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ISIS, which has never claimed an attack that they weren’t actually involved in, has tripled down on its claim that the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay Massacre was a Jihad carried out by Stephen Paddock – who they say converted to Islam six months ago.
In the most recent edition of its Naba newsletter (ISIS has a newsletter), the Islamic State features infographs and specific claims that Paddock – who they say adopted the Muslim name Abu Abdul Barr al-Amriki (or Abu Abdul Barr “The American”).
In Naba 100 #ISIS featured an infographic on #LasVegas attack & indicated the shooter, "Abu Abdul Barr al-Amriki," converted 6 months ago pic.twitter.com/5JhMFbU2Se — SITE Intel Group (@siteintelgroup) October 5, 2017
A translation reads:
Las Vegas Invasion Monday, 12 Muharram 1439H A soldier from the soldiers of the Caliphate targeted a large gathering of 22,000 Americans at a concert in the city of Las Vegas, including nearly 600 killed and wounded The executor of the operation, Abu Abdul Barr al-Amriki [al-Amriki = “The American”], 64-years old, converted to Islam 6 months ago Method of Execution The brother Abu Abdul Barr stationed himself for the invasion on the 32nd floor of a hotel overlooking a concert, and opened fire continuously on the crowds using 23 guns and more than 2000 rounds, and died, may Allah accept him, after exhausting his ammunition Results of the Operation 59 killed 527 wounded Panic and confusion of security in America and a number of European countries
ZeroHedge reports that “Minutes after the newsletter was issued, counter-terror analysts focused on the specificity of that particular new information. Thus far investigators have failed to uncover or make public a motive for the mass attack which left 59 dead and over 500 wounded in the deadliest shooting in American history.”
Assuming that FBI and police investigators are truly coming up short on motive or ties to terrorism, a main perplexing oddity that stands out is the clearly immense amount of prepping and planning that went into the attack combined with the seemingly non-existent public messaging left behind by the shooter. According to Max Abrams, counter-terror expert and professor of international relations at Northeastern University, little about the attack currently makes sense, as inexplicably “the killer went to very elaborate efforts to kill the maximum number of strangers for no apparent reason.”
Although ISIS has repeatedly claimed credit for the shooting in the days after the attack, both his brother and authorities have dismissed the possibility. He had “no religious affiliation, no political affiliation,” Eric Paddock said in an interview, adding: “He just hung out.”
Yet ISIS’ latest claims in its Naba newsletter are giving pause to some analysts who have been monitoring the group’s multiple publications since their foundations.
All said, however, there is still zero actual evidence as to Paddock’s motive.
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Andy Reid will not be coaching in his native Southern California, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Schefter reported that Reid -- who is expected to be fired by the Eagles -- is planning to coach in 2013, but the Chargers are not expected to pursue him. The Chargers are expected to fire Norv Turner soon.
I don’t have a problem with the Chargers not being interested in Reid. Last year, I actually thought it was a fit. But Reid seems tired and the Chargers need a burst of energy. I think San Diego might be better off identifying a younger coach who has big potential.
This is an important hire and I'm not sure Reid is the right guy for the Chargers at this time.
Meanwhile, NFL Network reported San Diego owner Dean Spanos is handing the reins to his son, John Spanos, as the day-to-day operator of the team. That has not been expected. John Spanos has long been considered a key part of the organization.
The Spanos family will be busy. Turner and general manager A.J. Smith are expected to be fired. The team is expected to hire a general manager (in-house candidate Jimmy Raye is considered a favorite) and then the team will hire a coach.
In other AFC West news:
The Chiefs put receiver Terrence Copper on injured reserve and promoted receiver Junior Hemingway from the practice squad. |
The real-life hero of this summer’s blockbuster movie Dunkirk, which portrays the valiant effort of naval officers and civilians to evacuate more than 300,000 Allied soldiers trapped by the Germans during the Second World War, was a Canadian who grew up in Montreal and attended McGill University.
Yet the name of James Campbell Clouston, who is credited with saving close to 200,000 soldiers as German planes bombed and strafed the pier while he calmly ushered troops onto ships for five days, is never mentioned in the film and remains largely unknown in Canada.
“He’s one of those great unsung Canadians who, in a pivotal moment in time, does extraordinary things, dies, and then goes completely forgotten,” said University of Ottawa history professor Serge Durflinger.
Clouston’s son has protested the lack of acknowledgement, saying the character played by Kenneth Branagh should have had a Canadian accent, and that his father warranted at least a mention in the credits.
Now, a group of Canadians are rallying to promote his memory. Michael Zavacky, a former Montrealer living in Ottawa, has been lobbying the Canadian government for recognition and for Canada Post to issue a commemorative stamp. War historian Jeffrey Street, who wrote and co-produced the 1990 CBC documentary We Shall Fight on the Beaches! chronicling the Dunkirk evacuation, is writing a book about Clouston.
“This man is from Montreal, he is one of us,” Zavacky said. “I find it sad and kind of tragic that someone who performed this type of valour, who was brave and saved lives, for some reason has just slipped under the radar.”
***
Clouston grew up in Pointe-Claire across the street from the yacht club, an avid hockey player who attended Selwyn House and Lower Canada College before enrolling in engineering at McGill University. At the age of 17, he enlisted to join Britain’s Royal Navy in 1917, hoping to serve in the First World War. He spent the next 23 years with the navy, rising to the rank of commander.
In the last week of May 1940, the bulk of the British Expeditionary Force and their French and Belgian allies, 338,000 men, found themselves encircled by the German army, trapped at Dunkirk in northern France. Prime Minister Winston Churchill authorized Operation Dynamo to rescue them. Early estimates predicted only 50,000 men would be saved from death or capture.
Clouston was among eight men chosen to oversee the evacuation. He was given the responsibility for a ramshackle pier extending one-kilometre out into the English Channel on which only four men could stand abreast, which would prove pivotal to the evacuation. He arrived to find hundreds of thousands of hungry, exhausted troops and only 50 men an hour being evacuated. Through organizational brilliance and force of will, Clouston was able to increase the rate to 2,000 an hour, shuttling the men along the 10-foot wide pier, mainly to naval vessel destroyers that would bring them across the channel to safety in Britain.
“Like clockwork, he would have 500 guys aboard in 45 minutes, and the vessel would take off,” Durflinger recounted. “He had six to seven vessels lined up doing this all at the same time.”
In his book The Miracle at Dunkirk, historian Walter Lord described Clouston as “a Canadian – big, tough, athletic, amusing.”
Veterans interviewed for the CBC documentary remembered him as a beacon of calm amid the terror, as German planes targeted the troops.
“He was like a policemen … on a busy intersection, just guiding people,” recalled one. “And all the time the Stuka bombers were going over and scaring everybody to death and then they would give you a couple bursts of gunfire, but he just never moved, he just stood there, and he was jollying everyone along.”
After five straight days on the pier, Clouston went to England for a planning meeting. He could have stayed, but chose to return because close to 100,000 French troops remained, and Clouston spoke French because of his Montreal upbringing. His 15-person motor launch was bombed on the way back, and he opted to stay with his crew instead of taking an early offer to be saved. He died along with 12 other crewmen of hypothermia, telling “white lies” to the end to keep up spirits, one survivor recounted. He left a wife and two infant sons.
***
Emma Thomas, one of the producers of Dunkirk and wife of director Nolan, responded in a letter to Clouston’s son, Dane, that they did not use historical names because the film is a fictionalized version, and Branagh’s character was inspired by the stories of several different men.
“I was very disappointed when the filmmakers were adamant that they were not going to mention his name, even in the credits,” Dane Clouston, 78, wrote in an email. As the only person who served as pier-master, his father’s role was clear, he said.
Zavacky’s request for a commemorative stamp was denied but he is determined to continue, especially after travelling to Dunkirk last summer and meeting Dane Clouston. He will be writing the Canadian government and Veterans Affairs to lobby for some form of commemoration or perhaps a posthumous medal.
“Almost all the veterans interviewed said this one figure played a key role, but none of them knew his name,” Zavacky said. “It was the pier-master who saved our lives’ they said. It’s like the curse of Clouston. It almost seems like history has treated him the same way, like he’s the unknown hero. And to me, that’s the fight we’re fighting.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if his son, before he passes away, could see the recognition his father is due?”
rbruemmer@postmedia.com
twitter.com/renebruemmer |
Juventus have confirmed Mauricio Isla is poised to join Queens Park Rangers and is set to undergo a medical on Sunday.
As revealed by Sky Sports on Friday, QPR have lined up a loan deal for Chile international right-back Isla as Harry Redknapp looks to add to his squad.
Isla impressed for Chile at the World Cup, but the 26-year-old is well down the pecking order at Juventus and struggled to hold down a regular place in the side last season.
Juventus are happy to send Isla out on loan with a view to a permenant deal with the club's general director, Giuseppe Marotta, confirming a deal had been agreed with QPR.
"Tomorrow Isla will have his medical in England, as a deal has been reached with QPR," said Marotta.
"We have already reached an agreement with the English club and the player has given his availability, it will be a loan with right of a permanent deal."
Marotta confirmed Juventus are in the market for a new defender as well as a striker and he refused to rule out a move for Manchester City's Serbia international Matija Nastasic, 21, to fill the centre-back role.
"Now we are looking for a striker and a centre-back," added Marotta.
"Nastasic? We'll see if it will be him or someone else." |
British telecoms giant BT must open up its huge network of fiber and copper cables to competitors according to Ofcom, the regulatory body for the country's telecommunications industry. The advice is the result of a review into BT's management of its "Openreach" network, the 76 million miles of cables that connect British homes to telephone exchanges, regularly called "the last mile." Openreach will also be subject to more stringent guidelines that aim to see it repairing faults and installing new lines faster, and the network will have to compensate customers when their connections go down.
BT will open up its tunnels and telegraph poles
As a part of the body's new strategy, BT will have to open up its Openreach tunnels and telegraph poles, allowing competitors to lay their own wires and build their own network to "increase competitive pressure on the network." Ofcom introduced a new structure in 2005 that meant competitors such as Sky, EE, and TalkTalk became able pay BT to use its existing cables, allowing them to offer their own services using BT's network, but the body said today that BT is still acting in an anti-competitive manner. "Openreach is part of BT Group, but has obligations to treat all its customers equally," the findings read. "However, the evidence from Ofcom's review shows Openreach still has an incentive to make decisions in the interests of BT, rather than BT's competitors, which can lead to competition problems."
As a result, Ofcom says it's necessary for BT to separate further from BT, making its own decisions on budget, investment, and strategy to ensure it serves all of its customers equally, rather than prioritizing BT's plans. So too must the network have greater transparency, showing how costs are allocated between BT and its Openreach network. Ofcom hasn't detailed how exactly it will separate the two elements yet, but says that Openreach might become a subsidiary inside BT, given its own board members. The body also says it might still split the network into its own entity, entirely apart from BT, where it would presumably be free of its parent company's influence.
Ofcom reserves the right to completely split Openreach off from BT later on
Ofcom will also start ranking providers, acting as an independent watchdog for the "new universal right to fast, affordable broadband for every household and business in the UK." Combined with the other conclusions from the strategic review, the body says it will promote the installation of "ultrafast" broadband networks like those currently being laid down by Google Fiber, rather than copper-based connections BT had planned to put down.
For BT, Ofcom's findings are damaging, but they could still be worse — the Guardian says if BT loses Openreach entirely, as Ofcom is threatening, then it loses the £5 billion (about $6.96 billion) in revenue it provided last year. For its competitors, it's an opportunity to snatch up some of a sector traditionally dominated by the company that was once a British government department, but it might be even better for consumers, who stand to benefit from increased competition and faster connections. |
Three Bombardier trains, the original workhorses of the Trillium Line, are on the auction block.
The City of Ottawa put the Bombardier Talent trains on the market just before Christmas, now that OC Transpo is comfortably operating six new Alstom Coradia Lint trains on the Trillium Line.
The Bombardier trains, whose parts were manufactured in Germany, were the first vehicles on the Trillium Line when the eight-kilometre municipal rail service opened in October 2001 as a pilot project. The fare for a trip was $2.25 when revenue service started in January 2002.
(The Trillium Line was known as the O-Train until the city changed the branding in preparation for the Confederation Line LRT, which, with the Trillium Line, will form the O-Train network starting in 2018).
The three Bombardier trains originally cost $17 million, but the city leased them for $5 million through the pilot period until it decided to stick with operating the Trillium Line.
Two of the trains ran on the line and a third was used as backup. In 2011, the city wanted to buy an additional used Bombardier Talent train to beef up service reliability, but there was no used Talent available to purchase.
Transpo bought the six Alstom trains as part of the Trillium Line expansion in March 2015. The Bombardier trains have received “standstill maintenance” from the manufacturer since being retired from service.
The city mulled over the idea of keeping the Bombardier trains when councillors in 2012 were looking for a way to quickly extend the Trillium Line to Riverside South.
In 2014, the city announced its $3-billion second stage of rail expansion, which includes the southern Trillium Line extension. The blueprint sealed the fate of the old Bombardier trains. The Stage 2 extension of the Trillium Line is scheduled to be done by 2023 and would include new trains.
Transpo has determined the Bombardier and Alstom trains can’t run together on the Trillium Line.
The department could use the money from the Bombardier train sales to fund new projects on its transit system.
Transpo won’t know how much money it can get for the trains until the offers roll in.
“Any revenue resulting from the sale of the (Bombardier) Talent trains would be returned to the capital reserve,” according to Troy Charter, Transpo’s director of transit operations.
jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWilling |
Former astronaut Julie Payette will be the Queen's new representative in Canada, CBC News has confirmed.
The 53-year-old Montrealer, who speaks six languages, will be named the 29th governor general, a position that comes with a $290,660 annual salary and an official residence at Rideau Hall.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will make the announcement Thursday.
CBC News caught up with Payette at a downtown Ottawa hotel before a source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the news.
"Oh my goodness, you know a lot more than I do," Payette told the CBC's Katie Simpson, before walking past without further comment.
Payette, who is also an accomplished athlete, pianist and choral singer, will succeed outgoing Gov. Gen. David Johnston.
Former astronaut and soon to be governor general, Julie Payette, arrives at an Ottawa hotel where she is questioned by CBC about her appointment. 0:12
A computer engineer with a commercial pilot licence, Payette was picked from among 5,330 applicants in 1992 to be one of four new astronauts with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
She participated in two space flights to the International Space Station and served as the CSA's chief astronaut between 2000 and 2007.
Payette is active on a number of causes and has served as a board member for Drug Free Kids Canada as well as being listed as a National Champion of the Trans Canada Trail.
Former Conservative cabinet minister James Moore tweeted that Payette was "a great choice to serve as Canada's next governor general."
If <a href="https://twitter.com/Astro_Payette">@Astro_Payette</a> is our next Governor General - I am beyond happy. Smart and accomplished. Trailblazer <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MyGG?src=hash">#MyGG</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/cdnpoli?src=hash">#cdnpoli</a> —@lraitt
Congratulations to the new governor general Julie Payette. —@DrRobbieO
Roberta Bondar, Canada's first female astronaut, said Payette is perfect for the position and will bring a lot of charm to the role.
"I think she's really going to be a great asset," Bondar told CBC. "It will just be so interesting to see her bring her view of the world and of Canada, seeing [the world] from space provides one with a different type of insight. I'm really looking forward to it."
Bondar said she is not concerned that Payette does not have a background in constitutional law because Payette will have advisers that can help guide her along the way.
"She was on the International Space Station as the first Canadian. She did two space shuttle flights in front of an international audience of television — I don't think she is going to have a problem."
Roberta Bondar, Canada's first female astronaut, says Julie Payette's lack of constitutional law expertise will not hold her back as governor general of Canada. 0:35
The governor general is appointed by the Queen on the advice of the prime minister. Trudeau visited the Queen during a visit to Scotland last week en route to the G20 summit in Germany.
The governor general's tenure is "at pleasure," but a term usually lasts about five years. Johnston, who was appointed in 2010 on the advice of former prime minister Stephen Harper, had his term extended in 2015 until this coming September. Harper said at the time the extended term would "cover many of the events celebrating Canada's 150th anniversary of Confederation."
Johnston is currently on a visit to China, and is expected to have an audience with the Queen next week when he travels to the U.K. for Canada 150 events, likely marking the last time he will sit face-to-face with the monarch he represents.
In his farewell speech on Canada Day, Johnston said he has learned much in his seven years on the job.
"These are challenging but exciting times," he said.
"And together we can show the world what a great country looks like. To me it looks like Canada, a country that strives, always, to be smarter and more caring — to do better, together."
The Queen's representative
Acting as the Queen's representative in Canada, the governor general also serves as commander-in-chief of the Canadian Armed Forces and represents Canada at events, ceremonies and official visits at home and abroad.
The role of governor general has in recent decades alternated between francophones and anglophones.
One of the governor general's most important responsibilities is to ensure that Canada always has a prime minister and a stable government in place that has the confidence of a functioning Parliament.
Other duties include: |
Ubisoft Motion Pictures, the film and television studio of the Ubisoft game publishing company, announced that a film adaptation of “The Division” is in the works with Academy Award nominees Jessica Chastain (The Martian, Interstellar, The Help, Zero Dark Thirty) and Jake Gyllenhaal (End of Watch, Nightcrawler, Southpaw) attached.
“We are excited to collaborate with Jessica and Jake, two of Hollywood’s most talented actors and perfect creative collaborators to help bring Tom Clancy’s The Division to the big screen,” said Gerard Guillemot, Chief Executive Officer, Ubisoft Motion Pictures. “Attaching Jake and Jessica is part of our development philosophy of working closely with top talent from the earliest stages to collaborate on a high quality film,” added Matt Phelps, Vice President, Ubisoft Motion Pictures.
Ubisoft Motion Pictures will develop the project with Gyllenhaal’s and Riva Marker’s (Beasts of No Nation) Nine Stories Productions, and Chastain’s Freckle Films. The announcement comes after the critically-acclaimed Tom Clancy’s The Division video game, developed by Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment studio, sold more copies in its first 24 hours of availability than any previous title in Ubisoft’s history and recorded the biggest first week ever for a new video game franchise.
Gyllenhaal can next be seen starring opposite Amy Adams in Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals, scheduled to open November 18th 2016. He recently completed filming on Bong Joon Ho’s Okja and begins filming on Daniel Espinosa’s Life this week. Through Nine Stories, Gyllenhaal produced David Gordon Green’s upcoming Stronger, in which he also stars.
Chastain will next be seen in John Madden’s political thriller Miss Sloane, and Niki Caro’s adaptation of Diane Ackerman’s novel The Zookeeper’s Wife, opposite Daniel Bruhl. She is also set to star in Aaron Sorkin’s film adaptation of Molly Bloom’s memoir Molly’s Game alongside Idris Elba and Susanna White’s period drama Woman Walks Ahead.
Ubisoft Motion Pictures and New Regency’s Assassin’s Creed, starring Academy Award nominee Michael Fassbender, has recently completed principal photography. Assassin’s Creed will be released by 20th Century Fox on December 21st 2016. Other Ubisoft Motion Pictures projects currently in development include: Splinter Cell at New Regency with Tom Hardy attached, Ghost Recon with Warner Brothers, Watch Dogs with Sony Pictures Entertainment and New Regency, as well as Rabbids with Sony Pictures Entertainment. |
Finance Minister Michael Noonan has confirmed he was lobbied by the foster home at the centre of the 'Grace' abuse scandal.
Finance Minister Michael Noonan has confirmed he was lobbied by the foster home at the centre of the 'Grace' abuse scandal.
Noonan: I have no memory of lobbying by foster home
However, Mr Noonan insisted he had "no clear memory" of the letters he received from the home's operators in 1996 when he was health minister.
According to a whistleblower dossier seen by the Irish Independent, the foster home operators sought support from the Department of Health after the local health board decided to stop sending children there over fears of abuse.
One of the letters was referred to the then junior health minister with responsibility for children, Austin Currie.
The period in question is particularly controversial, as despite the fact further referrals to the home were ended, one young girl with a profound learning disability was allowed to remain there.
At the time it was decided the woman, known as Grace, would be removed.
But for reasons never revealed, this decision was reversed and she remained there until 2009. It is feared she suffered from horrific sexual abuse during that period.
According to the whistleblower, who had access to health service files, both Mr Noonan and Mr Currie corresponded with the health board.
However, there is absolutely no suggestion they intervened on behalf of the foster home.
In a statement, the department said two individual representations were sent to Mr Noonan seeking that Grace should remain in the foster home, one of which was passed to Mr Currie.
"Information was requested from the health board which had statutory responsibility for the matter," it said.
"Neither minister sought to direct or influence the decision of the health board in any way."
Earlier this week, the department's assistant secretary for social care, Frances Spillane, said the reply issued to the representations "indicated very clearly that this was a matter for the South Eastern Health Board".
Asked about the letters on RTÉ Radio One, Mr Noonan said: "I have no clear memory of it, but I did check the position with the Department of Health.
"Seemingly two letters arrived. One to me and one to the junior minister at health, Austin Currie."
Mr Noonan said his officials contacted the health board.
"My understanding of it was the person would be removed from foster care. But subsequently information came through that there was some kind of appeal and that didn't happen," he said.
"Then after that because it was a question of the possible abuse of a child, the matter was given to the minister of state who had responsibility for children. I am not sure what happened after that."
Mr Currie was not available for comment yesterday, but it is understood he had no recollection of receiving a letter.
Backlog of 177 cases of child abuse at Tusla
Eilish O'Regan
A backlog of 177 cases of retrospective child abuse were found by inspectors who examined social services in the Dublin south-east and Wicklow areas last August.
The Hiqa inspectors, who examined services by Tusla - the child and family agency - warned this posed a significant risk.
They found there were significant staff shortages in the service.
Hiqa said that when retrospective disclosure of abuse was received, it was screened. If a specific child or children were identified, the allegation was assessed but if no particular child was found as being at risk, the file was transferred to the child protection team.
It was then either allocated for assessment and follow-up or placed on a waiting list. Cases on the waiting list were reviewed every three months.
A high number of referrals not yet allocated remained on a waiting list.
This meant these cases had not been assessed and the potential risk to children who may have contact with the alleged perpetrators was a cause of concern, Hiqa said.
Irish Independent |
The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh is one of those iconic painting everyone recognizes. But not everyone knows it’s story! Today we will try to answer all your questions regarding The Starry Night.
“This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise, with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big,” wrote van Gogh to his brother Theo, describing his inspiration for the painting. The window was in the Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy, in southern France, where he sought respite from his emotional suffering.
Interesting that van Gogh never considered “The Starry Night” to be a good painting. He wrote to Theo, “All in all the only things I consider a little good in it are the Wheatfield, the Mountain, the Orchard, the Olive trees with the blue hills and the Portrait and the Entrance to the quarry, and the rest says nothing to me.”
Van Gogh depicted the view at different times of day and under various weather conditions, including sunrise, moonrise, sunshine-filled days, overcast days, windy days, and one day with rain. The hospital staff did not allow Van Gogh to paint in his bedroom, but he was able to make sketches in ink or charcoal on paper, and eventually he would base newer variations on previous versions. The Starry Night is the only nocturne in the series of views from his bedroom window.
The Starry Night is based on van Gogh’s direct observations as well as his imagination, memories, and emotions. The steeple of the church, for example, resembles those common in his native Holland, not in France. The whirling forms in the sky, on the other hand, match published astronomical observations of clouds of dust and gas known as nebulae. The hallucinatory character of the painting and its violently expressive form created its eternal legend.
The dark spires in the foreground are cypress trees, plants most often associated with cemeteries and death. This gives a special significance to this van Gogh quote, “Looking at the stars always makes me dream. Why, I ask myself, shouldn’t the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? Just as we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star.”
A year before creating this painting van Gogh created his original Starry Night, sometimes known as Starry Night Over The Rhone.
Find out more: |
A crowded in-store beer station at a Kroger-owned Fry’s Food Store in Arizona. (Photo: Provided)
Kroger is tapping in-store beer stations and tastings in the supermarket chain’s latest push to drive customer traffic.
This fall, customers will be able to buy or bring in their own growlers to fill with craft beers fresh from in-store taps at the new Kroger Marketplace in Oakley as well as the Harper’s Point Kroger store in Montgomery. The stores will establish busy schedules of weekday and weekend tastings for craft beer aficionado as well as the curious and thirsty.
More stores in the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky-Dayton market are also on tap to get the taps, including the Corryville replacement store next year and the Anderson Township Marketplace by 2017 as part of a remodel. Kroger also plans to serve wine at the beer taps stations.
The beer offerings are part of a national push to court beer lovers. Kroger has had beer stations in Arizona stores for years and more recently in Columbus and Atlanta.
But now in 2015, Kroger has rapidly expanded beer stations to selected stores in: Lexington, Kentucky; Memphis, Tennessee; Little Rock, Arkansas; Richmond, Virginia; and Los Alamos, New Mexico. It has also added them to stores in the Pacific Northwest at its Fred Meyer and QFC chains.
“Wine and growler bars are a natural evolution for our adult beverage departments – by adding growlers, we are able to introduce our customers to new and emerging breweries that are only available on draft,” said Jason Milburn, Kroger’s national beer coordinator.
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Milburn said says the beer taps helps elevate Kroger and put it on discerning customers’ radar for quality offerings.
“It gives our customers a great experience in store and offers them more variety, hard to find beer items, and the ability to support local breweries in an entirely new way,” Milburn said.
Kroger will also sell and fill 32-ounce and 64-ounce growlers for most beers made available. Some of the harder to find beers will only be offered in 32-ounce fills. Flights for tastings will also be available for purchase.
Craft beers on tap at a Columbus Kroger beer station. (Photo: Provided)
The cost of each keg varies and we will be competitively priced.
As part of the new Oakley Marketplace’s opening festivities, Kroger will hold a MadTree Tap Takeover scheduled for Sept.10, from 4 to 8 p.m. and Sept. 12 from 1 to 6 p.m. Six MadTree beers will be featured for growler fills, pint sales, or tastings.
“The brewing heritage and culture is deeply rooted in Cincinnati going back to the pre-Prohibition days, when Christian Moerlein was one of the largest breweries in the country,” said Nate Wolejsza, Kroger’s beer category manager for Cincinnati and Nashville. “Local breweries like MadTree, Rhinegeist, Rivertown, and Mount Carmel have helped put Cincinnati back on the map as one of the fastest growing craft beer towns in the country.”
Higher quality and a broadening selection of beer is the latest example of Kroger’s Customer 1st strategy.
Kroger launched the plan in 2003 amid rising competition from non-traditional rivals led by Walmart. While other supermarkets nearly bankrupted themselves trying to undercut Walmart’s prices, Kroger lowered prices but also expanded product offerings.
Kroger has since grown market share for 11 1/2 years straight with 46 consecutive quarters of identical supermarket sales growth excluding fuel, an industry metric that tracks growth excluding new or closed stores.
Read or Share this story: http://cin.ci/1EucbwP |
FAIZABAD/NEW DELHI: Ram Vilas Vedanti , a former BJP MP and an accused in the Babri mosque demolition case, today claimed it was he and not the BJP patriarch L K Advani who incited the frenzied karsevaks to pull down the disputed shrine."I demolished and got demolished the disputed structure, the ruin that stood there. The accusations against L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia are wrong," he said.Vedanti's remarks came two days after the Supreme Court resurrected the conspiracy charge against Advani, Joshi and union minister Uma Bharti in the Babri Masjid demolition case.Vedanti said, in fact, Advani, Joshi and Scindia even took the microphone from him and tried to persuade the karsevaks to come down from atop the structure and leave. They even made the plea in English, he later told a TV news channel.Vedanti said he, Mahant Avaidyanath, also a former BJP MP, and VHP leader Ashok Singhal exhorted the karsevaks to raze the disputed structrue. Both Avaidyanath and Singhal are now dead.He told India Today TV channel he was prepared to be "hanged" for the cause of Ram temple.When asked was his claim an effort by him to "derail" the trial against BJP veterans, Vedanti said," I have spoken about this earlier too." |
Posted on: May 9, 2013
New Zealand alpinist Bill Denz follows David Austin along a rivet ladder during their link-up of Mescalito and the Dawn Wall of El Capitan in 1978. Five years later, Denz would die in an avalanche on the West Pillar of Makalu. [Photo] David Austin
In a collaborative effort to profile the late Bill Denz for our spring issue, Peter Haan and Paul Maxim enlisted David "Zappa" Austin to record his memories of one hard-fought link-up of Mescalito and the Dawn Wall of El Capitan in 1978. A snippet of Austin's story helps shape Denz's tough and tenacious character in "Boldness, Genius Magic: The Life of Bill Denz," Alpinist 42. Here, Austin tells the rest of the unpublished story.—Ed.
"Surely you heard about Bill Denz." The letter trembled in my hand. I hadn't.
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Bill, killed on Makalu. My God.
I sat stunned and alone in my apartment in Rio de Janeiro, so far from home, tossed into vivid memory.
"So Bill", I asked him one night high on El Capitan, "What is your life dream?"
"I want to be an old man puttering naked about me garden," he replied emphatically.
That didn't seem like much of an ambition to me then, in 1978. Now, as I stand on the edge of old age, it seems a wise and fine ambition. I putter around my garden, clothes on, and I sometimes think of Bill.
Our climb was a kind of lunatic epic and horror show. The sun baked us for days and days into halfwits. Sometimes we cursed and raged at each other. His epic adventures leaped out of his past, unwelcome, onto our adventure. Yet the truth of the matter is that we connected deeply and did a great climb at the limits of our endurance, emotional and physical. And we forgave each other soon thereafter.
Even now, 30 years later, his death hurts. I never asked him, would his be a vegetable or flower garden?
Bill was already a legend in Yosemite when I met him. Everyone knew about his grudge match with Tis-sa-ack: the flake, the savage gash in his leg, the rescue, long recovery, and then he went back and did it.
He was a real hardman. Everyone on the rescue site gave him a nod of respect that was seldom given.
David Austin in Camp 4, 1978. [Photo] Bill Denz
So I was thrilled to sit at the picnic table with him talking about routes on The Captain. I had done it once, something like the tenth ascent of The Shield. It still had a rep back then, but I think that rep was demolished when John Flemming and I did it a year earlier. John and I joked that ours was the first turkey ascent of The Shield. Still, Bill thought it a good credential.
Bill was friendly and blunt. He took and he gave jibes and wisecracks. His opinions were strong and forcefully argued. His easy aura of hardman confidence needed no swagger. There was a pit-bull kind of toughness about him, like he would just clamp onto a climb and shake it dead. Here was a guy who would not easily back off. And he looked the part, compact and probably dangerous in a fight. I wanted badly to do a wall with him. I liked him immensely.
I had my eye on Mesca-Dawn, starting up on Mescalito and finishing on the Dawn Wall. It seemed to me then to be the true line that Harding and Caldwell should have taken. As far as I knew, we would be the third party up the section of wall bypassed by New Dawn. Bill thought it worth doing.
Bill warmed up as the conversation went on. Finally, he let on that he planned to solo Excalibur, starting in the next day or two. I was impressed. That route was for the chosen few. I knew the rack would be hard to manage because it included a pile of bongs and blocks to aid the wide cracks. No one imagined then freeing them because big cams had not been invented yet. I offered to help him carry his gear and ferry loads with my car. He accepted.
Austin follows Denz up to a belay on Mescalito. [Photo] Bill Denz
The next day or two, we staggered in with huge loads of water and gear, stashing them in a carefully camouflaged location in the forest just below Excalibur. Then we went back to Camp 4. The next day I dropped him off with a more gear and wished him luck.
I was surprised to see him a couple days later. He was a stubborn bulldog, but not a fool. The racks were just too huge to manage solo he said. Did I still want to do Mesca-Dawn? I helped him retrieve his gear and then we got down to planning.
We did the usual layout of gear. We agreed on food and bought it. Bill was big on carrying lots of water, so we scrounged a pile of water jugs. We thought that we would fix for one or two days, take a rest day, and then hump in our loads early and blast off for a six-day ascent.
It was normal-hot when we started fixing. No big deal. It kept getting hotter. The day we started it got blast-furnace hot. That wall is shining white rock that reflects the sun right back at you. Facing southeast, it catches the first rays of light and holds them until mid-afternoon. We guzzled water to avoid shriveling up in the cruel sun.
Bill was a great partner. His climbing was solid and he was a superb story teller. Our first night on the wall—dangling, he in his hammock, me in my portaledge—stories and conversation were heart to heart. Bivy conversations are a part of wall climbing not much talked about. Sure, there is a lot of dope smoking and listing to tunes, but some of the best conversations of my life have been with partners on a wall. Souls open up in ways that seldom happen when we plod the earth below.
Austin traverses out onto the rivet ladder. [Photo] Bill Denz
I asked him about Tis-sa-ack. He told me the story in detail. I asked why he went back to do it. "I wasn't going to hang me hammer up on that one," he stated as if there were no honorable alternative.
Then he told me the tragic tale of his friend, Phill Herron, killed in Patagonia. There was open joy in his voice as he spoke of the climbs they did in New Zealand, bold and tough. He said that Phill was his inspiration, that he was the one who dreamed up many of the climbs. Bill was clearly proud of him and loved him, like a kid brother who suddenly burst into glorious manhood and turned out to be an inseparable pal.
Then his voice changed to heartbreak—no tears, just tones of raw agony—as he told of Phill plunging into the crevasse. They had been used to unroped glacier travel in New Zealand. Patagonia does not forgive such a thing. Phill's companion had rapped down to him, just able to touch his fingers in the blue, frigid gloom. Phil was hopelessly wedged and frozen in, nothing to be done except wait for death. The two had talked for hours until Phill slipped into the long sleep of hypothermia. Bill got the news when a solitary figure trudged back to camp. I think that Bill would have preferred a bullet to it.
He left the mountains to find his wife, Christine, desperate for solace, for comfort in the wildness of his grief. But she had run off with an Argentine lover. Bill spent two weeks traveling all over Argentina trying to find her. When he did, she told him to "fuck off."
"Goddamn, Bill. What did you do?" I asked.
"What did I do? What did I do?" he said, voice rising to some climax. "Why, I just lay down on the grass and cried and cried. That's what I did, Zappa." The hero revealed that he was human.
Every story I had told him about love lost and friends killed kind of paled next to that one. It wasn't my story, but it broke my heart, too.
Austin continues his rivet traverse. [Photo] Bill Denz
Dawn blazed and the solar furnace brutally roasted us. Our first day had been pretty much getting started with all of our gear. We had to do two hauls at first. It would have been slow going anyway, but the heat hammered our schedule down to about two or three pitches per day. It was late in the season. Days were short and should have been cool, but there we were in the worst summer heat without summer daylight. At the end of the day, we knew we did not have enough water to make it.
We pondered the options. We had seen all the other parties on the east side of The Captain bail off to flee the heat. If either of us had tried to talk the other into bailing, it would have been successful. I am sure of it. But both of us were too stubborn and pig-headed give in first.
At that time, I had spent more time in Yosemite than Bill. My collection of Captain route lore told me that if we sacrificed one pitch, then our three ropes would just make it to the valley floor. We could rap down a pitch and fix our lines the next morning, get more water and be back at it the next day.
That night we talked about why we climb. Bill thought that climbing was like war. He had trained hard as a commando and was heartbroken when New Zealand pulled out of Vietnam before he could go. He had very much wanted to go. He spoke of his dentist, a World War II vet, who told him that young men must go into the mountains because they long for war.
I don't think that I quite agreed with him. I felt that climbing was more of a spiritual journey. Still, the force of his argument, like pretty much everything else about him, was hard to resist. Looking back, I think that much of what he said was right. Certain young men with no family to care for, no daily demands of compassion, are called by a fierce life. I was one of them and pretty much as ruthless as the next. To me, spirituality may have been a justification to paper over something more elemental. Bill rejected any kind of the climbing mysticism that I espoused at the time because it turned one away from reality. "You've got to be completely plugged into reality to climb," he told me with flat finality.
We executed our plan the next day. By the time we got to the bottom, the rope hung a short walk away from the wall. At no spot did it touch the wall.
That night Bill and I had split for a bit. I walked into Camp 4. As usual, I read the bulletin board. I saw a note, "BILL DENZ. EMERGENCY. CALL PARK DISPATCH," with a number. I grabbed it and headed back toward the lounge to find Bill. I handed it to him and off he went.
A while later he found me. "Bill, what's the deal? Is our climb still on?"
"It was Christine. She is in San Francisco. She was headed to London from Auckland, had a layover in San Francisco and stepped off the plane without her luggage. She had heard about Tis-sa-ack and felt bad about all that had happened between us. She stepped off the plane because she had to see me."
"So what are you going to do?"
"I told her if she meets me at the top then things will work out. I am not hanging up my hammer on this one."
Relieved, I slept well. And off we went the next day.
Austin negotiates the upper end of the rivet ladder. He was surprised and disappointed to find that Warren Harding and Dean Caldwell had continued their rivet ladder through the dihedral instead of protecting it with A3+ nailing. [Photo] Bill Denz
We hit the Harding-Caldwell rivet ladders the day we got back on the wall. There was Mescalito going off to the right, and the rivets going off to the left. There was a moment of decision. We went left. That was a mistake.
Up to that point we were nailing away. Sure it was bloody hot, but we had water. Nothing was really hard, just tradesman piton-craft and plenty of decent nut placements.
Mescalito had been a dream. On a couple of pitches, swarms of tree frogs jumped, surprised, out of the crack. They would launch into the air and then expertly maneuver with spread legs onto a perch. None went the distance. I remember having several on me while Bill was leading.
But the rivets, my God, those goddamn, fucking rivets—dumb-ass little aluminum plugs hardly punched into the rock. We quickly discovered that only #1 wedges, wee things with the cutest little wires, would strangle the rivets. We thought our pile of wires would do the job. We both thought that we had got the word on these things. Had we been smoking dope at the time? I dunno. We blew it. Anyway, all we had were six wires that fit on the rivets. Harding had popped some on the first ascent. My confidence in them was low.
When we made the discovery, we could have just said "fuck it" and gone right. We would have had a short-pitch day, but so what? I have no recollection of why we continued. I can only speculate that two super stubborn guys wanted a third ascent of the lower blank dihedrals more than we wanted to actually have a good climb. On we went, leapfrogging three wires, leaving the other three as imaginary protection to indulge delusions of safety. If any rivet had popped the leader would have gone the distance. A5 for sure.
The next day, Bill was leading over a long, smooth bulge in the morning before thermals started roaring and violently fluttering our bits of loose gear. If I leaned out from my hanging belay, I could see him alright. Otherwise, he was out of sight. The slow, methodical pace of the aiding gave me plenty of time to take in the sights.
At the toe of the Nose, I saw a yellow dot making its slow, tentative way toward the bottom of the Dawn Wall. Finally, it stopped at the base below us.
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BANGKOK — US politicians of all stripes are fond of condemning Vietnam’s poor human rights record. As one US Senator from Arkansas puts it, America has a “moral obligation" to stand up to oppression” in the communist nation.
