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Ukraine signalled it may hold off from paying Russia's billion-dollar gas invoice - part of an EU-brokered agreement to restart supplies frozen since June - in the hope mild weather can help it last out longer as it grapples with near-bankruptcy.
EU officials worked out a deal two weeks ago under which Ukraine would pay Moscow $1.45 billion towards what it owed for gas supplies to ease a standoff over prices - and lift the threat to Europe, which relies on Ukraine as a key transit point for fuel.
But Russia has insisted that Ukraine must also pay for future supplies in advance: $760 million, according to gas export monopoly Gazprom, for the 2 billion cubic metres of gas due to be supplied this month.
With the weather relatively mild in central Ukraine - daytime temperatures of around 10 degrees Celsius are forecast to remain unchanged over the next 10 days - an official at the country's state-run energy firm Naftogaz said on Thursday: "Imports will depend on the weather and on consumption."
Gazprom's spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov confirmed: "No prepayments have been made yet."
Since the agreement was struck at the end of October Ukraine, which is still fighting a rebellion in its east that Kiev says is backed by Moscow, has seen its currency the hryvnia weaken by a fifth to the dollar and its currency reserves plunge.
"Naftogaz will try to minimise gas imports in order to cut on spending, especially against the backdrop of the currency crisis and falling currency reserves," said Valentin Zemlyansky, an energy analyst and a former spokesman for Naftogaz.
Ukraine asked for more financial help from Europe to cover its needs but Brussels responded that the EU would not provide a "financial bridge" and that in signing the interim deal, Ukraine confirmed it was able to purchase any extra gas this winter.
The European Commission also confirmed that Ukraine has not yet bought any gas from Russia and that Kiev should finance the purchases itself, without help from Europe.
Waiting Game
Kiev, which used to receive around 50 percent of its gas needs from Russia, is also getting some gas from European countries, such as Slovakia and Poland.
According to Ukrainian gas transit monopoly Ukrtransgaz, gas consumption and offtake from storage facilities have been declining since early November.
Gas consumption reached 70.3 million cubic metres per day on Nov. 9, down by 27 percent on Nov. 1.
In not paying Moscow's bill, Kiev may also be waiting for decisions in the cases it lodged with Stockholm's Court of Arbitration questioning the price in its long-term gas contracts with Russia. Moscow has also lodged a case in the court over Ukraine's unpaid gas debts.
Europe is watching nervously. Russia caters for around a third of European Union's gas consumption and around half of that is piped through Ukraine and earlier spats have twice before led to temporary halts of Russian gas flows to Europe.
And with the threat of a return to all-out war in Ukraine's east rising after a local vote entrenched pro-Russian separatists and violence increased, some analysts say the threat to supply to Europe can only get worse.
Russia denies involvement in the conflict and says it supports a ceasefire agreed in September.
"Further deterioration in the broader political crisis could prompt heightened tensions or disputes that introduce risks to supply over the winter," Eurasia Group analysts said in a note about possible Russian gas flows disruptions to Europe.
(By Vladimir Soldatkin and Pavel Polityuk, Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow, Nina Chestney in London, Barbara Lewis in Brussels and Pavel Polityk in Kiev; Editing by Sophie Walker) |
Nintendo will discontinue a bunch of online Wii services in June, the company has announced.
You'll no longer be able to send and receive messages with other users via the Wii Message Board or access a number of Channel apps.
The big switch-off will happen in the UK on 28th June, Nintendo confirmed to Eurogamer.
For the chop are the Nintendo Channel, News Channel, Forecast Channel, Everybody Votes Channel and Mii Contest Channel. The News and Weather channels were kept updated for more than seven years, sniff.
Notably, however, the Wii Shop Channel will remain open - for now.
"We at Nintendo sincerely thank you for your continued patronage of our company's products," said Mario. "We apologise to those of you currently using these services, and ask for your understanding.
"The above services will no longer be available even if they are started up from the Wii Menu. However, services other than those mentioned above, such as the Wii Shop Channel and 'Today's Accomplishments' on the Wii Message Board, will remain available." |
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — It's against the law to discriminate between card and cash payments, the central bank reminded retailers and customers.
"Maliwanag naman po sa Consumer Act: Kahit anong method gamitin mo to pay, it should be the same price," Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Assistant Governor Johnny Noe Ravalo said during the launch of Consumer Welfare Month on Friday.
[Translation: It's clearly stated in the Consumer Act. Whatever method you use to pay, it should be the same price.]
Most of the consumer complaints the BSP receives is about card payments, Ravalo said.
Some retailers impose a surcharge for customers who choose to pay by credit card. Others do the opposite, offering a discount for those who pay with cash.
"Whether it's a surcharge or a discount it contravenes the law. It says whether I pay with my card or with cash the price should be the same," Ravalo said.
He urged affected customers to take down the details of the product they intended to purchase and raise the issue with the store manager. If the store doesn't want to give them the fair price, they can file a complaint with the BSP.
The central bank has received about 33,000 customer complaints from January 2009 to date.
Ravalo said another common complaint involves unauthorized withdrawals and transactions with their cards.
He reminded consumers not just to keep their cards safe but also their passwords secure. "Even if you lose your card, thieves won't be able to use it if they don't have your PIN (personal identification number)."
However, weak passwords are common, Ravalo said. They're usually the cardholder's birthday, the word "password" and a number series like "1234."
Card payments are still little used in the Philippines. Of the 2.5 billion payments made every month, 99% of them are made with cash or checks. Only 1% use credit or debit cards. |
Firebase and Parse Platform Choice Dilemma
API developers are in a lively dispute over the respective advantages and limitations of the Firebase and Parse Backend as a Service (BaaS) platforms. Now Facebook’s decision to make Parse code open source adds more fuel to these fires of developer debate. Does this status change disarm the arguments of Parse proponents and push the balance in favor of Firebase, or perhaps it works in the opposite direction?
Unfortunately, the online discussions on this topic can be more confusing than informative. Developers have their own ideas of which platform features will be most useful for their projects. For example, in some cases cloud coding capabilities are going to be very significant features but in other situations advanced ad management capabilities will be more relevant. A clear need emerges for a thorough Firebase and Parse feature comparison by someone with a solid understanding of both platforms. Armed with this information developers acquire the tools to make their most logical platform choice.
The following detailed comparison of Firebase and Parse features and implementation differences thoroughly explores their respective strengths and weaknesses. Drawing on expert BaaS knowledge it gives every developer the information they need to make the right platform choice.
Data browsing
Firebase leverages the Vulcan Chrome add-on to inspect the data inside your Firebase.
You can use Vulcan inside Chrome DevTools, or you can include a script tag that displays Vulcan as a modal in the lower right of your app.
You can create, read, update and delete data for a specific Firebase. You can modify the structure of your Firebase by adding a child, adding a branch, or adding arbitrary JSON to any node.
You can input an admin token, which enables editing privileges for secure data.
Data browser is one of the most popular and essential tools of development on Parse. Back4app offers these features in its data browser.
Filtering. Find a subset of your data quickly. Sorting. Order any column, ascending and descending. Full-screen mode. Use all of the space in your browser. Page size selector. See up to 100 rows per page. Rich editors for dates and GeoPoints. Edit your data with ease.
SDK’s
Parse offers powerful SDK for providing web and mobile app developers with a way to link their applications to backend cloud storage with features such as Push notifications using custom SDK’s and APIs.
It also provides comprehensive guides for each platform and detailed API references with tutorials for a better idea of how it all comes together.
Parse offers cloud-based software developer kits that enable users to create apps for desktop, mobile, and embedded devices. Its product portfolio is comprised of Parse Core to save data in the cloud, make the app social, run custom app code in the Parse Cloud, schedule recurring tasks such as sending engagement emails, updating data, and long running computation, share data between platforms, and get a local datastore and Parse dashboard.
Firebase has different SDKs for Android and the JVM. Builds of Android and Java SDK are published to the Maven central repository. You will need to add the dependency of the downloaded SDK jar or add permissions if you are using the Android version.
It also has a new SDK version for iOS. The iOS SDK allows easy data storage and Firebase Simple Login supports iOS which means user authentication can be handled without custom server code.
Webhooks
The Cloudcode Hooks API in Parse Server lets you access information and perform actions programmatically that previously you could only do through your Parse dashboard. You can create new webhooks and modify, delete or list the existing webhooks — all quickly and easily via the Hooks API.
This API opens up several new functionalities to the Parse ecosystem. For instance, it enables you to test your Cloud Code in a local environment before deploying it. You can run your code locally and use a tunneling service like ngrok or ultrahook to map your local http endpoints to public URLs. Then, using the Hooks API, you can dynamically create or modify webhooks (for your app) to be served by your test environment.
In Firebase, the webhooks feature can be realized by using child_added and child_removed. Say, you want to attach a webhook server-side onto the connect and disconnect events that fire in Firebase so that you can count the users in the elastic search records. You can use a node.js client that would subscribe to the same events on the member paths and set listners on child_added and child_removed. A regular Firebase client would:
accept user input and send it to Firebase
listen for changes in Firebase an update the user’s screen
This node.js client would instead:
listen for changes in Firebase and update the data in Firebase based on that
Logging
Using Parse Server, it is easy to view Cloud Code logs using the command line tool if a throw block was added in the code. The dashboard feature in Parse Server makes API consoles also visible. But console.log and console.error were useful to log messages. Back4app has tweaked these and they are made available for users.
Firebase Crash Reporting creates detailed reports of the errors in your app. Errors are grouped into clusters of similar stack traces, and triaged by the severity of impact on your users. In addition to automatic reports, you can log custom events to help capture the steps leading up to a crash.
Firebase Crash Reporting does not itself collect any personally identifiable information (such as names, email addresses, or phone numbers). Developers can collect additional data using Crash Reporting with log and exception messages. Such data collected through Crash Reporting should not contain information that personally identifies an individual to Google.
Here is an example of a log message that does not contain personally identifiable information:
FirebaseCrash.log(“SQL database failed to initialize”);
FirebaseCrash is able to get the OutOfMemoryError and it sends the crash to the console. But if you would like to disable the crash in a BuildType, it is not possible.
Push notifications
Firebase Notifications has recently introduced user notifications for mobile app developers. Using the Notifications console GUI, you can reengage and retain your userbase, foster app growth, and support marketing campaigns. Notifications integrate closely with Firebase Analytics, allowing you to target notifications by custom audience.
When your app is in the background on a user’s device, notifications are delivered to the system tray. When a user taps on the notification, the app launcher opens your app. If you want, you can also add client message handling to receive notifications in your app when it is already in the foreground on the user’s device.
But Firebase’s libraries only operate when a specific client is active. That means, only active clients will receive push notification updates.
Parse was one of the best options for configuring push notifications. After it got open sourced, Parse Server now includes basic push notification support using Google Cloud Messaging (GCM) for Android devices and Apple Push Notification Service (APNS) for iOS devices. With these you can:
Target installations by platform
Target installations by a ParseQuery
Use most of the sending options
PushAdapter is also enabled that lets Parse Server send push notifications using any push provider you want. PushAdapter abstracts the way pushes are sent so that you can easily connect it to any service that exposes an API for sending.
Analytics
Google Analytics is one of the best alternatives for Mobile Apps as it lets you measure the full value of your app across all key stages right from first discovery and download to in-app conversions. One could implement the routes in analytics.js and then send the event to another analytics provider like Google Analytics. AnalyticsRouter.js is the entity responsible for exposing the route on Parse Server. We need an adapter to integrate this entity with the external service such as Google Analytics. The Parse team has released the router and the adapters can be implemented.
Firebase Analytics is a free app measurement solution that provides insight on app usage and user engagement. Analytics integrates across Firebase features and provides you with unlimited reporting for up to 500 distinct events that you can define using the Firebase SDK. The SDK automatically captures a number of events and user properties and also allows you to define your own custom events to measure the things that uniquely matter to your business. Once the data is captured, it’s available in a dashboard through the Firebase console.
Firebase Analytics also integrates with a number of other Firebase features. For example, it automatically logs events that correspond to your Firebase Notifications and provides reporting on the impact of each campaign. If you need to perform custom analysis or join your data with other sources you can link your Analytics data to BigQuery, which allows for more complex analysis like querying large data sets and joining multiple data sources.
Config
Firebase Remote Config gives you instantly-updatable variables that you can use to tune and customize your app on the fly to deliver the best experience to your users. You can enable or disable features or change the look and feel without having to publish a new version. You can also target configurations to specific Firebase Analytics Audiences so that each of your users has an experience that’s tailored for them.
Parse Server also has a similar feature that allows modifying the behavior of an app such as adding or removing a feature without having to rebuild it. The values changed could be quickly reflected on the Dashboard so that users could see the changes without updating the app.
Background jobs
Scheduling jobs through web console is possible in back4app. There are many options available to customize the frequency of these Jobs, including the start time. The statuses of any currently running jobs or previous jobs that have been completed are available.
Similar to this feature, a fault-tolerant multi-worker job pipeline is built on Firebase. You can create your Firebase queue. When your Queue runs, the data will be stored in Firebase under a /queue/tasks path and removed when complete. You can push an object with some data to the /queue/tasks location in your Firebase using any Firebase client or the REST API.
Admob
AdMob is part of how Firebase helps publishers earn revenue. You can link your AdMob apps to Firebase projects right from the AdMob console. The firebase-ads dependency just brings in the existing play-services-ads library and the firebase-analytics library. The main integration is between Firebase Analytics and AdMob, but the AdMob SDK is still the same service.
AdMob feature is not present in Parse Server.
Cloud code
Cloud Code is easy to use because it’s built on the same JavaScript SDK that powers thousands of apps. The only difference is that this code runs in the Parse Cloud rather than running on a mobile device. When you update your Cloud Code, it becomes available to all mobile environments instantly. You don’t have to wait for a new release of your application. This lets you change app behavior on the fly and add new features faster. Back4app offers cloud code feature that let developers build any mobile app without dealing with servers.
Cloud functions accept a JSON parameters dictionary on the request object, so we can use that to pass up the movie name. The entire Parse JavaScript SDK is available in the cloud environment. Cloud functions can be called from any of the client SDKs, as well as through the REST API.
Cloud code feature is not present in Firebase. |
The new year got off to a dark start on the Lower East Side early this morning, when a malfunctioning elevator at 131 Broome Street killed a 25-year-old man shortly after midnight. Stephen Hewett-Brown had come to the building from the Bronx to attend a New Year's Eve party when he got caught in a stalled elevator on the third floor at 11:30 p.m., the New York Daily News reports. He helped Erude Sanchez, 43, escape the elevator just before it plummeted down the shaft, but in trying to escape himself, he got stuck between the elevator and the shaft and suffered a traumatic injury.
“She started going in, but the elevator started going down and he pushed her out,” Manuel Coronado told the News. “He said, ‘Happy New Year,’ and pushed her out.”
Coronado also escaped and said that he tried to help pry Hewett-Brown free from the gap between the elevator and shaft wall.
When police and EMS arrived, they transferred the victim to New York Downtown Hospital, and doctors there pronounced him dead. Police say they are investigating.
The building, a subsidized, below-market-rate rental complex, has four open Buildings Department violations and its owner Grand St. Guild East HDFC, owes $700 in fines for elevator maintenance lapses. Some of the most recent problems that according to city records remain unaddressed were first identified during a 2012 inspection. |
Actress Rebel Wilson is calling for the USA to follow the example of her native Australia when it comes to gun control. (Photo11: Richard Shotwell,)
Pitch Perfect star Rebel Wilson says she usually stays far away from politics in her public comments, but she made an exception after Thursday's theater shooting in Lafayette, La., where a gunman killed two moviegoers and himself.
"I don't like getting political but America you really have to follow Australia's example re gun laws," she tweeted Friday.
Australia overhauled its gun rules in 1996 following the Port Arthur massacre, in which a gunman opened fire at a former prison colony-turned-tourist attraction in Tasmania, killing 35 people.
I don't remember a mass shooting in Australia since they overhauled the gun laws. It seems like every week in America there's a shooting. — Rebel Wilson (@RebelWilson) July 24, 2015
And as you can imagine, the response was not, um, terribly receptive. One responder told the actress to stick to being stupid in movies.
But Flight of the Conchords star and native New Zealander Jemaine Clement had her back:
@BAMBOOZER806@RebelWilson there hasn't been a similar incident since. Educate yourself before you call others stupid. — Jemaine Clement (@AJemaineClement) July 24, 2015
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1S0QsCn |
Brent Rathgeber, the tall, nerdy Conservative backbencher with a blog had apparently been coaxed yesterday to one of the House foyer’s three microphones by a question about the transfer of Omar Khadr to a prison in Edmonton, the city from which Mr. Rathgeber hails. Soon enough, Mr. Rathgeber was being asked about the matter of Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy, a politician at a microphone inevitably attracting other reporters with other questions.
Mr. Rathgeber said he believed the Prime Minister, but that what the Prime Minister didn’t know raised questions about the operations of the Prime Minister’s Office. He worried about the power of the executive over the legislature. He said it was now for Mr. Wright and Mr. Duffy to answer questions. He said the Conservative party’s supporters were angry. And then a reporter asked if he had a response to the news that Mr. Duffy had apparently once wanted to be a cabinet minister.
“Well,” he said, “I think it just reinforces what I said to one of the first questions as to why I haven’t commented on the story. It’s because the story changes day by day, sometimes hour by hour, now minute by minute. I hadn’t heard that.”
Shortly thereafter, the NDP’s regularly indignant Charlie Angus arrived at an adjacent microphone. “If the Prime Minister came clean, people might feel more reassured,” he offered. “I’ll tell you, when you go back home to the Tim Horton’s and you talk to people, they are upset. And they want answers.”
Finally, to the middle microphone, escorted by NDP MPs Andrew Cash and Craig Scott, walked Eric Peterson, television star of Corner Gas and Street Legal. Mr. Peterson had apparently been in the Speaker’s gallery for Question Period, invited as a recipient of the Governor General’s award for lifetime artistic achievement. And he had apparently walked out when he heard the Heritage Minister, in the process of attempting to fend off NDP questions about the Duffy-Wright affair, attack the idea of income averaging for those employed as artists.
“I can’t too strongly express my disappointment,” Mr. Peterson said, “that the Minister of Culture at a moment when we’re supposed to be honouring artists in this country chooses to insult them.”
And with that just about everyone could now claim to have been disappointed by something that occurred in the past 31 days.
***
Nigel Wright and a $90,000 cheque for a sitting senator. Rob Ford and a video that allegedly shows the mayor of Toronto smoking crack. Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau, Mac Harb and questions of housing allowances, travel expenses and per diems. Electoral fraud. Illegal robocalls. Patronage. Thomas Mulcair and an envelope from the mayor of Laval. Tyrone Benskin and his unpaid taxes. An investigation by Elections Canada frustrated. The Parliamentary Budget Officer frustrated again. A provincial government that ignored the legislature reelected. The RCMP has come calling on the Senate and the Senate has deferred to the RCMP. The mayor of Toronto’s chief of staff has been fired and four of the mayor’s advisors have quit. The Prime Minister’s chief of staff has resigned and two of the prime minister’s chosen senators have departed his caucus.
There have maybe been a darker day or two or a more singularly profound scandal, but have we ever seen such a sustained onslaught of the dispiriting, troubling and unfortunate in the space of 31 days? Have we ever experienced a month like this? Perhaps without the most salacious items, this would have amounted to an only slightly worse month than usual. But then maybe that is an even greater indictment of the state of things.
If there is anything that those most troubling matters—Mr. Ford and the video, Mr. Wright and the cheque, the 2011 election and the inappropriate phone calls—have in common it is how little we know about whatever has occurred. Has the mayor of Toronto smoked crack in the past six months? What were the details of the arrangement between the Prime Minister’s chief of staff and a senator? Who was involved in calls that misdirected voters during the last federal election?
Of the conduct of the mayor of this country’s largest city, the actions of the most senior advisor in this country’s highest office and the proceedings of our last national exercise in representative democracy, we are left to guess at the particulars. And in the absence of clarity there can only be insecurity.
***
On the evening of April 21, 2005, Paul Martin addressed the nation on the matter of the sponsorship scandal—the great shame that would rightly bring an end to that Liberal government nine months later. After the prime minister had pleaded his case for the camera, the leader of the Her Majesty’s official opposition spoke with the host of the national broadcaster’s nightly news.
“I’m frustrated by the lack of forthrightness,” Stephen Harper explained. “When you’re under the kind of cloud the prime minister admits his government is under I think you would use every opportunity to be as forthright as possible.”
Eight years and one month later, on the evening of May 23, Mr. Harper spoke to reporters who had travelled with him to Cali, Colombia.
The first question was perhaps a bit presumptuous, but still basically the question of the moment. “Prime Minister, if you didn’t know what the terms of the agreement were between Mr. Wright and Senator Duffy before, you do now,” the reporter posited. “So what were the terms of the agreement, and in both official languages, if you could?”
“Well, I think Mr. Wright has been very clear,” Mr. Harper offered in response, “and I think it’s been very clear. Mr. Wright gave Mr. Duffy money so that what he felt that the right thing should be done, that Mr. Duffy should repay the money he owes taxpayers. That’s my understanding. Obviously Mr. Wright will be answering to the Ethics Commissioner on the propriety of those actions. At the same time, as you know, Mr. Wright has departed my office because he did not inform me of these actions, and should have.”
A few questions later, another reporter attempted to follow up.
“Thank you, in answer to the first question, you said that the deal between Mr. Wright and Mr. Duffy was very simple, that it was just giving Duffy money to pay back the expenses,” the reporter recalled. “There’s a great deal that suggests it was more than that, including the fact that lawyers were involved in drawing up the agreement. Will you commit to disclosing that agreement?”
Mr. Harper pleaded ignorance. “I’m not aware of any formal agreement on this. Mr. Wright has told me that this was the nature of his actions. Obviously he will be answering to the Ethics Commissioner on those facts and on the appropriateness of those actions.”
It is tempting here to pile up more questions—about the arrangement between Mr. Duffy and Mr. Wright, about the allegations of what Mr. Duffy was promised and what he was ordered to do, about the Prime Minister’s use here of the word “formal” in referring to possibility of an agreement. But let’s only recall Mr. Harper’s standard for Mr. Martin and pose this question: With these answers, was the Prime Minister being forthright?
It is possible to argue he was. It is the assurance of his office that the Prime Minister is aware only of the details of the arrangement between Mr. Wright and Mr. Duffy cited in his first response: that Mr. Wright provided personal funds to Mr. Duffy so that Mr. Duffy could repay the money he owed the Senate. So maybe here the Prime Minister has been forthright.
It is an unfortunate possibility then—if, say, the allegations about various other details of the arrangement between the chief of staff and the senator are at all true—that the Prime Minister is not fully aware of what has occurred within his office.
And that likely thus begs the question of what precisely the Prime Minister has done over the last two weeks to ascertain all of the details of whatever was occurring within his office. Forthrightness would seem to involve him explaining both how he has attempted to educate himself and whatever else he might know that might provide potential context to whatever occurred between Mr. Wright and Mr. Duffy. While we wait for Mr. Wright and Mr. Duffy to unburden themselves and for the various authorities to decide if there is anything here that requires their intervention, the Prime Minister might at least give us that. (He might also provide any relevant correspondence or documents in the possession of his office.)
By comparison, the matter of Rob Ford and the video purported to show him smoking crack is relatively simple: the failure to account for himself, and that he has let his refusal to account for himself overtake his administration, is a dereliction of duty. No politician should be asked to account publicly for all moments of his or her life, but of a matter this serious it is simply not acceptable that the mayor would leave voters to parse the tense of a statement like, “I do not use crack cocaine.” If the standard is forthrightness, Mr. Ford has failed miserably.
Thirdly then is the matter of the “open sore, weeping steadily into the political environment,” as Colby Cosh put it the other day. Forthrightness would seem to have to involve the Prime Minister, as leader of his party, explaining everything he and his party have done during the past two years to understand what occurred during the 2011 election and to ensure his party’s resources are never used for improper purposes. We should have every reason to believe that the next election will be conducted without widespread chicanery.
***
Of course, if forthrightness were to be offered now it might seem truly remarkable—a foreign sound to our ears.
As a profession, politics is, of course, about differing visions and versions. And any comment on the current state of things is complicated by comparisons that beg to be made: Wasn’t it always thus? Has it really gotten any worse? Hasn’t it, in some ways, only gotten better?
But here is another question: Can we say that we conduct our politics in a sufficiently forthright manner? Maybe the answer to that question can only ever be no. Maybe we should only ever demand more and more. But consider how poorly we fare now. How little we seem to be able to know. How unable our politicians seem to be to have a conversation about much of anything. How unwilling we seem to be to hear anything more than that our taxes will be lowered.
The government’s primary method of communication is publicly funded television ads that offer little more than slogans—”Responsible Resource Development,” “Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity.” The access to information system remains a mess. We know relatively little about how the government plans to balance the federal budget. Presumably, the consolidation of the government’s computer systems will solve most of the shortfall. The government introduced a Parliamentary Budget Officer, but seems reluctant to cooperate with it. Elsewhere there is mostly nonsense. The debate over resource development and climate change is mostly about the patriotic quality of the Keystone XL pipeline, the degree to which a carbon tax might destroy everything you hold dear and whether or not you approve of jobs. The issue of further reducing crime apparently depends on whether you side with criminals or the law-abiding. (Is there an alternative approach to which to aspire? It is difficult to say. The New Democrats seem to have learned some lessons from Conservative success. Justin Trudeau’s promise remains a fuzzy dream.)
Our political representatives might not actually think we are idiots, but they would seem to understand that we are not paying terribly close attention and comport themselves accordingly. The talking point has made an ability to discuss mostly unnecessary. A willingness to discuss is basically to be discouraged. If you’re explaining, you’re losing. At the very least, we would not seem generally interested in much of a discussion. It is now maybe less an exercise in humanity than a matter of marketing: a battle between pitchmen, a contest of commercial mascots. Twas ever thus, perhaps. But while the free flow of information and expression has seemed to become something we prize as one of the principles of our era, our politicians have made message control their preeminent hallmark of competence.
And perhaps that is not an entirely unworthy goal, but now, in these moments of crisis, our political actors seem incapable of reacting sufficiently. Mr. Ford is now nearly a walking satire of modern politics: enthusing about lower taxes even as nearly everything else about the governance of the city of Toronto seems to be chaos.
At some point such grousing about the present becomes a pointless plea that someone should do something to make things somehow better. None of this is to pine unrealistically for some Bulworth fantasy. At least not without realizing how silly that is. It is surely not all bad right now. And each of these controversies will pass, one way or another.
But, in general, we seem to have a communication problem and the makings of a downward spiral. These reasons to doubt the integrity of our politics require, for the sake of our politics, answers. There cannot only ever be more reasons to dismiss the possibilities of the political. That way only leads to further crisis. Mr. Harper was correct. What we need is forthrightness. Perhaps even in the hope that a general expectation of forthrightness might prevent future calamities from occurring.
So politician, explain thyself. And let us understand that we deserve whatever befalls us if we do not demand as much. |
About Someday, Someday, Maybe
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Lauren Graham, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood, comes a witty, charming, and hilariously relatable debut novel about a struggling young actress trying to get ahead―and keep it together―in New York City.
It’s January 1995, and Franny Banks has just six months left of the three-year deadline she set for herself when she came to New York, dreaming of Broadway and doing “important” work. But all she has to show for her efforts so far is a part in an ad for ugly Christmas sweaters, and a gig waiting tables at a comedy club. Her roommates―her best friend Jane, and Dan, an aspiring sci-fi writer―are supportive, yet Franny knows a two-person fan club doesn’t exactly count as success. Everyone tells her she needs a backup plan, and though she can almost picture moving back home and settling down with her perfectly nice ex-boyfriend, she’s not ready to give up on her goal of having a career like her idols Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep. Not just yet. But while she dreams of filling their shoes, in the meantime, she’d happily settle for a speaking part in almost anything—and finding a hair product combination that works.
Everything is riding on the upcoming showcase for her acting class, where she’ll finally have a chance to perform for people who could actually hire her. And she can’t let herself be distracted by James Franklin, a notorious flirt and the most successful actor in her class, even though he’s suddenly started paying attention. Meanwhile, her bank account is rapidly dwindling, her father wants her to come home, and her agent doesn’t return her calls. But for some reason, she keeps believing that she just might get what she came for.
Someday, Someday, Maybe is a story about hopes and dreams, being young in a city, and wanting something deeply, madly, desperately. It’s about finding love, finding yourself, and perhaps most difficult of all in New York City, finding an acting job.
Praise for Someday, Someday, Maybe
“A winning, entertaining read . . . [Lauren Graham] has smartly mined just the right details from her own experience, infusing her work with crackling dialogue and observations about show business that ring funny and true.”—The Washington Post
“A charmer of a first novel . . . [Graham] has an easy, unforced style and, when the situation calls for it, a keen sense of the ridiculous.”—The Wall Street Journal
“With insight, care, and an abundance of humor . . . Graham demonstrates that her acting chops are not her only talent.”—Library Journal
“Thoroughly charming.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Sweet, funny, and full of heart . . . a dazzling debut.”—Emily Giffin, New York Times bestselling author of Something Borrowed and Where We Belong
“Warm and funny, charming and smart.”—Diane Keaton, New York Times bestselling author of Then Again
“Graham deftly captures what it’s like to be young, ambitious, and hopeful in New York City.”—Candace Bushnell, New York Times bestselling author of Sex and the City and The Carrie Diaries
“Fresh and funny and full of zingers, Lauren Graham’s charming writing style instantly drew me in.”—Meg Cabot, bestselling author of the Princess Diaries and Heather Wells Mystery series |
The F-35 Lightning II, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), planes arrive at Edwards Air Force Base in California in this May 2010 file photo. REUTERS/Tom Reynolds/Lockheed Martin Corp/Handout
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp, the U.S. government’s top information technology provider, said on Sunday that a “tenacious” cyberattack on its network last weekend was part of a pattern of frequent attacks on it from around the world.
“The fact is, in this new reality, we are a frequent target of adversaries around the world,” Sondra Barbour, the company’s chief information officer, said in a memorandum to employees.
Eight days after the “significant and tenacious” May 21 attack was detected and countered, Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed is still working around the clock to restore employee access to the network while maintaining the highest level of security, Barbour said.
Lockheed’s first response included “proactively” shutting down the company’s virtual private network, or VPN, she said. A VPN is a secure way of connecting to a private network using the Internet or any public network to carry network data privately through encryption.
Other counter measures included resetting all user passwords, upgrading remote access SecurID tokens and adding a new level of security to the remote access network log-on procedure, Barbour said.
Lockheed said on Saturday night that it had warded off the attack after detecting it “almost immediately.” It said it had taken aggressive actions to protect systems and data. No compromise of customer, program or employees’ personal data had occurred, the company said.
Lockheed is the Pentagon’s top supplier by sales. It builds the F-16, F-22 and F-35 fighter aircraft as well as the Aegis naval combat system and THAAD missile defense.
A U.S. Defense Department spokeswoman, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel April Cunningham, said Saturday night that the Pentagon was working with Lockheed to gauge the scope of the May 21 attack. The impact on the department had been “minimal and we don’t expect any adverse effect,” she said.
Neither Lockheed nor the U.S. government has commented yet on the possible origin of the attack. |
Tasers are used across the nation by police as a "pain compliance technique." But do the powerful electroshock weapons amount to police brutality? A case that lands before the Supreme Court next week could decide the fate of tasers.
Malika Brooks sued three Seattle police officers who tased her when she was seven months pregnant. The New York Times reports that she was pulled over going 32 miles per hour in a 20 mph zone. She took the ticket. The situation escalated when she refused to sign it because she thought it amounted to an admission of guilt. The cops tried to arrest her, but Brooks refused to get out of her car.
The situation plainly called for bold action [sic], and Officer Juan M. Ornelas met the challenge by brandishing a Taser and asking Ms. Brooks if she knew what it was. She did not, but she told Officer Ornelas what she did know. "I have to go to the bathroom," she said. "I am pregnant. I'm less than 60 days from having my baby." The three men assessed the situation and conferred. "Well, don't do it in her stomach," one said. "Do it in her thigh."
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After Seattle's finest "boldly" tased the pregnant woman, they dragged her to the pavement, cuffed and booked her.
Taser International warns against using tasers on pregnant women because of potential damage to the fetus, but luckily, Brooks' daughter was born healthy. She sued the officers for using excessive force and last fall the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the officers had indeed crossed line. The justices also said that Brooks couldn't sue because the law wasn't clear at the time of the incident.
But for cops around the nation, it wasn't enough that the Seattle cops weren't liable—they've asked the Supreme Court to take up the case to see if they can get the "excessive force" ruling thrown out. The court will decide whether to hear the case next week.
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Police organizations are worried that if the ruling stands, cops around the nation won't be able to deliver blasts of electricity into the body of suspected criminals any more. God forbid this precious right be hindered! [New York Times] |
Philip Levine, poet of working class life, died on Saturday, February 14, 2015 in Fresno, California. He was born in Detroit, where he started working in factories at age 14, later taught at several prestigious universities in the U.S., but since 1958 chose to make his permanent home in Fresno, in the belly of the agribusiness beast in California's Central Valley.
Here's the obit from today's San Francisco Chronicle:
Philip Levine, the former poet laureate of the United States whose poems dignified working-class life, died on Saturday at his home in Fresno. He was 87 years old.
Frances Levine said her husband of 60 years had been diagnosed with pancreatic and liver cancer less than a month ago.
Mr. Levine, whose honors included the Pulitzer Prize, taught at California State University Fresno for more than three decades. He served as poet laureate from 2011 to 2012.
Raised by Russian-Jewish immigrant parents in Detroit during the Great Depression, Mr. Levine began working in factories at about age 14. He wrote poetry in his off-hours, determined “to find a voice for the voiceless,” he said in an interview with Detroit Magazine. “I saw that the people that I was working with … were voiceless in a way. In terms of the literature of the United States, they weren’t being heard. Nobody was speaking for them. And as young people will, you know, I took this foolish vow that I would speak for them and that’s what my life would be.”
Dean Rader, a San Francisco poet, wrote in The Chronicle in 2011, “No living American poet has written more probingly or more beautifully about work than Levine. But, by no means is that a profound observation. … What is less obvious, though, is how important it is to have a poet who is committed to writing about America’s working class.”
Unlike the working-class poetry of Charles Bukowski, Rader wrote, Mr. Levine’s poetry is “less interested in the down-and-out and more interested in how the down get up, how the lower-middle work their way into the middle. His poems forgo wallow for work.”
Mr. Levine’s poetry is also known for its accessibility. David Baker, in the Kenyon Review, wrote that Mr. Levine had “one of our most resonant voices of social conviction and witness, and he speaks with a powerful clarity.”
Lines from Mr. Levine’s poem “An Abandoned Factory, Detroit” serve as example:
Philip Levine wrote:
Men lived within these foundries, hour by hour; Nothing they forged outlived the rusted gears Which might have served to grind their eulogy.
As a young man, Mr. Levine worked for Cadillac, in its transmission factory, and had a night shift at a Chevrolet plant. “You could recite poems aloud in there,” he told the Paris Review. “The noise was so stupendous. Some people singing, some people talking to themselves, a lot of communication going on with nothing, no one to hear.”
Mr. Levine won the National Book Award for “What Work Is” (1991).
Encouraged by his high school teachers, Mr. Levine decided to pursue a college education and enrolled at Wayne State University. “There, at college, I encountered modern poetry,” he told the Paris Review. “And I loved it. Loved it.”
Mr. Levine then went on to the University of Iowa, where he earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He continued traveling west. According to the Academy of American Poets, the poet Yvor Winters helped Mr. Levine put down roots in California, housing him and his wife and two children until they found a place of their own and selecting him for a Stanford Writing Fellowship.
Mr. Levine began teaching in the English department at California State University Fresno in 1958; he retired from the university in 1992. He also taught at many other universities, including UC Berkeley.
In his Paris Review interview, Mr. Levine sang the praises of living as a poet in Fresno. “Our payments are 165 bucks,” he said about his house. “We bought it fifteen years ago when anybody could buy a house. And people ask me why I live in Fresno!”
Mr. Levine’s first poetry collection, “On the Edge,” was published in 1963 by the Stone Wall Press, followed by “Not This Pig” (Wesleyan University Press) in 1968. More recent works include “The Simple Truth” (1994), “The Mercy” (1999), “Breath” (2004) and “News of the World” (2009), all published by Knopf.
In addition to the Pulitzer Prize (for “The Simple Truth”), Mr. Levine won two National Book Awards for Poetry (“Ashes: Poems New and Old,” 1980, and “What Work Is,” 1991), the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (1987) and the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets (2013). |
After winning the 2014 Stanley Cup, the bushy beard is the last thing to go and THR captured the transformation of Trevor Lewis and Jake Muzzin as they went from rugged to clean cut.
The playoff beard has long been a tradition for hockey players — and with the Los Angeles Kings making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals, the team hadn't shaved or cut their hair since the middle of April — until now.
Kings stars (and Stanley Cup champs) Trevor Lewis and Jake Muzzin were ready to get rid of the fuzzy facial hair and invited The Hollywood Reporter along to get a behind-the-scenes look at their man-makeover.
PHOTOS L.A. Kings Stanley Cup 2014 Victory Parade
"I can’t wait to get this beard off. It's been itchy and almost like an extra pillow on my face. I am just happy that I don't have to do it myself," said Lewis before he got lathered up at Floyd's 99 barbershop in Hermosa Beach, Calif. on Wednesday.
"I am pretty lazy, so it's been one less thing to do," admitted the King's 27-year-old center/right wing, who said he can never go completely clean-shaven because he "looks like a baby," despite currently having stitches in his cheek from being hit by a hockey stick.
PHOTOS Hollywood's Coolest Hockey Fans
Teammate Muzzin had been planning to get rid of all his beard, but then found it hard to say goodbye to his furry friend, even after getting it dirty "with spilled champagne and beer" during the post-victory party.
"I am attached to it now, but we're going to trim it up and make it look pretty," he said, before getting his curly hair shaved off too.
As for keeping their facial hair maintained amid the drama on the ice. "You just have to let the beard do what the beard has to do and let it go," he explained. "Sometimes you get hairs in your mouth, but other than that, it's alright."
PHOTOS World Cup: 13 Sexy Soccer Players Stretching
When asked who had the best beard on the team, the unanimous reply was Jeff Carter, who loves the caveman look so much that he's refusing to shave at all. "It is part of him now," Lewis said.
Which poor player couldn't grow a beard at all? "Tyler Toffoli, for sure. His beard was pathetic … there wasn't really a beard even there," laughed Muzzin, while Lewis compared it to "a little peach fuzz mustache."
Watch video of the ceremonial shaving above, and look out for exclusive before and after portraits of the players' makeover in THR's Sports Issue next month. |
The job of being chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve was once described as being "God on a good day."
That was before the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession, but still, the Fed chair is the director of the world's largest economy. Stocks, bonds and exchange rates surge and fall based solely on the words that come out of the Fed chair's mouth.
Talk about a power trip.
But the four people alive today who have actually held the position don't think it's anything like being a deity.
"You can't exactly do what you want," former Fed chair Paul Volcker said Thursday at an event at International House in New York. "You have a board. You have a public. You've got [regional] reserve bank presidents."
CNN's Fareed Zakaria moderated the discussion with former Fed chairs Volcker, Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan and current chair Janet Yellen. It was the first time all four living Fed chairs were interviewed at the same time.
Related: What scares America's 4 Fed chiefs
Major decisions on interest rates and other measures to boost or slow down the economy are all made by a committee. The chair only gets one vote.
Volcker, who served as Fed chair from 1979 until 1987, is famous for tackling inflation. His committee did it by hiking interest rates to an all-time high of 20%. That raised American's mortgage rates, credit card rates and other borrowing costs and made Volcker a very unpopular man for a while.
Instead of an ego boost, he often felt more like people "gave us some rope to hang ourselves."
He suspects the carpet in the Fed chair's office still shows the wear from where he paced back and forth.
Related: Has the Federal Reserve messed up?
Ben Bernanke was chair from 2006 to 2014 -- right in the middle of the financial crisis and major recession. He called the Fed a "wonderful institution," not a one-man show.
"I didn't take the job for adulation," he told Zakaria. "We had tremendous responsibilities to try to address these terrible risks."
Related: Janet Yellen disagrees strongly with Bernie Sanders
The Fed chair who got the closest to rock star status was Greenspan. He led the Fed from 1987 to 2006, a mostly boom time. Bob Woodward called his 2000 book about him "Maestro." Greenspan joked that all his celebrity status "embarrassed him," but he "got past the embarrassment very easily."
The aura of Greenspan has taken a hit since the Great Recession. Now some blame him for helping cause the housing crisis and overheated market. He told Zakaria that the hardest part of the job for all Fed chairs is that you can only forecast so far into the future, yet people seem to think you have some sort of psychic ability.
Current Fed chair Yellen feels that pressure acutely. Zakaria pressed her: Did she regret raising interest rates in December for the first time in years?
"I don't think December was a mistake," Yellen said. "We think a gradual path of rate increases will be appropriate." |
Image caption Net growth could be slowed if the net does not move quickly to the new addressing scheme
A global trial of the net's new addressing system is being planned for 8 June.
The test is being held to raise awareness about the imminent change from version 4 of the addressing scheme to version 6.
Net giants Google, Facebook, Akamai and Yahoo have committed to taking part in the "test flight" of IPv6.
Net firms are being encouraged to switch to IPv6 as addresses in the old scheme will run out by November 2011.
"The good news is that internet users don't need to do anything special to prepare for World IPv6 Day," said Lorenzo Colitti, a network engineer at Google in a blog post.
"Our current measurements suggest that the vast majority (99.95%) of users will be unaffected. However, in rare cases, users may experience connectivity problems, often due to misconfigured or misbehaving home network devices."
The World IPv6 Day is being co-ordinated by the Internet Society, a non-profit group which educates people and companies about net issues. It has provided a webpage through which people can test their Ipv6 readiness.
On 8 June, those who sign up will make their pages available via IPv6 for 24 hours to help show up and iron out problems created by the switch to the new addressing scheme.
"By providing an opportunity for the internet industry to collaborate to test IPv6 readiness we expect to lay the groundwork for large-scale IPv6 adoption and help make IPv6 ready for prime time," said Leslie Daigle, chief internet technology officer at the Internet Society in a statement.
Google already offers an IPv6 version of its search site as does Facebook.
The addressing scheme used by most sites now is defined in version 4 of the Internet Protocol. This has an address space of about four billion entries.
While this figure was considered to be enough in the late 1970s when IPv4 was being developed it has proved to be wanting as the net has grown in popularity and more and more people and devices use it.
At current estimates the pool of IPv4 addresses will run entirely dry in early November 2011.
Many net authorities and organisations have been calling for net firms to switch to IPv6 which has an effectively unlimited address space, but progress has been slow.
In November 2010 Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet, warned that the net faced "turbulent times" if it did not move quickly to adopt IPv6. |
Hillary Clinton spent years vowing to defend the rights of children worldwide, but under her leadership the State Department played a central role in allowing rebel forces in southern Sudan to use child soldiers in defiance of a 2008 law forbidding it, reports Nick Turse at The Intercept.
The law is called the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, or CSPA, and after South Sudan’s independence, in 2011 the White House issued annual waivers that kept taxpayer dollars flowing its way despite its use of child soldiers.
In 2012, Clinton railed against “modern-day slavery” in the introduction to a State Department report on human trafficking targeting the “unlawful recruitment or use of children” by militants. However, she does not appear to have publicly explained her role in allowing South Sudan and other countries to receive military support while using children as combatants. In fact, the State Department played what Turse describes as “a central role” in issuing the controversial waivers, according to two sources, one of whom is a former State Department official.
Turse continues:
As a presidential candidate, Clinton has made her foreign policy experience a centerpiece of her campaign. Under scrutiny, however, Clinton’s acumen has been consistently called into question — from her vote, as a U.S. senator, for the Iraq War (which led to the collapse of that country into near failed-state status) to her relentless push to intervene in Libya (which led to the collapse of that country into near failed-state status); not to mention her handling of the Russian “reset,” the so-called pivot to Asia, and the Arab Spring, among other issues. Until now, however, there has been little of mention of Clinton’s handling of South Sudan. With strong U.S. support, South Sudan became an independent country while she was secretary of state — and soon spiraled into a disastrous civil war that involved large numbers of child soldiers. The CSPA waivers and the broader panoply of military and diplomatic support that was extended to South Sudan and the government of its president, Salva Kiir, failed to prevent a descent into violence that has cost more than 50,000 lives and forced more than 2.4 million people to flee their homes. At a major conference on South Sudan in 2011, Clinton spoke about “the opportunity to make it possible for [South Sudan’s] children to envision a different future.” Yet in that same year, the Obama administration used a technicality to gain a CSPA exemption for South Sudan, since the list of countries subject to the law that year was created before the new nation became independent. There would be no “different future” for South Sudan’s child soldiers in 2011, nor the next year, when the White House issued a waiver for South Sudan, as well as for now war-torn Libya and Yemen.
So what role did Clinton and the State Department play?
Daniel Mahanty, who served in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor under Clinton, confirmed that the State Department, in consultation with the White House, controlled the process. The State Department drafted all waiver materials and all recommendations to the president were made on behalf of the secretary of state and with her full approval. “We will have already drafted the letter from the president to Congress that says what waivers he’s going to invoke,” Mahanty told me. “So it goes up to the secretary [of state], then over to the White House, and from the White House out to the public.” Jo Becker, the advocacy director of the children’s rights division at Human Rights Watch, has closely followed the process behind the waivers and also believes Clinton’s State Department played a central role. “It’s the State Department that gives the recommendations to Obama on who he should waive,” she told me. Contacted by The Intercept, key officials at the State Department at the time of the waivers did not respond to requests for comment, and Clinton’s campaign staff failed to provide information about her role. The Intercept reached out to Johnnie Carson, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs under Clinton, but he did not make himself available to speak. Other officials who did not comment include Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff and counselor at the State Department; Jake Sullivan, formerly the director of policy planning at the State Department and deputy chief of staff to Clinton; and Karen Hanrahan, who served as deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.
Continue reading.
—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly. |
Source: Antonio Guillem/Shutterstock
The opposite of isn’t hate; it is indifference. Ghosting, for those of you who haven’t yet experienced it, is having someone that you believe cares about you, whether it be a friend or someone you are , disappear from contact without any explanation at all. No phone call or email, not even a text. Ghosting isn’t new—people have long done disappearing acts—but years ago this kind of behavior was considered limited to a certain type of scoundrel. In today’s culture being ghosted is a phenomenon that approximately 50 percent of men and women have experienced—and an almost equal number have done the ghosting.1 Despite ghosting's commonality, the emotional effects can be devastating, and particularly damaging to those who already have fragile .
Why do people ghost?
People who ghost are primarily focused on avoiding their own emotional discomfort and they aren’t thinking about how it makes the other person feel. The lack of social connections to people who are met online also means there are less social consequences to dropping out of someone’s life. The more it happens, either to themselves or their , the more people become desensitized to it and the more likely they are to do it to someone else.
“I didn't understand exactly how I actually felt at the time, so instead of trying to talk it out, I ghosted.” 2
“I used to disappear when it was all I thought it was [a fling], or I got scared of finding what I wanted…Or some kind of factor from a past relationship kicks in.” 2
“Looking through the lens of a coward, passive withdrawal from dating seems like the easiest and nicest route…until it’s done to you.” 3
“I kind of think that it's part of what makes the scene so appealing. Since you don't have friends in common or weren't introduced through some other channel, it's not the end of the world if you just drop off the face of the earth.” 4
“I, for one, consider myself to be an honest and straightforward person. And yet I’ve ghosted...And I’ve told myself, time and time again, that it’s all the fault of the toxic dating culture we’ve created. And at the end of the day, I think that’s what we’re all telling ourselves.” 5
How does it feel to be ghosted?
For many people ghosting can result in feelings of being disrespected, used and disposable. If you have known the person beyond more than a few dates then it can be even more . When someone we love and trust disengages from us it feels like a very deep betrayal.
“I felt like an idiot. Like I had been played a fool. And more so I felt disrespected. Take the romantics away, to have a great connection with a new friend and then all of a sudden never hear from them again? That’s painful and really disappointing. No one deserves to be blown off.” 6
“It still felt a bit like someone had punched me in the gut when it happened. The disregard is insulting. The lack of closure is maddening. You move on, but not before your takes a hit. The only thing worse than being broken up with is realizing that someone didn’t even consider you worth breaking up with.” 7
“Going from texting every day and seeing each other a couple times a week to nothing without the slightest hint of why was a kick in the gut.” 8
“Ghosting is one of the cruelest forms of torture dating can serve up.” 9
Why does it feel so bad?
Social rejection activates the same pain pathways in the brain as physical pain.10 In fact, you can reduce the emotional pain of rejection with a pain like Tylenol.11 But in addition to this biological link between rejection and pain, there are some specific factors about ghosting that contribute to the psychological distress.
