massacre of Shiite communities; that the US has provided Israel with a road map detailing Iran’s entire defense system and that the US and EU are bombing Iran’s Syrian ally without mercy.
As for the US – Cuba and Iranian agreements– are they enduring and strategic or just tactical imperial moves preparing for even greater assaults?
The war epidemic is not receding.
War refugees are still fleeing; they have no homes or communities left.
Disorder and destruction are increasing, not decreasing; there is no rebuilding the shattered societies, not in Gaza, not in Fallujah, not in the Donbas, not in Guerrero, not in Aleppo.
Europe feels the tremors of a major conflagration.
Americans still believe that the two oceans will protect them. They are told that placing NATO missiles on Russia’s borders and stationing warships off China’s shores and building electrified walls and laying barbed wire along the Rio Grande will protect them. Such is their faith in their political leaders and propagandists.
What a packet of lies! Inter-continental missiles can ‘rain down’ on New York, Washington and Los Angeles.
It is time to wake up!
It is time to stop the US – EU headlong race to World War III!
Where to start? Libya has been irrevocably destroyed; it is too late there! Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are aflame. We are being plunged deeper into war while being told we are withdrawing! Ukraine sucks in more guns and more troops!
Can we really have peace with Iran if we cannot control our own government as it dances to the Israelis tune? And Israel insists on war – our waging war for them! As the Israeli war criminal General and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once told some worried American Zionists: “Trouble with the US? We lead them by the nose…!”
Just look at the terrified families fleeing carnage in the Middle East or Mexico.
When will we cut our losses and shake off the bonds of these war makers – foreign and domestic?
Author: Prof. James Petras
Copyright © Prof. James Petras, Global Research, 2015
Ending America’s Forever Wars
There was a time, almost two decades ago, when America was not at war throughout the greater Middle East. Events in November 2020 boosted the hope that such a time might return sooner rather than later. That was when Trump installed a group of officials in the defense department who are apparently more responsive to his decision to wind down U.S. forever wars. He appointed Chris Miller as secretary of defense. He also named Col. Douglas Macgregor, Kash Patel and Ezra Cohen to high-level positions. Macgregor’s appointment stands out, because of his history of outspoken opposition to America’s military adventures ...
The Geopolitics of American Global Decline: Washington vs China in the 21st Century
For even the greatest of empires, geography is often destiny. You wouldn’t know it in Washington, though. America’s political, national security, and foreign policy elites continue to ignore the basics of geopolitics that have shaped the fate of world empires for the past 500 years. Consequently, they have missed the significance of the rapid global changes in Eurasia that are in the process of undermining the grand strategy for world dominion that Washington has pursued these past seven decades. A glance at what passes for insider “wisdom” in Washington these days reveals a worldview of stunning insularity. Take Harvard political scientist ...
Islamic State Top Dog from Kosovo Returns to Europe with 400 Jihadis
What could possibly go wrong? Refugees welcome! Not to allow these enemy combatants to return would be “Islamophobic”! “Disguised as refugees and able to cross borders without being identified: ISIS general who blew up a hostage with a rocket and decapitated another prisoner is ‘back in Europe with 400 soldiers’ after fleeing Syria,” by Julian Robinson, MailOnline, December 29, 2016: An ISIS general once pictured decapitating a prisoner is back in Europe with up to 400 of his most trusted soldiers after fleeing the war zone in Syria, it has been claimed. Ex-NATO soldier Lavdrim Muhaxheri and his men are among thousands who ...
UN Anti-Nazi Resolution 10 Year Anniversary: Syria, Israel and North Korea Support It, US Adamantly Opposes It
Throughout the past decade, the UN General Assembly Third Committee has adopted the resolution: “Combating Glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.”Every year the resolution is adopted by an overwhelming majority of UN member states, while the European Union, which, as the battleground of Nazism should have supported the resolution, merely abstains, and their fence-straddling raises disturbing questions about their actual tendencies. Japan’s abstention raises equally disturbing questions. The United States has consistently, and shockingly, opposed this resolution.The resolution is sponsored by the Russian Federation, which ...