But when it comes to gay rights, conservative US states like Arkansas are actually lagging behind Hanoi.
Vietnam’s communist party abolished a ban on same-sex marriage last week. Unlike states such as Texas — where vindictive politicians want to stop paying any official who certifies a gay wedding — Vietnam’s political class has responded with a collective shrug.
Make no mistake: Vietnam is an authoritarian state. Dissent is criminalized. Critics who blog or protest against the government end up in prison. Human Rights Watch, which points to a “human rights crisis” in Vietnam, has catalogued abuses ranging from rampant bribery to abusive police.
But as long as gay couples refrain from denouncing Vietnam’s communist party, they’re generally left alone.
Same-sex marriage still isn’t totally endorsed in Vietnam. Unlike for straight couples, whose marriages are protected by laws dictating rights to assets (and other legal perks), gay marriages aren’t fully recognized on par with traditional marriage.
“But marriage is no longer banned,” says Luong The Huy, a legal expert with ISEE, a non-governmental organization formally titled the Institute for Society, Economy and Environment in Hanoi. “That’s important because anything banned in Vietnam is officially seen as harmful to society.”
“It’s not perfect,” says Nguyen Anh Tuan, the owner of Gay Hanoi Tours. “It’s not completely there but it is a great step in the right direction. ... Vietnam has always adapted and by learning we become stronger individuals, families and country. I think everyone would agree Vietnam is a quick learner.”
Still, Vietnam is hardly a gay utopia. An ISEE study suggests that roughly one-third of Vietnam’s gay population is closeted. Gay couples holding hands on the street “may get some verbal abuse but it’ll probably be behind [their] back,” Huy says.
As Tuan puts it: “Some people will clap and cheer. Others will, I’m sure, shout and spit.”
Comparing the road toward same-sex marriage in Vietnam and the US is tricky, Huy says, because “we have a totally different system and context.” Vietnam — unlike much of the United States, or many of its Asian neighbors — isn’t under the sway of a religious doctrine casting gay couples as deviant.
In Aceh, the most orthodox corner of Muslim-majority Indonesia, gay sex is punishable by 100 lashes by a man in dark robes. The Philippines, a bastion of Catholicism and a former US colony, is mired in an America-style debate over same-sex marriage.
But Vietnam is an atheist state with few religious hang-ups. Gays in Vietnam are more likely to fear condemnation from mom, not God, according to Hoang Van Chuyen, operator of the gay-friendly service Rainbow Tourism Vietnam.
“Almost all parents would like their sons or daughters to get married and have babies,” he says. This family pressure, he says, forces many gay Vietnamese to “live two lives” and conceal their romantic interests for fear of disappointing family.
Fully legalized gay marriage, with all of the benefits enjoyed by straight couples, may be in store for Vietnam in the near future. During official deliberations on same-sex marriage, Huy says, Vietnam’s officials were prepared to offer full benefits to gay couples.
But they retreated, he says, and decided to merely repeal the gay marriage ban in the eleventh hour. “The lawmakers,” he says, “are saying our society just needs a little more time to accept gay marriage.” |
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A recent investigation of stone-age rock art at a megalithic construction known as Hendraburnick Quoit, in Cornwall, has revealed that ten times the number of artistic markings are visible when viewed in moonlight or feeble sunlight from the south east. These mysterious markings are now exclusively revealed by Ancient News researchers to be coded star markers.
They also discovered that pieces of quartz had been deliberately crushed and spread around the site, which would have reflected moonlight, or firelight, creating an effect that would have likely accentuated any viewing of the rock-art.
Hendraburnick Quoit is a large propped ‘axe-shaped’ stone that rested upon a low platform of slates on Hendraburnick Down, near Davidstow. The investigating archaeologist, Dr. Jones, suspects that the megalithic stone was dragged up from the valley below to be used as a ritual marker associated with a more extensive Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age, sacred site – perhaps around 2 500 BC. Dr. Jones and his team argue that the layer of slate beneath the 16-tonne quoit indicates that it was not a natural formation.
Before the research project lead by Dr. Jones and assisted by his colleague Thomas Goskar, 13 cupules (circular scoop markings) were recorded on the stone, their detailed observations under reduced light have resulted in a total of 105 engravings noted. Hendraburnick Quoit has duly been elevated to the status of the most highly decorated and complex example of rock art in southern England.
The fact that the art was created in a way that makes it more visible at night brings into question one of the prominent understandings associated with Neolithic structures, that they were features of a solar cult, often believed to be aligned with the solstice sun rise. The findings of Dr. Jones and his team would seem to suggest that some of the important megalithic sites may, in fact, be artifacts of a primarily lunar cult, with important rituals being carried out under the light of the full moon.
The fallen megalithic stone at Hendraburnick Quoit. Credit: Derek Harper
Dr. Jones, of the Cornwall Archaeological Unit, said: “I think the new marks show that this site was used at night and it is likely that other megalithic sites were as well. “Stonehenge does have markings, and I think that many more would be found at sites across the country if people were to look at them in a different light.”
Writing in the archaeology journal Time and Mind, Dr. Jones and Mr. Goskar conclude: “As in many cultures where darkness is associated with the supernatural and the heightening of senses, it is possible that some activities at Hendraburnick Quoit may have been undertaken at night.
Smashed up quartz pieces have also been discovered at the Early Bronze Age cairn at Olcote near Calanais, on the Isles of Lewis, these are already suspected to be linked with lunar rites. Similar quartz debris has been identified at a growing number of neolithic sacred spaces.
The type of markings observed is found across the ancient world and often feature an indentation surrounded by concentric circles (cup and ring marks). These cupule markings are most often found at ancient sites in Northern Europe, but similar patterns have also been found even in Australia.
Dr. Jones admits that his team has not yet deciphered the meaning of the markings, however, we can reveal that the Ancient News team’s lead researcher, Bruce R. Fenton, is first to solve the mystery.
The five brightest stars of Orion and the six brightest stars of the Pleiades are highlighted. Credit: Thomas Goskar. Annotation: Bruce R. Fenton
Fenton explains, “The cupules are in fact star markers. We see the same artistic representation of the stars, involving cupules, at sites here in Australia. As soon as I saw the image of the quoit, I looked for notable constellations among the markings and immediately found both Orion and the Pleiades.”
The research project at Hendraburnick Quoit is providing data that fits well with Fenton’s investigation into a lost global culture that emerged out from Southeast Asia during the Younger Dryas climate event. Indeed, identification of both Orion and the Pleiades on the megalith also fit well with his existing body of research material.
The discovery of the additional rock markings at the quoit was first published in the archaeology journal Time and Mind.
By Bruce R. Fenton, AncientNews.net
Featured image: Lanyon Quoit, a megalithic burial site from the Neolithic period, circa 4 000 to 3 000 BC, near Morvah on the Penwith peninsula of Cornwall. Credit: Rex Features
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One of my dad's favourite expressions when I was growing up was this: "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance."
Fitting, since he was a firm believer in lifelong learning.
A man born at the beginning of the Great Depression, he was denied a chance at higher learning due to a little shindig called World War II. Afterwards, he extended his service in the Royal Canadian Navy to 25 years, taking courses of all sorts from meteorology to scuba diving.
At 42, he retired from service and took the first job he could find in order to support his wife and two small children (including yours truly).
He might not have gone to university but he knew that knowledge was power, and he never stopped believing it. Which is why it's difficult for me to work where I do and see the havoc that ignorance is wreaking on my alma mater, the University of Manitoba.
Ignorance in the form of budget cuts and funding clawbacks; measures implemented by those who think funding higher education is a waste of taxpayer money.
I work in the Buller Biological Sciences Building. Built in 1932, it is an architectural beauty whose roof leaks in all but the lightest rainstorms, where pipes burst and ceiling tiles fall and whose foundations have already cracked and been repaired over the course of several years.
My office is across the hall from a series of biology labs. Students are taught using the technology that is available and/or affordable to the university.
Sitting at my desk, I can't help overhearing the instructional films that are shown, sounding just like the ones I listened to in elementary school in the 1970s. Voice-overs of WASP-y older men drone on, crackling and popping louder than a bowl of Rice Krispies at breakfast time.
Every time I hear one of them, I ask myself: is this the best we can offer these students of 2016? Never mind the educational materials. The equipment I've seen here ranges from state of the art to abysmal.
The freezers in this building date back to the 1970s. It is due to the ingenuity and persistence of the refrigeration folks in Physical Plant that they continue to operate, even if only on a wing and a prayer. Imagine having all your experimental specimens and months of work ruined because the freezer you stored them in was just too old and happened to quit one day.
I've worked at the University of Manitoba since September of 2014. I have met many people, the majority of whom are focused on improving life as we know it through what they've learned in the course of their studies.
Since I am an inherently nosy writer who also likes to learn new things, I tend to ask these people what they're doing and what they're trying to achieve. That means everyone, from the professors to the students and everyone in between.
I've heard many stories of how funding cutbacks or freezes have hampered the efficient running and maintenance of this centre of higher learning.
Labs with equipment so old that it's held together with duct tape and hope. One janitor assigned to clean two five-storey buildings. Employees who cycle in and out because there is no stable funding to keep them on staff. Buildings that are falling apart one ceiling tile and door knob and faucet at a time because spending money on infrastructure is seen as an extravagance rather than just the cost of doing business.
Despite this, students, and employees across this campus continue their work, hoping that the wider community will come to see the value of what they're doing. Let's be clear. In my opinion, our universities are not a luxury, and the people who work or study at them are not leeches on society. Far from it. These are the people whose natural intelligence and curiosity have led them to solve problems.
The problems they are looking to solve are very often rooted in daily living. Is it too much to ask that they do it with up to date equipment, facilities and adequate staffing levels? I guarantee you, dear reader, if you think it's too expensive to fund these sorts of institutions, imagine what it will cost us to let them wither and die.
Potentially ground-breaking discoveries are being made here by people you wouldn't even blink at on the bus. Students slogging away in labs, crunching numbers, performing experiments, hoping that the work they're doing right now will lead to a breakthrough further down the road.
I wonder what these analytically-minded souls might discover one afternoon in a random lab. Will it be a way to eradicate the use of pesticides on canola crops? Will it be a clue to the cure for a particular disease? Will it be some incredible innovation that will help to save our environment?
The point will be moot if we don't adequately fund their work. It's the same old conundrum: pay now or pay later.
Jo Holness is a Winnipeg writer. |
Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman has taken a swipe at US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for using a fabricated name to refer to the Persian Gulf.
Speaking at a weekly press conference on Monday, Bahram Qassemi said all US statesmen know what the real name of the Persian Gulf is.
“Tillerson has a background in the field of oil [business], and given the background that American politicians have, the name ‘Persian Gulf’ is known to all of them,” Qassemi said.
“Tillerson probably doesn’t know [the real name of this body of water], and the worst-case scenario would be that he doesn’t know history. I recommend they study history in addition to their oil background, and take a look at the documents and archived papers available at the US State Department, Congress, and European national archives. It wouldn’t be difficult to review history,” the spokesman said.
Qassemi underlined that one cannot buy history, civilization and culture with the greenback, nor is it possible to strip a nation of its culture or provide it with culture by spending dollars.
“I hope in the future they will be careful enough when they use this name, and they should know that this name is sensitive and holy for the Iranian nation,” Qassemi added.
New US Sanctions against Iran Show Lack of Goodwill
Elsewhere in his remarks, the spokesman touched upon Washington’s plan to ratchet up its sanctions against Iran.
He said most policies on sanctions have failed and, hence, are a nonstarter, urging US statesmen not to go for a failed experience again.
“We should wait and see what happens. If the plan receives the nod from the Foreign Relations Committee, it will then be discussed at an open session [of Congress] before going to the president,” he said.
Of course, on numerous occasions, plans have failed to win approval in the middle, he said.
Qassemi said the plan shows a lack of goodwill on the part of Washington, and called on the US not to move forward on that path.
“We urge the US government not to make a mistake again and not go the wrong way,” he stressed.
“At the JCPOA committee, we are monitoring these moves and follow them up and we will take action at any point in time we deem necessary,” Qassemi noted.
“This trend will only create problems and hassles for the US itself,” he said.
US Not Honest in Fight against Terrorists in Mideast
Qassemi further touched upon a recent attack by US-backed militants on the Syrian army and resistance forces.
“America’s actions in Syria are suspicious and unjustifiable,” he said.
“They have said repeatedly that they are fighting terrorists, […] but we haven’t seen honesty and necessary measures from them,” he said.
He then urged the US to battle ISIS terrorists to help boost stability and security in Syria.
“They should act more responsibly, but, unfortunately, so far they haven’t done so,” he said. |
FILE - In this Monday, Nov. 29, 2010 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the media in Tel Aviv. Israel’s prime minister insisted Wednesday, May 1, 2013, that the conflict with the Palestinians is not about territory, but rather the Palestinians’ refusal to recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland, appearing to counter a modified peace proposal from the Arab world. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty, File)
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's prime minister gave a cool reception Wednesday to a new Arab Mideast peace initiative, saying the conflict with the Palestinians isn't about territory, but rather the Palestinians' refusal to recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland.
The remarks signaled trouble for U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's new push for Mideast peace and risked reinforcing Benjamin Netanyahu's image as a hard-liner unwilling to make the tough concessions required for peace.
Netanyahu has not commented directly on the Arab League's latest initiative, but his words questioned its central tenet — the exchange of captured land for peace — and appeared to counter a modified peace proposal from the Arab world that Washington and Netanyahu's own chief negotiator have welcomed.
The original 2002 Arab initiative offered a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Muslim world in exchange for a withdrawal from all territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Sweetening the offer this week, the Arab sponsor said final borders could be drawn through mutually agreed land swaps.
Netanyahu questioned the premise that borders are the key.
"The root of the conflict isn't territorial. It began way before 1967," he told Israeli diplomats. "The Palestinians' failure to accept the state of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people is the root of the conflict. If we reach a peace agreement, I want to know that the conflict won't continue — that the Palestinians won't come later with more demands."
The Palestinians have rejected Netanyahu's demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, saying that would undermine the rights of Israel's Arab minority as well as millions of refugees whose families lost properties during the war surrounding Israel's establishment in 1948. The fate of the refugees is a core issue that would need to be resolved in a final peace deal.
After meeting U.S. congressmen Wednesday, Netanyahu said he appreciated the efforts of President Barack Obama and Kerry to restart negotiations but said that for talks to succeed, the Palestinians must also guarantee solid security arrangements. "We're prepared to discuss many things, but I will never compromise on Israel's security," he said.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Al Thani tried to allay some of the Israeli concerns as he presented the offer on Monday.
Speaking on behalf of an Arab League delegation, he reiterated the need to base an agreement between Israel and a future Palestine on the 1967 lines, but for the first time, he cited the possibility of "comparable," mutually agreed and "minor" land swaps between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The sides were reportedly close to an agreement based on these guidelines during the last serious round of talks in 2008 but the talks failed. Swaps of territory were also a basis for a failed summit in the U.S. in 2000.
Negotiations have largely been frozen since 2008, and the new U.S. administration has been trying to get the peace talks back on track.
As part of his effort, Kerry has been pushing Arab leaders to embrace a modified version of the Arab peace plan. The changes are meant to win Israeli support by allowing it to keep parts of the West Bank and east Jerusalem as part of an agreement.
Though Netanyahu's office has remained silent on the modified Arab proposal, his chief peace negotiator, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, has welcomed it, as have Israel's president and the main opposition parties. However, Netanyahu's own political base and one of his main government coalition partners are either opposed to giving up land or suspicious of the Arabs' motivations.
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a rival of Netanyahu, said the initiative disproves the belief held by many in Israel that "there is no one to speak to."
"We cannot, under any circumstances, again be the ones that express doubts about a process that can lead to negotiations," Olmert told Israel's Channel 10 TV, urging Netanyahu to capitalize on "a historic opportunity."
Opposition Israeli lawmakers also urged Netanyahu to embrace the new Arab outreach.
"It was bad enough that we ignored it once. Ignoring it now ... after everything that is happening in the Arab world, I think it would be a very, very big mistake," said Merav Michaeli, a lawmaker from the centrist Labor Party. She said if Netanyahu does not respond, it would show that he does not want a peace accord. |
New York Red Bulls II is ready to take on Swope Park Rangers in the USL Cup Finals at Red Bull Arena on Sunday, October 23 at 8:00 p.m.
Red Bulls II is the top seed in the USL Playoffs, facing the fourth seeded Swope Park Rangers. Red Bulls II are coming off back-to-back penalty kick shootout victories, while Swope Park made quick work of Whitecaps FC II in the Western Conference Finals, 3-0.
Check out how both teams fared over the course of the season:
New York Red Bulls II
Record: 21-3-6
Leading Scorer: Brandon Allen (15)
Assists Leader: Florian Valot (7)
Saves Leader: Ryan Meara (58)
Eastern Conference Quarterfinal Result: 4-0 victory over Orlando City B
Eastern Conference Semifinal Result: 3-3 (5-4) victory over Rochester Rhinos
Eastern Conference Final Result: 1-1 (4-3) victory over Louisville City FC
Swope Park Rangers
Record: 14-10-6
Leading Scorer: Mark Anthony Gonzalez (9)
Assists Leader: Ayrton Pinheiro Victor (7)
Postseason Saves Leader: Adrian Zendejas (7)
Western Conference Quarterfinal Result: 3-0 victory over LA Galaxy II
Western Conference Semifinal Result: 2-1 OT victory over Orange County Blues
Western Conference Final Result: 3-0 victory over Vancouver Whitecaps FC II
Red Bulls II heads into Sunday looking to continue their momentum after another nail biting shootout victory over Louisville City FC. This is the first ever matchup between the two teams.
Red Bulls II is led by leading regular season and playoff goal scorer Brandon Allen, who had 15 goals in the regular season and three goals so far in the playoffs. Florian Valot leads NYRB II with six assists in the regular season and three assists this postseason. In goal, Ryan Meara leads the way with just 20 goals allowed through 24 games played.
Red Bulls II has now extended its unbeaten streak to 13 games and has won seven consecutive games at Red Bull Arena.
Swope Park Rangers will be a worthy opponent, as they are on a seven-game win streak heading into Sunday’s match. Their +7 goal differential is easily the highest in the playoffs.
Mark Anthony Gonzalez has led the attack with nine regular season goals, while Ayrton Pinheiro Victor recorded seven assists. Goalkeeper Adrian Zendejas has only played in eight games this season for Swope Park, but has been extremely stingy this postseason with 1 goal allowed in 300 minutes played. The Rangers have seen three red cards in the three postseason games, so that will be something to watch for in this game. |
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump presented a revised version of U.S. foreign policy that was a departure from the “New World Order” espoused by President George W. Bush and modified by President Obama.
With the release of his National Security Strategy report this week, it is obvious that President Trump has a handle on “realism” and a belief – justified in my view – that the world is an increasingly dangerous place.
In naming China and Russia as disruptive forces on the world stage, the president’s strategy notes that the two nations are rivals that must be challenged – but not necessarily enemies that must be defeated. That’s a distinction important for future tactics.
The report identifies Iran and North Korea as rogue states clearly interested in regional destabilization. It also identifies transnational threats such as jihadists and cyber warriors.
While these designations yield to the obvious, they also depart from the Obama narrative that the arc of history is moving inexorably toward stabilization.
Some critics of President Trump agree that there isn’t an arc of history that assures U.S. dominance. That’s correct, but it is wrong to argue that the Obama team didn’t employ this argument through its continuing assertions such as “the tide of war is receding.”
Since the Obama foreign policy mission was disengagement, President Obama underestimated the role unpleasant actors might play in the vacuum he left behind.
President Trump’s newly stated national security strategy is a clear corrective to that misguided vision. He puts the threats we face in perspective, indicating his desire to marshal “our will and capabilities” to compete and prevent unfavorable shifts in various regions of the world.
In the past, it was conventional wisdom to contend that China and Russia were invited into the global forums so that they would be tied down by a rules-based order. But this did not happen and was a further extension of Obama naiveté.
President Trump recognizes the return of “great power competition” that belies ideological commitments. He embraces the view of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger regarding a world of balance of power that relies on clearly viewed national interest.
President Trump’s assessment of Russia demonstrates this point: “Russia aims to weaken U.S. influence in the world and divide us from our allies and partners.” So much for friendly rhetoric.
From my point of view, the most newsworthy portion of the report is the willingness of the Trump administration to “champion American values” around the globe, including fair treatment for religious minorities and “the dignity of individuals.”
Rather than hide behind the gilded belief that America is widely detested, the president is sending out the message the U.S. is an unequivocal defender of Western Civilization and has the inner strength to defeat the dark impulses of totalitarianism.
President Trump is unquestionably a realist; yet there is a decidedly romantic dimension to his vision as well. His leap away from “perfection” to stability is one thing. On the other hand, the president wants to win because he believes in American principles.
As a result, President Trump envisions our military prowess and economic muscle as offering distinct advantages. These conditions must be nurtured and cared for, but when competition emerges our side should prevail.
America rose to the occasion when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, believing at that time that our “edge” was lost. But we rose to new heights in our schools and factories. We accepted the challenge and in a decade we had reacquired our national confidence. That is the romantic side of the strategic story in this 68-page document that sets the stage for the Trump doctrine. |
VIDEO: Bill Maher Goes Off on Hillary Clinton: “You F*CKED UP, Stay in The Woods!”
Hillary Clinton says that she’s ready to come out of the woods.
Bill Maher has a different idea.
He wants her to stay there FOREVER.
Seems like liberals are now getting sick and tired of the Clintons hanging around like a bunch of corrupt blood-sucking leaches.
It’s gotten so bad within the Democratic party that even crazy fools like Bill Maher have come to their senses.
“Hillary, stay in the woods. Okay. You had your shot. You f*cked it up. You’re Bill Buckner. We had the World Series, and you let the grounder go through your legs. Let someone else have the chance… This to me — the fact that she’s come back, it just verifies every bad thing anyone’s ever thought about the Clintons, that it’s all about them. Let some of the other shorter trees get a little sunlight.”
Watch the video:
Obviously we have different ideas. We think she should come out and continue her dominance of the Democrat party, because she’s good for business.
Bourbon, red meat and AR-15’s don’t buy themselves. But we can see where the left might disagree… |
Barcelona (CNN) Spain is facing a political and constitutional crisis after Catalans voted in favor of independence in a contested referendum that descended into chaos when police launched a widespread and violent crackdown.
The Catalan government said it had earned the right to split from Spain after results showed 90% of those who voted were in favor of a split.
But amid an unexpectedly harsh response from Spanish police, turnout was only around 42%. The Catalan health ministry said 893 people were injured in the clashes Sunday as riot police raided polling stations, dragged away voters and fired rubber bullets.
The Catalan President Carles Puigdemont denounced the police crackdown as the worst violence Catalonia had seen since the military dictatorship of Francisco Franco, and demanded the withdrawal of Spanish national forces from the region.
People help a man injured by a rubber bullet fired by Spanish police officers outside the Ramon Llull polling station in Barcelona.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, called for "independent and impartial investigations into all acts of violence" around the independence referendum, and asked the Spanish government to allow UN human rights experts to visit.
"Police responses must at all times be proportionate and necessary," he said in a statement. "I firmly believe that the current situation should be resolved through political dialogue, with full respect for democratic freedoms," he added.
Trade unions in Catalonia called a strike and a mass demonstration for Tuesday, an action likely to test public support for the Catalan government in the aftermath of Sunday's chaos.
The Spanish government of Mariano Rajoy said it was discussing its response with opposition parties in Madrid.
'No traumatic break'
All eyes were on the Catalan government as it considered its next move. Under the referendum legislation passed by the Catalan parliament, the regional government has 48 hours after the result is finalized to declare independence from Spain. Final votes were still being counted Monday.
JUST WATCHED Hundreds injured in Spain after referendum Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Hundreds injured in Spain after referendum 01:05
The Catalan President stopped short of declaring independence from Spain Monday -- a move that would further deepen the crisis. But Puigdemont called for an international arbiter to mediate the crisis, ideally the European Union. "This moment needs mediation," he said. "We only received violence and repression as an answer."
Puigdemont said Catalonia did not want a "traumatic break" with Madrid. "We want a new understanding with the Spanish state," he said.
If the Catalan government unilaterally declared independence from Spain, Rajoy could suspend the President and take over the running of the province. Such a move would inflame tensions considerably and would likely be a last resort for Rajoy.
Several thousand people gathered outside Barcelona's town hall Tuesday morning where the executive of the autonomous Catalan government was meeting.
People shouted "Long live free Catalonia, we are peaceful people and we only want to vote."
Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Protesters march through Barcelona during a demonstration to support the unity of Spain on October 8. A bitterly contested independence referendum on October 1 has stoked fierce divisions in the northeastern region of Catalonia and across Spain. Hide Caption 1 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Thousands of people gather in Barcelona to rally for unity in Spain on October 8. Hide Caption 2 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Protesters hold Spanish flags during a demonstration against independence for Catalonia on October 8. Hide Caption 3 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Demonstrators urge a peaceful dialogue to resolve the crisis over Catalan independence on Saturday, October 7, in Madrid, Spain. Hide Caption 4 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Crowds raise their hands during a demonstration October 7 in Barcelona encouraging talks to ease tensions over independence. Catalan nationalists argue the region is a separate nation with its own history, culture and language. But many Catalans also oppose separatism from Spain. Hide Caption 5 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis People show their hands painted in white during a demonstration urging dialogue on October 7 in Madrid. Neither the Catalan regional government nor the national government in Madrid has been willing to give ground since the referendum. Hide Caption 6 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis A woman wears a sticker with the Spanish word for "peace" at a demonstration in Madrid on October 7. Hide Caption 7 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Protesters with Spanish flags gather to demonstrate against independence for Catalonia in Madrid on October 7. Hide Caption 8 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis People attend a protest in Barcelona on Monday, October 2, a day after hundreds were injured in a police crackdown during the banned referendum. The Catalan government claimed victory after pushing forward with the vote despite Spain's Constitutional Court declaring it illegal. Hide Caption 9 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Catalan President Carles Puigdemont greets regional government workers before a meeting at the Palace of the Generalitat in Barcelona on October 2. Hide Caption 10 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Independence supporters gather in Barcelona after Catalonia's separatist government held a referendum to decide if the region should split from Spain on Sunday, October 1. Hide Caption 11 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis A member of the Catalan National Assembly cries at the end of the voting day on October 1. Hide Caption 12 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Spanish riot police remove fences thrown at them as they try to prevent people from voting in Barcelona, Spain, on Sunday, October 1. Hide Caption 13 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Pro-referendum supporters clash with members of the Spanish National Police after police tried to enter a polling station to retrieve ballot boxes. Hide Caption 14 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Pro-referendum supporters lock a gate to a polling station as members of the Spanish National Police arrive to control the area during voting at the Escola Industrial of Barcelona. Hide Caption 15 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Spanish National Police clash with pro-referendum supporters in Barcelona. Hide Caption 16 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Pro-independence supporters cover a mock ballot box with Estelada Catalan flags in Pamplona, northern Spain. Hide Caption 17 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Spanish National Police clash with pro-referendum supporters in Barcelona. Hide Caption 18 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis People play games in a square where a giant pro-independence Estelada Catalan flag is displayed. Hide Caption 19 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis A woman celebrates after voting at a polling station in Barcelona on October 1. Hide Caption 20 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis People help a man injured by a rubber bullet fired by Spanish police officers outside the Ramon Llull polling station in Barcelona. Hide Caption 21 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Pro-referendum supporters embrace as Spanish National Police try to remove them from the Ramon Llull school in Barcelona. Hide Caption 22 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis People queue to vote at a school in Barcelona. Hide Caption 23 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis A woman casts her vote at a polling station in Barcelona. Hide Caption 24 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Spanish riot police shoot rubber bullets at people trying to reach a voting site designated by the Catalan government in Barcelona. The deputy mayor of Barcelona said police fired rubber bullets at people as they attempted to vote in the referendum, which Spain's top court has declared illegal. There were reports that police in Girona, Spain, used batons. Hide Caption 25 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis A protestor shouts as he holds a Catalan flag during a demonstration called by far-right groups in Barcelona. Hide Caption 26 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, center, arrives to inspect a sports hall as police interve in Girona, Spain. Puigdemont condemned "indiscriminate aggression" against peaceful voters. Hide Caption 27 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis A Spanish riot police officer swings a club against would-be voters near a school assigned to be a polling station by the Catalan government in Barcelona. Hide Caption 28 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Riot police drag a member of the public away from a school being used as a polling station. Regional authorities said 337 people were injured after Madrid deployed the national police force to close down polling stations. Catalan emergency services confirmed the number to CNN. Hide Caption 29 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis People clash with Spanish National Police outside the Ramon Llull school, designated as a polling station by the Catalan government in Barcelona, Spain, early Sunday, October 1. Catalan pro-referendum supporters vowed to ignore a police ultimatum to leave the schools they are occupying to use in a vote seeking independence from Spain. Hide Caption 30 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis People try to offer flowers to a civil guard at the entrance of a sports center, assigned to be a referendum polling station by the Catalan government in Sant Julia de Ramis, near Girona, Spain, October 1. Hide Caption 31 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis People attend a demonstration against a referendum on independence for Catalonia on October 1 in Madrid, Spain. Hide Caption 32 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis A woman casts her vote in a ballot at a polling station in Barcelona, on October 01 during a referendum on independence for Catalonia. Hide Caption 33 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Members of Spain's national police force clear people from a polling station where Catalan President Carles Puigdemont had been expected to vote, in Sant Julia de Ramis, near Girona, Spain on October 1. Catalan pro-referendum supporters said they would not comply with a police order to leave the schools they are occupying to use in a vote seeking independence from Spain. Hide Caption 34 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis A woman celebrates outside a polling station after casting her vote in Barcelona, on October 01 in a referendum on independence for Catalonia. Hide Caption 35 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis Family members comfort each other after they were unable to vote in the referendum after Spanish police closed their polling station October 1 in Sant Julia de Ramis, Spain. Hide Caption 36 of 37 Photos: Divisions in Spain over Catalonia crisis People wait at the doors of the Moises Broggi school to start voting during the Catalan independence referendum in Barcelona, Spain on October 1. Hide Caption 37 of 37
Catalan officials called on the EU to step in. "Today Europe has to choose, shame or dignity. Violence or democracy, this is our demand," the Catalan Minister of Foreign Affairs Raül Romeva said.
But the EU backed Madrid. The European Commission, the European Unions's executive body, said the vote was illegal. "We call on all relevant players to now move very swiftly from confrontation to dialogue. Violence can never be an instrument in politics," the commission said in a statement posted on Twitter.
It said it trusted Rajoy "to manage difficult process" in respect of the Spanish constitution.
Rajoy has said the vote was illegitimate. "At this point, I can tell you very clearly: Today a self-determination referendum in Catalonia didn't happen," he said in a televised speech Sunday night.
Majority votes for split
Of 2.2 million ballots counted, about 90% were in favor of independence, Catalan government spokesman Jordi Turull told a news conference shortly after midnight. Turnout was about 42% of the 5.3 million eligible voters, authorities said later Monday.
Turull said more people would have voted had it not been for the Spanish police suppression. Up to 770,000 votes were lost as a result of the crackdowns at polling stations, the Catalan government estimated.
Spain's national government in Madrid has ardently resisted separation. In the runup to the vote, national authorities seized ballot papers, voter lists and campaign material. Thousands of extra national police were sent to the region and high-ranking Catalan officials involved in organizing the referendum were arrested.
Women walk in the old quarter of Girona, Spain, draped in Catalonia's independence flag.
Regional officials said 400 polling stations were closed as a result of the police crackdown. The Spanish Interior Ministry said 92 of about 2,300 polling stations were closed.
Pablo Guillen Alvarez, an economist and associate professor at the University of Sydney, told CNN that the violent scenes could lead to more support for Catalan independence.
While sympathy in the press and on social media lies with the Catalans, hard-right supporters of the Spanish government put Madrid under a lot of pressure to show strength, he said.
"The Catalan question has been boiling for 150-200 years. It's a no-go, red line for the Spanish right.
"(The government) reacted in only way that they could have."
International response
The UK's Foreign Ministry said the referendum was a matter for the Spanish government and its people.
"We want to see Spanish law and the Spanish constitution respected and the rule of law upheld. Spain is a close ally and a good friend, whose strength and unity matters to us," it said in a statement.
Charles Michel, Belgium's Prime Minister, said that violence was never the answer and called for political dialogue.
2/2 and call on Spain to change course before someone is seriously hurt. Let people vote peacefully. — Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) October 1, 2017
Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, whose party strongly advocates Scottish independence said that people should be allowed to vote peacefully. |
Parents of newborns can likely sympathize with the diametrically opposed behaviors that mice and rats display towards young pups. On one hand, there is the urge to care for the pups by nesting with and grooming them. On the other hand, there is a darker urge: to go on the attack.
For laboratory mice, the urge that wins out is largely determined by both sex and mating status. Both virgin and mated adult females primarily care for young with very little attacking. This is true for males that have mated, too- especially if it has been about three weeks since they mated, which coincides with the gestation period for mice. Virgin males, however, are more moved by the darker urges- and with solid evolutionary reason. If they haven’t mated, then there is no possibility that the pups are theirs.
At Harvard University, Zheng Wu and his colleagues set out to find the neural circuits that control these behaviors. Their results were published this week in the journal Nature.
Mice, like many other species, use the vomeronasal organ to sense pheromones given off by others of their species, and pheromones can be a powerful cue in motivating social behaviors. Wu and his colleagues tested the idea that these pheromonal inputs could be triggering the pup-directed aggression in virgin males. They compared virgin males with intact, healthy vomeronasal organs to males who had impaired vomeronasal function thanks to a genetic mutation in a key pheromone receptor. Amazingly, they found that the virgin males who couldn’t smell the pheromones were not aggressive toward pups, and actually started to build nests and care for them.
The researchers next wanted to find the neural populations that could underlie parenting behaviors. They identified a set of neurons in the medial preoptic area that became active in females and sexually experienced males after they started parenting. These same neurons stayed silent in virgin males. The medial preoptic area is a part of the hypothalamus, which is one of the areas that the vomeronasal organ sends information to.
Although the medial preoptic area is small, it still contain many different types of cells. Which ones were responsible for getting the mice to act like parents? To answer this question, the scientist looked at the types of neurotransmitters made by cells in the preoptic area, and concluded that the cells active during parenting overlapped the most with cells that make a small neurotrasmitter known as Galanin.
Wu and colleagues investigated the role of these neurons using two opposing manipulations.
In the first set of experiments, they destroyed these neurons using modern genetic targeting tools. When they destroyed the cells in virgin females, they abruptly switched from caring for pups to attacking them. This suggesting that at least for virgin females, these neurons act as the switch between these two opposing behaviors. For sexually experienced males and females, loss of the galanin-positive neurons only resulted in a loss of parenting behaviors without an increase in aggression.
In the second set of experiments, the researchers activated the galanin-positive neurons by making them sensitive to light. Whenever a virgin male made contact with a pup, the researchers shined light through a optic fiber onto these neurons, thus turning them on. When the neurons were active, virgin males only attacked the pups about 10% of the time – but if the researchers left the light off, the same mice would attack over 90% of the time.
In mated male fathers, the same light-induced activity in the neurons caused a marked increase in grooming of the pups.
The authors concluded that the neural circuits to care for or attack young pups co-exist simultaneously in the mouse brain, and which circuit is active depends largely on a social context – working through a set of hypothalamic neurons.
Parental care is required for newborns to survive in many species. This is especially true for mammals, because our young are born relatively helpless and require adult intervention to move and find food. Between species, it varies widely how much of the care is provided by the mother or the father. This work demonstrates that both sexes have the neuronal architecture necessary for effective parenting.
There is good reason to believe that humans have a similar set of neurons controlling parenting behaviors, because other neurons in the medial preoptic area have been shown to have conserved functions across mammal species. This work sets the stage to investigate other fascinating questions, such as whether the function of these neurons is disrupted in postpartum depression.
REFERENCE: Galanin neurons in the medial preoptic area govern parental behaviour. (2014) Zheng Wu, Anita E. Autry, Joseph F. Bergan, Mitsuko Watabe-Uchida & Catherine G. Dulac. Nature 509, 325–330. |
Almost half of experts who backed chancellor in opposition now say Treasury should borrow to spend on infrastructure projects
Pressure on George Osborne for a softening of the government's hardline economic strategy intensified on Wednesday after leading economists who backed the chancellor's plans in opposition called for immediate action to lift Britain out of double-dip recession.
In a blow to the chancellor, almost half the economists who strongly supported the Conservative party's deficit-reduction proposals in the runup to the 2010 election said it was time for a rethink and urged the Treasury to take advantage of low borrowing costs to boost spending on infrastructure projects.
Labour seized on a report in this week's New Statesman magazine detailing the change of heart of nine of the 20 experts who signed a letter in February 2010 supporting austerity, with only one sticking to an endorsement hailed by Osborne at the time as a "really significant moment in the economic debate".
Rachel Reeves, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: "With a double dip recession made in Downing Street and the economy shrinking, not growing, since the spending review, it's no surprise that even economists who once backed George Osborne are now calling for action to get the economy moving.
"Unlike George Osborne and David Cameron, they can see that the evidence now points to the need for a change of course. They know that without growth we can't get the deficit down – George Osborne is already forecast to borrow £150bn more than planned."
Although the economists said they had been right two and a half years ago to urge immediate spending cuts as a way of tackling Britain's record peacetime deficit in the course of one parliament, they said the changed economic circumstances justified growth-creating measures.
Roger Bootle, managing director of Capital Economics, said: "If I were chancellor at this point, I would alter the plan, I would stop the cuts to public investment and I might even seek to increase it. Supply-side reform might be welcome but what we're talking about here is a shortage of demand. The key thing is to try and get the private sector to spend its money and that may require a bit of government spending to prime the pump."
Tim Besley, economics professor at the London School of Economics and a former member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, said: "I would prefer to see government resources used in a targeted way and there may be creative ways of using the government balance sheet. I am particularly keen to have more focus on housing in the near term."
The chancellor's handling of the economy has come under scrutiny as the economy's tentative recovery in 2010 has stalled. Output is now lower than it was when the coalition was formed two years ago while the Bank of England believes it will take until 2014 for gross domestic product to return to the peak reached in early 2008. Threadneedle Street expects the economy to contract by 0.2% this year.
Ministers were taking some comfort from news that the economy is managing to create thousands of new jobs despite the weakness of growth. Employment rose by more than 200,000 in the three months to June, the biggest quarterly jump since 1989.
Even so, economists are concerned that unemployment may start to rise again against a backdrop of the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone, a slowdown in the global economy and weak domestic demand.
Osborne has already been forced to abandon plans to eradicate the structural part of the UK's current budget deficit – the part that will remain even when the economy returns to full health – during the course of this parliament. Austerity measures will now continue for the first half of the next parliament as a result of the impact of slower growth on the public finances.