Ghosting gives you no cue for how to react. It creates the ultimate scenario of ambiguity. Should you be worried? What if they are hurt and in a hospital bed somewhere? Should you be upset? Maybe they are just a little busy and will be calling you at any moment. You don’t know how to react because you don’t really know what has happened. Staying connected to others is so important to our survival that our brain has evolved to have a social monitoring system (SMS) that monitors the for cues so that we know how to respond in social situations.12 Social cues allow us to regulate our own behavior accordingly, but ghosting deprives you of these usual cues and can create a sense of emotional dysregulation where you feel out of control.
One of the most insidious aspects of ghosting is that it doesn’t just cause you to question the validity of the relationship you had, it causes you to question yourself. Why didn’t I see this coming? How could I have been such a poor judge of character? What did I do to cause this? How do I protect myself from this ever happening again? This self-questioning is the result of basic psychological systems that are in place to monitor one’s social standing and relay that information back to the person via feelings of self-worth and self-esteem. When a rejection occurs your self-esteem can drop which social psychologists propose is meant to be a signal that your social belonging is low.13 If you have been through multiple ghostings or if your self-esteem is already low you are likely to experience the rejection as even more painful, and it may take you longer to get over it as people with lower-self-esteem have less natural (pain-killer) released into the brain after a rejection when compared to those whose self-esteem is higher.14
Ghosting is the ultimate use of the silent treatment, a tactic that has often been viewed by mental professionals as a form of emotional cruelty.15 It essentially renders you powerless and leaves you with no opportunity to ask questions or be provided with information that would help you emotionally process the experience. It silences you and prevents you from expressing your emotions and being heard, which is important for maintaining your self-esteem.
Regardless of the ghoster’s intent, ghosting is a interpersonal tactic that can leave psychological bruises and scars.
Source: Bigstock/Used with Permission
How do you move forward?
The important thing to remember is that when someone ghosts you, it says nothing about you or your worthiness for love and everything about the person doing the ghosting. It shows he/she doesn’t have the courage to deal with the discomfort of their emotions or yours, and they either don't understand the impact of their behavior or worse don’t care. In any case they have sent you an extremely loud message that says: I don’t have what it takes to have a mature healthy relationship with you. Be the better person, retain your dignity, and let him/her go peacefully.
Don’t allow someone else’s bad behavior to rob you of a better future by losing your vulnerability and shutting yourself off from another relationship. Keep your energy focused on doing what makes you happy. Know that if you are someone who treats people with respect and integrity then the ghoster simply wasn’t on your wavelength and someone better is coming your way, as long as you keep your heart open and your focus forward.
References
http://www.elle.com/life-love/sex-relationships/advice/a12787/girls-ghos... http://www.chicagonow.com/accidentally-sexy/2015/03/ghosting-three-guys-... http://goodguyswag.com/ghosting-when-a-nice-guy-is-too-scared-to-say-no/ http://www.vice.com/read/i-asked-men-why-they-ghosted-me-511 http://thoughtcatalog.com/heidi-priebe/2015/08/why-good-people-ghost-how... http://www.therefinedwoman.com/ghosting-so-thats-like-a-thing-now/ http://thoughtcatalog.com/heidi-priebe/2015/08/why-good-people-ghost-how... http://www.gq.com/story/the-reason-you-just-got-ghosted http://goodguyswag.com/ghosting-when-a-nice-guy-is-too-scared-to-say-no/ Krossa, E., Bermana, M., Mischelb, W., Edward E. Smith, and Wager, T. 2011. Social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 108 (15), p. 6270–6275, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1102693108. DeWall, C., et al. 2010. Acetaminophen Reduces Social Pain: Behavioral and Evidence. Psychological Sciences, 21 (7), p. 931 -7 Cynthia L. Pickett, C., Gardner, W., and Knowles, M. 2004. Getting a Cue: The Need to Belong and Enhanced Sensitivity to Social Cues. and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30 (9), p. 1095-1107. Leary, M. R.,Haupt, A. L., Strausser, K. S., & Chokel, J. T. 1998. Calibrating the sociometer: The relationship between interpersonal appraisals and state self-esteem. Journal of and Social Psychology, 74, p.1290-1299. Hsu, D. et al. 2013. Response of the μ-opioid system to social rejection and acceptance. Molecular , 18, p. 1211–1217. Williams, C., Richardson, D. Hammock, G., Janit, S. 2012. Perceptions of physical and psychological in close : A review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 17, (6), p. 489–494.
Source: New World Library
Dr. Jennice Vilhauer is the director of the Outpatient Treatment Program at Emory Healthcare, the developer of Future Directed , and the author of Think Forward to Thrive: How to Use the Mind’s Power of Anticipation to Transcend Your Past and Transform Your Life.
www.futuredirectedtherapy.com
To view my 2015 TEDx talk on Why You Don't Get What You Want click here. |
21 & Over is a 2013 American comedy film written and directed by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, in their directorial debut. The film stars Justin Chon, Miles Teller, and Skylar Astin, and follows a trio of friends who go out drinking to celebrate one of their 21st birthdays despite having a medical interview the following morning. The film was released on March 1, 2013, received generally unfavorable reviews from critics and grossed $48 million.
Plot [ edit ]
Friends since high school, Casey and Miller are both over 21 and want to take their best friend Jeff Chang out for his 21st birthday while visiting him at college. Jeff insists he can't, citing the important medical school interview he has to be ready for at 8am the next morning. Miller threatens to make a lot of noise, keeping Jeff up all night, if he refuses to come out. Jeff eventually accepts, but only for one drink.
At the bar, Jeff accidentally hits a boy named Randy with a dart. Randy gets aggressive, and the trio have to flee, which interrupts a nice chat that Casey is having with a girl named Nicole. Excited that he is now allowed to enter bars, Jeff drinks too much and becomes unresponsive. Casey and Miller decide to take him home, but they cannot remember where he lives. Because Nicole knows Jeff, they attempt to find her to ask her where he lives. They sneak into the sorority house that they think Nicole lives in, but it is the wrong house, and is instead filled with Latina students.
Along the way, they encounter two blindfolded women preparing to be paddled as part of their sorority initiation ritual. Miller has the women make out with each other, but they and the other women of the house are furious when they discover the intrusion. Once again, the boys have to flee, and Casey and Miller throw Jeff from a balcony onto a pool cover in order to escape. Jeff bounces off the cover into a rose garden, and the two worry that they killed him. They find him uninjured. Surprisingly, he is still willing to party.
They finally find Nicole, but she does not know Jeff's address, and instead refers them to her boyfriend, who turns out to be Randy, the boy whom Jeff had hit with a dart earlier. Randy refuses to look up the address in his phone, so Miller threatens him (using a gun that they found in Jeff's pocket), trying to steal the phone. Miller shoots into the air, panicking a buffalo and prompting it to attack people, including Randy. At the address taken from Randy's phone they discover that Jeff no longer lives there, and that there is a party being thrown. They join in on party games in order to access a boy who may know Jeff's current address. The party games include a drinking game against a group of Serbian party-goers.
When they finally find the boy who may know Jeff's address, they are disappointed to discover that he does not actually know it. They leave Jeff in the care of two stoners who undress him for fun, write "Douchebag" on his forehead, dress him in a lacy bra and glue a teddy bear to his penis. After leaving the party, Jeff goes out on the street still naked except for the teddy bear and the bra. Casey and Miller go after him to get him dressed, but he evades them and is apprehended by the police after running atop several cars and being a public disturbance. Casey and Miller go to the campus police station where they are told that Jeff has been transferred to the medical unit. A woman offers to escort them to the hospital, but it is actually a trap set by the Latina sorority who had been chasing them since they invaded their sorority earlier. They throw hoods over their heads and shove them into a van. When the hoods are removed they find themselves in a ritualistic setting, where all the girls are wearing black long black robes, standing in a circle. Running the proceedings the head-acolyte is wearing a horned mask. They take revenge on Casey and Miller, now stripped naked and shackled to the floor, by forcing them to experience/do the same thing they tricked the girls to do earlier i.e. be spanked & kiss one another. After some vociferous complaining they won't do 'that', they have no choice or they won't be allowed to leave until they do. They finally leave, embarrassed, with bruised and bright red spanked buttocks. They have to walk across campus wearing nothing but tube socks on their penises until they get new clothes. Along the way, a furious Casey blames Miller, as all that's happened being his fault and they get into a naked wrestling/fight scuffle right in the middle of campus. Later, at the mental health facility, Casey and Miller ask if they can take Jeff home, but the hospital refuses to release him, citing that Jeff is on a 24-hour hold. The two also learn that Jeff has attempted suicide before due to overwhelming stress. They also encounter Nicole there, who has broken up with Randy after he was injured/gored by the rampaging buffalo earlier.
Casey and Miller then learn Jeff's address from a man they've named "Chief", who states he lives next door to Jeff and thus realise they drove past Jeff's house several times (thinking the Chief had simply been moving around all night when they encountered him several times through the evening). They go to Jeff's ward, smuggle him out of the window and throw him atop a car from the third floor. They worry that they've again killed him, but somehow Jeff avoids injury. Awakened by the fall, and finding the keys in the ignition, Jeff steals the car on which he'd just landed (which turns out to be Randy's). The three boys flee with Jeff driving recklessly, followed by Jeff and his two brainless buddies. During their severely reckless driving, police catch up to their tail but the trio manage to evade the police by Jeff steering the car over an overpass right down to the street below. Miraculously, they land without injury, the car however is pretty wrecked. Jeff comes to the realization that perhaps he shouldn't be driving in that state after all.
The boys finally arrive to Jeff's apartment with minutes to spare to get him ready for his medical school interview. They pull the teddy bear off his crotch (accidentally 'circumcising' him in the process), shower and dress him just in the nick of time. Randy, sporting a bat, goes to Jeff's home to destroy the room, but Jeff's father arrives and when threatened by Randy, turns the tables on him and gives him a thorough beating with his own bat. Encouraged by Casey and Miller, Jeff confesses to his father, who pressured him into going to medical school, that he does not actually want to become a doctor; that now that he's 21 he'll no longer be forced to do something he'll regret. His father first appears to understand until he expresses his disgust toward Jeff's choice, believing he raised a worthless son. Miller becomes angry for the way Jeff's father is treating his own son and punches him. Jeff tells his dad to leave which he reluctantly finally does. Jeff earns Randy's respect for standing up to his father as Randy has a father similar to Jeff's. Casey realizes he has fallen in love with Nicole, and runs to her house, where they kiss.
Three months later, Miller, who is intelligent but just lazy, improves his grades and wants to apply to university again. The night before his admissions interview, he is at a music festival with Casey, Nicole (who is now dating Casey), and Jeff. He has a wild night and arrives to the professor's office with red dyed hair, a broken leg, and a coroner's uniform, profusely apologizing for his current late state. When the chair turns around, the professor turns out to be the "Chief" that they repeatedly saw dancing alone in the street on the night of Jeff's 21st birthday. Much to his surprise, the professor just laughs it off and tells him he "looks like shit".
Cast [ edit ]
Production [ edit ]
Jon Lucas and Scott Moore had worked together previously as writers on multiple films, including The Hangover, The Change-Up and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.
Filming [ edit ]
Principal photography was scheduled to begin on September 22, 2011, at the University of Washington.[6][7] Key scenes were filmed in Lewis Hall, the University of Washington Medical Center, the Ave, the Greek fraternities and sororities on 17th Ave NE, and Red Square. The music festival scene was filmed at The Gorge Amphitheatre, which is located in George, Washington. The film was released on March 1, 2013.
Chinese version [ edit ]
For the version of the film shown in China, the directors included additional scenes in the beginning and at the end of the film. The Chinese-American lead is changed to a Chinese student who briefly transfers to an American college. According to Jon Lucas, the Chinese version will be about "a boy who leaves China, gets corrupted by our wayward, Western partying ways and goes back to China a better person."[8]
Reception [ edit ]
The film opened on 2,771 screens and grossed $8.7 million during its opening weekend. It took in a $45.5 million worldwide total.[4]
Critical reaction [ edit ]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 26% based on 103 reviews, and an average rating of 4.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Though it strives to mimic The Hangover, 21 and Over is too predictable, too unabashedly profane, and too inconsistently funny to carry the torch."[9] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 34 out of 100 based on 21 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[10] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[11]
Relativity Media has been criticized by civil rights advocates for shooting part of the comedy 21 & Over in the city of Linyi, Shandong province in China, and choosing to ignore the area's bleak human rights records, notably the treatment suffered by activist lawyer Chen Guangcheng, who was being held under house arrest in a nearby village.[12]
Connection to documentary film Twinsters [ edit ]
Samantha Futerman acts in the film and appears in the trailer. Anaïs Bordier, a French student studying in London, who like Futerman was born in South Korea and adopted as a baby, saw the trailer on YouTube and, struck by the striking resemblance between herself and the actor both physically and in their mannerisms, researched further. After discovering that the two of them also shared a date of birth she reached out to Futerman via Facebook. The documentary Twinsters covers their journey of exploration of a new start in life as identical twins separated at birth and raised on different continents. |
VANCOUVER — You know you’ve hit the big time when a fake Twitter account in your name appears online.
Andre Proulx is certainly the only CFL referee who has ever received such an honour. He is without a doubt the most famous — or perhaps infamous — referee in the CFL, and he will be calling his third Grey Cup on Sunday at BC Place because he graded out as the league’s top official this season.
The @fakeandreproulx account appears to have vanished into the Internet ether, but when it was up and running his fellow CFL officials were more than happy to provide updates. That’s because no one busts Proulx’s chops more than his fellow officials.
Proulx, as every CFL fan knows, can have a little trouble with the English language, which is understandable considering he was born and raised in Drummondville, Que., and still lives there today. One recent stumble occurred in the West semifinal at Commonwealth Stadium, where he tried to say “vicinity” during a penalty call, but it eventually came out “vinicity.”
He probably heard about that one from his colleagues in stripes, too.
“They say, ‘Do you know what you said last week?’ I said what? Because I don’t check it. Here’s what you said …”
Proulx can laugh at that, but he knows there is vitriol toward him. Like most officials, he does his best to ignore it.
“I’m not going on, especially the Internet, to look at what people are thinking of me,” Proulx said. “And luckily for me I’m French, and my family doesn’t look at that. So it makes my life easier. I know there’s some people that don’t like me, but that’s life.
“They don’t know me, and probably they don’t like me because of one call that I didn’t even make, but that’s life. And that’s being the head referee.”
In today’s world of being able to say very mean things behind a cloak of online anonymity, much of the ammunition fired at Proulx revolves around his trouble speaking — like their French would be any better in front of 30,000 people and hundreds of thousands more on television.
“I would love to be able to speak just like you without an accent, but unfortunately I’m a French-speaking boy and it’s there,” said Proulx who, along with his wife Line, has a daughter, Stephanie, in university, and a son, Philippe, in Grade 12. “There’s nothing I can do. I’m doing my best, and I’d rather have people judge me on what I’m doing on the field rather than what I’m saying, because I’m a darn good official. I could tell you that.
“I’ve been around for 17 years. I’m always doing the best I can do every game for the players and for the fans, because we’re all in together. If one fails, the whole league fails. I’m trying to do my best week in and week out.”
Proulx, who runs his own plumbing, heating and cooling company in Drummondville, played football as a youngster and began officiating when he was 14. He played past high school, but gave it up in his early 20s to focus on officiating.
“I was a better ref than a player, so it was kind of an easy decision to go from playing to reffing,” he said. “I was doing both at the same time. From one week I was playing with my friends and the following week I was reffing them.”
The 50-year-old changed his lifestyle two years ago when he suffered a mild heart attack while doing a game in Edmonton. He gave up smoking immediately and started eating better.
“That was an easy decision,” Proulx said. “I changed my diet. My wife takes care of that, and I run seven clicks every day. I’m a totally different guy. I’ve never felt better.”
He’s also at the top of his game when it comes to calling football games, whether you agree or not.
MORE PENALTIES THIS YEAR? YUP
Referees threw flags like it was going out of style this season, but Andre Proulx’s crew was a little more discretionary than others.
Regardless, every CFL official gets painted with the same brush, and there was a lot of fan consternation about the men in stripes — way more than usual — this season. When the CFL announced Wednesday that Proulx would call Sunday’s game, the backlash on Twitter was fierce and not unexpected.
Proulx said the level of officiating falls not only on the men wearing black and white. It’s up to everyone to get on the same page. Regardless, he said, there were going to be more penalties this season because of the league’s mandate.
“It’s the players, it’s the coaches, it’s the officials, it’s the league,” Proulx said. “We were given something at the beginning of the season, explaining what to expect in certain situations. Players were told, coaches were told, and we gotta live with that. If we’re not calling it, we’re not doing our job. So yes, the average is higher than in the past, but the standard has been changed.”
The level of officiating can always improve in any league, but the big question is how does that happen? More money? More training? Better glasses?
“We could get a bit more training, but it won’t change anything,” Proulx said. “What we need to do is work more with the players. Let them know what we’re going to call. If we have a good understanding with the players and the coaches, that will reduce the number of fouls.”
kirk.penton@sunmedia.ca
twitter.com/PentonKirk |
DAVAO CITY — President Rodrigo Duterte reiterated on Thursday, that a federal form of government would be the only way to address the Moro problem in Mindanao.
“We are suffering because there seems to be no cohesive actions on the part of the Moro people and the central government,” Mr. Duterte told at least 116 mayors and governors who attended the local government summit of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao here.
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Mr. Duterte said so many attempts have been made to bring peace and unity among the Bangsamoro people, “but these efforts failed.”
He said with all the meetings and talks, “instead of uniting, it was more of divisive measures.”
“But I think the only acceptable arrangement today, of this generation and of the lives of the Moro people, is federalism. Other than that, bakbakan ito (it will be fighting),” he said.
The summit participants also signed on Thursday, a manifesto expressing support to the government’s war on drugs. They also denounced terrorism.
ARMM Governor Mujiv Hataman earlier said local government officials should take the lead in the campaign against terrorism in their respective areas.
Hataman also said local government units should function as mandated by law, bringing in development that would boost the local economy.
He said absentee local officials have given armed groups the opportunity to organize and stay in communities.
He cited the case of Basilan where the local government provided infrastructure and services to the people, driving away the Abu Sayyaf in Al-Barka town.
He also commended Mayor Dilanggalen Pansar of Butig, Lanao del Sur, for fighting it off with the local terror group named Maute.
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Government forces have been operating against the Maute group for a week now.
Hataman said Pansar did not allow the Maute Group in his town.
Early this week, soldiers, including members of the Presidential Security Group (PSG), were ambushed in Marawi City on Tuesday. The PSG members were on their way to Butig as an advance party for the President who had a scheduled visit Wednesday.
During his visit to wounded soldiers in Cagayan de Oro City on Wednesday, Duterte said he was urging the Maute group to stop its atrocities and just talk.
“I hope we don’t have to go to war,” the President said, adding that he wanted to prevent war by talking to various groups.
“I’m not trying to scare them but but do not force my hand to do it,” he said.
On Thursday, Duterte said the Maute group should not ally itself with the Islamic State, saying that the “ISIS came about because the Americans invaded Iraq on an excuse that there were weapons of mass destruction.”
The Maute group has been claiming that it has allied with the ISIS. SFM
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Dublin’s attractions for banks seeking to relocate staff from London after Brexit are partly offset by Ireland’s location and the small size of the domestic economy, the City of London’s special representative to the EU has said. Jeremy Browne told The Irish Times that although American investment banks who operate across Europe are considering relocating staff in the euro zone, some will prefer a location on the continent.
“The advantages for Dublin are that English is the first language, the same time zone as London, a fairly business-friendly political culture. Disadvantages: it’s geographically further from the middle of Europe. If the whole purpose is to try and make it easier to interact with people across the EU, there’s a case to be made for being closer to the middle of the continent,” he said.
“It’s quite a small domestic economy. I don’t really mean in terms of selling into it but it depends on how much support you might want from government. You might feel more secure sitting in a country with a bigger public balance sheet.”
Passporting rights
A former Liberal Democrat MP and foreign office minister, Mr Browne was in Dublin last week as part of a tour of EU capitals to make the case for a special relationship between Britain and the EU on financial services. The City was overwhelmingly in favour of remaining in the EU and many firms still hoped after the referendum that Britain would remain in the European single market.
Remaining in the single market would allow London-based firms to retain such privileges as “passporting rights”, offering services across the EU under a single set of regulations. Mr Browne acknowledges, however, that Brexit is likely to involve a much clearer break from the EU.
“I think the referendum result can be interpreted in lots of different ways but I think it’s very hard to interpret it as a mandate for absolute freedom of movement between the EU and the UK... I think it’s also very hard to interpret the referendum as a mandate for Britain continuing to pay into the EU budget at existing levels,” he said.
“And I think the other problem with the single market is that Britain would be in a position and the City of London would be in a position of having to obey rules it had no ability to shape... There would be a strange situation where the 27 member states of the EU, including some that have no financial services industry of any note, are sitting inside the room deciding the rules for financial services in Europe. And Britain, which has by far the biggest financial services sector and the most expertise, is excluded from the room. And I think a lot of people in Britain would feel that that is the worst of all worlds.”
Special deal for city
City firms are already drawing up contingency plans to relocate some staff elsewhere in Europe but Mr Browne believes that, even in a worst-case scenario, London will remain Europe’s only truly global financial centre. Some businesses will be affected more than others but some will not be affected at all but most are waiting to see the shape of Brexit before making a move.
“Let’s say their best case scenario is they’ll move 200 people and their worst case scenario is they’ll move 1,000. Well, let’s move the first 200 as an interim measure and then we’ll see. They don’t want to do more than they have to do because it’s expensive and disruptive,” he said.
Mr Browne argues that it would be in the EU’s interest to agree a special deal for the City after Brexit and to involve Britain in shaping common financial regulations for the EU and the UK. He admits that special pleading for the City can sound self-serving and claims that some in Brussels are blinded to their own self-interest by their determination to punish Britain for voting to leave.
“I think there are some people on the EU side of negotiations for whom inflicting some sort of economic harm on Britain is so important to them for strategic reasons that they are willing to accept some economic harm to themselves in order to achieve that objective,” he said.
City’s interests
With prime minister Theresa May already signalling that controlling immigration and regaining sovereignty will take priority over other issues in Britain’s EU negotiations, the City’s interests may not be paramount in her government’s mind.
“A lot of what Theresa May has been saying about rebalancing the economy, industrial strategies, opportunities for people right across the country, are on the face of it entirely reasonable propositions. But you could if you wished to see a subtext in that, which is that the globalisation and internationalism which the City represents is not entirely in vogue, not necessarily just in the British government but in wider British public opinion,” Mr Browne says.
“We need to realise that the British government has to have regard for the interests of the UK and all its 65 million citizens. So we’re important but we’re not the only show in town.” |
I once worked with a retired professional chef, who gave me the best cooking advice I’ve ever received; “Life is too short to cook with cheap knives.”
Until then, I’d been buying cheap knives, and getting cheap results. I then discovered the wonder that are Global knives. They’re professional-level knives that are sharp enough to shave with, but even with the best knives, they get dull over time. Rather than dropping $10-20 each time to sharpen them, I learned how to do it myself, and now sharpen all my knives once a year, all for the cost of a $20 whetstone. I use a 400/1000 stone (the number is the grit, like sandpaper), but you can get coarser or finer stones.
Keep in mind this technique will not work on serrated blades, or ones without a flat edge.
What you’ll need:
A whetstone
A cutting board
Step 1: Wet the whetstone
Take the whetstone, and drop it in a bowl of water big enough to completely submerge the stone in water. Leave it there at least 5 minutes, until the stone is full of water. Place the stone on your cutting board, and start with the coarsest grit up.
Step 2: Find the blade angle
Lay your knife flat against the stone, and then push down on the cutting edge of the blade to find out what the angle of the blade edge is. You want to hold the blade against the stone at that angle, so you sharpen the edge that already exists, rather than grinding a new edge. The dark grey you see on the stone in the Vine is part of the steel that’s being ground away, and the blue is the stone that’s being ground away. This is why you only sharpen when you need it – because you’re grinding off part of the blade.
Step 3: Sharpen away!
Holding the blade at the angle of the edge, push the blade across the stone, as if you were cutting a thin piece off the top of the stone. Make sure you run the blade from the handle to the tip so you get an even edge. Do 5 times on one side, toward you, then 5 times on the other side, away from you. Repeat until most of the notches on your blade are gone.
Step 4: Get finer
Move up in grit to the finer grit once you have a smooth angle. This will help hone the blade, and smooth out the edge.
“But I have one of those sharpening steels with my knife set, I don’t need this!”
Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Chef dude told me that sharpening steels do not actually sharpen the blade, they just make it straighter. As you use your knife, the blade gets knocked out of whack on a microscopic level, and a steel helps to straighten it between sharpenings, but won’t make it sharper. |
Now, if only we knew where the heck it is.
CLEVELAND -- It once flapped in the breeze above old Municipal Stadium, a physical representation of a triumphant World Series title that the Indians have fought futilely to reclaim for the past 68 years. Our best guess is that it was upwards of 15 feet wide, a broad banner broadcasting Cleveland's clout to any and all. And because the importance of that 1948 outcome has only grown in measure with each successive season that has led to this 2016 return to the Fall Classic stage, you could say the importance of this pennant has only grown in importance, too.
CLEVELAND -- It once flapped in the breeze above old Municipal Stadium, a physical representation of a triumphant World Series title that the Indians have fought futilely to reclaim for the past 68 years. Our best guess is that it was upwards of 15 feet wide, a broad banner broadcasting Cleveland's clout to any and all. And because the importance of that 1948 outcome has only grown in measure with each successive season that has led to this 2016 return to the Fall Classic stage, you could say the importance of this pennant has only grown in importance, too.
Now, if only we knew where the heck it is.
• Shop for Indians World Series and AL champs gear
Win a World Series in the year 2016, as the American League champs hope to do sometime in the next week and a half against the Cubs, and you get the stunning sterling-silver trophy, designed by Tiffany & Co., that features flags representing each of Major League Baseball's 30 clubs.
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But back in 1948, the year the Tribe last won it all, no such trophy existed. And so, it was a physical flag -- a proper pennant -- that stood as the symbol of unmatched success. It featured a backward image of Chief Wahoo, with his eyes looking up at the crown on his head, and the phrase, "1948 WORLD CHAMPION CLEVELAND INDIANS." It wasn't fancy, but it was seemingly finite.
• World Series Game 1: Tuesday 7:30 p.m. ET air time/8 p.m. game time on FOX
Alas, it's been 68 years since the Indians claimed that pennant and 67 years since the thing was last seen in public.
"It's kind of gotten built up [among] the people who are deeply invested in the history," team curator Jeremy Feador said. "If you're a casual fan, you're probably like, 'Oh, cool, a pennant, whatever.' But if you're a real baseball nerd, yeah, it's one of those unique stories."
The 1948 Indians were, like many champions before or since, a pretty good story.
It was shortstop/manager Lou Boudreau's career year (he struck out just nine times in 676 plate appearances). It was Gene Bearden's unfortunately unsustainable rookie year (20 wins and a league-best 2.43 ERA, marks he'd never again come close to matching). It was a year in which Bob Feller battled back issues but turned in some strong and necessary September success.
And it was also a year in which the Indians prevailed in a classic late-season race with the Red Sox and Yankees. The Tribe was four games behind Boston with 23 to play, but rallied in time to force an unprecedented tiebreaker on Oct. 4 at Fenway Park, with Bearden, pitching on one day's rest, turning in nine strong innings to lead the way.
"In those days," Bearden said in 1998, "we didn't need four or five days' rest like they do today. We didn't count pitches; we counted outs."
The outs -- and the wins -- kept coming in the World Series against the Boston Braves. The Indians lost Game 1, in part because of a controversial call on Feller's pickoff attempt on Phil Masi at second base ("About 50 million people [watching the first coast-to-coast broadcast of a World Series game] called him out," Feller would say in 2008, "but one guy called him safe, and he was 10 feet away"). They would, however, win Games 2, 3 and 4. Though the chance to clinch in front of a then-record 86,288 fans at Municipal Stadium was foiled, the Indians went back to Boston to win Game 6 and set off a raucous celebration on their train ride home.
When railroad officials complained about the state of the train upon its arrival in Cleveland, owner Bill Veeck told them, "Don't worry, we'll buy you a new one."
That was Veeck, flamboyant as could be.
And that leads us back to the mystery of the '48 pennant.
On Sept. 24, 1949, with the Indians having been disappointingly eliminated from contention in the AL chase, a notice was published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer:
"Unusual ceremonies will precede the Indians' game with the Detroit Tigers tonight at the stadium and fans are urged to be in their seats by 8 and ready to take part in the fun."
As it turned out, Veeck put the "fun" in funeral.
If you're going to go down, he figured, you might as well go down laughing.
With the ceremonies underway, Veeck, dressed as a mortician, sat atop a horse-drawn hearse of a late-1800s vintage while carrying a copy of the Sporting News (because baseball people referred to it as their "Bible"). Boudreau, his coaches and other team personnel served as pallbearers. A band played a funeral dirge, with the procession moving toward the center-field flagpole, where the pennant was lowered and placed in a pine coffin. The pallbearers put the pennant in a hearse, and the hearse made a circle around the playing field, with the Indians' players joining in the procession when it reached the home dugout. Finally, the coffin was lowered into a grave just beyond the outfield wall, marked by a tombstone with the inscription, "1948 CHAMPS."
And that, unfortunately, is the extent of what we know of the whereabouts of the '48 pennant.
"It's bizarre," Feador said. "After that, you [didn't] hear anything about it. Did someone dig it up after the game? Did it stay there? No one really knows. The legend is just quiet after that."
Perhaps, the pennant was never exhumed. Maybe it sat in that grave for going on five decades, was unintentionally excavated during the Municipal Stadium demolition in 1996 and was somehow not spotted as it was dumped into the Lake Erie waters along with the pieces of the building that became a fish habitat.
But this theory seems rather -- ahem -- fishy. One figures a coffin -- especially one not likely to have been buried all that deep in the dirt -- would have been easy to spot during such a process, if in fact it even survived the myriad remodeling projects that took place in and around the baseball and football fields over the building's long history.
So maybe the pennant was unearthed. Maybe some team employee laid claim to it and took it home, stuck it in storage and forgot all about it, then sold the home to somebody who sold it again.
Maybe you, reading this, right this very second on your smartphone in the suburbs, are sitting on a couch in a living room in a house with a crawlspace that contains the only physical embodiment of the Tribe's last title.
And hey, maybe there's a T206 Honus Wagner card down there, too!
Go ahead and keep an eye out for the pennant, but there are absolutely no clues as to its whereabouts.
It's possible, though unproven, that the pennant was again accounted for at Municipal sometime after '49.
In 1951, the Indians became the first team to open a museum at their home park. The shrine featured such artifacts as a Nap Lajoie bat, the ball from Bill Wambsganss' historic unassisted triple play in the 1920 World Series and the bat Elmer Smith used to hit the first World Series grand slam, also in '20. It remained operational -- and free of charge -- in the stadium's lower concourse near Section 11 until '72, when attendance nose-dived. But while the National Baseball Hall of Fame has records of the Indians sending some items from their Hall to the actual Hall, many of the treasures that were known to be on display have simply vanished.
"A lot of these things just went missing after the museum closed," Feador said. "I'm not sure if there is any correlation between that and the pennant."
People will contact Feador, attempting to get the Indians to buy various artifacts, almost invariably (and a little too conveniently) from the club's only championship seasons in 1920 and '48, when MLB did not have the authentication process it has today. One guy did call about a large pennant that, he claimed, was flown over the '48 World Series. But he sent Feador a photo, and it was not a match of the pennant in question. There are rings from that '48 Series in circulation, and the Hall of Fame has bases from it. But the pennant remains the Lost Ark of the Tribe's last title.
"It wasn't like this big flag got thrown in the dumpster and now it's gone," Feador said. "No, there was this elaborate event, and clearly there was symbolism attached to it. So to be able to find that, I think, would be neat, because it's one of those cool, tangible reminders of the past."
Unless somebody really did stop reading this, crept into a crawl space and pulled out the pennant, odds are it'll never be uncovered. It's in that undiscoverable, indescribable void in which the treasures of Lima or Montezuma or Blackbeard's ill-gotten gains all reside, never to be reclaimed.
So while we can cite the season, we can talk about Boudreau and Bearden, we can look up old photos of Feller, we simply can't see and can't touch the material reminder of the last time the Indians won it all.
All the more reason for them to do it again this year.
Anthony Castrovince has been a reporter for MLB.com since 2004. Read his columns and follow him on Twitter at @Castrovince. |
Bitcoin ABC Developers Announce Medium-Term Bitcoin Cash Roadmap
This week the Bitcoin ABC development team released its medium-term plans for the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) roadmap. Developers say the proposal represents goals for the next 6-12 months.
See also: The Cryptocurrency Market Cap Trends Higher – Commanding $300Bn This Week
Bitcoin ABC and Seven Development Teams Aim to Improve Bitcoin Cash
Two weeks ago news.Bitcoin.com reported on the successful bitcoin cash hard fork, and more recently we covered the BCH developer’s plans to change the currency’s address format. On November 28 the Bitcoin ABC programmers revealed their medium-term future roadmap for the BCH blockchain. The organization is also collaborating with seven other development teams who have a shared vision.
“Bitcoin ABC developers have been collaborating and communicating with developers and representatives from several projects, including Bitcoin Unlimited, Bitprim, Nchain, Bitcrust, ElectrumX, Parity, and Bitcoin XT,” explains the Bitcoin ABC medium-term roadmap.
Although these are independent projects, each with their own development processes and priorities, we share a common vision for advancing bitcoin cash — While we can only speak for ourselves, plans for Bitcoin ABC align with this shared vision.
The BCH Network’s Primary and Secondary Goals
The development team explains the ultimate goal is to keep improving BCH as a currency and network. “It should ‘just work,’” details the roadmap and this includes being more reliable, scalable, and have low fees. Bitcoin cash should be ready for the mainstream masses to adopt as soon as possible the developers emphasize.
In the next 6-12 months Bitcoin ABC also plans to improve secondary goals that aim to enhance the BCH network’s features. Tentative BCH features and future upgrades include increasing the block size limit again towards an adaptive block size. The possibility of removing ordering consensus and implementing canonical transaction ordering. According to the Bitcoin ABC developer ‘Mengerian,’ this could help with adding Gavin Andresen’s Graphene technology. “Additionally, it also paves the way for techniques to enable massive scaling in the future, such as sharding, and parallelized block validation,” Mengerian explains.
The Need to Be Proactive
Further, the team plans to improve the Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm (DAA) even more so and also reactivate certain bitcoin-Opcodes that were deactivated in the past. Moreover, the programmers want to add protocol extension points to facilitate future Opcode upgrades which could lead to developments like Colored Coins. All of the proposed BCH protocol upgrades are dependent on “further discussion, implementation, and testing.” The Bitcoin ABC team is calling on anyone who wants to help improve bitcoin cash for the better.
“For anyone interested in seeing these features (or others) in bitcoin cash, now is the time to step up and work on them — The protocol upgrades will need solid implementation, with lots of time for review and testing,” explains the medium-term Bitcoin ABC roadmap.
We do not want to be in a position where people push for last-minute changes to be included in the protocol upgrade. We need to be proactive.
“Working together, we will make bitcoin cash the best money the world has ever seen,” the developers conclude.
What do you think about the bitcoin cash team and its plans for future upgrades? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Images via Shutterstock, Twitter, and Bitcoincash.org.
Bitcoin Games is a provably fair gaming site with 99% or better-expected returns. Try it out here. |
Reuters Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen
Here are highlights from the press conference with Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen.
On what it will take for the Fed to move. “Obviously we have to look at the pace of job creation, we have to look at what’s happening to labor force participation to part time employment for economic reasons, to job openings, to the pace of quits, to wage inflation and other indicators of the state of the labor market. I did say when we agreed that labor markets slack has diminished to some extent, in the inter-meeting period and clearly over a longer span of time over the last several years, obviously we have made considerable progress in moving towards our goal of maximum employment. So in spite of the fact that there is some progress on that front the committee wants to see some further progress before feeling that it will be appropriate to raise rates.”
On whether it should listen to the IMF’s call to wait until 2016 to lift rates: “I want to emphasize, and I think the IMF would agree with this, that the importance of the timing of a first decision to raise rates is something that should not be overblown whether it is September or December or March, what matters is the entire path of rates, and as I have said the committee anticipates economic conditions that would call for a gradual evolution of the Fed funds rate towards normalization. With respect to international spillovers, this is something that we have been long attentive to. We have to put in place a policy that is appropriate to evolving conditions in the U.S. economy but we can’t promise that there will not be volatility when we make a decision to raise rates.”
On how the market may react to hikes: “We can only do what is in our power to attempt to minimize needless volatility that could have repercussions for other countries or financial stability more generally and that is to attempt to communicate as clearly as we can about our policy decisions, what they will depend on and what we are looking at. We will be responding to incoming data. We have tried to make that clear. And I think it is clear that the market is also responding to incoming data and you can see that in daily market reactions to surprises in the economic data.”
On worker pay: “Wage increases are still running at a low level but there have been some tentative signs that wage growth is picking up. We have seen an increase in the growth rate of the employment cost index and a mild uptick in the growth of average hourly earnings. I would call these tentative signs of stronger wage growth.”
On the audit-the-Fed bill: “We place high priority on being an accountable and transparent central bank and I think that if you compare the transparency of monetary policy decisions in the Federal Reserve with other central banks we are one of the most transparent central banks in terms of the information that we provide to the public in a whole variety of ways. To my mind the Fed is accountable and we work well as an institution. I’m not certain what the problem is that needs to be addressed.” |
A can of pork and beans thrown at the truck of masked burglars as they fled a robbery led police in Hawaii to arrest two suspects. The can was hurled at the truck's window by victim Claudine Prados, but bounced off and landed in the back bed of the vehicle. Less than half an hour later police found a truck matching the description provided by Claudine, with the can of pork and beans still in the back.
Police arrested suspects Jack Vaughn, of Kailua-Kona, and Dustin Jose, of Kealakekua, for assault, burglary and robbery. They are still seeking a third suspect. Claudine had been watching TV at her home when the burglars burst in wearing ski masks. She grabbed a meat cleaver from the kitchen to protect her son, but two of the intruders attacked the boy's father.
Claudine told a local newspaper: "It was like a total waste of time for them. All they left with was a purse with no money and a kid's backpack with clothes.
Picture by: Tim Wright / Splash News |
Image caption About 14% of adults are affected by migraine
A major study into the causes of migraine could offer hope for sufferers, experts believe.
Scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute say they have identified five regions of DNA containing genes linked to the onset of migraine.
Studying these could "open new doors" to understanding the causes, the Cambridgeshire-based team says.
About 14% of adults are affected by the condition - usually an intense headache at the front or one side of the head.
It is difficult to study because, between episodes, people are otherwise healthy.
The team compared DNA samples from more than 100,000 people, including those affected and healthy patients.
'Very debilitating'
They believe many of the genes associated with migraine are interconnected and could potentially be adversely affecting the chemistry of brain cells - resulting in some of the symptoms of migraine.
Dr Padhraig Gormley, who was involved in study, said: "At a fundamental biological level we really don't know what causes a migraine.
"Many people find it very debilitating, becoming overly-sensitive to stimuli such as light and sound. They find it very difficult to function and just want to lock themselves away in a darkened room.
"These five new genetic regions increase your susceptibility to develop migraine.
"There were already seven regions discovered, so we have 12 now. We think there should be many, many more, so there is still a lot of work to do."
He described the new discoveries as "very important to informing the direction of research", but said a cure, if one could be found - would be "many years down the line".
Scientists at the institute led the study as part of the International Headache Genetics Consortium. |
Let's assume that everything goes beautifully. Defense Minister Ehud Barak claims that the barrage of missiles that will strike Israel in response to an attack on Iran will be smaller than previously expected, due to the situation in Syria and Lebanon, so let's assume that's true. Let's also assume that the attack causes the maximum possible damage, and that very few of our planes are hit. And let's assume too that because of the approaching U.S. elections, President Barack Obama, who is viscerally opposed to an Israeli attack and is currently making promises to prevent it, refrains from interfering, and even gives Israel verbal backing after it happens.
Yet even so, even assuming that all goes beautifully, too little will have been achieved. And Israel's situation after the attack will be dire.
The reason is simple: If we take Barak's talk about "zones of immunity" seriously - the idea that the Fordow site near Qom, and other similar sites, are invulnerable to attack - then Iran is already there. Fordow exists. It has uranium and centrifuges. And the know-how is there.
So even if everything else is destroyed, and only Fordow remains, Iran's nuclear project will be set back by two years at most - and not even that long in practice, because Iran will switch from inching toward a bomb to rapid enrichment of military-grade uranium.
Barak's promise that Israel will attack again in another two years is less than meaningless. It's clear that if there is a zone of immunity, it will exist then at Fordow and similar sites. And after a unilateral Israeli strike, a revenge-hungry Iran will become a nuclear state.
After Obama's warm speech last night at the AIPAC meet, and ahead of both the Netanyahu-Obama summit and the Purim holiday later this week, the time has come to remove the masks. Those Israeli planners who believe in an attack have one hope only - that the United States will be dragged in and complete the Israeli move.
The Israeli operation is meant to be a hydrogen bomb, with the Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities serving as the detonator. If numerous missiles land on Tel Aviv and American assets in the region are hit, the carefully chosen timing, right before the U.S. elections, is supposed to compel Obama to send the only military force capable of destroying Iran's nuclear program.
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Sometime between early June and mid-August, just before the Republican nominating convention, will be the ideal moment to drag the United States into war, the planners believe. Faced with this gamble, even former National Security Advisor Uzi Arad - the man who once gave Haaretz the most extremist interview ever on the nuclear issue, in which he spoke of the sexual pleasure derived from war games involving tens of millions of casualties - is now showing himself to be a comparative moderate. Even Arad insists on coordination with the United States, and thus found himself to the left of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the question of whether to attack. That, in his view, is why he was ousted: Netanyahu didn't want position papers offering other options.
Only once before has Israel committed a sin of comparable dimensions. Those responsible were then-Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon and then chief of Military Intelligence Benjamin Gibli. The situation appeared similar: A large country was being led by a radical tyrant with regional ambitions who supported Israel's eradication. Back then, in 1954, it was Egypt and its president, Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Due to exhaustion from previous wars, the American-led West appeared to be retreating from the region. The way to drag the United States back in - on Israel's side - seemed simple, in the planners' view: The solution was to attack American targets in Egypt and make it seem as if the perpetrators were Egyptians. That incident became known as the Lavon Affair, or the "rotten business," and gave rise to an ongoing debate over "who gave the order."
This time, the order is both more complex and more dangerous. It's just like Barak's plans for Operation Accountability in 1993, in which Lebanese civilians were supposed to flee the shelling and pressure the Lebanese government to oblige Syria to rein in Hezbollah: The current plan is meant to spark Iranian attacks on American targets that will drag America into the war.
The current Israeli chatter about attacking Iran isn't meant to spur sanctions and a diplomatic solution. Netanyahu doesn't believe that will work, and he's convinced that Obama won't attack of his own initiative - not before November, and not afterward.
The goal of the Israeli maneuvering is simple - to generate American chatter that will prepare the ground for dragging the United States into the battle following the Israeli strike. That's all.
There is no comparison between the Harpaz conspiracy, in which senior army officers allegedly plotted to keep Yoav Galant from becoming the next chief of staff, and the existential gamble inherent in this plan. And just as with former government minister Yitzhak Mordechai - a man once framed for the killing of two captured Palestinian terrorists, but later ousted from office by a sexual harassment conviction - being the victim of a conspiracy does not constitute license to sin.
After the "rotten business," David Ben-Gurion returned to the Prime Minister's Office. Instead of conspiracies, he created an intimate, well-coordinated alliance with France and launched the 1956 Sinai Campaign with Paris' assistance. Some 56 later, Israel needs a long list of Ben-Gurions from the top ranks of the defense establishment, both present and past, who will make it clear to Netanyahu that it can't be done his way. You don't gamble Israel's security on conspiracies.
This is not an issue for a state commission of inquiry. This time, it's clear who gave the order, an order that is patently illegal, an order that must not be obeyed - not this summer, and not in Israel.
Read this article in Hebrew |
Heartland Payment Systems (HPY) on Tuesday disclosed that intruders hacked into the computers it uses to process 100 million payment card transactions per month for 175,000 merchants. Robert Baldwin, Heartland's president and CFO, said in a USA TODAY interview that the intruders had access to Heartland's system for "longer than weeks" in late 2008. The number of victims is unknown. "We just don't have the information right now," Baldwin said. Tech security experts said the breach could set a record. Retail giant TJX lost 94 million customer records to hackers in 2007. With more than 100 million transactions per month, they could discover that several months' worth of transactions were captured, says Michael Maloof, chief technology officer at TriGeo Network Security. Heartland processes card payments for restaurants, retailers and other merchants. It discovered the hack last week after Visa and MasterCard notified it of suspicious transactions stemming from accounts linked to its systems. Investigators then found the data-stealing program planted by the thieves. "Our discussions with the Secret Service and Department of Justice give us a pretty good indication that this is part of a group that appears to have done security breaches at other financial institutions," said Baldwin. "This is a very sophisticated attack." Once it sorts out the matter, Heartland plans to notify each victim whose data were stolen to comply with data-loss disclosure laws in more than 30 states, Baldwin said. "Cleaning up the mess could be potentially much more expensive than any fines or penalties," says Michael Argast, senior analyst at security firm Sophos. Heartland's disclosure coincides with reports of heightened criminal activities involving stolen payment card numbers. Security firm CardCops has been tracking a 20% year-over-year increase in Internet chat room activity where hackers test batches of payment card numbers to make sure that they're active. "The numbers could have come from a processor, like Heartland, or some other source that has access to a lot of customer data but is not a retailer," says Dan Clements, CardCops president. Also, Forcht Bank in Kentucky last week began issuing replacement debit cards to 8,500 patrons, due to reports of fraudulent card activity. "There are several other banks affected, and this is not isolated to Forcht Bank customers," the bank said in a Jan. 12 statement to customers. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more |
by glutenfreestephy in Uncategorized Tags: gluten free, gluten free recipe, gluten free red velvet cake, gluten free red velvet cake balls, gluten free red velvet cupcakes, red velvet cake, red velvet cake balls, red velvet cake recipe, red velvet cupcakes
Prior to going gluten free I had never tried red velvet cake! I know how could I possibly go so long without ever trying one of the most delicious cakes on the planet? I don’t know but I am so glad I don’t have to ever live without it now. In fact I love it so much I am sharing three ways that you too can enjoy this fantastic treat. You can either have red velvet cake, cupcakes, or cake balls! Whichever way you decide to enjoy this cake you won’t be disappointed.
*Always be safe and re-read all ingredients. Manufacturers have a way of switching ingredients every now and then. Better safe than in pain :).
Red Velvet Cake
Gluten Free!!!
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Biscuit and Baking Mix (or other all purpose gluten free flour)
1 1/2 cups Sugar
1 teaspoon Gluten Free Baking Soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
1 package Jell-O Devils Food Chocolate Pudding
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
8oz Sour Cream
2 lg eggs
1 oz red food coloring
1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
1 teaspoon gluten free vanilla extract
2 teaspoons milk
Cream Cheese Frosting (store bought)
*If making cake balls you will also want a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease cake pan, muffin pan, or cake ball pan. Depending on what you are making.
In a medium bowl sift flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder and Jell-O. Set aside.
In a large bowl beat eggs, oil, sour cream, vinegar, vanilla, and food coloring. Once mixed well add dry mixture to wet mixture slowly. Mix until blended. This is a thick batter. If it is to hard to move add 2 teaspoons of milk that should help a little. Try not to add more than 1 tablespoon. Thick is a good thing with this cake :).
Pour into prepared vessel.
Cake—Pour batter into cake pan place in preheated oven for 50-60 minutes. Or until done. Let cool then frost and enjoy!
Cupcakes—Pour batter into muffin pans place into preheated oven for 20-25 min. Or until done. Let cool then frost and enjoy!
Cake Balls (with pan)— Pour batter into cake ball pan place into preheated oven for 20-25 min. Or until done. Let cool then follow dipping instructions below.
Dipping Cake Balls: Melt chocolate chips over double boiler. Once chocolate has melted dip balls in. Then place back on wax paper covered cookie sheet. Once all balls are covered place back in fridge or freezer for chocolate to fully harden. Once the chocolate has hardened it’s time to enjoy! I dare you to try to eat just one!