U.S. Special Operations Forces Deploy to 138 Nations, 70% of the World’s Countries
They could be found on the outskirts of Sirte, Libya, supporting local militia fighters, and in Mukalla, Yemen, backing troops from the United Arab Emirates. At Saakow, a remote outpost in southern Somalia, they assisted local commandos in killing several members of the terror group al-Shabab. Around the cities of Jarabulus and Al-Rai in northern Syria, they partnered with both Turkish soldiers and Syrian militias, while also embedding with Kurdish YPG fighters and the Syrian Democratic Forces. Across the border in Iraq, still others joined the fight to liberate the city of Mosul. And in Afghanistan, they assisted indigenous forces in various missions, just as they have ...
Why Vladimir Putin Deserves a Nobel Peace Prize
For many years, and despite all evidence to the contrary, the Western media has forwarded the inane idea that Vladimir Putin ranks in the same club with some of history's most loathsome creatures, up to and including Hitler.The reality is that the Russian leader has done more to promote the cause of global peace and security than any other Western leader in recent times. That explains why he is the object of such intense scorn.Putin's rise as a statesman of the first magnitude began, oddly enough, with the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 on the United States. Since that day, ...
A Letter From the Greek American Community on the Cyprus Talks
On the eve of the Conference on Cyprus, we feel compelled to express our views on the Cyprus negotiations on behalf of the Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC), the International Coordinating Committee Justice for Cyprus (PSEKA), the Federation of Cypriot American Organizations (FCAO), the American Hellenic Institute (AHI), the American Hellenic Council (AHC), the Hellenic Federation of New Jersey, and the Coordinated Effort of Hellenes (CEH). Our community has worked with successive US Administrations on behalf of a workable and lasting solution on Cyprus. In 2004, when we warned that the flawed Annan Plan was headed in the wrong direction, ...
Amnesty International Publishes a Fabricated Report on Mass Executions in Syria
On Monday, February 8 (2016), the human rights organization Amnesty International published a 48-page report accusing the Syrian government of mass executions and tortures in Saydnaya prison. According to the watchdog, between September 2011 and December 2015, an estimated 5,000 and 13,000 people were extrajudicially executed. The methods used by the report to count the alleged ‘victims’ is quite contradictory. Amnesty International admits it had little direct evidence for its claims. Instead, the report was based on conjectures and the words of former prison detainees and commentators who are linked to the Syrian opposition and have lived outside the country for ...
Are We Headed for a Turkish-American Breakup?
Turkish-US relations have faced many serious stress tests over the past 50 years. The catalyst in overcoming those crises was making strategic considerations, which always underlined the dependence of the two NATO allies on each other, regardless of their differences.These strategic considerations appear to be weakening now, as the regional priorities of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey and the United States no longer overlap, and in many cases conflict with each other.That is certainly the case in Syria, where the two countries are at odds over Washington’s alliance with Syrian Kurdish groups against the Islamic State (IS). Ankara insists these groups are ...
Why Venezuela’s People are Suffering
INTRODUCTIONThe case that will be documented here is that Venezuela’s people are suffering from a tragic national situation which actually cannot be reversed by anything that’s within the power of Venezuela’s Government to do or to block. In order to understand this very unfortunate reality (if one wants to understand it), one must first understand the relevant parts of the broader situation in the world that affects Venezuela. What’s dooming the country isn’t merely a local situation, but instead is global and environmental. It also is economic, pertaining to the role that Venezuela is playing in the global economy. But ...
Kosovo: What Everyone (Really) Needs to Know
Preface Kosovo is today one of the most disputed territories in Europe and a real Balkan powder keg which can explode again at any time. It is a province within the Republic of Serbia, recognized as such by both Serbia’s constitution and the Resolution 1244 by the Security Council of the United Nations (the UNSC Resolution 1244, June 10th, 1999). However, Kosovo parliament with a clear Albanian majority proclaimed the independence of Kosovo (without a referendum) in February 2008 that was recognized by the majority of the Western countries followed by their puppet clients all over the world (in reality, today ...
Don’t Romanticise the Kemalist Legacy!
The political situation in Turkey is clearly dramatic, but it is also equally complicated. Turkish President Erdogan has succeeded in securing levels of power unique in the nation′s history. But is this situation really unique? No – for 15 years, the father of the nation Ataturk ruled alone over the early Republic, which was a one-party nation at the time. Only his untimely death in 1938 deprived him of that power.Up to that point, Ataturk alone ruled over every conceivable dimension of domestic and foreign policy. Even clothing and music were tailored to his ideas. The aim was the creation ...