The chancellor has always maintained that his deficit-reduction plan is necessary to keep the support of the financial markets and the credit ratings agencies. He has insisted that a U-turn would only lead to higher interest rates and slower growth.
Hashem Pesaran, economics professor at Cambridge University, said in the New Statesman: "My views have not changed – but this does not mean that I have agreed with this government's obsession with credit ratings and fiscal reductions at the expense of growth-inducing policies.
"I was in favour of taking account of the possible adverse effects of large and unsustainable government deficits on borrowing costs and financial stability.
"I believe this government's policies have not followed the balance I had in mind when I signed the letter."
The original letter, published in the Sunday Times, said: "In order to be credible, the government's goal should be to eliminate the structural current budget deficit over the course of a parliament, and there is a compelling case, all else being equal, for the first measures beginning to take effect in the 2010-2011 fiscal year."
Of the signatories, Albert Marcet of the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics said there was "no urgency" to alter the path of deficit reduction.
Nine of the 20 were either on holiday or declined to comment. |
A while ago I wrote a post about switching back to Vim. Since then I’ve written two plugins for Vim, one of which has been officially “released”.
A couple of people have asked me if I’d write a guide to creating Vim plugins. I don’t feel confident enough to write an official “guide”, but I do have some advice for Vim plugin authors that might be useful.
Other People Who Know More Than I Do
Writing two decently-sized Vim plugins has given me some experience, but there are a lot of people that know far more than I do. There are two in particular that come to mind. I’d love for them to write some guides (or even books) about modern-day Vim scripting.
Tim Pope
The first is Tim Pope. He’s written a ton of Vim plugins like Pathogen, Surround, Repeat, Speeddating and Fugitive. Each of those is clear, focused and polished.
It would be awesome to read a guide on the ins and outs of Vim scripting by him.
Scrooloose
The other person that comes to mind is Scrooloose, author of NERDTree, NERDCommenter and Syntastic.
His plugins are large and full-featured but work incredibly well, considering how tricky and painful Vimscript is to work with. I’d love to read a guide on writing large-scale Vim plugins by him.
Be Pathogen-Compatible
It’s 2011. When writing your plugin, please make its source compatible with Pathogen. It’s very easy to do this — just set up your project’s files like this:
yourplugin/ doc/ yourplugin.txt plugin/ yourplugin.vim ... README LICENSE
This will let users use Pathogen (or Vundle) to install and use your plugin.
The days of “unzip and drag the files into the right directories” and the horror of Vimballs are over. Pathogen and Vundle are the right way to manage plugins, so let your users use them.
Please, For the Love of God, Use normal!
My first piece of actual scripting advice is something simple but important. If you’re writing a Vim plugin and need to perform some actions, you might be tempted to use normal . Don’t. Instead, you need to use normal! .
normal! is like normal , but ignores mappings the user has set up. If you use plain old normal dd and I’ve remapped dd to do something else, the call will use my mapping and probably not do what your plugin expects. Using normal! ensures that the call will do what you expect no matter what the user has mapped.
This is a single instance of a more general theme. Vim is very customizable and users will do lots of crazy things in their .vimrc files. If a key can be mapped or a setting changed, you have to assume that some user of your plugin will have mapped or changed it.
Mapping Keys the Right Way
Most plugins add key mappings to make them easier to use. Unfortunately this can be tricky to get right. You can never tell what keys your users have already mapped themselves, and shadowing someone’s favorite key mapping will break their muscle memory and annoy them to no end.
When to Map Keys
The first question to ask is whether your plugin needs to map keys itself at all.
My Gundo plugin has only one feature that needs to be mapped to a key in order to make it useful: the “toggle Gundo” action.
Gundo doesn’t map this key itself, because no matter what “default” mapping I pick someone will have already mapped it. Instead I added a section right in the README file that shows how a user can map the key themselves:
nnoremap < F5 > : GundoToggle < CR >
By making users add this line to their .vimrc themselves it shows them which key is used to toggle Gundo (which they would have to know anyway) and also makes it obvious how to change it to suit their taste.
imap and nmap are Pure Evil
Sometimes forcing the user to map their own keys won’t work. Perhaps your plugin has many mappings that would be tedious for a user to set up manually (like my Threesome plugin), or its mappings are mnemonic and wouldn’t really make sense if mapped to other keys.
I’ll talk more about how to deal with this in a moment, but the most important thing to remember when mapping your own keys is that you must always, always, always use the noremap forms of the various map commands.
If you map a key with nmap and the user has remapped a key that your mapping uses, your mapped key will almost certainly not do what you want. Using nnoremap will ignore user mappings and do what you expect.
This is the same principle as normal and normal! : never trust your users’ configurations.
Let Me Configure Mappings
If you feel that your plugin must map some keys, please make those mappings configurable in some way.
There are a number of ways to do this. The easiest way is to provide a configuration option that disables all mappings. The user can them remap the keys as they see fit. For example:
if ! exists ( 'g:yourplugin_map_keys' ) let g : yourplugin_map_keys = 1 endif if g : yourplugin_map_keys nnoremap < leader > d : call < sid > YourPluginDelete ()< CR > endif
Normal users will get the mappings automatically set up for them, and power users can remap the keys to whatever they wish to avoid shadowing their own mappings.
If your plugin’s mappings all start with a common prefix (like <leader> or <localleader> ) you have another option: allow users to configure this prefix. This is the approach I’ve used in Threesome. It works like this:
if ! exists ( 'g:yourplugin_map_prefix' ) let g : yourplugin_map_prefix = '<leader>' endif execute "nnoremap" g:yourplugin_map_prefix."d" ":call <sid>YourPluginDelete()<CR>"
The execute command lets you build the mapping string dynamically so your users can change the mapping prefix.
There is a third option for solving this problem: the hasmapto() Vim function. Some plugins will use this to map a command to a key unless the user has already mapped that command to something else. I don’t personally like this option because it feels less clear to me, but I know other people feel differently so I wanted to mention it.
Localize Mappings and Settings
The next step in being a good Vim plugin author is to try to minimize the effects of your key mappings and setting changes. Some plugins will need to have global effects but others will not.
For example: if you’re writing a plugin for working with Python files it should only take effect for Python buffers, not all buffers.
Localizing Mappings
Key binding are easy to localize to single buffers. All of the noremap commands can take an extra <buffer> argument that will localize the mapping to the current buffer.
" Remaps <leader>z globally nnoremap < leader > z : YourPluginFoo < cr > " Remaps <leader>z only in the current buffer nnoremap < buffer > < leader > z : YourPluginFoo < cr >
However, the problem is that you need to run this command in every buffer you want the mapping active. To do this your plugin can use an autocommand . Here’s a full example, using this concept plus the previously mentioned configuration options:
if !exists('g:yourplugin_map_keys') let g:yourplugin_map_keys = 1 endif if !exists('g:yourplugin_map_prefix') let g:yourplugin_map_prefix = '<leader>' endif if g:yourplugin_map_keys execute "autocommand FileType python" "nnoremap <buffer>" g:yourplugin_map_prefix."d" ":call <sid>YourPluginDelete()<CR>" endif
Now your plugin will define a key mapping only for Python buffers, and your users can disable or customize this mapping as they see fit.
This mapping command is quite ugly. Unfortunately that’s the price of using Vimscript and trying to make a plugin that will work for many users. Later I’ll talk about one possible solution to this ugliness.
Localizing Settings
Just as you should make mappings local to buffers when appropriate, you should do the same with settings like foldmethod , foldmarker and shiftwidth . Not all settings can be set locally in a buffer. You can read :help <settingname> to see if it’s possible.
You can use setlocal instead of set to localize settings to individual buffers. Like with mappings you’ll need to use an autocommand to run the setlocal command every time the users opens a new buffer.
Autoload is Your Friend
If your plugin is something that users will be using all the time you can skip this section.
If you’re writing something that will only be used in specific cases, you can help your users by using Vim’s autoload functionality to delay loading its code until the user actually tries to use it.
The way autoload works is fairly simple. Normally you would bind a key to call one of your plugin’s functions with something like this:
nnoremap < leader > z : call YourPluginFunction ()< CR >
You can use autoloading by prepending yourplugin# to the name of the function:
nnoremap < leader > z : call yourplugin # YourPluginFunction ()< CR >
When this mapping is run, Vim will do the following:
Check to see if YourPluginFunction is already defined. If so, call it. Otherwise, look in ~/.vim/autoload/ for a file named yourplugin.vim . If it exists, parse and load the file (which presumably defines YourPluginFunction somewhere inside of it). Call the function.
This means that instead of putting all of your plugin’s code in plugin/yourplugin.vim you can put just the key mapping code there and pull the rest out into autoload/yourplugin.vim .
If your plugin has a decent amount of code this can reduce the startup time of Vim by a significant amount.
Check out the full documentation of autoload by running :help autoload to learn much more.
Backwards Compatibility is a Big Deal
Once you’ve written your Vim plugin and released it into the wild, you have to maintain it. Users will find bugs and ask for new features.
Part of being a responsible developer of any kind, including a Vim plugin author, is maintaining backwards compatibility, especially for tools that users will use every day and burn into their muscle memory. Users rely on tools to work, and tools that break backwards compatibility will quickly lose users’ trust.
Maintaining backwards compatibility will cause your plugin’s code to get crufty in spots, but it’s the price of maintaining your users’ happiness.
What Matters for Backards Compatibility?
For a Vim plugin the most important part of staying backwards compatible is ensuring that key mappings, customized or not, continue to do what users expect.
If your plugin maps key X to do Y , then pressing X should always do Y , even if you change how Y is called by renaming Y to Z . This may mean changing Y into a wrapper function which simply calls Z .
There are many other aspects of backwards compatibility that you will have to consider, depending on the purpose of your plugin. The rule of thumb you should follow is: if a user uses this plugin on a daily basis and has its usage burned into their muscle memory, updating the plugin should not make them relearn anything.
Use Semantic Versioning So I Can Stay Sane
A fast, simple, easy way to document your plugin’s state is to use semantic versioning.
Semantic versioning is simply the idea that instead of picking arbitrary version numbers for releases of your project, you use version numbers that describe the backwards-compatible state in a meaningful way.
In a nutshell, these rules describe how you should select version numbers for new releases:
Version numbers have three components: major.minor.bugfix . For example: 1.2.4 or 2.13.0 .
. For example: or . Versions with a major version of 0 (e.g. 0.2.3 ) make no guarantees about backwards compatibility. You are free to break anything you want. It’s only after you release 1.0.0 that you begin making promises.
) make no guarantees about backwards compatibility. You are free to break anything you want. It’s only after you release that you begin making promises. If a release introduces backwards-incompatible changes, increment the major version number.
If a release is backwards-compatible, but adds new features, increment the minor version number.
If a release simply fixes bugs, refactors code, or improves performance, increment the bugfix version number.
This simple scheme makes it easy for users to tell (in a broad sense) what has changed when they update your project.
If only the bugfix number has changed they can update without fear and continue on without worrying about changes unless they’re curious.
If the minor version number has changed they might want to look at the changelog to see what new features they may want to take advantage of, but if they’re busy they can simply update and move on.
If the major version number has changed it’s a major red flag, and they’ll want to read the changelog carefully to see what is different.
Some people don’t like semantic versioning for the following reason:
If I have to increment the major version number every time I make backwards-incompatible changes, I’ll quickly be at ugly versions like 24.1.2!
To this I say: “Yes, but if that happens you’re doing things wrong in the first place.”
Keep your project in “beta” (i.e. version 0.*.* ) for as long as you need to experiment freely. Take your time and make sure you’ve gotten things (mostly) right. Once you release 1.0.0 it’s time to start being responsible and caring about backwards compatibility.
Breaking functionality all the time harms your users by reducing their productivity and frustrating them. Yes, it means adding some cruft to your code over time, but it’s the price of not being evil.
Document Everything
A critical part of releasing a Vim plugin to the world is writing documentation for it. Vim has fantastic documentation itself, so your plugins should follow in its footsteps and provide thorough docs.
Pick Some Requirements and Stick to Them
The most important part of your documentation is telling users what they need to have in order to use your plugin. Vim runs on nearly every system imaginable and can be compiled in many different ways, so being specific about your plugin’s requirements will save users a lot of trial and error.
Does your plugin only work with Vim version X.Y or later?
Does it require Python/Ruby/etc support compiled in? Which version?
Does it not work on Windows?
Does it rely on an external tool?
If the answer to any of those questions is “yes”, you must mention it in the documentation.
Write a README
The first step to documenting your plugin is to write a README file for the repository. You can also use the text of this file as the description if you upload your plugin to the vim website, or the content of your plugin’s website if you create one for it.
Some examples of things to include in your README are:
An overview of what the plugin does.
Screenshots, if possible.
Requirements.
Installation instructions.
Common configuration options that many users will want to know.
Links to: A canonical web address to find the plugin. The bug tracker for the plugin. The source code or repository of the plugin.
Create a Simple Website
This isn’t strictly necessary, but having a simple website for your plugin is an extra touch that makes it seem more polished.
It also gives you a canonical URL that people can visit to get the latest information about your plugin.
I’ve made simple sites for both of my plugins: Gundo and Threesome. Feel free to use them as an example or even take their code and use it for your own plugin sites if you like.
Write a Vim Help Document
The bulk of your plugin’s documentation should be in the form of a Vim help document. Users are used to using Vim’s :help and they’ll expect to be able to use it to learn about your plugin.
Creating a help document is as easy as creating a doc/yourplugin.txt file in your project. It will be indexed automatically by pathogen#helptags() so your users will have the docs at their fingertips.
Two easy ways to learn the syntax of help files are by reading :help help-writing and using an existing plugin’s help file as an example.
Take your time and craft a beautiful help file you can be proud of. Don’t be afraid to add a bit of personality to your docs to break the dryness. The syntastic help file is a great example (especially the About section).
Things to include in your documentation:
A brief overview of the plugin.
A more in-depth description of how the plugin is used.
Every single key mapping the plugin creates.
Ways to extend the plugin, if applicable.
All configuration variables (including their default values!).
The plugin’s changelog.
The plugin’s license.
Links to the plugin’s repository and bug tracker.
In a nutshell: your help file should contain anything a user would ever need to know about your plugin.
Keep a Changelog
The last part of documenting your project is keeping a changelog. You can skip this while your project is still in “beta” (i.e. less than version 1.0.0 ) but once you officially release a real version you need to keep your users informed about what has changed between releases.
I like to include this log in the README, the plugin’s website, and the documentation to make it as easy as possible for users to see what’s changed.
Try to keep the language of the changelog at a high enough level for your users to understand without knowing anything about the implementation of your plugin. Things like “added feature X” and “fixed bug Y” are great, while things like “refactored the inner workings of utility function Z” are best left in commit messages.
Making Vimscript Palatable
The worst part about writing Vim plugins is, without a doubt, dealing with Vimscript. It’s an esoteric language that’s grown organically over the years seemingly without any strong design direction.
Features are added to Vim, then Vimscript features are added to control those features, then hacky workarounds are added for flexibility.
The syntax is terse, ugly and inconsistent. Is " foo a comment? Sometimes.
Much of the time you’ll spend writing your first plugin will be learning how to do things in Vimscript. The help documentation on all of its features is thorough, but it can be hard to find what you’re looking for if you don’t know the exact name. Looking through other plugins is often very helpful in pointing you toward what you need.
There are a couple of ways to ease the pain of Vimscript, and I’ll briefly talk about two of them here.
Wrap. Everything.
The first piece of advice I have is this: if you want to make your plugins readable and maintainable then you need to wrap up functionality even more than you would in other languages.
For example, my Gundo plugin has a few utility functions that look like this:
function ! s : GundoGoToWindowForBufferName ( name ) "{{{ if bufwinnr ( bufnr ( a : name )) != -1 exe bufwinnr ( bufnr ( a : name )) . "wincmd w" return 1 else return 0 endif endfunction "}}}
This function will go to the window for the given buffer name and gracefully handle the case where the buffer/window does not exist. It’s verbose but much more readable than the alternative of using that if statement in every place I need to switch windows.
As you write your plugin you’ll “grow” a number of these utility functions. Any time you duplicate code you should think about creating one, but you should also do so any time you write a particularly hairy line of Vimscript. Pulling complex lines out into named functions will save you a lot of reviewing and rethinking down the line.
Scripting Vim with Other Languages
Another option for making Vimscript less painful is to simply not use it much at all. Vim includes support for creating plugins in a number of other languages like Python and Ruby. Many plugin authors choose to move nearly all of their code into another language, using a small Vimscript “wrapper” to expose it to the user.
I decided to try this approach with Threesome after seeing it used in the vim-orgmode plugin to great effect. Overall I consider it to be a good idea, with a few caveats.
First, using another language will requires your plugin’s users to use a version of Vim compiled with support for that version. In this day and age it’s usually not a problem, but if you want your plugin to run everywhere then it’s not an option.
Using another language adds overhead. You need to not only learn Vimscript but also the interface between Vim and the language. For small plugins this can add more complexity to the project than it saves, but for larger plugins it can pay for itself. It’s up to you to decide whether it’s worth it.
Finally, using another language does not entirely insulate you from the eccentricities of Vimscript. You still need to learn how to do most things in Vimscript — using another language simply lets you wrap most of this up more neatly than you otherwise could.
Unit Testing Will Make You Drink
Unit testing (and other types of testing) is becoming more and more popular today. In particular the Python and Ruby communities seem to be getting more and more excited about it as time goes on.
Unfortunately, unit testing Vim plugins lies somewhere between “painful” and “garden-weaseling your face” on the difficulty scale.
I tried adding some unit tests to Gundo, but even after looking at a number of frameworks I was spending hours simply trying to get my tests to function.
I didn’t even bother trying to add tests to Threesome because for every hour I would have spent fighting Vim to create tests I could have cleaned up the code and fixed bugs instead.
I’ll gladly change my opinion on the subject if someone writes a unit testing framework for Vim that’s as easy to use as Cram. In fact, I’ll even buy the author a $100 bottle of scotch (or whatever they prefer).
Until that happens I personally don’t think it’s worth your time to unit test Vim plugins. Spend your extra hours reading documentation, testing things manually with a variety of settings, and thinking hard about your code instead.
TL;DR
Writing Vim plugins is tricky. Vimscript is a rabbit hole of sadness and despair, and trying to please all your users while maintaining backwards compatibility is a monumental task.
With that said, creating something that people use every day to help them make beautiful software projects is extremely rewarding. Even if your plugin doesn’t get many users, being able to use a tool you wrote is very satisfying.
So if you’ve got an idea for a plugin that would make Vim better just sit down, learn about Vimscript, create it, and release it so we can all benefit. |
Flickr/Mrs. Gemstone With power expected to be out for 7-10 days following Hurricane Sandy in some parts of the northeast, the question has been about whether Election Day might be postponed.
The answer, according to reporting by Naftali Bendavid at the Wall Street Journal, is almost certainly not.
Election Day was established by Congress in 1845--the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Congress has the power to change, postpone, or cancel Election Day, but Congress has never done this. If Election Day were changed, it would have to be changed for all states, not just those affected by the hurricane.
The most likely impact of the hurricane is extended voting hours or other changes in some municipalities, as well as the setting up of paper-based voting machines in areas in which electronic machines are now used.
In a real pinch, states can also choose to use methods other than voting to pick members of the Electoral College.
Bottom line, next week's show is likely to go on. |
Nendoroid Shimakaze was just announced last night and she was sold out in most of the stores within 1 day! Fortunately I was able to pre-order one for myself. =D
Yagyu by Vertex
Princess Milk by Orchidseed
Super Sonico by FuRyu
Levi cleaning edition by SEN-TI-NEL
Noir by Pulchra
VOCALOID/VOICEROID Yuzuki Yukari by Pulchra
Armored Wonder Woman by Kotobukiya
Isshiki Akane Palette Suit Ver. by Max Factory
Nendoroid Tomoki Kuroko by Good Smile Company
Nendoroid Shimakaze by Good Smile Company
Yagyu Manufacturer: Vertex
Vertex Scale: Unknown
Unknown Product Type: PVC figure
PVC figure Announce Date: Unknown
Unknown Release Date: Unknown
Unknown Price: Unknown
Princess Milk Manufacturer: Orchidseed
Orchidseed Scale: 1/7 scale
1/7 scale Product Type: PVC figure
PVC figure Announce Date: Unknown
Unknown Release Date: Unknown
Unknown Price: Unknown
Super Sonico Manufacturer: FuRyu
FuRyu Scale: Non-scale
Non-scale Product Type: Prize figure
Prize figure Announce Date: Unknown
Unknown Release Date: Unknown
Unknown Price: Unknown
Levi cleaning edition Manufacturer: SEN-TI-NEL
SEN-TI-NEL Scale: 1/8 scale, ~200mm tall
1/8 scale, ~200mm tall Product Type: PVC figure
PVC figure Announce Date: Unknown
Unknown Release Date: January 2014
January 2014 Price: 9,240 yen (taxed in)
Noir Manufacturer: Pulchra
Pulchra Scale: ~220mm tall
~220mm tall Product Type: PVC figure
PVC figure Announce Date: September 30, 2013
September 30, 2013 Release Date: December 2013
December 2013 Price: 9,800 yen (taxed in)
VOCALOID/VOICEROID Yuzuki Yukari Manufacturer: Pulchra
Pulchra Scale: ~230mm tall
~230mm tall Product Type: PVC figure
PVC figure Announce Date: September 30, 2013
September 30, 2013 Release Date: December 22, 2013
December 22, 2013 Price: 9,800 yen (taxed in)
Armored Wonder Woman Manufacturer: Kotobukiya
Kotobukiya Scale: Unknown
Unknown Product Type: PVC figure
PVC figure Announce Date: Unknown
Unknown Release Date: Unknown
Unknown Price: Unknown
Isshiki Akane Palette Suit Ver. Manufacturer: Max Factory
Max Factory Scale: Non-scale
Non-scale Product Type: PVC action figure
PVC action figure Announce Date: Unknown
Unknown Release Date: February2013
February2013 Price: 4,000 yen
Nendoroid Tomoki Kuroko Manufacturer: Good Smile Company
Good Smile Company Scale: Non-scale, ~100mm tall
Non-scale, ~100mm tall Product Type: PVC action figure
PVC action figure Announce Date: October 03, 2013
October 03, 2013 Release Date: Unknown
Unknown Price: Unknown |
Looking north across 141st Street at the Drew-Hamilton Houses. Image by Jim.henderson/Wikimedia Commons
Gigi lives in a high-rise apartment on the Upper West Side for less than she used to pay for a smaller third-floor walk-up in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The two-bedroom in Manhattan is shabby in some ways, but the rent can’t be beat: less than $1,000 a month for a safe, transit-rich neighborhood with plenty of shopping. The apartment is less than 10 minutes from the nearest subway stop, and the commute to her office is less than half an hour.
There are a couple downsides. For one Gigi, who is 33, lives with her parents and her sister, who has to sleep in the living room. And the whole arrangement is illegal.
Gigi’s family lives in the New York City Housing Authority’s Amsterdam Houses, a public housing complex a few blocks from Lincoln Center, Trump Tower, and Central Park. Her parents are the only official tenants. That makes Gigi and her sister what housing wonks sometimes call “ghost tenants,” or people living in public housing “off lease.” Their situation isn’t uncommon. Although 400,000 people officially live in New York City’s traditional public housing units, it’s estimated that as many as 100,000 to 200,000 more reside there secretly.
That the population living in New York City’s publicly owned housing units could be 25 to 50 percent larger than the official count provides stark evidence of how severe the city’s affordable housing crisis has become. While Gigi’s setup has some perks, ghost tenants by and large are not choosing these cramped arrangements because the accommodations are luxurious. NYCHA’s units are almost all at least 50 years old and often have an enormous backlog of repairs: Due to a series of budget cuts from Congress and Albany, New York’s public housing faces roughly $16 billion in unmet capital needs. And still tens of thousands of people choose to live in apartments that are not just deteriorating but are often overcrowded, too.
If they’re like Gigi, these ghost tenants would probably rather not be there. “It is very awkward and frustrating living with so many people in a small place,” says Gigi—her nickname, which she requested I use in lieu of her real name (for obvious reasons). She’s currently looking for a two-bedroom in her price range so she and her sister can move out of the Amsterdam Houses. “There are things you want to be able to do but cannot because it is your parents’ home and you have to respect their rules.”
Living off-lease means risking real penalties, from the possibility of eviction to the more likely scenario of a spike in rent. But for Gigi, there are compelling reasons to assume these risks. She grew up in a crime-ridden neighborhood in the South Bronx, where the commute into Midtown Manhattan could be up to 90 minutes, and the long walk back at night was nervous-making in the extreme. “Everything is accessible, not like the Bronx where I had to take two trains and two buses,” she says. “All the jobs are in Manhattan. I work on the Lower East Side, and the train is literally right there. If I have to go home late, OK OK, because I can walk around at 3 in the morning.”
Gigi is only slightly exaggerating when say says all of the jobs are in Manhattan. A 2013 report from the Brookings Institution shows that almost a third of the New York metropolitan region’s jobs can be found within 3 square miles in Midtown. Living in close proximity to this job hub comes at a premium, of course, and many working-class people aren’t able to pay it: Two-thirds of New Yorkers with one-way commutes of more than an hour make less than $35,000. But because New York never demolished any of its public housing complexes like so many major American cities, there are plenty of other NYCHA buildings in higher-income corners of town that are often within easy commuting distance.
But off-lease living isn’t limited to complexes in upscale neighborhoods. Gigi remembers that many of her neighbors in the Bronx also had family and friends shacked up in their apartments, even though that public housing complex was in a much rougher, more isolated part of town. “It’s pretty common,” says Gigi, who has lived in the Amsterdam Houses for more than two years. “Especially when children get older and they find jobs but can’t afford rent. They don’t know what to do, so they stay there. It makes sense. The rent’s going up every year and the lotteries [to get access to newly constructed affordable housing] are a joke.”
A 2014 report from the Furman Center found that the median rent across New York City increased by 12 percent between 2005 and 2013, a number that includes rent-stabilized and subsidized apartments. That number obscures the extent of the affordability crisis for those looking to begin a lease on a market-rate apartment, where the median rent asked in 2013 was $2,900. The median income of renter households, meanwhile, only increased by 2.3 percent. Although the total number of rent-burdened households—those paying 30 percent or more of their incomes in rent—has increased by more than 11 percent since 2000, lower-income renters like Gigi and her family were hardest hit. Fifty-five percent of three-person households earning between $47,451 and $61,850 paid more than 30 percent of their income in rent. A 2014 Community Service Society report showed a 39 percent decline in affordable units across the city.
Gigi found herself on the losing end of that equation a couple years ago, when she was crammed into a three-bedroom and one-bath rental with four housemates. For those close quarters in Bushwick each roommate was paying $800 a month. On her salary of less than $40,000 a year at a nonprofit, it made good economic sense to move in off-lease with her parents at the Amsterdam Houses. There the total rent cost less than a third of the Bushwick apartment’s, and using the bathroom wasn’t a blood sport—at least until her sister’s recent arrival.
It’s difficult to know the exact numbers of ghost tenants. Guesses have ranged from 200,000 (hazarded by a NYCHA employee quoted in New York magazine’s bravura profile of the housing authority’s residences) to the official estimate of 100,000 calculated by NYCHA based on the amount of garbage generated by residents.
NYCHA rejects the higher figure. “The extra 200,000 number is not from NYCHA—various advocates have cited this as fact but it is not based on any analysis we’re aware of,” says agency spokesperson Zodet Negron. She notes that one internal analysis found that men often stopped being reported on leases after age 24 or 25, presumably to avoid rent increases as they enter the workforce. Children under 5 often go unreported as well. “We acknowledge that there are likely more people residing in our developments than accounted for by our official tally. But we cannot interrogate everyone who comes in and out, as we do not want to create that type of environment.”
Given the difficulties of charting the phenomena, it’s pretty much impossible to measure whether rates of ghost tenancy map to economic downturns or factors like the Community Service Society’s report’s finding that, since 2002, “Rapidly rising rents in the private market outstripped increases in income for all but the top quarter of households.” It seems likely that off-lease living became more common after the 1960s, when NYCHA was forced to drop many of its more stringent eligibility requirements and open itself to lower-income families. (In earlier decades, public housing was reserved for stable working-class families; at times, households that received welfare or only had one parent were barred from entry.)
“Back in the 1970s, they were looking in people’s garbage and at the use of water and were already thinking there were large numbers of unregistered tenants,” says Nicholas Dagen Bloom, an associate professor at the New York Institute of Technology and co-editor of the recent book Affordable Housing in New York. “It’s been an ongoing phenomenon for quite a long time. We are talking about a community that is increasingly poor, with limited options in the housing market. It’s not that different from any poor community, in the sense that there’s more variation in household composition and a much more complicated notion of family.”
In some ways Gigi’s household fits within this paradigm. Both her parents are disabled and neither is able to work, which is part of the reason she lives off-lease—the rent is so cheap because their income is so low. If they added her to the lease their rent would jump and, as she hopes to move out soon, she doesn’t want to leave them with the complication of hugely increased housing costs.
Tenant organizer Betsy Eichel frequently encountered ghost tenants when she worked with the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Usually they were staying with family or spouses. Many had jobs, but they were often part-time or the kind of service-sector positions that pay even less than what she makes in her nonprofit gig. Others were saddled with bad credit histories, which made securing housing on New York’s hypercompetitive open market even more difficult than it would be otherwise. Those with drug convictions, or a criminal record of any kind really, would have an even harder time finding a place to live.
“They just couldn’t make rent work anywhere else,” says Eichel. “You can have a job and people still can’t really find places to live. Some people are so attached to their neighborhood that they would take this risk to stay there. It might be worth it if the alternative is to have your life turned upside down. The only alternative, as they saw it, was to lay low and try not to get caught.”
The consequences of ghost tenancy can be particularly punishing for the person whose name is actually on the lease. NYCHA rents are based on income—no more than 30 percent of the household’s total intake—which is reported to the agency along with the details of the family’s composition when a lease is signed. When an individual moves in or out, tenants are supposed to inform NYCHA, and the rent will be adjusted accordingly. If a resident’s income isn’t reported, she is essentially gaming the system, which neither the feds or NYCHA look kindly upon. In theory, at least, the family in question can be evicted. In practice, according to tenant advocates, the city agency isn’t particularly draconian in its enforcement and does have procedures that allow the ghost tenant to be added to the lease. However, if NYCHA finds that the individual living off-lease has a recent criminal record, penalties are stiffer.
“There are many ways for us to find out,” says Negron. “It’s definitely illegal, and we bring action against them when we do find out. There are procedures under which we go after them if they haven’t been reporting the income. Then they owe us. We bring the tenant in, and we bring action against them. I’m not saying they will necessarily be evicted for it, but we bring them in.”
The easiest way to catch a ghost tenant is to trace them via employment, tax, or public assistance records. If someone living off-lease receives mail at his NYCHA apartment or uses the address at the doctor or with his employer, the likelihood of being found out is far greater. That’s why Gigi’s driver’s license still has her old address on it, and she uses a P.O. box if her employer needs an address.
Despite these precautions, Gigi knows she needs to move on. She’s been looking for a new place, although she still can’t find an apartment she can afford in the city. The lotteries for designated affordable housing in new apartment towers seem hopeless. A recent article in DNAinfo showed that in the 60 most recent lotteries, 2.9 million applications were received for 3,400 units of housing.
*March 3, 2016: This article has been updated. |
The Disaster Artist, directed by and starring Palo Alto’s own James Franco, is now playing in theaters, satirizing the filming of the 2003 independent film The Room, a cult classic hailed as one of the least intelligible pieces of cinema ever concocted.
Writer, director, actor, and possible space alien Tommy Wiseau shot many of The Room’s most unforgettable (for better or worse) scenes in San Francisco, in some cases just a few blocks away from where Franco’s acclaimed movie now screens.
Obsessive Room fans are known to guide their own tours of film location spots. But as Room aficionado Adam Hollett notes, numerous maps and tours are incomplete, leaving out or misidentifying key sites.
In fact, an unimpeachable guide to Wiseau’s rampage through SF may be impossible; San Francisco Film Commission Director Susannah Greason Robbins tells Curbed SF the original shooting permits no longer exist.
“Our permits are physical documents, so every five years we throw them out,” says Robbins.
Of course, that assumes they ever existed; as Room co-star Greg Sestero writes in the The Disaster Artist (the book upon which the film is based), Wiseau had a habit of just filming guerrilla-style—i.e., shooting anywhere he wanted without asking.
Here now are a few key locations that helped bring The Room to life and seared into the minds of its many fans. |
In 1998, I read a newspaper report that Leonard Cohen was in Bombay. I was a big fan of his music and poetry and I tracked him down to a small hotel in Kemp’s Corner. I asked if he could autograph the CDs and books I intended to leave at the reception, but Cohen came out and invited me to stay for a chat, instead. It turned out to be a five-hour discussion—the start of a friendship for the next 18 years. We exchanged our last emails just five weeks ago, on his 82nd birthday.
Every day in that autumn of 1998, Cohen was reciting the verses of the 13th-century Marathi bhakti poet Sant Dnyaneshwar. He was in Bombay to attend the satsangs of Advaita guru Ramesh Balsekar at Warden Road. He wasn’t just reciting the verses by rote; he knew the English meanings of the words. He was pondering the concepts of sagun (the worship of God with form) and nirgun (the worship of God without form) and why both were essentially the same.
When he arrived in India in 1998, Leonard Cohen was already a Zen monk. He had spent five years in deep meditation and silence with Zen guru Roshi in Mount Baldy, near Los Angeles. It had been a decade since he had recorded new music or performed. The guru of 1960s folk and poetry had entirely stepped out of public life. Instead, his life-long quest for knowledge and inner peace had completely consumed his time and attention. He was led to Bombay by his curiosity to meet Balsekar, the author of a book titled Consciousness Speaks he read in his monastery.
Cohen spent much of 1999 and 2000 in Bombay, and then made brief visits until 2003. It was always for one purpose—to attend Balsekar’s daily morning satsangs and spend time with the teacher. Many of these conversations during the satsang have been preserved in audio and video recordings by Balsekar’s devotees. Between the Buddhist teachings of Roshi and the Vedanta teachings of Balsekar, Cohen finally found the inner peace that he had been seeking all his adult life. Sylvie Simmons’s excellent biography, I’m Your Man, explains this very well. During this period, Cohen got back to writing poetry and sketching in his art book.
Some Sunday mornings, Cohen took us along to Balsekar’s satsangs. These were Vedanta question-and-answer style discussions at which Balsekar’s philosophy appeared to have answers to every big question in life. The teacher’s clarity of thought and his delivery in English had attracted many Western seekers. During most sessions, Cohen sat quiet but attentive. As the friendship between Cohen and Balsekar developed, they would spend time alone in the evenings too, away from the satsang devotees.
A quiet life
A typical day in Cohen’s Bombay life involved walking from his hotel room at Kemp’s Corner to Balsekar’s apartment 1.5 kilometres away. On his way back, he would stop for chai at a roadside stall and then drop in for a swim at the exclusive Breach Candy club. The rest of the day was spent in his room, reading, in meditation, sketching, and writing. He accessed his email on his laptop and communicated with his daughter, Lorca, his son, Adam, and his manager in Los Angeles, Kelly.
Indian philosophy was not new to Leonard when he first visited India in 1998. His understanding of both Buddhist and Vedanta thought gave him great insights into the everyday life of India. He was in his mid-sixties and not keen on travel but he was keen to know the average Mumbaikar. The chaiwallah, the hotel cleaning staff, and the taxi drivers were the Indians who interested him the most. He politely refused invitations from the elite of Mumbai, who he would sometimes run into at the club or the satsang.
On one rare Sunday though, we did manage to take Leonard Cohen out to see some sights in the Kala Ghoda area in South Bombay. We took in an exhibition at Jehangir Art Gallery and a show of cartoons by World Word II Bombay refugee-artist Rudolf von Leyden at the Max Mueller Bhavan next door. Then we peeped in on the restoration work underway at the Army and Navy Building opposite. We’d already had several discussions on Judaism, so it was interesting to accompany Cohen to the synagogue in the area for a discussion with the rabbi. Over lunch, Cohen joked that we should find him a good Indian Yehudi wife for him to settle down with in Bombay.
But a dark cloud was looming. During the years that he was spending time in Bombay, Cohen’s manager in Los Angeles had been siphoning money out of his bank accounts. By the time Cohen discovered this, he was broke, and going to court didn’t help. This is when he went back to the studio to record new music and undertake new world tours. When he performed spectacular shows between 2008 and 2014, Cohen’s spiritual strength was evident every time he stepped on stage.
My wife and I had relocated from Bombay to Europe in 2003 and kept touch with Cohen over email. On his Europe tour of 2009, we had tickets for his show in Prague and we pinged him to ask if he wanted to meet. I received a polite refusal immediately. On performance days, Cohen and his team were very focused and wanted no distractions. But he didn’t forget about this. Onstage, he said namaste to his friends who come from far—from India. That was the last time we saw him.
Leonard Cohen was the perfect gentleman, a healer, a man with a keen desire to bring unity and peace. He even created a symbol for this—the Unified Heart—which he would often email in his replies to friends. Leonard Cohen was much more than the poetry and music he is known for. To those of us who had the good fortune to know him, he was the very definition of saint he had once articulated in his daring 1960s novel Beautiful Lovers:
What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence…He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock…His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.
This post first appeared on Scroll.in. We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com. |
She's had a strong opinion on the recent trends for women cleaning their vaginas with cucumbers and Vicks' Vaporub.
Now Dr Jen Gunter, who is also a prominent critic of Gwyneth Paltrow's controversial Goop website, has hit out at men who complain about the natural smell of their partner's genitals which she describes as a 'form of abuse'.
Writing in her latest blog newsletter, the Canadian gynecologist revealed she once dumped a boyfriend for complaining about the smell of her genitals.
Dr Gunter has urged women not to feel ashamed and feel they have to resort to buying harmful products that create artificial odours.
She says they upset the vagina's natural pH balance and leave you at a greater risk of infections like gonorrhoea and even HIV.
Dr Jen Gunter has spoken out about men demanding or expecting their partner's vagina to have an artificial smell (stock photo)
She wrote: 'I once dated a guy who insinuated my vagina did not smell right. He was an a** in other ways too. For example, he though my hair would be better if it were straight. Sadly I took the bait, it wasn't.
'He thought I would look better if I dressed a certain way. Again I took the bait. I just felt worse.
'When it came around to telling me how my vagina could be better it finally clicked that this is a form of control that men often use.
'Fortunately I am an appropriately confident vagina expert and I had a light bulb moment and dumped his sorry a**.
Dr Gunter went on to urge women to not fall into the same trap.
She said: 'I realize this may border on TMI [too much information], but honestly if it happened to me I bet it has happened to other women.