Want cake balls but don’t have a cake ball pan? No worries. (*Note this makes a different kind of cake ball. It won’t be traditional cake since we add the cream cheese frosting and dip it in chocolate, it is going to be very sweet. Still wonderfully delicious just sweeter, more like a candy cake ball). You can make either cake or cupcakes (see above). It doesn’t matter which. Once cake/cupcakes are fully cooked allow to cool. Then crumble it up in a bowl and add cream cheese frosting, stir. You want it to stick together so that you can form balls. Keep adding frosting until it forms into a ball easily. Start rolling the “dough” into bite size balls and place on wax paper covered cookie sheet. Once you have rolled all the balls place in fridge or freezer for at least 1 hour. Then you are ready for dipping. Follow instructions above. |
VANCOUVER, B.C – BUSINESS – Ontario and Quebec, Canada’s two largest provinces, recently released their fall updates on the state of government finances. The updates highlight a marked distinction in the progress that each province has made in terms of deficit reduction. Whereas Ontario continues to run large budget deficits, Quebec is on track to eliminate its deficit and return to a balanced budget this year. As a result, Ontario’s debt burden continues to grow and will soon be, on a per-person basis, larger than Quebec’s.
Government debt can pose serious economic problems. A robust body of research finds that high levels of government indebtedness hinder long-term economic growth. In the short term, growing debt can require more government revenue to pay interest on servicing past debt rather than important spending programs such as health care and education, or even tax relief.
Ontario and Quebec currently spend between nine and 10 cents out of every government revenue dollar on debt service payments. A growing debt burden could cause the share to rise, other things equal.
Let’s be clear: neither province is a model of fiscal prudence. They are, after all, Canada’s two most indebted provinces. And Quebec’s longstanding fiscal problems are well-documented. In fact, Quebec’s net debt (after adjusting for financial assets) is projected to be 49.7 per cent of GDP this year, the highest among all provinces and American states.
Although the province continues to carry a large debt burden, there are encouraging signs that Quebec may finally have turned a corner, with the recent fiscal update projecting that the province will balance its books for the first time since the recession and then run a string of balanced budgets. With its annual deficit eliminated, Quebec is now in a position to begin reducing its debt burden.
The situation in Ontario is markedly different. Ontario expects to run a cumulative $12 billion deficit this fiscal year and next. The government says it will finally balance the budget in 2017/18 but its plan to do so remains precarious and unlikely, as its own Financial Accountability Office has noted.
Even taking the government’s hopeful projections at face value, Ontario will continue to rack up debt in the coming years – so much so that Ontario will soon overtake Quebec in terms of net debt per person. In 2009/10, Quebec’s per-person net debt burden reached $19,329, approximately $4,400 higher than Ontario’s. That gap has shrunk considerably and is projected to be just $1,100 this year.
The latest government projections suggest the gap will continue to shrink next year and then, in 2017/18, Ontario’s per-person net debt will finally exceed Quebec’s at $22,647. While Quebec’s per-person debt burden remains substantial, Ontario’s will soon be larger. And again, the projections for Ontario are likely optimistic. If the government’s hopeful forecasts do not come to pass, Ontario’s debt per person will grow even larger.
Examining the debt burden in each province relative to the size of the economy provides further evidence of Ontario converging quickly with Quebec. Quebec’s net debt as a share of GDP is projected to fall from its current level of 49.7 per cent to 43.0 per cent by 2019/20. Meanwhile, Ontario expects its debt-to-GDP ratio to hover very close to its current 40 per cent level for the near term.
Quebec is hardly a paragon of fiscal virtue, but its recent progress has enabled the new government to start a much-needed discussion about tax reform including a commitment to reduce the general corporate tax rate. Ontario, on the other hand, continues to enact new tax increases.
While Quebec certainly has more work to get its fiscal house in order, Ontario is headed on a path that will see its per person debt burden exceed that of La Belle Province.
Ben Eisen is associate director of provincial prosperity studies and Charles Lammam is director of fiscal studies at the Fraser Institute.
© 2015 Distributed by Troy Media |
In the LDS church twice a year a General Conference is held in which top leaders of the church speak to the general membership. More often the objective of the talks are increasing faith and providing pastoral counsel, though sometimes their comments are clearly reacting to political or social movements or events. One favorite leader of mine and of many Mormons really, is Dieter Uchtdorf of the First Presidency. Often his talks consist of engaging stories (about airplanes) with the intent to be pastoral towards all and sometimes specifically reaching a hand out to those who feel disenfranchised from the church or on such a path. His comment in 2013 acknowledging mistakes made by leaders and members that were “not in harmony with our values, principles, or doctrine” was a hit with many as was his more recent address that used the story of “Potemkin villages” as an illustration in his encouragement of authenticity and genuine discipleship.
In the most recent general conference he opened with a discussion on doubt and he described skeptical and cynical people negatively, even associating them with Satan. After that bit he went on to give an address that I really quite enjoyed. For me, the later part of his address saved the beginning bit that I disagreed with but I’d like to talk about the first part because Uchtdorf was not alone in the collection of speakers to disparage doubt and use a fear-based approach towards those who look into church history or use the internet. I find it odd that in the information age the counsel seems to be to stay away from the largest information source ever to be on earth, but rather “just listen to us.” This is troubling because to me it shows how little trust much of the leadership has in the members (or perhaps the in church’s ability to remain credible in the member’s eyes), and I do find this lack of faith disturbing.
Stars and Wet Paint
The example given by Uchtdorf regarding our tendency to doubt uses a common humorous phrase that states that if you “tell a man there are billions of stars in the universe, and he’ll believe you. [But if you] tell him there’s wet paint on the wall and he’ll touch it just to be sure.”* It is a funny little thing to say but also deserves more examination. Consider the claim of billions of stars in the universe. It is a general claim that is not particularly challenging, nor does it seem strange. One person does not have the capacity or inclination to test this claim by spending inordinate amounts of time study the night’s sky or scouring scientific findings of astronomers to verify whether the statement comports with reality. Also if the claim is a bit off it doesn’t have much impact on anyone at all (if it turns out that there are actually much more or much fewer stars in the universe than a few billion as claimed, no one will mind or be affected in any meaningful way).
In the case of the wet paint more is at stake (one could ruin some clothing if they are not careful) and it serves a person well to know first-hand if the paint is wet and would affect their behavior, depending on if the paint is fresh and very wet, nearly dry or if the informant was far too cautious and in fact the paint is completely dry). Additionally, there is not much to testing the paint. Taking the to time to test the paint’s wetness by merely touching it gently with a finger cost’s a person little and will assure them of the caution they must take to avoid being soiled or may give them peace of mind that no real threat of clothing damage exists, once their test is complete.
This statement then applied to church claims perhaps not so helpful because much of the church’s simply portrayed historical and theological claims are problematized by the complex history that is readily available to anyone who has the time and inclination to read the many great works by historians interested in Mormon history. You see the church was founded well after the printing press but also early church leaders kept detailed notes of meetings in minute books and personal thoughts in diaries. There is much that has been preserved from the origins of the church through to today that is available for our examination. So the comparison of wet paint is actually quite apt since we can do quick checks to see how well the claims made in general conference and other forums comports with documents and other historical data. This information also affects our lives because it informs us how well-read or understanding our leaders are, with regard to Mormon history, and it can inform us how much trust we can have in our leaders (which goes downhill quickly when we find evidence fairly interpreted as priestcraft generated from our leader’s statements and their families).
The “trillions of stars” claim that is much harder to test and less problematic could be likened to the counsel more often given by Uchtdorf. When he lifts our hearts with sermons on God’s love, or asks us to serve, or as the latter portion of this talk asked us to question ourselves and whether “[our] efforts are leading [us] to the highest spiritual goals and values” we don’t question him. This is because like the claim of billions of stars being obviously true those admonishments are obviously good and nearly universally embraced, his encouragement to live up to those ideals are greeted warmly by all.
Skeptical of Cynics
Further, the disparaging comments about skeptics and cynics deserve attention. My take from Uchtdorf’s address is that skeptics and cynics are the same (they are not) and that they are simply looking to doubt and deny anything of value, particularly spiritual value. I think conflating distinctly different terms and further disparaging the general idea is not particularly enlightening. First of all I admit that he is correct in that the modern usage (since the 17th century) of cynicism is largely describing a disposition that is, as Oxford says, “distrustful of human sincerity or integrity” or “contemptuous and mocking.” Skepticism is different. Being skeptical is similar to being curious or the opposite of being guillible. Additionally a skeptic “does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found.”
Even those in the skeptical community distinguish between unfounded doubters with bad attitudes (cynics) and those that seek through a sometimes arduous process to find truth (or something approximating truth anyway.
“Just blanket disbelieving everything any authority tells you is not critical thinking, that’s not skepticism that’s being a contrarian . . . being a skeptic means separating what’s likely to be true from what’s likely not to be true by using some kind of process of evaluating logic, evaluating evidence, trying to step back and look at your own thought process . . . It’s not just a blanket “Oh I don’t believe anything, everyone’s lying” that’s just naked cynicism.”
Steven Novella, Interviewed on the You Are Not So Smart Podcast (about 20:00 minutes into the episode)
Doubt is Fine
Joseph Smith was certainly a kind of skeptic, given all the questions he asked and the revising of the KJV bible he did. We all should be. For me life is not abundant or enjoyable without curiosity and investigation. Rather than continuing to stigmatize doubt and skeptics I think it would be more profitable to promote a more flexible idea of faith. Faith as belief is hard for me to hold to because I am deeply skeptical and I like to dig into things. Sometimes the information or evidence I find forces me to change my beliefs or drop them all together. Faith as trust or loyalty is better. In this way faith and doubt can coexist in the same mind, for I can certainly be loyal to my faith community while working through or managing my personal doubts. As American Christian theologian Paul Tillich stated “doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.” Doubt causes us to keep seeking whatever it is we need to find. Doubt is not the opposite of faith, but rather certainty is. Perhaps more discourses stigmatizing certainty would do the LDS community well. I think de-emphasizing our “knowledge” about such things that are largely unknowable in an empirical sense would minimize barriers between eachother and foster connection. Let’s get a talk out there speaking clearly against certainty, I actually think most would be relieved to take such position, but I’ve been wrong before.
*Note:
Also Uchtdorf is not plagiarizing George Carlin like I have seen some suggest. It is just a common phrase that is functionally a modern proverb (see here and here). Similarly Ronald Reagan didn’t create the phrase “trust but verify,” he popularized it.
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Growing up in the 1960s, Sarkis Assadourian felt safe and sheltered in Aleppo’s buzzing Meidan district, in what was then Hafez Assad’s Syria. “It was a shopping area, like a village, and 90 per cent of the people were Armenian,” said the former MP for Brampton and Don Valley North. “Nobody bothered us. The Muslims called us ‘our Armenian brothers.’”
A picture shows an Armenian cemetery in Al-Yaqubia in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib on February 6, 2013. The Christian village of Al-Yaqubia may have escaped the full ravages of Syria's civil war but it could not avoid the plundering of the fighters. ( Achilleas Zavallis / AFP/Getty Images )
But now Aleppo has fallen into the flames of a vicious civil war, with thousands of Armenian-Syrians fleeing to other countries — as their families once fled to Syria for sanctuary after the 1915 Ottoman genocide. With a death toll of about 70,000 Syrians since the uprising began almost two years ago, life for minorities is becoming increasingly perilous. Last Thursday, more than 60 people died and hundreds more were wounded in bombing attacks in the capital Damascus. Syrian warplanes later struck targets near the Damascus International Airport. Although Christian Armenians represent only 120,000 of Syria’s 22 million people, they are some of the most highly educated professionals. Threats, kidnappings, killings and the bombing and burning of Armenian churches have driven thousands to abandon their businesses, homes and life savings.
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Read More: The Star in Syria But many who have left the country blame Islamist rebel groups as much as President Bashar Assad for the bloodbath that has engulfed them. Their plight adds to the apprehension of Western leaders over the future if and when the opposition takes power. Canada has refused to recognize the Syrian opposition unless it rejects extremism and endorses inclusion of minorities. “Assad was wrong,” said Assadourian in an interview. “He used a cannon to kill a fly. But what will happen if fundamentalists take over? Christians are losing ground throughout the Middle East. In Syria, there will be very few left.” Armenians, as well as other Christians and Assad’s own Alawite minority, may not embrace his regime, but they fear new rounds of persecution and killing at the hands of extremists. They also fear the all-against-all civil war that brought neighbouring Lebanon — similarly ethnically and religiously divided — to its knees after 15 years of strife that began in 1975. That’s a far cry from the tolerant Aleppo of Assadourian’s childhood memories. The majority of Syria’s Armenians lived in the thriving commercial centre, which is now in ruins.
“Our teacher was a Sunni Muslim, and she adopted an Armenian orphan. There was no hatred toward our community.” Although the older Assad ruled with an iron fist, brutally crushing rebellions and torturing and murdering thousands of suspected opponents, he understood his own vulnerability as a member of a minority. He secularized the country, railed against “odious narrow-mindedness and loathsome bigotry,” and tried unsuccessfully to change the constitution so that non-Muslims could be president.
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Now thousands of Armenians have joined the more than 600,000 Syrians who have fled as refugees, some of them anxiously hiding in the country they once feared most, Turkey. At least 6,000 have been taken in by struggling Armenia, which has given them aid, medical care and expedited residency and citizenship in spite of its strained budget. Some have headed for even poorer Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory controlled by Armenia, but also claimed by Azerbaijan. Many look back at Syria with longing, but fading hope that they will be able to return. Ultimately, says Assadourian, flight of minorities like Armenians won’t help a post-Assad Syria become a democratic society. “Whoever is in power must understand that if you are going to run a country, you have to widen your base.”
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Summary
How does parenthood fit into a life based on effective altruism?
What are we asking?
What are the costs of a child?
The choice to become a parent is one of the biggest and most binding life decisions we can make. How might that decision go if you want to incorporate principles of effective altruism in the big decisions of your life? In considering the costs and attractions of parenthood, I will make the case that having children can indeed be consistent with those principles. I’ll also explain why I think the EA movement should be open to the idea of parenthood as part of an EA life.I am not a parent myself: I have to make my estimation of the costs and some of the benefits from the data I can gather, including experiences and opinions of parents. However this decision can only be made from such a point of inexperience. Indeed, one of the reasons this is a difficult decision is that there are few realistic options for changing one’s mind after one has had a child, and for women the option is only open for a limited (but unknown) timeframe.It can be useful to consider big decisions abstractly, to determine the ideal sequence of actions to take in our life without consideration for our individual psychologies. This can make us aware of the decision space, and encourage us to cultivate helpful desires. However, when we make decisions we must consider who we are. Within the effective altruist movement we seek to ask how we as individuals can achieve the most good possible. If a proposed action would render a particular person miserable, it’s highly unlikely they will be able to stick to it. Moreover, the question of potential parenthood is usually being asked by two people whose relationship offers them mutual support. The well-being and psychological needs of both those people must factor in the analysis.Estimates of the financial costs of child-raising range from the considerable to the enormous, but the figures available are not robust or free from bias. A UK insurance group has estimated £220,000 to raise a child from birth to 21 [1] , with childcare (£60k) and education (£70k) forming the bulk of this. The number has been criticised on a number of grounds [2] by economist Tim Harford, [3] who also a pointed out the obvious benefit to a company which sells life insurance of inflating the accepted cost of parenthood. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Child Poverty Action Group made a more conservative estimate of £148,000 for a couple raising one child to the age of 18. [4] This figure is derived from their minimum income standard (or MIS [5] ), which is their calculation of the minimum support needed for two adults and one child. Currently set at £468 per week, the MIS outstrips the minimum wage two people would earn in the UK, suggesting that two adults earning minimum wage would be unable to support any children. The fact that many do suggests the MIS is not actually a minimum. [6]
While meeting the needs of your child will cost a significant amount – especially paid childcare in the early years – the manner in which you do it has some flexibility. As adults, as part of an EA life, we have chosen to limit our consumption and live more simply. These simpler lives may certainly exceed a ‘minimum standard’ – they can be downright lovely. Some of the reasons for this include cultivating tastes for less expensive pleasures and recreations, as well as leveraging non-financial resources such as education, or proximity to friends and family. The same principles, I believe, can be extended to our children without deprivation.
Bryan Caplan’s excellent book Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids[7] reviews the evidence from 40 years of adoption and twin studies with a frankly liberating result: barring actual deprivation or trauma, children are largely who they are going to be as a result of their genetic makeup. In long-term measures of well-being, education and employment, parental influence exerts a temporary effect which disappears when we are no longer living with our parents. So costly added extras (music lessons, coaching and tutoring, private school fees) are probably not going to change your child’s life in the long term. (However, data on the antenatal environment suggests benefit to taking iodine, but avoiding ice-storms and licorice during pregnancy.[8]) Sharing time together and finding common interests can build a good relationship and help a child develop without major costs.
Taking this information into account, I estimate that for two parents living in the UK, the cost of raising a child to independence while providing what’s needed for their health, education and wellbeing will be between £150-£200,000. If we estimate 18-21 years for them to reach such independence, this gives an approximate range of £3500-£4800 per parent per year. But we don’t ‘lose’ our children when they are no longer dependent upon us: it might be better to consider the cost as a lifetime cost, so that if you become a parent at 30 and expect to live till you are 80, the cost is more like £2000 per parent per year over one's remaining years of life.
This considerable cost can be put into perspective with other spending decisions. The annualised lifetime cost of parenthood is less than many spend annually on a car and petrol. It is less than the cost differences at stake in deciding which city to live in, or whether to live rurally. It’s much less than the difference in wages between two potential careers. For this reason I think it is a real mistake to consider the financial costs of parenthood as being categorically different to many of the other lifestyle choices we make. It would seem irrational to choose a profession that would have significant adverse effect on your well-being for the sake of a £2000 p.a. increase in wages.
In addition to straightforward financial outlay, parenthood comes with costs of time and opportunity. Loss of flexibility and leisure mean you won’t be able to take all opportunities (like taking on extra work to make more money or advance your career). Late notice travel is unlikely to be possible. You will probably be sleep deprived for a large part of the first year or more of your child’s life, and this may impact on your work performance. The work of parenting will take time, though some of it may be outsourced at the cost of increased financial outlay.
So, this baby is going to cost you about £2000 a year and take a variable but large amount of your time, which will equate in the end to another chunk of money. For parents taking parental leave or working less than full time to provide childcare, there may be delay to career progression as well as income. Does this represent an unacceptably large sum of money and time to be compatible with the goal of maximising our impacts for the good?
I would argue it’s possible to integrate this cost into one’s personal rather than charitable budgets. When deciding if we would try to start a family, my partner Toby and I planned a ‘baby budget’: we would each contribute a portion of our income to the fund for our child’s needs. By doing this we can still meet our giving pledges, but adjust other spending patterns. In effect, we would channel money from ourselves to this other person, without reducing our commitments to give. If the costs turn out to be higher than we can absorb this way, I may reduce my giving, but am confident of still being able to give over £1,000,000 in the course of my career.
Likewise, we would plan to continue to work in our careers full time (after a period of parental leave). We envisage that our personal time budgets would change pretty dramatically. I don’t work all the hours in a day (even if it sometimes feels like it!) and neither does my partner. We spend time talking over coffee, we listen to music, we read, we walk, we hang out with friends, I knit and sometimes I watch a lot of crappy television. How might that time budget change? There would be fewer sleep-ins, and more wakeful nights. I would probably exchange bad TV for audiobooks while breastfeeding. Our walks would be shorter and slower, and will be more likely to end in a playground than a pub.
Some of this – the sleeplessness, bits of pregnancy and the process of childbirth – would not be fun. Again, I don’t think this represents a categorical difference from the sacrifices we elect to make in pursing other long term goals. In my case, I’ve worked 84 hours of night shifts in a week, a feat which requires several days to recover physically and mentally, because it was integral to training in my career. I’ve studied for hours at either end of a full time working day because I want to progress in my specialty.[9] If the payoff is worth it, I am prepared to do this too.
So what’s the gain?
First, there can be personal benefits. While parenting is work, it’s also a challenge and a discovery. To observe and take part in the growth of a human from a ball of cells to someone who can talk, think, reason and love sounds to me like a most amazing journey. I expect that parenthood will challenge me to the end of my character. I expect to learn and change and grow.
I don’t think you have to become a parent to learn these lessons, but nor do I think I’ll learn them just by working at my paid job. I might learn them from traveling widely, from climbing mountains, from learning another language, by arguing with strangers in a bar at 3am, by reading all of Derek Parfit’s works, by singing songs with friends in the backyard on a sunny afternoon. For most of us, living a life means doing a lot of things that don’t necessarily earn money or prestige. Some people might be able to work 80 hours a week, to just work and sleep and thrive on that. My observation is that even among highly motivated and talented coworkers, such people are the exception rather than the rule. If I did that I am reasonably sure I’d be burned out and unhappy within 5 years, making such a plan not merely demanding but directly self-defeating.
The desire to be a parent – to have children, either biologically or by other means – does not always arise as a clear-eyed appraisal of the potential benefits. The (faintly derisive) term ‘baby fever’ was coined to denote the intense desire for children that many people experience without being able to fully explain, and possibly in the face of their own analysis of the arguments for and against having a child. Some preliminary psychological research suggests the phenomenon has complex origins and is observable in both men and women.[10]
It is clear that the longing for children that some people experience can not be overcome by clearly viewing the obstacles to and pitfalls of parenthood. The nature of this desire can be so strong, that even when achieving parenthood seems impossible, people’s wish to become parents will drive them to extraordinary efforts. Fertility clinics treat patients prepared to endure years of waiting[11], followed by uncomfortable and invasive testing, difficult procedures and at least a 65% chance of failure[12] in an effort to become parents. If they were able to rationalise themselves out of wanting children, they would stop before exhausting every possible resource – medical, emotional and financial – in efforts to start a family that might span a decade. In the light of this reality, the rationalist suggestion I have encountered – that one guard against a desire to become a parent by pre-emptively being sterilised before the desire has arisen – seems a recipe for psychological disaster.
I don’t have the answer to the origin of the longing for children that many experience. It’s almost certainly due to a complex mixture of biological and social factors. It might even be an evolutionary trick. However, the fact remains that this desire is real and difficult to manage if unfulfilled. It can’t be simply discounted or argued away as irrational. It needs to form part of our considerations in whether or not we choose to (attempt to) become parents, because we must consider how tenable it is to sacrifice our chance to fulfil these desires
Finally we may ask whether parenthood – and the resulting person created – will benefit the wider world? This is a harder good to calculate or rely upon. The inheritance of specific character traits is difficult to predict. It’s certainly not guaranteed that your offspring will embrace all of your values throughout their lifetime. The burden of onerous parental expectations are extensively documented, and it would appear foolish to have children on the expectation they will be altruistic in the same way you are. However, your child is likely to resemble you in many important respects. By adulthood, the heritability of IQ is between 0.7 and 0.8,[13] and there is evidence from twin studies of significant heritability of complex traits like empathy.[14] This would give them a high probability of adding significant net good to the world.
For EA’s making this decision, there is a further benefit in changing how the world sees the EA life. A core message of Giving What We Can is that many people can do a significant amount of good. We are so comparatively wealthy that without significant sacrifice, we can help thousands of people. If the way we live implies that to make this difference you must sacrifice parenthood, this will drastically narrow the range of people who can consider doing the same.
How do we weigh these up?
It’s a complicated ledger.
On the one hand: the vast bulk of your leisure time for perhaps five years and a significant portion for the next 13, a less flexible work and home life, the emotional cost of knowing your heart may never be your own again, and finally your share of the financial cost of £150,000-£200,000. Two parents might be able to save 70 lives by donating this money to Against Malaria Foundation
On the other hand: we demonstrate the level of sacrifice required to make the world significantly better does not require a dramatic deviation from what most people consider ‘a normal life’; we gain all the good that might be contained in one life; two parents grow and develop and enjoy a lifetime with their child, and, for some, there is the fulfilment of a deep desire.
The nature of an individual will almost certainly play a determining role. For myself, I could theoretically cut my personal spending anyway, work more and be able to give more money, to save more lives. I could live just to work, earning to give. But I know such a life plan would be self-defeating and would not last. I’m happy donating 50% of my income over my life, but if I also chose not have a child simply to raise that amount to 55%, then that final 5% would cost me more than all the rest, to the extent I don’t believe I could continue to do so. Julia Wise writes beautifully about how it changed her outlook on life to allow herself the possibility of children,[15] and it’s a feeling that I totally understand because I’ve felt the same. I believe that by making this decision to spend my personal money and time budgets in this way, I’m deciding to meet a major psychological need and to plan a life I can continue to live in the long term. I think this decision will also benefit my future child, and I think there is a significant chance it will benefit the wider world.
Is EA “family friendly”? Why does it matter?
Within the EA movement I’ve sometimes encountered a fairly dismissive attitude to parenthood in the abstract. Sometimes the best on offer is a sort of resigned tolerance, with EA’s advocating we not “shun” people just for having children. [16] At other times I’ve seen parenthood characterised as foolish, selfish or both, to be discouraged with great zeal. I genuinely wonder where this hostility comes from. Is it simply that the hostile attitudes I’ve encountered have been expressed by people quite early in their lives? The onset of a desire to have a family may post-date one’s third decade (creating difficulties for the half of our species with a limited reproductive lifespan). Possibly it’s so prevalent because in our society women are more likely to express a desire for children than men are, and men dominate some internet EA conversations.
I hope these attitudes aren’t representative. Providing some counter evidence is that since announcing that we are expecting a baby, my husband Toby and I have both experienced a universally warm and excited response from friends and colleagues in the EA community. I’m reasonably sure – and I certainly hope – they aren’t just deciding not to shun us.
I think it’s vital that as a movement, EA enthusiastically embraces parents and potential parents. In order to spread EA values, and to build a robust movement, these values must be tenable as part of a whole life. We are not machines who can spend every waking moment working or earning money to give. We are not able to ignore our fundamental needs in order to eliminate the needs that divert us from spending every moment maximising our actions to a single goal. We need to take into account our psychological needs as we set the goals and paths for our lives.
Finally, I believe we need to recognise that to understand and engage with our complex world, we need to encompass a range of experiences and perspectives. Recent criticisms of the EA movement have raised the concern that we risk cultivating a monoculture.[17] Parenthood is only one variance we can embrace: education, gender, ethnicity are several others, as we continue to build a movement that really does strive to achieve the best it can in the world.
References |
The Chicago Bulls have released Rajon Rondo, the team announced Friday.
Rondo played just one season with the Bulls, averaging 7.8 points, 6.7 assists and 5.1 rebounds in 26.7 minutes per game. The point guard was one of marquee signings last off-season, but his playing time declined over the year before he experienced a resurgence in the postseason, helping Chicago to a surprise 2–0 lead over the Celtics before he broke his thumb.
The Chicago Tribune reported earlier this week that the Bulls were trying to assess the trade market for Rondo ahead of the free agency's start on Saturday at 12 a.m. ET.
The Bulls also waived guard Isaiah Canaan.
Chicago has been active so far this off-season, dealing star Jimmy Butler to the Timberwolves in a draft–day trade. |
It’s 91.8 The Fan’s birthday! What better way to celebrate than with a Pokemon tournament with prizes?! Please make sure to go over the rules one more time so there’s no confusion. They are located after the jump as well as the registration forums.
Pokemon Tournament Rules
Welcome to the second ever Pokemon tournament hosted by 91.8 The Fan. I am your favorite Holiday-themed host and resident Pokemon expert, Christmas. As tournament director I will be taking care of everything involving the tournament, so if you have any comments, questions or concerns, please feel free to send me a PM on the Forums. Following this introduction is a list of rules that must be followed at all times by all entrants. Please read everything, and enjoy!
Basic Rules
Pokemon
There are twenty-one unusable Pokemon as outlined by the Battle Tower/Subway/Maison rules, as well as two additional Pokemon
Each party will be made up of six individual Pokemon. No duplicates allowed!
All Pokemon are to be auto-leveled to 50
Moves and abilities
Absolutely no one-hit KO moves allowed (Fissure, Horn Drill, Guillotine, Sheer Cold)
Moves that alter evasion/accuracy are banned. These include but are not limited to: Sand-Attack, Smokescreen, Mud Slap, Minimize and Double Team. In addition, Pokemon with the Moody ability are not allowed. Please make sure that if you use Remoraid, Octillery, Smearagle, Snorunt, Glalie, Bidoof or Bibarel that they do not have the Moody ability
Items
All hold items are allowed, except for BrightPowder
Each Pokemon may hold an individual item. No two Pokemon may hold the same item. You can hold multiple Mega Stones on the same team to confuse your opponent
Tournament System
Tournament is open to all of the sixth generation games
Tournament will be done in a double elimination bracket
All first round match-ups will be decided completely at random
All battles are single battles
Tournament will begin on January 19th and end on January 26th (or whenever the final match has concluded). This is to ensure ample time for all matches depending on the number of entrants
Registration
Registration will be open today! Please do so in the forum linked at the bottom of this post.
Registration is open to any members of the 91.8 community who have signed up on the forums. This includes all staff members!
Battle Conclusion
At the end of each battle, the winner is to send a Personal Message to the Tournament Director stating that the outcome of the match. This Personal Message will be forwarded to the loser who must reply saying they accept, thus making the match officially concluded. If you feel there may be a dispute, feel free to take a picture of the result screen for confirmation. Anyone caught lying about match results will be immediately disqualified and banned from any future events like this.
Each round will have a set date and time in which it MUST be completed. If the match is not completed on time, the offending member will be subject to disqualification.
Banned Pokemon
The following list of Pokemon may not be used in the tournament. We know that not everyone has access to these Pokemon due to the delay of Pokemon Bank, but we just want to be super sure.
Mewtwo
Mew
Lugia
Ho-oh
Celebi
Kyogre
Groudon
Rayquaza
Jirachi
Deoxys
Dialga
Palkia
Giratina
Phione
Manaphy
Darkrai
Shaymin
Arceus
Xerneas
Yveltal
Zygarde
Wynaut
Wobuffet
Please note: Any member who breaks the tournament rules, or rules of the forums will be subject to removal of the tournament without warning. These rules will be enforced with a zero-tolerance, no excuse policy.
And there you have it, Fanatics! A full list of rules you are encouraged to review and know upon registering for the tournament. But while you’re doing that, why not check out these suggestions I’ve put together for you before you embark on your quest for victory.
Know your Pokemon! Use a team with variety so you can compete with the many different types throughout the Tournament Test your wi-fi connection beforehand! This is an important one, because if you cannot connect to your opponent, you will have to be removed from the Tournament! If you feel a member has broken any of the rules, please send me a Personal Message including all the details you have regarding the issue and it will be dealt with accordingly. Have fun! Don’t be a sore loser. Even if you lose, congratulate your opponent on the win! It’s a friendly tournament that we are all meant to enjoy!
Well Fanatics, that’s all I’ve got for you! Now that you’ve reached this point, you are all ready to pit your Pokemon against other Pokemon in a battle for the ages! I wish you luck in your quest to become champion!
Good luck and have fun!
Christmas
FAQ
Is there a prize?
I’m glad you asked! There will be prizes for the top three places!
1st place will get a custom bead sprite, made by Elk, on a size scale up to $30, as well as a $20 gift card for SharkRobot, Amazon or RightStuf. For sizing reference for beadsprites, please visit out store. 2nd place will also get a bead sprite, limited to a Pokemon of your choice out of the 718 that exist, on a size scale of up to $10. Again, for sizing reference, please visit out store. 3rd place will get a 91.8 The Fan brand shirt of their choice. You can see our variety of shirts in the store.
What does Double Elimination mean?
Double Elimination means that if you lose your match-up in the first bracket, you have another chance in the loser’s bracket! The winner of the loser’s bracket will have a chance to face the top two people in the winner’s bracket to be the very best.
Who came up with these rules?
I totally just copied the rules from the last tournament and tweaked them a little bit for the new format.
Can my friend join?
If you have a friend who would enjoy all of the beneficial, fun and exciting features we offer here at 91.8 The Fan, tell them to come join up! Have them introduce themselves and have them contribute positively to the community, and they are free to join us! |
Walter Becker, co-founding guitarist of the jazz rock band Steely Dan, died Sunday at age 67. The death, confirmed by a post on his official website, did not indicate a cause.
Steely Dan, which was started in 1972 by Becker and keyboardist Donald Fagen, became known worldwide for combining jazz and rock in songs like “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” “Dirty Work,” and “Do It Again.”
Becker, a native of Queens, New York, met Fagen while studying at Bard College. Together, they composed and recorded the soundtrack for Richard Pryor’s 1971 film “You Gotta Walk It Like You Talk It Or You’ll Lose That Beat” and worked as backing musicians for Jay and the Americans.
Also Read: Hollywood's Notable Deaths of 2017 (Photos)
A year later, the duo formed Steely Dan and released their debut album, “Can’t Buy A Thrill.”
The band released seven albums during its initial run with an ever-changing group of musicians playing alongside Becker and Fagan. The group found immediate success with several hit singles off of “Can’t Buy A Thrill,” but hit a peak in 1977 with “Aja,” an album that became their first platinum hit and peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard charts.
But personal issues and the stress of touring took its toll on the band, and the group broke up in 1981.
Also Read: Shelley Berman, Stand-Up Comic and Larry David's Dad on 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' Dies at 92
In 1993, Fagen and Becker reunited, releasing two more Steely Dan albums in 2000 and 2003 and touring until Becker’s death. The band’s 2000 album, “Two Against Nature,” received the Grammy for Album of the Year.
Becker had missed Steely Dan’s tour dates in July due to an undisclosed ailment which required medical procedures. |
"By its nature the work of an artist is pretty precarious and few artists are able to make a sustainable living from their art alone," says Bandt, the Greens member for Melbourne. Greens MP Adam Bandt. Credit:Arsineh Houspian. Recent union research into Australian performers' wellbeing found that more than 20 per cent of artists – even those working a second job to make ends meet – live below the poverty line. About 40 per cent of people surveyed for the 2015 Equity Foundation's Actors' Wellbeing study earned less than $10,000 annually from their acting work. Another 36 per cent of respondents reported a combined income from acting and non-acting sources of less than $30,000. Some are paid less than the minimum wage for their industry, or not paid at all, in an attempt to increase their profile and hone their craft.
"Most artists have to supplement it with other forms of work," says Bandt. "They're expected to be proficient in their field and always improving." Only the most successful artists or performers have any superannuation to retire on, he says. "The majority of artists – they've been living hand to mouth for most of their working lives. With rising housing costs, including city areas where artists would have lived, that's making it difficult as well." Centrelink counts activities that it deems will increase a person's employability when it assesses people's eligibility for benefits. "We are arguing that the test should be expanded to the kind of things artists are required to do to improve their craft," says Bandt.
"For example, putting on a performance for free, or sharing the work they've done as part of an exhibition." Artists would still be subject to Centrelink income tests to be eligible for the payments, he says. The Greens also propose increasing the amount of superannuation offset artists can qualify for from the current $500 for low income earners to $1000. "These two things are very modest impacts on the budget," says Bandt. "You're talking about a combined total of about $20 million a year. It's a drop in the ocean as far as the federal budget is concerned." The party also wants to make sure artists receive some form of payment if galleries exhibit their work.
"I was astonished ... when I found out that institutions would be exhibiting artists' work without paying them a fee," says Bandt. "The government needs to step in and help institutions pay artists a decent fee." Last week the Greens announced the major planks of their arts policy, which includes reversing the government's cuts to the sector (including more than $100 million cut from the Australia Council) and investing a further $270 million in the arts. Labor announced its policy on Saturday, which includes an additional $80 million to the Australia Council and $60 million to the ABC to produce local drama. The Coalition has yet to release details of its arts policy. Asked on ABC radio last week about the policy, Fifield said: "All I can say is, watch this space." The ArtsPeak National Arts Election Debate at the Wheeler Centre is booked out but the event can be viewed live at artspeak.net.au/debate from 1pm. |
GATINEAU, QC--(Marketwired - June 13, 2017) - The Hydropothecary Corporation ("THCX" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: THCX) (formerly BFK Capital Corp.) announces that it has changed its auditors from UHY McGovern, Hurley, Cunningham LLP ("Former Auditor") to MNP LLP ("Successor Auditor") effective May 25, 2017. At the request of the Company the Former Auditor resigned as the auditor of the Company effective May 25, 2017 and the board of directors of the Company appointed the Successor Auditor as the Company's auditor effective May 25, 2017, until the next Annual General Meeting of the Company.
"We would like thank UHY McGovern, Hurley, Cunningham LLP for all their expertise and guidance over the last few years and we are pleased to announce that MNP LLP will be a part of the Hydropothecary story in the next stage of our growth," said Sébastien St-Louis, Co-Founder and CEO.
There were no reservations in the Former Auditor's audit reports for the period commencing at the beginning of THCX's two most recent financial years and ending at the date of the resignation of the Former Auditor. There are no "reportable events" (as the term is defined in National Instrument 51-102 - Continuous Disclosure Obligations) between the Company and the Former Auditor.
In accordance with National Instrument 51-102, the notice of change of auditor, together with the required letters from the former auditor and the successor auditor, have been reviewed by the board of directors and filed on SEDAR.
About The Hydropothecary Corporation
The Hydropothecary Corporation is an authorized licensed producer and distributor of medical cannabis licensed by Health Canada under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (Canada). Hydropothecary provides naturally grown and rigorously tested medical cannabis of uncompromising quality. Hydropothecary's branding, cannabis product offering, patient service standards and product pricing are consistent with THCX's positioning as a premium brand for a legal source for medical cannabis within this new marketplace. In addition to medical cannabis production and sales, Hydropothecary explores various research and development opportunities for cannabinoid extracts, drugs and combinatory chemistry. In addition, the company is investigating the development and patenting of novel technologies related to medical cannabis, as well as the import and export of medical cannabis.
Forward-Looking Information
This press release contains forward-looking information based on current expectations. Examples of such forward-looking information include statements about future operational and production capacity, the impact of enhanced facilities and production capabilities, and expected available product selection. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements, including factors such as the ability to finance the proposed expansion through internal and/or external sources. The company assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by law. |
AN Oxford student who knifed her lover in a drug and drink-fuelled frenzy may avoid jail — after a judge hinted she is too clever for prison.
Aspiring heart surgeon Lavinia Woodward, 24, stabbed Thomas Fairclough in the leg with a breadknife and hurled a laptop, glass and jam jar at him.
Facebook 11 Lavinia Woodward, 24, stabbed her boyfriend with a bread knife and threw objects at him in a drink- and drug-fuelled rage
Facebook 11 The Oxford student may be spared jail as it could interfere with her professional goals
But Judge Ian Pringle suggested he will waive the usual prison term when he sentences her in case it damages her career.
He said: "It seems to me that if this was a one-off, a complete one-off.
"To prevent this extraordinary able young lady from not following her long-held desire to enter the profession she wishes to, would be a sentence which would be too severe.
"What you did will never, I know, leave you but it was pretty awful, and normally it would attract a custodial sentence, whether it is immediate or suspended."
Facebook 11 The aspiring surgeon admitted to wounding at Oxford crown court
11 A judge described the incident as a 'one-off'
11 A pal said Livinia is so intelligent she 'might win a Nobel prize'
11 She has already published articles in medical journals
Woodward, who admitted a charge of unlawful wounding at Oxford Crown Court, flew to Barbados after the hearing.
She has published articles in medical journals and will be returning to Oxford’s historic Christ Church college in the next academic year.
A friend said: “They see her as someone worth the risk of having around. She might win a Nobel Prize, she is that intelligent.”
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Facebook 11 Lavinia flew to Barbados after the hearing
Facebook 11 She will return to Christ Church college for the next academic year
Prosecutor Cathy Olliver said Woodward met her ex, a Cambridge PhD student, on Tinder.
She said on September 30, the night of the attack, they rowed and Woodward's behaviour behaviour "deteriorated".
When Fairclough threatened to contact Woodward’s mum on Skype she punched him in the face before picking up a bread knife and stabbing him in the leg.
Defending, James Sturman QC said his client's dreams of becoming a surgeon were "almost impossible" as her conviction would have to disclosed.
11 Judge Ian Pringle said it would 'too severe' a punishment to prevent her from becoming a surgeon
11 The court heard Lavinia has battled addiction and was abused by a previous partner
11 She will be sentenced on September 25
The court heard Woodward had a "very troubled life," battling addiction and suffering abuse by another ex.
Judge Pringle will sentence her on September 25 but she has been slapped with a restraining order and told to stay drug-free and not to re-offend.
Mark Brooks, of the ManKind Initiative which supports male domestic violence victims, said: “The judge’s comments are unacceptable. This is domestic abuse against a man and the sympathy should be for him.”
Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 |
Cylon.js Makes Internet of Things Development As Easy As Web Development
Open Source JavaScript Robotics and IoT Framework Releases Version 1.0
Los Angeles, CA, April 8, 2015 - Cylon.js the open source robotics and Internet of Things (IoT) framework has just reached a major milestone today with the release of version 1.0. Now supporting over 35 different hardware and software platforms, the JavaScript framework can also connect using Machine to Machine (M2M) API standards such as REST and MQTT.
"We created Cylon.js to make IoT development as easy as web development" says Ron Evans, the creator of Cylon.js and 'Ringleader' of The Hybrid Group, the software consultancy that has sponsored the open source project. "Thanks to contributions from all over the world, we have been able to achieve this major release."
"Cylon.js has made robotics and hardware hacking a lot simpler for software and web developers of all ages and skill levels," according to Rex St. John, IoT Evangelist at Intel. "I look forward to the coming era now that all that is needed to program advanced IoT projects is curiosity and the ability to write a little JavaScript."
"Cylon.js significantly lowers the hurdle for developers to get started with robotics and Internet of Things projects," says Chris Matthieu, CTO of Octoblu, a M2M messaging company owned by Citrix. "Being a JavaScript developer myself, I love the fact that I can easily write front and back end code for the Web in JavaScript and now control robots, drones, and other connected devices with it too!"
Written in the JavaScript programming language, Cylon.js provides an easy way to program drones, robots and connected devices. Cylon.js has recently become one of the 99.9% most popular JavaScript projects on Github the open source coding website. The 1.0 release of Cylon.js creates an industrial-strength technology for professional IoT application development.
About the Hybrid Group
The Hybrid Group is a software development consultancy based in Los Angeles, CA. Some have called them "the software company that makes hardware companies look good", with clients such as Sphero, Spark Devices, and Pebble. For more information, call 310-916-9924. |
When traditional power Colquitt County topped then Super 25 No. 20 Archer in a Georgia AAAAAAA quarterfinal, the attention focused on Colquitt kicker Ryan Fitzgerald, for good reason. The junior delivered all 12 of the Packers’ points in a 12-7 upset, making his defense’s stout work stand up.
RELATED: Colquitt County kicker leads Packers to state semis with upset of No. 20 Archer
Buried in the overarching storyline, however, are the details of the kicks, because one of them is truly remarkable: A 60-yard free kick on the final play of the first half. The attempt was made possible when Colquitt used a fair catch to field an Archer punt, and legendary Colquitt coach Rush Propst then trotted Fitzgerald out on the field to boot the ball as far as he could off a tee.
What a call by Rush Propst last night. Here is Ryan Reynolds’ 60 yard free kick at the end of the first half. Was asked about it a lot, so here it is. @CCPackersFball @CCHSPackers pic.twitter.com/9IMBERBUVV — Chad Simmons (@ChadSimmons_) November 25, 2017
The attempt sailed right through, as you can see above and below from different angles, and it cut the Archer lead at the time to 7-6.
#SCtop10 worthy. 60 yard field goal (free kick) by 2019 GA’s @ryan_fitz88 of @CCHSPackers 👟🏈🔥 Ryan made 4 FG’s including a 48 yarder to seal the playoff win 12-7. Congrats !!@SpecialTeamsFB @ESPNAssignDesk pic.twitter.com/mNOtJzQyxr — Coach Brian Jackson (@TeamJacksonKick) November 25, 2017
It’s not every year that someone at any level of football hits a 60-yarder, let alone a high school kicker. Add in the pressure from the state playoffs and Fitzgerald’s kick is even more remarkable.
Will the junior’s strong leg be enough to get the Packers to a state final? We’ll have to stay tuned to find out. Few would have guessed it would be sufficient against a team like Archer. Then again, few would have guessed a high school kicker would nail a 60-yard free kick, either. |
The most memorable moment of this weekend’s playoff games, frustratingly, was also its most inexplicable. The bizarre decision by the officiating crew in the Dallas-Detroit game to overturn a pass interference call on Anthony Hitchens that would have given the Lions a key first down played a meaningful role in Dallas’s comeback. The Cowboys trailed 14-0 in the first quarter and had a win expectancy of 9 percent with 21 minutes left, only for Tony Romo to lead them back. The Cowboys took over after the non-call and went on an 11-play, 59-yard drive that yielded Romo’s game-winning touchdown pass to Terrance Williams.
Lions fans have a right to be miffed. But the idea that the game was somehow rigged? That’s absurd.
Let’s start with the call itself. As Mike Pereira noted in his analysis, the play itself is very clearly pass interference. Face guarding isn’t a penalty, but the first definition of pass interference includes “Contact by a defender who is not playing the ball and such contact restricts the receiver’s opportunity to make the catch.” That’s exactly what Hitchens did to Brandon Pettigrew. Furthermore, even before Hitchens committed pass interference, he clearly grabbed Pettigrew’s jersey earlier in the route, which should have qualified for defensive holding and a first down.
Why was the flag picked up? As referee Pete Morelli noted after the game, back judge Lee Dyer saw pass interference and threw his flag, only for head linesman Jerry Bergman to overrule the call from what was supposedly a better angle, saying the contact had been minimal and represented face guarding.
Morelli doesn’t give a great explanation about why he announced the pass interference call before speaking to the head linesman and subsequently changing his mind. That’s not exactly common, but as someone who watches as much NFL as anybody, I can also say that a ref announcing a call and then subsequently changing it isn’t exactly unprecedented, either. I think that’s probably a huge chunk of why the call seems so egregious; if it were simply a blown pass interference call, I doubt there’s even half as much in the way of vitriol toward the officials, even if the decision is just as bad.
The whole thing speaks to a problem in the officiating process. We expect officials to huddle and debate what they saw from different vantage points a full minute after a play ends without the benefit of any replays, and the margin of error in that process is simply way too high. This happens a lot with intentional grounding calls, when officials are expected to reconstruct where every player was on the field 20 or 30 seconds after the play ends, and it’s just not possible to get that right every time.
There’s no easy way to legislate that out of the system short of turning every close call over to replay, and I doubt that’s a preferable option. A better step would be to expand the challenge system by allowing coaches to challenge judgment calls, a rule change proposed by Bill Belichick that I wrote about at length in March. That wouldn’t be perfect, and coaches would still screw up their challenges, but it would at least give coaches a way to operate against truly brutal mistakes like the one made by Morelli and his crew Sunday.
As for the issue of whether the call was proof that the game was rigged, remember Hanlon’s razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence. If NFL officials were perfect and screwed up this one call, it would be one thing, but this was hardly the only bad officiating moment of the weekend. Carolina, for one, benefited from an awful missed pass interference call on Michael Floyd and had a should-have-been intentional grounding on Cam Newton wiped off the board when the officials identified a mysterious receiver in the area. Bad calls happen. Sometimes, they happen in critical moments.
There’s also no reason to really believe that the NFL would benefit all that much from fixing a game in Dallas’s favor. Why would the league want to aid Jerry Jones, who the NFL sued in the mid-’90s? The same Jerry Jones who embarrassed the league by coming up 1,250 temporary seats short for Super Bowl XLV? I don’t doubt the league will be happy to see a Cowboys-Packers matchup next week, but how much benefit is it really going to see from the television ratings when the NFL’s TV deals run through 2022? NFL television ratings haven’t suffered any kind of noticeable drop-off this year. People are going to watch the NFL playoffs regardless of who’s actually involved. The upside to fixing a playoff game doesn’t remotely compare to what would happen if the league or a television network really wanted to influence the result of a playoff game and got caught.
And the reality is that the decision hardly turned the game into a guaranteed victory for the Cowboys. Brian Burke’s win probability model noted that the call swung Detroit’s chances of winning by about 12 percentage points, as the Lions would have had a 79.4 percent chance of winning if the penalty had been enforced, only to settle for a 67.2 percent win expectancy after the flag was picked up. Burke notes that Detroit’s chances changed by about the same amount when Matthew Stafford hit Corey Fuller for a 21-yard completion earlier on the drive. It would be impossible to argue that the non-call didn’t help Dallas’s chances, but acting like a Cowboys win was fait accompli after the flag was picked up is just inaccurate.
The furor over the flag masks an impressive Dallas comeback and a frustratingly conservative game plan from Jim Caldwell, who was outcoached by Jason Garrett. Caldwell followed the Pettigrew flash point by lining up to go for it on fourth-and-1 from the Dallas 46-yard line solely in an attempt to force a Cowboys penalty. Stafford instead took a delay of game when the Cowboys didn’t jump, only for Sam Martin to deliver the worst shank in a weekend of truly awful punting. His 10-yard boot meant the Lions picked up only 5 yards of field position by taking the penalty and punting, a decision that would have been shortsighted and overly conservative even with a good punt.
Garrett, meanwhile, helped turn things around for the Cowboys with a pair of aggressive decisions. He likely would have been scolded by the take-the-points crowd had the Cowboys come up short on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line in the third quarter, but his decision to trust the league’s best running game against its most impressive run defense paid off when DeMarco Murray ran off-tackle for a touchdown. Then, on the game-winning drive, Garrett resisted the urge to punt on fourth-and-6 in no-man’s-land on the Detroit 42-yard line, with Romo promptly finding Jason Witten on an option route for 21 yards, which Witten later said was the biggest catch of his career. Both decisions were correct on paper, and Garrett got positive outcomes both times.