Mass Exodus from Muslim Kosovo into Europe: Did US Play a Role in Creating the Crisis?
Editor: Little did I know when I posted a short news story about the ‘invasion of Hungary’ last evening that the situation in Kosovo has become untenable and a mass exodus was so advanced. ‘Pungentpeppers’ has again pulled many threads together to give us the big picture of what is happening in Eastern Europe. Is the US responsible? An Austrian political leader says so! Mass exodus from Muslim Kosovo into Europe ~150,000 or more Kosovars on the move since summer ~Hungarian Police catch 1,000 Kosovars daily – a small fraction of the total ~Hungarian mayor calls for fence as Kosovars overwhelm village ~Austrian politician blames ...
Independent” Kosovo: Gangland Spills Savagery Worldwide
The Western power centers use the “Republic of Kosovo” as a testing ground for working out the ways to create a quasi-state that could be defined as an abnormal criminal case of global scope. The final goal is reshaping the whole of South East Europe. (www.strategic-culture.org) The states below the «first echelon» are subject to the formula «back to slavery and barbarity». This is a model of authoritative outside governance entailing devastation of natural environment, extraction of resources and creation of disastrous economy and ‘stillborn» state structures along with extreme pauperization of population. And this is not all. Control over vast ...
Media Literacy 101: Kosovo and Libya
The media never merely report the news. They manipulate and distort the news. They want to tell you what and how to think. Pursuant to this role, they routinely rewrite history. A striking instance of media rewriting of history is in the reporting on Kosovo. In the AP article “US Prosecutor to Probe Kosovo Organ Trafficking”, it is reported that the alleged atrocity occurred “during Kosovo’s war for independence from Serbia” in 1999. Everyone remembers that war as one to prevent genocide and ethnic cleansing, that it was “a humanitarian intervention”. But here it is now characterized and defined as a ...
Countering NATO Propaganda on Russia: NATO Intervention in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Libya, Ukraine
Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part VA follow-up of Professor Vladimir Kozin’s comments on NATO’s Fact Sheet about relations with Russia published in December 2014. The topics to be covered in this part:NATO’s operation in Afghanistan was a failure;The NATO-led mission in Afghanistan failed to stop the Afghan drugs trade;NATO’s operation over Libya was illegitimate;NATO’s operation over Kosovo was illegitimate;The cases of Kosovo and Crimea are identical;Russia’s annexation of Crimea was justified;The Ukrainian authorities are illegitimate.NATO’s operation in Afghanistan was a failureNATO claim: NATO took over the command of the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan ...
Nationalism, Ideology, and the Formation of the Nation-States Among the Yugoslavs
A map of the wanted territories of the Balkan states in 1915There are many talks about nationalism among the peoples from the former Yugoslavia during the last three decades what is quite understandable taking into consideration the post-Cold War conflicts and atrocities, as a continuation of WWII crimes based on certain political ideologies,[i] committed on the territory of ex-Yugoslavia.Historia est magistra vitaeI want to argue that there is a direct link between contemporary nationalism(s) among the Yugoslavs and their national ideologies, which are developed in the previous decades and even centuries. What happened with the Yugoslavs from 1991 to 1999 ...
The Middle East on the Waves of Chaos
For some time the criminal activities of the terrorist organization “Islamic State” (ISIS) seemed to have faded into the shadows. It seemed that this organization in the near future will be broken tie with due to the “heroic” American bombing. However, the ISIS like a fabulous hydra, who immediately has a new head grown in place of a severed one, revived and made further impressive gains.The capture of ancient Palmyra in Syria and the important city Ramadi, the main city of the Sunni province Anbar, located by the way just 100 kilometres far from Baghdad, made the world’s media and ...
America’s “Junkyard Dogs”: Operation “Storm” in 1995
A great explanation from an excellent analyst of what happened in Serbia 20 years ago, and why the Ukraine feels like Deja Vu ‘Operation Storm’ in August 1995, when Croatia overran the Serb-inhabited territory of Krajina, was the biggest single instance of ethnic cleansing in the Yugoslav Wars, Because the attack was backed by the US, however, it was never treated as a crime. Between August 4 and August 7, up to 2,000 people were killed and over 220,000 driven from their homes by the Croatian army. No “invaders,” these Serbs had lived in the Krajina – their word for borderlands – for centuries. The ...