'The continued proliferation of the what will they insert next, the products on drug store shelves, and the interest in these posts tells me that I'm probably right.
'If you think you have a medical condition, see a doctor. If your partner insinuates that an artificial smell is preferable to the smell of a normal vagina they are the one who has an issue.
'Telling women how they can be better is a classic way of tapping into body image issues and honestly in my personal opinion it is a form of abuse.'
'Self-cleaning oven'
Dr Gunter has previously stressed that women should be aware that douches are unnecessary – and even dangerous – as our intimate areas are designed to clean themselves.
She once tweeted: 'A vagina takes care of itself. Like a self cleaning oven.'
In her recent post she explained: 'For what I am sure is the 100th time the vagina needs no cleaning and the vulva needs very little.
'I know the array of useless feminine washes and wipes at the drugstore and the drivel spouted by Gwyneth Paltrow via Goop imply otherwise, but I'm the actual expert.'
She has recently warned about the health risks of carrying out a 'vagina facial' using a cucumber (stock photo)
WHY IS THE PH OF YOUR VAGINA IMPORTANT? Scientists have discovered an STI and HIV-fighting bacteria naturally present in some women's vaginas. L. crispatus bacteria in their vaginas is one of five types of bacteria present in female genitals. But unlike in the gut – where we strive to have a mix of bacteria – many researchers believe the vagina is healthiest if just one (L. crispatus) is dominant. Lactobacillus bacteria pump out lactic acid, which keeps the vaginal environment at a low, acidic pH that kills or discourages other bacteria, yeast and viruses from thriving. There are even hints that certain Lactobacillus species reinforce the mucus in the vagina that acts as a natural barrier to invaders.
She recently warned about the dangers of carrying out a 'vagina facial' using a cucumber.
Then also said that using anything that upsets the pH balance – including douches, cleanses, steams, and vinegar pH balancing products – has 'real potential for harming good bacteria or disrupting the mucosal surface'.
'By damaging lactobacilli and the mucosa, attempts at vaginal cleaning increase a woman's risk of contracting gonorrhoea or HIV if she is exposed,' she said.
'Paradoxically, it will also cause odour.'
Experts at the renowned Mayo Clinic echo Dr Gunter's warning and say on its website that 'it's normal for your vagina to have a slight odor'.
It says that vaginal odor may vary throughout the menstrual cycle and may be especially noticeable right after having sex. Normal sweating also can cause a vaginal smell.
However, it states that 'a strong vaginal odor – for instance, a "fishy" smell – might be abnormal and could indicate a problem.' |
WARSAW — Many of Emmanuel Macron's ideas to save the European Union carry a cost — and Poland worries that it will foot the bill.
The new French president wants to rebuild the EU around the core of the eurozone — a club to which Poland doesn't belong — and is campaigning strongly to reduce competition from low-wage workers in Central Europe — something many Western Europeans dub "social dumping." That could hurt everything from Poland's burgeoning trucking sector to its ability to lure manufacturers to build new factories in the country.
The problem for Warsaw's ruling right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS), currently embroiled in various public spats with Brussels, is that its leverage with Paris and in the EU as a whole seems to be on the wane.
"[Macron's] presidency brings real threats. It can facilitate Poland's marginalization in the EU — under this [Polish] government, as well as press ahead with a multispeed Europe that leaves Eastern Europe behind," said political commentator Jakub Majmurek from Krytyka Polityczna, a left-wing journal.
During Macron's election campaign Poland was an issue, but not in a good way. Macron visited a Whirlpool factory to denounce Western European companies decamping for lower wage countries like Poland.
Macron's effort to revamp the EU poses a larger danger for Poland.
Macron enraged the Polish government by listing Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of PiS and the country's de facto ruler, as an ally of his nationalist opponent Marine Le Pen together with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Macron also promised that within three months of being elected he would urge the EU to impose sanctions on Poland if it continued to breach democratic norms. Brussels has been at odds with Warsaw over the Polish government's attack on the country's top constitutional court and its refusal to relocate refugees.
A unifying Europe
Macron's effort to revamp the EU poses a larger danger for Poland. The new French president has made it clear he favors a multispeed Europe based on deepening integration among eurozone members, going as far as having a separate eurozone budget, finance minister and parliament. That could mean less cash and influence for eastern countries like Poland which don't use the common currency.
“If the EU wants to begin to create its own political structures, such as having a finance minister or a common budget, or if the eurozone sets up an investment program only for member countries, then the EU is split,” Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said in a recent interview with the German media. “That is very dangerous. This could mean the end of the European Union.”
Macron also hinted at restrictions on EU labor mobility to protect French workers. The European Commission is updating its mobility package which includes tougher restrictions on cheaper Central European truckers being able to work in Western Europe, insisting they be paid the local minimum wage if they spend more than three days out of their home countries. That's a threat to Poland, which controls about a quarter of the EU road transport market.
"We need a Europe which protects people," Macron said during a meeting last week with Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. "Europe should put an end to social dumping."
Warsaw has also done its share to downgrade ties. Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz last year unexpectedly called off a $3.5 billion deal to buy 50 Caracal military helicopters from French-based Airbus. Enraged former French President François Hollande retaliated by calling off a visit to Warsaw.
The French are unlikely to forget the slight. The French defense minister at the time, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said the French side was "very angry" and that Poland behaved "in an unacceptable manner." Le Drian has stayed on as a foreign minister in Macron's new cabinet.
Poland's Deputy Defense Minister Bartosz Kownacki further stirred the controversy by alleging the French had learned how to use forks thanks to Poles.
That's all put Polish-French ties in their deepest funk in many years. Poland wasn't even invited to a March summit of the EU's largest countries in Versailles to plot a post-Brexit future for the bloc.
"The French should invest more soft power here [in Poland], like the Germans do" — Zdzisław Krasnodębski, PiS MEP
Warsaw seems to recognize the need for allies in a rapidly changing EU.
President Andrzej Duda, sometimes seen as the moderate face of PiS, has called for a revival of the Weimar Triangle format — a grouping of France, Germany and Poland formed a quarter century ago that has been quiescent in recent years. Duda met on the sidelines of the recent NATO leaders' summit in Brussels with Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The three are slated to hold a formal meeting in August.
That one meeting is going to have to be enormously positive to undo months of static on the line between Warsaw and Paris.
PiS MEP Zdisław Krasnodębski told POLITICO that Poland was interested in deeper EU cooperation on energy, the common market, a common European defense under the NATO umbrella and addressing the threat from Russia. He warned such cooperation should happen without the "demonization" of Poland and that his government was interested in EU reform that would return some competencies to national capitals.
"We should give Macron a chance," Krasnodębski said. "We would like to see the Weimar Triangle really functioning and we would like to have a France more active in our region, not only economically but also culturally. One of the big problems of Europe is that France has left Eastern Europe. The French should invest more soft power here, like the Germans do." |
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal has assured former advocate-general of Maharashtra Shrihari Aney that his party members will raise the Vidarbha statehood demand in Parliament, sources said after a meeting between the two. Aney, who met Kejriwal at his residence Thursday, in turn told Kejriwal that he would support AAP’s demand for full statehood for Delhi.
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On the face of it, this understanding between Kejriwal and Aney may not mean much, considering the fact that AAP has only four members in Lok Sabha and Aney does not count for much. However, the AAP stand in favour of a separate state of Vidarbha would embarrass the ruling BJP, which fought the Assembly polls on this plank.
Naturally, while in power, BJP had its hands tied even if it wanted to move forward on the issue because it had the potential of creating a huge law and order problem in Maharashtra. |
A cab driver is suing the city of New Orleans in civil court, saying he was falsely arrested and imprisoned, and now video of the incident has been made public.Raw video: Video released in cab driver video voyeurism caseWatch reportThe case involves a local lawyer now charged with lying to investigators about the incident.In September, the WDSU I-Team broke the story that Jennifer Gaubert was charged with lying to investigators after she claimed taxi cab driver Hervey Farrell secretly video taped her in a compromising position and then tried to blackmail her. Farrell was initially arrested by the NOPD.But the district attorney in Orleans Parish dropped the charges against Farrell and instead charged Gaubert with lying.Gaubert is still awaiting trial on the felony charge of lying to prosecutors; that case will be heard next month.But the 33-year-old was found guilty of a misdemeanor last week by Municipal Court Judge Paul Sens.Sens made that ruling after hearing from Farrell and viewing the video tape in question.In it you see Gaubert hop from the back seat of the cab to the front and start a line of explicit questioning with the cab driver.In the civil filing Farrell claims the NOPD did not investigate properly, and that he was arrested without cause and held at OPP for almost two days.He also claims he suffered emotional stress and loss his job over the incident, an incident the DA now says he was the victim in.Related:Woman accused of fabricating story of taxi driver extortionSign up for our email newsletters to get breaking news right in your inbox. Click here to sign up!
A cab driver is suing the city of New Orleans in civil court, saying he was falsely arrested and imprisoned, and now video of the incident has been made public.
Raw video: Video released in cab driver video voyeurism case
Watch report
The case involves a local lawyer now charged with lying to investigators about the incident.
In September, the WDSU I-Team broke the story that Jennifer Gaubert was charged with lying to investigators after she claimed taxi cab driver Hervey Farrell secretly video taped her in a compromising position and then tried to blackmail her. Farrell was initially arrested by the NOPD.
But the district attorney in Orleans Parish dropped the charges against Farrell and instead charged Gaubert with lying.
Gaubert is still awaiting trial on the felony charge of lying to prosecutors; that case will be heard next month.
But the 33-year-old was found guilty of a misdemeanor last week by Municipal Court Judge Paul Sens.
Sens made that ruling after hearing from Farrell and viewing the video tape in question.
In it you see Gaubert hop from the back seat of the cab to the front and start a line of explicit questioning with the cab driver.
In the civil filing Farrell claims the NOPD did not investigate properly, and that he was arrested without cause and held at OPP for almost two days.
He also claims he suffered emotional stress and loss his job over the incident, an incident the DA now says he was the victim in.
Related:
Woman accused of fabricating story of taxi driver extortion
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My local Food Basics grocery store sells Spanish chorizo and I have been enjoying using it in various dishes. Chorizo is extremely popular right now and recipes using this sausage are available all over the net and on TV. There are two different types of chorizo and it is important to know what you are using when you cook with it.
Spanish and Portuguese chorizo is typically made with chunks of pork and the sausage is cured. European sausages are often cured and each region has its own variety from German salami, Italian capicola and Spanish chorizo. Spanish chorizo can be diced or sliced and used in cooking the same way that you would use ham.
Mexican chorizo is raw and uses ground or minced pork. When cooking with Mexican chorizo it is important to make sure that it is fully cooked. It is possible to cook the chorizo, then slice and dice it to include in the dish you are preparing. It is also possible to remove the raw chorizo meat from the casings and add it to dishes as you would Italian sausage.
The recipe below includes one of the most common ways to eat chorizo; with eggs. Chorizo and scrambled eggs go extremely well together and adding it to a breakfast taco will give you an extra special morning meal. |
The speaking appearance of Muslim attorney and Gold Star father Khizr Khan at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, at which he criticized Republican nominee Donald Trump for his lack of empathy for immigrants, unleashed a firestorm of rebukes and attempts to discredit him, including unsubstantiated allegations that Khan has “deep legal and financial connections” to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
One of those attempts hinged on an image (see below) purporting to show a Wells Fargo bank statement in the name of Khan’s law firm which lists a $375,000 wire transfer from The Clinton Foundation, Bill Clinton’s nonprofit organization devoted to addressing global issues. Exactly how and where it originated is unknown, but the image made one of its first appearances on a page dated 4 August 2016 on the Get Off the BS web site, where it was introduced as follows:
Well now with some help from a member of the awesome freedom fighter group Anonymous, we have some more interesting information about Mr. Khan and his unethical connection with Crooked Hillary and her charitable money laundering foundation–did we say that? Due to litigation concerns [no doubt a lawsuit is forthcoming – screw you Khan] we are not going to make other comments than to use your own imagination what this payment is for. We will open up comments so that you can discuss this matter among yourselves. “Hey girl, we have been monitoring one of several bank accounts for Khan’s law firms. Attached, please take a hard look at the payment from Clinton’s foundation to Khan’s law firm. Should not take a MBA to figure what he was paid for. Enjoy.”
The document appears to be a Wells Fargo Business Market Savings account statement for the KM Khan Law Office, address listed as 415 Madison Ave., Suite 1500, New York, NY. In the transaction history is an 8/1 “Clinton foundation incoming wire” entry credited in the amount of $375,000. One of the first things you’ll note about the document, however, is that it’s heavily redacted — so heavily that you can’t even find a complete date on it anywhere. The second thing you’ll notice, if you look carefully, is that the business name is listed twice in the document, and the listings don’t match.
First it’s listed as “KM KHAN LAW OFFICE”:
Then it’s listed as “JM KHAN LAW OFFICE”:
At some point as the image was being passed around and reposted, someone noticed the discrepancy and created a new version:
But if you’ll notice, the new version has a defect as well: “KM KHAN LAW OFFICE” — singular — has now become “KM KHAN LAW OFFICES” — plural.
This forged document — pick your favorite version, it doesn’t matter — would have been laughed out of a court of law. Indeed, the “evidence” is so inconsistent that it’s hard to believe anyone could mistake it, much less try to pass it off, as real. Needless to say, it doesn’t prove that Khizr Khan received $375,000 from the Clinton Foundation; all it proves is that someone wants you to think he did. |
A lot of successful diplomacy is about ambiguity, nuance and turning blind eyes. So is a lot of failed diplomacy: When the ambiguity is not consensual, the nuance is missing, and mistakes or misjudgements are exposed to the cold hard glare of reality. Accidents, of course, happen, but the latest misadventures in the United Kingdom look embarrassingly avoidable.
Britain’s international development secretary’s busman’s holiday in Israel is the first problem. It is hard to believe that anyone, least of all Priti Patel herself, would think that combining a holiday with — it now turns out — 12, yes, 12 professional meetings was a particularly good idea.
So was this, as some appear to believe, an attempted assertion of departmental autonomy — by the Department for International Development (Dfid) against perceived encroachments by the Foreign Office? Was it just a reflection of over-eagerness by a rookie minister — as her statement suggested. Could it really be that she was unaware that all officials are supposed to be accompanied even to unofficial meetings by nice safe pairs of diplomatic hands? And had she, or had she not, informed the Foreign Office? Her grovelling apology places her in the wrong on all counts. Maybe, maybe not.
At least — as per the information to date — she paid for the trip herself, so there would appear to be no question of misuse of public funds. Then again, with so many meetings on the schedule, including with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself, why should she have paid? Or is Britain’s foreign outreach so strapped for cash, that ministers are now required, where possible, to combine business and pleasure? Whatever the rights and wrongs of this trip, none of it reflects well on the workings of government, least of all against the current fetid backdrop of Brexit and sex.
Boris Johnson, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, when he appeared before the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, was asked what he was doing to secure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe — a dual British-Iranian national detained in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison on undisclosed charges — Johnson said airily that she had been “simply teaching people journalism”. As a journalist himself, Johnson surely knows that there are many countries, Iran being one, where teaching and/or practising journalism can come with potentially grave complications.
Worse, in so saying, he deviated not only from the consistent British script — that Zaghari-Ratcliffe was in Iran for nothing more dubious than a holiday with her family — but from the truth, that, as stressed by her bosses, her job at the Thomson Reuters Foundation entails neither practising nor teaching journalism. Johnson, it would appear, made perhaps the same mistake as the Iranian prosecutors in inferring the nature of her work from her affiliation.
From there, it took the Iranian authorities less than 48 hours to haul Zaghari-Ratcliffe back into court and threaten her with five more years, in addition to her current five-year sentence. Understandably, her husband and campaigners demanded that Johnson issue a retraction. Already frustrated by what they see as the Foreign Office’s distinctly half-hearted approach to her plight, the British foreign secretary had with one careless remark seemed to confirm Iranian suspicions. It remains to be seen what, if anything, can be salvaged from this wreckage.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe is separated from her daughter, who is now three and living in Tehran with grandparents. Her husband cannot get a visa to visit her, and the Foreign Office — always warier, it seems, than their American or French counterparts about going in to bat for dual nationals — have stuck with their habitual softly-softly ways, which often look little different from doing nothing.
There have been suspicions, but no more, that there is more to Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s plight than has been told — that perhaps the Iranians are holding her as a de facto hostage, say, in the hope of securing some deal, or advantage from, the British. The Ratcliffes’ member of parliament, Tulip Seddiq, has tentatively canvassed the possibility. But the truth could be more prosaic.
The Foreign Office has long had a higher regard for itself than was perhaps deserved. Others, including some of Britain’s (still) European partners can be both more agile and more effective, especially where prisoners or hostages are concerned. While the UK always defends its refusal to pay ransoms, it tends also to shun publicity, even where — as here — there is a clear humanitarian imperative: A divided family and a small child. Now, though, it is not just Foreign Office tactics that may be blamed for Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s continued imprisonment, but incautious words from the Johnson himself.
All in all, it has not been a great year for UK diplomacy. There was the offer, since downgraded, of a state visit to United States President Donald Trump, and Johnson’s own on-off, now apparently on again, trip to Moscow. Now, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s running rivalry with Dfid has been brought mercilessly into the open; some under-the-radar diplomacy with Israel has been exposed, and — thanks to a foolish throwaway remark from Britain’s top diplomat — a British citizen could find her time in an Iranian prison doubled.
All this poses the question — is the distraction of Brexit leaving the UK’s other foreign efforts perilously thin, or is it worse? Has the UK perhaps just lost that Rolls-Royce diplomatic touch?
— Guardian News & Media Ltd
Mary Dejevsky is a writer and broadcaster. She is a former foreign correspondent in Moscow, Paris and Washington. |
New York
Drivers, here's the bad news: You'll be paying more for gasoline in the coming weeks.
The good news: You'll likely pay less than last year. Or the year before, or the year before that.
The price of gasoline held steady into early February, but an increase is almost inevitable this time of year. Pump prices have gone up an average 31 cents per gallon in February over the past three years. And although this year's rise might not reach the heights of years past, there are reasons for drivers in some regions — like the Northeast — to worry about a painful spike.
"We're going to get increases and they are going to be noticeable," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at Gasbuddy.com and the Oil Price Information Service. "We're going to get that pop relatively soon."
The price of crude oil has risen 8 percent over the past month, to $100 per barrel. And analysts expect fuel supplies to begin to decline as refineries dial back production to perform maintenance and make the switch to summer blends of fuels.
Gasoline prices are already creeping higher. The nationwide average price has risen for seven days in a row to $3.34 per gallon, the highest level since October, according to AAA, OPIS and Wright Express. Because of state taxes and other actions, California, Connecticut and New York drivers are paying an average of $3.65 or more, the most in the lower 48 states. Montana and South Carolina drivers are paying $3.10 or less.
But the nationwide average is not expected to quite reach its high point of last year of $3.79 per gallon, set Feb. 27, never mind the highs of $3.94 in 2012 and $3.98 in 2011. AAA predicts a peak of between $3.55 and $3.75 per gallon.
Gasoline prices are 8 percent lower than last year at this time, even though crude oil prices are about the same, in part because gasoline supplies are plentiful.
Refiners have kept operations going to meet increased demand for heating oil during the frigid winter, and have produced more gasoline as a result. But the stormy weather has left cars buried under snow, where they don't use much gasoline.
With the end of the winter in sight, refinery output is expected to slow down as refiners conduct routine seasonal maintenance. Even refiners that are running sometimes reduce production at this time of year. They'll soon switch to making more expensive summer gasoline that is formulated to meet clean air rules, and they don't want to be stuck with unsold winter gas.
The reduced production depletes supplies and causes gas prices to rise as the U.S. driving season approaches.
There are a few twists this year that could send prices higher than forecasters expect, though, especially in certain markets.
Three crucial refineries that serve the Northeast have maintenance already underway or scheduled soon, according to Kloza. Delta Air Lines' facility in Trainer, Pa., is finishing up maintenance and is expected to be back on line in a couple of weeks, according to analysts. The Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery in Philadelphia is also undergoing maintenance, and the giant Irving refinery in New Brunswick, Canada, is expected to go offline at the end of February, analysts say.
If maintenance goes as planned and the weather in the Northeast stays nasty — suppressing demand for gasoline — prices shouldn't spike too dramatically. But if something goes wrong at a refinery and people start hopping in the car again, prices could soar in New York and New England.
Kloza said California and the Pacific Northwest are also at risk for higher prices because both regions rely so heavily on a relatively small number of refineries.
Low supplies will be more difficult to replace than in the past because the U.S. is receiving fewer imports of gasoline and other fuels from abroad, while exporting more. Refiners often find it cheaper to send any excess fuel they produce abroad than to send it to other U.S. locations because of shipping rules that require domestic shipments to use a small fleet of U.S. ships, which charge higher rates.
"The market may not take off, but there's plenty of dry tinder, and I think it will," Kloza said. "It's going to get pretty interesting here over the next 45 days." |
“It’s ok to consume fossil fuels, as long as it’s for a good cause”
Naomi Klein, author of assorted anti-capitalism books, appeared recently on Tout Le Monde En Parle (Everybody’s Talking About It), Radio-Canada’s popular Sunday night talk program, burnishing her brand as an environmental activist and long-time critic of capitalism even if she can’t talk French (the show makes exceptions for favourite high profile anglos like Montreal Canadiens defenceman P.K. Subban).
Unlike the English CBC, the French branch didn’t just swoon over Klein’s every pronouncement. They teased her about being a brand (“I strive to be a bad one”). She felt obliged to reconcile her call for reduced fossil fuel consumption with jetting to Montreal to tape the program. Klein’s curious rationale was that without air travel the conversation about global warming would only involve 10 people reveals the conundrum; it’s ok to consume fossil fuels, as long as it’s for a good cause. But who determines what causes are worthwhile?
Klein’s answer implies it’s the individual involved, opening the door to everyone flying for their own business or using an SUV to ferry the kids around all day on the grounds it’s for a good cause. Instead of showcasing how new technologies or social media could be used creatively to reduce her own fossil fuel consumption and still get the message out effectively, Klein provides a rationale for the very decisions that she criticizes others for making.
The interview confirmed how little Klein understands capitalism. She argues that it is absurd for our society to consider “science fiction” technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions instead of thinking about fundamental changes to capitalism. This ignores that a major benefit of capitalism is fostering innovation and technological change.
Removing technological change from the dynamics of capitalism is like cutting oxygen from a fire. Of course the fire would die, but fortunately the supply of oxygen is inexhaustible, as is the wellspring of innovation in capitalism. It is why the amount of all major types of pollutants eventually has receded over time (Montreal just had its first year ever without a smog advisory), with the exception of greenhouse gas emissions up to now.
Klein simply doesn’t appreciate the close relationship between energy consumption and economic growth, regardless of whether the economy is organized under capitalism, socialism, feudalism or any other “ism” you care to use. The preferred energy source is always the cheapest one, which for the foreseeable future will be fossil fuels and not more expensive energy sources like wind and solar power.
Our continued reliance on fossil fuels suggests three possible long-term outcomes for our society. One is the possibility the models predicting global warming will be borne out, and disruptive climate change will force us to adapt. Another is that technological change may break the link between energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, allowing us to rely on more energy consumption for economic growth without the risk of climate change. A third possibility is the models used to forecast climate change are proved wrong, and more energy consumption does not lead to pronounced global warming.
Economists acknowledge this possibility more than most modellers. After all, our models of the macroeconomy are several vintages older and more complex than climate change models, but remain pitifully embryonic; the models used by central banks before the 2008 financial meltdown did not even have a financial sector — that little oversight helped cost millions of jobs and trillions of dollars.
Similarly, some scientists now speculate the reason global temperatures have not risen nearly as fast as their models predicted is they neglected the impact of oceans acting as a carbon “sink” that trap greenhouse gas emissions. This oversight is quite understandable, since oceans only cover two-thirds of the planet (much like forgetting to include the financial sector in models of the economy, even though finance touches all sectors of the economy). It is preposterously hubristic but entirely human to think we correctly modelled all the complexity of the climate in our first serious attempts at it.
Klein welcomed the recent drop in oil prices, despite the boost it will give to fossil fuel consumption, because “you can’t think when you’re making that much money.” Actually, it’s hard to think when you have a dogmatic view of how the world works based on ideology and herd thinking that is impervious to facts, logic and changing circumstances.
Philip Cross is the former Chief Economic Analyst at Statistics Canada. |
18. That's the number of hitters currently enshrined in the Hall Of Fame with a higher career OPS than Carlos Delgado's career mark of .929.
118. That's the number of hitters in the Hall Of Fame with a lower career OPS than Carlos Delgado. (Leading off the list, at .928, is Hank Aaron.)
Carlos Delgado was never a great defensive player, or a speed demon. He was a pure slugger, and at his peak with the Blue Jays from 1997-2004, very few could slug like him.
In 2000, he played in all 162 games for the Jays, hitting a Herculean .344/.470/.664 with 41 HR, leading the league in doubles and total bases. (He lost the MVP to Jason Giambi.) In 2003, he hit .302/.426/.593 with 42 HR, leading the league in OPS and RBI. (He probably should have won AL MVP, but they gave it to A-Rod.)
For that seven-year window from 1997-2004 where he was the heart and soul of a very hit-and-miss Blue Jays team, Delgado put up a 145 wRC+. That's better than A-Rod, Sammy Sosa, Mike Piazza and Frank Thomas.
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Carlos Delgado was a great hitter. The one thing his career didn't have (well, other than a World Series) was length.
Delgado retired at age 37 after a slew of injuries, playing out his twilight years with the Mets - if he hadn't retired young, he'd surely have eclipsed 500 home runs. (He retired with 473 HR and 1,512 RBI.) He made the playoffs with the Mets just once, in 2006, where he hit .351/.442/.757 before bowing out in the NLCS.
His 2009 retirement announcement brought little fanfare. To everyone outside of Toronto and a handful of Mets fans, Carlos Delgado was an afterthought. But before we bring up the bloated zombie corpse that is the BBWAA Hall Of Fame ballot, let's just sit back and truly appreciate Carlos Delgado as a player for a second.
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Let me take you back to September, 2003, when Carlos Delgado hit the 300th home run of his career. Then, in his next three at-bats in that game, his 301st, 302nd and 303rd. He remains the only player in MLB history to hit four home runs in four at-bats in the same game.
Carlos Delgado was my childhood, and although I try to care as very little as possible about a shadowy cabal of elderly sportwriters' opinions on what plaques belong in a museum in upstate New York, it's still a bit of a shame that Carlos Delgado will never make it into the Hall Of Fame.
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Today, it was revealed that Carlos Delgado received a 3.8% share of Hall Of Fame votes. Since that falls short of the mandated floor of 5%, he'll fall off the ballot for next year. Delgado's Hall Of Fame case was over before it ever started.
Look, I know that Carlos Delgado has always been a Hall Of Fame long-shot. He played first base, and he didn't even play it particularly well. He played almost his whole career in Toronto in the late 90s and early 00s, at a time where the Jays were mostly terrible and very few American sportswriters ever watched him play. He also played in the greatest offensive period in baseball history. He has a lot of things going against him.
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But to go down like this, with barely a whimper? That's sad. Carlos deserved better.
More than anything, Delgado's a victim of his era. He put up great numbers in a time where his colleagues were putting up cartoonishly insane numbers.
It's telling that despite his offensive totals (out of the 13 seasons where he was an everyday player, he hit 30+ home runs 11 times, and 40+ home runs 3 times) he was only a two-time All-Star. There were just so many good hitters in the late 90s and early 00s, especially in the AL, that there was no room for Delgado.
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Even as a kid who grew up taking the subway to the SkyDome and buying tickets off scalpers so I could watch Delgado hammer the ball into the half-empty stands, do I think he was actually a Hall Of Famer? On this current ballot, no. You only get to vote for 10 players, and a 75% majority is required for election - and on this stacked of a ballot, with these ridiculous outdated voting rules, I can see why there just isn't room for him.
I just think it's a shame that, with only 3.8% of votes cast, he won't even get a chance to be discussed seriously. Carlos Delgado deserves better than to be forgotten. That's part of what makes the Hall Of Fame such a rotten, antiquated institution. All of these players were great parts of our collective baseball memories, and all of them deserve to be enshrined in a museum about baseball history, regardless of what the 90-year-old sportswriter of the Palookavilla Press thinks of "tainted eras" or whatever the hell.
Carlos Delgado, as the Toronto Blue Jays' franchise leader in home runs, RBI, runs scores, doubles, slugging percentage, and OPS, is a part of baseball history. And even if he'll never get a bronze plaque in Cooperstown - even if, based on the era in which he played and his defense and everything else, he never really deserved to be enshrined - I hope there's at least room at the Hall Of Fame tucked away in a Blue Jays display for a picture that says "Carlos Delgado was one of the great hitters of his era." |
HEBRON (Ma'an) -- Israeli settlers on Friday gathered outside the home of a human rights worker in Hebron to hurl abuse at him, a day after he captured on camera an Israeli soldier's killing of a wounded Palestinian which sparked international outcry.
Emad Abu Shamsiya, a staff member with Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, told Ma’an after settlers threatened him: “I now fear for my life and the life of my family. I’m afraid they might attack my house and do me harm.”
He added that he fears the possibility of suffering the same fate as the Dawabsha family, who were killed in an arson attack committed by settlers last year in the village of Duma in the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian residents of Hebron Abd al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif and Ramzi Aziz al-Qasrawi, both 21 years old, were shot down Thursday after allegedly stabbing and moderately wounding an Israeli soldier near a military checkpoint in Hebron’s Old City.
Shamsiya recorded rare video footage of an Israeli soldier shooting al-Sharif in the head at point-blank range in plain view of the medical team after he had already been shot at least once and left motionless on the ground.
The incident has brought a barrage of condemnations from the Israeli leadership and led Israel's army to detain the soldier responsible and launch an investigation
The release of the graphic video has called attention to what rights groups, international leaders, and Palestinian officials call a policy of "extrajudicial executions" by Israel against Palestinians, since a wave of unrest swept the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel last October.
UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov said Friday he strongly condemned the apparent "extrajudicial execution" of al-Sharif.
"This was a gruesome, immoral, and unjust act that can only fuel more violence and escalate an already volatile situation," Mladenov said.
Tel Rumeida -- where Shamsiya’s house is located and the site of the Thursday’s incident -- has long been a flashpoint for tensions between Palestinians and Israeli settlers and military, and is located next to an illegal Israeli settlement.
Mistreatment of Palestinians in the Hebron area has been common since the city was divided in the 1990s after a US-born settler, Baruch Goldstein, massacred 29 Palestinians inside the Ibrahimi Mosque.
The majority of the city was placed under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, while the Old City and surrounding areas were placed under Israeli military control in a sector known as H2.
The area is home to 30,000 Palestinians and around 800 Israeli settlers who live under the protection of Israeli forces. Hebron residents frequently report attacks and harassment by the settlers carried out in the presence of the forces. |
Two former religious leaders in B.C. have been found guilty of polygamy after marrying more than two dozen women over the course of 25 years.
Winston Blackmore, 60, and James Oler, 53, were convicted of practising plural or "celestial" marriage in the fundamentalist community of Bountiful, B.C.
In B.C. Supreme Court on Monday, Justice Sheri Ann Donegan said Blackmore "subscribed to beliefs and practices of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," a Mormon sect that believes in plural marriages.
James Oler, another former leader from the same community, was accused of having five wives and Blackmore 24 wives.
Both men are former bishops of the sect in the province's southeast. Neither denied having multiple marriages and Blackmore has fathered more than 145 children from his marriages.
"I'm guilty of living my religion and that's all I'm saying today because I've never denied that," Blackmore told reporters after the verdict.
"Twenty-seven years and tens of millions of dollars later, all we've proved is something we've never denied. I've never denied my faith. This is what we expected."
Maximum sentence is 5 years
The 12-day trial heard from one of Blackmore's ex-wives, Jane Blackmore. She told the court that Blackmore once told her he was "only doing what God told him to do."
In her ruling, Donegan said she found Jane Blackmore to be a "thoughtful, credible" witness. The judge also said Blackmore was "deliberate" in his marriages and "would not deny who he was or what he believes in" in interviews.
Blackmore's co-accused, James Oler, arrives at B.C. Supreme Court in Cranbrook on Monday. (Todd Korol/Reuters)
Blackmore's lawyer, Blair Suffredine, previously said he'd launch a constitutional challenge to the validity of the polygamy laws if his client were to be found guilty.
The trial also heard from mainstream Mormon experts and law enforcement officials who worked on the case. Up to 700 records seized as part of the investigation outlined the "celestial" marriage practice.
A celestial marriage is a secretive, plural marriage not registered with any higher governments — but records were kept in a vault in Texas.
Section 293 of the Criminal Code of Canada explicitly bans polygamy and threatens offenders with a five-year prison term.
Both Blackmore and Oler have been released on bail.
Trial decades in the making
The legal fight began in the early '90s when police first investigated allegations that residents of an isolated religious community were practising multiple marriages.
In 2014, Blackmore appeared outside the courthouse in Creston, B.C., with a number of his daughters, who came to support him. (CBC)
A lack of clarity around Canada's polygamy laws initially led to failed attempts at prosecuting Blackmore, followed by several efforts to clarify the legislation, including a reference question to the B.C. Supreme Court.
Oler was married to Blackmore's sister, and was chosen to lead the Canadian community just north of the U.S. state of Idaho following Blackmore's excommunication from the sect in 2002 by Warren Jeffs, considered the prophet and leader of the group.
Authorities have said Jeffs still leads the sect from a Texas prison, where he is serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting underage girls he considered brides.
The court ruled in 2011 that laws banning polygamy were constitutional and did not violate religious freedoms guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, based in Utah, officially renounced polygamy in the late 1800s and disputes any connection to the fundamentalist group's form of Mormonism.
A sentencing date has not yet been set, but a hearing will be held next month in Kamloops to decide a timeline. |
It was the rare ghost orchid that held the fascination of flora fanatic John Laroche, whose story of plant poaching and subsequent arrest were the topic of Susan Orlean’s famous book, "The Orchid Thief." While Laroche may be one of the better known contemporary plant collectors, the practice dates back to at least the 15th century BC, when Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut sent botanists to Somalia to bring back some incense trees. The fascination with plants and flowers has persisted throughout time, reaching a fever pitch in the early 1630s when tulip mania gripped the Netherlands, resulting in the crazed speculative buying of rare tulip bulbs. It was the first futures market in history, and like those that followed, it suffered a dramatic crash.
By the 1700s, formal flower production became established in the Netherlands with the development of greenhouses, and we’ve been lavishing our homes with potted flowers and posey-filled vases ever since. While roses and lilies may fill most florists' buckets, there’s a whole world of exotic flowers out there that might bring out the orchid thief in many a flower enthusiast.
The following list from The Richest (and annotated by us) enumerates the world’s most expensive blooms:
7. Gloriosa: $6 – $10 per stem
The fire lily is beautiful and poisonous. (Photo: Hafiz Issadeen/flickr)
Also known as flame lilies, fire lilies and glory lilies, gloriosa is as beautiful and unique as it is poisonous! Both very showy and delicate, the blooms command big bucks for their rarity.
6. 17th-century Semper Augustus: 10,000 guilders per bulb
The price of one Semper Augusta tulip bulb could have purchased a grand home in Amsterdam. (Photo: Painter unknown/Wikimedia Commons)
For this one we’ll time travel back to the 17th century when buyers in the Netherlands were going bonkers for tulip bulbs, creating the first speculative market and subsequent crash, as mentioned above. Of all the coveted bulbs, the Semper Augustus, with its garnet flames vividly streaked on white petals, was extraordinary for its beauty, rarity and cost. Just before the tulipmania bubble burst, a price of 10,000 guilders (about $5,700) was asked for a single Semper Augustus bulb. At the time, that much money could have purchased a grand home on the most fashionable canal in Amsterdam, or dressed and fed an entire family for half a lifetime.
5. Saffron crocus: $1,200 – $1,500 per pound
The saffron flower gives saffron, the most expensive spice by weight. (Photo: HeiWu/Wikimedia Commons)
The saffron flower (Crocus sativus) gives us saffron, widely recognized as the world’s most expensive spice by weight. The pretty purple flower plays home to a deep golden orange stamen that is hand-picked and dried and then sold as saffron; it takes 80,000 flowers to harvest a mere 500 grams of saffron, thus the exorbitant cost.
4. Rotchschild's orchid: $5,000 per plant
Rotchschild's orchid nearly became extinct after it was discovered by orchid smugglers. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Rotchschild's orchid (Paphiopedilum rothschildianum), commonly known as the Gold of Kinabalu orchid, was discovered in 1987, after which it was ravaged by orchid smugglers and became nearly extinct. Notable for its imposing horizontal petals, it has been reintroduced by cultivated seedlings, but it remains elusive. It lives in the wild only at the Kinabalu National Park in Malaysia, and takes many years before a single bloom appears.
3. Shenzhen Nongke orchid: $202,000 per plant
The ordinary looking Shenzhen Nongke orchid was developed in a lab by a research corporation. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Orchid collectors crawling all the corners of the world would be unable to find this relatively plane Jane of a flower; it was developed in the lab by agricultural research corporation Shenzhen Nongke Group. The orchid took eight years to develop and in 2005, it was sold at auction to an anonymous bidder for a shocking 1.68 million Yuan (around $202,000), making it the most expensive flower ever bought.
2. Juliet rose: $5 million
The Juliet rose is the most expensive rose ever developed. (Photo: David Austin Roses)
Although the heavenly Juliet rose can be purchased for less than the $5 million price tag listed above, it is known as the “£3 million rose” because that’s how much it cost famed rose breeder David Austin to create the apricot-hued hybrid over the course of 15 years. It debuted in 2006 at the Chelsea Flower Show, and took the floral world by storm not only for its blushing beauty, but because it was the most expensive rose ever developed.
1. Kadupul flower: Priceless
The kadupul flower often blooms just once a year, and typically at night. (Photo: YouTube)
Few living things are both as poetic and ephemeral as the Kadupul flower, a fleeting beauty from Sri Lanka that blooms as infrequently as once a year. And when it does bloom, it does so in the dark of night and withers away before dawn ... so transient, it simply can't be purchased.
7 of the most expensive flowers in the world
From rare orchids to a flower that lives for just a few hours, these blooms are the pick of the crop. |
Pakistan's Shahid Afridi will retire from one-day internationals after the 2015 World Cup
Northants have signed Pakistan all-rounder Shahid Afridi for the first six T20 Blast games of this summer.
The big-hitting 34-year-old holds the record of 342 for the most sixes in the history of one-day internationals.
And he has a strike-rate of 116.29 from 389 one-dayers and 145.29 from 77 T20 games for Pakistan.
"He doesn't need a big introduction. He is one of the top one-day cricketers of the last decade," Northants coach David Ripley told BBC Radio Northampton.
"I think we were in the right place at the right time to get a bit of dialogue going.