The Lions basically battled the Cowboys running game to a draw, holding Murray to a 3.9-yard average on his 19 carries, but will feel let down by their secondary, especially given how well their pass rush played. The Lions combined for six sacks and 10 knockdowns of Romo on just 37 dropbacks, including four quarterback hits from a dominant Ezekiel Ansah and back-to-back sacks from Ndamukong Suh, who was reduced to tears during the postgame press conference after what might have been his last game as a Lions player.
Darius Slay did a great job shutting down Dez Bryant for most of the contest, but Rashean Mathis was slowed by a quad injury and the Lions had the lesser lights of their secondary fail to deliver. With 1:50 left in the first half and the Cowboys backed into a third-and-12 by a Williams offensive pass interference call, the Lions got burned for a touchdown when Cassius Vaughn slipped in coverage and Williams accelerated through the secondary for a 76-yard score. Mohammed Seisay, an undrafted free agent who wasn’t even a starter for Nebraska last season, was beaten badly by Cole Beasley on a number of occasions. The Lions asked too much of star linebacker DeAndre Levy, who repeatedly ended up following Bryant across the formation on crossing routes, with Bryant breaking one such route for a 43-yard completion that set up the Murray score.
Lions fans have every right to look back at this game and feel frustrated. They outplayed the Cowboys for most of the contest, and if they had managed to fall on one of Dallas’s two early fumbles deep in Cowboys territory, this could have been a game like the Cowboys’ Week 1 loss to the 49ers, when Dallas went down 21-3 early on turnovers and never really recovered. At the same time, Detroit was really lucky to get a second shot at winning the game when DeMarcus Lawrence recovered a Stafford fumble in the final minutes and promptly fumbled himself, only for Lawrence to redeem himself by beating Riley Reiff for a game-sealing stripsack on fourth-and-3. The Lions are not going to be a better team next year if Suh and defensive coordinator Teryl Austin are elsewhere, and it would be a shocker if both were wearing Lions gear next September.
More than anything, they’ll look back at this loss and remember that terrible decision to pick up the pass interference penalty. I can’t blame them. Instead of focusing on some sort of misguided conspiracy, the blown call should strike a blow for legitimate changes to the process of making calls that eliminate as many future mistakes as possible. Officials — who, somehow, still aren’t full-time employees — will never be perfect. Let’s try to get them a whole lot closer anyway.
Be Dalton
Andy Dalton never really had a chance. The oft-belittled playoff punch line became the first quarterback since Y.A. Tittle in 1963 to lose each of his first four playoff starts, going 18-of-35 for just 155 yards in a 26-10 loss to the Colts. It actually bumps up Dalton’s career playoff passer rating to 57.8, leaving him as the sixth-worst quarterback among those who have thrown at least 150 playoff passes and started their playoff careers after the merger.
It would be wrong to say Dalton played well. While he was pressured on 31.7 percent of his dropbacks, more than any other quarterback in the wild-card round, Dalton didn’t do a ton when he did have time. He finished with a QBR of just 20.0, the second-worst figure of the weekend. Dalton seemed to fluctuate between holding on to the football too long when he needed to get it out and getting it out too quickly in spots when he needed bigger plays. It’s hard to find the logic, say, in throwing a 4-yard slant to Rex Burkhead on third-and-7 in no-man’s-land, as Dalton did against a blitz on the opening drive.
And yet, there’s an important phrase in there: Dalton was throwing a slant to Rex freaking Burkhead. Burkhead got the Bengals going with an end-around on their opening play, and he was an early component of an offense that simply lacked for weapons. With Tyler Eifert out virtually all season and both A.J. Green and Jermaine Gresham missing this playoff game with injuries, Dalton had nothing to work with.
Beyond Mohamed Sanu, who failed to have a monster game despite mostly being kept apart from Vontae Davis, Dalton had a comic group of targets. His top weapons at receiver were Burkhead — a halfback stuck at wide receiver out of desperation after catching seven passes in two years — and third-string tight end Ryan Hewitt. The likes of Cobi Hamilton, Greg Little, and Brandon Tate were desperation plays, and all eight of Dalton’s throws in their direction fell incomplete.
The Bengals responded to their lack of weaponry early by using six offensive linemen on the vast majority of their snaps, a move that worked brilliantly for the Patriots against the Colts during the regular season. It worked well on the Bengals’ first two drives, as they ran the ball eight times with either six or seven offensive linemen, producing 39 yards and a touchdown. After that, the jig was up; the Colts adjusted, and the Bengals never really did anything to build upon their success with the extra linemen, running seven more such plays for a total of 5 yards.
You could maybe blame offensive coordinator Hue Jackson for not building a scheme with more bells and whistles to try to distract the Colts, but there just wasn’t much there. Cincinnati’s three zone-read plays produced minus-3 yards. It ran an end-around to start the game and mixed in a flea flicker during the second half, but it would have been tough to ask too much of such an inexperienced group of receivers. ESPN Stats & Information notes that the Bengals tried only one screen, which seems lacking. More Jeremy Hill might have been nice, but Cincinnati’s combination of Hill and Gio Bernard ran the ball 16 times for just 53 yards. Indy’s defensive backs knocked away five passes and played like a group that simply wasn’t afraid it was going to get beat by the Cincinnati passing game.
Truthfully, the game shouldn’t even have been as close as it was, with the Bengals within one score for the first 37 minutes. The Colts left a number of big plays on the field early and could have ended the game before halftime. T.Y. Hilton had an ugly drop wipe away a likely touchdown after two beautiful throws from Andrew Luck hit him in the hands. An illegal block by Donte Moncrief wiped away a touchdown. A fumble by the otherwise-impressive Dan Herron prematurely ended a drive before halftime.
The Colts mostly did what they wanted because the Bengals had no way of dictating the flow of the game on defense. Cincinnati’s biggest problem this season has been a totally absent pass rush, and that was true in this game, sacking Luck just once on 46 dropbacks. They were able to knock Luck down on eight occasions, but outside of the occasional burst up the middle from Geno Atkins, the Bengals couldn’t take advantage of Anthony Castonzo and fill-in right tackle Joe Reitz. Cincinnati sent only 11 blitzes all game, and while the secondary did its best, it wasn’t enough. George Iloka got lost standing still on a double-move by Hakeem Nicks for 45 yards before taking a poor angle in coverage against Moncrief, who ran right by him for a 36-yard touchdown.
For Cincinnati, of course, this will raise the question of whether the Dalton–Marvin Lewis combination has gone as far as it will go. It’s possible to make cases on both sides. If you believe in the duo, you note that Dalton and Lewis have gone 40-23-1 over the past four seasons, the sixth-best record in football over that time frame. The only quarterbacks in league history to win more games during their first four seasons are Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, and Dan Marino, and Dalton’s been a competent quarterback, posting the league’s 20th-best QBR from 2011 to 2014. Cincinnati is also committed to him by virtue of the six-year, $96 million contract he signed before the season.
And yet, there’s a reason quarterbacks don’t really ever get the chance to lose four playoff games in a row to start their careers. It’s tough to pin each of the four playoff losses on him, but it’s not as if he’s done a ton in those games to put his team in a position to win. Otherwise, Dalton hasn’t really grown, with his numbers dropping across the board this season. Without Green, his star receiver, he was totally hopeless Sunday against a competent pass defense.
The Bengals could move on from Dalton this offseason without destroying their cap, although it would likely have to happen quickly. Cincinnati will owe Dalton a $4 million roster bonus if he’s on the team on the third day of the 2015 league year, but before then it could cut or trade him while paying the same $9.6 million on the 2015 cap that it would otherwise be paying Dalton to play. Cincinnati should have somewhere around $40 million in cap space to work with next year, so while it still needs to sign Green to an extension, it could absorb the cap hit of moving on from Dalton while acquiring a new quarterback.
Lewis, meanwhile, falls to 0-6 in the playoffs, having lost a pair of games before Dalton arrived in 2011. The only other coach in league history to go 0-6 in the playoffs was Jim E. Mora, which means Lewis is probably ready to deliver a famous press conference next year. He went conservative again Sunday, punting on that fourth-and-3 on the opening drive and costing his team 0.7 points in the process. Then again, given the talent gap between the two teams thanks to Cincinnati’s injuries on offense, Lewis could have been the most aggressive play-caller in football and it wouldn’t really have mattered.
I don’t think there’s anything innately different about Lewis and Dalton, that they have some weird habit or hidden inability to win in the playoffs that should lead the Bengals to get rid of them both, even if there isn’t much precedent for anybody being any worse in the playoffs than these two. I also wouldn’t blame Bengals fans for feeling like this was a team repeatedly smacking its head against the ceiling, that taking a roll of the dice on a new coach and quarterback might be preferable to winning 10 games and getting knocked out in the first round of the playoffs every year. Cincinnati might eventually break through and get to another level, like the Cowboys did this year after three 8-8 seasons with Garrett at the helm. They’re also probably looking back right now and wishing they hadn’t stuck with Dalton and Lewis for another year.
Life and Lind
The worst QBR of the weekend, as you might suspect, belonged to Ryan Lindley. The Arizona quarterback produced a 6.1 QBR at the helm of the worst offensive performance in the history of the NFL playoffs. After losing 19 yards on a useless game-ending lateral play, the Cardinals finished with just 78 yards of offense and averaged 1.7 yards per play, setting all-time playoff lows in both categories. The same Bengals offense I just mentioned that felt hopeless all game averaged more than two and a half times as many yards per play (4.3). And yet, in a game where they had as many drives end without a first down as first downs (eight on both counts), the Cardinals might have actually been able to win with a little more luck.
The blueprint for a Cardinals victory in this playoff game at Carolina was never going to involve a big — or even competent — day from Lindley. That was asking too much. The Cardinals needed some help, and in some ways they got it. They picked up an interception when Jerricho Cotchery appeared to hear a who and stopped his shallow crossing route, allowing Antonio Cromartie to pick off Cam Newton’s pass and return it 50 yards to set up a four-play scoring drive. They got help on special teams, where Brenton Bersin muffed away a punt that gave the Arizona offense a short field for its other touchdown; Graham Gano also pushed a field goal wide left.
On the right day, if you kill enough clock with your running game, win the field-position battle, and don’t make mistakes, that can be enough to win a football game. The problem is that the Cardinals didn’t play mistake-free football. Cromartie dropped a would-be pick-six on the opening drive. Ted Ginn took a ball out from 8 yards deep in his own end zone and fumbled on a Melvin White hit to set up a back-breaking Panthers touchdown. Drew Butler was the Ryan Lindley of punters, averaging a lowly 34.8 yards per punt on his nine attempts, including five punts that traveled 33 yards or fewer and a 20-yarder to start the game. The officials made three key calls against Arizona, including a missed defensive pass interference that would have represented Arizona’s biggest offensive play and a debatable defensive pass interference call in the end zone that extended a Carolina touchdown drive.
And, of course, the Cardinals needed a higher floor from their quarterback. Lindley threw two interceptions in Arizona territory in the fourth quarter, including a devastating pick that came after a Newton fumble that might have given the Cardinals some life. Lindley did his worst work in the red zone. He had Larry Fitzgerald open for an eternity up the seam early in the game and threw both late and high, and when Fitzgerald later got open on a similar route in the end zone, Lindley tried to squeeze it in for his second pick of the day.
In this game, for once, Bruce Arians tried to give in. Faced with an impossible scenario by virtue of Lindley’s presence, he tried to give his quarterback more conservative options. Lindley, who led the league in average air yards per pass, saw his throws travel a relatively modest 8.5 yards in the air per attempt on Saturday. The problem was that he had less of an idea of where those throws were going than Carolina’s defenders did. Lindley would repeatedly stare down his receivers, which allowed Carolina’s pair of Pro Bowl–caliber linebackers, Thomas Davis and Luke Kuechly, to clog up his throwing lanes and force errant throws. When Carolina blitzed, they knew the hot reads Lindley would make and attacked them for easy takedowns. Lindley’s receivers averaged a playoff-low 2.4 yards after catch because he never threw or looked anybody open.
It was fair to wonder after the game whether Arians should have moved on from Lindley and given more playing time to rookie Logan Thomas, who came on the field for one read-option play. Lindley was awful, but I have to trust Arians, especially given that Arians tried to bench Lindley, gave Thomas a practice as the starter, and immediately went back to Lindley. Remember that this is the same NFL that knocked Teddy Bridgewater down to the bottom of the first round because he was bad on his pro day. Imagine how terrible Thomas had to have been in that practice for Arians to immediately go back to Lindley like he’d seen a ghost.
We’re going to hear stories of people passing that tape around for years to come, and the sort of filthy things I read on Twitter that Thomas must have done to Arians’s Kangol hat collection are unrepeatable on a family website. The rookie would have been a viable running threat if Arians wanted to run the zone-read all day, but it wouldn’t have been much of a game plan on its own, especially given that the Cardinals averaged just 1.8 yards per carry on their 15 rushes.
The one salvation for the Cardinals might have been a great game from their defense, but after a season full of miracles from a unit riddled by injuries, Todd Bowles’s group simply couldn’t deliver another salvo. Arizona’s blitzes failed to get home far too frequently, and when they did get pressure on Newton, he was consistently able to elude the pass rush to step away and either find an open receiver or scramble for a big play. Arizona sacked Newton only once and knocked him down on a mere three occasions, with Newton scrambling to pick up consecutive third-and-longs to start the second half, including one where he lured rookie spy Deone Bucannon too far to one side before slipping out the other direction for a conversion.
As with the Colts-Bengals game, this really needn’t have been this close of a contest, as the Panthers left some plays on the field. With little meaningful pass pressure, they were able to go after the weak links in the Arizona defense. Philly Brown did a number on Cromartie before leaving late in the second quarter with a shoulder injury. Lumbering tight end Ed Dickson repeatedly got open on, of all things, a pair of wheel routes that could have been touchdowns, only for Newton to miss the first one versus Cover 3 and narrowly overthrow the second one with Sam Acho in coverage. Dickson had more success versus an overmatched, gimpy Larry Foote. Carolina didn’t even really need to throw the football; it ran the ball 41 times for a total of 188 yards, and it felt like Carolina didn’t pound the rock quite enough.
The Panthers graduate to a far more terrifying fate, a road trip to Seattle to face the Seahawks as 11-point underdogs. After being written off at 3-8-1, you would forgive Carolina for feeling like it has nothing to lose. As for the Cardinals, nobody will feel like they lost more, given how impressive their 9-1 start had been and what little they could do once they lost Carson Palmer and Drew Stanton. There’s almost nothing they could have done; there just aren’t enough quarterbacks in the world for a team to have a viable third-string passer, and the chances a team will simultaneously be competitive enough to play meaningful football in January while also being stuck with their third-stringer are virtually nil. Every team has to run risks with their roster construction, but this wasn’t a risk any team could have prepared for or survived.
Even if it wasn’t their fault, the Cardinals have to be kicking themselves. This was probably the last game of Foote’s career. It may very likely be the last game of Fitzgerald’s Cardinals career, as his cap hit of $23.6 million for next year is simply untenable, regardless of what the Cardinals suggest publicly. (They could clear up more than $16 million in cap space for 2015 by releasing him as a post–June 1 cut, and they will surely pass on paying the $8 million roster bonus due Fitzgerald on the eighth day of the 2015 league year.) Bowles, their brilliant defensive coordinator, deserves a head-coaching gig. It has to be depressing to see that all end on the overmatched shoulders of a quarterback who may very well never take another NFL snap. This was a special year with an inglorious, unforeseeable ending.
Dumervil Mod
Strangely, the best-played game of the weekend was also the least-interesting contest. Baltimore’s 30-17 win over Pittsburgh was closer than that final score suggests, a game that had both teams right around a win expectancy of 50 percent at halftime before the Ravens eventually pulled away in the fourth quarter. In a game in which each team averaged 5.4 yards per play and couldn’t run the football at all, the Ravens won the latest Baltimore-Pittsburgh playoff game on the back of their pass rush.
Elvis Dumervil and Terrell Suggs didn’t single-handedly win this game for the Ravens, but the post-peak combo were the biggest force propelling Baltimore in that direction. While the Steelers sacked Joe Flacco only once and knocked him down four times on 32 dropbacks, the Ravens went to town on Ben Roethlisberger with a force led by their star duo. Dumervil had two of Baltimore’s five sacks Saturday night, whipping Marcus Gilbert before Gilbert left with an injury. Backup Courtney Upshaw then beat replacement tackle Mike Adams on the sack that briefly forced Roethlisberger out of the game in the fourth quarter.
That sequence, of course, seemed downright vile in 2015. Roethlisberger, whose head whipped forward and smashed into the cold Pittsburgh turf on that sack, left the game briefly amid speculation that he might have been concussed. He returned after three plays and no more than two minutes of treatment on the sideline for what was then revealed to be a neck injury, at which point he immediately threw an ugly interception to essentially end the contest. I hesitate to say the interception was proof that Roethlisberger was concussed — if so, Eli Manning suffers about 15 concussions a year — but there’s no way doctors could even have determined Roethlisberger was concussed in that brief time span, with the league’s concussion protocol requiring a minimum of 15 to 20 minutes for the appropriate checks.
The pain was compounded when tight end Heath Miller took a big hit that clearly staggered him on Bruce Gradkowski’s first pass, only to return to the game shortly thereafter and fumble away a completion. Maybe Roethlisberger and Miller didn’t actually have concussions, and the Steelers have magic doctors who can diagnose things in minutes. It seems hard to believe that Pittsburgh — or Roethlisberger and Miller themselves — cared more about its stars’ health than it did about winning the football game.
Suggs, meanwhile, was the straw who stirred the drink. While he didn’t finish with a sack or a quarterback hit, Suggs made his presence known in other ways. He shed a Miller block in the backfield and knocked down Dri Archer for a loss on Archer’s only carry. He drew a holding penalty against Steelers left tackle Kelvin Beachum that wiped off an Archer touchdown catch on the play before Roethlisberger suffered his potential concussion. Suggs came up with the most important play of the night, though, when he intercepted a Roethlisberger checkdown between his thighs after it bounced off Ben Tate’s hands. With Pittsburgh down eight and deep inside its own territory with 8:10 left, the pick all but sealed the game for Baltimore.
The NBC crew talked about Suggs during the game as if he were a guaranteed Hall of Famer, which seemed interesting to me. I dismissed it at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I found myself agreeing with Cris Collinsworth and Al Michaels about Suggs’s candidacy. It’s worth remembering that Suggs entered the league as a 20-year-old; he’s still just 32, nine months younger than Cameron Wake. He’s got 106.5 sacks and he should probably add another 30 over the next four years. The only guys above 135 sacks who aren’t in the Hall of Fame are Jason Taylor, who should be elected when he’s eligible, and Kevin Greene, who has 160 sacks and isn’t in because … you tell me, because I have no idea.
We’re also at the point when Suggs’s postseason accolades are worth counting. He’s played a full 16-game slate of playoff contests and accrued 12 sacks. The only players who have amassed more sacks in the postseason since the league started officially counting them in 1982 are Bruce Smith and Willie McGinest. Suggs has also taken over more than one game; he terrorized the Patriots in that 2009 blowout in Foxborough, took down Peyton Manning twice in the Rahim Moore game during the 2012 playoffs, and had three sacks against the Steelers the last time these two teams met in the 2010 playoffs.
It was also illuminating to see the Baltimore secondary making plays. While Antonio Brown got his because Antonio Brown is always going to get his, an anonymous group of Ravens defensive backs made big plays during this game. Those mostly involved Will Hill, the talented former Giants safety who was cut this offseason after being suspended for the third time in three years. The Ravens took a chance on Hill, let him sit out his six-game suspension, and found a player who immediately rose to the top of their depth chart. He’s a dynamic, versatile safety who can cover far more of the field than it might seem at first glance, and Hill manages to combine a penchant for big hits without the frustrating capacity for overrunning the play that the likes of LaRon Landry often exhibit. Darian Stewart came up with a big shove to knock an open Brown out of bounds and break up a catch before finishing the game by intercepting Roethlisberger. Rashaan Melvin had a quietly impressive game.
Contrast that to the Steelers, who got little out of the big-ticket veterans in their secondary. Ike Taylor was inactive despite practicing through an ankle injury all week, and while I might speculate that he was scratched for his performance, he gave an all-time terrifying death stare to the cameras before the game. Troy Polamalu was somehow anonymous. Mike Mitchell, signed to a five-year deal this offseason, took a number of poor routes in coverage to create plays downfield and extended a Ravens drive with a helmet-to-helmet hit.
The Steelers found themselves dependent upon the likes of Brice McCain and Antwon Blake, and Blake in particular struggled. He somehow combined playing off coverage and missing a tackle on third-and-14 to extend one drive before committing a 32-yard defensive pass interference penalty on Torrey Smith. It was part of a huge penalty disparity for the Steelers, who committed eight infractions for 114 yards, while the Ravens committed two for just 14 yards.
The Smith story remains interesting. He finished the year with 49 catches for 767 yards, pedestrian figures for a guy who most would have suggested capable of a breakout year in his contract season. Where did his yards go? Pass interference penalties. During the regular season, Smith drew 11 pass interference calls for 229 yards, which is a downright staggering total. Nobody else in football had more than the six penalties and 129 yards accrued by Jordy Nelson; it’s not a sticky skill at these extremes, but it’s still a useful bargaining chip for a player who was among the league leaders with a 6-95 pass interference line last year. He’s at 12-261 now.
In all, it was a complete win for the Ravens, who are a difficult team to figure out. They play the Patriots next week, and while it’s tempting to note that they’ve enjoyed some success against New England in playoffs past, just 14 players who suited up for the game between these two during the 2009 playoffs will do so again in the 2014 postseason. More likely, Baltimore will give New England fits because it can deliver a pair of truly impressive pass-rushers. Dumervil and Suggs are on the prowl. |
CLOSE Family members of Grace Martinez, 20, with nothing else to go on follow a psychic's tip in searching for the missing Saginaw woman. Robert Allen, Detroit Free Press
Grace Martinez, 20, was last seen at 3 a.m. at the Detroit Masonic Temple.
Grace Martinez, 20, of Saginaw, was last seen at 3 a.m. at the Movement official after-party at the Masonic Temple Theater. (Photo: Detroit Police Department)
Police today issued a missing-person notice for a 20-year-old Saginaw woman last seen early Tuesday morning at a Movement afterparty at the Detroit Masonic Temple.
Update: Grace Martinez found
Grace Martinez was separated from her friend and last seen at about 3 a.m. Tuesday, talking with a man. The man was described as white, about 40 with brown hair and eyes, clean shaven and wearing a blue dress shirt, according to Detroit Police Department.
The friend, Danielle Welchner, 20, of Sebewaing, said the event was "pretty wild," packed with people, and they'd arrived at about 1 a.m. but had a hard time keeping track of each other.
"We were completely sober," she said, adding that the last time she saw Martinez, she asked whether she'd taken anything. "She said 'no,' she was fine. That was the last time I'd seen her."
Martinez and her friend had planned to meet at a car afterward, but she never appeared. Police describe Martinez as a Hispanic female, 5-foot-3, 105 pounds with brown eyes and hair. She was last seen wearing a white crop top and jean shorts, and she was in good physical and mental condition, police said.
Buy Photo Grace Martinez's sister, Minda Martinez, 24, and Kristina Perry, 19, Grace's friend, tape up missing flyers at Mariner Park on Detroit's east side at the Detroit River (Photo: Robert Allen/Detroit Free Press)
Welchner said that when she last spoke with Martinez, she saw the man in the blue shirt.
"I didn't talk to him," she said. "He seemed kind of odd. He just kind of stood off to the side when I was talking to her."
Welchner said she returned to the car and waited until 5:30 a.m., "after everyone was gone," and never saw Martinez, who'd left her phone and purse in the car when they arrived.
Martinez's mother, Betty Trischler Martinez, said she's been passing out flyers in downtown Detroit. She said her daughter, who lives with her brother in Saginaw and is a college student, has never disappeared like this.
"It's completely out of character," she said. "She was babysitting her niece that's in from out of town."
Betty Martinez said her daughter had left the niece with her brother so she could go see the show.
Welchner said neither of them attended the Movement event in downtown. On Sunday night, they'd attended an after party with a group of people, but on Monday night just the two of them returned.
"We weren't meeting anyone, didn't know anyone," she said.
Anyone who's seen Martinez is asked to call the Detroit Police investigation unit at 313-596-1340.
The event at the Masonic Temple was the official after-party for Movement, an electronic music festival that drew roughly 100,000 people to Hart Plaza over the weekend. The afterparty started at 11 p.m. Monday and was headlined by Windsor-raised Richie Hawtin, an internationally acclaimed DJ and music producer with a long association with Detroit electronic music.
Buy Photo Grace Martinez's sister, Minda Martinez, 24, and Kristina Perry, 19, Grace's friend, tape up missing flyers at Mariner Park on Detroit's east side at the Detroit River (Photo: Robert Allen/Detroit Free Press)
Contact Robert Allen at rallen@freepress.com or @rallenMI.
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Leeds United manager Brian McDermott has categorically ruled himself out of the running for the vacant Republic of Ireland job, saying: “I’m committed to this club, 100 per cent.”
The 52-year-old spoke of his “immense pride” at being named as a candidate for the international post but said he owed a debt of gratitude to Leeds and their supporters after a five-month spell in charge at Elland Road.
McDermott, whose parents were born in southern Ireland, admitted he hoped to manage the Republic in the future but claimed he had no interest in discussing the vacant post with the Football Association of Ireland (FAI).
The FAI’s chief executive, John Delaney, included McDermott in a list of possible replacements for the Irish position after Giovanni Trapattoni left his post on Wednesday morning.
McDermott said: “My situation is that one day I want to manage the Republic of Ireland.
“But at this moment in time I’m at a fantastic football club and I feel I owe this club and these supporters.
“I’m here and I’m committed, 100 per cent. I regard Leeds United as a very big club. At this moment I wouldn’t be leaving Leeds United. In years to come when Leeds United get fed up of me, that might be the case.”
Asked about Delaney’s comments - comments which angered United’s board - McDermott said: “My reaction to that is immense pride more than anything.
“If you consider that I’ve been a manager at this level for four and a bit years and to get to that gives me nothing but pride.
“I’m probably doing something right, which is good. Everyone knows how I feel about Ireland.”
end
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by
(A Fuss Free Cooking Recipe)
Generous portions to 2 men & an average serving size to a lady (me!)
Ingredients:
300g asian long life noodles
300g mince chicken marinates with 1 tbsp each for light & dark soy sauce, 1 tsp chilli flakes & some white pepper
1 large carrots, diced
1/3 cabbage, roughly diced
4 garlic cloves, grated (or chopped)
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
White pepper
Method:
1. Cook long life noodles according to packet instructions. Add some oil to the noodles after draining the water. This will prevent the noodles from sticking together.
2. In a large wok (or pan), heat 2 tbsps of vegetables and cook the chicken when the oil is hot. Be careful when adding chicken into the oil as the oil will splatter due to the marinate.
3. When the chicken is cooked, add garlic and carrot. Saute until the garlic becomes aromatic.
4. Add cabbage and cook until slightly tender.
5. Add noodles and seasonings. Toss to combine noodles and seasonings with the chicken-vegetables mixture. Serve immediately.
Note:
If you don’t have asian long life noodles (i.e the ones I’ve used), udon and soba (dried or fresh) or instant ramen noodles (minus the seasonings) could work as well. It’s the same with vegetables: you can replace them with any unused vegetables towards the end of the week, such as leftover spinach, chinese greens, celery, cauliflower, zucchini or frozen vegetables. Oh, it got me thinking: if you so happen to have some leftover chilli or curry paste, you can add that instead of soy sauce.
It does sound like a “whatever” recipe, doesn’t it?
In this recipe, the seasonings are pretty neutral and garlic is the main contributor of flavour in this recipe. Instead of chicken, frozen prawns is another option. If you don’t have any meat on hand, top the noodles with an omelette just before serving. If you are thinking of using long life noodles, just make sure you taste the noodles (in step 5) before adding any seasonings. Sometimes dried noodles can be quite salty on its own even after being cooked in water. You may need to vary the amount soy sauce specified in the recipe.
{Enjoy!} |
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This autumn marks my four year Berliniversary—four years living in Germany. Oh mein Gott. Though I’ve lived abroad a few other times as a student and a “slow” traveler, this has been my first real experience living abroad. Without question, it’s been a learning experience and I’ve come away with a lot of great stories. Everything from the process of moving to a new country, embracing a new culture, learning a new language and a million other things.
I never expected to live in Germany, but four years on, here I am. Here’s what I’ve learned along the way…
What I Wish I’d Known Before Moving to Germany
When I moved to Germany, I didn’t know a lot. I came here with exactly four German words in my vocabulary (Bier, Hallo!, dankeschön and Kindergarten… I am not counting words like Nazi and Führer). While I was able to move here kind of on a spur-of-the-moment decision (what means war with the Ausländerbehörde), there are a lot of things I wish I’d known before making such a big decision…
Special thanks to Claire who has helped put together these fun illustrations. Check out her comics blog here.
Learning German is Essential
While it might seem like a monumental task at the beginning, learning the language will make your life easier and way more fun while living in Germany. Sometimes you find yourself in a club and the guy on the dance floor next to you whispers in your ear. This is an instance when knowing German is helpful. (Trust me: this comes from personal experience!)
Of course, the language is also important for finding jobs, getting visas, visiting all the Amts and dealing with the bureaucracy of living abroad. Even though people in bigger cities (hallo Berlin!) tend to speak English, it’s not always the case. Plus, a language that has a word like bitte which can be used for just about any situation, it’s really not that difficult to pick up essential words to know. It’ll help you get further in your expat experience.
In every city across Germany you’ll find Volkshochschule which are local community schools which offer classes in everything from art & web design to language classes including German. Another good way is to attend language exchanges and meet-ups. The InterNations website organizes regular meet-ups in most major German cities, making it a good way to try out your language skills—plus meet other expats. Otherwise, in Berlin, I co-host a series of “Make Friends in Berlin” events. Find those here.
Germans Love Their Bikes (and So Should You!)
Germans are avid cyclists, and for a reason. The city infrastructure is usually built with cycling in mind, meaning bike lanes can be found almost everywhere. When moving to a new city, cycling is usually the best and the cheapest way to get to know your surroundings. Used bikes aren’t usually expensive, and several cities have bike-sharing services where you can use the public bikes for a small annual fee. Bonus: they’re emission free and will help to burn those extra calories from all the beer and sausages you stuff in your mouth.
Cash is King
Do not ever assume that your card will work at any shop, restaurant or ticket machine. No matter if it’s credit or debit, German or international, most of the time it just won’t be accepted. Many places don’t accept EC (electronic cash/debit) below a certain amount (usually 5€ or 10€).
Grocery stores are one of the few places I’ve found where credit cards are almost always accepted for any amount.
Electronic Music Is All You’ll Hear
Germany is famous for its techno music scene. You might think it’s a stereotype, but I dare you to go out to a club in Berlin and not hear some form of electronic music. Even smaller clubs tend to have at least one night a week with techno, but really: it’s the bigger nightclubs that you’ll want to experience for electronic music. I don’t know why electronic music is so popular in Germany, but it is. Maybe it’s the country’s history, or the fact that so many of the world’s best techno DJs have come out of Germany (sorry, Bristol).
Even if electronic music isn’t your thing, give it a chance. In the right club atmosphere, you’ll find yourself swept away by the beats and the crowds.
German Food is More Than Just Wurst & Bier
Saying that, as an expat, at some point you’ll probably start to crave your favorite foods from back home. Luckily, Germany has a relatively diverse cuisine—more so than you might initially expect! Even if you can’t find your favorite international foods quite as easy, there are specialty food shops and international supermarkets (plus more than a few online services) to get what you might miss from home.
In Germany, though, you’ll also find a lot of Italian and Turkish food options. American-style burgers are currently all the rage throughout the country, as is vegan & vegetarian food. And even when you’re craving German food in Germany, know that your options extend beyond sausages, beer and potatoes. Käsespätzle is a sort of mac & cheese perfect for the winter (or as a vegetarian option in most German restaurants) and the huge variety of meats make it easy to try new foods.
Fizzy Drinks Are Awesome
I’m not 100% sure why, but Germans have a fixation with carbonated drinks. Water is always sparkling, unless otherwise specified. When you want to order water without the bubbles, ask for stilles Wasser (or Leitungswasser if you want it from the tap—but be warned they might not offer it to you for free!).
I won’t lie—I didn’t like sparkling water or many fizzy drinks before moving to Germany, but now it’s a staple of most of my meals out. Germans don’t just make their water fizzy, though. It’s also in their beer. Beer in Germany is generally excellent, perhaps predictably. Even the smallest village seems to have their own brewery. And in the summer, nothing is better than a Radler (a mix of beer with lemonade) or even a Diesel (a mix of beer with cola). There are also a variety of hipster soft drinks of every stripe available. Try the German brand Fritz Kola, out of Hamburg but widely available in Germany (and even across Europe).
Everything Can Be Recycled
Germans have a predilection for Ordnung, or order/discipline. And anyone who’s been to Germany will attest to the fact that everything can be organized—especially the trash. Glass bottles are separated by color. Organic waste goes in its own special bins. Paper and electronics are separated. Everything has its place. All the grocery stores have places to deposit bottles where you’ll get change back, ranging from 8 to 15 cents. In some cities, it’s quite common to leave beer bottles out on the sidewalk for the homeless and other bottle collectors to pick up.
The longer you stay in Germany, the better you get at organizing things. It’s actually quite a comforting thing—knowing that your trash is going to be recycled. You will be a fan of green energy too, it is simply contagious: I am nuclear-free. Plus, wind turbines are an essential part of Germany’s landscape, and you will love to see them from your train or your bus while crossing the German countryside.
There’s a Place for Everything
It’s not just your plastics and papers that can be sorted, but just about everything else in Germany has its own special place and rules. You might think the stereotype of German bureaucracy & paperwork is a myth, but it’s not. Rules are followed to the letter in Germany. There’s an Amt (office) for everything—from registering your address at the Bürgeramt to dealing with the Ordnungsamt.
The rules go so far that even jaywalking is considered a serious offense. Trust me: try to cross an empty street when the Ampelmännchen is red. Just don’t tell people I told you to do it! (I have seen people screaming “children killer!” to someone who crosses the street with a red light, because in good German logic, children see you breaking the law and will follow your example.)
Social Media Will Always Help
I don’t think I could’ve effectively made Germany my home without a network of friends, those people that had moved here around the same time, or those long-time locals who I was lucky enough to meet in my early days living here. Starting out in a new country, you usually don’t know many people in the beginning. I came to Berlin and knew no one.
And while Germans can be a bit formal, it’s definitely possible to break through those tough exteriors. If you’re relatively social, using social media you should be able to connect with new people wherever you are in Germany. Facebook and meetups connect you to local events, and through them it’s easy to find out about cool things to do. I’ve also found it helpful to connect with other international people living in Germany—those that are in similar situations and probably have dealt with the same issues of bureaucracy. I couldn’t have made it here so long without a strong network of other expats. Free networking websites like InterNations make it pretty easy to connect—they’re one of the biggest expat communities worldwide and a good resource for asking questions. Sign up here for free and maybe see you at one of the many Berlin meet ups!
Get Comfortable in Your Birthday Suit
There’s a stereotype about Germans and nudity (and a more free-spirited approach to sexuality—but that’s a different story!) and I can tell you after living in Berlin for four years, it’s definitely true. Nudity just isn’t an issue in Germany. That first summer when I went to a lake for a day of suntanning, the crowded beach was a bit of a shock: there were a lot of droopy boobs and uncircumcised dicks. Quite a shock for this American!
But after that initial shock, I’ve come to realize the Germans really know what’s up. Nudity shouldn’t be an issue—when you separate clothing from sexuality, it’s actually incredibly liberating.
* * *
I can write lots of other stuff that you need to know before moving to Germany, from the (self-)imposed silence in public transportation to the surrealism of German television (and their weird taxes). I believe that Berlin made it easier for me to move here because the city is truly international. There are always lots of different people around. I sometimes dream of moving to a new city, a new country—somewhere like Barcelona or London, but I sincerely think I would miss Germany. Once you get in tune with the mood and the German-style, you can conquer the world (metaphorically, of course!).
View more expat travel stories and tips here. |
Another controversial Facebook takedown, another muddy explanation for an erroneous removal.
Last week, Facebook mistakenly removed two big libertarian groups from its pages — Being Libertarian and Occupy Democrats Logic. Both claim over 100,000 members each. After the groups protested, Facebook restored them both on Monday, offering a vague explanation for the takedowns, one that's become increasingly common following the sudden, temporary disappearance of political speech and or contentious content from its platform.
"The pages were taken down in error," a Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. "Both have been reinstated with any posts that violated our community standards removed." Facebook did not say what posts it determined to be in violation of those standards, though Occupy Democrats Logic believes it was targeted for showcasing a meme on "progressive liberal logic."
If Facebook's statement sounds familiar, it's because the company provided similar explanations when it temporarily removed a video showing the aftermath of the shooting of Philando Castile (that was "technical glitch") and disappeared a handful of Bernie Sanders support groups ("one of our automated policies was applied incorrectly").
What policies and protocols determined or informed these removals of political speech? Facebook isn't saying. Asked to explain the "error" that removed Being Libertarian and Occupy Democrats Logic from Facebook, a company spokesman declined to do so.
An administrator for Occupy Democrats Logic told BuzzFeed News that Facebook did not provide a detailed explanation for the group's takedown. And he insisted that the group was not forced to remove certain posts as a condition of reinstatement. "I didn't remove jack shit," the admin said. "I was confident nothing I posted violated standards."
A cursory search of the restored Occupy Democrats Logic page no longer displays the "progressive liberal logic" meme post.
An administrator for Being Libertarian has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Facebook now boasts 1.7 billion monthly active users. It's a massive network that for many is the extent of the internet itself. When political speech is removed from the platform, even temporarily, it's a big deal. And Facebook is giving no indication that it's ready to address these removals in more depth. |
Daimler has announced Mercedes-AMG has acquired a 25 percent stake in Italian motorcycle manufacturer MV Agusta.
At first it was only a rumor but now we have confirmation from Daimler about purchasing a 25 percent stake in MV Agusta through its Mercedes-AMG division. The transaction price has not been disclosed but the report from last week said a €30 million deal was done between the two parties. Mercedes-AMG and MV Agusta will have a long-term relationship which will include a cooperation in the areas of marketing and sales.
The deal will be finalized towards the end of next month and Mercedes-AMG has announced they will appoint one member in MV Agusta's board of directors. Tobias Moers, Chief Executive of Mercedes-AMG GmbH said "in MV Agusta, we have found the perfect two-wheel partner for Mercedes-AMG” which will provide “an entry into the world of additional high-performance enthusiasts."
Giovanni Castiglioni, President and CEO of MV Agusta Motor S.p.A. declared that "Mercedes-AMG will help MV Agusta to further expand globally and to accelerate our growth. The uniqueness of MV Agusta will further enhance Mercedes-AMG’s leadership in the high-performance segment." |
DUBLIN -- Sometimes life is less about how you handle failure than about how you handle success. Do you let that success go to your head? Do you take a breather and relax and have trouble summoning the hunger you had that led to those good moments in the first place? It’s a natural tendency, and not just in sports, but everywhere, in your career or mine.
It’s especially hard if you’re the U.S. men’s national team and you had a good World Cup, advancing from a difficult group in a way that few had expected, and now you have to deal with a World Cup hangover, playing in games with lower stakes.
But that’s what we’ve seen from the U.S. since the end of the adrenalin rush that came with all the moments in Brazil 2014 that none of us, including the players, will ever forget.
The U.S. lost 4-1 to Ireland’s second-choice team on Tuesday, a dismal end to a calendar year that in the big picture has to be seen as positive, given the World Cup performance, but that concluded with just one victory in the final eight games. There was talk after the game of “growing pains,” as U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann put it, the inevitable issues that arise when you bring young players, some of them teenagers, into the national team for the first time.
But the bigger issue for the U.S. right now has nothing to do with growing pains and more to do with answering the question: How do you handle success? Nine of the 11 U.S. starters on Tuesday were on the World Cup team. They were the players who struggled the most, not the youngest guys.
“We had some guys who were at the World Cup today, and we weren’t there,” said forward Jozy Altidore, who served as captain in the absence of Clint Dempsey. “We weren’t there in a lot of places on the field. It’s growing pains, but for some of the older guys it’s unacceptable, including myself. Those kinds of things can’t happen.”
“We just didn’t come to play today,” Altidore added later. “And it’s been a trend the past few games.”
“I feel like it’s something with our mentality maybe,” said midfielder Alejandro Bedoya. “I don’t know what it is. I can’t really pinpoint it. The last four games I feel like we’ve had results in our hands, had the game in our control, and we let it go. Whether it’s teams equalizing late or like tonight, when they scored the second goal and knocked the air out of us. You’ve just gotta pick it up.”
For years, the U.S. has had a tendency to play better at World Cups when less was expected of the team. But when the expectations rise, as they did after Brazil, the U.S. has often underperformed. And right now those doing the underperforming are the players who were in Brazil. Emotionally and physically they are spent, or not far from it. And it’s equally an issue for MLS-based and European-based U.S. players.
“They have to learn emotionally how to digest a World Cup,” said Klinsmann after the game. “A lot of our players had big problems digesting those extreme emotions. They dropped 20, 30, even 40 percent in performances in their club environment. Many of the Europeans lost their starting spot ... They didn’t know how to deal with all these emotions and all the recognition and all the compliments after the World Cup.
“In a certain way it’s human. It’s understandable.”
Klinsmann sees it as a challenge for himself, too. “How do you manage the roster coming out of the World Cup with all the emotional things that happened in our country and get these players back on track?” he said.
He didn’t say it, but this is something new for Klinsmann too, at least as a national team coach. His term as the Germany coach ended after the emotional high of the 2006 World Cup, and he didn’t have to work his way through the challenges that followed that tournament with the German national team. Yes, Klinsmann had to learn how to handle success as a player, but doing it as a coach isn’t the same thing.
For now, one of Klinsmann’s solutions in 2015 is simple: Be tougher.
“A lot of the work down the road will be done for us off the field,” he said. “We have to educate the players better. We have to guide them hopefully with more influence in their club lives. We have to make it clear that they have to go through pain, they have to get tougher.”
“When I used that word two, three years ago—we’ve gotta get nastier—some people were very critical of me. How can you say that? But I’m telling you that again: We have to get nastier. It’s just normal. It’s not a negative word. We have to become more physical, we have to be dominant and send signals out all over the field. It took us 70 minutes until Jozy got the first yellow card for a foul he only did because he was fouled before that. It’s the international game.”
Perhaps there’s something to that. Maybe it does come down to some of the bare essentials like being more physical. But learning how to handle success—as a coach, as a player—is about more than that. A World Cup year has now ended. It had more good than bad in it for the United States. It left you wondering about what this team could achieve in four years.
But the end of 2014 also leaves you wondering if the success from Brazil is sustainable under Klinsmann. And that will be a challenge for everyone involved in the national team program, including the coach. |
Tianjin Quanjian reiterate that they have had zero contact with Chelsea striker Diego Costa's camp over the past six months. The Chinese Super League (CSL) outfit were reported to have failed with a January approach for his services and it has since been claimed that a pre-agreement has been struck for the fiery Brazilian-born Spaniard to join during the summer.
Spanish radio station Cadena Ser speculated earlier this month that Costa, who has struck 21 goals across all competitions so far this term as Antonio Conte's side seek to complete a Premier League/FA Cup double, and Tianjin had settled on an agreement believed to be worth a cool €30m-a-year (£25.9m, $33.6m). The overall transfer was rumoured to be valued at £76m.
Tianjin owner Shu Yuhui revealed that a foreign world-class striker would likely be introduced amid links to Paris Saint-Germain's Edinson Cavani and Nikola Kalinic of Fiorentina, although a statement from the club denied any communications with Costa over a transfer.
The latter subsequently insisted he was the "owner of his future" and that did not necessarily mean he was going to China.
That has done preciously little to quell speculation over an imminent exit from west London, however, and it has now been reported that former employers Atletico Madrid are once again tracking the 28-year-old despite having secured a verbal agreement to sign prolific Lyon forward Alexandre Lacazette.
Speaking again regarding Costa on Tuesday (23 May), Tianjin, as reported by football.london, said: "For the past six months, our club have not involved in any form of communication and negotiation with Diego Costa nor his representatives.
Tianjin also stated an intention to avoid any "overpriced signings" in part to adhere to a series of new regulations introduced by the Chinese Football Association in January in order to curb irrational spending and promote homegrown talent. CSL clubs are now only permitted to field three overseas players at one time, whereas previously they were allowed to play five – one of whom had to be from another Asia-based country.
"Our club will draw up a rational transfer plan as an aim to improve the spectator experience of the Chinese Super League and meet its sustainability demands," Tianjin added. "We won't take part in any unhealthy competition, thus preventing all overpriced signings."
Eduardo signs new deal
In other Chelsea news, Eduardo has agreed to extend his stay at Stamford Bridge by a further 12 months. The Portuguese veteran arrived from Dinamo Zagreb on a one-year contract in August 2016 and failed to make a single appearance in any competition as Conte's third-choice goalkeeper behind Thibaut Courtois and Asmir Begovic.
"I am very happy to stay at Chelsea for another year," he said. "This season has been very successful for the club, and everybody has made me feel like a part of the family. I hope next season can be just as positive and we can win many more trophies."
Technical director Michael Emenalo described Eduardo as a model professional and a "reliable, popular and respected member of the squad" who had "used his wealth of experience at the top level to bring the very best from his fellow goalkeepers". |
Rising rents and falling property values in many major markets are combining the change the rent vs. buy equation for thousands of potential homeowners around the country. Suddenly homeownership is within reach of buyers who don't need a tax credit to make the numbers work.
Rents in the third quarter were up 2.6 percent nationally over a year ago, and with occupancy rates climbing sharply, to 93.9 percent. The outlook is good for further rent hikes in the balance of the year, according to MPF Research.
"While sluggish employment growth has triggered only mild new household formation, apartments are capturing a disproportionately large share of total housing demand," said Greg Willett, MPF Research's vice president of research and analysis. "That pattern is likely to be sustained for a while, in part because current mortgage qualifications standards have made it tougher to buy a home. Expansion of the country's population of young adults, who tend to favor renting over ownership, also is working in the apartment sector's favor."
At the same time the median price of an existing home fell 2.1 percent from July to August. Though prices are still 0.8 percent above last year's level, most observers expect them to continue to fall as high levels of foreclosures flood many markets and demand slackens.
Prospective buyers in more and more markets are finding that it is actually cheaper to buy than rent. The Trulia.com web site calculated the comparative costs of owning versus renting in the nation's top 50 markets and found that in 18 markets it is much less expensive to buy than rent. Top five markets in which to buy are Arlington, TX, Fresno, CA, Miami, FL, and Mesa and Phoenix, AZ.
"Choosing to buy a home or continue to rent is a highly personal financial and life decision that many people are grappling with right now," said Pete Flint, CEO and co-founder of Trulia. "In the wake of the foreclosure crisis and ongoing struggles in the industry, we created the Rent vs. Buy Index to provide a bit more context about current marketplace conditions to help prospective buyers make the right decisions for their own personal situations."
Trulia calculates the price-to-rent ratio using the average list price compared with the average rent of two-bedroom apartments, condos and townhomes listed on Trulia.com. To create the list, Trulia analyzed the largest 50 U.S. cities by population.
High foreclosure rates, falling home prices and widespread unemployment have led to multiple Florida and Arizona cities reporting homeownership as more affordable than renting; Detroit and Columbus also made the list of Top 10 Cities for homeownership affordability compared with renting for similar reasons. On the other end of the affordability spectrum, owning is significantly more expensive than renting in national and regional job centers like New York, Omaha and Seattle.
Top 10 Cities to Buy vs. Rent
Rank City State Price: rent ratio
1. Arlington TX 7
2. Fresno CA 8
3. Miami FL 9
4. Mesa AZ 9
5. Phoenix AZ 10
6. Jacksonville FL 11
7. Detroit MI 11
8. Columbus OH 12
9. El Paso TX 13
10. Nashville TN 14
11. Baltimore MD 14
12. Tucson AZ 14
13. Long Beach CA 14
14. Raleigh NC 15
15. Houston TX 15
16. Albuquerque NM 15
17. Milwaukee WI 15
18. Indianapolis IN 15
Trulia calculated the price-to-rent ratio for the 50 largest U.S. cities using the average list price compared with the average rent on two-bedroom apartments, condos, townhomes and co-ops listed on Trulia.com. This Index considers both the total cost of home ownership against the total costs of renting (examples of costs for both home ownership and renting outlined below).