Westphalian Foundations of Modern International Relations, Global Politics and Global Security
What is global politics? It is when a white man sends a black man 20.000 km. far away from home to kill a yellow man, while at home this white man is living on the land occupied from a red man From 1989 onward, as a consequence of the dissolution of the bipolar world in global politics, Security Studies as an academic discipline re-born again its political importance. From the very traditional point of view, it was only the national-state to be considered as the reference object of the security issue that was usually to be obtained by military power[1] and diplomatic ...
What is a Politics?
Libya: Ten Things about Gaddafi They don’t want You to Know
US Meddling in Foreign Elections: A CIA Tradition since 1948
US, UK and Anglosphere: Human Rights Abuses and War Crimes Trash Magna Carta 800th Anniversary
Pseudo-Democracy, Reparations, and Actual Democracy
Orwell at the UN: Obama Re-Defines Democracy as a Country that Supports U.S. Policy
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Home Join FAQ Login
What is HubGarden?
Can I be paid for publishing articles on hubs?
How do I submit an article to a hub?
How do most hubs start?
Who can start a hub?
How do I request payment?
How do I become an editor?
How do I change my Pen Name?
How do I include a link?
What are inactive hubs?
How do I insert a YouTube clip?
How do I create categories?
How do the hub color settings work?
What are category types, levels, and divisions?
What are Question Articles?
What are Awards?
What are Writer Messages?
What is the best way to host a competition?
What are Prolific Awards?
What are Milestone Awards?
What are Wiki articles?
How do I add a map and location to an article?
HubGarden is a network of websites (hubs) covering various topics on which writers are paid to publish articles. Each hub is run by a team of editors headed by a chief editor.
As well as contributing articles to hubs, anyone can start their own hub on any topic, become a chief editor, and encourage other writers to submit articles.
*Please note that Hubgarden is now closed to new articles and writers. Unfortunately as ad rates declined it was no longer viable to continue running.
Many thanks to everyone who contributed over the years.
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Yes you can be paid for sharing your articles. Payment is in proportion to the number of people who read your articles.
The CPM (payment for 1000 readers) varies for each hub. Check on a hub's details page for its writer CPM.
Some hubs also offer paid awards, with many guaranteed for articles with a minimum length and number of images. To see which hubs are offering guaranteed awards click on the Top Hubs link at the top of this page.
You can view your account balance on by clicking on "My Account".
Click on the share link on the hub's homepage.
You will have to login before this link is visible and some hubs require an application first (to apply click on the "Write for Us" link on the hub's home page).
Be sure to read the hub's FAQ to see what kind of articles a chief editor is looking for.
There is no guarantee that an article will be published, so if in doubt ask a question on the hub's forum.
Most hubs are started by a single writer who is also the editor and chief editor.
The very beginning is a precarious time in the life of a hub, and the majority don't make it.
It takes time and commitment to publish a large enough number of useful articles and arrange enough links for a hub to start attracting a decent number of readers - usually around 6 to 12 months.
However once a hub is attracting a large readership it will start attracting other writers, and eventually other editors until the hub becomes largely self-sustaining.
From here the hub can flourish and grow with the chief editor providing direction and oversight.
One of the main benefits of HubGarden is the large number of active writers who are looking to contribute to interesting hubs.
Anyone can start a hub and become a chief editor.
Once you've had 10 articles published on Hubgarden, you are welcome to email support@hubgarden.com with your proposed Hub idea and name.
Each hub starts on a subdomain of hubgarden.com, such as kidscraft.hubgarden.com.
Once a hub has more than 50 articles and 500 recent readers it is placed on its own dedicated domain along with some funding for the pool.
If you'd like to become a successful chief editor make sure you read the Chief Editor FAQ.
To request payment first enter your payment information on your settings page.
Payments are made using PayPal, however Australian residents can also opt to be paid by bank transfer.
On the first of each month if your balance is over $50 (or 50 GBP) an account is created and placed on your Accounts page.
To request payment of a monthly account click on the "details" link, and then "request payment".
Payment is then made on the 1st of the following month as long as the invoice is submitted on or before the 10th. This delay is to allow for the time it takes to receive payments from advertisers.