Afridi in numbers 342 ODI sixes - most by any player 7-12 - second best ODI match figures 102 off 37 balls - was the fastest ODI century in October 1996, now third fastest 391 wickets - sixth best in ODI history 116.29 - sixth best ODI strikerate of all time 81 wickets - third best in T20I history 145.29 - sixth best T20I strikerate of all time 21 wickets - join highest at 2011 World Cup
"It's a very exciting signing. It's for the start of the competition so hopefully we can come out of the blocks quickly.
"We might not be able to finance another player further down the line, but we haven't given up hope on that."
The Wantage Road side, who won the T20 trophy in 2013, already have South African all-rounder Rory Kleinveldt signed up for all formats, along with fellow countryman and a top-order batsman Richard Levi, who will not count as an overseas players under the terms of the Kolpak ruling.
Afridi will join up with the Northants squad in time for their opening T20 Blast fixture away to Durham on 15 May, and will remain for games against the Birmingham Bears, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Worcestershire and Nottinghamshire.
He also bowls leg-spin and has 391 wickets in one-dayers, at an average of 23.49, and 81 T20 international wickets at a cost of 22.44 each, plus 48 from 27 Test appearances.
He was the joint-leading wicket taker at the 2011 World Cup, with 21 dismissals.
Afridi, who has also played for Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Kent and Hampshire, will retire from ODIs after this year's World Cup. |
ANTALYA, Turkey — When I was stuck at the airport in this city in southern Turkey, on Friday night, I had many things to worry about. A coup attempt had just begun and the country was in turmoil. My plane to Istanbul had almost flown into the worst of the fighting, but luckily we were prevented from taking off at the last minute when the airspace was closed.
One thing I did not have to worry about, though, was running out of data on my phone. In the early morning hours, Turkey’s leading cellphone provider topped up the internet allowance of every subscriber. This was more than unusual. Turkey has experienced many crises recently, including deadly terrorist attacks, and they usually lead to a closing of information flows, not the government-aligned service provider’s making it easier to transmit information.
The reason was simple: In the confusing hours after the coup attempt began, the country had heard from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — and even learned that he was alive — when he called a television station via FaceTime, an easy-to-use video chat app. As the camera focused on the iPhone in the anchor’s hand, the president called on the people of Turkey to take to the streets and guard the airports. But this couldn’t happen by itself. People would need WhatsApp, Twitter and other tools on their phones to mobilize. The president also tweeted out the call to his more than eight million followers to resist the coup.
The effect was immediate. On my drive back into the city from the airport, I encountered throngs gathering in squares, waving Turkish flags. Everywhere, their screens flickered as they held their phones out, taking defiant selfies to share with their friends, inviting them to join the protests. Within hours, most of the soldiers backing the would-be coup had been overwhelmed. Despite Turkey’s deep political and social divisions, every opposition party, too, immediately came out against the coup. Most did so by posting statements on Twitter. |
May approaches - a significant month for US telly-watchers, since it's when we'll learn which shows are getting the axe and which will be sticking around through 2015.
It's a painful process - all the more so for us cult TV fans, so all-encompassing is the obsession we have with our favourite sci-fi and fantasy series.
Whether you're hoping for the best or steeling yourself for bad news, here are a few pointers on what to expect - the Week in Geek odds on cult shows potentially facing cancellation.
What's axed? What's renewed? The 2014-15 season USTV scorecard
Marvel's Agents of SHIELD - 4/1 shot at renewal
Yes, critical reaction has been mixed. Yes, ratings have dipped by more than 6m viewers since the pilot. But the power of Mighty Marvel - chiefly ABC's ties with the Disney-owned comic giant - means that Agents of SHIELD is guaranteed at least a second season.
Showrunners Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon have talked up plans for a wrap-up Kickstarter movie - Veronica Mars-style - if the show is axed, but it's highly doubtful they'll have to rely on fan funding any time soon.
Community - 6/1 shot at renewal
The little cult sitcom that could, we're quietly confident that at least one half of the Community fan mantra ("Six seasons and a movie!") will come true next month.
Even the show's creator - loveable cynic Dan Harmon - admitted recently that, at this point, "the only thing weirder [than a renewal]... would be not getting a sixth season," adding: "If we get a sixth season, they owe us a movie, right?"
Hannibal - 10/1 shot at renewal
Prestige is a surprisingly powerful force in US network television - critical acclaim can help keep a show on in the air even if its audience numbers aren't exactly stellar.
The likelihood of Hannibal getting a third season then is reasonably strong. Its ratings on Friday nights are low but not disastrously so, while the critics simply can't get enough - so chances of survival are, if not high, then at least moderate.
Revolution - 25/1 shot at renewal
It's popular consensus that, on a creative level, the second season of Revolution has been stronger than the first. But unfortunately that surge in quality hasn't translated into higher viewing figures - while the first run never dipped below 5.5m, recent episodes have seen the show at just above 4m.
This dystopian sci-fi series is far from a lame duck, but its continued survival depends on the quality of NBC's drama pilots this season. If a new show impresses the execs, then Revolution could get the chop.
Almost Human - 40/1 shot at renewal
Liane Hentscher Fox
Karl Urban's futuristic thriller drew decent but far from spectacular numbers when it aired its initial 13-episode run and Fox has been known to stick by an underdog sci-fi series before - just think of Almost Human creator Joel Wyman's previous effort Fringe.
But that 13-episode tally is concerning - Fox wasn't willing to order a full first season of Almost Human, so will it be willing to order a second? Again, this show's fate is tied to the network's 2014-15 pilot slate - it'll be back only if Fox can't find a suitable replacement.
Dracula - 50/1 shot at renewal
A series average of 3.2m ain't great - even on NBC - and with Katie McGrath jumping ship to play with dinosaurs, you'd be forgiven for writing Dracula off.
But there is the tiniest glimmer of hope for the paranormal drama's fanatical fanbase - Jonathan Rhys Meyers' blood-soaked exploits have proven popular with international audiences. Since Dracula is a co-production with UK broadcaster Sky Living, that might just be enough to save it.
Its pulse may be faint, but Dracula isn't dead yet.
Intelligence - 66/1 shot at renewal
Even the presence of charismatic Lost veteran Josh Holloway and some "beautiful, strong character ladies" (Josh's words, not ours!) couldn't stop spy-fi series Intelligence from sinking.
While its pilot attracted an impressive 16.5m, it lost over 10m of those viewers in week two - and the ratings drop-off hasn't stopped. Numbers around the 5m mark aren't enough to save you on CBS.
The Tomorrow People - 80/1 shot at renewal
Jack Rowand
One of only a few shows not renewed by The CW back in February, this sci-fi revamp's future was very much dependent on how the network's latest effort The 100 performed.
Unfortunately for Robbie Amell and co, while The 100 has been pulling in solid audiences of around 2m, The Tomorrow People recently dipped to less than half that. Sorry guys, but this show is toast.
Beauty and the Beast - 100/1 shot at renewal
Kristin Kreuk's fantasy romance / crime procedural has been attracting under 900k viewers, week-in week-out, and now its been put on a mid-season hiatus of almost three months.
It'll be back in the summer to air season two's final episodes, but a third run is just... not... happening.
Which of these cult shows should be saved? And which deserves the axe? Share your thoughts below! |
Today, I am beginning a four part Android tutorial series where I will provide step by step guide on how to create and publish your first Android app. Are you ready to build your first Android app? Great choice! – what do you want to build? For this tutorial series I will be building a demo app called Attendance App.
Imagine a friend of yours came to you and said “I need an Android app that will help me record the attendance for my up coming event”. How will you proceed to build and publish an app like this for your friend. Well, I will show you how in 4 blog post – please be informed that each of these posts are long posts.
Post 1 – Planning: In Post 1 which is this post, I will walk you through how to translate this one line statement into a features list for an app and then create the skeleton of that App including Navigation Drawer, consider this first tutorial an introduction to Material Design. Post 2- Implement Data Persistence: Every business/productivity app needs some form of data persistence so in the second post I will provide an introduction to SQLite and then steer you towards an ORM which will make life so much easier for you. Post 3 – Implement Business Logic: In this post we will implement all the features of the app including an attempt on user interface design even though we are not designers. Post 4 – Publish the App: Your friend will not get their Attendance app you are building unless you publish it, so in this post I will walk you through the publishing process including an overview of internationalization and translation.
Planning your first Android App
The take away I want you to get from this first post is to see how a problem description is translated into a software product an app in this case. In reality what we are trying to do is to use software engineering (Android app in this case) to solve a real world problem which in this case is to create an Attendance recording app. According to John Sonmez of SimpleProgrammer.com “All software is designed to solve some user problem” and it should be, we should not program for programming sake.
Let us revisit your friends request again “I need an Android app that will help me record the attendance for my up coming event” , in traditional software development this is called a Use Case or more accurately a User Story if you follow the agile pattern of software development.
Now look at that sentence again, how many nouns do you see in that one line, or more technically correct how many domain objects do you see in that sentence, those will form the classes in our app and ultimately the screens in our app. To start with there is your imaginary friend whom we will refer to as the Organizer going forward, then there are his/her guests whom we will refer to as the Attendants going forward, then there is the actual Event.
What other domain objects do you see? we have Organizer, Attendants, Event – those are the explicit domain objects, there are also objects that are implied which include Registration and Attendance. The core of the app is Attendance – that is the focus of the app – to record attendance. The organizer need to be able to see the number of guest he/she had for the event and this report is derived from the Attendance log. An app does not have much value if it is just developed for one time use, apps are normally developed for re-usability and one way to achieve this in Android is through settings or more accurately preferences. So we will have to add settings to our app so the Organizer can re-use the app for his next event or in the miminum provide some personalization to the app. So in summary we have identified the following domain objects
Organizer Attendants Events Registration Attendance Settings
Translate Domain Objects to Android App Screens
Now let us translate these domain objects to Android screens, this is a skill you will get better and better at over time as you build more apps. As with all things in software development, there are always more than one way to accomplish a task and the following is my approach which may differ from another person’s approach.
Activities and Fragments Now that we are talking about Android App screens, I am hoping that you are familiar with Activity and Fragment. If you are not, you may want to go to the Android developer site and read the fundamentals
In my post on Tips for building your first Android app, I mentioned that it helps to limit the number of screens for your first app to 5 and that is what I will do in this post and here are the screens that I come up with.
Main Activity Attendants List Fragment Registration Fragment Event List Fragment Event Setup Fragment Report Fragment Settings Activity Preference Fragment
Why two Activities? you may ask, we can certainly host our Fragments in one Activity but I have chosen two Activities for the following reason:
Start another Activity: Starting another Activity from an Activity is one of the fundamentals of Android development and I felt is is important to demonstrate that. Some of the core components we will be using to build our NavigationDrawer (RecyclerView, DrawerLayout, ActionBarDrawerToggle) are defined in the Support library while the PreferenceFragment only exist in the Framework API. Because of this our Fragments that need the Navigation drawer will have to be derived from android.support.v4.app.Fragment while the Fragment Preference Activity derives from android.app.Fragment; therefore we cannot use the same FragmentManager to manage all the Fragments. We will use getFragmentManager to manage the PreferenceFragment while we use getSupportFragmentManager to manage the rest of the Fragments.
Project Creation
Lets create the project, shall we! This is what we will accomplish in the remainder of this tutorial:
Step 1: Create new Android Studio project – select the blank template, should be the first option Step 3: Add a package called “Activities” Move MainActivity.java to the Activities package (right click -> refactor -> move > choose package) Add PreferenceActivity.java to the Activities package Make sure that both MainActivity.java and PreferenceActivity.java inherit from AppCompactActivity and not ActionBarActivity since it is deprecated. Step 3: Add a package called “Fragments” Inside this Fragments package add the following blank Fragments (dis-select “Include fragment factory method” and “include interface callbacks”) AttendantsFragment.java RegistrationFragment.java ReportFragment.java EventListFragment.java EventDetailsFragment.java Ensure that you changed all the above Fragments to inherit from android.support.v4.Fragment and not android.app.Fragment Step 4: Add source control – click on tools -> VCS -> Enable Git Integrations, after that you need to add and commit what you have worked on so far and then try to commit as often as you can. If you are not familiar with how to use Git in Android Studio, then checkout this post by Mark Winterbottom. Step 5: Choose Material Design Color – from http://www.materialpalette.com/ I mentioned that post is a gentle introduction to material design, and bright bold color is one of the hallmarks of material design. Take a look at the screenshot above again, notice the colored ToolBar and the header background behind a picture of me, those are colors from the http://www.materialpalette.com/ so head over there and play with color combinations, pick anyone you like, do not over think it, it can always be changed. Download the xml color to your computer and go to the next step. Step 6: Add Color Resource – under res/value create color.xml file and add the color resources that you downloaded from step 5 above and your color.xml will look like this:
=" 1.0" =" utf-8" < resources > < color name =" primary" > #3F51B5 < /color > < color name =" primary_dark" > #303F9F < /color > < color name =" primary_light" > #C5CAE9 < /color > < color name =" accent" > #FF5252 < /color > < color name =" primary_text" > #212121 < /color > < color name =" secondary_text" > #727272 < /color > < color name =" icons" > #FFFFFF < /color > < color name =" divider" > #B6B6B6 < /color > < /resources > Step 7: Add ToolBar – we are going to add material design toolbar using the material design color that you choose above and below are the steps to add toolbar: Remove old ActionBar – update your styles.xml in res/value to remove the old ActionBar, it is no longer needed as we are going to replace it with Toolbar.
<resources> <!-- Base application theme. --> <style name= " AppTheme" parent= " Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar" > <!-- Customize your theme here. --> <item name= " colorPrimary" >@color/primary </ item > <item name= " android:windowActionBar" >false </ item > </ style > </ resources > Add ToolBar layout – under res/layout create a layout resource file called toolbar.xml and add the following content within it:
=" 1.0" =" utf-8" < android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar xmlns:android =" http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:app =" http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto" android:id =" @+id/toolbar" android:theme =" @style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.ActionBar" android:layout_width =" match_parent" android:layout_height =" wrap_content" android:minHeight =" ?attr/actionBarSize" android:background =" ?attr/colorPrimary" / > Add ToolBar layout to MainActitivity Layout – we can now include our new toolbar.xml in our MainActivity layout, and if we add more activities we can simply reuse the same toolbar layout file. You can go ahead and do the same for the PreferenceActivity layout file that you created in Step 3. Your main_activity.xml should look like this:
< RelativeLayout xmlns:android =" http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:tools =" http://schemas.android.com/tools" android:layout_width =" match_parent" android:layout_height =" match_parent" tools:context =" .MainActivity" > < include layout =" @layout/toolbar" / > < TextView android:layout_below =" @+id/toolbar" android:text =" @string/hello_world" android:layout_width =" wrap_content" android:layout_height =" wrap_content" / > < /RelativeLayout > Add ToolBar to MainActivity – in the MainActitivity Java code, first add a private toolbar property and then bind that toolbar property to the toolbar layout file that you created. Then set the toolbar property that you created to be the ActionBar of the MainActivity. The top of your MainActivity.java should look like this:
public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity { private Toolbar mToolbar; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super .onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.activity_main); mToolbar = (Toolbar)findViewById(R.id.toolbar); setSupportActionBar(mToolbar); } You should now be able to run your app and it should have a ToolBar similar to this Step 8: Add Navigation Drawer – and here comes the most intriguing kid on the block; navigation drawer has always been a challenging concept to implement and material design does not make it any easier with RecylcerView, Layout Manager and RecyclerView adapter. Please follow these 15 steps below to setup Navigation and let me know if you need any clarification. Create another package in the project called Models Add a Java class file called DrawerItems.java to the Models package and here are the contents of that file, this is a simple class that defines each row in our navigation drawer
public class DrawerItem { String ItemName; int imgResID; public DrawerItem( String itemName, int imgResID) { super (); ItemName = itemName; this .imgResID = imgResID; } public String getItemName() { return ItemName; } public void setItemName( String itemName) { ItemName = itemName; } public int getImgResID() { return imgResID; } public void setImgResID( int imgResID) { this .imgResID = imgResID; } } At the top of the MainActivity.java add the following properties public String HEADER_NAME = “Your Name”; (that shows your name in the navigation header) public String HEADER_EMAIL = “Your Email”; public int HEADER_IMAGE = 1; (we will change this later to point to a resource file) I have mentioned RecyclerView a few times without explaining what it is, RecyclerView is a more flexible version of ListView that was introduced as part of material design. RecyclerView has an external dependency so we have to add that dependency. Also you noticed the circle image of my picture I showed above, we also need to add another external library that provides that circle image functionality. In your build.gradle file add compile ‘com.android.support:recyclerview-v7:22.1.1′ compile ‘de.hbdodenhof:circleimageview:1.3.0′ At the top of the Main Activity under the HEADER_IMAGE add the following lines
private RecyclerView mRecyclerView; private RecyclerView.LayoutManager mLayoutManager; private DrawerLayout Drawer; private ActionBarDrawerToggle mDrawerToggle; private List<DrawerItem> dataList; <input type='submit' value="I want to get more tutorials"> </form> In the project add a package called Adapters, and under the Adapters package add a Java class file called NavDrawerAdapter.java this is where we will implement that adapter that will manage our NavigationDrawer. Under res/layout add layout resource file named nav_bar_row.xml – each of the item in our NavigationDrawer has two items an image and a text, and this xml file defines the layout for each row. Here is the content of this file Under res/layout add a layout resource file named header.xml and enter the content below; this layout file defines the header above the NavigationDrawer. The background can be any color of your choice. What did was go to http://www.materialpalette.com/ picked a blue color and using snipping tool in windows I took a little screen shot of that blue color, saved it to my res/drawable folder and used it as the background for my header.xml, you can find that background file here Add icons – again, as you have seen in the screenshot I showed at the beginning, each item in the navigation drawer has an item and icon. Its up to you what Icon you use, Here are few places where you can get icons for your Android project, the icons I used for this project is from icons4android.com. Whatever icons you select, add them to your res/drawables folder. Remember to add all the resolutions hdpi. xhdpi, etc http://romannurik.github.io/AndroidAssetStudio http://www.icons4android.com/ http://www.androidicons.com/ At the button of Main Activity add a method addItemsToDataList and here is the content of this method, and this should be after you have added your icons to the drawables folder, this method creates list of the items you want to add to your NavigationDrawer
private void addItemsToDataList(){ dataList.add( new DrawerItem(getString(R.string.title_attendants), R.drawable.ic_action_attendants_list)); dataList.add( new DrawerItem(getString(R.string.title_events), R.drawable.ic_action_events_list)); dataList.add( new DrawerItem(getString(R.string.title_registration), R.drawable.ic_action_registration)); dataList.add( new DrawerItem(getString(R.string.title_reports), R.drawable.ic_action_report)); dataList.add( new DrawerItem(getString(R.string.title_settings), R.drawable.ic_action_settings)); } Add two strings items to your res/value/string.xm Open Navigation Drawer and Close Navigation Drawer
<string name= " navigation_drawer_close" >Close Navigation Drawer </ string > <string name= " title_activity_preference" >PreferenceActivity </ string > Update activity_main.xml in the layout folder to include DrawerLayout and RecyclerView and this is what your activity_main.xml should now look like
=" 1.0" =" utf-8" < android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout xmlns:android =" http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:id =" @+id/DrawerLayout" android:layout_width =" match_parent" android:layout_height =" match_parent" android:elevation =" 7dp" > < LinearLayout android:layout_width =" match_parent" android:layout_height =" match_parent" android:orientation =" vertical" > < include android:id =" @+id/toolbar" layout =" @layout/toolbar" / > < FrameLayout android:id =" @+id/container" android:layout_width =" match_parent" android:clickable =" true" android:layout_height =" match_parent" / > < /LinearLayout > < android.support.v7.widget.RecyclerView android:id =" @+id/RecyclerView" android:layout_width =" 320dp" android:layout_height =" match_parent" android:layout_gravity =" left" android:background =" #ffffff" android:scrollbars =" vertical" > < /android.support.v7.widget.RecyclerView > < /android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout > Now re-open your blank navdraweradapter.java, open this Github gist and copy and paste its content into the navdraweradapter.java, to learn more about material design Navigation drawer checkout this post by Akash Bangad Now update your MainActivity.java file to look like this
public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity { private Toolbar mToolbar; public String HEADER_NAME = " Val Okafor" ; public String HEADER_EMAIL = " valokafor@someemail.com" ; public int HEADER_IMAGE = R.drawable.val_okafor; private RecyclerView mRecyclerView; private RecyclerView.LayoutManager mLayoutManager; private DrawerLayout Drawer; private ActionBarDrawerToggle mDrawerToggle; private List<DrawerItem> dataList; private RecyclerView.Adapter mAdapter; @Override protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super .onCreate(savedInstanceState); setContentView(R.layout.activity_main); mToolbar = (Toolbar)findViewById(R.id.toolbar); setSupportActionBar(mToolbar); mRecyclerView = (RecyclerView) findViewById(R.id.RecyclerView); mRecyclerView.setHasFixedSize( true ); dataList = new ArrayList<DrawerItem>(); addItemsToDataList(); mAdapter = new NavDrawerAdapter(dataList, this , HEADER_NAME, HEADER_EMAIL, HEADER_IMAGE); mRecyclerView.setAdapter(mAdapter); mLayoutManager = new LinearLayoutManager( this ); mRecyclerView.setLayoutManager(mLayoutManager); Drawer = (DrawerLayout) findViewById(R.id.DrawerLayout); mDrawerToggle = new ActionBarDrawerToggle( this , Drawer, mToolbar, R.string.navigation_drawer_open, R.string.navigation_drawer_close) { @Override public void onDrawerOpened(View drawerView) { super .onDrawerOpened(drawerView); } @Override public void onDrawerClosed(View drawerView) { super .onDrawerClosed(drawerView); } }; Drawer.setDrawerListener(mDrawerToggle); mDrawerToggle.syncState(); } @Override public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) { getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main, menu); return true ; } @Override public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) { int id = item.getItemId(); if (id == R.id.action_settings) { return true ; } return super .onOptionsItemSelected(item); } private void addItemsToDataList(){ dataList.add( new DrawerItem(getString(R.string.title_attendants), R.drawable.ic_action_attendants_list)); dataList.add( new DrawerItem(getString(R.string.title_events), R.drawable.ic_action_events_list)); dataList.add( new DrawerItem(getString(R.string.title_registration), R.drawable.ic_action_registration)); dataList.add( new DrawerItem(getString(R.string.title_reports), R.drawable.ic_action_report)); dataList.add( new DrawerItem(getString(R.string.title_settings), R.drawable.ic_action_settings)); } } Add an image of yourself or any image and then go back to #3 above and change the HEADER_IMAGE value from 1 to the drawable representing the image that you added.
And with that we come to the conclusion of part 1 of the tutorial series on how to create and publish your first Android app. You should now be able to run your App and the NavigationDrawer should be working. It will will not navigate to anywhere yet, because we have not added it and we will do that in the next tutorial.
If you like this tutorial please share it with someone who can benefit from it or through your social media, If you want to be notified when I release the next tutorial in the series please use the opt-in form below to join my mailing list. If you need clarifications, use the comment button below to ask questions. If you have feedback for me on how I can improve my tutorials or what topic you want to learn more about, use the contact form to reach out to me.
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The post Create and Publish Your First Android App – Part 1 appeared first on Val Okafor. |
Story highlights House Republicans said in an earlier plan they envisioned it would be revenue neutral
Paul Ryan said that Republicans hope tax reform could lead to 3% economic growth
(CNN) House Speaker Paul Ryan declined to commit Wednesday to making tax code changes "revenue neutral," joining other Republicans in leaving the door open to raising the deficit as part of the reform effort.
It was another example of Republican leaders signaling they might not require major changes to the tax code -- like closing big loopholes or eliminating certain deductions -- to raise money for expected tax cuts.
Asked twice during an interview with the Associated Press if he will insist that tax reform be revenue neutral, Ryan didn't give a yes-or-no answer but instead deferred to the tax-writing committees that are working on the details and argued that creating economic growth with the tax plan is "more important than anything else."
"We want pro-growth tax reform that will get the economy growing, that will get people back to work, that will get middle income taxpayers a tax cut and that will put American businesses in a better competitive playing field," Ryan said. "That is more important than anything else because if we have tax reform that doesn't actually fix our problems, then we'll lose more and more businesses, and the deficit will go even higher."
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The thing I personally enjoy the most about these post-game grading posts is that they challenge my personal assessments of the player performances from the game I watched on Sunday. This is especially true after a loss, where doom and gloom sweeps Cowboys Nation. But as much as losses like the one against the Giants hurt, it doesn't mean that every player had a bad game - far from it.
Dave made a point on Monday about how the Cowboys had played a pretty good game for 55 minutes. If the game had ended then, with the Cowboys leading 34-22, we'd all be talking about what a great game the Cowboys played. Yet most of the knee-jerk reactions, the hyperventilation and the lists of players that absolutely, unequivocally need to be cut are based on the last five minutes of the game. Perhaps rightfully so, but in assessing overall performance, you can't simply make the first 55 minutes disappear.
You may not always agree with the player grades published by Pro Football Focus - I know I don't - but you can at least use them to question your evaluation that may have been born of frustration more than you like to admit.
Follow the link for a lengthy introduction to the PFF methodology. Better yet, read PFF's detailed FAQ, which should answer the vast majority of questions.
PFF's also have their own review of the game which is always worth checking out. This week they focus on Tyron Smith, Terence Newman and the OLBs.
Not all pressure is created equal
If I were to tell you that the Cowboys brought more pressure on the passer on Sunday than in any other game this season, you'd probably laugh me off and stop reading. So I won't do that. Instead, let's look at the type of pressure the Cowboys brought on Sunday and how it compares to the other games this season.
WK 1 WK 2 WK 3 WK 4 WK 6 WK 7 WK 8 WK 9 WK 10 WK 11 WK 12 WK 13 WK 14
NYJ SF WAS DET NE STL PHI SEA BUF WAS MIA ARI NYG Sacks 4 6 3 - -
3 1 4 1 1 3 3 5 - -
QB Hits 6 4 - -
7 4 6 1 1 3 3 1 2 2 QB Pressures 13 10 22 10 8 5 12 10 6 14 9 10 25
A sack is a sack, even for PFF. By the PFF definition, a QB hit is when a QB is knocked down to the ground but not sacked, a pressure is when a QB is forced to move in the pocket in some other way than simply stepping up in the pocket to throw.
If you sum up all three stats, the Cowboys had the most QB disruptions they've recorded all season. The problem was that while the pass rush got pressure, they didn't get to Manning. Additionally, Manning and the Giants were well prepared for the Cowboys pass rush, in fact, I don't think it's a stretch to say that the Giants game-planned specifically for the Cowboys pass rush. And the Cowboys bringing the heat more than ever before played right into the Giants hands:
Eli Manning Passer Rating
2011 Season Vs Cowboys When not blitzed 92.1 70.9
When blitzed 101.1 117.5
Manning was blitzed on 20 dropbacks but managed 12 completions for 234 yards on those blitzes. The Cowboys didn't bring an extra man on 27 dropbacks and Manning "only" completed 15 passes for 166 yards. The almost 50-point difference in Manning's passer rating is staggering. Even excluding his INT on the non-blitz dropbacks his passer rating at 86.3 is still significantly below his rating in blitz situations.
What's particularly disturbing is that the Cowboys played fairly well in coverage when they had an extra man or two dropping back, but chose to blitz on almost every second dropback anyway.
In many ways this is eerily reminiscent of Wade's last couple of games in Dallas, where he would send the blitz again and again, but because the rushers couldn't get to the passer, the secondary was exposed again and again.
Here's how the front seven graded out.
DL OLBs ILBs Starters Backups Starters Backups Starters Backup Coleman Ratliff Hatcher Spears Lissemore Ware Spencer Butler Lee James Brooking Snaps (85 total)
31 56 42 22 45 63 82 24 84 40 21 Rating
-0.1 +0.1 +1.7 -1.9 +0.3 +0.2 +1.1 +1.8 +2.2 +0.4 -0.7
Barry Church and Victor Butler collected the sole QB Hits. The most pressures were recorded by Ware (6), Spencer (5) and Ratliff (3).
[Update: ESPN Dallas confirms that as outlined further up, the pressures recorded by PFF for the Cowboys were basically empty pressures: "Based on the Cowboys coaches stats released to reporters on Tuesday afternoon, outside pass rusher DeMarcus Ware wasn't credited with any quarterback pressures for only the second time this season. Anthony Spencer, the other outside pass rusher, had none. Defensive end Jason Hatcher, who had five the past three weeks, also came up empty versus the Giants. "]
Secondary
Mike Jenkins (35 of 86 snaps, +1.0 ) missed a lot of playing time on Sunday, but allowed only one reception on four targets and had a pass defensed.
missed a lot of playing time on Sunday, but allowed only one reception on four targets and had a pass defensed. Alan Ball (32/86 snaps, -0.9) came in for Jenkins, defended one pass and allowed receptions on the three other balls thrown his way, including the deep post to Nicks for 64 yards.
came in for Jenkins, defended one pass and allowed receptions on the three other balls thrown his way, including the deep post to Nicks for 64 yards. Terence Newman (76/86, -1.7 ) was targeted 10 times and only allowed four receptions, which is actually a pretty good percentage for a corner. The problem is that he allowed the following three passes: a 15-yard reception to Manningham on 4th-and-3 to the Dallas 22 that ultimately led to a TD; a 24 yard to Nicks that set up the Giants at the Dallas 8 for another TD; an 11 yard pass to Nicks to the Dallas 27 that again set up a TD.
was targeted 10 times and only allowed four receptions, which is actually a pretty good percentage for a corner. The problem is that he allowed the following three passes: a 15-yard reception to Manningham on 4th-and-3 to the Dallas 22 that ultimately led to a TD; a 24 yard to Nicks that set up the Giants at the Dallas 8 for another TD; an 11 yard pass to Nicks to the Dallas 27 that again set up a TD. Orlando Scandrick (67/86, -2.5) . Five targets, four receptions. One penalty. That'll get you a bad grade despite five tackles and a pressure.
. Five targets, four receptions. One penalty. That'll get you a bad grade despite five tackles and a pressure. Gerald Sensabaugh (85/86, -0.6) . Defensive Pass Interference (initially falsely called on Jenkins) on 3rd-and-7 at the Dallas 9 sets up a first down and a TD for the Giants. Apart from that, he had a positive overall grade
. Defensive Pass Interference (initially falsely called on Jenkins) on 3rd-and-7 at the Dallas 9 sets up a first down and a TD for the Giants. Apart from that, he had a positive overall grade Abram Elam (84/86, -2.2 ) simply didn't have a very good day.
Offensive line
The Cowboys rushed for 5.8 yards a pop, Romo passed for 321 yards and a passer rating of 141.3: The O-line had a good day. While they did allow three sacks (including that curious stumbling thing that ended in a safety) they only allowed one hit and one pressure. For an O-line, that's next to nothing. Going by the PFF grade this was one of the better games this season:
WK 1 WK 2 WK 3 WK 4 WK 6 WK 7 WK 8 WK 9 WK 10 WK 11 WK 12 WK 13 WK 14 NYJ SF WAS DET NE STL PHI SEA BUF WAS MIA ARI NYG Overall Grade
-1.4 -12.4 -6.0 +9.2 -14.9 +4.9 +1.2 +4.9 +9.9 -2.4 -2.3 +0.8 +7.8
Here's how the linemen graded out individually, lots of green everywhere. Costa played 26 snaps, Kowalski played 37, both are included in the table:
Free Holland Costa Kowalski Kosier Smith LT LG C C RG RT vs. NYG
+1.4 +2.0 +0.1 -0.1 +1.5 +2.9 Run Blocking
+0.4 +0.3 +0.7 +0.2 -0.2 +0.9 Pass Protect
+0.1 +0.9 +0.3 +0.6 +1.4 +1.6
Free and Holland got almost a full point extra in positive grades for their downfield blocking on pass plays, and also a positive grade on penalties. Costa and Killer Kowalski both had good run- and pass-blocking grades that were hurt by each player getting a penalty.
Tyron Smith is now the second highest graded tackle in the league, just 1.4 points behind the Eagles' Jason Peters. Tyron Smith Rocks. That is all.
Skill Position Player Highlights |
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is one of America’s most respected, most famous elder statespeople. So you’d think her speech on the second night of the Democratic National Convention endorsing Hillary Clinton would be pretty compelling stuff.
But it wasn’t. And that should trouble Democrats.
To get a flavor of the speech, just read this paragraph. Luxuriate in its mediocrity. Bathe in its clichés:
When Hillary served as secretary of state, I watched her partner with President Obama to restore our country's reputation around the world. She fought terrorism, she stopped the spread of nuclear weapons, and promoted diplomacy, defense, development and democracy — smart power -- in every corner of the world. As I travel around the world today, I'm reminded how important it is that the person who represents our nation is trusted by our allies, and who listens more than she talks.
What’s striking is that this is the only part of Albright’s short address that discussed Clinton’s time as America’s chief diplomat. If anyone could be expected to explain what Clinton actually did as secretary of state, it would be the last Democrat to have the job before her. Yet in the above paragraph, Albright didn’t name a single specific thing that Clinton did.
This is deeply weird.
The Republicans just spent the past week bashing Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state — blaming her for everything from the Benghazi attacks to the rise of ISIS to the Syrian civil war. Albright’s speech should have been the beginning of a counter-narrative, in which the Democrats start to make a strong case that Clinton actually made a real, positive impact on the big policy issues.
That didn’t happen, at all.
Albright did praise Clinton’s judgment, listing off some anecdotes about their travels together while they were both in the Clinton White House. She also landed some solid hits on Donald Trump: “Many have argued that Donald would harm our national security if he were elected president. The fact is he has already done damage just by running for president.” (Indeed, with one stray comment, Trump has already damaged the NATO alliance and made a war with Russia incrementally more likely.)
But needling Trump on foreign policy and telling cute stories about eating cabbage in Prague isn’t the same thing as making a detailed case that Hillary Clinton actually has a proven record of success at foreign policy.
The Republicans had a coherent, if false, narrative about Clinton — she set the world on fire. Democrats need a better answer to that than what Madeleine Albright offered. We’ll see if they have one this week. |
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It is extremely important for Liberators and any other witnesses to the atrocities of the Holocaust to document their testimonies. We are building this Liberators’ section in the Cybrary, and Chuck Ferree was the first to share his story. If you’d like to participate in this important project by sharing your own testimony as a Liberator, just click here chuckf@rio.comand send an email to Chuck.
Harry Herder, Jr., and Dan Johnson are the first Witness/Liberators to send their stories to Chuck. Hopefully others will follow after reading these heartfelt accounts.
Liberation of Buchenwald
by Harry J. Herder, Jr.
Over fifty years ago, I went through a set of experiences that I have never been able to shake from my mind. They subside in my mind, and, then, in the spring always, some small trigger will set them off and I will be immersed in these experiences once more. The degree of immersion varies from year to year, but there is no gradual diminution with time. I note, but do not understand, that the events occurred in the spring, and the re-immersion seems to be always in the spring. This year I set those memories on paper, all of them, or at least all of them I recall. I hope for the catharsis. I do not expect a complete purging — that would be expecting too much — but if I can get these memories to crawl deeper into my mind, to reappear less vividly, and less frequently, it will be a help.
We are as we are, we saw what we saw, and we remember as we remember. So be it. These are my memories. It is enough for me that I feel what I do feel, and I am now attempting to thin those feelings out. And I use you, the reader. I must purge these feelings on someone, and if I have readers, it is they I am using. I apologize to you, and I ask for your understanding.
This all happened to a group of us on April 11, 1945. The things we found then were grotesque enough without knowing some of the other things we did learn later. As a P.F.C. in the U. S. Army, there was no way that I could learn the origin of the orders that started it all. In fact when we started there was no way for those of us at the bottom of the ladder to have any idea at all where we were going or what we were up to. What I do remember is that we eventually drove up some gentle valley where there were trees on either side of us, when we made a sharp left turn, so sharp that those of us on the tops of the vehicles were grabbing things to keep from falling off. By the time we had regained our balance, there it was: a great high barbed wire fence at least ten feet high. Between us and the fence and running parallel to the fence was a dirt road, with high guard towers every fifty yards or so. Beyond the fence were two more layers of barbed wire fence not quite as tall. There seemed to be about five yards between those fences. The barbed wire in those fences was laced in a fine mesh, so finely meshed no one was going to get through it. Our tanks slowed down, but they did not stop; they blew straight at and through the barbed wire. Those of us riding the top scurried quickly to get behind the turret, while those vehicles just continued to charge. When we broke through the first of those fences we got a clue, the first clue as to what we had come upon, but we had no real comprehension at all of what was to assault our senses for the next hours, the next days.
We hit those fences with enough speed so that it was unclear to me whether it was the first level, or the second, or the third, but at least one of those levels was hot with electricity. We hit the fences, blew through them, and shorted out whichever it was on the damp ground. Once we were through the fences we turned left a bit and took off up a gentle cleared hill toward a concentration of buildings. Those buildings were still two hundred yards or more up the hill from us, but it didn’t take long for those tanks to growl their way up toward those buildings. I recall that I was very much on the alert. The tanker on our vehicle assigned to the machine gun was on that weapon and ready to use it, and those of us riding the top were ready to bail off and hit the ground on the run and do whatever it was that we were going to have to do. I was an assistant bazooka man, and I had a sack with ten bazooka rounds hung over my shoulder; I had an M1 Garand, and some bandoleers of ammo for that; some grenades hanging one place and another; a fully loaded cartridge belt; and I was on my toes ready to scramble off that tank at the first sign of trouble. I would follow the bazooka man: wherever he went I would go. It turned out that we didn’t need any of that hardware.
I remember scouting out the area in front of us quickly with my eyes. There were no great details, but I saw that over to the left, next to, and just inside of the fence, and to our front, were some major buildings, and next to one of those buildings was a monster of a chimney, a monster both in diameter and in height. Black smoke was pouring out of it, and blowing away from us, but we could still smell it. An ugly horrible smell. A vicious smell.
The tank which we were riding, along with two other tanks in our column, wheeled to the left so that the three of them made a front. Two more columns containing the rest of our company, off to our right, made the same maneuver so that all of us presented one front. Our Company Commander and the commander of the tank destroyer outfit were riding in a jeep somewhere near the middle of all of that mess. Once we presented that front, those of us who were on top of the tanks jumped off and spread out on the same front. I was prepared to flatten out on the deck, but it turned out we didn’t have to, and none of us did. I stayed close to Stover, my bazooka man, ready to do whatever it was he was going to do. None of us–well, none of us in the lower ranks–knew what it was we were up to or where we were, but we were fully expecting a fire fight with German troops, whose camp we had just stormed and taken, and we thought they would be angry at us. It turned out there were no German troops present.