Sample Price-to-Rent Ratio Calculation:
Average List Price: $90,445.60
Average Rent: $936.30
Price-to-rent ratio: $90,445.60 ÷ ($936.30 x 12) = 8.05
Price-to-Rent Ratio of 1-15: It is much less expensive to own than to rent a home in this city.
Total costs of home ownership include mortgage principal and interest, property taxes, hazard insurance, closing costs at time of purchase and ongoing HOA dues and private mortgage insurance, where applicable. Total costs of homeownership include an offset for the tax advantages of homeownership, including mortgage interest, property tax and closing cost deductions.
Total costs of renting include rent and renter's insurance. |
SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Jonathan Quick made a save and pumped his glove as the final horn sounded. Drew Doughty gave him a hug. The Los Angeles Kings patted heads, high-fived and started to leave the ice as if they had played in any old rink, not Levi’s Stadium.
As fireworks blasted into the sky, a few had to be called back to salute the announced crowd of 70,205, third-largest in NHL history. Even then, coach Darryl Sutter kept on walking – through the landscaping, down the tunnel, on to the next game.
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To the Kings, Saturday night’s 2-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks was not about the spectacle. It was about business.
They have won two of the last three Stanley Cups. They hosted the first NHL outdoor game in California last season at Dodger Stadium. This did not compare.
And two weeks ago, they had four teams between them and a playoff spot. Now they have won seven straight and moved past the Sharks and into third place in the Pacific Division.
“We’re kind of used to it,” Doughty said. “I think the guys kind of had fun. It’s a cool experience. But at the same time, it’s better just playing at Staples or something like that.”
Better just playing at Staples Center in L.A.?
“We didn’t want this to be a distraction,” Doughty said. “We needed two points. This game was huge for us. It was huge for them.”
A distraction? Not a tribute to the game’s roots? Not a celebration of the game’s growth? Not a memory of a lifetime?
Yep.
Asked for his highlight of the weekend, Sharks coach Todd McLellan said: “Probably the family participation.” Hey, it was the Sharks’ first NHL outdoor game. Only two San Jose players had appeared in an NHL outdoor game before. They brought lots of family and friends.
Story continues
The Kings brought lots last year, too. They didn’t this year. When they had their family skate after practice Friday night, the ice was nearly empty. Captain Dustin Brown said he brought only one cousin – and the cousin lived in the area. Defenseman Jake Muzzin said he brought no one.
Marian Gaborik's goal was the difference as L.A. continues to torment San Jose. (Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports)
“It wasn’t a big deal for the team,” Muzzin said.
The weather Saturday was gorgeous, in the 70s during the day, 57 degrees at faceoff. Fans tailgated – something they can’t do at the SAP Center in San Jose – grilling, drinking and playing street hockey. They jammed the fan festival and listened to a live band. They watched Sharks alumni line up for intros – Owen Nolan, Igor Larionov, Mike Ricci and more – and singer Kris Allen perform. They roared as the teams entered the stadium, the scene decorated like Northern California topography, complete with a replica ocean and fake shark fins.
The NHL has held 15 stadium games. The road team has won 11 times. It stands to reason that the home team gets caught up in the moment or in trying to put on a show, while the road team is more free to just play. It stands to reason that an inexperienced team is at an even greater disadvantage.
Kyle Clifford gave the Kings a 1-0 lead on a deflection just 2:46 into the first period. The Kings dominated early, prepared for the strange setting and the suspect ice. The Sharks looked awful.
“I’d be lying if I said there weren’t a couple of times where guys were slow jumping on the ice because maybe their eyes were wandering, maybe their minds were wandering,” McLellan said. “But that’s human.”
The Sharks adjusted and improved. Brent Burns tied the game late in the first period, and the fans got into it. They watched John Fogerty perform during the first intermission. They watched the Sharks carry the play in the second period. They chanted, “BEAT L.A.!” When the Kings took a penalty, ominous “Jaws” music played, and the fans did the shark chomp. During the second intermission, Melissa Etheridge entertained the crowd.
But the Sharks turned over a puck early in the third period. Marian Gaborik flew up the left wing and ripped a shot from the top of the left circle, just as defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic closed on him with an outstretched stick. It rocketed past goaltender Antti Niemi. That was all L.A. would need.
The Kings, man. They torment the Sharks. They eliminated them from the playoffs each of the last two years – coming back from a 3-0 deficit in the first round last year and setting off a tumultuous offseason in San Jose. Now they spoiled their party and knocked them out of a playoff spot. They wore white pants but black hats.
They also put themselves in holes time and time again, only to crawl out. They became the first team to win the Cup as an eighth seed in 2012. They became the first team to win three seven-game series to make the Cup final last year – and won all three Game 7s on the road. They won seven times when facing elimination, the most ever for a Cup winner. They played 26 playoff games, the most ever for a Cup winner.
More than 70,000 fans packed Levi's Stadium — the third-largest crowd in NHL history. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
Before this winning streak, they were in a 2-6-4 funk. This is what they do.
“There’s never, ever been any doubt within this room,” said captain Dustin Brown. “I think a lot of the doubt and a lot of ‘Are we going to make the playoffs?’ was coming from outside the room. In saying that, where we are now, we still have a lot of work to do. We’ve put ourselves in a better situation coming down the stretch, but there’s still a lot of hockey to be played.”
The rest of it will be played indoors.
“I’ve enjoyed both of [the outdoor games],” Brown said, “but I think two is enough for me.”
Two is enough?
“It’s an exciting game,” Brown said. “But I think our personality as a group of guys in here, we’re pretty low-key. This is the other end of the spectrum.”
MORE FROM YAHOO HOCKEY |
Very daunting. Probably less so for China and Russia. But carriers aren't for them, directly. The strike group has some powerful tools in its arsenal (the Aegis system being one of them). For minor powers, it's effectively impossible. For great powers, it wouldn't matter anyway.
I want to point something out, the US doesn't maintain aircraft carriers to wage war against Russia or China. That's incredibly silly. The US maintains nuclear weapons to prevent such a conflict. Massive industrialized powers with nuclear weapons don't go to war --at least they haven't-- and they are unlikely to do so. It is standard military doctrine that the kinds of war between these nations is prevented for a collection of reasons, none of which has anything to do with aircraft carriers.
So all the posturing about how Russia would sink the carriers or how China could launch missiles at them is pointless. Any such action would be in retaliation against the US for an aggressive act (and deserved) or would be the initial salvo of an attack, which would then precipitate an American response (and deserved). Whatever started it and whoever was at fault would be completely meaningless. These nations aren't going to war and if they did, the carriers in their respective navies would be utterly pointless.
The purpose of the carriers is to extend the dominance of the nation into places where it would have an impact. That means patrolling shipping lanes, settling disputes and bringing firepower to places that are unlikely to wage war against the US. Carriers are only useful in asymmetric warfare. Nobody will tell you that because using Russia and China as the bugbear to build a stronger, better navy is, of course, far more important than pointing out how important they are in settling disputes between Naboo and the Trade Fed ... wait. Wrong story. But see how lame and boring that is?
Right.
Carriers are exist to project the ideological and military might of the owning-nation. The US, France and UK are the only blue-water navies operating them with any effectiveness. There are nations like Brazil, Russia, India and China that are dipping their toes into the blue waters. It looks like China and India will get there by the mid 20's. But right now, it's about domination, and largely domination of energy shipments.
And yes, that's a very good reason to dominate. Cut off the supply of fossil fuels and swathes of people die in six months. There is no alternative right now (though, I suspect they are reaching critical mass and we'll see that by the end of the 20's too). I believe Steven Sears, in "The British Empire" who said, "He who dominates the seas, controls the shipping lanes. He who dominates the shipping lanes, controls the world by result."
The Spanish Empire showed that controlling a thing politically was too tedious. The British Empire (really a company with a monarch and a navy) showed that to dominate the world, you own the oceans and let the small players fall into line. Every major power who failed the ocean test, always failed in the end. The US takes the British lesson seriously. |
However, had it been included, it more than likely would have infuriated fans of the wall-crawler. "At the end when Happy (Jon Favreau) is in the boy’s room in school we had him say, ‘Oh yeah, Tony wanted me to tell you, 'With great power comes… something, I forgot,'" Goldstein recalls. "It was a little too meta." Yahoo Movies recently had the chance to catch up with Spider-Man: Homecoming screenwriters John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein and they've revealed even more interesting details about what might have been in the reboot. As you know, it didn't feature any sort of reference to Uncle Ben or the "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" line Peter lives his life by, but it could have done!However, had it been included, it more than likely would have infuriated fans of the wall-crawler.Goldstein recalls.
Too
meta and pretty inappropriate, especially when it's only Ben who should deliver that line and not Iron Man, a character many already feel has played too big of a role in Peter's life.
Talking of references to the comic books and previous movies, Daley reveals that there was at one point a nod to Spidey's organic webbing from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies. "The only one that we had that they cut was, ‘Do the webs come out of your body?’ And Peter’s like, ‘I’m not a monster!'"
What do you guys think of these comments? Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the usual place. |
Union-busting. We're supposed to act surprised. That's what Democrats tell us. How could the governor so callously overreach? And yet, many Dems fully expected Walker to target unions. Many were convinced the GOP would go further and make Wisconsin a right-to-work state. They just never said it in public.
Democrats never made workers' rights an issue in the last election because they didn't think it was an issue that voters would care about. Despite the backing Democrats get from organized labor, their candidates hardly mention unions unless they're releasing an endorsement from one. Even those endorsement announcements hardly ever touch upon the fundamental issue of the rights of workers to organize and collectively bargain. Usually the backing of a union is just an opportunity for a candidate to boast that he has support from "working people."
To pollsters, as well as the politicians who listen to them, labor rights is likely an issue that serves little use because it only appeals to the small minority of union members in the state. Most people can't relate to it. In contrast, polls will show almost everybody knows how they feel about sex change operations for prisoners. Hence, Tom Barrett's pathetic campaign pledge to end "Cadillac health care for prisoners."
The result is that at no point last fall did Scott Walker ever have to take a position on collective bargaining rights. He was able to speak in euphemisms about making local governments more "flexible," without ever drawing the ire of the state's hundreds of thousands of union members.
Democrats now point out that Walker never talked about union-busting on the campaign trail. Duh. That was the point! And it's their fault.
Follow The Sconz on Twitter or Facebook to get regular updates on city and state politics. Please send anonymous tips, interview requests or any other comments to jcraver@isthmus.com. |
Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino has supposedly made an offer to Club Atletico Independiente to sign their young striker, Ezequiel Barco.
The 18-year-old is hot property over in Argentina, and has been courting the attention of some of Europe's biggest clubs.
As reported by Don Balon though, Tottenham are the first club to put a significant offer in for the striker - doing so a couple of weeks ago.
They haven't yet received an answer though, and the player has apparently asked his representatives to put his services forth to Real Madrid and Barcelona, but neither of the Spanish giants want to sign him this summer.
The news is likely to go down well with Spurs fans, who have yet to see their club do anything with regards to signing players this summer, whilst some of their rivals around them have.
Barco is expected to earn his first call up to the Argentine senior side for their crucial World Cup qualifier with Uruguay next month.
Pochettino may feel as though he is well placed to secure a move for Barco, given they are compatriots and the 45-year-old's understand of Argentinian football - he started his playing career with Newell's Old Boys. |
Ryan Mathews is a bit of a tease. He looks like he could be a top-five NFL running back, but injury issues have prevented that from happening.
Mathews made a successful, speedy return from a broken clavicle to play in last week's game for the San Diego Chargers, but then another old problem popped up: fumbling. He has done it 11 times in just 23 career starts. Last week, it happened near the goal line.
Chargers general manager A.J. Smith, who moved up to draft Mathews, says the team won't remain patient forever.
"I am very concerned, and it has to stop," Smith told Kevin Acee of U-T San Diego. "I believe you can improve in ball security. And no one works any harder in trying to get better than Ryan. However, if it continues he will play less."
It's safe to say Smith speaks for Chargers coach Norv Turner here. He's throwing down the gauntlet for fumblers.
"Extremely talented players like Ryan get multiple opportunities to improve," Smith continued. "What happens to fumblers is, first, they play less. Second, if it continues while they're playing on a limited basis, then you don't play for a while and you get to sit and think about it.
"Third, when you get the call to go back on the field and the fumbling continues, then you will be somebody else's fumbler."
Harsh. The process already has started. Turner indicated Monday that Mathews might come out of the game when the Chargers are closer to the goal line. That's bad news for Mathews' fantasy owners, and worse news for him.
Follow Gregg Rosenthal on Twitter @greggrosenthal |
If you have been searching for a reliable dash cam which not only provides solid performance but impressive affordability as well, then the Falcon Zero F360+ dash cam is a good solution
1. Only runs when the vehicle is on
The Falcon Zero F360+ HD dash cam comes with an excellent 1080p resolution camera for high-quality recording capabilities.
In fact, the Falcon zero f360+ dash cam features two cameras, and both have 180-degree rotation features with an outstanding 120-degree viewing angle to match.
With such exceptional viewing angles, the recording capabilities are virtually endless since you can record on the super widescreen position both cameras on the front section.
Best of all, the loop feature goes a long way in ensuring that you never have to hassle with memory storage. While some dash cams can suction to the windshield, this often becomes inconveniencing especially if the suction becomes looses and falls off each time.
For this reason, this dash cam is designed to clamp to the rear view mirror of your vehicle.
Built & Design
The manufacturers of Falcon Zero F360 have done well to make it both compact and powerful at the same time. In particular, this camera takes up a minimal amount of space in the car, such that it’s hardly noticeable.
More so, the camera features a powerful camera that can record 1080p quality videos for unique quality. Best of all, this unit features an SD card slot for convenience when it comes to storing your recorded clips.
Aside from its high-end features. It also has a sleek and contemporary styling that makes it an appealing addition to your vehicle.
Features
Installation clamps, superior viewing angles and more: The Falcon Zero F360 features special clamps that can be integrated into the rear view mirror to provide the ideal viewing angles.
This dash cam is much better than the conventional cameras that have to sit on the dashboard. While some dash cams can suction to the windshield of your vehicle.
This often becomes inconveniencing when the suction starts becoming loose. This camera comes factory configured which makes it a breeze to install.
Ample sized mirror and microphone for sound recording: The manufacturers of this cam have also done well to include the inbuilt microphone. That captures sound with the unique quality.
This camera goes a long way in improving the precision of an incident and your driving experience as well. You can easily place this camera on your rear view mirror and enjoy a larger, safer rear view mirror.
It also provides convenience in that that as soon as you start the car, the recorder is automatically triggered and ready to record without the need for user configuration.
Designed to leave a small footprint: Another benefit of using this dash cam is that fact that it aims to leave a small footprint in your vehicle and to cause minimal distractions to the driver.
With its unique cord management system, this unit comes an ultra long power cord. This cable can be placed around the interior cabin of the vehicle and integrated into the 12v power adapter for convenience.
HD cameras with an auto record and ultra view: Once you start the car, the dash cam is also activated and without any need for user intervention. Best of all, this unit will automatically shut off when the vehicle is turned off for added convenience.
With the two cameras, you can achieve an outstanding 240-degree view to provide unique recording capability.
All you need to do is to adjust the camera in the same direction and by using the LCD screen, such that you can keep improving the view.
Loop recording and real mirror with night vision: Users have the option of recording in loops that time in between 3, 5 or 10 videos. This type of recording can go a long way in ensuring that the SD Card does not fill up too quickly and captures lots of content.
Look into z-edge z3 which is another type of loop recording dash cam. Unlike the conventional camera that comes with a reflective and dark coating.
The Falcon Zero F360+ comes with a real mirror for optimal convenience. This goes a long way in improving the field of view due to its improved size.
You can also enable night mode to improve recording in poorly lit areas or perhaps during the night. This will helps to capture the minute details when driving at night.
3.5 inch LCD screen with HDMI input: The inclusion of the inbuilt screen provides various functionalities. No need the computer to change settings, you can change it by using the display.
Also, the screen also provides real-time footage of the recordings, playback photos and clips as well. With the inclusion of the HDMI 1.3 input, all you need is to just plug this dash cam into an HDMI ready TV to view pictures and footage.
Power and compatibility: The manufacturers have done well to ensure that, this dash cam powered via the cars electrical circuit.
In this way, you never have to worry about replacing batteries or avoid overcharging since the camera acquires power directly from the vehicle.
In fact, once you start the car, the camera turns on and starts recording your configured settings. Best of all, this camera is compatible with almost any vehicle model since its simple to install.
It can clamp directly onto the rearview mirror of the vehicle and with the compact design that leaves a small footprint in your vehicle
Read Falcon Zero F170 Review
Note that Worth: Is the Falcon Zero F360+ Perfect for You?
Broadly speaking, when it comes to choosing the ideal dash cam for your needs, there are various important factors that you should consider.
For instance, the price range in relation the feature set available and design quality of the components as well. In this case, the dashboard camera definitely provides the best value for your investment due to its exceptional performance.
The camera can record HD content with unique viewing angles and its simple to install as well. Featuring a Micro SD slot for convenient recording and sleek design, this dash cam is as stylish as it is practical. |
Codi Wilson, CP24.com
A man is facing dozens of charges in connection with a string of fires at a Scarborough apartment complex over the past several months.
According to police, a total of 88 fire trucks and 291 fire personnel have been called to 10 Glen Everest Road, in the area of Kingston Road and Danforth Avenue, over the past few months due to fires inside the building.
On several occasions, police say they believe the same man lit various items on fire and dropped them into the stairwells of the building.
The frequency of the fires, according to investigators, has increased over the past six months.
Police also allege that on more than one occasion, the suspect lit objects on fire and dropped them down the building’s garbage chute.
On May 13 at around 2 a.m., investigators say 35-year-old Richard Joseph was arrested in connection with the incidents.
He is facing 17 counts of arson, 17 counts of mischief, 16 counts of breaching probation and one count of common nuisance.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact police at 416-808-4100 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477). |
Credit: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Credit: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Injustice 2
Directed by Ed Boon
Produced by Adam Urbano
Developed by NetherRealm Studios
Published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
‘Rama Rating: 7 out of 10
Spoilers ahead for Injustice 2 and the tie-in comic books.
Injustice: Gods Among Us was a runaway hit for WB Games and Netherrealm Studios on both console and mobile platforms. With the release date of its sequel, Injustice 2, less than two months away, Newsarama was granted access to a playable pre-release builds of both versions.
The PlayStation 4 console version was up first with a hands-on demo of both single-player and multiplayer modes of the game. We used both Blue Beetle and Batman in a couple of matches against another player who used Doctor Fate and Swamp Thing. NetherRealm’s approach has remained largely the same; borrowing from their work with Mortal Kombat and the previous Injustice entry, Injustice 2 downplays a button-mashing approach in favor of pushing players toward learning button combinations with succinct timing. What works for one character may not work exactly for another and so more casual fans that are akin to faster fighters like Marvel vs Capcom 3, may find some frustration in the overall learning curve.
Credit: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
The visuals are what you’d expect from a AAA game of this caliber but what was really impressive were the inventive ways that NetherRealm brought each characters’ skills to life. Blue Beetle is able to manifest weapons from his hands including changing them into foot-long blades that deal additional damage. Batman has a bevy of gadgets at his disposal that have their own little bar next to the special bar for added variety. Swamp Thing is one of the most fun new characters visually. He ducks by literally sinking into the ground and despite being such a large character, his moves focus on grappling. Doctor Fate uses a lot of different spells that vary from simple ranged bolts to actual healing spells.
The set up is largely the same as Injustice: Gods Among Us: one-on-one battles complete with an interactive environment and a special bar. The clash system is back as well, allowing you to wager your special bar against your opponent’s to see who will get to pull off their move. In single player mode, the story weaves across multiple characters, forcing the player to adapt to different skillsets on the fly. Players will not be able to take a single character through the entire single player mode.
Credit: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
The story revealed in the first chapter available at the demo opens with Batman and Robin (Damian Wayne) in the Batwing when it’s suddenly hacked and they have to eject. They’ve been arguing about Superman’s use of force to kill the Joker. Obviously, Batman doesn’t cross that line but Damian disagrees. They end up in a prison where Superman confronts Batman, leading the Dark Knight to use a red kryptonite grenade to weaken the Man of Steel and they fight. Damian reappears with Victor Zsasz at knifepoint. He asks Zsasz how many women he’s killed. Zsasz replies, “121.” Damian slits his throat. He and Batman fight. Upon Damian’s defeat, he is flown away by Superman. Batman continues his investigation and faces off against Wonder Woman as well. Injustice comic book fans can rest assured that this story will take into account the events of the comic book series.
The biggest upgrade in Injustice 2 is the gear system. By playing through the story mode and battling against others plays online or locally, players can gain coins to purchase upgrades that will unlock gear. The gear will come in various sets that will not only augment the visual aesthetic of heroes but provide stat boosts as well. This will allow players to customize a character based on their style of play. Obviously, certain characters will have certain strengths to being with but players want to play a more ranged-attack-focused Superman rather than an out-and-out brawler, will be able to equip him with gear that allows for that. There are five loadouts for each character complete with five gear slots and two ability slots for each character. Injustice 2 also allows for various predetermined color schemes, some of which have ties to comic book counterparts (i.e. Red Lanterns) and some that just plain look cool. Players will have the opportunity to bring these armored characters into various online arenas, making it all but certain that you’ll never play against the same characters and loadouts online.
Credit: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
NetherRealm was quick to point out that this is in no way a “pay to win” system. Players will not be able to purchase specific pieces of gear with in-game or actual currency. Also, for players that might prefer a certain visual aesthetic but not love the stats of a certain piece of gear or vice-versa, there will be a way to transfer those elements in-game.
The mobile version of the game looks to build on the success of the previous version as well. The battle system itself has been changed from the original to give players a bit more control and the experience overall is different from the console version.
First and foremost, the mobile game features three-on-three, akin to Marvel vs Capcom complete with the ability to switch characters in and out. Characters fall into three different classes that have a rock-paper-scissors relationship to each other that is indicated during gameplay so that plays can switch on the fly to the character that will have the best advantage.
The controls have been tweaked as well. A block button has been added to the two-finger press block from the first game and players now how have the ability to dash forward and back rather than just have the game control their movement. Combos are largely the same:multiple taps lead to combos but players can also swipe up or down for additional high and low attacks. There are buttons for multiple special moves as well that can be enacted mid-combo. The new controls were very responsive on the build I played using a team of Superman, Harley Quinn, and Batman.
Credit: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
The visuals are surprisingly impressive for a mobile title. NetherRealm ported the exact character models from the console version into the mobile version. So every character will have unique animations and movesets. It won’t just be the same type of fighter reskinned. Additionally, the servers will know what type of device you are running the game on so when you boot it up, you’ll receive graphical setting optimized for your device to avoid freezing and crashing of the game while you play.
The gear system is different than the console version but players will be able to collect and equip new gear as they progress through the game that will affect how their character looks in battle. Similarly to the console version, the system is not pay to win and players will not be able to purchase specific types of gear.
The story mode for the mobile version will be exactly the same as the one on console but it will be rolled out over a period of time rather than all at once. A Challenge mode will also be included, allowing players to send their heroes off on missions from a period that ranges a few minutes to multiple hours. Upon the heroes completion of the mission, they’ll be rewarded with experience points.
Credit: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Players of the Injustice: Gods Among Us mobile game were treated to exclusive characters that did not appear in the console version. That will continue in Injustice 2 but there is no indication of who those characters will be at this juncture.
Both versions of Injustice 2 look to be feathers in Netherrealm and WB Games’ cap. They’ve improved on a formula that already worked and added some much needed replayability to the console version that will breathe life into the franchise.
Injustice 2 will be available for PS4, Xbox One, iOS, and Android on May 16. |
Star forward Eddie Betts will be entertaining Crows fans for years to come after signing a new deal.
In career-best form, Betts has extended his contract for a further three years, tying him to Adelaide until 2020.
The brilliant 30-year-old is one of the most exciting players in the competition.
Betts, who has played 83-consecutive games, hasn’t missed a match since joining the Crows ahead of the 2014 season and has topped the Club’s goalkicking in each of the past three years.
The cult hero kicked a career-high 75 goals last season to finish third in the Coleman Medal.
He was recognised with his second-consecutive All-Australian blazer, finished runner-up in the Crows Club Champion award and top-five in the peer-voted AFL Players’ Association MVP trophy.
He also won Adelaide’s coveted Phil Walsh Best Team Man Award, and claimed back-to-back Goal of the Year crowns – both winners were kicked on the opposite side to the ‘Eddie Betts Pocket’ under the old scoreboard at Adelaide Oval, where adoring fans chant his name.
Betts, who is set to finish his career as a Crow, said he was pleased to re-commit to the Club.
“The Club is in great shape and we have such a positive environment where everyone works really hard but also knows how to make it enjoyable as well,” Betts said.
“Playing finals footy is what it is all about and after experiencing that the last couple of years I know this playing group is capable of much more.
“Everyone at the Club has been really good to me and I love our fans too. They have made my family and I feel so welcome from the first day I arrived.”
Betts, who celebrated his 250th game with a match-winning performance against Port Adelaide in Round 22, has played 253 career matches including 170 with former club Carlton.
He’s kicked 189 goals for Adelaide – ranked ninth all-time at the Club – for a career total of 479. Only West Coast’s two-time Coleman Medallist Josh Kennedy and Sydney Swans superstar Lance Franklin have kicked more goals than the small forward in the past three seasons.
The selfless Betts is also No.1 in the AFL for score assists in the past 10 years (2007 – 2016) and leads the competition in forward 50m tackles since his AFL debut in Round One, 2005.
Popular with teammates and respected by football fans and the wider community, Betts and his young family have also had a profound impact off the field at Adelaide.
Betts – with the support of wife Anna – mentors a number of young Crows, especially the Club’s Indigenous players, and is involved with several charities including the Crows Children’s Foundation.
General Manager List Management and Strategy Justin Reid said Betts is an elite player who had developed into an influential leader on and away from the football field.
“Everyone knows that Eddie is a special talent but he also understands and contributes to our team-first approach and culture,” Reid said.
“His durability is testament to the way he trains and prepares, and he has a clear picture of where we are heading and wants to continue on the journey.” |
NEW YORK -- Justin Verlander breezed to the AL Cy Young Award on Tuesday in a unanimous vote after the Detroit Tigers' ace won the pitching version of the Triple Crown.
Verlander dominated the balloting in much the same way he humbled hitters with his 100 mph fastball, sharp curve and wicked slider.
Now, the big question of the baseball awards season: Will he also be chosen the AL MVP next Monday?
"Do I think it's possible? Yes. Would I like to win it? Of course," Verlander said during a conference call from his home in Virginia. "It's kind of a weird scenario."
"Pitchers are on the ballot," he said. Bolstering the case of all pitchers, Verlander pointed to "the tremendous effect we have on the day of our game."
No starting pitcher has won the honor since Roger Clemens in 1986, with Dennis Eckersley the last reliever to get it in 1992. Many observers say pitchers shouldn't win the MVP, period, contending they already have their own award. Verlander's year, though, has ratcheted up the debate in a crowded MVP field that includes Curtis Granderson, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jose Bautista, Miguel Cabrera and more.
"If you had told me at the beginning of the year that I had the chance to win the MVP and be a unanimous Cy Young winner, it would have blown my mind," he said in an ESPN "SportsCenter" interview Tuesday.
If he doesn't win, Verlander said he'd like to see Granderson, his former teammate, get the award.
Verlander led the majors in wins by going 24-5 and topped baseball with 250 strikeouts. His 2.40 ERA was the best among AL pitchers who qualified for the title.
Verlander drew all 28 first-place votes in balloting by members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America and finished with 196 points.
Jered Weaver (18-8, 2.41) of the Los Angeles Angels was the only other pitcher listed on every ballot and second with 97 points. James Shields of Tampa Bay was third with 66, followed by CC Sabathia of the New York Yankees with 63. Tigers reliever Jose Valverde, who was perfect in 49 save chances, was fifth with 28. |
WASHINGTON — American intelligence agencies have told the White House they now have “high confidence” that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee, according to federal officials who have been briefed on the evidence.
But intelligence officials have cautioned that they are uncertain whether the electronic break-in at the committee’s computer systems was intended as fairly routine cyberespionage — of the kind the United States also conducts around the world — or as part of an effort to manipulate the 2016 presidential election.
The emails were released by WikiLeaks, whose founder, Julian Assange, has made it clear that he hoped to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency. It is unclear how the documents made their way to the group. But a large sampling was published before the WikiLeaks release by several news organizations and someone who called himself “Guccifer 2.0,” who investigators now believe was an agent of the G.R.U., Russia’s military intelligence service.
The assessment by the intelligence community of Russian involvement in the D.N.C. hacking, which largely echoes the findings of private cybersecurity firms that have examined the electronic fingerprints left by the intruders, leaves President Obama and his national security aides with a difficult diplomatic and political decision: whether to publicly accuse the government of President Vladimir V. Putin of engineering the hacking. |
A car bomb has killed at least 27 Shia Muslim pilgrims in the town of Mussayab, south of Baghdad, as worshippers from around the world thronged Iraq's shrine city of Karbala to finish mourning rituals for a revered figure in Shia Islam.
Thursday's attack came despite a massive security operation mounted to safeguard the millions of pilgrims travelling to and from Karbala for the conclusion of Arbaeen commemorations.
Al Jazeera's Omar Al Saleh, reporting from Fallujah, said: "We understand that the pilgrimage has ended and that the Shia pilgrims are starting to head back from Karbala, the town of al Musayyib is on the way back to Baghdad.
"We understand that security is very tight, and it's obvious that this is a breach of security, this is a setback for the security of this country."
Arbaeen marks 40 days after the Ashura anniversary commemorating the slaying of Imam Hussein by the armies of the caliph Yazid in 680 AD.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. |
As two photographers from two different countries, two different coasts and with a whole lot of water-housing between them, New York’s Ryan Struck met Vancouver Island’s Jeremy Koreski on a recent trip to Tofino, British Columbia hosted by AllSwell Creative, Tiny Atlas Quarterly and Earth Mission. We asked the two to have a chat for Whalebone.
While Koreski was splitting wood and building a fire, they talked about the dicey prospect of keeping lesser known surf spots secret, the paradox of environmental tourism and the coldest water the Canadian has ever paddled into.
Ryan: I want to talk about your work, the region of Tofino and photography in general. I found that photography can quite literally be a passport to anywhere in the world. I’ve used my own camera as a catalyst to go places, and found that most people are willing to bring you along solely because you have a camera and you can document [the trip]. So you wind up using your camera, which you love, and getting to see new places.
Jeremy: I one hundred percent agree. I just got back from Oklahoma and I felt like I had a passport into these people’s lives. One of the guys, Edwin Evers, is a famous fisherman in the area, and I feel like if I was just a fishing guy, I would never be able to be invited into his home and meet his family. But because we’re documenting him, my camera gave me a passport into his life. We got to hang out with him and his family, which was a really cool experience.
Jeremy: [Loud noises in the background] Sorry, I’m going to be making a fire here soon.
Ryan: I think your work is synonymous with where you live. So it’s so much easier to be inspired when you leave. What is it about being home in Tofino or on Vancouver Island that keeps you shooting? What keeps you so interested there?
Jeremy: [More loud chopping noises.] Okay, hang on a sec. I’m just splitting some wood. [More noise.] What keeps this part of the world fresh is showing people like you around, getting to experience it through new eyes. It was cool to see an out-of-towner’s perspective of where I grew up. I trip out sometimes like, “Wow, I never noticed that building” when someone photographs it—like a building I walked by my whole life and then you see a photo and you’re like, “I never thought of taking a photograph, that’s really cool.”
I think that’s how British Columbia stays fresh to me, but also the importance of putting more emphasis on conservation of the area. That’s what’s been driving my work lately. I love to travel, too. That Oklahoma job was very random but very cool. This guy Edwin Evers said that his dream since he was a kid was to travel to British Columbia and fish for steelhead. So, British Columbia is a pretty special place and the more I travel, the more I realize that I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world.
Ryan: Photography is an interesting pursuit in that you have to choose when to record the moment but in doing that you may be missing the experience for yourself. For example, let’s say a magazine sends you on a rafting excursion. As a photographer the best-case scenario is that everyone forgets you’re there and you make beautiful images documenting the trip. In contrast however, one might argue that you aren’t actually experiencing the trip itself. How do you make this distinction between shooting and enjoying the moment?
Jeremy: Well, I don’t shoot all the time, I guess that’s part of it. Like on the AllSwell x Tiny Atlas x Earth Missions trip. I had my camera but I was more-so just experiencing the trip. I was watching you guys a lot just seeing how are you were taking everything in. It’s cool to sit back and do that sometimes but like you said, when I’m on a trip and in it, the goal is the image.
I’ve noticed it a couple times before… when I’m so in it I forget where I am. There was this one time when I actually realized it and it kind of freaked me out. I was swimming around a sea lion rookery and I got into a group of about 200 females around me, and they’re pretty big—at least as big as me—and 200-300 lbs. I remember looking through my camera and I’m shooting away, shooting away. I got lost shooting and I was so in it having fun and I pulled my camera housing down from my eye, it was almost like a shock, “Holy shit I’m in the middle of 200 animals that could essentially tear me apart.” That kind of freaked me out.
I put my camera back up and just kept shooting and tried not to think about it. That was one of the times where if I didn’t have my camera with me I would have thought, “This is intense.” And I’ve noticed that with shooting wildlife more and more now; when you have the camera up, it’s almost like this shield around you.
Ryan: Some people go to Tofino on Vancouver Island to see and photograph certain things like crossing items off a checklist. What are some of the less expected places that you’d recommend somebody see or do.
Jeremy: If you’re here in the fall I would recommend you go swimming with the salmon. There are few places on the island but it hasn’t really caught on in Tofino because it’s still pretty new. That is one of the coolest things I’ve done, being surrounded by that many fish. They’re just so beautiful. So that would be one of the things I would recommend. It’s cool now while the masses aren’t doing it, right?
Going back to your earlier question about keeping photography fresh, there was a really good day at this wave and there was a guy from out of town who brought a crew up and then there was I think 4 or 5 other local guys. So when I showed up I was like, “Fuck, every angle is already being shot, why am I here?” So I swam, I went out with the fisheye and got deep. The waves are pumping so I stayed all day and climbed this tree like 60 feet up. The wind is howling, I’m getting bounced around, and I ended up getting a really cool shot that ran in SURFER [Magazine].
You just calculate things different and look at the scene. “What do I have to do that all these other guys aren’t doing?” I’m always moving and I’m always trying something different. I always want my work to be changing and I’m always looking for new angles and ways to shoot something that I’ve shot a hundred times before.
Ryan: Damn dude, that’s a really positive way of looking at it! [laughs]
Jeremy: [laughs] That’s how I try to, anyway. And so that has kind of driven me to use more film. [Bella, Jeremy’s daughter, is heard in the background. Jeremy addresses her, speaking of his wife’s whereabouts.] Bella, she just went to the horses, she’ll be back in a sec.
Ryan: Do you explore much?
Jeremy: Oh yeah. Shit, I can name probably 10 spots that I know are going to be the most epic waves ever on the right day. Some of them I’ve been to and some of them I haven’t, but there’s a wave that’s close to Tofino that is going to blow people’s minds. So for me and surf photography, it’s still a pretty exciting time where I’m from because there are just so many [exciting] waves and the hardest thing is accessing them when they’re good.
Ryan: So when you going to blow that spot up?
Jeremy: Yeah! [laughs] We’ll see, we’ll see. A friend found it. He’s actually one of the hardest-charging, exploring guys there is on the coast right now. He’s just driven to find these places and also document it, but in the right way. I am exploiting places whenever I take a photo because even if I don’t say where that place is, eventually when someone asks 100 times, someone’s going to give up some information. Eventually someone’s going to figure it out.
That kind of comes back to Tofino, too—just as far as tourism in general has gone up, however many thousands of percent, since I was a kid. A lot of people are going to Tofino to go to the hot springs or to go whale-watching. I feel like the more people that go outside and experience those things, the better chance our planet has of surviving. Because if people aren’t going to experience it in real life, just on TVs and shit, than we’re doomed.
Ryan: One thing that I thought was awesome in your book, This Is Nowhere, is the quote you open with that says, “Places do not belong to people, people belong to places.”
Jeremy: The ownership of land or water is so weird to me. “You can’t take photos here because we don’t want other people coming here.” Well, who’s to say that you have the right to say that, you know? You don’t. When you talk to non-surfers and you try to explain localism they just shake their head.
Ryan: I could use your argument for every jackass that’s out there blowing up secret spots. I think you should be able to take a picture wherever you want but some people are just irresponsible.
Jeremy: And that’s something I’ve taken into my consideration my whole career. I’ve never once named a spot. Ever.
Ryan: Never?
Jeremy: No. [Pause.] Unless it’s a fake name.
Ryan: [Laughter.] Nice, you just slipped up a little bit there, Jer!
Jeremy: When the magazine is running the shot, it’s [identified as] Canada. They don’t need to know more than that.
Ryan: Have you been to the East Coast?
Jeremy: I haven’t been down to where you are [in New York], but I love the east coast of Canada that I’ve seen. It’s totally different than the West Coast. It’s the coldest place I’ve been in the water: 32.2 degrees and the air was -5 degrees or something nuts. We had driven from Nova Scotia four or five hours and the waves were pumping.
The parking lot was ice, we suited up and could see the waves in the distance. We ran down there and I just remember, not so much the cold, but when I first paddled out, the pressure around my ankles and wrists where the cold was getting in. All you guys are crazy, but that was some of the coldest water you can surf anywhere. What’s messed up is that when I went under a wave and came up the water felt warmer than the air and it was. When the water is almost freezing and it still feels warm [in comparison to the air], that’s pretty surreal.
Ryan: Are all Canadians stoked on planet Earth?
Jeremy: No. I’m sure you’ve heard of the Tar Sands?
Ryan: Yeah, in Banif?
Jeremy: It’s in Alberta, it’s one of the most polluting industries on our planet. It’s fucking our planet. There was a really good article by Outside Magazine on the Tar Sands and Aaron Huey did the photography. He really hit it on the head with his images. One that sticks out is this boy playing at a rest stop with all the smokestacks and fires burning and smoke… it looks like he’s in hell but it’s some kid playing with a soccer ball at a rest stop.
So many people are employed on the Tar Sands. I feel fortunate that I found something I love to do and can provide for my family and it’s not having a negative effect on our environment—other than driving around burning fuel in a car or boat or plane or helicopter. My whole take on that thing [fossil fuels] is, “Let’s bring on the alternative energy sources. Let’s figure out how to power that helicopter with something that’s not fucking us over.”
There’s a huge portion of the country that believes very differently than I do. That’s the thing about getting more and more people outside, if we connect with those people. This came up on a trip we did trying to bring awareness to a pipeline. Someone said, “We need to get the people making those decisions in this experience, in this river, face-to-face with a grizzly bear, in a river filled with salmon.” That’s how those changes are going to be made eventually.
Ryan: Wow, what an incredible way to show someone how their decisions impact the planet. Maybe the beauty of Tofino, Vancouver Island and British Columbia fosters an appreciation for the Earth.
Jeremy: There are a couple organizations I’ve been working with, one is Raincoast and another is the Central West Coast Forest Society that’s based in Ucluelet. They’re going into rivers and salmon habitats destroyed by logging, and they start cutting things away. They see results immediately. A year after they’ve cleaned up a river, they’ll count salmon in it. I’m a 1% For The Planet member and that’s where my money’s been going.
Keep up with Jeremy and Ryan + their individual journeys around planet Earth, via Instagram, @jeremykoreski and @ryanstruck. Thank you both. |
With media entourage in tow, Adrian Dix scrambles up an embankment by a logging road deep in the interior of British Columbia. Under a canopy of mature pine, he stops to discuss forestry. Or, rather, he listens to a silviculture expert do the talking.
This baffles his host, a grizzled former tree planter – what politician doesn't lust for the spotlight? But like many people in B.C., he can see that the odds-on favourite to become the province's next premier takes a very different approach to politics.
An election call for May 14 is to come next week, with Mr. Dix seemingly poised to end 12 years of Liberal rule and return B.C. to the New Democrats.
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Rival parties try in vain to portray him as "Risky Dix" – a hard-core lefty who'd make B.C. a have-not province. Even the business community is muting its criticism of the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, and polls suggest that voters trust him at least as much as incumbent Christy Clark to manage the economy.
Resurrecting a party reduced to two seats after its last taste of power has required nothing less than a transformation – much like the ones that are under way on the national stage this weekend as federal Liberals choose a new leader they hope will end their electoral tailspin and federal New Democrats decide to shed their socialist label in a bid for fiscal credibility.
But when it comes to leaving the past behind to make a stunning comeback, Adrian Dix has qualifications few can match: He has already done it once.
'An occupational hazard'
Fourteen years ago, Mr. Dix looked like anything but a provincial leader in waiting – in fact, he didn't even have a job. He had been fired in spectacular fashion by his boss, also his close friend and Victoria roommate of 10 years, then premier Glen Clark.
In March, 1999, the RCMP had raided Mr. Clark's home in Vancouver while investigating a controversial casino application made by one of his friends. In a bid to save his career, the embattled NDP leader fired Mr. Dix; he hoped the sacrifice would assuage the caucus and get the party back on a solid footing with the electorate.
Why, of all his senior aides, did he choose his chief of staff?
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Mr. Dix had tried to deflect conflict-of-interest accusations by producing a memo that said the premier had asked to "take no part" in the casino decision.
Although dated much earlier, the memo had in fact been written only after questions about the proposal became public. Mr. Clark was eventually charged with (and acquitted of) breach of trust, but Mr. Dix had already been let go, and wound up with a skeleton in his closet.
Looking back today, Mr. Clark admits the decision strained their friendship, but says it was "an occupational hazard" of the job.
For his part, Mr. Dix said recently that "nobody is harder on me than I am, for the mistakes I've made. But I have learned, and it's made me a better person."
Still, his political life seemed over. He left Victoria just shy of his 35th birthday, and spent the next 17 months searching for work. A man who'd been part of a powerful inner circle driven by raw politics and locked in a constant battle to win headlines was reduced to scouring the want ads in local newspapers.
From UBC to NDP
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Mr. Dix, who turns 49 next Saturday, was born and raised in Vancouver, the son of British immigrants.
His father Ken, who retired just two years ago at 81, ran the Dix Insurance Agency in Kerrisdale, an affluent neighbourhood in Vancouver's west end, and the family business helped to put Mr. Dix and his two siblings through university.
He studied political science at the University of British Columbia in the 1980s, where he was swept up in the Operation Solidarity protests against the Social Credit government of the day.
He met Mr. Clark when both campaigned for federal New Democrat Ian Waddell in a downtown, working-class, multicultural riding then known as Vancouver-Kingsway. Afterward he went to Ottawa to work for Mr. Waddell until Mr. Clark, elected in the provincial version of the riding, brought him back to B.C. – and the premier's office in 1996.
Three intense years later, he was back in Vancouver looking for a fresh start – which he finally found as provincial executive director of Canadian Parents for French (CPF), a small non-profit agency that promotes French-language education.
French immersion represents a tiny fraction of the B.C. education system, but Mr. Dix, fluent since living in France at 20, spent five years travelling the province, building a CPF network and, according to association ex-president Melanie Tighe-Lovsin, having "a lasting impact." Immersion enrolment in B.C. rose by 25 per cent.
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Ms. Tighe-Lovsin says he was humble, quick to deflect any credit sent his way and resolutely upbeat. Just as he is now known for rejecting negative campaigning, "he never laid blame, never said anything negative about anybody," she says. "He always looked for solutions."
And at times, he provided them.
Suzanne Salter, a kindergarten teacher at Renfrew Elementary School, recalls retreating to the bathroom to hide her tears after being forced to choose a final roster for the basketball team. "These boys all wanted to play but I had to cut some ... I had way too many kids."
Mr. Dix, an avid sports fan, heard what had happened from a friend with kids at the school, and volunteered to coach a second squad.
"I thought, 'Here is a person at his lowest ebb, and he stepped in for these boys who had not made the A team,'" Ms. Salter says.
Yet, even to his closet friends, the idea that he would ever come back to politics – by standing for office, no less – was unthinkable.
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"When he first said he was considering running in my old constituency, I was shocked," says Mr. Clark. "I really have not seen anybody work harder than him in my life, and he's very smart. ... But he was pretty shy and introverted, not gregarious."
And yet he now commands not only Mr. Clark's former riding and post as party leader, he is preparing to follow his footsteps to the premier's office. What happened?
The prodigal's return
Mr. Dix agrees that "I'm a fairly shy person." But five years out of politics gave him a chance to reflect. "I learned new things about myself – I learned to speak in my own voice."
To win the riding nomination, he defeated three rivals, only to find senior party officials in no hurry to embrace his candidacy. Still rebuilding after the post-Clark wipeout in 2001, leader Carole James was looking for new faces.
But after he won the seat in the 2005 election that saw his party rebound with 33 of 79 seats in the legislature, she made him a key critic – for the ministry of children and families. It was a test, she recalls: "Show me you support the direction of modernizing the NDP, in a pragmatic, practical way."
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He quickly earned a reputation as a strong critic and, to her mind, also demonstrated genuine remorse for his clumsy effort to cover up for Mr. Clark.
As well, he began to come out of his shell, especially after his 2007 marriage to Renée Saklikar, who has gone through a rebirth of her own, leaving behind a law practice to become a poet. Mr. Dix remains intensely protective of his private life, but friends describe his wife as the extrovert in the relationship, and say she has broadened his social circle.
Two years later, the party was back in turmoil. When Ms. James lost the 2009 election, the knives came out and a caucus revolt eventually forced her to step down. To her surprise – "I never would have put Adrian on the list" – Mr. Dix was the last of four contenders to enter the 2011 race to succeed her.
"Welcome to a future – a New Democrat future," he said when announcing his candidacy, "where everyone can contribute and no one is left out."
After winning a tight vote on the third ballot, he applied his desire for inclusiveness to his own deeply divided caucus. As a result, most of the "Baker's Dozen" who led the revolt remain on the ballot. But only when Ms. James announced that she, too, would run again was it clear that the messy chapter had ended.
Mr. Dix credits his predecessor with teaching him how to be an effective member of the legislature: "I try to emulate her generosity. She would have made a great premier. It is my biggest disappointment that we didn't make that happen."
She, in return, praises him as an intense and exacting boss. "He expects people to bring their A game."
Outside the caucus, he mounted what has been called a charm offensive, courting business leaders with repeated private meetings to brief them on his "modest" ambitions.
The ruling Liberals have inadvertently helped on this score – their February budget proposed tax hikes for high-income earners and corporations, making those previously proposed by "Risky Dix," the NDP bogeyman, seem less scary, somehow.
And when he does seize the spotlight, he impresses even the most skeptical crowds, speaking without notes, without rambling, and now (after being labelled "dour" in the press) allowing his sense of humour to show through.
The consistent go-slow message has certainly helped to dampened the business community's fears – based on its previous experiences with the governments of Dave Barrett, Mike Harcourt and Mr. Clark.
Mr. Clark, ironically, has provided an important entrée to the corporate crowd in his current role as president of the Jim Pattison Group, one of the country's largest private companies. Of his former staffer, he now says: "His style and the fact that he is more cerebral and certainly less strident than me, that's helpful."
So, after four rocky years of provincial politics, beginning with B.C.'s botched introduction of the harmonized sales tax, business leaders are prepared for a change of government. They haven't embraced Mr. Dix, but they have signalled they are prepared to work with him. And they are showing up for his fundraisers like never before.
Inside the party tent, meanwhile, Mr. Dix has devoted much time to dampening expectations of those eager to see him undo 12 years of Liberal rule. They get the same speech as the business community does: NDP governments of the past tried to do too much, too quickly.
How then does he plan to address issues that are fundamental to the party, such as social and economic inequality?
His response is well honed, a careful distillation of complex research that (almost) fits in a sound bite: "There are two ways to address inequality. One is the redistribution of wealth, and the other is the pre-distribution of wealth."
The latter is what he intends to emphasize – giving people better access to post-secondary education so they can lift themselves up.
"You have to give people the power in their lives to achieve equality," he explains. "We have to address severe poverty, child poverty, but the idea that we can redistribute wealth through government policy is not the right direction."
It is a message that triggers few alarm bells in the board room. In fact, last week, the Business Council of B.C. played host to a conference on "shared prosperity."
Just as Mr. Dix has changed the dialogue in B.C., having him take power next month would create some national ripples. B.C. would become the third, after Nova Scotia and Manitoba, province led by New Democrats, which is especially notable in the West with its growing influence within Confederation.
As well, he is fluently bilingual, having spent some time in France, making him well equipped to reach out to Quebeckers, including his party's federal leader, Tom Mulcair. But Mr. Dix has already demonstrated an independent streak by openly opposing Mr. Mulcair's policy on Quebec secession.
He is also expected to take a businesslike, rather than a partisan, approach to relations with the Conservative government in Ottawa.
The biggest bone of contention on that front is the NDP's opposition to the controversial Northern Gateway proposal for a new pipeline to bring Alberta oil to the coast. However, the party has left the door open to the idea of tripling the output of the existing line. So there are grounds for a compromise – if Prime Minister Stephen Harper is willing to negotiate.