For instance your January account would be created and placed on your accounts page on the 1st of February. If you requested payment before the 10th of Feb payment would be made on the 1st working day of March. If the invoice was submitted after the 10th of Feb, payment would be made on the 1st of April.
If your balance is less than $50 on the 1st of the month, then it will be carried over to the following month.
Writers are invited to become an editor by the chief editor of a hub, usually from amongst the more established contributors.
To change any of your basic settings including email address and pen name click go to your profile on one of the hubs and click on "settings".
To include a link in the text of your article use the following format:
[LINK www.thelinkurl.com The Link Text]
"The Link Text" will become the link that points to www.thelinkurl.com.
Inactive hubs are those which have had less than 8 articles published in the last month, or 4 articles published in the last week.
Inactive hubs which are on their own domain name (rather than xxx.hubgarden.com) are eligible to be taken over by a new chief editor.
If you would like to take over an inactive hub please email support-at-hubgarden.com or leave a message on the HubGarden forum.
Writers applying for a chief editor position should have already published at least 10 articles on other hubs.
It's possible to see which hubs are active (or not) on the HubGarden homepage.
The format is
[YOUTUBE XXXXXXXXXX]
Replace XXXXXXXXXX with the video ID, usually something like 62cQ1oTELgg. You can get this ID from the URL when viewing the video on YouTube, or from the embed link.
This also works for Vimeo - ie [VIMEO XXXXXXXX]
Any line in an article that starts with a "#" will be considered a category.
#Adventure Playgrounds
#Swimming Pools
If the category does not exist it will be created automatically for that hub when the article is published.
It's possible to change many of the default color settings for your hub.
The colors are specified in 6 digit hexadecimal code.
They are a combination of numbers (0-9)and digits (a-f).
It's not necessary to understand the codes to use them, just copy hex color codes from the many charts on the web. If in doubt google "hex color chart".
This is a simple one, and here is one that is a little more detailed. Here is another.
Note that some charts display a # at the start of the codes. The hash is not required - just copy the numbers and letters.
If you want to understand how hex codes work, this page has a good explanation.
The default color scheme settings are:
Color1: 0099ff
Color3: eeeeee
Color4: 999999
Type: Groups categories together by type in the category list. For instance you may want to group locations together, and then list the other categories.
Level: Categories of different levels can be combined into sub categories. The category of the highest level is listed first. For example: /sydney/walks/. However you don't want /sydney/melbourne/ so you would make all locations the same level.
Division: Advanced users only - may do your head in. In the category list above each article, if there is a category of a higher division than the others then it will be combined with the others into sub categories (if they are of a different level).
For instance if an article is in "Sydney", "Walks", and "Parks" then above it you most likely want listed:
/sydney/
/sydney/walks/
/sydney/parks/
rather that just
/walks/
/parks/
Making "Sydney" division 2, and leaving the others as division 1, will achieve this. Note that you also have to make sure "Sydney" is a different level to "Walks" and "Parks" for this to work.
Divisions are used as well as levels in this case as a single article my have a number of different location tags - for instance the city "Sydney" and the state "New South Wales". Having a division allows you to determine which location is given precedence in being used to produce the sub category. For instance you probably want /sydney/walks/ not /new-south-wales/walks/.
Any article published with a question mark at the end of the title is automatically a "Question Article". This applies to every hub.
Question articles are formatted differently with the comments listed in a "Top Answers" section directly under the main content of the article.
In addition payment works slightly differently as well. The author of the question receives 1/3 CPM, the top answer receives 1/3 CPM, the second answer receives 2/9 CPM, and the 3rd answer receives 1/9 CPM.
This reflects the contribution of the answer authors, and is meant to encourage writers to answer the questions of other writers.
To post a new question you need at least 10 Karma points.
You can earn Karma points by posting answers to questions (4 points for 1st answer, 3 points for 2nd, 2 points thereafter), or voting (1 point) for the best answer to a given question - 1 karma point for each. In addition a karma point is awarded each time one of your answers receives a vote.
Once you have 200 Karma points you can then use them to feature one of your articles (either a question or regular article).
Featured articles are promoted at the top right on each article page and in the email newsletter. Featured articles attract many extra readers increasing your writer payments.
New questions have their own section of the email newsletter "New Questions" which is meant to encourage readers to submit their own answers.