Slowly, as we formed up, a ragged group of human beings started to creep out of and from between the buildings in front of us. As we watched these men, the number and the different types of buildings came to my attention. From them came these human beings, timidly, slowly, deliberately showing their hands, all in a sort of uniform, or bits and pieces of a uniform, made from horribly coarse cloth with stripes running vertically. The stripes alternating a dull gray with a dark blue. Some of those human beings wore pants made of the material, some had shirt/jackets, and some had hats. Some only had one piece of the uniform, others had two, many had all three parts. They came out of the buildings and just stood there, making me feel foolish with all of that firepower hanging on me. I certainly wouldn’t be needing it with these folks.
The jeeps, our company commander’s and a few others, rolled forward very slowly toward these people, and, as they parted, drove slowly through them, to the brick building next to that tall chimney, and our officers disappeared inside. Our platoon sergeant had us form up some and relax, then signaled that horde of human beings to stand fast; he just held both hands up, palms out, and motioned them backwards slowly. Everything was very quiet. The tanks were all in slow idle.
Hesitatingly we inched closer to that strange group as they also started inching closer to us. Some of them spoke English, and asked, “Are you American?” We said we were, and the reaction of the whole mass was immediate: simultaneously on their faces were relaxation, ease, joy, and they all began chattering to us in a babble of tongues that we couldn’t answer–but we could, and did, point the muzzles of our weapons at the ground, making it obvious these weapons were not “at the ready”.
It was then that the smell of the place started to get to me. Our noses, rebelling against the surroundings they were constantly subjected to were not functioning anywhere near normally. But now there was a new odor, thick and hanging, and it assaulted the senses.
There was still space between us and the group in front of us, the people on both sides now relaxed, one side considerably more jubilant than the other, but all of the tensions were gone. We were inching closer together when our platoon sergeant was called back to one of the tanks and got on the radio. He wasn’t there but a few minutes, came back, formed up our platoon, and took us back away, toward the place where we had entered the camp, back toward the fences through which we had ripped holes. At each hole in the fence he left two of us. The sergeant left us there with instructions that we were to let no one through that hole from either direction. He left Bill and me in the middle of the hole in the fence, and told us to hold that hole. Bill and I were vigorous young things with an immense curiosity, and it was difficult standing still in the middle of a hole through a set of three fences. We hadn’t the vaguest idea what we had run into. Not yet.
Soon Sergeant Blowers came by and told us that all of the people inside of the camp had been told to stay inside of the fence, that we were down by the holes to make sure they stayed inside. Bill and I were told to go into the tower, go to the top floor, to stay there, and to keep people from coming out through the hole. We still had no idea what this place was.
Containing the prisoners was not expected to be any trouble because they understood the need, and they were being provided for in every way that we could think of: the field hospital had just arrived, a big mess unit was on the way, loads of PX rations were coming. Sergeant Blowers told us that some of the prisoners spoke English. Then he got even quieter, looked at the ground for as moment, raised his eyes, and looking over our heads, began very softly, so softly we could barely hear him. He told us that this is what was called a “concentration camp”, that we were about to see things we were in no way prepared for. He told us to look, to look as long as our stomachs lasted, and then to get out of there for a walk in the woods. I had never known Sergeant Blowers to be like this. The man had seen everything I could imagine could be seen, and this place was having this effect on him. I didn’t understand. I didn’t know what a concentration camp was, or could be, but I was about to learn.
Bill, Tim, and I started off through the trees, down the hill to the front gate which was only a couple of hundred yards away. The gate was a rectangular hole through the solid face of the building over which was office space and a hallway. High up above the opening for the gate was a heavy wooden beam with words carved into it in German script, Arbeit Macht Frei. In a clumsy way I attempted to translate the inscription to Bill and Tim as, “Work will make you free”. The three of us headed through the gate, through the twenty or thirty feet to the other side of the building. We were slightly apprehensive of what we might see. Our antennae were up. We had been teased by bits of information, and we wanted to know more. The lane we were walking on bent to the right as we cleared the building. We had barely made the turn, and there it was. In front of us a good bit, but plainly visible.
The bodies of human beings were stacked like cord wood. All of them dead. All of them stripped. The inspection I made of the pile was not very close, but the corpses seemed to be all male. The bottom layer of the bodies had a north/south orientation, the next layer went east/west, and they continued alternating. The stack was about five feet high, maybe a little more; I could see over the top. They extended down the hill, only a slight hill, for fifty to seventy-five feet. Human bodies neatly stacked, naked, ready for disposal. The arms and legs were neatly arranged, but an occasional limb dangled oddly. The bodies we could see were all face up. There was an aisle, then another stack, and another aisle, and more stacks. The Lord only knows how many there were.
Just looking at these bodies made one believe they had been starved to death. They appeared to be skin covering bones and nothing more. The eyes on some were closed, on others open. Bill, Tim, and I grew very quiet. I think my only comment was, “Jesus Christ.”
I have since seen the movie made about Buchenwald. The stack of bodies is vividly displayed in the movie, just as I saw it the first day, but it is not the same. In no way is it the same. The black and white film did not depict the dirty gray-green color of those bodies, and, what it could not possibly capture was the odor, the smell, the stink. Watching the movie was, in a way, a reliving of the first walk through those stacks of bodies.
The three of us looked, and we walked down the edge of those stacks. I know I didn’t count them–it wouldn’t have mattered. We looked and said not a word. A group of guys from the company noticed us and said, “Wait till you see in there.”
They pointed to a long building which was about two stories high, and butted up tightly to the chimney. It had two barn-like doors on either end of the building we were looking at, and the doors were standing open. We turned and walked back to the building where we found others from our company, along with some of the prisoners milling around in the space between the bodies and the building. We moved gently through those people, through the doors and felt the warmth immediately. Not far from the doors, and parallel to the front of the building, there was a brick wall, solid to the top of the building. In the wall were small openings fitted with iron doors. Those doors were a little more than two feet wide and about two and a half feet high; the tops of the doors had curved shapes much like the entrances to churches. Those iron doors were in sets, three high. There must have been more than ten of those sets, extending down that brick wall. Most of the doors were closed, but down near the middle a few stood open. Heavy metal trays had been pulled out of those openings, and on those trays were partially burned bodies. On one tray was a skull partially burned through, with a hole in the top; other trays held partially disintegrated arms and legs. It appeared that those trays could hold three bodies at a time. And the odor, my God, the odor.
I had enough. I couldn’t take it any more. I left the building with Bill and Tim close behind me. As we passed through the door someone from the company said, “the crematorium.” Until then I had no idea what a crematorium was.
It dawned on me much later–the number of bodies which could be burned at one time, three bodies to a tray, at least thirty trays–and the Germans still couldn’t keep up. The bodies on the stacks outside were growing at a faster rate than they could be burned. It was difficult to imagine what must have been going on.
Later that evening, sitting on the front steps of the barracks with a group of people from the company, Sergeant Blowers among us, the three of us started to pick up the parts of the story we had missed because we were on guard at the towers. All of the German guards had packed up and moved out about three hours before our arrival. There were bits and pieces of personal gear still left around the barracks, but not much. We saw neither hide nor hair of those German guards. When the Germans left, the crematorium was still going full blast, burning up a storm, the chimney belching out that black smoke. Our First Sergeant, Sergeant Blowers, our Company Commander, and the Leader of the TD group found the source of the fuel, and played around with one thing and another until they figured out how to turn the damned thing off.
That was the start. That was just the “openers”. There was more, but it was impossible to assimilate it all at once. General Patton had assigned us to this place for four days, ostensibly to keep the now-free prisoners off the roads needed to supply his troops who were racing through Germany at the end of the war. The full explanation was given the prisoners, and there was no problem, they understood. Patton had assigned a whole field hospital to the place along with a big kitchen unit. He eventually sent in an engineering outfit with bulldozers to dig a mass grave for those bodies. We were doing everything we possibly could for the prisoners. Later on, when things became quieter, military government people arrived to help the prisoners get home–if there were homes for them to get to.
A little later in the evening the three of us walked back into the camp, passed by the crematorium and the stacks of bodies, and wandered into the camp proper. There were temporary lights strung around for the medics to do their work. The prisoners came up and surrounded us, moving with us as they jabbered, but they spoke a language we did not understand–they were probably speaking several languages we did not understand. There was the slightest of communication. They gave way and moved along with us. We must have appeared as giants in their midst: we well-fed, healthy, strong, young men; they gaunt, shrunken, their ugly striped uniforms hanging on them.
They were jabbering, and we wanted to listen, to understand, but there seemed to be no way we could. After some moments we figured out they wanted our cigarettes. In no time we were out of them–they just disappeared. We had nothing else with us they really wanted, but they stuck with us and guided us to another set of buildings, which had the look of large barns with wide doors in the middle of the front. Entering the first of these we found we were entering their home. There were stacks of bunks five or six high, crowded together with very little room between a bunk and the one above it. (It was my thought that one would have a rough time merely rolling over.) The bunks were much too short even for short people. The lower bunks served as rungs of a ladder to the upper ones. How many hundreds of people slept in this one building was beyond me. Then there were all of those dead bodies outside that must have come from here. Where did the Germans get them all?
Just inside the door were people on the lower bunks so close to death they didn’t have the strength to rise. They were, literally, skeletons covered with skin–nothing more than that–there appeared to be no substance to them. The next day when the press arrived, one of the photographers for LIFE magazine had one of the really bad ones propped up against the door frame in the daylight. He took the photograph, but out of sight in the darkness of the building, behind the man, were the people propping him up. I have seen that photograph several times in the years since, and every time I see it my stomach rolls a little, my mind goes into some kind of a dance, and it takes me a little time to return to normal. There are still altogether too many things that flood my mind once a trigger is pulled.
Later we were told the medical unit was moving around searching for the most desperate cases, in order to get them to the doctor as quickly as possible. They told us the story of one prisoner who was so close to death that even thinned chicken broth was too rich for his stomach. The doctors were doing everything they could, trying mightily; but in too many cases they had no chance at all and would lose in spite of their best efforts.
We were about to do what Sergeant Blowers had told us to do–take a walk in the woods. We headed for the woods talking softly to each other, the talk full of wonderment–the hows, the whys. We had no answers. As limited as our combat experience had been, we had seen dead men, we had seen wounded men from both sides with the immediacy of battle, with no time for conjecture. We had done what we could for the wounded and then had got on with the job that had to be done. None of us, no one in our company, even amongst those who had been the originals, was prepared for what we were now surrounded by. It was not “human”. It did not seem real. But it was all too real, it was the only life that some of the prisoners had known for years. Maybe it was all too human. Maybe this is what we are.
Later that evening, a bunch of us from the company were sitting on the front steps of the barracks, talking. There were questions, far more questions than there were answers. Those of us assigned to the towers at the beginning had missed a great deal of what had gone on, and we were catching up.
Amongst other things, Sergeant Blowers was explaining our duties while we were here: we were to stand guard for four hours at a time, and then take eight hours off; there would be one of us in every other tower most of the way around the camp. We would be covering all of the holes we had ripped in the fence. The first platoon, ours, had the midnight-to-four, and the noon-to-four shifts.
Sergeant Blowers told us some things about the Commandant of Buchenwald and his wife. We could see their house down the hill through the leafless trees from our seats on the front steps. Blowers painted a picture of truly despicable human beings. The wife, Ilse Koch, favored jodhpurs, boots, and a riding crop. He told us this story about her: Once, she ordered all of the Jewish prisoners in the camp stripped and lined up; she then marched down the rows of them, and, as she saw a tattoo she liked, she would touch that tattoo with her riding crop; the guards would take the man away immediately to the camp hospital where the doctors would remove the patch of skin with the tattoo, have it tanned, and patch it together with others to make lamp shades. There were three of those lamp shades–the history books say there were two, but there were three. One of them disappeared shortly after we arrived. This may give you a glimmer of an idea of what Ilse Koch was like–and her husband–and the camp “doctors.”
We learned that only a very few Jews remained at Buchenwald, most of them in terrible physical shape. The Jews who had been healthy, to any degree, had been marched away from the camp weeks before. No one knew why they had been taken away, or where they had been taken. Originally, in the camp, the Jews and the non-Jews were largely separated and given different food rations and different jobs to do. Treatment of the prisoners varied also, depending on ethnic origin. There were a few women prisoners, but we wouldn’t see them for a time as they had been taken immediately to the field hospital to be checked over and cleaned up. Those who were able began working with the American nurses or helping out in the kitchen. They gave the impression they no longer felt like slave laborers; in fact, they seemed only too glad to assist. There were children prisoners, some of them born in the camp. The females had been forced into prostitution often (though not the Jews). We learned more from an American Lieutenant who had entered the camp later as an interpreter. Things that he had learned interviewing prisoners in the hospital.
After listening to all of this, a half dozen or so of us went down to the Camp Commandant’s home, walked in, and looked around. It was a grand home, luxuriously furnished, but messy now from the many feet trudging through it all day long. We looked for the lamp shades–we found only the lamp bases where they had been.
Then, since we were to go on guard duty from midnight to four in the morning, we thought a little sleep was in order, so we returned to the barracks, threw our blankets across our mattresses, crawled under them, and slept, or tried to sleep. My mind was full. Sleep did not come easily. Sergeant Blowers broke us out a little after eleven o’clock that night. We gathered our equipment and piled into a truck and went around the watch towers, jumping out as we came to our assignments. I climbed the stairs to the top floor using the flashlight handed to me by the man I relieved. As I stood on the top floor looking out, I saw nothing. There was no electricity so the search lights in the tower didn’t work. I had with me my Garand rifle, the rifle belt with a full canteen hanging on it, a field jacket over my woolen shirt. The pockets of the field jacket were loaded: in the top left pocket was a toothbrush which I had quit using for its primary purpose once I started cleaning my rifle with it; there was a mess kit spoon right beside it, along with a pack of cigarettes and two or three cigars; in the top right pocket was another pack of cigarettes and some Hershey bars.
I started by stacking my rifle in the corner, took off my belt and put it on the table, and, leaning on the table, I started thinking about all of the things that had happened during the day. Strange things. Things I could not yet understand–could never understand. I thought about those things and questions entered my mind, but there were no answers. Finally I merely slumped and realized how good a cup of coffee would taste. I had my canteen cup. There was water in my canteen. There were packets of instant coffee (horrible stuff) in my pocket along with packets of sugar. I had everything I needed for a cup of coffee except heat. With the help of a flashlight I started scrounging around, finding little wood chips all over the place. The trench knife from my belt helped me make some more of them, and I ended up with a tidy bunch of wood chips. I built the fire right in the middle of the machine gun table, heated the water in my canteen cup and made myself a cup of coffee. After sweeping the fire from the table and stomping on the sparks, I sat on a corner of the table, lit a cigar, drank the coffee, and looked out into the darkness. Less than a half an hour later I saw a fire in Bill’s tower and guessed that he had seen what I was up to and done the same thing.
The next morning while we were sipping coffee after breakfast, a great commotion broke out down at the gate. We wandered off in that direction, coffee cups in hand. A bright and shiny jeep came through the gate, with this fellow standing in front of the passenger seat, holding onto the windshield. His helmet was gleaming and elaborately decorated, his uniform spic and span, his pistol highly polished and oddly shaped, and, by God, there he was: it was George Patton himself touring this place. From time to time the jeep would stop and he would ask questions. In front of the crematorium the jeep stopped, he alighted and walked inside. He was out of sight for some minutes, appearing again with a very stiff back. Into the jeep and he was all over the place in just a few minutes. He passed us on the way out–and damn he looked mad–about as mad as I had ever seen anyone look. I would not have wanted to cross that man right then. The jeep sped back out the gate and on down the road and George just sat.
Now that we had gone through a tour of duty at the towers, we knew what it was we wanted to take along with us. I fully intended to load up with candy bars, instant cocoa, and a bunch of other good things to stash away in one of the tower cupboards.
Eventually Sergeant Blowers came down the hall, out the door, and onto the front steps with the rest of us. I got to my tower, crawled up the staircase, and relieved the fellow from the third platoon. I set all my things down and surveyed the scene in front of me. I stacked my rifle in the corner and threw my rifle belt on the machine gun table. There was a tiny char mark on the table by now, the word apparently having been passed around. It was a warm afternoon so I took my jacket off, dropped it on the table and leaned on the ledge of the opening for a while. After a bit I crawled up on the table and sat on it cross-legged. I dug a cigar out of my jacket, lit it, and enjoyed it, and I studied the landscape around the camp. There were some heavily wooded areas around the outside of the camp, and the spring weather was turning the leaf buds a fuzzy green color. I imagined it would be very beautiful there in the summer with all of the trees leafed out.
I was ruminating in this manner when I heard a tiny voice, and my attention came back to the inside of the camp. I could see nothing, but I heard the voice again, under me, down near the fence. I scrunched forward on the table to where I could see almost straight down. There, right in the middle of the hole in the fence, looking up, calling me, was this very small person. I waved my arm at him letting him know that it was all right to come on through the fence, to come up the tower. He did so immediately. The sound of his footsteps coming up the stairs was almost instantaneous. I barely had time to get off the table and over to the stair opening before he was beside me.
He was young, very small, and he spoke no English. He was dressed in bits and pieces of everything, ragged at best, and very dirty. He chattered up a storm and I could not understand one word. First, I got him to slow down the talk, then I tried to speak to him, but he could not understand a word I said. We were at a temporary stalemate. We started again from scratch, both of us deciding that names were the proper things with which to start, so we traded names. I no longer remember the name he taught me, and I wish so badly, so often, I could. Our conversation started with nouns, naming things, and progressed to simple verbs, actions, and we were busy with that. As we progressed I reached over into my field jacket to pull things out of the pocket to name. I came across a chocolate bar and taught him the word “candy”. He repeated it, and I corrected him. He repeated it again, and he had the pronunciation close. I tore the wrapper off the chocolate bar and showed him the candy. He was mystified. It meant nothing to him. He had no idea what it was or what he was to do with it. I broke off a corner and put it in my mouth and chewed it. I broke off another corner and handed it to him and he mimicked my actions. His eyes opened wide. It struck me that he had never tasted chocolate. It was tough to imagine, but there it was. He took the rest of the candy bar slowly, piece by piece, chewed it, savored it. It took him a little while but he finished the candy bar, looking at me with wonderment the whole time. While he was eating the bar, I searched around for the old wrapper, found the word “chocolate ” on it, pointed to the word, and pronounced the word “chocolate”. He worked on the correct pronunciation. I am sure that was the first candy the little fellow had ever had. He had no idea what candy was until then. We worked out words for those things close around us. He was learning a bit of English, but I was not learning a word of his language–I do not even know what language he spoke. This wasn’t something that happened consciously, it was just something that happened.
I spent the rest of my four-hour tour with him. I pretty well ignored what happened in the rest of the camp. There was nothing much going on down in my corner, so it was easy to ignore. My whole world shrank to the inside of the fourth floor of the tower and the young boy. Toward the end of the tour, I found one of those blocks of compressed cocoa that came in the K-Rations in a pocket of my field jacket, and the two of us constructed a hot cup of cocoa for ourselves. We used the same method I had used the night before to make a cup of coffee. A canteen cup is a rather large cup and the two of us shared it. On the first sip he looked at me with a large smile and said the word “chocolate”. We were starting to communicate. I gave him other things from the K-Ration packages, among them a small can with cheese and bits of bacon, which we opened with the can opener I wore on my dog tag chain. This meant he had to study the dog tags. His curiosity was immense. He ate the cheese mixture (which I ate only when I was very hungry), and sorted out the words “cheese” and “bacon”, and he loved the stuff. It did not even begin to enter my mind that he might have been Jewish and shouldn’t have been eating bacon. I made up my mind to really load up before I came to the tower the next day.
That’s the way the tour went, and it was all so pleasant. The little fellow was a joy scampering around. I figured him to be somewhere between five and eight years old, but I was probably wrong, on the low side. Later, when I thought more about it, I realized whatever growing he had done had been on the rations of that camp. No great growth could be expected from a diet like that. When we split at the end of the four hours, he pointed to my pack of cigarettes. My first thought was that I didn’t want him to smoke them, but then I remembered the events yesterday in the camp when my pack of cigarettes simply disappeared. Cigarettes were for barter; they were exchange material. I had no idea how rich one was when one had a whole pack of cigarettes. To these people cigarettes were money, and I was getting them free from PX rations. When we parted I loaded him up with candy bars and my extra pack of cigarettes. He had them all inside his shirt and went streaking back through the whole in the fence and on up the hill. After I was relieved and heading back up the hill, I saw Tim coming down the road behind me and I slowed until he caught up. When we got to Bill’s tower, Bill was waiting for us, and the three of us walked up the road together.
As we approached the gate area, we noticed the place was in a kind of a mild uproar. The press people were still there, joined by a lot of big shots from the army. Buchenwald was filled with those who had to “spectate.” People were walking around and through the aisles of those stacks of dead bodies. To me this was the final indignity. It was an exhibition. God, help us. Those people in the stacks were dead, they were gone. Nothing could really hurt them further, but it hurt me that they were now an exhibition. The three of us at the gate stood there, looked, turned our backs, and walked away.
All of the way from the tower I had been telling Bill and Tim about the little kid. Bill had noticed the two of us in the tower. I’d had the kid standing on the table and had put my field jacket on him, which was much, much too large for him; then I put my steel helmet on his head, and the two of us giggled. On the way back up the road our moods lightened a little with the stories about the little fellow, we had started to feel a little better. We got to the gate and saw the carnival atmosphere, and our good spirits vanished. Scowling, we quietly walked back to the barracks. We had to go near the Commandant’s house, and all of the “tourists” were lined up to go through another “exhibit,” where someone was busy telling “Ilse” stories. That was enough for me. I was glad to get back to the barracks.
We headed for the mess tent, talking about what had been going on all day long with the press and the visitors. Some of our guys had been disgusted by a bunch of nurses or WACs in their Class A uniforms taking pictures of the naked dead. It was not the display of the genitals that shook some of us up; it was that final indignity, the exhibition. Some one mentioned, while we were eating, that the engineers would be here tomorrow to bury those poor people. That made me feel a little better; no one could hurt them anymore after their burial. The trays at the crematorium would be emptied also. It would not be the most desirable of burials, but we would be rid of part of the exhibit.
There was other talk too, and I was turning into one hell of a listener. It seemed that Patton had become so angry at what he had seen in the camp that he scooted into the nearest major town, Weimar, broke the mayor of the town out, and told him he wanted every citizen up the next morning, ready to march to through Buchenwald so as to see what the German people were responsible for. The engineers were not to bury the dead until after the grand tour by the German townspeople.
We heard stories that night from two professors who had been non-Jewish prisoners at Buchenwald for over four years. They were intelligent. They had seen and were aware of everything that had happened at the camp. We asked them questions and we were given answers. We were flooded with information. There is no way I could present those stories as we heard them, chronologically, after this great a time. What I remember now are bits and pieces, and certain of those bits surface more rapidly than others.
We sat, that night, around the table on the second floor of Bill’s tower and talked–Bill, Tim, the man from the third platoon, the two professor prisoners, and myself. In one way the talk was an interrogation: four of us with insatiable curiosities, two who could satisfy those curiosities. Four of us asking questions, two providing the answers. There were times when we lit Sterno cans and made ourselves some instant coffee, but the talk never ceased. The four of us emptied our pockets of the little goodies we were carrying, spread them out on the table top, and made them available to everyone. We kept talking and time disappeared. The minds of the four of us grew and stretched in terms no psychoanalysts would ever be able to measure. Four hours of education happened that night which could have happened no place else.
Of the events at Buchenwald described by the two professors, I remember some. I told the two professors about the young person who had been at my tower the past afternoon, and described him as best I could. They thought they knew which of the young boys it was and believed he had been born at Buchenwald. The only life he knew was that of the concentration camp. There was no way he could have known about chocolate candy before this afternoon. That flipped me.
One story: The German army had been losing men on the Russian front because they were freezing to death. Some had been still alive when brought to the field hospitals, but had died in spite of the best efforts of the German doctors. Those field hospitals had requested some research on how to revive human beings who were very nearly frozen to death, but were still alive. The research had been done at Buchenwald. Groups of Jewish men had been taken outside on winter nights, stripped, and sprayed with a mist of water until they were nearly dead. They were then trundled into the hospital, and every effort was made to revive them. Every effort failed. The ungrateful Jewish prisoners just went ahead and died, in spite of the best efforts of German medicine at the time. Finally, some bright medical type thought there might be a kind of animal heat that would revive them. They took one more group out, freezing them until they were nearly dead, brought them back into the hospital, and put them into bed with naked women. Their animal desires would revive them, or so the theory went. It goes without saying the experiment failed–again. The still ungrateful prisoners simply continued to die.
Another story: There had been a factory a couple of kilometers down the railroad line from Buchenwald that was manufacturing something that was in demand by the German government. It was not clear to me what the plant had been making, but, in any event, it was the place where most of the political prisoners worked. Some Jewish prisoners worked there too, but they were only trusted with the menial jobs. One particular night our bombers flew over the camp to the factory, which they pulverized. They leveled it completely. Everyone working there was killed, but that didn’t seem to matter to the two professors; not one bomb had missed the factory, not one bomb had fallen inside Buchenwald. The two professors thought that was remarkable–to be able to bomb with such precision. To listen to them was to get the feeling they believed it was a blessing to die in a bombing raid rather than in other circumstances at Buchenwald. The dead were better off, and the factory was out of business also. The Germans had made no effort to rebuild it. It had all happened not too long before we arrived.
Another story (to me the most gruesome): German doctors at the camp were doing research on some human diseases. Groups of Jewish prisoners would be selected (which must have been some kind of an admission they were human beings) and inoculated with the diseases. They would then be observed, and all of their reactions charted until death occurred. A post-mortem of the body would be done, and those organs affected by the disease would be preserved and stored. The doctors would then move onto another disease, repeating the process. A building in the camp, near the hospital, held all of those preserved specimens. The two prisoners told us of the building and its location, how we could find it in the morning if we were so inclined. In that building were rooms devoted to each of the organs: a kidney room, a liver room, a heart room, etc. The two named some of the diseases studied, but I have forgotten (willfully?) the names.
Another story? No. About what they did with the women prisoners? No. I quit. No more. That was probably the most brutal night I have ever lived through. Enough. A major reason I need a catharsis.
The next morning we did a check on the building, and there they were. Rooms full of bottles of organs, all neatly and voluminously labeled. We turned and walked away. I had had enough. Any prisoner could tell me anything he wished from now on, and I would believe. That building was enough.
After seeing the organ building and my walk in the woods, I still had a few hours before my next tour of guard duty. I spent the time straightening my gear out and loading up the pockets of my field jacket. I expected the young boy again, and I wanted to be able to give him everything I could.
After a quickly gobbled lunch at the mess tent, we took off for our towers and relieved the third platoon men. I had barely reached the top floor when the young fellow came running up the steps. I hadn’t seen him out in the field on the other side of the fence, but there he had been watching, waiting for me. The first thing he got was another chocolate bar, and he took his time with that while we worked some more on our language. We made another cup of cocoa, this time over a Sterno can rather than a fire on the table. I tried to give him some boxes of K-Rations, but, hell, he was eating better than that at the mess tent. Maybe those K-Rations would be used for barter–that was all right with me. I had more cigarettes to give him when we parted too.
I saw a gang of about thirty or forty of the prisoners still wearing their striped garb. They were heading back toward the camp, which mystified me, because they should not have been outside of the camp in the first place. As they passed the tower I noticed that one of them, one in the middle of the group, had his hands tied behind his back, and a rope tied around his neck. He was being led back into the prison. The commotion was centered around that individual. The little fellow in the tower with me became all excited and tried to explain things to me. After a bit, I got the idea that the person on the end of the rope had been one of the German guards at the prison camp, and these people found him in a small village near the camp. They were bringing him back.
It was then, too, that I noticed a lot of action up in the camp. Something important was happening there. People were scurrying about, and most of the prisoners were headed toward the gate. I was too far down the hill to discern the nature of what was going on, but I was betting it was the people from Weimar touring the camp after being marched out from the city. It turned out to be a good guess.
An interpreter met them at the gate, marched them around, and, according to the word I heard later, carefully explained in great detail what had been going on in the camp. In fact all the interpreter would have needed would have been a few words and a pointed finger. The evidence was all there; the massive pile of bodies still stacked, just as they were when we first found them; the doors in the crematorium now all open, and more of the trays pulled out with their contents visible. The German people were seeing what had been going on in that place all of those years. Now we could bury the bodies.
After the tour had been administered, the group headed back out of the gate and back down the road to Weimar. There was a large patrol of our troops marching them, some on either side of the road. As they were moving back to Weimar, not even out of sight of the camp, a number of Germans in the group found something to laugh about. The commander of the American troops heard them and became livid with anger. He turned them around and marched them, then and there, back through the camp again. This time they went through much more slowly. By the time they returned to the camp the bodies in the stacks were already being loaded on to trucks to be carried away to the mass grave. This time, on the march home to Weimar, there was no laughter. The next day we heard that after returning to their town, the mayor of Weimar and his wife both committed suicide.
The ovens were soon cleaned out, and the bodies were almost all gone, being buried over the top of the hill where the engineers had dug a monstrous trench. The Buchenwald prisoners had found one of their German guards in a nearby village dressed in civilian clothes, and they had him now in a cell in one of the buildings and were interrogating him. No one knew how this gang of prisoners had been able to sneak out the hole in the fence to get to the village. We walked through the gate to the door that opened to the cell area. It was crowded and the onlookers parted to let the three of us through, and we went to the door of the cell. The German was standing at attention in the middle of the room and was being peppered with questions that we did not understand. The answers were all monosyllabic. Tears were coming down his cheeks. One of the Buchenwald prisoners seemed to be in charge, but a group of them were participating in the interrogation. The one who appeared to be in charge also appeared to be one calm individual. The three of us watched, but we couldn’t understand what was being said, so we turned and left. The crowd parted again to let us through. A most welcome sight to my eyes was the absence of the stack of bodies as I came through the door from the cell area.
Back inside the cell the former Buchenwald prisoners, and their current prisoner presented a riveting scene: The hands of the German were untied, and, in them was placed a stout piece of rope. He was being given instructions, and, as we watched, it wasn’t long before I and the people who had come with me realized he was being told how to tie a noose in the rope. The German guard was corrected three or four times, and had to undo some of his work to re-do it correctly. When he was finished, he had a very proper hangman’s noose, thirteen turns of the rope and all. A table was brought to the center of the room and placed under a very strong looking electrical fixture. The guard was assisted on to the table and instructed to fix the rope to the light fixture. Finishing that he was told to put all of his weight on the rope and lift his feet. The fixture held. The guard was told to place the noose over his head, around his neck, and to draw the noose fairly snug. Then he was told to place his hands behind his back and his wrists were tied together. The table was moved until he barely stood on its edge. He couldn’t see that–his eyes were unhooded and open, but the noose kept him from looking down. He was talked to some more and then he jumped. He was caught before all of his weight was on the rope, and they set him back on the table. The next time he stepped gently off the end, and the table was quickly slid away from him and out of his reach, and he dangled there. He slowly strangled. His face went through a variety of colors before he hung still.
My stomach did not want to hold food any longer. I turned and walked away, the rest of our guys following me. The Buchenwald prisoners stayed on to view their handiwork.
I walked through the crowd, out the door, through the gate, on up to the barracks, and I didn’t say a word. The others with me didn’t speak either. It was murder; there can be no doubt of that. The Buchenwald prisoners never touched the rope after it was placed in the German’s hands. They did not tie the noose, nor did they fix it to the ceiling. They did not place the rope around the man’s neck. They did not pull the table out from under him. In one sense, they had not committed murder; rather, the German had committed suicide. A sophist could rationalize that one I suspect.
That was not what was bothering me, however. I had the ability and the means to stop the whole thing, and I did not. Neither did my companions. Here we were–five or six of us–fully armed with semi-automatic rifles, and we did not make the Buchenwald prisoners stop. We let them continue. In one way, we sanctioned the event. Ever since that day I have been convincing myself that I understood why the Buchenwald prisoners did what they did. I had witnessed their agonies. I had wondered how human beings could treat other human beings as the prisoners at Buchenwald had been treated. I felt I knew why the prisoners of Buchenwald did what they did – so I did not stop them.
I have become some kind of a sophist for myself now. I could have stopped the whole action, and I did not. I have had that under my hat for the past forty-six years. Now I have written it. I have acknowledged it. Maybe it will go away. There are so many things from that week I wish would go away, things I wish could be scrubbed from my memory. When we returned to the barracks we did not tell anyone what we had witnessed.
I was not about to sleep, however. I flopped on my bunk without a thought of my tiny bunk mates, the bugs–I merely lay there. My eyes were closed, but my mind wasn’t. I tried to think of other things, but it was impossible. I reviewed in my mind the multiple things the Buchenwald prisoners had gone through, the length of time they had been living through hell, and I didn’t have to rationalize their actions. Hell, I knew why they were doing what they did. That train of thought took me further and further from my own guilt, and, in a little while, I was absolved. At least, as absolved as I was ever going to be. Absolved enough to be a little more comfortable with myself. That was enough for then.
The bunch of us walked around to our towers and some of us walked very quietly. Others were full of talk about tomorrow. The electricity had been restored in all of the towers, but I didn’t bother with it as I entered mine–I knew my way around. Upstairs, I relieved the guy before me and put my rifle over in the corner, threw the rifle belt under the table, crawled on the table, lit a cigar, and my thoughts continued.
I thought of my German heritage, my Grandfather Hugo who had come from to the United States from Germany while he was still a teenager, my mother’s grandparents who had come over from Germany long before that, my mother who had grown up early in this century in a small town in Minnesota, where there were two catholic churches: one for the Germans, the other for the Irish. They were only about a block apart from each other, each having its own grade school. My mother had attended the German school, and the only language spoken through the fourth grade had been German. When I was very young she had taught me how to count in German, and how to sing the German alphabet. She also taught me a very few words in German, everyday kinds of words which I still remembered. Three quarters of me was from German background, solid German stock. Pictures of the formidable Hugo had always been around me as I was growing up.
I wondered…Suppose my ancestors had not come to the United States; suppose they had stayed in Germany, and, through some fluke, the two people who had become my mother and father had met, and I had been born a German citizen. What would I be like? Would I be like the people who had instituted and guarded a place like Buchenwald? Could I have been that? Would I have been in the German army? The answer to the last question is obvious–certainly I would have been in the German army. But what kind of work would I have done? I hoped that I would not have been like most of the Germans I had seen. I could have accepted a likeness to some members of the German army whom we had fought, but there were many I would have been uncomfortable with. Much of what I had seen ran counter to everything my mother had brought me up believing. This whole situation would have appalled her. I have never ever told her, or my father either, most of these stories about Buchenwald. I did not feel it necessary. They knew early on that I had been there, and they took LIFE magazine. They had been made aware, like most people in the United States, of what had gone on.
During these past forty-six years, these memories have been creeping out of my mind, leaving me with sleepless nights afterwards. Never the whole story at once. Until now. I relive that night sitting on that machine gun bench, smoking a cigar, staring at the darkness. That night I sat in the dark and went through two or three cigars, and several cigarettes. I stared out at the darkness, and there were two reasons for not seeing anything: my eyes couldn’t see anything, and my mind wouldn’t see anything. My thoughts kept me too busy. They do now also.
I saw the lights up in the camp, but, at that time of night, nothing distracting was going on. My relief arrived, but I didn’t notice him until he was on the way up the stairs, turning the lights on as he came. By the time he reached the top floor I had my belt back on, my rifle in my hands, and was standing by the stair opening. Nothing had happened during my shift, and that was what I reported to him when he reached the top. I walked down, and caught up to Bill on the road. The two of us walked slowly until Tim caught up to us. As we all three walked together our only conversation was of our departure later in the morning.
I was nineteen, Bill and Tim were eighteen–chronologically anyway. We had aged years in a few short hours.
(Harry Herder Jr. served in the Korean War also, where he lost a leg to an enemy land mine.)
Debate the Holocaust?
by Dan Johnson
I am a WW2 vet who was in the 102nd Infantry Division which spear- headed the 9thArmy drive across Europe to the Elbe River where we met the Russians. Weliberated a number of the death and work camps as we went along.
The camps, most of which were small could be drawn on for “free” labor.Political prisoners were worked to death and it didn’t matter to the Germans, asthere were plenty more where they came from. The whole idea was to get rid ofthe prisoners permanently and make a gain of free labor in the process. I sawBuchenwald first hand shortly after it was liberated.
The ten-man combat team which I was a part of was directly involved in a placecalled Gardelegan. 1016 Jewish prisoners were being burned alive there in a barnon the edge of town by the SS troops who held the town. My buddy, Bob Zech, whospoke fluent German, perpetrated a ruse on the SS officer in charge bythreatening a tank attack if he and the other SS troopers who had fallen intothe trap did not surrender within the next twenty minutes or so. The SS bought itand surrendered. They had intended to kill us, which would have been easy and totheir advantage because they wanted to cover what was going on the edge of townat the time.
An American lieutenant had just been captured by chance as heand his driver had wandered into the town from the otherdirection. They just wouldn’t have surrendered to a private without the presenceof an American officer. After the SS Colonel surrendered, the barn where thesepolitical prisoners were being roasted to death was discovered at the edge oftown. The smoke was still rising when I walked in. Curiously, the arm of one ofthe victims was burned badly and smelled like roast turkey to me. TheDivision Commander, General Keating, ordered the towns people to construct acemetery and memorial as an attempt to honor the victims. A small brochuredescribing this event was printed and distributed to members of the 102ndInfantry Division. I still have mine after 52 years.
Ours and other infantry divisions were not capable of sustaining a continuousattack. We just ran out of steam and had to stop to re-group and replenish lostmanpower due to battle casualties, etc. Another division would “pass” through usto give us a breather. During one of these lulls in battle we had an opportunityto go to Buchenwald which was a major Death Camp. Our officers winked us outon “special” mission so we could see what was going on. We saw the mountains ofdead bodies, etc., although it was not necessarily new to us as we were directlyinvolved in uncovering this sort of activity, but on a somewhat smaller scale.
I just can’t conceive of anyone not believing that these things happened. ButIguess time has a way of altering history. The guys who actually witnessed thesethings are fast leaving the face of the planet. Soon there will be none of usleft to give eyewitness accounts of what they saw. I salute the thousands andthousands of GIs and soldiers of other nations who gave their lives to put an endto this madness. I often wonder what they would think if they could awaken to seewhat I see around me. Would they think it was worth it?
I certainly would not attempt to debate the reality of those times. It wouldbetantamount to arguing with someone who believed the earth is flat…Where do youeven start to debate such a premise?
If you are a Liberator and would like to participate in this important project by sharing your own testimony, just click here chuckf@rio.comand send an email to Chuck. |
I saw Say Anything… (Crowe, 1989) when I was fourteen. It changed my life.