Method to his madness
Before heading into the woods outside Kamloops to discuss forestry, Mr. Dix takes a moment at the airport to change out of his suit and tie. It is also a good time to inject his insulin.
Although quite guarded about his private life – "There should be boundaries. My brother didn't run for office" – he will discuss the fact that he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in his 20s (while preparing to run a marathon), and finds it a challenge at times to keep his blood sugar levels steady.
But why, if he has so little to say, has he flown all this way?
Because he thinks ahead. Kamloops is home to two key swing ridings, and when the campaign begins, the party will roll out a policy on investing in the province's forest inventory.
It's a move indicative of what distinguishes him as a leader from someone like Mr. Clark.
He and his former boss remain friends, despite that skeleton in their closet, but "we are very different" as politicians, he says. Although "instinctually brilliant" at the art of politics, Mr. Clark displayed an "urgency" to get things done, whereas "I am way more methodical. ... My approach is deliberately more long-term."
There is no escaping the fact that, if the party does return to power, such a measured pace will be hard on those hot to unravel what the Liberals have done, says Vancouver city councillor Geoff Meggs, a friend since he worked with Mr. Dix for Glen Clark.
"He is passionate about the issue of inequality, but he will go slower on that issue than everyone would like to. For New Democrats, it is what gets them up in the morning."
Yet Mr. Dix remains adamant – he saw what speed can do during his previous experience in government.
"What I learned," he says, "was that the public has a limited capacity to absorb change."
Justine Hunter is The Globe and Mail's correspondent in the B.C. legislature, and has covered politics in the province since 1988. |
Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) and SolarCity (NASDAQ:SCTY.DL) will inevitably cross paths many times in the coming years, just as they have in the past. Not only do both companies share the same chairman of the board, Elon Musk, but the two CEOs, Musk (Tesla) and Lyndon Rive (SolarCity), are cousins. Last weekend, the two companies announced perhaps their biggest dual plan yet.
Solar panels and batteries belong together
The biggest drawback to solar panels today is that they are only useful when the sun is shining -- unless, of course, these panels are paired with batteries. This is why SolarCity has already partnered with Tesla in select markets to provide lithium-ion batteries that can store solar power to be used when the sun isn't shining. Without this important partnership, businesses and homes using solar are still destined to tap into the grid to get power when the sun doesn't shine.
SolarCity contends that batteries and panels together will be a disruptive force in the energy business, as the company hands over to consumers the power of choice in an industry that is often dominated by regional monopolies.
But several things will need to happen before panels and batteries together can be a truly disruptive force. First, SolarCity will have to expand its battery-panel offering beyond the selected California markets to the entire country. Second, electric car-maker Tesla needs to finish building its Gigafactory, a factory purposed to produce more lithium-ion batteries on an annual basis by 2020 than were produced in the entirety of 2013, in order to bring the economies of scale needed to take this duo to the mass market.
Fortunately, both of these key strategic moves are just around the corner.
Within five to 10 years, every solar-power system that SolarCity sells will come with a battery-storage system, Rive said at a SolarCity event in New York last week. By pairing batteries with solar panels, the company will address intermittency issues and possibly ignite the beginning of an age in which people can actually disconnect completely from the grid. Most important, Rive and Musk asserted that the combination will help SolarCity produce energy more cheaply than what is available from the local utility company.
Musk said that his company will supply at least some of the batteries that SolarCity will need to offer this service.
Where the partnership began
The two companies first announced their partnership in December 2013. The technology, explained in the press release announcing the deal, may hint at what we may see on a broader scale five to 10 years from now.
SolarCity has unveiled a smart energy storage system to address two major pain points for business: rising utility demand charges and increasing grid outages. SolarCity DemandLogic can allow businesses to reduce energy costs by using stored electricity to reduce peak demand, and can also provide backup power during grid outages. Developed with advanced battery technology from Tesla, SolarCity DemandLogic storage includes learning software that automates the discharge of stored energy to optimize utility charge savings for customers.
Investors in either company should hope that the partnership does, indeed, play out in the future. The strategic move would play an important role in bringing the costs of both solar panels and batteries down, making mass-market adoption more likely.
There is significant risk for both SolarCity and Tesla in aiming for such a lofty goal, as both companies will need to build massive factories to help achieve the needed economies of scale to make this partnership feasible. While the narrow focus of both companies may aid them in rapid execution, innovations in competing technologies in energy and the automotive business could present a major setback for them. |
What a long, straunge trip yt hath been. Tyme sufficeth me nat to tellen yow of the wonderes of Las Vegas, and of the grete battes and swich that ich sawe whanne ich did dryven wyth my lord Kynge Richard from Barstow to Vegas-ward, and of the serious mead collecioun that a man can get whan he sette hym out to fynde a serious mead collecioun, and of the grete feere and loathinge that did posses us.The Lords Appellant aren all crookes and berers of false-tidinges, and Thomas Favent ys the maner of man that gooth to Blazinge Fellow and yet hath nat tyme to visit his grand-dame. The re-brandinge of my blog plesid me nat, and so ich haue taken it y-back. Fight the powere, sistren and brethren.Ich wryte this pooste of blog from an "tavern of halydaye" in Grand Rapids in the realme of Michigan, wherat Kynge Richard and mynselfe haue ordrid "Step Brethren" on the "on demaunde." A-morwe, we get back yn to the car and dryve to that place of which Sir John Maundeville whilom descrived yn this blog:Kalamazoo. |
When people are presented with a picture of rapid scientific progress, they are less likely to engage in environmentally friendly behaviours. This is the conclusion reached across a series of experiments in which students were presented with a short newspaper article on science’s achievements and future prospects.
The news article came in two flavours. Participants in the “progress” condition read a uniformly positive perspective, lauding medical advances and new technologies to combat climate change. In the “undermine progress” condition, the article emphasised how killers such as cancer remain insoluble and the limited nature of technological solutions to environmental problems. Of more than one hundred students from the University of Amsterdam, those who read the pessimistic article subsequently agreed more with the idea that “our lives are ruled by randomness”.
Researchers Marijn Meijers and Bastiaan Rutjens say this attitude has consequences for how we act. We relax when the world appears well-ordered and the future predictable, whether thanks to our own efforts or because we trust others can manage things. These agents could be family, government, or God; and according to this new research, “scientific progress” can now be added to the list.
In another experiment with more participants, those who read the scientific progress article went on to report fewer pro-environmental attitudes and intentions than those in the undermining condition, agreeing with statements such as “I believe waste sorting is unnecessary”.
Yet more participants were confronted with hypothetical decisions. In this case, students who read about scientific progress chose to spend less money on factory air filters, and were less likely to select organic options when shopping (although note that the comparison for this latter result only reached a marginal level of significance).
“If they’re doing something, I don’t have to” is a lazy rubric in most situations, but it’s hard to think of a more misguided application than to the maintenance of our living environment. Science cannot fully mitigate the ongoing environmental crises, so – whether through the day-to-day habits of energy efficiency or one-off decisions to invest in a home away from a flood plain – we need to be prepared to get stuck in ourselves. To support this, science communicators should be wary of presenting science as an unstoppable force, and instead highlight the fascinating truth: it’s a process of inquiry that makes no promises.
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Meijers, M., & Rutjens, B. (2014). Affirming belief in scientific progress reduces environmentally friendly behaviour European Journal of Social Psychology, 44 (5), 487-495 DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.2009
Post written by Alex Fradera (@alexfradera) for the BPS Research Digest. |
By Brett Chandrasekhar
On June 14, the New York State Senate passed its own version of the “terrorist watchlist,” a list of individuals deemed suspicious by the federal government.
The twist? The Empire State version operates much like a sex offender registry, forcing the suspects to register and then publicizing their information on the internet.
WGRZ News states:
Registrants would be required to complete a standardized registration form and law enforcement agencies would collect a current photograph, fingerprints and a DNA sample.
The New York State Terrorist Registry would be made available to local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. And like the Sex Offender Registry, the non-confidential information of each registrant, would be available to the public. The key difference is the Sex Offender Registry is for individuals convicted of a crime. This terrorist watch list includes those who are merely suspected by the federal government.
The bill was passed in response to the Orlando shooting a few days earlier, noting New York’s status as a primary target of terrorist attacks. Much like proponents of the federal list, many NY state senators are misleading the public by stating the registry is for convicted terrorists — avoiding the fact that suspects are included as well.
For example, one sponsor of the bill, Senator Tom Croci asserts “Law enforcement and New Yorkers are not being unreasonable in demanding convicted terrorists be registered.”
Another advocate, Cathy Young, states “Enacting a registry of known terrorists, requiring them to declare their presence and enforcing tough penalties for those who fail to comply with the registry improves people’s safety and provides even greater confidence in law enforcement’s ability to confront future threats.”
However, as Rare contributor Bonnie Kristian points out, the actual text of the bill confirms otherwise. She lists two of the subsections which describe how an individual would be added to the list:
(d) listed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s terrorist screening center on the terrorist screening database; and/or 3 (e) identified by the United States Department of Homeland Security, the United States Department of State, the United States Department of Justice, the United States Department of Defense or any of its armed services, the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and/or the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, as a person who has committed a terrorist act against the United States or any of its citizens, and/or who is a member of a designated terrorist organization pursuant to section 1189 of title 8 of the United States Code. The short version: if the federal government says you’re a terrorist—without providing any concrete proof or due process as required by the Constitution—you’re a terrorist, and New York State will list you in a public terrorist registry.
That means a terrorism suspect’s friends, family, neighbors, and even employers would know if they were on the list. They would be forced to register themselves — or face a felony charge — and then be skewered on the cross of public humiliation, possibly losing both their social lives and employment.
The bill just passed the New York Senate is now headed to the Assembly. If it passes there, it will finally head to the Governor to sign or veto.
Follow Brett Chandrasekhar on Twitter and Facebook. |
A SLEEPY seaside hamlet in northern NSW has been named Best Town in Australia by a panel of tourism and travel experts.
Yamba, a township of 5600 people whose sole industry is fishing and best known as the town closest to Angourie, one of Australia's most famous surf breaks, beat some of Australia's tourism "hot spots" to top the list of the best 100 towns.
According to the survey conducted by Australian Traveller magazine, Port Douglas, Broome, Byron Bay, Port Fairy and Margaret River were among the towns pipped by Yamba.
Australian Traveller editor Greg Barton said Yamba's selection as top town, along with the second choice of Esperance, in southern Western Australia, was surprising.
He said they had qualified as outsiders but that both could be described as "coastal fishing gems". "Yamba … may be upset at being named the Best Town in Australia. Their idyllic secret is out and they may have to share," Mr Barton said.
He said to choose the 100 best towns, the panellists were presented with a short list of 300 towns. In a state-by state breakdown of the listings, NSW had 29 towns in the top 100, Victoria 16, Queensland 16, South Australia 13, WA 13 and Tasmania seven.
AAP |
The memory and walking speeds of adults who have lost all of their teeth decline more rapidly than in those who still have some of their own teeth, finds new UCL research.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, looked at 3,166 adults aged 60 or over from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and compared their performance in tests of memory and walking speed. The results showed that the people with none of their own teeth performed approximately 10% worse in both memory and walking speed tests than the people with teeth.
The association between total tooth loss and memory was explained after the results were fully adjusted for a wide range of factors, such as sociodemographic characteristics, existing health problems, physical health, health behaviours, such as smoking and drinking, depression, relevant biomarkers, and particularly socioeconomic status. However, after adjusting for all possible factors, people without teeth still walked slightly slower than those with teeth.
These links between older adults in England losing all natural teeth and having poorer memory and worse physical function 10 years later were more evident in adults aged 60 to 74 years than in those aged 75 and older.
"Tooth loss could be used as an early marker of mental and physical decline in older age, particularly among 60-74 year-olds," says lead author Dr Georgios Tsakos (UCL Epidemiology & Public Health). "We find that common causes of tooth loss and mental and physical decline are often linked to socioeconomic status, highlighting the importance of broader social determinants such as education and wealth to improve the oral and general health of the poorest members of society.
"Regardless of what is behind the link between tooth loss and decline in function, recognising excessive tooth loss presents an opportunity for early identification of adults at higher risk of faster mental and physical decline later in their life. There are many factors likely to influence this decline, such as lifestyle and psychosocial factors, which are amenable to change."
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Portrait (Courtesy of Mait Jüriado on Flickr) |
Last year, we had two great dynamic duos in the majors, as Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez of the Tigers and Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion of the Blue Jays each ranked in the top 10 in the majors in wOBA (weighted on-base average). We don't quite have a dominant pair like that this season, as Miggy is missing his partner in crime and players such as Bryce Harper, Nelson Cruz and Mike Trout don't have a great No. 2 guy in support. So which is the best pair right now? The answer might surprise you. (And here's a photo gallery of some of the all-time best duos.)
5. Adrian Gonzalez/Joc Pederson, Los Angeles Dodgers
I was a little hesitant to include this pair because I believe they are due for regression. But right now they're the only teammates both carrying a wOBA of .400 or higher, with Gonzalez ranking third in the majors at .447 and Pederson in 13th at .405.
Gonzalez's OPS is up 200 points over where it's been the past three seasons. What's he doing? Crushing fastballs. From 2012-14, he hit .310 and slugged .505 against fastballs. This season, he's hitting .414 and slugging .759, with six of his 10 home runs.
Pederson's first two months in the majors have been impressive, showcasing a patient approach that results in a lot of walks and a lot of strikeouts while producing a .263/.392/.553 line. Impressively for a young hitter, six of his 12 home runs have coming against breaking balls or changeups. The projection systems don't see him continuing this, projecting more of a .240/.330/.440 hitter. How he adjusts will be interesting to watch. If he does start to struggle a bit, however, you can just replace him on this list with Yasiel Puig when he returns.
4. Matt Carpenter/Matt Holliday, St. Louis Cardinals
This is a different kind of duo as they've combined for just 11 home runs -- with Carpenter outhomering Holliday eight to three -- but the Matts get on base, and that's the name of the game. Holliday is fifth in the majors with a .433 OBP and Carpenter is 20th at .389. They rank 12th and 24th in the majors in wOBA, as Carpenter has added 17 doubles as well. Here's a good piece from Grantland's Ben Lindbergh on Holliday that points out he's being more aggressive than ever on pitches in the strike zone while offering at fewer pitches off the plate. Ben also points out that Holliday is on his way to a 10th consecutive season with a park-adjusted batting line 30 percent higher than league average, something only 13 others have done. Call him Mr. Consistency.
Michael Brantley is backing up his breakout 2014 with a solid start in 2015. Brace Hemmelgarn/Getty Images
3. Michael Brantley/Jason Kipnis, Cleveland Indians
Maybe the most underrated pair here, Brantley had his breakout season in 2014, when he hit .327 with 20 home runs and finished third in the AL MVP voting. It's been more of the same so far in 2015 and he's kind of morphed into a George Brett-type at the plate, with a .316/.394/.503 batting line with 22 walks and only 11 strikeouts to go with some midrange power numbers (five home runs, but a league-leading 17 doubles). His strikeout rate is the lowest of any regular in the majors as he has swung and missed only 17 times all season.
Kipnis struggled through an injury-plagued 2014 and then got off to a slow April and we wondered what happened to the All-Star player of 2013. Be concerned no longer as he's hit .449/.532/.738 in May, with four home runs, 13 doubles and three triples. In the past 20 years, only three players have had a higher batting average in May -- Lance Berkman in 2008 and Todd Helton and Bengie Molina in 2000, when Helton hit .512.
Brantley is proving that last season wasn't a fluke and I'm buying into Kipnis as a legit batting title contender and potential .400 OBP. Overall, his strikeout rate is down nearly 9 percent from where it was two seasons ago. More balls in play equals more hits and harder contact means more extra-base hits. Kipnis ranks 10th in the majors in wOBA and Brantley ranks 22nd.
2. Josh Donaldson/Edwin Encarnacion/Jose Bautista, Toronto Blue Jays
I guess you can pick any combo you want here -- heck, throw in Russell Martin, who actually is outhitting Encarnacion and Bautista right now. Donaldson has played like an MVP candidate with a .314/.374/.590 line and 13 home runs and 35 RBIs. Yes, the ball has been flying out the Rogers Centre this season, but Donaldson still ranks 11th in the majors in the park-adjusted wRC+.
Encarnacion has 12 home runs, but he's hitting just .225 with a .309 OBP. Bautista is hitting .230/.368/.475 with seven home runs while battling a sore shoulder. One of those guys will have to start hitting better to justify this ranking. Encarnacion's strikeout issue is a bit of a concern, as he struck out just 82 times in 128 games last year, so he's already more than halfway to that total.
1. Anthony Rizzo/Kris Bryant, Chicago Cubs
Yes, Bryant is this good, this soon, and he's only going to get more dangerous as the season progresses. Rizzo became a star last season and is even better in 2015. Both get on base and both have power. One hits left-handed and the other hits right-handed. Rizzo is fifth in the majors in wOBA and Bryant is 25th. They rank third and 16th in on-base percentage and both could reach 30 home runs. Yes, Bryant's strikeout total is too high, but as long as he's getting on base, that simply makes him kind of a more athletic, right-handed version of Jim Thome: lots of strikeouts, but lots of walks and lots of home runs.
Oh ... and they're 25 and 23 years old. |
I am parcel31u the relatable gamer, and I make third-party modpacks for both the FTB and Curse Launcher. I have started the series "Material Energy" and below is a list of all my packs, what they are about, and of course where you can download them, also a place to find all my changelogs for every one of my packs.
(1.6.4) Material Energy^3
Spoiler
Found only as a listed pack on the FTB luancher in the third-party tab.
FTB Forum Page My first modpack for 1.6.4, made back in July 2014 for Jampacked 1. A CTM HQM map, that uses spatial IO to hold dungeons holding many mobs and traps.Found only as a listed pack on the FTB luancher in the third-party tab. Material Energy^4
Spoiler
Changlog:
1.6.0
No more 1,000 missing items
Fixed trophies from not detecting
Placed all trophies in world
Removed not working quests
Removed Ancient trees as it was crashing for no reason
Added anvils in the start, with soulbound books now easily accessible
Added a recipe for charcoal charcoal and graphite
Found both on Curse and FTB as a listed pack in the third-party tab, however the version on Curse is more current.
FTB Fourm Page My second modpack, the sequel to ME^3, which embodies the first as a HQM/CTM map where players are in a space station with another spatial IO to progress through different dungeons fighting increasing difficult mobs.Changlog:1.6.0Found both on Curse and FTB as a listed pack in the third-party tab, however the version on Curse is more current.
Material Energy^-1
Spoiler
Changelog
0.1.2
Fixes NEI searching 0.1.1
Fixed Minechem recipe lookup
Found only on Curse.
FTB Forum Page An HQM map based on skyblocks, with a vast blank canvas filled with nothing, having to use minechem to generate all your resources as you follow along the 200+ quests.
Material Energy Exploration
Spoiler My first non-HQM map, which upset most people. Material Energy Exploration is adventure map where the player must explore and solve puzzles in a anti-chamber fashion where some puzzles are not straight forward, unavailing the mystery behind the map as you progress, following along with the lore from Lore Expansion.
Found only on Curse. Found only on Curse. |
Garbage Collection in Erlang
Given its "soft real time" label, I expected Erlang to use some fancy incremental garbage collection approach. And indeed, such an approach exists, but it's slower than traditional GC in practice (because it touches the entire the heap, not just the live data). In reality, garbage collection in Erlang is fairly vanilla. Processes start out using a straightforward compacting collector. If a process gets large, it is automatically switched over to a generational scheme. The generational collector is simpler than in some languages, because there's no way to have an older generation pointing to data in a younger generation (remember, you can't destructively modify a list or tuple in Erlang).
The key is that garbage collection in Erlang is per process. A system may have tens of thousands of processes, using a gigabyte of memory overall, but if GC occurs in a process with a 20K heap, then the collector only touches that 20K and collection time is imperceptible. With lots of small processes, you can think of this as a truly incremental collector. But there's still a lurking worst case in Erlang: What if all of those processes run out of memory more or less in the same wall-clock moment? And there's nothing preventing an application from using one massive process (such is the case with the Wings 3D modeller).
Per-process GC allows a slick technique that can completely prevent garbage collection in some circumstances. Using spawn_opt instead of the more common spawn , you can specify the initial heap size for a process. If you know, as discovered through profiling, that a process rapidly grows up to 200K and then terminates, you can give that process an initial heap size of 200K. Data keeps getting added to the end of the heap, and then before garbage collection kicks in, the process heap is deleted and its contents are never scanned.
The other pragmatic approach to reducing the cost of garbage collection in Erlang is that lots of data is kept outside of the per-process heaps:
Binaries > 64 bytes. Large binaries are allocated in a separate heap outside the scope of a process. Binaries can't, by definition, contain pointers to other data, so they're reference counted. If there's a 50MB binary loaded, it's guaranteed never to be copied as part of garbage collection.
Data stored in ETS tables. When you look up key in an ETS table, the data associated with that key is copied into the heap for the process the request originated from. For structurally large values (say, a tuple of 500 elements) the copy from ETS table space to the process heap may become expensive, but if there's 100MB of total data in a table, there's no risk of all that data being scanned at once by a garbage collector.
Data structure constants. This is new in Erlang.
Atom names. Atom name strings are stored in a separate data area and are not garbage collected. In Lisp, it's common for symbol names to be stored on the main heap, which adds to garbage collection time. But that also means that dynamically creating symbols in Lisp is a reasonable approach to some problems, but it's not something you want to do in Erlang.
permalink January 6, 2008
previously |
Swastika-marked leaflets similar to the ones left in Westwood (left) were reportedly found in North Hollywood and Valley Village in June. (CBS)
— Are events in the Middle East behind flyers with an anti-Jewish message that have surfaced near the UCLA campus?
CBS2’s Juan Fernandez reports a Jewish store owner said he found one of the handwritten flyers – which contain several swastikas along with the words “Wanted” and “Warning” – underneath the door of his business Tuesday morning.
The store’s owner, who did not want his identity revealed, said he experienced a range of emotions upon making the discovery.
“I was…deeply very sad, and I’m thinking, ‘Calm down, think about it’,” he said.
He then turned to Rabbi Boruch Cunin at Chabad House near UCLA for spiritual counseling and guidance, who said he was struggling to understand how such a thing could happen here in the Southland.
“In the center of Westwood to receive a leaflet with swastikas that says ‘Watch out’, ‘Be careful’, ‘You’ll see’, ‘Wanted’, and all of the rest of these threats,” said Cunin.
The flyers bore at least some resemblance to similar leaflets found in North Hollywood and Valley Village in June.
Some students at UCLA, meanwhile, were stunned to learn that anti-Semitic movements could be lurking so close to home.
“This is ridiculous,” said student Shannon Charrette. “My boyfriend’s Jewish, I have so many Jewish friends, there’s a Jewish frat down the street, and I cannot believe this is happening.”
Cunin said while it may be almost impossible to trace the flyers back to their source, he isn’t surprised by the campaign considering the recent conflict in Gaza between Israeli troops and Hamas.
A new report (PDF) from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released Wednesday found a “dramatic upsurge in violence and vitriol against Jews around the world” in response to Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s recent military effort to stop Hamas rockets and tunnels in Gaza. |
‘He’s like an embarrassing uncle at a wedding,” groans a younger political operative who has had frequent dealings with Enda Kenny recently.
“Every time I met him it was all high fives and fist bumps. It was mortifying.”
But with the next breath comes a litany of admiring references: to the Taoiseach’s energy; to his lack of ego; to his ability to motivate those he leads; to his political instincts.
You encounter a mass of contradictions when you try to assess Kenny. He is the longest-serving TD in Leinster House but retains a youthful zeal and a rare lack of cynicism.
He seldom loses his temper, but when he is crossed he neither forgives nor forgets.
He is regarded as a nice guy generally but is ruthless when he needs to be. He is wooden and formal on television, and when speaking in the Dáil, but chatty and full of brio in any informal situation.
He is a procrastinator when it comes to making a decision but stubborn and unbendable once he has made up his mind.
He can seem lightweight and supercilious to some, but that disguises reservoirs of political skill and strategic nous honed over 40 years in the game.
Some of these paradoxes have been illustrated by the mess over the timing of the next general election.
Would he call it soon after this week’s Budget or wait until the spring? Part of it was Kenny stubbornly refusing to be forced to make a decision until he himself was ready to make it.
Part of it was ambiguous communication that created a wedge between the Coalition parties.
Part of it was underestimating the extent of the media hype. He is not a Taoiseach without flaws or blemishes.
What is true about Kenny is that he has been underestimated throughout his career.
Trawl the archives from a decade ago and the notion of the Fine Gael leader becoming Taoiseach was inconceivable.
His success in seeing off his rivals in the 2010 heave was a watershed, but he has been a far more successful (and relaxed) Taoiseach than expected.
Four months from now he will be on the cusp of making history for his party by becoming the first Fine Gael leader to win a second consecutive term in office.
Within two years he would also become the longest-serving Fine Gael leader and taoiseach.
A person who knows Kenny well approvingly quotes Charlie Haughey’s line about Bertie Ahern – he is “the most ruthless, the most devious, the most cunning of them all” – but then adds, “He is also the most hard working, toughest, hardest, unrelenting of them all.”
It’s an effort to capture the qualities of Kenny’s leadership that are not immediately apparent.
Father of the Dáil
The Irish Times has spoken to many people who know the Taoiseach well, including Ministers, former ministers, advisers, colleagues and rivals.
Some strong themes have emerged about the man who is now Father of the Dáil, having held his seat since 1975, when he was 24.
“He came into the Dáil as a very young man,” says a veteran watcher. “I would say from his youth he was always ambitious and energetic.
He was not given responsibility and left too long on the backbenches. Garret FitzGerald” – who led Fine Gael between 1977 and 1987 – “did not rate him. He was bored and spent a lot of time socialising, became a bit of a dilettante.”
Kenny, who will be 65 next April, has retained his energy and ambition.
A Labour colleague says that, unlike most politicians of his age, the Taoiseach is neither cynical nor world weary but full of zeal.
“His general default is optimistic. He sees the good in most people.”
Just about everyone attests to Kenny’s energy, his work ethic and his youthfulness, both in his appearance and in his desire to be down with the kids.
Kenny will often begin an argument with a folksy reference, perhaps to a woman he met in Geesala the other day.
“He’s an instinctive politician and human being,” says another Fine Gael watcher.
“His instincts tend to be informed by his engagement with people. He absorbs stuff in a way that is extraordinary. He gets a sense of what people are thinking. He’s been around politics for a long time. He has seen a lot of things.”
Éamon de Valera said, “If I wish to know what the Irish want I look into my own heart.”
Kenny has a touch of this outlook, perhaps, but he has also learned from bitter experience.
He would not loosen the Fine Gael whip for the controversial vote on abortion in early 2013 because he had seen before what could happen as a result.
In the 2010 heave he used tactics from his time as John Bruton’s chief whip: in the 1990s four TDs had indicated that they would come to Bruton’s office and ask him to resign as party leader.
Kenny arranged for them to be met by four senior figures; they were summarily fired.
He did the same when he fired all the frontbench rebels who called for Kenny’s head in 2010.
“He retains a very strong feeling that the power of the leader comes from members of the parliamentary party,” says the veteran.
“If you lose the dressing room you have no business hanging around. Others, like Alan Dukes, folded, but he knew where his authority derived.”
Not for turning
That Kenny is not for turning once he has made a decision can lead to great moments such as his speech on the Vatican – in 2011, after the Cloyne report, he accused it of downplaying the rape and torture of Irish children by clerical sex abusers – his eventual response to the survivors of the Magdalene laundries, and his seismic shift on same-sex marriage.
At other times his stubbornness can walk him into trouble, as with his simplistic quest to abolish the Seanad.
Kenny is not a policy generator and has never been a policy wonk. “He is very political and has very good political antennae and instinct. But he is not a policy man,” says a Minister.
“He is not interested in the details or in the figures. In that way he is very different to John Bruton or Garret FitzGerald.”
He is different in other respects, too. Kenny is not a micromanager; he leaves Ministers to their own devices.
He is a chairman rather than a chief executive, his style most often compared to that of Seán Lemass or Liam Cosgrave.
The Cabinet has some big egos; that his is not one of them helps Kenny, those close to him say, as it stops him from being seen as a threat.
“He does not want to be the centre of attention or necessarily the driver of everything,” says a Fine Gael colleague.
“He is quite happy to set direction and let people at it. He does not feel threatened by Michael Noonan. He is happy to let him take responsibility.”
Kenny’s relationship with Eamon Gilmore, his Labour Tánaiste between 2011 and 2014, was very close.
It has been more awkward with Joan Burton, Gilmore’s successor.
She is very different from Kenny, very political, perhaps more tribal. He has been patient, and they have forged a good working relationship.
A number of colleagues say that patience is another of the Kenny’s virtues.
“He can take a lot of shit. He has been patient with colleagues and with Joan Burton,” says one Labour figure.
Wearing leadership lightly
“The biggest ingredient required for leadership is temperament,” says the same figure. “He is a very good example. Tony Blair and David Cameron had a lightness of touch.
“He does not sag or feel oppressed by the hand of responsibility on his shoulders. Gordon Brown, all he wanted was to be prime minister. Brian Cowen was exactly the same.
“They could not handle it and were paralysed. Kenny wears it lightly.”
The Taoiseach’s background also distinguishes him from his predecessors. He is the first nonintellectual to lead his party.
“Fine Gael was traditionally a morph of the Law Library and rich farmers,” a colleague says.
“He is neither. He is west of Ireland, country and western. There is a bit of snobbery about that. He does not mind the fact that the more urbane observer finds him too rural or twee. He is happy being who he is.”
Even people who like him accept that Kenny can be ruthless. “He has to be. It’s not the core thing about him, but nobody has got there without being like that. There are many bodies strewn along the way that testify to that ruthlessness,” a Labour person says.
Unlike Cowen or Charles Haughey, Kenny rarely loses his temper. But when he senses betrayal he takes on a coldness and will shun people, often for years.
One person who has fallen out with him perhaps paints too negative a picture:
“He has not forgotten any bad turn that was done to him right back to the day he entered the Dáil in 1975. He is not prepared to forgive.”
Certainly, there is no return while Kenny is leader of Fine Gael for Lucinda Creighton, Michael Creed or Denis Naughten, among others.
But some evidence points the other way. Kenny has brought back some of the colleagues who went against him in 2010.
And he showed more grace to Noonan, his only Minister for Finance, than Noonan did to Kenny after the Fine Gael leadership election of 2001, which both men stood in.
When Noonan won that contest he exiled Kenny to the backbenches.
Cabinet’s rubber stamp
But Kenny is not collegiate when it comes to big decisions. When John Bruton was leader everybody discussed everything.
Kenny is much tighter. Critical policies are decided by two core groups, the Economic Management Council and his closest advisers.
The Cabinet effectively then rubber-stamps their decisions.
The three most influential figures within Fine Gael are Mark Kennelly, Kenny’s strategy and operations adviser, Andrew McDowell, his (strongly ideological) policy adviser, and Mark Mortell, the party’s top electoral strategist.
Kenny’s wife, Fionnuala O’Kelly, a politically savvy former press adviser to Charles Haughey, is a huge influence on the Taoiseach. Her views invariably inform his thinking.
Some see Kenny’s reliance on his advisers as an impediment, as they sometimes brief him too much; he can falter when dealing with complicated economic data.
“He can come across as stiffer and more wooden when interviewed than he is in person,” says the veteran. “And that’s a weakness.”
Another says, “He has said some silly things when left to his devices, such as ‘Paddy likes to know what the story is’ ” – a phrase Kenny used the night he became Taoiseach, to express the idea that voters like to know what’s going on – “and his idea of scorecards for Ministers. But he is better when he can let rip rather than being briefed to within an inch of his life.”
That’s why Kenny so rarely gives long interviews. Like Bertie Ahern, he has become adept at short “doorstep” interviews, which allow reporters no follow-up questions and enable the Taoiseach to move on quickly and avoid awkward questions. Micheál Martin, the Fianna Fáil leader, will outperform him head to head on television.
But Fine Gael strategists think that Kenny and the party brand are strong enough to take a hit on that one.
But the way he can come across was one of the reasons for the attempted coup of 2010. “He was crap in the media,” one of the group says.
Another says, “The overwhelming reason was that I thought the public did not really like him. He was not a very good media performer, especially up against Brian Cowen. We thought Richard Bruton would have done better.”
Revised opinions
Some have revised their opinions. The only way to gauge a taoiseach is to see how he or she performs in office.
A close colleague believes that Kenny is the type of politician who is better in government than in opposition – and says the reverse was true of Eamon Gilmore.
“In government somebody like Enda Kenny can blossom. The kind of supports and resources available, and the apparatus of government, suit somebody like him.”
Another key point for most of the people The Irish Times has spoken to is that Europe and the United States have an extremely positive view of Kenny.
His chutzpah – “Call me anytime,” he told businesspeople in the US – doesn’t wash as well at home.
But that energy and positivity prompt many sporting metaphors to describe Kenny’s regular pep talks to psyche his troops up for battle.
Like Mick McCarthy, the Republic of Ireland soccer captain under Jack Charlton, he might not be the most dazzling centre half ever to pull on the Taoiseach’s gansey.
McCarthy was asked once why he always cleared the ball into touch instead of finding another player. “I have never seen anybody scoring a goal from row G,” he replied.
It might not be pretty, but Kenny has been an effective Taoiseach and is on the brink of becoming Fine Gael’s most electorally successful leader. |
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said the United States has been slipping toward authoritarianism under President Trump and that citizens have an “enormous obligation” to protect American freedom.
The runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination last year delivered his scathing critique of the administration in a speech Thursday morning discussing the threat of authoritarianism in both the U.S. and other countries.
“Under President Trump, our country is moving in an authoritarian direction and the very nature of American democracy is under attack,” Sanders said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Before outlining why he thinks Trump is leading the U.S. toward authoritarianism, Sanders criticized the new health care bill unveiled by Senate Republicans Thursday morning. The draft bill they plan to bring to a vote as early as next week is the latest move in Republicans’ seven-year effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and remove the taxes it imposes on high-income individuals.
“I am unalterably opposed to the Trump-Republican health care plans. The plan has passed in the House, as you know, and was just released a few minutes ago in the Senate. I’m going to do everything that I can to defeat the Trump-Ryan health care proposal, but that should not be a shock to anybody,” Sanders said.
Related slideshow: ‘Die-in’ protesters dragged away from McConnell’s office >>>
Sanders, who supports universal health care, acknowledged that his Republican counterparts have significant policy disagreements on these serious issues, but said there is one fundamental issue upon which there should be no debate.
“And that is, no matter what our political view — whether we are progressives, conservatives or moderates — we must do everything that we can to preserve American democracy and oppose the current drift toward authoritarianism that I believe President Trump represents.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks with Sarah Chayes, senior fellow at CEIP’s Democracy and Rule of Law Program, on threats to democracy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on June 22, 2017, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Mandel NganAFP/Getty Images) More
In Sanders’ assessment, no other president in U.S. history has told as many “outrageous and blatant lies” as Donald Trump has — to delegitimize the country’s electoral system.
He said there’s no evidence to back Trump’s assertion that 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in the last election, but that making this claim sent a message to Republican governors to accelerate efforts to suppress the votes of minorities, poor people, senior citizens and young people.
According to Sanders, Trump’s rhetoric also preemptively casts doubt on the results of any future election he might lose — delegitimizing any president who succeeds him. He also reminded listeners that Trump was the principal spokesman for the so-called birther movement based on the “vicious and racist lie” that former President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. and therefore not eligible to be president.
Sanders took issue with Trump’s mischaracterization of London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s response to a recent terrorist attack to promote his controversial travel ban and his routine vilification of journalists as “scum,” “horrible” and “lying, disgusting people.”
“When Trump claims that all of mainstream media is ‘fake news,’ not to be believed, what does that say to the average American?” Sanders said.
Back in January, when Trump’s lie about his inauguration crowd size was a major story, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said, “Better to get your news directly from the president. In fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.”
Sanders said that this mindset that only the president can be trusted for the truth suggests something very dark for the future of democracy, and that the Founding Fathers protected the press in the Bill of Rights because a “well-informed citizenry is necessary for democracy to function correctly.” |
Chronic use of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, “ecstasy”) has repeatedly been associated with deficits in working memory, declarative memory, and executive functions. However, previous findings regarding working memory and executive function are inconclusive yet, as in most studies concomitant stimulant use, which is known to affect these functions, was not adequately controlled for. Therefore, we compared the cognitive performance of 26 stimulant-free and largely pure (primary) MDMA users, 25 stimulant-using polydrug MDMA users, and 56 MDMA/stimulant-naïve controls by applying a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery. Neuropsychological tests were grouped into four cognitive domains. Recent drug use was objectively quantified by 6-month hair analyses on 17 substances and metabolites. Considerably lower mean hair concentrations of stimulants (amphetamine, methamphetamine, methylphenidate, cocaine), opioids (morphine, methadone, codeine), and hallucinogens (ketamine, 2C-B) were detected in primary compared to polydrug users, while both user groups did not differ in their MDMA hair concentration. Cohen's d effect sizes for both comparisons, i.e., primary MDMA users vs. controls and polydrug MDMA users vs. controls, were highest for declarative memory (d primary =.90, d polydrug =1.21), followed by working memory (d primary =.52, d polydrug =.96), executive functions (d primary =.46, d polydrug =.86), and attention (d primary =.23, d polydrug =.70). Thus, primary MDMA users showed strong and relatively discrete declarative memory impairments, whereas MDMA polydrug users displayed broad and unspecific cognitive impairments. Consequently, even largely pure chronic MDMA use is associated with decreased performance in declarative memory, while additional deficits in working memory and executive functions displayed by polydrug MDMA users are likely driven by stimulant co-use. |
Prisoners in Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing Unit (SHU) are isolated for at least 22.5 hours a day in cramped, concrete, windowless cells. They are denied telephone calls, contact visits, any kind of programming, adequate food and, often, medical care. Nearly 750 of these men have been held under these conditions for more than a decade, dozens for over 20 years. This treatment has inflicted profound psychological suffering and caused or exacerbated debilitating physical ailments.
Ostensibly, these men are in the SHU because they associate with gang members and isolating them is necessary to prevent gang activity and racially-motivated violence. But in the summer and fall of 2011, these men, joined by other SHU prisoners throughout California, showed this claim to be the lie that it is. Organizing across racial lines, more than 6,000 SHU prisoners went on hunger strike for several weeks to protest their conditions. That’s right – men who have been isolated for over a decade and deprived of basic human rights because they are allegedly connected to racially divided gangs worked together to demand basic rights and constitutional protections for themselves and one another. Now they have resumed their hunger strike, demanding that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation meet their demands.
Gabriel Reyes, a plaintiff in the Center for Constitutional Rights lawsuit, is challenging long-term solitary confinement.
Read the Entire Series: Pelican Bay Hunger Strikers’ Stories
For the past 16 years, I have spent at least 22.5 hours of every day completely isolated within a tiny, windowless cell in the Security Housing Unit at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City (Del Norte County).
Eighteen years ago, I committed the crime that brought me here: burgling an unoccupied dwelling. Under the state’s “three strikes” law, I was sentenced to between 25 years and life in prison. From that time, I have been forced into solitary confinement for alleged “gang affiliation.” I have made desperate and repeated appeals to rid myself of that label, to free myself from this prison within a prison, but to no avail.
The circumstances of my case are not unique. In fact, about a third of Pelican Bay’s 3,400 prisoners are in solitary confinement; more than 500 have been there for 10 years, including 78 who have been here for more than 20 years, according to a 2011 report by National Public Radio. Unless you have lived it, you cannot imagine what it feels like to be by yourself, between four cold walls, with little concept of time, no one to confide in, and only a pillow for comfort – for years on end. It is a living tomb. I eat alone and exercise alone in a small, dank, cement enclosure known as the “dog-pen.” I am not allowed telephone calls, nor can my family visit me very often; the prison is hundreds of miles from the nearest city. I have not been allowed physical contact with any of my loved ones since 1995. I have developed severe insomnia, I suffer frequent headaches, and I feel helpless and hopeless. In short, I am being psychologically tortured.
Claimed reforms or opportunities to be transferred out of the SHU are tokens at best.
Our other option to improve our lot is “debriefing,” which means informing on prisoner activities. The guards use this tactic as leverage in exchange for medical care, food, amenities and even, theoretically, removal from the SHU. Debrief sessions are held in complete secrecy. When another prisoner is the subject of a debrief, he is not informed of the content, so he is punished with no means to challenge the accusations.
I have two disciplinary citations on my record. The first arose because I donated artwork to a nonprofit organization. The other is because I participated in a statewide hunger strike to protest conditions in the SHU. The strike was thought to be a success, with more than 6,000 inmates going without food for several weeks and ending with the promise of serious reforms from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. In spite of the promises, the CDCR does not plan to institute any meaningful reforms.
Now fellow SHU inmates and I have joined together with the Center for Constitutional Rights in a federal lawsuit that challenges this treatment as unconstitutional. I understand I broke the law, and I have lost liberties because of that. But no one, no matter what they’ve done, should be denied fundamental human rights, especially when that denial comes in the form of such torture. Our Constitution protects everyone living under it; fundamental rights must not be left at the prison door.
A version of this piece ran in the May 31, 2012, issue of the San Francisco Chronicle under the headline “The crime of punishment at Pelican Bay State Prison.” |
Economics
School of Thought: 19thC French Liberalism Related Links:
Source: This article first appeared in the Dictionnaire d'Économie Politique, ed. Guillaumin and Charles Coquelin (Paris: Guillaumin, 1852) and was translated into English and included in Lalor's Cyclopedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States by the best American and European Authors, ed. John J. Lalor (Chicago: M.B. Carey, 1899) in Vol 2 East India Co. - Nullification Chapter: PLENTY AND DEARTH. Copyright: The text is in the public domain. Fair Use: This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit.
Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) was one of the leading advocates of free markets and free trade in the mid-19 century. He was inspired by the activities of Richard Cobden and the organization of the Anti-Corn Law League in Britain in the 1840s and tried to mimic their success in France. Bastiat was an elected member of various French political bodies and opposed both protection and the rise of socialist ideas in these forums. His writings for a broader audience were very popular and were quickly translated and republished in the U.S. and throughout Europe. His incomplete magnum opus, Economic Harmonies, is full of insights into the operation of the market and is still of great interest to economists. He died at a young age from cancer of the throat. [The image comes from “The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.”]
PLENTY AND DEARTH.
PLENTY AND DEARTH. Political economy, in so far as it is an exposition of principles and facts, is a vast and noble science, searching into the affairs of the social mechanism and the functions of each of the parts composing those animate and marvelous organizations called human societies. It studies the general laws in accordance with which the human race increases in numbers, wealth, intelligence and morality; and yet, recognizing a social as well as a personal freedom of will, it shows how the laws of Providence may be misunderstood and set at naught, what a terrible responsibility there is on those who tamper with them, and how, as the result of so doing, civilization may be checked, impeded, driven back, and stifled for a long time.
—Incredible as it may seem, this science, so vast and lofty as an exposition of principles and facts, is, when controverted and compelled to become polemical, nearly reduced to the ungrateful task of demonstrating the proposition, almost childish in its simplicity, that "Plenty is better than dearth": because, looked at closely, it will be seen that the greater number of the objections to, and doubts concerning, political economy, involve the principle that dearth or scarcity is preferable to plenty, which is the real meaning to be deduced from the phrases, once and in part still so popular, such as "Production is excessive," "We are being destroyed by plethora," "All the markets are overstocked, and every business and profession is overcrowded." "The capacity to consume can no longer keep pace with the power to produce," etc.
—These ideas, too, are not confined to any class. One man opposes the use of machines on the ground that those triumphs of human ingenuity multiply indefinitely the power of production. What does he fear? Abundance. A second favors protection, lamenting the liberality of nature's gifts to other lands, dreading that through the influence of free trade his own should share it, and thinking that were it to do so it would be afflicted by the scourge of the invasion and inundation of foreign products. What does he fear? Abundance. Statesmen, even, are not free from the hallucination, though they fear abundance for a different reason. Their dread is, that the masses, as the result of being too well off, will become revolutionary and seditious, and as a means of repressing them, they look to heavy taxation, vast armies, a lavish expenditure, and a powerful aristocracy charged with the task of remedying by its pomp and profusion the intrusive abundance of human industry. What do such statesmen fear? Abundance. Finally, we have logicians who, disdaining all by-paths, go straight to the point, and advise periodical destruction of large cities by fire or otherwise, that labor may have the opportunity to rebuild them. What do they fear? Abundance.
—It seems impossible that such ideas should come into the minds of men, and sometimes even prevail, not in the personal practice of men, but in their theories and in their legislation. For, if there be anything evidently true, it is this, that, so far at least as useful articles are concerned, it is better to have than to be without them; and if it is incontestable that plenty is an evil when it exists in things that are mischievous, destructive and troublesome, such as grasshoppers, caterpillars, vermin, vices and malarial vapors, it must be equally true that it is a blessing as regards things which meet wants and satisfy desires; things which man seeks, strives for, with the sweat of his brow; things which he is willing to buy by work or exchange, and which possess a real value, such as food, clothing, shelter, works of art, means of locomotion, of communication, of instruction, and of amusement; in a word, all that political economy busies itself with.
—If it be desired to compare the civilization of two peoples, or of two ages, statistics are appealed to, to inform us which had, in proportion to its population, most means of subsistence, the greatest returns in agricultural products, in industries or art, most roads, most canals, most libraries and museums; and the question is settled in accordance with the comparative activity of consumption, that is to say, by plenty or abundance.
—It may, perhaps, be said that it is not sufficient for products to be abundant; that it is further necessary that they be equitably distributed. There is nothing truer than this, but questions must not be confounded. When we defend abundance, and our opponents decry it, we both take as understood the words cœteris paribus, all else being equal; that is, equity of distribution is presupposed.
—Further, it must be observed, that abundance is in itself the cause of proper distribution. The more abundant anything is, the less value it possesses; the less its value, the more it is within the reach of every one, the more men are on an equality with regard to it. We are all equal in respect to the air, because it exists relatively to our needs and wants in in-exhaustible abundance; we are a little less equal in regard to water, because being less plentiful, it possesses a certain value; still less so with regard to wheat, delicate fruits, early vegetables, rarities, their benefit becoming confined to fewer, in an inverse ratio to their abundance.
—It may be added, to satisfy the sentimental scruples of our times, that plenty is not a merely material good. Wants arise among men in regular order; they are not all equally pressing, and it may be said that their order of priority is not the order of dignity. The coarser wants must first be appeased, because their satisfaction involves our existence, and because, as rhetoricians say, "Before living worthily, we must live somehow." Primo vivere, deinde philosophari.
—Hence it follows, that it is the abundance of the things necessary for the supply of the commonest wants which permits man more and more to spiritualize his enjoyments, and to raise himself into the region of the true and the beautiful. He can only devote to the perfecting of form, to the cultivation of art, or to the investigations of thought, the time and the energies which, as a consequence of progress are no longer absorbed by the demands of his animal existence. Abundance, the result of long labor and patient economy, can not be universal at the first formation of society, nor can it, at the same time, exist as to all possible products, but it follows a regular order, commencing with the material wants, and ending with the spiritual. Unhappy the nations when external forces, such as governments, violently invert this natural sequence, substitute for desires—coarse, it is true, but imperious—others of a loftier nature, prematurely awakened, change the natural direction of labor, and disturb the equilibrium between wants and the means of satisfying them, an equilibrium which is the cause of all social stability.
—Moreover, were abundance a scourge, it would be as strange as unfortunate, for easy as the remedy is (what is easier than to abstain from producing, or to destroy?) no one is willing to adopt it. It is in vain that people inveigh against plenty, superabundance, plethora; it is in vain that they enunciate the theory of restricted supply, that they obtain for it the support of the law, that they proscribe machinery, that they disturb, interfere with and impede commerce; all this keeps no one from working to acquire abundance. On all the earth not a man is to be met with whose practice is not a perpetual protest against these vain theories; not one is to be found whose sole endeavor is not to make the most of his powers, to foster them, to husband them, and to increase their productive capability by the co-operation of natural forces; not one who decries freedom in trade, but who acts on this principle (however eager he may be to deny others the same privilege): to buy in cheapest market, and to sell in the dearest; so much so, that the theory of a restricted supply, which is so common in books, in the newspapers, in conversation, in parliament, and by the way in laws, is negatived and stultified by the actions of every individual without exception, composing the human race, which is the most incontrovertible refutation the mind can well imagine.