Once a question has 3 answers it is considered "answered" and then goes out in the newsletter as a regular article.
The actual text of a question should elaborate on the question and not contain an answer.
It's fine for writers to submit answers to their own questions - even encouraged. However they should be submitted as actual answers rather than in the body of the question article.
If the author also answers the question they'll receive both the author CPM and the appropriate answer CPM (if in the top 3).
It's not possible to vote for your own answer.
The text of question articles can be very short (one sentence even), however for the moment they should contain at least one image so that thumbnails are available.
Editors are encouraged to ask writers to use the #Question category tag.
Awards are allocated by editors to articles which reach a certain level of quality.
Each hub can have a different criteria for allocating awards so it's best to consult the different FAQs.
All hubs can allocate gold, silver, and bronze awards. Chief editors set the value of each award. When an award is given the pool of the hub must be greater than the value of the award.
Question awards are slightly different to awards given to regular articles.
1/3 of the value of the award is given to the question author straight away.
After 2 weeks the top 3 answers for the question will then also be given awards. 1/3 of the value to the 1st answer, 2/9 to the 2nd, and 1/9 to the 3rd. This is done automatically - the editor is not required to do anything.
Writer Messages are sent from hub chiefs to writers via email.
They are separate to the hub forum and are a more effective way to reach writers as many will not be subscribed to the forum.
To send a writer message click on "My Hubs" and then the appropriate "Messages" link.
Messages are sent by a script once every hour on the hour - and you can edit them / correct typos before they're sent out.
Writers are able to unsubscribe from these messages so don't send too many, however I'd encourage all chiefs to use them as a way to bring old writers back to the hub.
They can be great for posting messages about competitions, special award periods, or milestones such as reaching 10,000 readers a month.
Competitions are a great way to add a little fun to a hub, drum up some more articles, keep writers active, and encourage old ones to return.
This is the suggested way to host a competition on a hub. Chiefs are of course welcome to come up with their own methods.
1) Decide on a topic for the competition. For instance on RecipeYum we could have "Recipes which include Bananas".
2) Optionally make up a fun name for the competition such as "Going Bananas" or "Bananarama".
3) Make up a category for the competition. With the above example this could just be "Bananas" but it could also be specific to the competition such as "Banana Competition" or the competition title such as "Bananarama".
4) If making up special competition categories be sure to make them into a separate category type so they are all grouped together.
5) To enter an article into the competition the writer must include the category tag in the article. For instance #Bananarama.
6) Decide how you'll judge the winner. Will you pick it, or will it be the article with the most likes, or the most readers? Will there be one winner, or a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd?
7) What will the winner receive? A gold award or something else?
8) When will the competition start and end? Any other conditions such as article length or number of images?
9) Post the competition details in the "Writer Message 1" field so that every writer will see them when they're creating a new article.
10) Post to your hub forum.
11) Send a writer message to all your writers including all the competition details.
12) Finally - remember to make sure you award the winner and let everyone know via a post on the forum and another writer message. This will encourage more writers to take part in the next competition.
Prolific awards are given to writers who publish a certain number of articles in a given calendar month on hubs which offer them.
So for instance a writer may be given a $10 prolific award for every 10 articles they publish in any given month on the RecipeYum hub.
It's up to each hub's chief editor to set the value of the prolific awards, and how many articles are required to earn them.
Some hubs may not offer any prolific awards. To check view each hub's details page. If the prolific value or increment is set to 0, then that hub does not offer prolific awards.
The order of prolific awards are:
1) Bronze
2) Silver
3) Gold
4) Platinum
5) Emerald
6) Diamond
7) Kryptonite
8) Sapphire
9) Ruby
10) Pearl
Milestone awards are given to writers who publish a certain number of articles on a given hub.
So for instance a writer may be given a $20 milestone award for every 50 articles they publish on the RecipeYum hub.
It's up to each hub's chief editor to set the value of the milestone awards, and how many articles are required to earn them.
Some hubs may not offer any milestone awards. To check view each hub's details page. If the milestone value or increment is set to 0, then that hub does not offer milestone awards.
The order of milestone awards are:
0) Citizen
1) Respected Citizen
2) Councillor
3) Town Mayor
4) City Mayor
5) Senator
6) Vice President
7) President
8) Emperor
9) Galactic Emperor
10) Omnipresent Overlord
Referrals are when an existing writer brings a new writer to HubGarden.