I was a young person then. I felt the pulls of longing and desire and hope and excitement and anticipation and awkwardness and embarrassment keenly. It was wonderful to know that at least somewhere in the world existed people who weren’t too hip for their years, who weren’t glib charm monsters, who weren’t afraid to dare to be great, even if it meant failure. Because as surely as I understood other movies might reflect other voices I didn’t recognize and didn’t want to emulate, I knew this film came from people who felt deeply and genuinely, as I did, about everything and anything. I knew it was different, as I was different. I just didn’t know how rare that was.
I watched Say Anything… several times over the next few years. Maybe that explains the following anecdote:
When I was about seventeen, I had my license and I had a car. And I had a friend who agreed it was a great idea to drive past the houses of boys we liked blaring music as we went by in hopes we would get noticed. The song of choice was often Bonnie Raitt’s “Something to Talk About.”
I was seventeen.
What you’ll find in this episode: a lot of sharing (or over sharing, depending how you feel about it) about our intimate history, whether you identify with Lloyd or Diane, why Lloyd is Cameron Crowe’s avatar, and how old Jeremy Piven was when this was made.
– Ericca
P.S. We’ve hit a milestone of sorts with the fiftieth episode of this podcast! We thank all of you for listening, and as always, we hope you’ll seek out this, and all the movies we talk about, and give them a first or another view.
Links and Recommendations:
Check out Say Anything… on IMDB.
Ericca’s further viewing pick of Two Family House.
Cole’s further viewing pick of Rasputin and the Empress.
The Lloyd Dobler Effect versus The Investment Model of Commitment Processes.
More about the boombox scene. |
The 2 year pilot process I led at Fair Trade USA has ended and we are beginning to share some learnings from my team’s work with coffee workers in estates and independent smallholder coffee farmers. This infographic shows some general info collected from farm workers who worked at coffee estates participating in our pilot process in Brazil, Colombia and Nicaragua. There were around 2,700 coffee workers in 5 estates part of our pilots (we also worked with a coffee estate in Ethiopia but the info is not included here). For some of the questions in our surveys, we got more than 900 responses from random samples of coffee workers. I hope this info helps to continue bringing awareness to some of the issues coffee workers face and helps us to increase (even if just a little) our farm worker IQ in coffee.
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Ormai si sfiorano i quattro miliardi di euro, cifra record di «buco» nei conti dello Stato. È la voragine creata dall’attività illecita di circa 7.000 dipendenti pubblici infedeli. Funzionari corrotti oppure impiegati che non hanno rispettato la legge nello svolgimento delle proprie mansioni e dunque hanno compiuto illeciti che vanno dalle omissioni agli abusi. Ci sono le truffe nel settore sanitario, i mancati controlli nell’erogazione di pensioni, indennità ed esenzioni, le procedure truccate per la concessione degli appalti. Ci sono gli appalti gonfiati e i medici assenteisti, le consulenze inutili e i doppi incarichi tra i casi più eclatanti scoperti dagli investigatori della Guardia di finanza. Sono gli ultimi dati relativi alle verifiche compiute nel 2015 a raccontare l’Italia dell’illegalità e degli sprechi che provoca danni alla collettività. Mostrando un andamento che inquieta: in soli quattro mesi, da giugno a ottobre dello scorso anno, la cifra contestata è salita di oltre 500 milioni di euro. Vuol dire oltre 100 milioni ogni trenta giorni a dimostrazione che molto ancora c’è da fare — soprattutto negli uffici pubblici più periferici — per stroncare il malaffare. Basti pensare che sono ben 3.590 le persone denunciate per aver compiuto reati nel settore delle gare pubbliche.
La sanità «assente» A Modena è stato denunciato un medico che — pur risultando in servizio — rimaneva in ospedale appena un paio d’ore. Da almeno cinque anni «la regolare presenza veniva garantita solo una volta a settimana» e per cercare di giustificarsi «ha portato i tabulati del marcatempo di un’altra struttura ospedaliera dove svolgeva attività libero professionale intramoenia». Gli sono già stati sequestrati 40 mila euro, ma i controlli sono tuttora in corso. A Imperia i dottori del dipartimento di Medicina legale «certificavano la morte delle persone pur non avendo effettuato alcuna analisi perché erano altrove». Sono decine i documenti falsi trovati nel corso delle perquisizioni.
I farmaci inutili La truffa scoperta a Milano nel giugno scorso era ben più articolata e ha provocato un danno immenso. In una struttura sanitaria convenzionata con il servizio nazionale «sono stati eseguiti oltre 4.000 interventi chirurgici in violazione delle norme di accreditamento relative alla presenza minima di operatori e anestetisti, nonché di impiego di medici specializzandi». L’azienda ha comunque «autocertificato il mantenimento dei requisiti richiesti per l’accesso al rimborso della prestazione sanitaria offerta, ottenendo indebiti rimborsi per oltre 28 milioni di euro». A Brindisi si è scoperto che la prescrizione di 15.541 farmaci per l’ipertensione era stata compiuta in maniera illecita. Sono 482 i medici denunciati per un danno alla Asl pari a 194 milioni di euro.
Falsi moduli per l’Inps Quello dei benefit percepiti grazie a certificazioni false è ormai un vero e proprio affare che coinvolge migliaia di persone in grado di contare sui dipendenti pubblici amici o parenti. A Potenza si è scoperto che molti anziani prendevano l’assegno sociale previsto per i residenti, pur avendo deciso di trasferirsi all’estero, grazie agli impiegati che avevano contraffatto i documenti. Soldi rubati: 259 milioni di euro. Addirittura 500 milioni di euro sono stati sottratti alle casse dell’Inps a Viterbo dove venivano «modificati i moduli per il riscatto della laurea o la ricongiunzione di periodi contributivi per ottenere indebitamente un notevole “sconto” sull’effettiva somma da versare all’Istituto previdenziale, per il riconoscimento di ulteriori periodi contributivi utili ai fini pensionistici».
I doppi guadagni A Potenza un dipendente del Comune svolgeva attività privata negli orari in cui avrebbe dovuto essere in servizio. Faceva il geometra. Compensi rubati: 70 mila euro. A Milano un dirigente della Regione truccava gli appalti e in cambio riceveva favori personali. L’ultimo, la ristrutturazione da favola del suo appartamento. Valore accertato: 150 mila euro. |
The mother of two children injured while crossing an unmarked crosswalk last week is trying to accept the fact the driver who struck her kids and fled may never be found, as police officers continue to investigate the “hugely” challenging hit-and-run.
Just minutes after Amber Chinery’s three children — an 11-year-old boy, 9-year-old boy, and his 9-year-old twin sister — set off for a quick walk to their before-school program on Nov. 20, Chinery said her door flew open and her nine-year-old son told her that his siblings had been hit by a vehicle.
“I ran to the scene and they were on the ground, people were around them covering them with blankets, keeping them still,” Chinery said.
The three kids were crossing the street in an unmarked crosswalk at Berkley Drive N.W. and Bermondsey Way shortly before 7:40 a.m. last Friday when a man driving a light-coloured pickup truck north on Bermondsey Way ran a stop sign and struck two of the children, then fled the scene.
The victims were rushed to hospital with a variety of injuries — the 9-year-old girl sustained a broken femur and is expected to be in a pink full body cast for more than two months, while her 11-year-old brother suffered a broken shoulder, soft tissue damage, lung injury and road rash.
“According to my children, the person didn’t make any attempt to slow down. He mowed them right over,” Chinery said.
“The fact this person is still out there with such disregard for human life, it could happen again…He definitely knows what happened and he needs to face up to it. He needs to be off the road.”
Chinery said her nine-year-old son was not injured in the hit-and-run but is dealing with guilt over the fact he wasn’t able to push his twin sister and older brother out of the way of the vehicle.
Chinery is begging the person who struck and injured her children to come forward to police, but knows the driver may never be found or charged.
“We’ve been told the chances of catching this person are pretty slim,” she said.
“We’re trying to find a new way to find closure…My kids have shown me so much as far as how strong even the littlest person could be in the face of something like this. Neither one of them cry, neither one of them complain about their pain.”
Chinery said she’s trying hard not to be angry and has found solace in the support that’s poured in from community members and strangers.
After nearly a week in hospital, Chinery’s daughter came home on Wednesday and her son was expected to be released from hospital late Thursday. Both face a long road to recovery, including months of physiotherapy.
“I’m thankful they’re alive. It could have been completely different,” Chinery said.
While officers from two different units are continuing to work on the hit-and-run, acting Staff Sgt. Colin Foster with the traffic section said Thursday the case is proving to be difficult and neither the vehicle, or a suspect, has been located.
“It’s a very challenging collision in that there is a considerable lack of evidence in this one,” he said.
Foster said police have received several tips about the case but so far, the only witnesses investigators have are the three children who were involved.
Based on the description officers have of the vehicle involved and the scene of the collision, police believe damage to the pickup truck would be minimal.
“The biggest problem we’ve got is physically being able to put any vehicle we do find to the collision,” Foster said.
“We need to get some sort of physical evidence or admission from the driver that he’s the one responsible.”
In addition to urging the driver to come forward, police are asking anybody who witnessed the collision, or saw the vehicle immediately before or after the hit-and-run to contact police.
“As time goes on, we won’t forgot about this, we’ll keep investigating it,” Foster said.
AKlingbeil@calgaryherald.com |
This article is from the archive of our partner .
As the U.S. Supreme Court decides to take up the White House challenge to Arizona's immigration law today, the high court's newest justice, Elena Kagan, has decided to recused herself from the case. "Justice Elena Kagan will take no part in the decision presumably because she dealt with the issue in her previous job as Solicitor General of the Obama administration," according to ABC News. The problem for Kagan in ruling on the state's supposedly draconian laws -- which for example "requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they detained and suspected of being in the nation illegally," according to Reuters -- is her old job as Obama's solicitor general, the person who represents the U.S. government before the Supreme Court. Before becoming a justice in August 2010 she helped defend the president's position against Arizona's laws, filing, for example, a brief in May 2010 against a 2007 Arizona law that penalized businesses that hired illegal immigrants. That got congressional Republicans riled up during her confirmation hirings last year, as Fox News reported, and today she decided to avoid a mini-controversy by recusing herself. Unfortunately for liberals worried about such recusals whittling away the court's liberal block, Kagan's gig as solicitor general could be following her for a while. There are some calls for her to recuse herself from an even more important case, the one brought by states against Obamacare that the Supreme Court has also agreed to hear, because she defended the law as solicitor.
This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire. |
Lincoln Chafee Ends His Presidential Campaign
Enlarge this image toggle caption Jim Cole/AP Jim Cole/AP
Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee ended his long-shot presidential bid on Friday.
"As you know, I have been campaigning on a platform of Prosperity Through Peace. But after much thought I have decided to end my campaign for president today," Chafee announced at the Democratic National Committee Women's Leadership Forum.
The onetime Republican turned independent turned Democrat is the second candidate to withdraw this week, following former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb's announcement on Tuesday that he was ending his Democratic bid. Webb, however, left open the possibility of running as an independent.
Both Chafee and Webb had barely campaigned, making only a handful of visits to early states. But more so than Webb, Chafee had struggled to make any dent at all in the race.
Chafee had little financial backing for his campaign, raising just $8,300 from 10 major donors during the last quarter. But his few supporters told NPR this week they liked the positive attitude he brought to the race and hoped he would remain in the mix.
The former senator, who hailed from a prominent political family in the Ocean State, had an unremarkable performance in last week's presidential debate. He spoke for just nine minutes during the two-hour faceoff.
Chafee underscored that he had been against the Iraq War from the beginning, a contrast to front-runner Hillary Clinton's controversial 2002 vote. He echoed his anti-war sentiment in his withdrawal announcement on Friday, too.
"The United States of America is so strong militarily, economically and culturally that we can take chances for peace. In fact, as a strong mature world leader, we must take chances for peace. If we have courage, if we take risks, we can have Prosperity through Peace, not just in the United States, but all over the world," Chafee said.
At the debate, he also tried to needle Clinton on her and her husband's past scandals, proudly noting that he had never had a whiff of any misdeeds during his decades in office. But when he tried to engage Clinton over her email server and land a blow, she declined to engage.
Chafee's most damaging answer was when he was asked why he voted to repeal banking regulations known as the Glass-Steagall Act. His answer was that he had just gotten to the Senate after his father died (he was appointed to succeed him) and that he was not familiar with the bill, making Chafee come across as even more unprepared.
Even his sparsely attended announcement in June that he was running for the White House was widely panned, having spent much of his time advocating for the U.S. to switch to the metric system.
Chafee, who like his late father, John, served as both senator and governor of Rhode Island, had an interesting life before entering politics, though. After attending an exclusive Northeastern prep school, where he was a classmate of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Chafee graduated from Brown University and then headed to Montana State University to learn to be a farrier, someone who shoes horses. For years he traveled around the U.S. working at racetracks. |
Update: Verizon says we should be good to go. Feel free to activate on their site or head into a store.
A week ago, just as Moto X Pure Edition orders were arriving on doorsteps, Verizon confirmed to us that they were ready for Motorola’s new unlocked phone and that stores would be able to activate them. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case just yet for many of you who are attempting to get the phone activated on Big Red’s network.
We reached back out to Verizon to see if they could provide an update on the status of the situation and were told that the phone is indeed certified and supported, but there is some sort of issue that they are working to resolve with Motorola in order to get the activation process up and working.
The short statement is below.
“Moto X Pure Edition is certified and supported for activation on Verizon’s network. We are working with Motorola to resolve the activation issue by Friday Sept. 18.”
My guess is that IMEIs for the Moto X Pure Edition from Motorola haven’t been loaded into Verizon’s systems yet and that’s why phones can’t be activated. While I don’t know the process for making that happen, it seems like something that can happen quickly if the parties involved make it happen.
Verizon says they hope to resolve it by Friday. For everyone’s sake, I hope it’s even quicker – people have brand new phones they want to use.
NOTE: Again, this only relates to those attempting to activate new service, a new line, or a new SIM with the Moto X Pure. If you have an activated Verizon nano SIM from another phone, you can just pop that in your new Moto X Pure and it will work. |
The five men were ordered to pay 24,000 euros, or about $27,000, in compensation to the victim, The Associated Press reported.
The Helsingin Sanomat, a leading Finnish newspaper, said that the victim, whom it did not name, had screamed and resisted after she was cornered in a hotel room by several of the volleyball players, then raped. It reported that some of the men had held her hands and pulled her hair, and that one of the men had laughed at her. It also reported that she had been filmed, and that the assault had lasted 90 minutes.
The victim told the court that since the attack, she had trouble sleeping and had anxiety and nightmares, the newspaper said.
The volleyball team competed in the Rio Olympics without the arrested players and lost all of its five games.
After the accusations emerged in July, the Cuban Volleyball Association castigated the athletes’ behavior, saying that it was counter to the “discipline the sense of honor and respect that govern our sport and society.” |
These days, the most Microsoft news are about either Windows 8/8.1 or Windows XP, as the first still struggles to become successful, while the latter will soon get the axe.
Of course, with these two in mind, most people forget about Windows 7, which continues to be the number one operating system in the world and, indirectly, could even become a real Windows 8 killer.
How come, you might ask. Pretty simple, actually.
Windows 7 continues to improve its market share on a monthly basis, even though Microsoft has launched not only the new Windows 8, but also its first major update dubbed Windows 8.1.
Statistics provided by market researcher Net Applications do nothing more than to confirm that nobody can stop Windows 7 right now, especially because most Windows XP users prefer to switch to this OS version rather than to Windows 8 or 8.1.
Windows 7 posted a market share of 47.52 percent in December 2013, up from 46.64 percent the month before and from 44.55 percent in February 2013.
While this growth is quite impressive given the fact that Windows 8 was on the market for the whole year, it’s also another sign that Windows 8 isn’t quite the top choice for users looking to switch to a newer OS version.
And this isn’t Microsoft’s only problem. When Windows 7 support will officially come to an end, the company is very likely to encounter the same problems as the ones it’s trying to cope with right now with Windows XP because plenty of users prefer to stick to its aging OS rather than to move to a newer version.
Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 is scheduled to reach the end of mainstream support on January 13, 2015, while extended support will take place on January 14, 2020. |
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: You can now also listen to me read this post to you on GymCastic!
NCAA Gymnastics for Beginners
http://traffic.libsyn.com/gymcastic/BBS_Intro_to_NCAA_Gym.mp3
Move along, haggard old jaded NCAA fans. Nothing for you to see here. Instead, take this time to write a polemic against the aerial-to-back-handspring acro series on beam.
If, however, you watch elite gymnastics and have finally become fed up with nothing interesting happening 11.975 months out of the year—or you were introduced to the WEARETHEFINALFIVEAHHH during the Olympics and thought, “This sport is a ludicrous sparkleburger that seems to be based entirely on critically assigning numerical ratings to people’s every action, so it’s my life and I’m in love now”—then settle in. NCAA gymnastics is here to soar to your rescue, here to save you from a wretched winter of non-gymnastics discontent by bringing its beautiful qualities like an actual season with weekly meets, stuck dismounts, and legitimately close and exciting team competitions. (I know, right?!?!?!)
So, welcome. Make yourself comfortable. And by that, I mean stay quiet and do exactly as you’re told.
But it’s only fair that I warn you. NCAA gymnastics will change you. By the time you’ve watched a full season, the phrase “like a jank-ass rudi dismount” will be your go-to burn, you’ll be telling toddlers that they really need to display more calm confidence, and you’ll be greeting new acquaintances with pieces of paper reading “9.825” to inform them that they’re just OK.
So, let’s begin. You’re in for a treat.
Item #1 is, of course, Ivana Hong’s triceratops hair. Just know this. If you can’t get behind the idea of Ivana Hong triceratops hair, then you are too far gone to be saved and NCAA gymnastics will never happen for you.
But now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s begin for real.
What…is this thing?
I’m glad you asked. This thing is a big old vat of beautiful insanity called NCAA gymnastics.
Here’s what happens: Once they reach the age of 18 or 19, your favorite elite gymnasts are forced to heave themselves out of their hospital beds, start having a personality, and go to a real school for the first time (harrowing). There, they will join many of the top Level 10 gymnasts in the country to compete on a series of university gymnastics/competitive-temporary-tattoos-on-the-face teams.
They get to do this on a full scholarship because athletes are more important than scientists. Also because, in the 1970s, the US government realized that women exist and told the NCAA that women must be allowed to leave the birthing hut and throw a ball sometimes, even if you can’t necessarily exploit their athletic achievements to make millions of dollars of your own while pretending like you’re doing them a favor in the process. Or something.
These teams spend four months each year competing against other schools—under a code of points that most closely resembles elite competitions of the early 1990s—in the hope of screaming, chanting, sticking, hugging, teamworking, and life-lessoning their way to the annual national championship.
How does the season work?
Beginning the first Friday in January and ending in the middle of April, the NCAA gymnastics season takes over all of your weekends and whole life (as if you had one…) and sees the nation’s 82 teams compete against each other approximately once a week, usually in dual meets against one other school, though occasionally in tri- or quad-meets as well. The main point of dual meets is to make fun of the people who write “duel meets,” as though Florida has challenged Alabama to pistols at high noon.
Also, can Florida please challenge Alabama to pistols at high noon?
With the number of big-reputation, competitive teams going up against each other each weekend, it’s basically like every Friday night is the worlds team final.
At the end of March, the top 36 teams in the country are allowed to continue on to the regional championships, from which 12 teams advance to the national semifinals, from which 6 teams advance to the Super Six Team Final, where the national champion is crowned.
What about individual titles?
HOW DARE YOU, SHUT YOUR FILTHY MOUTH. It’s all about the team. In NCAA, any acknowledgement of individual goals or the desire to win an individual title—or any honest assessment of your own individual gymnastic abilities—is tantamount to treason and will see you drawn and quartered in the town square. On an NCAA team, you are the closest group of sisters, and no sister is more sisterly than any other sister. SISTERS.
Maggie Nichols already gets it. Like an old pro. She just wants to help the team anywhere she might possibly maybe be able to contribute, you guys.
[Whispering] There actually are national all-around and event titles awarded based on performance in the national semifinals, but ssssh. You’re not allowed to talk about them because you might seem selfish or come across like you think you’re more important than the team manager. [/Whispering]
What are the teams?
NCAA gymnastics is infinitely more entertaining if you have a specific team to root for. And, consequently, rival teams to root against. (You’re allowed to do that, like a real sport, just don’t tell the gymternet.)
Before January, I highly recommend picking a team and then getting instantly and aggressively obsessed with it for little reason other than it’s fun. Pick any team. There are no wrong choices. That’s obviously a lie, but I don’t want to discourage you right away.
The most common (and crudest) ways of picking a team are 1) by simple geographical proximity to yourself or 2) by which team’s former elites you like the most.
For reference, here are the former elites (with the awareness that I left out some people who were junior elite for one second) currently on some of the top teams:
Oklahoma – Maggie Nichols, Brenna Dowell, McKenzie Wofford
LSU – Lexie Priessman, Sarah Finnegan, Ruby Harrold (GBR), Erin Macadaeg, Shae Zamardi (CAN)
Alabama – Maddie Desch, Amanda Jetter, Mackenzie Brannan, Ari Guerra, Kiana Winston
Florida – Amelia Hundley, Rachel Gowey, Kennedy Baker, Grace McLaughlin, Ericha Fassbender, Claire Boyce, Maegan Chant (CAN)
UCLA – Kyla Ross, Madison Kocian, Katelyn Ohashi, Felicia Hano, Macy Toronjo, Peng Peng Lee (CAN), Mikaela Gerber (CAN), Hallie Mossett, Stella Savvidou (CYP)
Stanford – Elizabeth Price, Dare Maxwell, Rachel Daum, Kaylee Cole (BOL), Aleeza Yu (CAN)
Georgia – Sabrina Vega, Natalie Vaculik (CAN), Vivi Babalis (CAN), Jordyn Pedersen (CAN)
Utah – MyKayla Skinner, Missy Reinstadtler, Shannon McNatt
Auburn – Abby Milliet
Cal – Toni-Ann Williams (JAM), Jessica Howe
Michigan – Brianna Brown, Talia Chiarelli (CAN), Polina Shchennikova
Oregon State – Maddie Gardiner (CAN), Sabrina Gill (CAN), Silvia Colussi-Pelaez (ESP)
A more advanced way of picking a side is actually watching the different teams and then deciding which style, mood, history, level of dominance/underdogginess, and attitude connects with you the most, but that sounds far too reasonable.
Or, you can just read my season previews here throughout October-December to see which team sounds like it strikes your fancy.
Or just base it on which coach seems the most like a cartoon drag queen like the rest of us did.
How do the meets go?
On each event, six gymnasts compete for each team with the five highest scores counting. At the end of four events, the team with the highest score wins. You know, like a gymnastics competition.
Please note that winning a meet is entirely meaningless (apart from Super Six). Qualification to the regional championships is based on scores, not wins, so the focus is on getting a high team score more than beating an opponent. Still, winning things is fun. Or so I’m told.
How do I watch?
Because NCAA gymnastics is amazing and super popular, TV coverage on the SEC Network, Pac-12 Network, and Big Ten Network has grown dramatically in recent years, meaning the majority of major meets are now broadcast live on TV or streamed through those networks’ online platforms with commentary predominately from people who aren’t terrible. Oklahoma meets are also randomly available sometimes on weird channel numbers, and a great proportion of the smaller teams will have online streams, sometimes even free.
If you don’t have a TV subscription and login ID for the SEC, Pac-12, and Big Ten channels, then you can also build a magical screen out of clouds and dreams and just imagine what facial expression Miss Val is making right then. It’s like the same.
Why is there a lowercase l next to that egg?
Common misconception. That’s not an l next to an egg. It’s actually a 10, which is a score that you can still get in women’s college gymnastics.
WHAT? Then, wait…how does the scoring system work?
That’s an excellent question. I’ll let you know when we find out.
I’m only kind of kidding.
NCAA gymnastics uses a modified version of the JO code of points, only with softer deductions and more overall judging subjectivity and crack smoking. Particularly the crack. I cannot overemphasize how critical crack smoking is to the judging process in NCAA women’s gymnastics.
These days, you will see about one or two 10s awarded each weekend, and for the strongest gymnasts/teams, a score of 9.900-9.950 is considered excellent, 9.850 is fine/solid, 9.825 is OK, and anything lower than that is unlikely to be satisfying or good enough. Once you head into the teams ranked 20-40, 9.850 is considered a much stronger score, and they’re usually happy to count anything 9.750 or above.
For the overall meet scores, the best teams will be expecting to hit 197 regularly. That’s the rule of thumb for a strong score. Anything in the 196s, especially earlier in the season, is not disastrous. Anything in the 195s is.
One of the beauties of NCAA gymnastics, and what makes it ideal for new or non-gymnerd fans, however, is that you don’t have to know anything about the intricacies of the scoring system to understand what’s going on. You can safely assume most routines you see will start from 10.0 (except for Yurchenko fulls on vault which are now 9.950), and the deductions taken from 10.0 are minimal and reserved primarily for the most obvious errors (steps, wobbles, short handstands, etc). That’s why we get scores in the 9.8s and 9.9s. And also why you actually have to be able to hit your skills and have them look good. NCAA gymnastics replaces difficulty with mastery and as a result keeps many teams in contention for wins.
At the top of the rankings, there will be about 8 or 9 teams within a few tenths of each other with a realistic shot to do damage in the postseason, and at last year’s team final, the top four teams were ultimately separated by just three tenths. Small mistakes matter. Wobbles are everything. You don’t know who is going to win before the championship starts.
But what if I actually want to know more about the scoring system?
I’m also here for you. As in Level 10, NCAA routines that meet the element requirements (minimum 3 As, 3 Bs, 2 Cs) automatically start from 9.500, with five tenths of bonus available to be earned in order to get up to that 10.0 start value.
Bonus can be earned by skill difficulty—with D skills garnering 0.1 bonus and E skills garnering 0.2 (E is the highest skill value)—and by connection bonus. A maximum of 0.4 bonus can be earned from either category, so to get a full 10.0 start, some of the bonus must be from skill difficulty and some must be from connections.
The connection bonuses are as follows:
BARS
C+C (both skills include flight or 1/2 turn) – 0.1
C+D – 0.1
D+D – 0.2
BEAM
Dance/mixed
A+D – 0.1
B+C – 0.1
B+D – 0.2
C+C – 0.2
Acro
B+D – 0.2
C+C – 0.2
B+B+C – 0.1
B+B+D – 0.2
B+C+C – 0.2
Turns
C+A – 0.1
(Three-element series on the beam itself that include a C element get an extra 0.1 series bonus.)
(The layout stepout is considered C for the purposes of awarding connection value but a D for the purposes of difficulty. Because…remember that thing I said about crack?)
FLOOR
Dance/mixed
C+C – 0.1
B+D – 0.1
D salto + A dance – 0.1
C salto + A dance + A salto – 0.1
C+D – 0.2
Acro direct
A+C – 0.1
B+B (different elements) – 0.1
B+C – 0.2
A+D – 0.2
Acro indirect
A+A+C – 0.1
C+C – 0.1
A+D – 0.1
C+D – 0.2
Many elements (though far from all) share difficulty values with elite, but there are some important exceptions. Of note, bars dismounts like the double layout and full-twisting double back are Es in NCAA, which makes it very easy for NCAA gymnasts with those dismounts to get their 0.5 in bonus.
For execution deductions, take a look at the judges’ cheat sheet included here and then ignore all of that information because 1% of those deductions actually get taken.
NCAA rules — Judges’ cheat sheet
But what if I’m put off by the level of enthusiasm and screaming?
This is normal. There’s a lot of screaming and smiling and cheering and entirely unfounded joy in NCAA gymnastics, and it can be extraordinarily upsetting to those who have not gone through a process of exposure therapy to adapt to this strange world in which RBF and sass-eye are not the primary form of communication.
The important thing to remember is that you can always make fun of it. And should forever.
There is a place for sarcasm, disapproval, honesty, and side-eye in NCAA gymnastics as well. I think it’s here.
What are…10 hands?
10 hands (alternatively 10HANDS) is a phenomenon in NCAA gymnastics in which a gymnast will perform a languid beige drape of a routine and her coach and teammates will attempt to trick the judges into thinking it was rainbows by holding up all 10 fingers and shouting, “10! 10! 10!” It is horrible and works sometimes.
As a member of the NCAA gymnastics community, it is now your responsibility to quash it at every turn.
Why are people in NCAA gymnastics constantly trying to tell me that it’s better than elite?
Because in the upcoming war between the worlds, you must pick a side. And our side has a lot more stiletto heels to be used as weapons.
What else should I do?
EVERYTHING.
Play fantasy gymnastics
It doesn’t matter if you don’t know anything and just pick the names of a few gymnasts that you’ve heard of. You’ll probably still do better than us experts who are always like, “I’m going to pick this obscure Lindenwood gymnast because based on my research…oh, she’s dead.” It’s probably the best way to get yourself excited about the sport, especially teams and gymnasts you wouldn’t care about otherwise.
Scour the rankings
A great way to learn about the teams to follow, scores, gymnasts, and what expectations you should have for the upcoming season is by running through the rankings and meet results from previous years and getting lost in a wikipedia-style information hole.
Watch these routines
As a start.
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by Maj. John L. Plaster, U.S. Army, (Ret.) - Thursday, August 24, 2017
A “hun’s head” target was used at the Small Arms Firing School. A specially constructed “trench” range at Camp Perry also presented moving paper mache heads.
At the Small Arms Firing School held at Camp Perry, Ohio, students were issued Model of 1903 Springfield rifles with Winchester A5 scopes.
A century ago, amid America’s entry into the Great War, a who’s who of NRA rifle champions gathered at Camp Perry, Ohio, to conduct the most advanced marksmanship training America had ever seen. Congress had just declared war against Imperial Germany, but the United States found itself totally unprepared; 2 million soldiers were urgently needed, but hardly one-tenth that many were in uniform. And not a single school-trained sniper existed.
Overnight, the Army broke ground on 32 training camps, each to house a division of 28,000 men. After three months’ training, they’d ship out and another 32 divisions would begin training. Meanwhile at Camp Perry, a national-level advanced shooting program was organized—the Small Arms Firing School—where specially selected soldiers would learn advanced marksmanship, culminating in long-range shooting and sniper training. Upon graduation, they’d rejoin their units, instruct their skills to others, and then accompany them to France as intelligence and sniping leaders.
While not necessarily used at Camp Perry, one of the standard sniping rifles of American “Doughboys” was the ‘03 Springfield fitted with a Model 1913 5.2X Warner & Swasey Telescopic Musket Sight.
An Impressive Instructor Staff
To call these NRA instructors the best-of-the-best is no exaggeration. Heading Camp Perry’s 50-plus trainers was Lt. Col. Morton C. Mumma, an activated National Guard officer who’d captained the U.S. Palma Team in 1913 and held Distinguished Rifle and Pistol badges.
Directing training was NRA Second Vice President Smith W. Brookhart. An activated National Guard major, Brookhart had led the winning U.S. Rifle Team at the 1912 world championship Palma Match and authored the 1918 handbook, Rifle Training for War. Major Brookhart was also a future NRA president and U.S. senator.
Lt. Col. Morton C. Mumma
Assisting him was Capt. William H. Richard, the 1903, 1,000-yd. Wimbledon Cup winner, an Ohio National Guardsman and longtime competitive rifleman. As a civilian Winchester employee, during his 24-year tenure, Richard was credited with developing the first heavy-barrel, precision bolt-action rifles.
Perhaps the most prominent instructor was Maj. William A. Libbey of the New Jersey National Guard, who also was president of the NRA. A professor of geography at Princeton University, Libbey had twice explored the arctic with Adm. Robert Peary, and counted among his personal friends President Woodrow Wilson, with whom he often spoke. Major Libbey twice had shot with the U.S. Olympic rifle team, winning a silver medal at the 1912 Olympics. At Camp Perry, Libbey would oversee the long-range shooting phase of sniper training.
Captain William Leushner, another Olympic rifleman, won a gold medal at the 1908 Olympics, and took home one silver and two bronze medals he earned at the 1912 games.
Captain James H. Keough, a Distinguished Rifle badge recipient, had shot with the U.S. Rifle Team at the 1908 NRA championships, where he took top place in the 400-yd. event. Two years later, he won the International Smallbore matches.
A three-time Indiana State Rifle champion, (1905-1907), Capt. Herbert W. McBride, was a Distinguished Marksman graduate of Britain’s Hythe School of Musketry. As an American volunteer sniper, he fought with Canada’s 38th and 21st Battalions in France; decorated for bravery thrice, McBride was also wounded three times. Discharged due to his injuries, he was commissioned by the U.S. Army to instruct at Camp Perry and later authored the sniping classic, A Rifleman Went to War.
Another instructor, NRA director and competitive rifleman, Capt. Edward C. Crossman, authored two post-war classics, Military and Sporting Rifle Shooting and The Book of the Springfield. In the 1920s and ’30s, Crossman often wrote for the NRA magazines Arms And The Man and its successor The American Rifleman (the name was changed in 1923).
“For the first time in the history of this nation,” the NRA magazine, Arms And The Man editorialized, “there is in the service of the United States today the flower of American marksmanship.”
Despite their extensive shooting knowledge, however, the NRA instructors lacked modern sniping experience. This battle know-how was supplied by British and Canadian sniping veterans posted to Camp Perry to assist them. They were led by British Maj. Ernest Edward Godfrey, who’d been severely wounded at Gallipoli, Turkey, in 1915. Recovering, he later served as a battalion sniping officer on the Flanders Front, and then instructed at the British 2nd Army School of Sniping, Observation and Scouting.
Major Godfrey’s detachment included two British lieutenants—Archibald Robert Hall and J.W. Wright—along with two Canadian lieutenants—James A. McKenzie and Hugh Aird. All had been wounded in battle. The team’s non-commissioned officers were led by Sgt. Frank Crossland of Canada’s 60th Infantry Battalion.
(l.) Maj. Smith W. Brookhart (ctr.) Maj. William A. Libbey (r.) Capt. James H. Keough
The Course Of Instruction
While each of the Army’s 32 training camps had some form of sniper training, Camp Perry’s was a national-level school, bringing in officers and enlisted men from all across the country. Instructing 100 to 500 students at a time, the Small Arms Firing School’s goal was to produce unit-level marksmanship and sniping experts, to both teach and lead scout-sniper and intelligence platoons. Enlisted students would be commissioned as second lieutenants upon graduation.
Six cycles were scheduled, each running 30 days, and taught in three phases: five and one-half days for basic rifle instruction; two weeks of range firing out to 600 yds.; and a final week focused entirely on sniping, with shooting to 1,000 yds. using scoped rifles. Impressively, of the 30 days, some 22 would include live-fire training.
While the NRA trainers focused on advanced marksmanship training, Maj. Godfrey’s Canadian and British instructors taught sniping tactics and techniques. Not to be desk-bound, Maj. Godfrey personally conducted classes on aerial photography, scouting and military intelligence.
Likewise, American Maj. Brookhart personally instructed on the U.S. Army Model 1917 and 1918 Musketry Rules, devices much like a slide rule that employed milliradians or “mils” to calculate range—similar to today’s mil-dot reticles. In fact, these devices used the same mil formula, which was engraved on them as a handy reference.
Major Libbey oversaw range practice, which incorporated, “long-range practice, practice with telescopic sights, estimating distances, and target designation.” During sniper training, the students fired on a special range constructed with guidance from the Canadian and British staff. Just like the sniping schools in France and Britain, Camp Perry had a simulated “No Man’s Land,” with burned out vehicles, barbed wire obstacles, craters and “German” and “Allied” facing trenches. As Arms And The Man described it in 1918: “The firing line on Maj. Godfrey’s range is a line of trenches, off which sniping posts are sunk under the parapets. Here the student officers are taught to build and conceal loopholes, from which a deadly fire can be directed against enemy trenches, which rise something under 200 yards away, divided from the ‘Ally trenches’ by realistic barbed wire entanglements.”
Captain Crossman, who went through the British-Canadian sniper training, provides more detail: “With our scope-sighted rifles, hidden in some sniper emplacement along the British trench, we who were taking the course were supposed to watch until a cautious Hun figure appeared in some broken portion of the German trench, or peeped over the parapet, [and] were supposed to spot him, and to fire in the second or two of exposure.”
A visiting journalist watched the students firing at moving targets: “The ‘Germans’ are paper mache figures attached to moving rods traversing the trench lines. At some points the heads of the Germans rise for a moment above the trenches. The mechanism is so arranged that they seldom are disclosed at the same place twice. But the Americans, lying in their snipers’ pits, seldom miss a shot.”
(l.) Capt. Herbert W. McBride (ctr.) Capt. Edward C. Crossman (r.) British Maj. Ernest E. Godfrey
Several times, national media visited the school, one visit resulting in a headline in the Washington Herald newspaper, “Yankee Snipers Receive Praise from Britishers on Rifle Marksmanship.” When the reporter asked how well the Americans were shooting, a British trainer said, “top hole,” which the writer explained, “… is a somewhat slangy way of conveying the idea that the Yanks are hot stuff.”
While researching for my new book on World War I sniping, I discovered the course book and handwritten notes from one student, U.S. Army Capt. E.B. Wilson. Illustrative of the quality of instruction at Camp Perry was the class dealing with “Sniping Posts” as taught by British Lt. Hugh Aird. Captain Wilson dutifully sketched the variety of such sniping positions and took excellent notes.
Among Wilson’s training materials I found a surprisingly sophisticated “Range Finder and Slope Card.” Not only did this yield fairly exact ranges, but it tells us that World War I American snipers considered compensation for uphill/downhill angles when shooting—a factor all but ignored by snipers for the next 60 years.
The Range Finder and Slope Card (left), as well as a notebook with drawings (right), belonged to school student U.S. Army Capt. E.B. Wilson.
The 1918 National Matches
The Small Arms Firing School’s final cycle finished just before the 1918 National Matches, slated to be held at Camp Perry. Instead of closing down, the War Dept. had the school’s cadre remain there to provide training to the civilian and military competitors. The arriving shooters were issued the same rifles as the earlier students and supplied with ammunition.
The attendees sat through indoor classes—including British Maj. Godfrey’s presentation on sniping—and then, supplied with Springfield rifles topped by Winchester A5 scopes, went through live-fire training. Just as the earlier students, they shot to 1,000 yds. and afterward competed in the National Matches.
The Americans trained at Camp Perry would soon face German snipers—armed with Mauser 98 rifles and quality scopes—in the trenches of France.
Two weeks later the Small Arms Firing School closed down, and its cadre was transferred to Camp Benning, Ga. There they were joined by instructors from the Army School of Musketry at Fort Sill, Okla., and became the newly created Infantry School of Arms. Major Brookhart, promoted to lieutenant colonel, was appointed director of the Infantry School’s Marksmanship Department, which included a sniping section with its own assigned instructors.
Shortly thereafter, the November 1918 Armistice was declared and demobilization would soon follow. Arguing to keep the NRA trainers on active duty, an editorial in the NRA magazine pleaded, “To send these men back to private life would be a fatal mistake.”