—But if abundance is better than scarcity, how does it happen that men, after having virtually decided in favor of abundance by their action, by their labor, and their commerce, constitute themselves theoretically the champions of restriction, to such an extent that they bring popular opinion to that view, and are the originators of all sorts of restrictive and illiberal laws? This it remains for us to explain. At bottom, what we are all aiming at is, that each of our efforts should realize for us the greatest possible amount of benefit. If we were not by nature sociable, if we lived in individual isolation, we could know one rule only for attaining this object, to work more and better, which implies progressive abundance. But, by means of exchange and its consequence, the division of labor, it is not directly to ourselves but to others that we consecrate our labor, our efforts, our productions and our services. Hence it follows, that without losing sight of the rule, produce more, we have another always present to our minds, produce more value; for on that depends the amount of remuneration which we shall receive for our services. Now, to produce more, and to produce more value, are by no means one and the same thing. It is manifest that if by force or stratagem we succeed in making greatly scarcer the special service or product which constitutes our occupation, we would grow richer without adding to our labor either in quantity or quality. Suppose, for example, a shoemaker could, by a mere effort of will, cause the sudden annihilation of all the shoes in the world, excepting only those in his own shop; or strike with paralysis every one who knew how to use the shoemaker's tools, he would become a Crœsus; his lot would be improved, not together with the general lot of mankind, but in an inverse ratio to the prosperity of all. This is the whole secret of the theory of a scarcity as it shows itself in restrictions, monopolies and privileges. It only veils, by the use of scientific language, that selfish sentiment which finds a place deep in the hearts of all: competitors annoy me.
—When any product is brought to market, there are two circumstances which tend equally to enhance its value: first, that there is in the market a great abundance of articles for which it may be exchanged, that is, a great abundance of everything; and second, a great scarcity of articles of the same product. Now, neither of ourselves nor through the intervention of laws and public power, are we able to influence in the least the first of these circumstances. Unfortunately universal plenty can not be produced by act of parliament; it must be obtained in some other way; legislators, customs officials and restriction can do nothing toward it. If, then, we wish artificially to raise the value of any article, we must bring our energies to bear on the other element in its value. Here individual effort is not quite so powerless. With laws ad hoc, an arbitrary use of power, bayonets, chains and fetters, punishment and persecution, it is not impossible to drive out competition, and to create that scarcity and artificial increase in value which is desired. This being the condition of things, it is easy to understand what not only can but must happen in an age of ignorance, of barbarism, and of unrestrained greed. Every one turns to the legislature and through its intervention to public force, demanding of it the artificial creation, by all the means at its disposal, of a scarcity in the article he produces. The farmer demands scarcity of corn, the cattle raiser of cattle, the iron master of iron, the colonist of sugar, the cloth manufacturer of cloth, etc., etc. Each one gives the same reasons for his demand, and the result is a body of doctrine which may be called, the theory of scarcity, and public force employs fire and sword to secure its triumph.
—But, leaving the masses thus forced to undergo the regimen of universal dearth, it is easy to comprehend what a labyrinth the inventors of this scheme get involved in, and what a terrible retribution awaits their unscrupulous rapacity. It has been shown that as regards each special production there are two elements of value: first, the scarcity of similar articles; and, second, the abundance of all which are not similar. Now, we call special attention to this: by the very fact that the government, the slave of individual selfishness, endeavors to realize the first of these elements of value, it destroys the second. It has satisfied in succession the wishes of the farmer, the cattle raiser, the iron master, the manufacturer, the colonist, by artificially producing a scarcity of corn, or meat, of iron, of cloth, or of sugar, but what is that but destroying that general abundance which is the second condition of value in each separate product. Thus, after having submitted the community to actual privation, which scarcity implies, it is discovered that it has not succeeded in catching this shadow, in laying this spectre, in raising this nominal value, because by just so much as the scarcity of the article in question operates in its favor, in the same way the scarcity of others neutralizes it. Is it, then, so hard to understand that the shoemaker, of whom we spoke above, should he succeed in destroying, by a simple wish, all the shoes in existence except those made by himself, would find himself no better off, even from the ridiculous point of view of nominal value, if at the same time, every other thing against which shoes can be exchanged became proportionately scarce? The only change would be, that every man, our shoemaker included, would be worse shod, worse clothed, worse fed, and worse lodged, even if products maintained toward each other the same relative value.
—It is necessarily so. What would become of society, if injustice, oppression, egotism, greed and ignorance brought no punishment with them? Luckily, it is not possible for a few men, without its recoiling on themselves, to turn public force and the apparatus of government to the profit of prohibitive legislation, and to check the universal impulse of humanity toward abundance. |
Blaise Matuidi is considering his future at Paris Saint-Germain and is yet to discuss a contract extension with the club's new sporting director, the midfielder's father has told Le Parisien.
Matuidi, 30, has made 292 competitive appearances for PSG since arriving at the Parc des Princes from St Etienne in 2011, putting him in seventh place on the club's all-time list of appearance makers.
An oral agreement to extend his contract, which expires in June 2018, was reportedly made by former director of football Patrick Kluivert and ex-deputy sporting director Olivier Letang.
However, their departure this summer and the appointment of Antero Henrique has brought talks on a new deal to a standstill.
Matuidi is to marry the mother of his three children and has recently bought a house near the club's training ground in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, just outside Paris, suggesting the PSG man sees his future at the club.
Matuidi's father, Faria, said that with the clock ticking into the final 12 months of his son's contract, all options are being explored.
"A few weeks ago, Blaise was rather thinking about staying at PSG. Now, the situation is less clear. PSG, and in particular the new sporting director, are taking their time about stating their intentions. That's why we're listening carefully to what other clubs have to say," said Matuidi Sr., whose son has been strongly linked to Juventus.
"We get the feeling, rightly or wrongly, that everything that has been said in recent weeks is now ancient history." |
NEW schedule for Skype class on "Liturgical Year" and Facebook Live class on "Christian Social Principles"
From now on the schedule for the weekly Skype class on Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year and the semiweekly (i.e., twice a week) Facebook Live class on Sr. Mary Consilia O'Brien's book Christian Social Principles will be as follows:
1) Every Wednesday and Saturday evening at 8:30 pm Eastern Time, please go to my "public figure" Facebook page to join us for the next Facebook Live broadcast as we go through Sr. Mary Consilia O'Brien's book Christian Social Principles.
If you have trouble finding my "public figure" page on www.facebook.com, just type the following URL into your web browser:
https://www.facebook.com/Gerry-Matatics-1481268405452691/
Please note: this Saturday (Dec 3) at 5 pm Eastern Time I will first be re-doing Lecture #1 , which I originally recorded and posted last Sunday, November 27. When I watched it later I -- who am somewhat of a perfectionist -- felt that, because it was my first Facebook Live broadcast, I didn’t do as good a job as I could have looking directly at the camera, keeping up with the comments people were texting to me live during the broadcast, etc.
To repeat: this new version of Lecture #1 will be broadcast and recorded live by me via Facebook Live this Saturday afternoon (December 3) at 5 pm Eastern Time on my Facebook Page, for any who may care to watch it live and interact with it. If that time is not convenient for you it will be immediately posted on the Facebook page at the conclusion of the live broadcast, as will all the subsequent lectures, for you to watch at whatever time and on whatever day is most convenient for you.
Then at 8:30 pm later that same evening I'll be broadcasting Lecture #2.
As I’ve previously mentioned both on this website (www.gerrymatatics.org) and on my Facebook page, a couple of my online students have scanned the entire 640-page book written by Sr. O’Brien into a free PDF that you can download here:
http://luke.dashjr.org/…/Christian%20Social%20Principles.pdf
or here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/…/Christian%20Social%20Pr….
Also as previously stated, nicely-bound photocopies of the book are also available from me for $30 plus $7 Priority Mail shipping and handling. Contact me at gerrymatatics@gerrymatatics.org or (570) 969-1724 if you wish one.
I strongly suggest you read each chapter of the book before each lecture, as it might take you a couple of passes through the material for you to fully take it all in.
2) Every Sunday evening at 8:30 pm Eastern Time a small group of us will be meeting by Skype to discuss the readings of the previous week in Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
This Sunday, December 4, will be our premiere session , in which we will discuss the readings for the First Sunday of Advent, the readings for the weekdays of the first week of Advent, and the readings for that day, the Second Sunday of Advent.
(The following Sunday, December 11, we’ll discuss the reading for the second week of Advent culminating in and including the readings for the Third Sunday of Advent, and so forth on each successive Sunday.)
Dom Guéranger's 15-volume masterpiece can be purchased from our online store at www.gerrymatatics.org/shop. This justly-famous Catholic resource would make an unparalleled Christmas present for your entire family, but open it early so you can join us for our discussions of the readings during Advent!
You can also read it online at:
http://www.liturgialatina.org/lityear/
It is even more imperative (than in the case of the Wednesday and Saturday lectures on Christian Social Principles) that you read these readings before each meeting, because (unlike the Wednesday and Saturday meetings where we read the text of that week’s chapter in Sr. O’Brien’s book in full , as well as comment upon it), we will NOT be reading the full text of the readings of Guéranger during the Skype session; we will presume people are already familiar with the readings and will simply be discussing them (although obviously we’ll be quoting passages we think need to be emphasized or are worthy of particular comment).
To join these discussions of Guéranger you will need to open up a Skype account if you don’t already have one (just go to www.skype.com to set up a free account and download the free app), and then you must send a contact request to my Skype handle (Gerry Matatics) so that I can include you in the call.
I am thinking of simultaneously broadcasting these Guéranger sessions not only on Skype but on Facebook Live as well for the sake of those who cannot meet with us at that time but would like to benefit from the discussions.
See you then!
In Christ our coming King and Mary our Queen Mother,
Gerry Matatics
Updated On: December 3rd, 2016 |
A Canadian senior citizen is making waves - and gaining tons of fans - as an unlikely grindcore star, thanks to her impressively-ferocious vocals which she showcases as a back-up singer for her son’s band.
The 67-year-old sensation, who has been dubbed 'The Grindmother', first began doing back-up vocals for the band, Corrupt Leaders, last year, and has now released her first single, At Any Cost, for the group, which is fronted by her son, who goes by the name Rain Forest.
In the video, she's seen head-banging and screaming into the microphone as she belts out the song's politically-inspired lyrics.
Introducing The Grindmother: A 67-year-old mom from Canada has joined her son's grindcore band, Corrupt Leaders, and just released her first single, 'At Any Cost'
The Grindmother has even caught the attention of Ozzy Osbourne, who recently tweeted out a link to her video, writing: 'What the f**k?'
Last year, when the ultra-cool mom first started performing with the band, a video was posted which showed her screaming into a microphone, and laughing as her son instructed her on how to do back-up vocals.
'So, before it fades out, you do what?' she adorably asks her son in the clip, before promising to 'try not to make it sound like I’m having a s**t'.
The amusing video received more than 260,000 views, and prompted her son to set up a website and Facebook page for his mom under her stage name, The Grindmother.
His band is also selling T-shirts with her picture and the words: 'Listen to Grindmother'.
Sing it! The Grindmother first began doing back-up vocals for the band last year, and now she has her own single, which she wrote herself
Family: Her son, Rain Forest (left), taught her how to sing for the band in an amusing YouTube video last year
She's into it: Grindcore, which originated in the 1980s, is inspired by heavy metal, death metal, and punk rock, and features distorted guitar sounds, overdriven bass, and screaming vocals
YouTube commenters got a kick out of her video for At Any Cost, a political song that she wrote about Canada's recently ousted conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper.
In the clip, she's seen angrily belting out the lyrics: '10 years of your leadership to benefit the rich, every trick in book, breach your privilege, do as corporate masters say.'
'Jeez, my grandma bakes me cookies and then naps,' said one envious YouTube user, while another wrote: 'You are living proof that one is NEVER to old to rock and enjoy it, even in grindcore! And I'm sure your son will cherish these memories with you forever.'
Grindcore, which originated in the 1980s, is inspired by heavy metal, death metal, and punk rock, and features distorted guitar sounds, overdriven bass, and screaming vocals.
Her posse: The Grindmother is gaining lots of publicity for her son's band, Corrupt Leaders
Going solo? She recently debuted an MP3 of her song for fans to download, announcing the news on her Facebook page and signing her post: 'Love, Grindmother'
Like Corrupt Leaders, many grindcore bands sing about social and political issues.
The Grindmother recently debuted an MP3 of her song for fans to download, writing on her Facebook page: 'My son made a page where you can download it for free or a donation. The sound on this one varies a bit from the video. Hope you like it! Love, Grindmother.'
In another post, she joked about all the attention she's been getting from the song, sharing: 'This past week has been a whirlwind! |
American hard rock band Aerosmith announced that it has cancelled its 'The Global Warming World Tour' concert, which was scheduled on May 11 in Jakarta, 'due to safety reasons'.
Promoter Ismaya Live announced on its official website, saying that in a letter sent by the Aerosmith management Mitch Schneider Organization (MSO), the band explained: 'Unfortunately, we have to cancel our upcoming show in Jakarta. We want to apologize to all our fans who were expecting to see us and hope that one day we can make it up to them.'
In the concert, slated to take place at JIExpo in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, the legendary band was expected to perform their title hits including 'Jaded', 'Janice got a gun' and 'I don't wanna miss a thing'.
The promoter claimed that about 85 percent of 15,000 tickets had been sold. 'Due to the cancellation, we will provide a full refund to the customers starting on May 11,' it said. For further information about the refund process, customers can contact through an email address [email protected] or twitter account @askaerosmithjkt or hotline 021-92092039. ' JP |
A 14-year-old in Washington state took his parents' SUV to buy fireworks on the Fourth of July without their permission which resulted in the vehicle being torched by a Roman candle, police say.
CBS affiliate KIRO-TV reports the boy from Skyway, Washington, commandeered the vehicle on Tuesday.
The King County Sheriff's Office said the boy and two friends began firing Roman candles at each other and one of the projectiles went through the window of the SUV, setting it ablaze.
Photos show extensive damage to the vehicle.
Skyway Fire Department
No one was hurt in the blaze and the parents don't plan to press charges, KIRO reports. Firefighters said the incident could have been much worse.
"If we had drier conditions, as we'll start to see here shortly, this absolutely could have been not just a car fire, but exposures to two homes that were nearby," Skyway Fire Department spokesman Dave Nelson told KIRO.
Firefighters in the area responded to at least five fires overnight as the Fourth of July weekend came to a close. |
A Dartmouth man charged with criminal negligence causing death was caught on surveillance video bouncing an exercise ball off a man believed to have overdosed on heroin, CBC News has learned.
Jesse Raymond Gaetz, 23, is accused of failing to provide medical help in the early morning of New Year's Day, according documents related to a police search warrant. Jesse Smith, 24, of Dartmouth died that day, despite attempts by paramedics and police to save his life.
Gaetz called 911 to report the heroin overdose of his friend, the documents say. The two friends and a woman had been drinking champagne and wine at Horizon Court in Dartmouth, where Gaetz lives.
He and Smith also had been smoking marijuana joints, the woman later told police. She went to bed while the pair went to the apartment building's gym, documents say.
A police officer reviewed security footage from the building's gym and sauna area. It showed Gaetz and Smith going into a sauna around 2 a.m. When they staggered out four minutes later, Smith suddenly dropped to the floor and does not move, the search warrant documents say.
'Bounces an exercise ball off Smith'
For the next 17 minutes, according to the documents, Gaetz "bounces an exercise ball off Smith and takes pictures [and] videos of him with his cell phone."
At 2:28 a.m. Gaetz "suddenly attempts CPR" on Smith.
The woman told police Gaetz, who was her boyfriend, woke her up by yelling to call 911 because Smith had overdosed in the apartment building's gym.
Gaetz and his girlfriend dragged Smith's body to the gym washroom, surveillance video shows. Police officers arrived at 2:40 a.m. as a result of Gaetz calling.
Later at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre a police officer learned Smith was "brain dead."
Heroin 'very rare' in Halifax, police say
Smith is suspected to have overdosed on heroin.
The drug is "very rare" around Halifax and was only seized twice by police in 2015, according to Staff Sgt. Darrell Gaudet, who is in charge of the Halifax Regional Police and RCMP integrated drug unit.
He said those seizures were in powder form and small quantities, and other drugs were the main target of the police searches.
"We know the issues it causes in other major cities, so we're aware of it, but it has not been an issue here in Halifax," Gaudet said Thursday.
"It's an extremely addictive drug; it's highly addictive. It causes a lot of reactions to the people taking the drug — from euphoria to hallucinating — which causes police concern to respond to someone [who's] on that kind of drug."
At Horizon Court, the warrant documents say police seized an iPhone, a grinder, three hydromorphone pills, "cut straw" and several syringes, including one in Smith's pocket.
Gaetz is due in court Feb. 8 for election or to enter a plea. He has been released from custody on conditions. |
Bruce Leighty / Getty Images
Here’s an idea that’ll probably be about as popular with drivers as 20 blocks of gridlock traffic.
For obvious reasons, city drivers love parking that’s free or cheap. The problem is that too many drivers love it too much. The price difference between on-the-street parking and putting a car in the downtown garage is so big — perhaps a couple of bucks per hour vs. $10 or $15 per hour — that hunting for one of the precious few available spots can seem like a (somewhat) sensible use of time. Or at least not a total waste of time.
Some would argue that the situation described above is, however, an enormous waste of resources. In a new op-ed in the Boston Globe, Edward L. Glaeser, an economist at Harvard, writes that on-street parking in popular, traffic-clogged U.S. cities should be much more expensive — perhaps even pricier than the rates charged in private parking garages. What about the idea that streets are communal, publicly funded spaces that should be readily available to the public at little to no cost? Glaeser’s not buying it:
Just because something is publicly provided doesn’t mean that it should be free, or only $1.25 per hour. If a commodity is as scarce as land in Boston, we need a fair way of allocating it.
(MORE: 10 Things That Cost Way More Outside the U.S.)
To Glaeser, a better and fairer use of on-street-parking spaces would be to price them at or near the fees charged in off-street lots and garages:
Drivers like me shouldn’t be bribed with more taxpayer-funded highways or underpriced on-street parking; we should be charged for the congestion we impose and the pollution we create. If drivers are unwilling to cover the cost of what the city gives up by maintaining valuable space as on-street parking, then the space should be used for something else.
Boston magazine published a story last fall that similarly makes the case that on-street-parking rates should be jacked up dramatically, at least during peak times on the most popular streets. Craziest of all, according to critics of free or cheap parking, is that residents with permits park in tens of thousands of spaces without paying a dime:
“You have some of the most valuable land on earth, and you’re giving it away for free to cars,” says Donald Shoup, a professor of urban planning at UCLA, and the author of The High Cost of Free Parking. “It’s preposterous.”
(MORE: Hybrid-Car Competition Heats Up: Does the Toyota Prius Finally Have a Worthy Challenger?)
The let’s-hike-parking-meter-prices discussion is hardly limited to Boston. It’s being played out in San Francisco, where meter prices soared to upwards of $4.50 per hour last year and may hit $6 per hour in the near future. As the New York Times reported, the goal is to price parking so high that there would always be at least one spot open on every block. Rather than having set prices, rates shift according to supply and demand, increasing during peak-demand periods and plummeting during the lulls on quiet, out-of-the-way streets. The Times also quoted Shoup, who has become the godfather of the pricier-city-parking movement:
“I think the basic idea is that we will see a lot of benefits if we get the price of curbside parking right, which is the lowest price a city can charge and still have one or two vacant spaces available on every block.”
It’s not just meters that should get a price hike. Many argue that tax-paying residents should be paying far more for monthly parking permits, which allow them to leave cars sitting unused for days, if not weeks. A San Francisco Bay Guardian editorial from last summer targeted neighborhood parking fees as much “too low”:
The neighborhood parking permits in effect give a piece of the city’s streets — public property — to some residents for $8.60 a month, or about 28 cents a day. At a time when Muni can’t afford to keep its buses rolling, that’s ridiculous.
(MORE: Off the Road: 8 Reasons Why We’re Driving Less)
Meanwhile, the U.S. title for Priciest Downtown Parking Meters doesn’t belong to Boston, San Francisco or even New York City. As of the new year, Chicago has the nation’s most expensive meters, charging $6.50 per hour.
While few drivers welcome higher parking prices, what would you think if higher fees were combined with the possibility that parking tickets would disappear entirely? That’s what Anam Ardeshiri, a doctoral candidate in transportation and urban-infrastructure studies at Morgan State University, says should happen if the system were fair. The Atlantic Cities blog summed up the concept this way: |
CARLTON
Mick Malthouse's quest to win his first game against his former club Collingwood on Friday night could be boosted by the return of two of the Blues' best players and leaders – captain Marc Murphy and joint vice-captain Andrew Carrazzo. Murphy has missed just one match with a fractured cheekbone, while Carrazzo gathered 21 possessions (12 contested) and five clearances in three quarters in the VFL on Saturday in his return match after being sidelined with a calf injury since round five. Impressive draftee Nick Graham appears to be closing in on an AFL debut after another strong VFL showing, collecting 25 disposals and eight clearances in his third game back from a knee injury. Tom Bell (22 possessions) is also a chance to play. - Ben Collins
A dazed Marc Murphy leaves the field following a clash with Luke Hodge in round 12. Murphy is a chance to return against Collingwood this week. Picture: AFL Media
COLLINGWOOD - Ben Guthrie Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley has hinted a few changes could be in the offing for this week's crunch game against Carlton. Darren Jolly (toe) and Ben Reid (hamstring) should return, while vice-captain Scott Pendlebury said Clinton Young is "fair chance" of making his Magpies debut after playing a starring role in the VFL. Andrew Krakouer is another in the mix following his consistent performances at VFL level. Meanwhile, star midfielder Dayne Beams will most likely play his first game of the year in the VFL this week.
ESSENDON - Callum Twomey With Stewart Crameri likely to miss this week's clash against Port Adelaide with an ankle injury, the door opens for one of Scott Gumbleton and Joe Daniher, who each performed well at VFL level last week. Heath Hocking is also set to miss another week with his calf strain, but Dustin Fletcher (groin) could be back from injury. Alex Browne and Travis Colyer are pushing for a chance in the senior side but with the Bombers' good form, it's hard to break in.
FREMANTLE Ross Lyon said after Saturday night's loss that Matthew Pavlich, Aaron Sandilands, David Mundy, Michael Barlow, and Lee Spurr would all play this week against St Kilda. There will be doubts over Paul Duffield who was subbed out of the Geelong clash with a calf problem. Lyon will welcome back as many senior players as he can get and it may mean that youngsters like Viv Michie, Tom Sheridan, Hayden Crozier, Jack Hannath and Matt Taberner will have to go back to the WAFL and wait for another opportunity. - Alex Malcolm
David Mundy will be one of up to five big ins for the Dockers this week. Picture: AFL Media GEELONG - Adam McNicol The Cats are likely to include big man Nathan Vardy and emerging midfielder Billie Smedts in their line-up to play Hawthorn at the MCG on Saturday night. Both were important contributors in the VFL last weekend. Two more of Geelong's tallest players, Trent West and Josh Walker, are also in the mix to take on the Hawks. Steve Johnson will be sidelined by suspension again, but Travis Varcoe is likely to make his comeback via the VFL after 12 weeks on the sidelines with a shoulder injury.
GOLD COAST Expect some changes when the Suns travel to the Gabba to play the Brisbane Lions on Saturday night. Silky midfielder Harley Bennell has played one game in the reserves following a hamstring injury and will be considered, as will defender Seb Tape who has played a month in the twos following a knee reconstruction. Guy McKenna also hinted last week Jared Brennan was not far away from a recall, and the former Lion has a knack for lifting against his old team. Charlie Dixon (ankle) has been close for a number of weeks recently and remains a chance to play. - Michael Whiting
GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY There was some good news for the Giants on the weekend with Jonathan O'Rourke named best on ground in the reserves' big win over Queanbeyan. The second pick in last year's draft, O'Rourke has been limited by injuries this year, but performed strongly off half-back and through the midfield as he pushes towards his senior debut. Co-captain Phil Davis also made a welcome return following eight weeks out with a stress fracture in his back. Nathan Wilson, Kurt Aylett and Gerald Ugle are also putting pressure on for a recall for Saturday's trip to Canberra to face the Western Bulldogs. - James Dampney
HAWTHORN - Mark Macgugan The Hawks say they're yet to decide whether to bring star small forward Cyril Rioli (hamstring) straight back into the seniors after nine weeks out, or send him to the VFL to gain some match fitness. On Monday, midfielder Brad Sewell said he would be "very surprised" if coach Alastair Clarkson chose the latter option . Brent Guerra (back), Max Bailey (knee soreness) and Paul Puopolo (quad) could all be available to face Geelong, making for a tough week at the selection table.
Paul Puopolo could return for Hawthorn in the 'Kennett Cup' clash against Geelong this week. Picture: AFL Media MELBOURNE The inclusion of Jack Grimes is a huge bonus for the team as it attempts to build on the confidence gained from its win over the Western Bulldogs. It also has tough inside midfielders Jack Viney and Jordie McKenzie facing tests before being available for selection while speedster Sam Blease, who was subbed off with an ankle injury on Saturday night will be tested. Rohan Bail hurt his knee in the VFL and will miss a few weeks. - Peter Ryan
NORTH MELBOURNE - Nick Bowen North doesn't have an obvious replacement for suspended small forward Lindsay Thomas so might rejig its existing attack to cover his absence. This would allow defender Scott McMahon to return to the Roos' team after overcoming the ankle injury that sidelined him for the past two rounds. Midfielder Ben Cunnington (family reasons) will almost certainly return if available, but team balance is likely to count against North's best players in the VFL last weekend. Daniel Currie and Majak Daw were among Werribee's best players in its 29-point win over Essendon last Saturday, while key defenders Luke and Cameron Delaney impressed in North Ballarat's 14-point win over Sandringham.
PORT ADELAIDE The club is awaiting results on scans of Dom Cassisi's injured hamstring, but the former skipper will certainly miss this Sunday's game against Essendon. Travis Boak (ankle) is right to go though, while Kane Mitchell (ankle) and Sam Colquhoun (hamstring) will both be monitored during the week. Paul Stewart was impressive in the SANFL with a game-high 26 disposals, 14 marks and two goals. Lewis Stevenson was serviceable for Norwood with 22 disposals and nine marks and teammate Matt Thomas managed 30 possessions and nine marks. John Butcher, who has played well against the Dons previously, was good with three goals and eight marks. - Harry Thring
RICHMOND
- Jennifer Phelan Nick Vlastuin will probably play after being a late withdrawal against St Kilda with a corked shin while David Astbury (ankle) is expected to be available. The Tigers will test Ivan Maric (groin) throughout the week. Shane Tuck had 31 touches in his VFL return from a shoulder injury on the weekend and Ricky Petterd had 29, Robin Nahas 24 and Sam Lonergan 22, but after the Tigers' 64-point win over the Saints , competition for spots is hot.
Young gun Nick Vlastuin should be fit to face the Roos on Sunday at Etihad Stadium. Picture: AFL Media
ST KILDA
The Saints have a decision to make on Justin Koschitzke, who is due to play his 200th game: take him to Perth for the milestone or hold off one week and play the out-of-form forward in round 16 against Carlton. Should he be left out this week, Tom Hickey (foot) and Tom Lee (Achilles tendon) are both available after returning from injury through the VFL. Lenny Hayes (calf) also made a cautious return from injury with Sandringham, playing half a game and winning five possessions. Ahmed Saad, Josh Saunders and rookie Tom Curren all put strong cases for selection with the Zebras. - Nathan Schmook
SYDNEY SWANS - James Dampney The premiers suffered yet another injury blow with the news that Adam Goodes faces six weeks on the sidelines following knee surgery. He adds to a lengthening list that still includes Rhyce Shaw, Lewis Roberts-Thomson and Lewis Jetta. The latter will miss at least one more week with his shin injury that is taking considerable time to improve. The good news is that Sam Reid (quad) and Shane Mumford (cheekbone) are both considered strong chances of returning to the fray against Melbourne this week.
WEST COAST Luke Shuey was a late withdrawal against Essendon and will miss another one to two weeks with a hamstring injury. Sharrod Wellingham is close to a return from his second ankle injury but is likely to come back via the WAFL. Josh Hill could be in line for a return after missing the last two with injury. Jacob Brennan, Ashton Hams, Blayne Wilson, Scott Lycett and Cale Morton all continue to show strong form in the WAFL and any one of them could be considered as John Worsfold tries to find an answer to the Eagles' indifferent form. - Alex Malcolm
Josh Hill will be considered for selection for the under-performing Eagles this week. Picture: AFL Media
WESTERN BULLDOGS
Several AFL-listed players had solid games for Williamstown over the weekend, including Dylan Addison, who booted four goals in the Seagulls' win over Box Hill. The Bulldogs are looking for a more potent forward line, and Lukas Markovic showed he can find the big sticks, with three goals in the twos, while Jarrad Grant kicked two. Daniel Cross was once again in the best, and could be an option as the Dogs prepare to take on Greater Western Sydney. - Jacqui Reed
The Crows suffered a big blow on Saturday with a significant shoulder injury to rebounding defender Brent Reilly . The veteran will undergo scans this week, but a reconstruction would prove season ending. His absence opens the door for Richard Tambling, who was an emergency against the Suns and collected 33 disposals in the SANFL the week before. Jared Petrenko is available for selection after recovering from his shoulder injury, while Mitch Grigg was again prolific for Norwood with 34 touches and 10 clearances. Key forward Lewis Johnston could return via the SANFL from a knee injury this weekend.Daniel Merrett is almost certain to miss a second successive match with a groin injury when the Lions host Gold Coast in Saturday's QClash, but coach Michael Voss has a number of other selection dilemmas following last week's 58-point loss to Hawthorn. Andrew Raines is a chance to return to resume his battle with Gary Ablett, while Josh Green should come into consideration to add some much-needed spark to the Lions forward line after some strong form in the reserves. Rohan Bewick and Patrick Karnezis are also chances. |
The world’s most widely used insecticides harm the ability of bees to vibrate flowers and shake out the pollen to fertilise crops, according to preliminary results from a new study.
Some flowers, such as those of crops like tomatoes and potatoes, must be shaken to release pollen and bumblebees are particularly good at creating the buzz needed to do this. But the research shows that bumblebees exposed to realistic levels of a neonicotinoid pesticide fail to learn how to create the greatest buzz and collect less pollen as a result.
The research is consistent with previous work that has shown neonicotinoid pesticides reduce learning and memory in bees. A moratorium on the use of three neonicotinoids on flowering crops was put in place in Europe in 2013 and will be reviewed next year.
Pesticide manufacturers' own tests reveal serious harm to honeybees Read more
In many flowers, bees collect pollen by simply brushing it off the anthers (the part of the stamen that contains the pollen), but other flowers require more work.
“So bees produce a vibration – or buzz – to shake pollen out of these anthers like a pepper pot,” said Penelope Whitehorn of the University of Stirling in Scotland, who led the study. “The bee lands on a flower, curls her body around the anther and grips the base with her mandibles. She then rapidly contracts the flight muscles to produce the vibration, without beating her wings.”
The researchers took two colonies of bumblebees in a laboratory setting and split the bees in each into three groups. One control group was not exposed to the neonicotinoid thiamethoxam, but the other two groups were fed solutions containing two parts per billion or 10ppb of the pesticide, doses similar to those found in crop fields.
After each visit to the buffalo-bur flowers used in the experiment, the bees in the control group learned how to buzz more pollen out of the anthers. But those in the 10ppb group did not improve at all.
Whitehorn will present the preliminary results at the British Ecological Society’s annual meeting on Tuesday and said they were “striking” and statistically significant, and would be submitted to a scientific journal next year.
High pesticide levels on oilseed rape crops harm wild bees, scientists prove Read more
“The implication is the bees take less pollen back to the colonies and the colonies will be less successful, meaning there may be fewer pollinators overall,” she said.
The study adds to a large body of evidence from lab- and field-based studies that neonicotinoids reduce learning and memory in bees, impair their communication, foraging efficiency and immune systems and, crucially, reduce their reproductive success as well as the pollination services that they can provide, Whitehorn said.
“These chemicals do have serious implications for wild bee populations in agricultural landscapes but some, notably from the agrochemical industry, still promote their use,” she warned.
A spokesman for Syngenta, which manufactures thiamethoxam, said: “Crop-measured pollen and nectar residues from thiamethoxam seed-treated oilseed rape is typically less than 3ppb. In all our thiamethoxam seed-treated oilseed rape field studies we have never recorded a pollen or nectar residue as high as 10ppb.”
There is strong evidence that neonicotinoids harm individual bees but only a little evidence to date that this harms colonies. Bees and other pollinators fertilise about three-quarters of the world’s food crops and have seen widespread declines due to habitat loss, disease and pesticide use. |
Birds & Birding
From the Autumn 2015 issue of Living Bird magazine.
Taza Schaming heard the bird of her obsession long before she actually saw it. A rattle-squawk reverberated from somewhere within the Douglas-firs and limber pines. A swooping whoosh of wingbeats blew through the treetops. Then the Clark’s Nutcracker arrived on a bare branch. Bigger than a jay yet smaller than a crow, he wiped his miniature black lance of a bill back and forth against the branch like he had an itch.
“That’s a displacement activity,” Schaming explained. “He’s frustrated. He doesn’t like it that the fat is on the ground.”
For weeks, the bundle of beef fat had been strung up 12 feet high. Schaming does this to habituate nutcrackers to feeding at a spot. But now the fat is down, and she’s hoping her quarry doesn’t notice the metal frame of a bownet trap camouflaged with leaf litter and forest duff.
“C’mon down,” she whispered.
Schaming knows beef fat works best for luring nutcrackers. She’s been studying this bird—it’s been her life—since 2009 for her dissertation as a Ph.D. student at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. She’s tried peanuts, playback calls, even a dead mouse tugged by a piece of fishing line. Trial and error brought her to a fresh pile of beef trimmings from a butcher in Jackson Hole.
Her doctoral work here in Wyoming’s Bridger–Teton National Forest—just east of Grand Teton National Park and smack in the middle of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem—has included 76 radio-tagged nutcrackers. It’s the longest study ever conducted with individual Clark’s Nutcrackers, a seven-years-and-running project that has sent Schaming deep into the backcountry for intensive research on their foraging behavior and habitat use.
The nutcracker swooped down to a lower branch, now tantalizingly perched just above the bait pile. Then he cocked his head to the side, reasoning and thought bubbling behind his polished obsidian pebble eyes.
When the breeze blew just right, the curtain of fir needles behind the bird opened up to reveal a glimpse of the Grand Teton, a hulking mass of snow and rock with a band of evergreens across its midsection. The trees at the highest elevations are whitebark pines. Schaming’s research could be boiled down to the nutcracker in front of her, the whitebark pines in the distance, and the tight tie that binds them.
“Clark’s Nutcracker is a keystone species, whitebark pine is a keystone species, and they’re both in a key mutualism in this ecosystem,” she says.
Keystone species are plants or animals that are so critical to an ecosystem that the landscape would dramatically change without them. In the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, nutcrackers rely on whitebark pines as a crucial food source, the pines rely on nutcrackers to disperse and plant their seeds, and more than 100 other species of plants and animals benefit from that mutualism between tree and bird. But the web is at risk of unraveling. Whitebark pines have suffered massive mortalities from the deadly convergence of blister rust disease and mountain pine beetle outbreaks. Nutcracker populations have declined across half their range since 2003, according to Breeding Bird Survey data. The ripple effects extend throughout the ecosystem, from disappearing forests on mountain heights to the loss of a major food resource for grizzly bears.
Today, Schaming is back on one of her study sites with a new technology, solar-powered satellite tags, to open up a new chapter of her research. She’s searching for ways to keep the nutcracker– whitebark mutualism intact. But first, she’s got to trap a bird.
After much consternation, this noncompliant nutcracker flew away.
“He’ll be back,” Schaming said confidently.
A Return Visitor
Two hours later, the nutcracker returned for the fourth time, but he was still wary. Schaming had been munching trail mix and waiting for the morning sun to get up over the spindle tops of fir trees and shed a little warmth. It was October in the Tetons, a time when frost recedes from daylight and nutcrackers are busy finding and caching food for winter.
When a Gray Jay snatched a beef scrap from the pile and made off unmolested, the nutcracker was finally convinced. He landed a few feet away and kangaroo-hopped over on top of the pile. Schaming yanked the trigger string and thwump, he was caught.
She fished him out of the net and gave him a stick to grip with his feet, much like a mother might soothe a baby with a rattle. The nutcracker didn’t struggle or squawk; he seemed content. “His heart’s not beating hard,” she said. “It’s not like chickadees where their heart is just racing.”
He did track her hand with his bill though, and when the opportunity arose, he clamped on. “Doesn’t hurt,” Schaming noted as she checked his feathers. “Their bill is designed more to pry than pinch.”
When she flipped him over on his back the bird had two orange leg bands. This was a return customer. Schaming had caught him in January 2012, just a few hundred yards away. “You’re still alive,” she told him. “I’m so happy to catch you again!”
But he wasn’t going to be part of Schaming’s new project. She doesn’t want data on homebodies. Instead, she wants to know what happens to the travelers. In her radio-tracking studies, she has noticed that some nutcrackers tend to wander. In 2011—after whitebark pines failed to produce cones—79 percent of the birds disappeared. “I don’t know if those nutcrackers flew north to Yellowstone or even Canada to find food,” she said,” or south to the Wind River Range, or all the way to pinyon pine forests in Arizona.”
Finding out where nutcrackers go in the event of a food collapse could be a key to managing entire landscapes to give nutcrackers what they need. And foresters are very interested in providing for nutcrackers, because they act as an unpaid crew of avian tree planters on a scale that far exceeds anything the U.S. Forest Service could afford.
Scientists say that the whitebark pine is an obligate mutualist of the Clark’s Nutcracker, the tree totally reliant on the bird for seed dispersal. Whitebark pine cones don’t open on their own, and the seeds inside have no wings for floating on the wind. Instead, the tree puts all its energy into producing a large, fatty seed with high nutrition in the hopes that nutcrackers will come for a feast. A nutcracker can hold up to 150 of these seeds in its sublingual pouch (under its tongue). Nutcrackers plant the seeds at the ideal germination depth of about an inch during caching. Each nutcracker caches up to 100,000 seeds in a single year. But they don’t retrieve all of them—the untapped caches grow up into new whitebark pines.
Along with whitebark pines, nutcrackers also disperse seeds for pinyon pines, limber pines, and 10 other conifer tree species throughout the bird’s range of 11 western states and two Canadian provinces, according to forest ecologist Diana Tomback of the University of Colorado at Denver. “Nutcrackers play a very important role,” says Tomback. “They’re an architect of high-mountain forests across the West.”
Tomback was the first to document the mutualism between nutcrackers and whitebark pines in a 1977 Living Bird article. Schaming has carried Tomback’s findings forward and expanded on them through more than 1,000 days in the field. On good days, she commutes past herds of grazing bison to spend a temperate summer’s day in the mountains. But the work can be grueling, sometimes bushwhacking 20 miles just to locate one of her radiotagged study birds. Pepper-spray is a must in the warmer months, as she works in grizzly country and keeps vigil for long hours over a pile of beef fat. (Thankfully, she hasn’t had a bear encounter yet.) Winter work means Telemark skiing through deep snow at minus-20 degrees Fahrenheit.
Schaming’s payoff has been lots of quality time spent with nutcrackers, and a slew of field observations about their caching habits. For example, she’s documented that nutcrackers cache whitebark pine seeds in a variety of locations—from right below the very whitebark pine tree where they harvested seeds to several miles away back in the breeding territory where they intend to nest. Some birds contribute at communal caching sites where hundreds of nutcrackers put up a massive larder, whereas others keep private stashes.
Land managers desperately need insights into the relationship between whitebarks and nutcrackers, because the tree is experiencing a major die-off across its range, and the bird is the best hope that whitebark pine stands will still be around at the end of this century.
View from the Top
“Looking around here, I’d say 98 percent of the large trees are dead,” Schaming said.
She stood atop Angle Mountain, elevation 10,079 feet. She was on a nutcracker survey, and getting up here was hard work, huffing uphill for more than an hour. At this altitude there’s usually a whitebark-pine-cone bonanza, which can equal abundant nutcrackers. There were no birds to be counted on this day, though. The devastation was evident.
A few sickly trees had open cankerous sores on their pale bark that were weeping sap, the victims of blister rust. And then there were the gray ghosts, whitebark pine skeletons with J-shaped scrawls etched in the bare wood. Each “J” marked where a mountain pine beetle female had excavated egg chambers. When the larvae in all these Js hatched, they ate the phloem and disrupted the flow of nutrients from needles to roots, thus starving the tree to death.
The distant view was an Ansel Adams dreamscape—countless snow-capped peaks amid endless rough and rugged terrain. To the north lay the Absaroka Mountains and one of the most remote federal wilderness areas in the Lower 48; to the south Togwotee Pass cut an indent before the Tetons. But Schaming knew that the scourge up here on this mountain is creeping across the land as far as her eyes could see. As of 2009, 46 percent of the whitebark stands surveyed in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem were classified as “high mortality”; it’s surely well over half by now.
“This is one of the most beloved and pristine areas in America,” she said. “It’s really disturbing to climb up mountain peaks and see swaths of dead trees, and to know it’s all human caused.” Blister rust is a human-introduced tree disease in North America; climate change has enabled unprecedented beetle outbreaks. In some years, the temperatures stay warm enough for two hatches of pine beetles in a single year.
The die-off could have profound ecological consequences. Whitebark pines are the foundational trees of many subalpine and treeline forests in the West. They’re the first trees to regenerate after disturbance. (Tomback, the forest ecologist, saw nutcrackers caching whitebark seeds in the blackened earth after the 1988 Yellowstone fires.) As new whitebark pines sprout up, they provide shade and windbreak for other tree seedlings, such as Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir. Tomback says that as the pines and spruces and firs grow up, they cast a shade that holds onto the snowpack through the spring, preventing rapid melting and releasing the meltwater slowly through the summer.
Besides nutcrackers, more than 100 other animal species feed on the highly nutritious whitebark pine seeds, which have a perounce calorie count about equal to butter. Other whitebark-seedeating birds include Hairy Woodpecker, Cassin’s Finch, Mountain Chickadee, and Pine Grosbeak. Among mammals, grizzly bears rely on whitebark pine seeds as an important food resource. USGS biologist David Mattson has conducted research that shows mortality rates for adolescent and adult bears go up when their whitebark pine seed consumption goes down.
As for nutcrackers, it appears that the whitebark cone crop could be the deciding factor in whether or not nutcrackers breed in a given year. In two of Schaming’s first five years of field research (2008 and 2010), the whitebark cone crop failed, and she recorded no breeding activity among nutcrackers whatsoever the following spring—no nesting, no trapped adults with brood patches (bare spots on their belly plumage used to incubate eggs against warm skin), and no juvenile nutcrackers spotted at all.
Schaming posits two possibilities: either nutcrackers were in such poor body condition from a lack of nutrition that they couldn’t breed, or they chose to skip the year because environmental conditions foretold lean times ahead.
Whitebark pines have no such coping strategies. When a local nutcracker population declines (either due to failed breeding or because the nutcrackers abandon an area to look elsewhere for food), the tree loses its evolutionary soul mate—its only agent of seed dispersal. In this scenario, whitebark pines are faced with a genetic bottleneck that eventually leads to their functional extinction in an ecosystem. That’s already happened in Glacier National Park, where blister rust swept through decades ago. People in Glacier are seeing fewer nutcrackers today than they did 20 years ago, and healthy whitebark stands are virtually nonexistent.
In recognition of the whitebark pine’s ecological importance and dreadful outlook, Canada has listed the tree as an endangered species, and the United States has listed it as warranted for Endangered Species Act protection. U.S. Forest Service ecologist Robert Keane of the Rocky Mountain Research Station is a proponent of active and immediate intervention to save the tree. Keane estimates that whitebark pine forests could be functionally extinct within 100 years. “Without restoration, the whitebark pine forest is lost,” he says.
Restoration means active management and silviculture, such as thinning to create space for whitebark seedlings and planting the seeds of pines with blister rust-resistant genes. But that action is expensive, and the USFS budget for whitebark restoration has been shrinking year after year.
Meanwhile, as long as nutcrackers persist, they act as agents of tree propagation that work for free. Tomback has estimated the economic value of nutcrackers at upwards of $2,500 per hectare (the equivalent cost of USFS seeding). And nutcrackers can go where people can’t, planting trees in federal wilderness areas where the regulations prohibit human intervention.
Keane’s models show that nutcrackers could play a role in a whitebark renaissance. Should the pines be able to survive blister rust and beetles, a future of more frequent wildfires could offer plenty of opportunities for nutcrackers to swoop in and plant seeds in burned soil. Keane says it may actually be possible for whitebark pines to reclaim their old range and expand into new ranges in a warmer climate.
But that only happens if nutcrackers are still around.
“When people think about the Greater Yellowstone, they often picture wolves and grizzly bears, these amazing charismatic megafauna [that] play really important roles as top predators,” says Schaming. “But the Clark’s Nutcracker, this bird that lives up high in the mountains and a lot of people don’t recognize, it’s a keystone species that’s incredibly important in this ecosystem.”
High Hopes
Down among the Douglas-firs at the bottom of Togwotee Pass, Schaming waited again for a nutcracker to visit her pile of beef fat. This time, a nutcracker was on the pile within 10 minutes. A minute later, Schaming retrieved the bird from the bownet and held him firmly. No leg bands on this bird; he was a newbie.
With the bird in one hand, Schaming opened up a small, foam-padded suitcase and took out what looked like a microchip dangling from a pair of brown straps. It was a satellite-tag backpack, handsewn by Schaming with dental floss and teflon ribbon (the teflon breathes for the bird’s comfort; the dental floss stitching is tougher than thread). She slipped the straps over the nutcracker’s wings, cinched them snug, checked to be sure the bird’s wings weren’t obstructed, and then gently tossed him aloft. His wings caught air immediately, and he flapped up to the top of a nearby fir tree.
Schaming was beaming: “You’re going to provide me so much data!” She looked like a proud mother sending her kindergartner off on his first day of school, except that this kid toddled off with $3,500 of high-tech equipment in his backpack—a tiny transmitter that pings a data point every time satellites in the celestial heavens pass overhead, plus a fingernail-sized solar panel that reduces the battery weight, making the pack light enough to be carried by a bird.
Schaming had high hopes that this bird and the six others she was planning to outfit with satellite tags would answer her questions, such as whether nutcrackers can track whitebark pine cone resources across long distances in a landscape. These findings have real-world forestry applications. For example, if foresters plant a whitebark pine stand somewhere, can they rely on traveling nutcrackers to find the new trees and propagate their seeds?
She’s also hoping to uncover more evidence of the importance of Douglas-firs to nutcrackers. For decades, scientists have focused solely on whitebarks or other large-seeded pines as the habitat component that nutcrackers need. But in the years of the whitebark cone crop failures, Schaming observed nutcrackers feasting on Douglas-fir seeds—not a good nutritional substitute (it takes 20 Douglas-fir seeds to equal the calorie content of one whitebark pine seed), but perhaps good enough to get by in lean years. In her radio-tracking, Schaming noted that nutcrackers tended to prefer Douglas-fir habitat more often for their breeding season range than any other trees, including whitebark pine.
“My hypothesis is that Douglas-fir seems to be a critical secondary habitat for nutcrackers in the Greater Yellowstone,” says Schaming, “a back-up food, hence birds choose breeding season ranges with Douglas-fir so it’s available [when whitebark pine cone crops fail].”
She’s submitting her research to foresters in the Bridger-Teton National Forest and nearby national parks to use in their management plans and advising them to focus their whitebark pine restoration management efforts in close proximity to Douglas- firs. It seems that both tree species are necessary to create the ideal habitat mix for nutcrackers.
“The nutcrackers are the critical cog in the entire restoration engine,” says Keane, the USFS research ecologist. “Critical research such as that being done by Taza will be key to building models that predict the future nutcracker-whitebark pine dynamic and developing effective restoration treatments.”
Data Revealed
At the Café Boheme near downtown Jackson Hole, Schaming ordered a cup of hot tea, sat down at a table, and popped open her laptop. She was a bit grubby after five days in the field with no shower. And the clientele looked upscale—a couple in a nearby booth were clad in Patagonia-chic. But she wasn’t there for the social scene, just the wifi.
She took a big breath as her computer booted up. This was the moment she’d find out if her big gamble, more than $20,000 in funds raised for satellite tracking, would work. She knew that failure often comes first. She learned that when the nutcrackers bounced out of the mist nets when she first tried trapping them back in 2009. Other scientists have been forced to abandon nutcracker study projects because they were unable to trap this bird. Schaming has trapped 185 nutcrackers, and she was hoping number 186 was about to pay off.
Finally, the spinning beach ball on her computer gave way and a topo map of the Tetons appeared with a shotgun-blast speckle of red dots, the locations of the nutcracker she had trapped yesterday in Togwotee Pass. It used to take several arduous days, even weeks, just to get one data point on the location of a radio-tagged bird. Now she was looking at 35 data points that had streamed in over just the past 24 hours.
In the months since, the satellite tags have gushed with data. Schaming now has four times more quality data on a breeding season than she’s ever had before. In the process, she has recorded the fastest flying speed ever observed for a Clark’s Nutcracker—nearly 35 miles per hour (the previous estimate in the scientific literature was 28 mph)—and she’s documented that they reach that speed for sustained long flights. Most importantly, Schaming has documented nutcrackers regularly venturing to places more than 20 miles from their breeding territory in winter and spring. It turns out nutcrackers may have much larger home ranges than previously thought.