By referring someone you'll be awarded a $1 CPM on all their page views as long as they are active.
For someone to be registered as being referred by you they need to enter your email address using the "referral" link on their account page.
This needs to be done before they have published any articles.
Once a writer has published an article it is not possible to register a referrer even if you really did refer them. Allowing this would make it too easy to game the system.
It's not possible to change referrers once one has been registered.
The idea of wiki articles is to allow a number of writers to contribute to the same article, and to be rewarded according to their contribution.
This is useful for factual type articles where a number of people may have useful information to contribute.
For instance an article which profiles the suburb of Paddington in Sydney may have any number of contributors who can add separate pieces of information. One writer may contribute a paragraph on the history of Paddington, while another may contribute a paragraph on the kinds of restaurants in the area. In this way different writers can draw on their expertise to put together a more comprehensive article than they could alone.
It's also useful in cases where articles need to be regularly updated, or to allow writers to correct mistakes as they find them.
To edit an existing wiki article click on the "Edit This Article" link at the top of the page.
This will copy the existing article and place it in your account. Once you've finished with your edits notify the editor and leave a comment with a short summary of the changes you've made.
The editor will then publish (or not) the article which will make your version the current one, replacing the old version. Old versions will remain listed in the accounts of the writers who published them.
The editor will also assign a percentage to your contribution. This percentage will reflect your payment for readers of the article. The percentage can be anything from 1% (for a spelling correction) up to 50% for a complete rewrite. It can never be more than 50% (unless you write the very first version) to reflect the contribution of the older writers, even if the article is completely rewritten.
When a new contribution is approved the percentages assigned to the writers of the older versions will be adjusted proportionately. In this way each writer should be awarded fairly for their contribution to the article.
Any article's wiki mode can be enabled from its editor box by an editor. Questions cannot be wikis.
It's also possible to setup a hub to default all new articles to wiki. If you would like to do this leave a message on the HG forum.
To allocate a map to your article use the !Map command followed by an address, all on one line.
!Map 96 Gipps Street, Drummoyne, New South Wales, Australia
Update your article and the map should appear underneath the article display.
If the map is incorrect update again a couple of times (sometimes it takes a few tries for Google to figure it out).
If that fails try changing the address slightly, making sure that it includes the state and country as formatted above.
If a regular address just won't work you can use Latitude and Longitude in the format:
!Map Latitude, Longitude
Don't forget the comma.
To get the Lat and Long for a particular place on a map you can use the old Google maps. Hopefully the new version will be updated to include this feature soon.
Google maps is here:
http://maps.google.com
or (.com.au for the Oz version).
At the bottom right click on the question mark and then "Return to classic Google maps".
Navigate to the spot you want and then right-click on it. A menu will pop up. Choose "What's here". Then the Lat and Long will appear in the search box at the top of the page.
Cut and paste into your article and you're good to go.
For the moment only one map can be included in each article.
Copyright 2012,2013 On Topic Media PTY LTD. ABN 18113479226.
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Canada - Full Moon 51 - 12/11/00
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven (a.k.a. Levez Vos Skinny Fists Comme Antennas To Heaven) is Godspeed You Black Emperor!'s (GYBE) second long-player. Yes, l-o-o-o-ng player, right. A double album holding close to 90 minutes of music. Massive is an understatement. GYBE create epic operas for a new world. Or telling horror tales of disasters to come.
Last year's Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada E.P. was a stunning piece of work. Their first album, F# A# Infinity, was interesting, but the EP showed brilliance. Therefor I was pretty excited when putting on these vinyl discs. The Canadian 9-some create soundscapes beyond most other "rock" bands. As always we're talking almost entirely instrumental music, except some spoken word pieces here and there. They're monumental and minimalistic at the same time, blasting off with strings and horns and guitars, mixed with field recordings and samples. From the quietly opening tunes of the title track they switch back and forth from a calm ocean to cascading waves of musical "water". They make noise, they swirl and spin, they push and pull, they whisper and roar, they stand still and move. Through phases of former and future lives.