“That means they may need a large protected forested area for conservation,” Schaming says.
Back on that sunny fall day in Jackson Hole, all of these insights were just hopes until those red dots appeared on her laptop. Then a smile erupted on her face, and her eyes shone like the golden coins of aspen leaves that flutter high in the Tetons. She had realized a dream: “All these things I’ve been writing in my proposals…it’s possible!”
This blog appeared first on All About Birds. |
There has always been something special about the machines built inside the deBolex workshop, a few miles south of London, England. They are sleek and minimal, with factory levels of finish hiding some very smart engineering and technical decision-making.
Shop owner Calum Pryce-Tidd is one of Britain’s finest bike builders, and takes his inspiration from the racing cars of the 1950s and 60s. In those days, teams would often remove heavy steel bodies and replace them with lightweight aluminum versions.
“It’s an important part of our ethos not to tear up a great production bike to make something potentially harder or less practical to ride,” says Calum. (And amen to that.)
“We celebrate the efforts of the manufacturer by retaining the core of the bike, dressing it in a new set of clothes and upgrading components.” The result is invariably a usable and high quality one-off custom.
A Buell is not the easiest bike to modify, but it ticks a lot of boxes from an engineer’s point of view. The mass is centralized, the frame is extremely rigid, and weight is carried low. If there’s a weak point on the typical Buell, it’s usually the styling.
The XB9SX City X was regarded as an oddity when it came out, just over ten years ago. Part streetfighter and part urban scrambler, this particular variant on the Lightning theme was a machine before its time.
This XB9 is owned by Todd Kleparski, a London-based independent film producer. “Todd bought the XB9 from new,” Calum tells us. “But after ten years of fun, he felt it was time to change things up. He rode down to see us last summer, and left with an open brief—our favorite kind of brief!”
At deBolex, the first job is always to set the stance of the bike. After a session with the tape measure, Calum and his partner Des Francis decided on a front-end swap.
“The Buell front forks are quite short, so we headed to my local Ducati dealer and found that Showa forks from an 899 Panigale would work well.”
Fastec Custom Racing machined up a set of yokes, and once the front end was in place, deBolex installed Panigale-spec Brembo Serie Oro discs and new Brembo monobloc calipers. Rear suspension comes from a one-off Maxton RT10 mono shock with a remote reservoir.
The Buell’s new wheels are ultra-light five-spoke carbon fitments from the race specialists Dymag. The front wheel is already in the catalog as an 899 fit, and Dymag measured up the rear wheel to create a matching one-off. The rubber is Metzeler’s latest Roadtec 01 compound.
With the bike now sitting perfectly, Calum and Des could start work on the fabrication. “The XB9 is a challenging bike to customize, given its unusual frame design. The frame is also the fuel tank, so what looks like the ‘tank’ is just a skin covering to the top half of the engine, air filter and battery.”
There’s now a Shorai lithium battery and air induction system on the top of the frame, covered by a new tank ‘skin.’ There are five distinct sections under the elegant metal, with ports funneling air to a K&N air filter.
At the outlet end, the boxy dual-chamber Buell exhaust muffler is gone. Lovely new pipework (fabricated in-house) meets under the engine and terminates in a simple Spark muffler.
As with all their builds, deBolex have used traditional metal shaping techniques to fabricate the panels from aluminum—resulting in very lightweight bodywork. “The Buell’s frame/tank steup pushed us away from a traditional design, towards something more modern and futuristic,” says Calum.
“In keeping with this theme, we also relocated the oil cooler to between the yokes before we fabricated the front fairing.” A vent on the fairing sits alongside tunnel housings for the dip and main beam headlights.
The tail unit is unapologetically chunky, with hints of mid-70s Kawasaki Z styling. It sits on a new subframe fashioned from 25mm cold drawn seamless tubing.
“The lower mounting position gave us a subframe line that would disappear into the tail section,” says Calum. “The subframe is also a mount for the ECU and fuse box, along with a Motogadget m-Unit.”
Those vitals sit very snugly in the tail, but there’s a quick release catch for fast seat removal, giving easy access to the electronics. The licence plate holder underneath (with blinkers attached) is also easy to remove, and just behind it is a cylindrical LED taillight from the German brand Highsider.
Motogadget also supplied a Motoscope Pro speedo and discreet M.blaze bar-end blinkers, butted up against Renthal grips on classy Rizoma flat bars. The levers are from the Italian company Accossato.
That imposing frame is now finished partly in satin black, and partly in black crackle, with a deep, dark Harley-Davidson metallic red for the bodywork. There’s a silver stripe down the midpoint of the tank with a deBolex logo, leading to the handmade seat—upholstered in a combination of waterproof Alcantara and soft black vinyl.
Look closely at the tail unit and you’ll spot a tiny ‘1/1’ motif. “That represents our ‘One of One’ series,” says Calum. “Each build is unique.”
Lots of builders refuse to replicate their bikes, but few can say they complete all stages of the build in-house—from design and fabrication, through to the paintwork and trimming.
Given the impeccable quality of work, that makes this Buell even more remarkable. Top marks to Calum and Des for a truly amazing creation—and if you’d like to see it in the metal, head over to the Bike Shed Show at London’s Tobacco Dock on 26-28 May.
deBolex Engineering | Facebook | Instagram | Images by Autohouse London | Instagram |
Police reinforcements are being sent to the embattled port of Calais in an attempt to prevent increasingly desperate attempts by migrants to gain access to the UK.
An extra 34 officers will be sent to the town, where close to a hundred migrants tried to storm a ferry leaving for Dover on Wednesday, the local préfet (prefect) has confirmed.
Port authorities said about 85 migrants had pushed through a security gate, while others climbed over fences. According to witnesses, the migrants attempted to board a MyFerryLink vessel bound for England, but staff on board raised the ramp so they could not get on. A further 250 migrants stormed the security of the port, but were stopped by police.
A spokeswoman said: "MyFerryLink can confirm an incident took place in Calais, whereby several migrants entered the port and attempted to board the MyFerryLink Berlioz. The crew took immediate action to ensure the ship's security and the attempt was unsuccessful."
A spokesman for P&O Ferries said staff had written to the préfet and the head of the chamber of commerce to demand more security for the port. "What we saw happen yesterday should never have happened," said Chris Laming, communications director at P&O. While disturbances caused by migrants attempting to board ships bound for the UK were common, he said, in P&O's experience, Wednesday's events were unique.
"We have never seen anything like this before, even in the days of Sangatte," Laming said. "Over the summer, when queues have been building around the port, we have seen migrants trying to gain access to lorries and caravans. We are very concerned and are having meetings with all the authorities to ensure the safety of our staff and passengers."
After dwindling for years, the number of migrants in Calais has ballooned in recent months, with an estimated 1,000-1,400 migrants in the town and immediate region trying to enter the UK, according to the UNHCR.
The agency said that when the informal camp, known as the jungle, was cleared in 2009, many of the migrants had fled Afghanistan and travelled through Turkey and Greece. Today's migrants are mainly from Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea, with others fleeing the conflict in Syria, said s UNHCR spokesman, William Spindler.
"While we have seen similar or even higher levels of migrants before, what seems to be getting worse is the desperation, with people willing to take ever greater risks," he said.
The migrants are likely to have travelled through north Africa to get to Europe via entry points such as the island of Lampedusa in Italy, he said, adding that they were living in appalling conditions in squats in the town. "There is no water, no toilets; they are infested with rats," he said. "They tend to keep a low profile or they are dispersed."
The mayor of Calais threatened to shut the port unless Britain helped deal with the rising number of migrants trying to cross the Channel. "I could take the decision to block the port … I could bring pressure to bear," Natacha Bouchart told reporters in Paris after a meeting with France's interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve. She recognised such a move would be illegal but said she wanted to make a "strong gesture towards the British".
Bouchart has long been a fierce critic of immigration policy in the UK, which she said was "considered an El Dorado" by immigrants. She complained that London had called for increased security at Calais but was not contributing enough to the project, which costs €10m (£8m) a year.
The situation in Calais, which has struggled with large numbers of migrants trying to gain access to the UK for more than a decade, has deteriorated further in recent months.
Bouchart and Cazeneuve have agreed to open a day centre in Calais for migrants and a night shelter for women and children.
Cazeneuve met the UK home secretary, Theresa May, last month. In a joint statement, they said: "The increase in migrant numbers seen in Calais and its regions since the spring of 2014 has brought very difficult economic, social and public order problems. We have a duty to strengthen our efforts and find new solutions to alleviate the impact of these migrant numbers on the Calais population and its economy, and to prevent illegal immigration.
"We have already bolstered security in Calais, upgraded technology and equipment, and are investing further together in strengthening port infrastructure. We agreed that this work will continue. We also agreed to explore ways to ensure that those genuinely in need of protection or who are victims of trafficking are given the necessary support." |
Sixty years ago this November, high atop the MCG’s old Northern Stand, the late Ron Clarke put fizzling flame to cauldron to open the Games of the XVI Olympiad.
Clarke burnt his arm in the process, but damage was minor and superficial – and yet for Carlton President Ken Luke, the scars of the 1956 Melbourne Olympics would run deep and linger a lifetime.
Acknowledged in The Argus as a “philanthropist and sportsman”, it was KG Luke who audaciously secured the 1956 Games for his beloved Princes Park – only to be thwarted by the Melbourne Cricket Club through the intervention of the then Premier John Cain senior.
Today, with the assistance of the City of Melbourne, and football club minutes of the time, the story behind the story can be told with greater clarity.
In early 1952, Princes Park firmed as the Olympic venue when the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds were considered unsuitable and the MCG was refused on the grounds that the conversion of the arena was considered “engineeringly impracticable”.
A newspaper report on the proposed Princes Park precinct, 1952. (Image: Supplied)
On March 24 of that year, the Melbourne City Council agreed that the cost of making the Carlton Ground available as the main stadium should be borne by the Federal Government (50%), the state Government (25%) and the Melbourne city Council (25%), the council’s proportion of the cost being expected at that time to be in the vicinity of £300,000.
Under the proposal,
• Carlton would stage the Melbourne Olympiad in a redeveloped 100,000-seat stadium at Princes Park, with the now heritage-listed Ald. Gardiner Stand to be demolished;
• cost for the Princes Park redevelopment, then estimated at £1.2million would be met by the Federal Government (50%), the State Government (25%) and the Melbourne City Council (25%);
• Carlton home matches would be staged at Coburg Oval for the duration of the four-year redevelopment.
Confirmation of Princes Park’s hosting of the Games was not surprisingly met with much fanfare, as was reported in the club’s 1952 Annual Report.
It was a great day for the supporters of the Carlton Football and Cricket Clubs when after months of conjecture, discussion and hope, it was announced that Carlton Recreation Ground had been chosen as the site for the Olympic Stadium for the 1956 Games.
The decision was a personal triumph for the President, Mr. K. G. Luke, who worked untiringly with a faith shared by few others, to have the undoubted advantages of Princes Oval recognised by the authorities; he was very ably supported by Vice-President Bill Townsend. The supporters of the clubs will always be indebted to these gentlemen for making it possible to enjoy, in future years, the benefits and amenities of the best ground in the Southern Hemisphere.
With the site decided, it was only natural that Mr. Luke be asked to take a prominent place on the committee to construct the stadium and he was unanimously appointed Vice-Chairman of the Organising Committee. To better acquaint themselves of the latest developments and trends in the construction of stadia, both the Chairman, Mr. A.W. Coles, and Mr. Luke visited the Games at Helsinki, Britain, the U.S.A. and The Continent in search of the latest information and ideas.
On their return, the office of Frank Heath was chosen as the architects, after a world-wide competition for designs, to carry out the work, and Mr. Heath’s lieutenants, Messrs. P. Fielder and G.M. Hirsch, have already established themselves at the ground. Demolition of the present buildings will take place in the new year.
An artist's impression of the exterior of the Princes Park ground. (Photo: Supplied)
Undoubtedly, there will be some sadness among our older supporters when the buildings start to tumble; these house so many past glories and happy memories – and of course a few disappointments. The Gardiner Stand, the high mounds, and other old buildings at the ground were not easily gained and have stood for so long as monuments to the hard work and vision of the pioneers – many of whom are still with us today. But as the new structures rise from the rust and rubble of the old, they too, can take pride in the knowledge that it was their persistence in winning a permanent ground for the ‘Blues’ over half a century ago that has made the Olympic Stadium at Princes Park possible.
The Melbourne City Council voted 9 to 1 that the Carlton Ground should be the main stadium, the council’s representatives having moved and seconded the motion.
It was subsequently determined that costs for redevelopment of the stadium would be “considerably in excess of that originally anticipated”.
At subsequent meeting called by the then Premier John Cain, it was resolved that the Melbourne Cricket Ground authorities had altered their previous views, “and declared that the ground would now be made available for the Games.
On February 2, 1953, barely a year after the Carlton ground was confirmed as the Olympic venue, the MCG was unanimously declared the beneficiary of a venue switch. This followed an announcement by the Premier that no State Government funding would be available for the Carlton stadium.
The games control committee chairman AW Coles told reporters “I am very sorry we are not going to get a nice stadium at Carlton, but the Premier has decided that finance will be available only for the MCG”.
“We must, therefore, all get behind this and try to gain approval of the IOC so that Melbourne will not lose the games,” he said.
According to John Cain senior, the overall cost of staging the games in Melbourne would be £850,000, which included £300,000 for bringing the MCG to Olympic standard, £350,000 for the Olympic pool and about £200,000 for other works, including the cycling track. This, he said, amounted to £400,000 less than the original amount agreed upon the previous year, with the Federal Government to commit 50% in funding, and the State Government and City Council 25% each.
Interestingly, the Prime Minister and MCG Trustee Sir Robert Menzies, whose allegiance to Carlton and friendship with Ken Luke were lifelong, left what was reported as a heated 2½ hour meeting without making comment.
The following appeared in Carlton’s 1953 Annual Report, beneath the headline OLYMPIC GAMES AND THE CARLTON GROUND
Fortunately, all references in the last annual Report to the possibility of the Olympic Games being staged at the Carlton Oval were prefaced by the phrases “almost certain” or “most likely”. This was a most necessary precaution for even at that stage, and despite the progress made by architects in the planning of the stadium, most of the club officials knew that certain forces, jealous of the Carlton project at the beginning, were at work to have the site changed. This was more in evidence when it was known that the Carlton plan was based on catering for over the 100,000 persons.
Thus, it as not such a great shock when the ground which originally rejected the Games was re-chosen.
Recriminations on how the volte face was accomplished will serve no purpose for after all, the public have short memories on these matters. Sufficient it is to record that posterity will have no thanks for those who deprived Melbourne of a second main ground – and a truly people’s ground at that – which will be sorely needed when the City reaches the expected 2,000,000 population mark about 1980.
Former Carlton president Sir Kenneth Luke. (Photo: Supplied)
The Carlton vision, which reached such a costly advanced stage of planning is not entirely forgotten by those who saw quite a lot of those plans. In fact a small sub-committee consisting of Messrs. K.G. Luke, G.R. Armstrong, W.L. Floyd, W.C.L. Townsend (Football), F. Williams, H. Numa, J.C. Jessop, and H. Houston (Cricket) has been set up to investigate ways of immediately improving the ground.
Prior to the ignominious somersault on the Games site, your Committee spent many hours and visits in selecting a temporary ground suitable for the large Carlton following. The M.C.G. was the obvious choice, but with undue haste, that move was blocked at headquarters even before any proposition could be advanced for compensating any teams on adjoining grounds, for any expected loss in gate receipts.
Finally, after a number of conferences with the Coburg Recreation Reserves Committee, agreement was reached on distribution of gate receipts and ground improvements, to play Carlton’s “home” matches at Coburg. It is certain that had this come about, the relationship with all at Coburg would have been very happy indeed.
Thanks are due to Mr. J. Alsopp (Chairman), the members of his Committee, Mr. Vin shore (Coburg Town Clerk), and the Committee of the Coburg F.C., which assured the Club the utmost co-operation. These were the bright spots in an otherwise disappointing episode in Carlton football’s history.
Thanks are due to Cr. The Hon. W. Barry, Minister for Health, and State Member for Carlton, who fought hard to have the Carlton side retained and to Mr. Ken Luke who was always at the forefront (despite his illness at that time) to further Carlton’s undoubted claims.
Regret has been expressed to Messrs. Frank Heath and Associates who worked so hard on their prize-winning plan. It was a tragedy too, that the services of Mr. A.W. Coles, one of the initial fighters for the Games, was lost to the organisation.
A self-made millionaire manufacturer and leading Australian Rules administrator, Sir Kenneth Luke neither forgave nor forgot those who had conspired to wrest control of the Games of the XI Olympiad from Princes Park. Who can say what impact the redevelopment might have had on the future of that venue into the 21st century and beyond?
KG is no longer around to offer his version of events. But his daughter Jenny Angliss shed some light on how the switch impacted on her father.
“I’m afraid I was only a child of five at the time, so I can’t tell you anything about that moment, but I understood later in life that this wasn’t a particularly happy point for my father,” Jenny said this week.
“He was on the Olympic Committee and was sent to Helsinki. Through the committee he knew Melbourne was earmarked for the Games and he thought ‘Quick, let’s get them for Carlton Oval’.”
Click here to read part 2 of Tony De Bolfo's look at Carlton's bid for the 1956 Olympics. |
File photo of a man with a white power tattoo at the 'Pressefest' a far-right wing summer festival in the village of Viereck, some 130 km (81 miles) north of Berlin, August 11, 2012, that is organised by the Deutsche Stimme, a publication of the far right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). REUTERS/Thomas Peter/Files
BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet decided on Wednesday not to try to outlaw the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) due to splits within the ruling coalition, leaving Germany’s states to pursue their own ban.
Germany’s domestic intelligence service has branded the NPD “racist, anti-Semitic and revisionist” but banning a political party is especially sensitive in Germany, still haunted by memories of Nazi and communist regimes which silenced dissent.
The cabinet decided at its weekly meeting not to lodge its own request for a ban with the Constitutional Court but instead to support a bid to be filed by the states, who make up the Bundesrat upper chamber of parliament, a government source said.
Merkel and Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich have expressed reservations about trying to proscribe the NPD after a previous attempt in 2003 collapsed because informants high in the party were used as key witnesses.
Ministers from Merkel’s junior coalition partner, the Free Democrats (FDP), had strongly opposed any campaign for a ban, saying the risk of another failure was too great and that this could hand a propaganda victory to the NPD.
Germany’s large ethnic Turkish community and the Central Council of Jews have criticised the failure of German authorities to forge a united stance on the NPD.
Calls to ban the NPD have gathered momentum after it emerged in 2011 that a neo-Nazi cell had waged a racist killing spree over nearly a decade.
The NPD has denied having any links with the cell of neo-Nazis who killed a number of foreigners and a policewoman between 2000 and 2007, and the party condemned the murders.
But experts say that at least on an informal level, some NPD members did have links to the individuals in the cell. |
Johnny Manziel Drinks Thrown at Browns QB ... at Houston Nightclub
Johnny Manziel -- Drinks Thrown at QB ... at Houston Nightclub
EXCLUSIVE
was attacked with drinks at a Houston nightclub this weekend ... after the Cleveland Browns QB got into it with a group of hecklers ...has learned.It all went down at Dekan nightclub in Houston late Sunday night -- Manziel arrived with some friends looking to have a good time when things got chippy.We spoke with J.R. from Sticky Promotions -- who was with Johnny that night -- and he tells us people were shouting at Manziel and aggressively trying to take pics.At one point, a frustrated Manziel flipped off one of the hecklers -- and that's when J.R. says the drinks started to fly."I ducked and I looked at Johnny and we grabbed security and they ran us out of there," J.R. says.We're told Johnny and some members of his crew were splashed with drinks -- so they went back to their hotel room to change.J.R. says he spoke with club security -- who told him the drink-throwers were booted from the joint -- so Johnny and his posse decided to return to the club.Once they got back inside -- with Manziel wearing a new shirt -- we're told Johnny partied without incident for the rest of the night and had a great time.We spoke to Houston PD -- and we're told cops were never contacted about the incident. |
I wore black on election day. I did so amid a sea of feminists wearing white in honor of racist suffragette leader Susan B. Anthony for her role in the struggle for white women to secure the right to vote. I saw black as the only choice on November 8th, which for me and many other citizens was not a day of celebration, but a day of mourning as the United States faced the false choice between two candidates who ranked among the least favorable in our nation’s history. Both options were corrupt, racist, and burdened by the extra baggage of their respective past and present – some of which had literally overlapped for more than a decade. I saw little to celebrate, despite the historical significance of a woman having made it so far in U.S. leadership, and instead lamented the pitiful state of our supposed democracy where only women like Hillary Clinton possessed the means to ever make it this close to the presidency.
To make matters worse, calls to wear white on election day in honor of two women who had worked against the interests of marginalized groups at so many turns marked a complete disregard of our humanity. A timeline full of enthusiastic chatter about pantsuits, wearing white, and posting “I Voted” stickers on Susan B. Anthony’s headstone induced the same feelings for me as pronouncements from Trump supporters eager to “make America great again.” Their celebration was not meant for women like me. On the contrary, the praise they heaped upon Clinton was in direct opposition to the chorus of people, many of them also women, who had presented extensive, fact-based arguments against Clinton’s bourgeois, corporate-aligned, imperial feminism and empty messaging. And it was ultimately their cognitively dissonant defense of the candidate so many had justifiably labeled as an adversary that came at our expense.
Now, as the Democratic Party works to pick up the pieces of their severely fractured operation following Clinton’s loss, another institution in desperate need of some deeply reflective soul-searching is feminism as we know it. It should go without saying that I do not place the blame of Trump’s win entirely on feminism’s flaws. That would be incredibly short-sighted, to say the least, though considering the current propensity to dwell on fragmented thoughts to stir up moral panics instead of considering ideas in full, it has to be said nonetheless. What I am encouraging instead is that the adherents of feminism in its most mainstream manifestation come to terms with the fact that feminism in the United States, much like many other egalitarian movements, has fallen prey to neoliberal seizure.
If feminism is to survive into the future, particularly through a Trump presidency when its fundamental principles are urgently needed, its most vocal supporters must take stock of where they went wrong by putting all of their eggs in the Clinton campaign’s basket while simultaneously silencing legitimate critique coming from women harmed by the policies she supported both on the record and off. Or, as blogger Becky Alfaro noted in her prophetic treatise on mainstream feminism from May, “[white feminists] cannot co-opt our struggle and then deny its existence when we don’t fall in line.” Indeed, one of the most secure ways mainstream feminism could regain its footing would be to listen more and pursue a truly intersectional approach going forward that takes the concerns of all women seriously.
As Alfaro predicted, however, it appears at present that little work is being done to that effect. After all, the march proposed on Trump’s inauguration day has been plagued by racist appropriation and simultaneous indifference to the concerns of women of color, only to be saved from itself at the last minute by women of color organizers from being a complete mess. The usual suspects in the navel-gazing, elite feminist crew continue to pump out think piece after think piece, each more tone deaf than the other, that tokenize the marginalized groups who will suffer most under Trump’s presidency while simultaneously blaming everyone for Clinton’s loss but the candidate herself. Some even go so far as to cloak themselves in the same victimhood as their imagined heroine-in-chief, arguing that their corporate feminist approach toward poor women, women of color, and other groups Clinton has historically slighted needs little alteration. At the same time, a cadre of Clinton apologists in the mainstream press have resorted to focusing their attention once more on poorly substantiated claims of election interference by Russia, hysteria over “fake news,” and defending the CIA instead of working toward alleviating the ongoing problems of disenfranchisement that disproportionately affect voters of color or attempting to reckon with Clinton’s failure to convince enough working class workers of any race that casting a vote for her was worth the trouble.
Real Intersectionality
In lieu of this misguided approach, those who are open to change will engage in an act of serious introspection on how to make feminism more than just inclusive, but “intersectional.” I am not referring, of course, to the vapid and clumsily bungled version the Clinton campaign utilized in an attempt to garner support from black women voters, nor am I referring to the milquetoast attempts over the past few years to call out “white feminism” ™ that focused only on representation and stopped short at any real interrogation of mainstream feminism’s elitism, classism, and political narcissism. I am referring to the idea in its more denotative sense, which encourages us to consider how multi-faceted forms of oppression impact our daily lives based on our position in our respective societies and communities.
Kimberlé Crenshaw, the scholar who coined the term in 1989, explains that “feminist theory and politics that claim to reflect women’s experiences and women’s aspirations do not include or speak to Black women,” and, by extension in an updated reading, any women marginalized on the basis of their race, class, nationality, etc. Instead, the exclusionary feminism that has staked its claim as “universal” relies on a particular type of woman’s experience while ignoring or actively obscuring others out of privileged convenience. In reference to black feminist and abolitionist Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech, Crenshaw notes that “Black women must ask, ‘Ain’t we women?’” as feminism fails to address the often multivalent challenges that befall us. The question continues to resonate in the present as some feminists masquerading as allies to women of color absorb everything from our words to our struggles to appear invested in our equality, only to silence our concerns when our voices become too loud.
Acting as a viable antidote to this problem, intersectional feminism in its purest form focuses on easing varying forms of oppression so that all women can move closer toward equality. It is not about making the world more equal for certain women or simply making the line-up of oppressors more racially diverse. An intersectional approach encourages a type of feminism that stands against militarism, works toward ending economic inequality, commits to antiracism, and supports the undocumented and women around the world. People who fully understand and practice this type of feminism would not champion a person who advocated for and later defended mass incarceration and the death penalty, who continued to fund coup governments and encouraged militaristic interventionism in other nations, who argued on the record that refugee children should be sent back to regions she helped destabilize, who rejected the prospect of universal healthcare, who campaigned against welfare for impoverished women and their children, and who dismissed a living wage for hourly workers at the national level, just for starters. Those invested in intersectional feminism would not express gleeful support of Clinton in full recognition of these well-documented acts in the interest of oppressing women and girls.
I take no issue with the people who were honest about Clinton’s record and reluctantly supported her in hopes of keeping Trump out of the White House. This, after all, was at the heart of the hashtag #GirlIGuessImWithHer, which a black woman started to express her reluctant support of Clinton. At the heart of its message lay recognition of the barriers Clinton had erected and upheld to limit people from marginalized communities from approaching equality while simultaneously marking Trump as the greater threat. The hashtag echoed the sentiments of many black women voters – at least if the hashtag’s success is any testament the resonance of its message. Those celebrating Clinton’s candidacy, on the other hand, and papering over her record in full knowledge of its deleterious effects on marginalized communities were a different story.
That is not to say that people from those very communities were not among the most eager to cast their vote for Clinton. On the contrary, there were many. That doesn’t mean their uncritical support of Clinton stung any less. Watching as several prominent black feminists peddled contradictory and ahistorical narratives to legitimize their support for Clinton or warmly embraced the candidate despite her well-documented support of anti-black policies that intentionally targeted our communities felt like a betrayal. The same could be said of other women of color in political office and women union leaders who fell in line behind Clinton despite her awful record toward the communities for which they had once advocated.
For these supporters, the prospect of simply having a seat at the table to exert power over others like themselves was enough for them to ignore the glaring problems with Clinton’s campaign, including the paltry outreach to marginalized groups, which proved patronizing at best and non-existent at worst. In their quest to elevate Clinton above the needs of their own communities, they opted to engage in a counterproductive form of shallow feminism that has prioritized the maintenance of predatory capitalism, ultimately collapsing all women’s struggles into the narratives of their economically powerful counterparts who remained far removed from the women experiencing forms of material adversity. They repeatedly used Clinton as a privileged surrogate for women languishing under the yoke of sexism, classism, and racism to the detriment of those women instead of prioritizing their concerns.
Clinton’s most prominent yet ideologically inconsistent fans faithfully bought tickets to her cheering section only to pay dearly for her loss. They had yelled the loudest because of direct connections to the campaign (proudly announced or subsequently revealed through leaks), angling for journalistic access, or the prospect of positions following a Clinton win, but their hopes were dashed along with their already precarious reputations as “minority” voices in predominately white, male fields. At present their bruised egos remain an impediment to an accurate and nuanced interpretation of post-mortem numbers that demonstrate that voters from the groups they sought to speak for were far less enthusiastic about Clinton than they were. After all, even with the looming threat of Trump’s win – always a very valid concern due to his vitriolic election rhetoric and now confirmed by his cabinet picks – the predicted lower turnout at the polls among marginalized groups, particularly millennials of color, demonstrated in part that they were less willing to buy the Clinton hype. She had done little to earn their support and distance herself from the policies under which they were personally terrorized and their communities ravaged. They justifiably responded in kind.
Historical Challenges
Unfortunately, the people who make up the groups who reluctantly voted for Clinton or opted not to vote for her at all in light of these concerns will continue to suffer as a result of the unabated opportunism of self-assigned “leaders” who put their interests before those of their communities. Beyond the irreversible material impact their political miscalculations from this election cycle will undoubtedly yield (particularly for the people who make up the groups Clinton and her ilk pretended to support), their intentional misappropriation and distortion of centuries-old histories of resistance and legacies of activism for Clinton’s sake will leave behind vestiges of troubling revisionism in the public consciousness. Speaking more specifically, mainstream feminists’ uncritical advocacy for Clinton was a direct assault on all that so many women of color had done to fight for their freedom against figures like Clinton – elite white women who not only gained power by their default proximity to their husbands but who often exercised that power to our detriment.
As historian Thavolia Glymph explains in her captivating work Out of the House of Bondage, black women were frequently the victims of violence and deprivation exercised by the wives of their slave masters. Through extensive archival evidence, Glymph soundly challenges accounts of slavery in popular culture that obscure white slave mistresses’ abusive practices by focusing almost exclusively on the cruelty of their husbands. In such popular accounts, only men occupy the role of violent administrators, while essentialist views of white womanhood as “gentle” or “non-threatening” pervade. These depictions have repeatedly relegated masters’ wives to the category of “victims” right along with the slaves on the basis of the paternalism and sexism they faced. While these women certainly faced adversity, their realities paled in comparison to those of black female slaves who experienced the sadistic wrath of their male and female masters and fought against both sources of power to assert their personhood.
Following abolition in the United States, black women like Ida B. Wells, just as one example of many, continued to fight for their rights, often with their elite, white, feminist contemporaries as some of the most vocal opponents. Wells famously took on feminist leader Frances Willard for her racism toward black men and women in the late 1800s. While on tour in England for a campaign against the prevalence of lynching in the United States, writer Monee Fields-White notes, Wells publically called upon feminists like Willard to be intersectional avante la lettre. Frustrated by Willard’s “wiling[ness] to court white Southern women, at the expense of blacks,” Wells used her platform during a lecture during her tour to hold Willard accountable for her words. Facing an audience that included Willard, Wells read a damning interview of the feminist leader that demonstrated her racist tendencies and “asked the audience how influential white women could continue to turn a blind eye to the white mobs who threatened black lives.” In retribution for Wells’ bold attempts to bring attention to racialized violence white women had ignored if not encouraged, Willard and several other white feminists worked diligently to shame and silence Wells. Thankfully, their smear tactics failed.
Likewise, women throughout the Americas have pushed back on white feminists whose criticism of patriarchy failed to examine their complicity in standing in the way of social and economic equality for women of color. Well into the present, black and indigenous women in Brazil, for example, continue to challenge the ongoing practice of white, middle to upper class dominance of feminist spaces. As black Brazilian feminist activist Thamyra de Araújo notes in a piece on the exclusion of black women from mainstream feminism in Brazil, graffiti scrawled across a wall in her city succinctly characterized the obstacles facing many women like her: “What kind of feminism is this that the person who washes your underwear is a black woman, your maid, instead of you?” Researchers have documented this disconnect in detail, noting that despite gains for women in Brazil as a whole, women of African descent in Brazil remain marginalized on the basis of their economic and racial status, leaving little access to education, much less the free time or interest to organize alongside the very women who mount impediments to their socio-economic growth. And while Brazilian domestic workers, a staggering number of whom are black and brown, have begun to demand more from their employers, to unionize, and to seek greater social recognition of their labor, new political developments in Brazil toward economic austerity will pose severe setbacks to their efforts.
Assessing What Lies Ahead
I was reminded of these and countless other struggles women of color have long had with their white counterparts as so-called feminists cheered Clinton on despite (or, arguably in some cases, because of) her warm embrace of conservative leaders who had actively oppressed marginalized communities and her parroting of their divisive rhetoric. I watched in indignant horror as these feminists nodded along with Clinton and Obama’s declaration that “America is already great” while indigenous, black, and Latinx people are being murdered by police and racist vigilantes on a daily basis and remain disproportionately poor. And when I consider that they appeared to have done more to chastise those of us who pointed out our reservations about Clinton than to attend to the grievances of their white female peers who went on to vote for Trump in higher numbers than for Clinton, it raises even more questions about the value of continuing to promote a style of feminism that does not work for all women.
In a piece titled “The Decent White Woman Who Voted for Trump (does not exist),” Elizabeth Grattan tackles the role racial privilege played in this election, particularly among white women voters, at the expense of communities of color. Grattan rightfully includes Clinton’s privilege in her assessment. “I did cast my ballot for Clinton,” Grattan admits, but in an examination of Clinton’s concession speech, Grattan outlines how Clinton’s obliviousness to the lived realities of people of color created blind spots within the campaign. For Grattan, Clinton’s remark that “we have seen that our nation is more deeply divided than we thought,” provided “yet another example of the white woman bathing in her privileged perched pedestal of denial” precisely “because women of color weren’t taken by surprise by the divide in this nation. They live it. All their lives. It is a divide that has been witnessed by women of color for generations.” Grattan argues further that this direct knowledge of our divided nation may have compelled women of color to “[come] out in support of Clinton, despite the knowledge of the pandering and the realization that white women would fail them yet again.”
Though I agree with Grattan’s assertion, I would take things a step further to remind readers that Clinton has always been willing to sacrifice people of color when she wasn’t wielding the knife herself. Considering that her team elevated Trump when they were clearly unprepared to defeat him showed how little Clinton actually cares about us. Coupled with her celebration of endorsements from the political figures who had built their careers on oppressing people of color in the United States and far beyond its borders, this presumptive miscalculation serves as the backdrop to Clinton’s assertion that we “owe” Trump, the man she and her team rightfully portrayed as a fascist, “an open mind and the chance to lead” as he prepares to enter the White House. These factors may also provide an explanation as to why, since her loss, Clinton has virtually disappeared into thin air – save a speech at a Children’s Defense Fund Gala, an appearance with Katy Perry at a UNICEF gala, and a brief address in favor of press censorship – instead of coming out to join the fight against whatever ghoulish policies Trump and his team will enact. Along with the women who voted for Trump, Clinton also deserves our ire. At the end of the day, she might as well have cast her vote for Trump right along with them.
Her solidarity was never for us, after all, but for women like herself who ultimately will suffer little materially under a Trump presidency. Their daily lives are replete with safety nets, whereas many other women have no such privilege. For many women, every day is precarious under any president – female or otherwise – who values systems meant to enrich their economic status over our lives. Going forward, mainstream feminism as a social movement and arguably an institution must look to other movements for cues on the direction society is moving lest it perish in a heap of its own disconnected hubris. The collective intersectional work members of the Movement for Black Lives have led, just as one of many examples, provides a good place to start. Instead of hiding out in the woods in silence as police murder people with impunity (despite months spent pretending to be an ally to victims’ grief-stricken mothers) or resorting to excuses in place of introspection, real intersectional feminist leaders push beyond their own daily moments of defeat to defend equal rights. Real movement work never has room for cowards or fair-weather friends, and most certainly not in the advent of the Trump administration where the luxury of time to lick one’s wounds has expired.
Moving forward, feminism must not only be inclusive of women who make up marginalized groups, but be led by them. Their concerns must be prioritized and their voices must be at the forefront of feminist movements. Women active in their communities and organizations invested in the same work must be consulted over pop-up philanthrocapitalist ventures that exploit human suffering for their own gain. Furthermore, instead of placing the burden on marginalized women to serve as mammies, mules, or saviors for fledgling organizations or sinking campaigns, those looking to feminism as an anchor for their socio-political orientation should do their best to offer support for these women in their efforts toward equality instead of working against them. |
The accusations started flying in December. The Texas Legislature was about to convene its eighty-fifth session, and those darn liberals were once again obstructing progress, or so conservatives claimed. On December 13, the right-wing advocates at Empower Texans posted a piece on their website titled “Just Another Liberal Lobby Group” in which they wrote with typical restraint, “One prominent Austin lobby group has been in the tank for bigger government for a long time, but their vanity is now taking them even deeper down the drain.” A week earlier, socially conservative state representative Matt Shaheen, of Plano, had written an op-ed for the Texas Tribune attacking the same group for “partnering with liberal anti-traditional family groups, opposing religious freedom, and supporting ordinances that prosecute citizens for believing in traditional marriage.” Who were these wild-eyed leftists? The ACLU? MoveOn.org? Hollywood Liberals for a Blue Texas? No, no, and no (in fact, that last one doesn’t actually exist). Turns out, the group in question was the Texas Association of Business.
The TAB, as it’s commonly known, is Texas’s largest business organization, serving the role of chamber of commerce for the state. It represents more than 4,300 employers of varying sizes, though it’s often seen as fronting the interests of big business. Ordinarily, you wouldn’t think of a business association as “liberal” or “in the tank for bigger government.” In fact, the TAB has long lobbied for lower taxes and less regulation and was essential for the Republican takeover of Texas. But with the GOP drifting rightward, the association has increasingly found itself at odds with Republican orthodoxy on education (well-funded schools boost the economy and attract skilled workers), immigration (undocumented immigrants provide cheap labor), and civil rights issues (equality is now a corporate priority).
The most recent source of acrimony—and the reason for the barbs from Empower Texans and Shaheen—is the business lobby’s opposition to the so-called bathroom bill, which would require transgender Texans to use bathrooms in public buildings that correspond to their gender at birth, not the gender that they identify as. There was a time when big businesses wouldn’t have cared about such an issue, but those days are long gone. Most corporations want to be seen as progressive and inclusive, and legislation that singles out a minority doesn’t jibe with that image. Or, as TAB president Chris Wallace put it in a statement opposing the bill, “Discriminatory legislation is bad for business.”
Indeed it is. North Carolina enacted a similar measure in 2016, and the blowback has been severe: the state lost sporting events, concerts, and conferences, and PayPal canceled plans for an operations center in Charlotte. An analysis by the Associated Press found that the law could have cost North Carolina $3.7 billion in business investment in the next decade. All of which led lawmakers to recently vote to partially repeal it.
So when Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick began pushing for a Texas version of the bathroom bill, the business lobby, having seen what happened in North Carolina, mobilized. The TAB formed a coalition to fight the bill that included a who’s who of the corporate world: PayPal, Amazon, Apple, IBM, Google, Microsoft, Dell, Intel, Hilton, Marriott, La Quinta, Capitol One, Visa, United Airlines, American Airlines, and Dow Chemical.
In decades past, that roster of opposition would have made any bill a nonstarter at the Texas Capitol. Such was the power that big-business Republicans exerted. They formed an uneasy alliance with the social conservative wing of the party, which proved useful for winning elections. But there was never any confusion about who was in control. Big business had the money and the influence. Certain right-wing bills could pass as long as they didn’t hurt anyone’s bottom line, but any legislation that the business lobby deemed too radical would usually die quietly in committee. In recent years, especially since the emergence of the tea party, the pro-business domination of Republican politics has been steadily slipping away.
That’s partly because candidates are no longer so reliant on money from the business lobby to win elections. In the past fifteen years, a number of wealthy individuals and advocacy groups, driven more by conservative ideology than business interests, have stepped forward to fund campaigns (see the aforementioned Empower Texans). Meanwhile, the rise of social media and the right-wing blogosphere have made candidates far less reliant on campaign ads. It’s easier and cheaper now to get your message to the party’s grass roots through Facebook and Breitbart than with campaign mailers paid for by some business PAC.
If you can reach the party faithful, you’re in good shape. That’s because the pathway to power in Texas now runs through Republican primaries. With Democrats offering little resistance in general elections, most major races are decided by GOP primary voters. And simply put, they haven’t shown as much affinity for pro-business pitches as they have for socially conservative ones.
As the GOP has slid to the right, fueled by distrust of the Obama administration and the ever-more-outlandish rhetoric emanating from right-leaning media, interest groups, and politicians, a simple formula has emerged: the winning candidate is frequently the one that sounds the most extreme and uncompromising. The examples are too numerous to list, but the headliner is the 2012 U.S. Senate race, in which Ted Cruz upset David Dewhurst, a more moderate, business-friendly Republican. Two years later, four established Republicans vied to be lieutenant governor, and tellingly, the least moderate and least business-friendly among them—Dan Patrick—easily won the party’s nomination and then cruised to victory in November.
In these races, when corporate priorities have conflicted with right-wing ideology on immigration, education, health care, or civil rights, there’s no doubt which side the GOP grass roots has favored. So when the business lobby declared war on the bathroom bill, Patrick and his social-conservative allies declared war right back.
“Texas Legislators Duped on Bathroom Bill by Lefty Progressive Donor” was the headline on the Breitbart Texas story about TAB president Wallace’s past contributions to Democrats (his contributions to Republicans weren’t mentioned). For another story, Republican state representative Briscoe Cain, of Deer Park, told Breitbart, “Well, now the phony pro-business group in Texas has finally showed its true colors.”
The bathroom bill passed the Texas Senate but has stalled in the House, where it appeared likely to perish thanks to Speaker Joe Straus. With Governor Greg Abbott conspicuously absent from the conversation and unwilling to challenge the more radical elements within his party, it has fallen to Straus to be the bulwark against the far right. As the last moderating force in Texas politics, Straus has held back key planks of Patrick’s agenda, and the lieutenant governor has reciprocated by scuttling some proposals that the business lobby wants.
At the moment, the Legislature—and the Republican party, for that matter—has settled into an uneasy stalemate between Patrick’s right-leaning Senate and Straus’s more moderate coalition in the House. But, as they say, stalemates are made to be broken, and right now, Patrick’s faction seems likely to prevail eventually. It has the support of the most-devoted Republican primary voters, many of whom view moderation or compromise as surrender.
So business leaders and their Republican allies are in a precarious position. They still have a power base in the House, because Straus and his leadership team have fended off several challenges from the right, but he won’t be speaker forever. This session is his fifth leading the House, tying the record for longest-serving speaker with Pete Laney and Gib Lewis. Whenever he departs, Straus could well be replaced by a more conservative figure. So the talk among business Republicans in Austin’s bars and restaurants these days is about how they can reverse their losses and reclaim their party.
Well, good luck with that. The Republican grass roots aren’t going to moderate themselves, and it seems likely that business-friendly Republicans will continue to lose primaries, especially in statewide races. As long as that dynamic remains, the Republican party won’t be tilting back toward the middle anytime soon.
But there is another political party. Remember that one? It’s been stripped down and left to rust for the past two decades. But the Texas Democratic party is still there, waiting for someone to gas it up and take it for a spin.
That’s just what big-business interests should do. The TAB and any number of influential corporations could easily take over the party by recruiting and funding candidates to run as Democrats. It would be a homecoming of sorts; after all, years ago, before the state flipped to the GOP, business-friendly Republicans were conservative Democrats.
The problem with this idea is that Democrats can’t win in Texas at the moment. Sure, big business could take over the Democratic party, but what good would it do? Except the goal here isn’t to suddenly flip the state back to the Democrats. No, the goal would simply be to make Democrats somewhat more competitive, especially in statewide races. They don’t necessarily have to win, just get close enough to scare Republicans and perhaps nudge the GOP back toward moderation.
Republican primaries might turn out differently if there was the threat of a tight race in the general election—and that threat could be more credible in 2018 than it has been in years, with many pundits expecting the national mood to favor Democrats by then. Would Abbott strike a more moderate tone if he knew a well-funded pro-business Democrat was waiting for him in the 2018 general? Part of the business lobby’s problem with Patrick is that it has no way to threaten him. He’s untouchable in a Republican primary, and his general election campaigns have been cakewalks. But if, say, a conservative Democrat, backed by big-business money, opposed him in 2018, that might lead Patrick to moderate just a bit. Similarly, if the GOP once again nominated social conservatives with questionable credentials—like Attorney General Ken Paxton, currently under indictment, or Sid Miller, the agriculture commissioner famous for traveling out of state for his “Jesus shot”—for statewide offices, they’d at least have a challenging race in the fall. And just maybe the specter of a formidable Democratic opponent would lead to a more robust debate within the Republican party, rather than simply a mass rush to the right.
Business interests should still compete in GOP primaries, of course. But close general elections usually breed moderation, which Texas politics desperately needs. A little less extremism would benefit business interests, both parties, and our public debate. This may seem like a paradox, but if big-business Republicans want to moderate their party, they should defibrillate the lifeless Democrats. |
Running up debt, like partying hard on Saturday night, can be great fun. But a late night with lots of cocktails makes for a miserable Sunday morning. Over the past few years, though, the United States government has been able to binge freely without suffering hangovers. That is about to change, with a vengeance.
Since 2007, when the Great Recession hit, the federal budget has been even more out of balance than it was in the preceding years. In the years since, the national debt — that is, the amount taxpayers owe — more than doubled, to nearly $20 trillion.
After soaring in 2008 and 2009, the annual budget deficit declined, but never fell as low as it was in 2007. And it's not falling anymore: In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, it was $538 billion, up by $100 billion over 2015. Don't expect a turnaround. The aging of the baby boomer generation will push up costs for Social Security and Medicare for years to come.
Fiscal excess is not a free luxury, of course. Debt has to be repaid, with interest. But the nation's taxpayers have gotten off pretty easy. Interest rates have been blissfully low since the economy crashed, largely due to the Federal Reserve's policies. In 2015, the government's interest expense amounted to just 1.24 percent of gross domestic product — the smallest share since 1973.
But like a teaser rate on a credit card, the rates the Treasury has to pay to finance the debt won't stay low for long. As the economy continues to grow and the Federal Reserve moves to raise rates, interest will get much more expensive. The hangover will finally hit.
"The government's net interest costs are projected to more than double as a share of the economy over the next decade — from 1.4 percent of GDP in 2016 to 3.0 percent by 2026," the Congressional Budget Office reported in August. "By 2046, if current laws governing taxes and spending generally did not change, those costs would reach 5.8 percent of GDP — increasing from 6 percent of federal spending to 21 percent over the next 30 years."
Interest costs — arguably our least productive spending — promise to become the fastest-growing item in the budget. That's if deficits remain on the trajectory established by existing policies. In reality, though, they are likely to get even bigger, as a result of Donald Trump's expensive agenda.
The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the spending increases and tax cuts he wants would fatten total deficits by $5.2 trillion by 2026. "That would lead directly to an $800 billion increase in interest costs over a decade, including over $150 billion in (fiscal year) 2026 alone," it predicts.
That's not all. Growing budget deficits tend to push up interest rates. That raises the cost of financing the debt, which increases federal spending, which expands the budget deficit even more — and so on, in a vicious circle. The CRFB warns that federal interest costs "could quadruple or even quintuple" if Trump's plans come to fruition. Last year's $241 billion toll could top $1 trillion a year in 2026.
All this is merely the latest reminder that the federal government can't keep the fiscal party going forever. Sooner or later, the load on taxpayers will become too heavy and the squeeze on other priorities will grow too painful. Investors worldwide will wonder about Washington's ability to meet its obligations. The temptation for Washington to inflate away a portion of the debt will be keen.
So congressional Republicans — and Democrats — have a duty to get serious and finally take the sensible steps needed to bring down deficits and debt. Otherwise, the nation can expect a pounding headache that never stops.
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Once again, military officials are trying to move the goalposts on the Afghanistan war.
In his December 1, 2009 speech at West Point, President Obama was crystal clear: American troops would begin to withdraw from Afghanistan in July 2011:
But taken together, these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.
Yet, at a January 21, 2010 event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, General Petraeus tried to move the goalposts, asserting that in August 2011 U.S. forces would begin to transfer tasks to Afghan forces, a clear rollback of the President's statement that U.S. troops would begin to withdraw by July 2011.
You can see this sort of fudging in the Defense Department's article on the CSIS event:
he training and fielding of increased numbers of capable Afghan soldiers and police also plays a big role in McChrystal's counterinsurgency plan, as U.S. forces are slated to begin transferring security responsibilities to Afghan security forces in July 2011, dependent upon conditions on the ground.
"Transferring security responsibilities" is not the same as "transferring our troops out of Afghanistan." This subtle attempt to reset public expectations is something that must be stamped out. The president was clear that our forces would begin coming home in July 2011. Only the pace was open for discussion based on his West Point remarks.
To meet the President's stated policy of withdrawing troops in July 2011, such a transfer of tasks must begin before July 2011. Without a concrete exit plan, policymakers and military leaders will continue to move the goalposts on the Afghanistan war. Sign Rethink Afghanistan's petition asking the President to provide a concrete exit plan in his State of the Union address.
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