Each side of the LP has got its own theme: Side 1 is called Storm, 2 is Static, 3 is Sleep, and 4 is Antennas To Heaven. It's hard to define the various parts on Lift Your Skinny... as "songs", but they do have titles. Odd (and long!) titles like Cancer Towers On Holy Road Hi-Way, Terrible Canyons Of Static, World Police And Friendly Fire, She Dreamt She Was A Bulldozer, She Dreamt She Was Alone In An Empty Field, and Attention...Mon Ami...Fa-Lala-Lala-La-La. Not to mention Edgyswingsetacid or Deathkamp Drone.
Put the lights out, turn up the music, and lay back. You'll be taken places that you've never been. As the inner sleeve liner notes states: "...more awkward pirouettes in the general direction of hope and joy..." Apocalypse Now!
Copyright © 2000 Håvard Oppøyen
You may also want to check out our Godspeed You Black Emperor! article/review: Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada E.P..
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Aug. 13, 2020, 10:10 p.m. EDT
U.S. seizes virtual currency accounts that allegedly funded militant groups
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WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said Thursday that it has seized millions of dollars from cryptocurrency accounts that militant groups, including al-Qaida and the Islamic State, relied on to finance their organizations and violent plots.
Law enforcement officials said the groups used the accounts to solicit donations, including by trying to raise money from the sale of fraudulent personal protective equipment for the coronavirus pandemic.
Officials described it as the largest-ever seizure of virtual currency funds related to terrorism. It’s also part of a broader Justice Department goal of disrupting the financing of extremist organizations, including those designated as foreign terror groups.
Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin /zigman2/quotes/31322028/realtime BTCUSD -0.67% are favored for illicit transactions because they are perceived as hard to trace, and one of the groups singled out Thursday explicitly encouraged donations by telling potential contributors that the money trail would be difficult for law enforcement to untangle, the department said.
The legal action, which included undercover law enforcement work and a forfeiture complaint filed in Washington’s federal court, is meant to deprive the organizations of funds needed to buy weapons and develop fighters, Assistant Attorney General John Demers said in a conference call with reporters announcing the case.
“This action shows that law enforcement remains a step ahead of them,” said Demers, the department’s top national security official.
The department said it has confiscated about $2 million so far, in addition to more than 300 cryptocurrency accounts, four websites and four Facebook /zigman2/quotes/205064656/composite FB +2.44% pages related to the schemes.
The seized funds are expected to be turned over to a fund for victims of terrorist attacks, officials said.
One prong of the U.S. investigation targeted the military wing of Hamas, known as the al-Qassam Brigades, which last year began a public fundraising campaign through social media to solicit Bitcoin donations while reassuring potential donors that such contributions would be untraceable and used for violence, officials said. It also posted on websites instructions for how to anonymously make donations.
Law enforcement officials ultimately seized more than 150 cryptocurrency accounts that they say laundered funds to and from accounts operated by the al-Qassam Brigades. Also Thursday, prosecutors unsealed criminal charges against two Turkish individuals accused of acting as money launderers related to the cryptocurrency.
“Without funding, you cannot have these operations conducted,” said Michael Sherwin, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. “The focus here was a very proactive effort to target these organizations in a very wide-scale manner.”
The department also identified a scheme that officials say was shepherded by an Islamic State associate who officials say manages certain hacking operations for the group.
Prosecutors say the man, identified as Murat Cakar, registered a website in Turkey to sell face masks and other protective gear to help prevent COVID-19. The masks were produced by a Turkish company and not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration despite being advertised as such.
The Justice Department said it seized that site as well as four related pages used for the scheme and for Islamic State funding.
Another scheme by al-Qaida and affiliates sought to raise funds through Bitcoin for attacks even as the groups purported to act as charities, according to the court documents.
Last month, an undercover agent for Homeland Security Investigations, part of the Department of Homeland Security, messaged the administrator of one supposed charity seeking to make donations. The administrator replied that he hoped for the destruction of the United States, and shared a Bitcoin wallet address for the purpose of receiving funds.
“Bullets and bombs is all affordable, but the drone stuff, its very hard to unless u have like anti aircraft stuff which is like millions of dollars,” the administrator wrote, according to court documents. “Here they shoot it with a ground to air missile … its possible to hit them but hard. Or a 23mm machine gun. U know those big guns attached to a car.”
The investigation involved officials from multiple agencies, including the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and HSI.
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