But demobilization was inevitable. Twelve months after the Armistice, U.S. Army strength dropped from 3.25 million to 224,000, and later to just 147,000. The post-war Army had no room for 40-year-old captains and 60-year-old majors, no matter their marksmanship knowledge. A dozen Camp Perry instructors were detailed to the Ordnance Corps to inspect rifles for long-term storage, another dozen was discharged. The rest soon went back to civilian life, replaced by a smaller staff of career soldiers.
The Camp Benning Infantry School continued sniper training in 1919 and, according to a July 27, 1919, New York Times article, dispatched a sniper demonstration team to the National Matches at Caldwell, N.J. The Times hailed the demonstration as a “feature attraction,” that proved especially popular with the public. Despite such attempts to promote Army snipers and sniper training, high-level interest waned and then funding went away. After 1920, there were no newspaper mentions of the sniper school or any military sniper training anywhere in the United States, Canada or Britain.
For a short while, competitive rifle shooters kept alive an interest in sniping. The 1921 NRA matches included a sniping-related, “Special Telescope Match,” with participants firing heavy-barrel Springfield rifles topped by A5 Winchester scopes. Marine Sgt. J.W. Adkins won the match, placing 80 of 100 shots in the 36" bullseye at 900 yds., and 91 of 100 shots at 1,000 yds.
A “Sniper Match” was also featured at the 1922 United Services of New England Matches, where Marine, Army and National Guard rifle teams shot at a 200-yd.-wide simulated village with pop-up and moving targets. Although the Sniper Match proved “popular beyond all expectation,” there appears to be no further record of this match, or any sniping-related match held anywhere. Everything related to sniping simply went away.
Thus, during World War II and the Korean and Vietnam Wars, necessity would demand the temporary rebirth of sniping, paying in blood for the knowledge that had been abandoned in the past.
As for the Small Arms Firing School, that name and the concept of training shooters attending the National Matches at Camp Perry did not end. So well-received was that effort that it has been a tradition ever since. Today the Small Arms Firing School is instructed by the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit from Fort Benning, Ga., and is as well-received and worthwhile today as it was 100 years ago.
Sniping In The Trenches
The author has just completed his latest book, Sniping in the Trenches: World War I and the Birth of Modern Sniping from which this story is excerpted. Major Plaster is also the author of The Ultimate Sniper as well as The History of Sniping and Sharpshooting, the latter being, hands down, the finest and most comprehensive work on the subject to date. But Maj. Plaster has continued to find more information on snipers and sniping since the latter was published. The result is a book covering the rifles, optics and ammunition, plus the training and tactics used by both the Allies and the Germans during the Great War.
From France and Flanders, to Gallipoli and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, there is detailed information on men—the snipers themselves—that has not been reported on in decades, and certainly not in one volume. Too, firsthand accounts are included from American, British and Canadian snipers. The 8 1/2"x11" hardbound, 280-pp. book contains nearly 500 photos and is available from Paladin Press (paladin-press.com). The price is $40 plus shipping. www.ultimatesniper.com
—Mark. A. Keefe, IV, Editor In Chief |
When Elena Gitelson began experiencing back pain toward the end of 2012, she did what any hospital doctor might do: took herself to get a CT scan. A Russian-born oncologist at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Gitelson thought the pain was related to exercise. Even though she treated cancer day in, day out, the notion that she might have the same problem her patients had did not cross her mind--until the scan results came back.
"I think our lives are going to change," she told her husband, Igor Astsaturov, an attending physician working across town at Fox Chase Cancer Center, over the phone on her lunch break. The CT scan had revealed a tumor in her pancreas and multiple lesions in her liver. She had metastatic pancreatic cancer. Gitelson, easing her pain with ibuprofen, gave a two-hour lecture to a group of cancer patients that afternoon, and went home with her husband to discuss the plan of action.
The plan they decided on followed the leading edges of cancer research. Step 1: grow her cancer cells outside of her body. Step 2: get her tumor's genome sequenced and identify any genetic mutations associated with cancer. Step 3: find experimental drugs being tested against those mutations. Step 4: test those drugs out on Gitelson's cancer cells in the laboratory. Step 5: if they found an active compound, treat Gitelson with it.
That was on a Wednesday. By Monday, Gitelson was lying on an operating table having a piece of tumor removed from her liver by a surgeon named Paul Curcillo, a colleague of Astsaturov's.
Astsaturov and a colleague at Fox Chase, Vladimir Khazak, minced the tumor and soaked the pieces in a gel that promotes cell growth. They anesthetized a group of five or six mice and made a small incision in each animal, then placed Gitelson's tumor cells under the skin of each animal. Forty-five minutes after the cancer cells had been removed from Gitelson's liver, they were securely transplanted to the mice.
Within three weeks, Gitelson's cancer cells were growing in all the animals. At the same time, she began a course of chemotherapy. While the tumors in her body were shrinking, they were growing inside the mice. Gitelson continued working, insisting that missing work would be the wrong sign to send to her patients, and unwilling to give up caring for them.
Astsaturov also sent bits of Gitelson's removed tumor to Foundation Medicine, a commercial company that performs genetic analyses. The company had agreed to provide the normally costly service for free. After four weeks searching for more than 200 genes commonly involved in cancer, technicians at the company identified three mutations in Gitelson's malignant cells: kras, p53, and c-myc.
In numerous studies, these three genetic mutations have been associated with cancer development and progression. In addition, tumors with these mutations often become resistant to treatment. "We knew then we were up against something really tough," says Astsaturov.
As he explained, myc and p53 are transcription factors. These genes tell cells which other genes are to be activated when the genetic code is read during cell reproduction. The myc gene has a role in activating cell metabolism, regulating survival, and the acquisition of resistance to chemotherapy. "These three factors all contribute to a fast-progressing cancer," says Astsaturov.
Gitelson had a good response to chemotherapy at first. She was on a regimen known as FOLFIRINOX, consisting of three drugs (fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin, and irinotecan), which had led to improved survival times in a study of patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. Diagnosed in about 45,000 people in the U.S. each year, pancreatic cancer has few treatment options. At least half of all patients are diagnosed when the cancer has spread to another area of the body. Just two percent of patients diagnosed at that stage live beyond five years. Even among the 9% of patients diagnosed when the disease is confined to the pancreas, the five-year survival rate is just 24%.
Despite Gitelson's initial response--the liver metastases all but disappeared and the pancreatic tumor shrank to almost nothing--Astsaturov knew he was racing against the clock. The chemotherapy regimen is too aggressive to take long-term, and the mutations lurking inside her cancer cells could soon render them resistant to the medications.
In late 2012, Astsaturov called his mentor, Louis Weiner, director of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C. Now that he had tumors made of his wife's cancer cells growing inside a group of mice, Astsaturov needed a way to rapidly screen experimental compounds for any activity against those cells. He had heard of a technique that Weiner had developed with his colleague, Richard Schlegel (developer of the human papillomavirus [HPV] vaccine), and wondered if it might work. Weiner agreed to help.
Astsaturov drove from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., bringing with him a single mouse from his experimental colony. A scientist at Weiner's lab, Sandra Jablonski, sacrificed the mouse, removed the tumor, and placed the minced cells on a layer of fibroblasts, a type of cell commonly found in connective tissue, in a Petri dish. The cells began multiplying. Within a month or so, Jablonski had millions of cells. She could now begin his search for a medication that might work against Gitelson's tumor.
But time was running out. Six months after Gitelson started chemotherapy, her disease started progressing. She tried a drug called gemcitabine, but the cancer did not respond. Her doctor, Steven Cohen, added Abraxane to the regimen, but whatever minimal response was seen was gone within three months. Finally, in early 2013, she tried cabazitaxel (Jevtana), a drug that is FDA-approved for the treatment of prostate cancer. It didn't work. Gitelson refused additional FOLFIRINOX. She knew her treatment options had run out.
In the cold winter months of 2013, Astsaturov and his team were holding out hope that they might find an experimental treatment before it was too late. They screened a total of about 850 compounds for activity against his wife's cancer and also cancer cells from six other patients.
Around mid-February, Astsaturov found what he was looking for. One of the experimental compounds was highly active against Gitelson's cancer cells. And, it was active against several of the other cancer cell lines.
The version of the compound in Astsaturov's possession, though, couldn't be given to Gitelson. It was a reagent suitable for laboratory work only. The drug (Astsaturov won't disclose the name yet) isn't available in the United States. The only way for him to get some for his wife was to get it directly from China. But finding a reliable supplier was proving extremely difficult. He was working with the U.S. embassy in China, but even that approach could not guarantee the purity of the compound he'd receive.
Meanwhile, he was conferring with Gitelson's oncologist about trying immunotherapy or a vaccine to help prolong her life. She just needed to stay alive long enough for him to get her this compound.
She didn't. Gitelson died March 31 at age 55.
Astsaturov and his colleagues remain determined to investigate this compound for the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Their first question was why this compound seemed to work. What was the compound doing to his wife's cancer cells? Two weeks after her death, Astsaturov's student found the answer. A laboratory test revealed that the compound had eliminated the myc gene in her tumor cells. Oddly, in the other cancer cells lines, myc remained. Astsaturov had his first clue. Once the underlying mechanism becomes fully clear, researchers can better identify which cancer patients might be candidates for this new drug.
Now, the research is poised for its next steps. Astsaturov is continuing his laboratory studies of the compound and has raised about $130,000 to collect further data. Elsewhere, a phase I clinical trial of the experimental compound for the treatment of pancreatic cancer is in the planning stages.
In other words, Step 5 of his and Gitelson's plan will be completed--only it will be in other patients.
It's a direction that Astsaturov believes his wife would have wanted, having always considered herself part of the research, not its goal. "Elena was interested to know how we were progressing, not selfishly but because she wanted better treatments for everyone," he says. "Her heroism, her conviction, is what drove us all."
When I met Astsaturov this past May, at a talk I was giving at Fox Chase Cancer Center about my book, The Philadelphia Chromosome, which tells the epic tale behind a breakthrough treatment for an entirely different type of cancer, he told me how his late wife had been inspired by such past successes, and held fast to her vision of where genetic research could eventually lead - a vision she tried to capture in her artwork (those are chromosomes on the top right): |
First, here’s an article from the peer-reviewed journal Nature, probably the best peer-reviewed journal on science in the world. (H/T Letitia)
The article is written by James Hannam. He has a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge and is the author of The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution (published in the UK as God’s Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science).
Excerpt:
Few topics are as open to misunderstanding as the relationship between faith and reason. The ongoing clash of creationism with evolution obscures the fact that Christianity has actually had a far more positive role to play in the history of science than commonly believed. Indeed, many of the alleged examples of religion holding back scientific progress turn out to be bogus. For instance, the Church has never taught that the Earth is flat and, in the Middle Ages, no one thought so anyway. Popes haven’t tried to ban zero, human dissection or lightening rods, let alone excommunicate Halley’s Comet. No one, I am pleased to say, was ever burnt at the stake for scientific ideas. Yet, all these stories are still regularly trotted out as examples of clerical intransigence in the face of scientific progress.
Admittedly, Galileo was put on trial for claiming it is a fact that the Earth goes around the sun, rather than just a hypothesis as the Catholic Church demanded. Still, historians have found that even his trial was as much a case of papal egotism as scientific conservatism. It hardly deserves to overshadow all the support that the Church has given to scientific investigation over the centuries.
That support took several forms. One was simply financial. Until the French Revolution, the Catholic Church was the leading sponsor of scientific research. Starting in the Middle Ages, it paid for priests, monks and friars to study at the universities. The church even insisted that science and mathematics should be a compulsory part of the syllabus. And after some debate, it accepted that Greek and Arabic natural philosophy were essential tools for defending the faith. By the seventeenth century, the Jesuit order had become the leading scientific organisation in Europe, publishing thousands of papers and spreading new discoveries around the world. The cathedrals themselves were designed to double up as astronomical observatories to allow ever more accurate determination of the calendar. And of course, modern genetics was founded by a future abbot growing peas in the monastic garden.
But religious support for science took deeper forms as well. It was only during the nineteenth century that science began to have any practical applications. Technology had ploughed its own furrow up until the 1830s when the German chemical industry started to employ their first PhDs. Before then, the only reason to study science was curiosity or religious piety. Christians believed that God created the universe and ordained the laws of nature. To study the natural world was to admire the work of God. This could be a religious duty and inspire science when there were few other reasons to bother with it. It was faith that led Copernicus to reject the ugly Ptolemaic universe; that drove Johannes Kepler to discover the constitution of the solar system; and that convinced James Clerk Maxwell he could reduce electromagnetism to a set of equations so elegant they take the breathe away.
Given that the Church has not been an enemy to science, it is less surprising to find that the era which was most dominated by Christian faith, the Middle Ages, was a time of innovation and progress. Inventions like the mechanical clock, glasses, printing and accountancy all burst onto the scene in the late medieval period. In the field of physics, scholars have now found medieval theories about accelerated motion, the rotation of the earth and inertia embedded in the works of Copernicus and Galileo. Even the so-called “dark ages” from 500AD to 1000AD were actually a time of advance after the trough that followed the fall of Rome. Agricultural productivity soared with the use of heavy ploughs, horse collars, crop rotation and watermills, leading to a rapid increase in population. |
(Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors have charged an Iranian national with hacking into cable TV network HBO and stealing episodes and plot summaries for unaired programs including “Game of Thrones,” then threatening to release the data unless he was paid $6 million.
Iranian national Behzad Mesri, also known as "Skote Vahshat", charged by U.S. prosecutors with hacking into cable TV network HBO and stealing episodes and plot summaries for unaired programs including "Game of Thrones" then threatening to release the data unless he was paid $6 million, is shown in this undated photo provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in New York, November 21, 2017. Courtesy FBI/Handout via REUTERS
Behzad Mesri, also known as “Skote Vahshat,” was charged with the hack in a sealed indictment that was released on Tuesday by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan.
Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said at a news conference that Mesri was in Iran. He said Mesri would face consequences even though U.S. authorities could not immediately arrest him.
“He will never be able to travel outside of Iran without fear of being arrested and brought here,” Kim said.
Kim described Mesri as an “experienced and sophisticated hacker who has been wreaking havoc on computer systems around the world for some time.”
Prosecutors said Mesri had worked on behalf of Iran’s military to attack military systems, nuclear software systems and Israeli infrastructure.
They also alleged that he helped an Iranian hacking group, Turk Black Hat Security Team, deface hundreds of websites in the United States and other countries.
The cyber attack surfaced over the summer as HBO was running a new season of “Game of Thrones,” and as the cable network’s parent Time Warner Inc TWX.N sought regulatory approval to sell itself to AT&T Inc (T.N) in an $85.4 billion deal announced in October 2016.
The indictment charged Mesri with hacking into HBO from May to August and stealing unaired episodes of programs such as “Ballers,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “The Deuce.”
Mesri also stole scripts and plot summaries for “Game of Thrones,” according to the indictment. It said he obtained credentials that HBO employees use to access the network, then used those accounts to steal data from the company’s servers from May to August of this year.
He demanded up to $6 million in extortion emails to HBO staff to keep the data secret, some of which ended with photos of Night King, a menacing zombie villain from “Game of Thrones,” according to the indictment.
Reuters was unable to reach Mesri for comment.
Prosecutors charged Mesri with computer fraud, wire fraud, extortion and identity theft.
HBO spokesman Jeff Cusson declined to comment on the indictment, and on whether the company’s investigation into the breach was complete or how much the incident had cost the cable network. |
Other (please specify)
Other (please specify)
It is its own separate being.
It is its own separate being.
It's part of a woman's body.
It's part of a woman's body.
Is the fetus part of a woman's body, or is it a separate human being?
It depends on the circumstances.
It depends on the circumstances.
No, there are better options.
No, there are better options.
Do you believe that abortion is the best option for an unwanted pregnancy?
Abortion is never an acceptable option.
Abortion is never an acceptable option.
Abortion is always an acceptable option.
Abortion is always an acceptable option.
When is abortion an acceptable option?
Abortion is never acceptable.
Abortion is never acceptable.
Abortion is always an acceptable option.
Abortion is always an acceptable option.
As a result of incest.
As a result of incest.
As a result of rape.
As a result of rape.
Other (please specify)
Other (please specify)
Once its brain is developed.
Once its brain is developed.
Once it can feel pain.
Once it can feel pain.
When exactly is a fertilized egg considered alive?
No, it affects more than one life.
No, it affects more than one life.
Yes, it's her body.
Yes, it's her body.
Is abortion a woman's right?
It's not an issue, it's a right.
It's not an issue, it's a right.
No, there are much more important issues.
No, there are much more important issues.
Yes, it's an important issue.
Yes, it's an important issue.
Do you see abortion as an important issue?
It is both a moral and political issue.
It is both a moral and political issue.
It is a political issue.
It is a political issue.
It is a moral issue.
It is a moral issue.
Do you believe abortion is a moral or political issue?
What is your age?
What is your gender?
How do you see abortion?
T
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Only Built 4 Cuban Linx is the darling album of bearded cratediggers and bright-eyed youngsters alike, and widely considered one of the best conceptual hip-hop albums ever created. First released back in 1995, the album made its 20th birthday at the beginning of this month. As we know, sneaker culture and hip-hop are intimately intertwined, and as such, it only makes sense to commemorate a classic album with an equitably timeless silhouette. Here Packer Shoes brings Diadora and Raekwon together to create a special iteration of the N.9000, outfitted in a rich royal purple suede for the “Purple Tape” release.
As the name infers, the colorway refers to the original album cassette, which was done in purple to distinguish itself from other rap releases. From the co-branded tongue that nods to the “Parental Advisory” tag to the track listing on the footbed, to the “Side 1” and “Side 2” embroidery on the back heel, the “Purple Tape” might be one of the most detailed album-inspired sneakers released to date. Crafted in Italy, pick up this special sneaker release beginning August 20 at a special event in New York City, and stay tuned to Packer Shoes for more details on a wider release. |
Image: Pixabay.
More people are getting online than ever, fueling an ever-burgeoning digital economy, but America's poor are being left behind.
According to a new study from the Brookings Institute's Metropolitan Policy Program, only 46.8 percent of US households below the poverty line (specifically, households making under $20,000) are subscribed to broadband internet services. That's 42 percent lower than the 88.8 percent broadband adoption rate with households making over $50,000.
The researchers follow the US census' definition of a broadband connection, which includes landline connections (DSL, cable modem, fiber optics), and wireless services (smartphone, tablet data plans, etc), but not dialup.
The researchers also tied income and education to the low subscription rate, which seems to be the exact opposite of what's happening in the UK. While Brits are well connected, the US seems to be hobbled by something of a class divide when it comes to the internet. There doesn't seem to be one clear-cut answer as to why the poor are kept offline, but broadband internet is more expensive and harder to access than it is in other countries.
"Many metropolitan areas that have low adoption rates to begin with often saw the biggest gain just because they had a low share of households to begin with." Joseph Kane, one of the co-writers of the paper, told me. The biggest gains came from towns that had relatively low broadband internet adoption: Fresno, California from 66.1 percent of households to 71.5 percent, Youngstown, Ohio from 63.6 percent to 68.9 percent.
So while the silver lining is that internet adoption is growing, the not-so-silver lining is that the numbers say it's still disproportionately benefiting the middle class while the poor still have few options.
"As we make this transition to an all digital economy, broadband is becoming the defining infrastructure of the 21st century," Kane told me. "More households are getting a high speed subscription, but clearly there's still more work to be done." |
Microsoft’s intelligent assistant, Cortana, could become much more prevalent through a partnership with Cyanogen. In an interview with International Business Times, Cyanogen CEO Kirt McMaster revealed his company is working closely with Microsoft to deeply integrate the technology into a future version of Cyanogen OS. That would put Cortana in Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows Phone 8.1, Android, iOS and now Cyanogen OS, making the assistant widely accessible to a massive consumer base.
While McMaster didn’t really provide any concrete details, he did explain the importance of Cortana’s natural language understanding, and how Microsoft’s technology is superior to services like Siri and Google Now. He said that in order to truly make a successful digital assistant, it needs to be embedded into the framework of an OS, which is why Cyanogen OS won’t simply offer a Cortana app, which is what Android does.
Delving even deeper into a stronger relationship with Microsoft, International Business Times suggests Cyanogen OS might one day replace Windows Phone altogether. McMaster acknowledged that people simply don’t buy Windows Phone devices, giving Cyanogen an opportunity to fill in the gaps. We didn’t quite get our dream Lumia phone running Android, but what if we saw one running Cyanogen OS? I’m sure people would be interested.
Cyanogen OS has grown significantly over the past few years, and already has an established user base of over 50 million users. The software powers new smartphones from WileyFox overseas, for example.
Check out the rest of the interview for more comments from McMaster, including his thoughts on forked versions of Android, and Cyanogen’s rocky relationship with Google. |
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Suppose Mario is walking on the surface of a planet. If he starts walking from a known location, in a fixed direction, for a predetermined distance, how quickly can we determine where he will stop?
More formally, suppose we are given a convex polytope $P$ in 3-space, a starting point $s$ on the surface of $P$, a direction vector $v$ (in the plane of some facet containing $p$), and a distance $\ell$. How quickly can we determine which facet of $P$ Mario will stop inside? (As a technical point, assume that if Mario walks into a vertex of $P$, he immediately explodes; fortunately, this almost never happens.)
Or if you prefer: suppose we are given the polytope $P$, the source point $s$, and the direction vector $v$ in advance. After preprocessing, how quickly can we answer the question for a given distance $\ell$?
It's easy to simply trace Mario's footsteps, especially if $P$ has only triangular facets. Whenever Mario enters a facet through one of its edges, we can determine in $O(1)$ time which of the other two edges he must leave through. Although the running time of this algorithm is only linear in the number of edge-crossings, it's unbounded as a function of the input size, because the distance $\ell$ could be arbitrarily larger than the diameter of $P$. Can we do better?
(In practice, the path length isn't actually unbounded; there is a global upper bound in terms of the number of bits needed to represent the input. But insisting on integer inputs raises some rather nasty numerical issues — How do we compute exactly where to stop? — so let's stick to real inputs and exact real arithmetic.)
Is anything nontrivial known about the complexity of this problem?
Update: In light of julkiewicz's comment, it seems clear that a real-RAM running time bounded purely in terms of $n$ (the complexity of the polytope) is impossible. Consider the special case of a two-sided unit square $[0,1]^2$, with Mario starting at $(0,1/2)$ and walking in direction $(1,0)$. Mario will stop on the front or the back of the square depending on the parity of the integer $\lfloor \ell \rfloor$. We can't compute the floor function in constant time on the real RAM, unless we're happy equating PSPACE and P. But we can compute $\lfloor \ell \rfloor$ in $O(\log \ell)$ time by exponential search, which is an exponential improvement over the naive algorithm. Is time polynomial in $n$ and $\log \ell$ always achievable? |
A pharmacokinetic study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of lower doses of ethanol in the treatment of ethylene glycol (EG) poisoning. Four dogs were maintained at serum ethanol concentrations of 0, 35 and 140 mg/dl prior to EG (i.v., 2 ml/kg) administration. The serum EG concentration-time data showed that the 35 mg/dl ethanol level provided as effective an inhibition of EG metabolism as did the 140 mg/dl level. The average urinary excretion rate of oxalic acid post EG administration was reduced to control levels by ethanol. The 35 mg/dl serum ethanol level reduced the total body clearance of EG from 93.9 to 50.0 ml/h/kg and increased the effective half-life from 5.78 to 11.4 h. Clinical testing was accomplished by giving the dogs 12 ml EG/kg body weight orally. One hour later, the dogs were either not treated or treated with a sodium bicarbonate-ethanol solution to obtain a serum ethanol concentration of 50 mg/dl. The clinical test performed in the ethanol-treated dogs showed little change from normal limits. Urine calcium oxalate crystals were seldom found. The dogs given EG (12 ml/kg) but not treated with ethanol were in a coma at 13 h and showed severe metabolic acidosis, dehydration, mild hepatocellular disease and acute renal damage. Urine calcium oxalate crystals were found in high numbers. The rapid death associated with EG poisoning appeared to be due to metabolic acidosis in combination with dehydration. |
About Dogs – Caucasian Shepherd Dogs Posted by Bassa's Blog on 07/07/2012 · 56 Comments
Background: The mountainous region of the Caucasus which lies between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea is home to one of the oldest living Molosser breeds, the Caucasian Shepherd or Mountain Dog (Georgian: კავკასიური ნაგაზი). There is a great variety of types among Caucasian dogs depending on their home region. The original purpose of this breed was to protect livestock from bears, wolves and thieves. Dogs similar to this superb guardian have protected livestock for at least 600 years. Even though its original use as a livestock guardian is declining it is still used by shepherds in Georgia and throughout the Caucasus Region.
The dogs are very highly regarded in Georgia. The image of the head of a Caucasian Shepherd dog decorated the coats of arms of several Georgian grand dukes.
Description: The breed is characterized by a massive bone structure and strong musculature. The tail is high set and usually carried in the shape of sickle, hook or ring. The thick coat is especially effective at keeping out the cold. There are two coat varieties: short and long. On the long-haired type, the hairs on the neck form a lion-like “mane”, and fringes and culottes on the rear part of the legs. The tail is thick and bushy. The short-haired type lacks these characteristics. Colors vary from gray, fawn, tan, pied, brindle and white. The large paws have hair between the toes, providing excellent insulation. Weight is in the range of 99-154 pounds (45-70 kg). The desirable height for males is in the range of 72 – 75 cm, for females 66 – 69 cm.
Characteristics: The typical Caucasian Shepherd dog is independent, strong willed and fearless. Because its thick coat protects it from adverse weather, it can live out-doors provided it has shelter. Despite its superb qualities this is not a dog for everyone. It does not accept people it does not know and has a powerful urge to defend its family and family pets. Unless it is properly socialized and trained it may exhibit ferocious and unmanageable tendencies.
An Example of a Working Dog Protecting Sheep
Caucasian Shepherd Puppies are adorable!
Georgia About has a long-haired female Caucasian Shepherd dog called Bassa.
She was born in October 2010 at the famous nursery at St. George’s Monastery of Tabakini, here in Georgia, where Orthodox priests have been breeding Caucasian Shepherd dogs since 1992.
Caucasian Shepherd Puppies Bred at the Tabakini Monastery
Bassa’s father’s name is Butkuna Tabakini. He is an international champion and won ‘Best in Show’ at the International Dog-show “Golden Gate 2010”, which took place in Kiev, Ukraine.
Bassa gave birth to a litter of 6 healthy puppies on 8 October 2013.
Click here to see more pictures of Bassa’s puppies.
We have written an eBook about life with our Caucasian Shepherd dog Bassa.
Called ‘Bassa’s World’, the book is a collection of anecdotes, photos and information about the life of a Caucasian Shepherd dog living in Tbilisi in Georgia.
CLICK on the picture for more information.
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Notre Dame made a splash with recruits this week when the Fighting Irish sent out packages filled with 477 letters, called "Pots of Gold," to recruits across the country.
ESPN 300 linebacker Nyles Morgan (Crete, Ill./Crete-Monee) was one of the recipients. The No. 65 prospect tweeted a picture, which explained why the package consisted of 477 letters.
Just recieve the " Pot Of Gold" 477 letters! pic.twitter.com/Uqkh69ENGT — Nyles Morgan (@Obey_Pride) December 18, 2013
The note says there is one letter for every NFL draft pick to have come out of Notre Dame.
Tennessee and a few other SEC schools have been known to ship out a large number of recruiting letters to prospects, creating an arms race to see who can send the most.
When Kentucky sent ESPN 300 defensive tackle Matt Elam (Elizabethtown, Ky./John Hardin) more than 100 letters, Notre Dame responded by sending 270 letters to the No. 292-ranked prospect.
Elam saw the newest batch of packages sent out and immediately made it known that he wanted more.
@JR_Sandlin New #PotOfGold Killed Mine... I Know Your Not Going To Stand For This !! — Matt Elam™6⃣9⃣ (@FballIsLife69) December 18, 2013
That's a large part of what this recruiting tactic has created: a competition for who gets the most attention for the program. Although the Pots of Gold concept isn't new, the volume of letters contained in it is.
Dalton Schultz (South Jordan, Utah/Bingham), an uncommitted tight end prospect, was one of the latest recipients of the Pots of Gold. The No. 138-ranked prospect posted a video on YouTube showcasing all the mail he received from coaches.
Schultz believes this strategy is more than hype and that this type of recruiting can help sway prospects to Notre Dame.
"I think for most kids, getting something like this would have some impact on their decision," he said. "Only 11 kids got that, so that's pretty humbling. It lets recruits know that they're genuinely interested in getting you there. That buzz [it creates] just gives Notre Dame more positive publicity, which is always helpful for recruiting purposes."
The attention wasn't just put on uncommitted prospects, either. The staff sent one to recent commit Kolin Hill (Schertz, Texas/Samuel Clemens), a three-star linebacker.
Just received the POT OF GOLD couldn't be more excited to be apart of something special! #GoIrish #GoldenArmy14pic.twitter.com/WHh3C5stNY — Kolin Hill (@KoLiNHill45) December 18, 2013
Hill was surprised he received one of the over-the-top shipments because he's already committed to Notre Dame. He believes this is something genuine and special rather than a way to create publicity and exposure with other recruits.
"From my perspective, it makes me feel wanted and shows interest because the letters are handwritten," Hill said. "They take the time to write and design all the letters, so recruits realize that and feel special. It's just different from getting letters from every other school, because of the time and effort they put into it." |
Sheriff's deputies have arrested a Kelso, Wash., man in connection with a dramatic clash in a labor dispute in Longview, Wash., last week.
More
Police said more than 500 people broke into the Port of Longview early Thursday morning, assaulted a guard, damaged rail cars and spilled grain from the cars.
On Monday, the
arrested Ronald Patrick Stavas, 45, on suspicion of first-degree burglary, second-degree assault, intimidating a witness and sabotage, all felonies. Sheriff Mark Nelson said he expected to make more arrests.
The
Local 21 has been picketing a grain terminal on port property since July, saying its members are entitled to work at the terminal because of a contract with the port. EGT LLC, the operator of the terminal, has sued for the right to hire non-union labor, though it has contracted with company that employs members of a different union.
The sheriff's office said about 200 people had been arrested since July, mostly on trespassing charges. Monday's arrest was the first felony charge.
-- |
Radio host and political commentator Tammy Bruce was on Stuart Varney’s show on the FOX Business Network this week and briefly explained what so many people on the left don’t get about Trump.
Before the clip below begins, she was presumably asked something about Trump and women or past comments Trump has made about women.
Here’s what she says:
“Here’s what Donald Trump is. He’s the triage surgeon in the ER that we need when we might not make it to the next day. If you’re being rushed to the emergency room, you’re not gonna take a poll about the opinion necessarily of the man that is going to save your life.
Trending: CNN Told By South Korean Official: “Clearly Credit Goes To President Trump” (VIDEO)
I am not electing a husband or a boyfriend or a brother. Or a man that I want to have take my daughter to the prom. We’re electing a man who’s going to save this nation and get us to the next step.”
Watch the video:
What a brilliant way of putting it.
Go Tammy! |
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Ah, baking, an essential part of my cooking repertoire. However, sweets and baking, I am not good at. This week, I decided to try my hand at baking cookies from scratch. I wanted to make s’mores like cookie, a graham cracker flavored cookie stuffed with a chocolate and marshmallow gooey center. Sounds delicious right? I think it would have been if I could have gotten the marshmallows to actually stay gooey instead of just burning away and melting into the cookie. The cookie itself was yummy though!
While I was at it, I decided to bake some cookie stuffed cookies! People seem to really like these. They are quite a treat, and I only recommend eating 1. I present Oreos stuffed into chocolate chip cookies.
Like all cookies, these are best right out of the oven with some milk. Yum!
Bonus! I baked some chicken pot pie and a veggie pot pie for dinner.
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claricom
CAE ITE 1.0
Brill Formulation
Radan 7.5.18 _2018
HYPACK 2018 18.1.18
GEOVIA Whittle 4.7.1
Maptek Vulcan 10.1 x64
MineSight 2017 12.0 Win64
SIMPLANT Pro 17.0 with stl
SIMPLANT Pro 18.0
Hydromantis GPS-X 7.0.1
AnyBody Modeling System 7.1
DesignBuilder 5.4
NI AWR Design Environment with Analyst 14.0.9138 x64
Frontline Plug-in Solver Engines 2017/2018
Frontline Analytic Solver Platform 2017/2018
Frontline Solver SDK Platform 2017/2018
SIEMENS Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) 2018.0 x64
HTRI Xchanger Suite 7.3.2
NovAtel Waypoint GrafNav/GraphNet 8.70.6404
Materialise SimPlant Master Crystal 13.0
Synopsys RSoft Photonic System Design Suite 2018.03 Linux64
Synopsys RSoft Photonic Component Design Suite 2018.03 Linux64
DENTSPLY Simplant Pro 18.0
Mentor Graphics Tanner Tools 2016.2 x64
MAGIX Vegas Pro 16.0 x64
Rhinoceros 6.9 x64
RockWare LogPlot 8.0 x64
Geomagic Design X 2016.2.2 x64
ensilica Xtensa Xplorer 7.0.9 Linux
Honeywell UniSim Design Suite R451
Softbits Flaresim 5.2.1
Concept GateVision 6.8.12 Win/Linux
Cadence INCISIVE 15.20.001 Linux
Skyline TerraExplorer Pro 7.0.2
Concept SpiceVision 6.8.12 Win/Linux
Concept RTLvision 6.8.12 Win/Linux
SOFiSTiK Reinforcement Detailing & Generation 2019
Keysight Model Builder Program (MBP) 2017.2 x64
Keysight Model Quality Assurance (MQA) 2017.2 x64
Keysight Genesys 2018 x64
Advanced Design System (ADS) 2017.1 x64
Chasm Consulting VentSim Premium Design 5.1
Cadence Xcelium 18.03 Linux
Cadence MDV 18.03 Linux
MecSoft VisualCAM 2018 v7.0
Coventor SEMulator3D 7.0 x64
Leica Cyclone REGISTER 360 1.5.0 x64
Leica MultiWorx 2.3 For AutoCAD 2014-2019 x64
Leica CloudWorx 6.4 for AutoCAD 2015-2019
Leica CloudWorx 2.2 For Revit 2014-2019
Leica CloudWorx 5.1.4 for MicroStation V8i
Leica CloudWorx 2.1.4 For PDMS 12.1 SP4
Leica Cyclone 9.3 x64
Cadence Spectre 17.10 Linux
Prokon 3.0 SP DC 02.08.2018
Aurora FEST3D 2018 SP2 x64
Paradigm 18 Full Suite Win/Linux
DNV Patran-Pre 2018 x64
Bentley LumenRT 2018
lighttools 8.6
SPEOS for SOLIDWORKS 2017
OptisWorks 2016 x64
ultima mentor 9.4
actix analyzer 2018
DNV SESAM FULL 2018
midas gts nx 2018
midas soilworks 4.1
midas gen 2018
midas design+ 2018
midas civil 2018 v1.2
midas dshop 2018
symmetre r410
CP-Studio
kepware 5.20
saia PG5 2.1
Motocom32 dx200 plus
procon-win 3.5
midas soilworks 3.5
geostudio 2012
technet GMbH PreDesigner 2017
framecad structure v8
csi preform 3d v6
geogiga seismic pro 8.3
citect 7.2
3dbody 7.0
3shape convince
plastycad
hypermill 2018
deswik suite 2017.1
Scania XCom 2.30
tebis 4.0
3shape design system 2018
3shape implant studio 2017
Cape pack V2.15
Prinect Signa Station 2017
exoplan 2017.03
MagiCAD 2018
ExoCad 2017.12
MillBox 2016
GOM ARAMIS 6.15
Blue Sky Plan v3 x64
Maestro 3D Dental Studio 4
Sirona InLab 4.2.5
Maestro Ortho Studio Build 2.8
Zirkonzahn 2017
Dolphin Imaging 11.9
Digital Smile System 1.9.8
PlastyCAD 1.7
3Diagnosys 4.1
ArKaos MediaMaster 5.0.3
smile designer pro v2.6.1
GEO5 2017
TRUSS4 v10
exocad Partial Framework 2017
OnDemand3D Application 1.0.10.5385
Dental Master 2016
Dental Wings (DWOS) 2016
Ekahau Site Survey 8.6.1
HYPACK 2016
Dental Shaper
Orcaflex 10.0e
AQWA
MOSES
NAPA 2017
offpipe
maxsurf
DNV GL AS PHAST
DNV safty offshore 7.2
aveva bocad suite 2.2.0.3
AVEVA Engineering v14.1 SP1
Aveva everything3D (E3D) v2.1
napa ship designer
numeca fine
marine 3.1
Veristar Hull, Stability, Homer, Optimise
Hydrostar, ariane7
AVEVA Marine 12.1 SP4.29
sacs 11.0
DNV Sesam all moduels
Leica GEOMOS v5.0
Rocscience RS3
3shape orthodontic 2017
Onyx ProductionHouse v12.1
pc-dmis 2018
exocad DentalCAD 2.2 Valletta
exocad 2018
frontline genflex 3.2c1
frontline genesis 10.02
ez-fixture 9.6.4
ezgrid 9.5
ucam 10.2
em-test expert v8
3shape design system 2017 2.17.3.0
PC-DMIS 2018R1 x64
Motor-CAD/Motorcad 11.1.5
Synopsys Synplify FPGA 2017.09 Win&Linux FPGA
Golden Software Strater 5.4.948
Golden Software MapViewer 8.6.651
Waterloo Visual MODFLOW Flex 2018.v5.1
Cype 2017m
Intergraph SmartPlant Spoolgen Isometrics 2014.v08
Intergraph SmartSketch 2014.v08.00.00 R1
Intergraph CAESAR II 2018 v10.00.00 x64
Intergraph SmartPlant P&ID 2014 R1
IHS QUE$TOR 2017 Q1
Intergraph SmartPlant Review 2017 v12.00.00.0501
ANSYS Apache Totem 14.1 Linux64
Crosslight Csuprem 2018 x64
Ensoft LPile 2018.10.02
AnyBody Modeling System 7.1
Antenna Magus 2018.0.v8.0 x64
CGERisk BowTieXP 9.0.1
PDI GRLWEAP Offshore Wave 2010-7
NI AWR Design Environment with Analyst 13.03 x64
Rock Flow Dynamics RFD tNavigator 2017.v17.3 x64
CMG (Computer Modelling Group) Suite 2017.10
PHDwin2.10.3
meyer 12 2017.12
Schlumberger petrel 2017
HampsonRussell Suite 10.3
geoview 10.3 HRS 10.3
Midland Valley move 2018.1
jason 9.7
Schlumberger CoilCADE 6.0
Schlumberger StimCADE 4.0
crystal 2018.1
gohfer 9.0.1.6
omni 2017.1
tesseral pro 5.0.3b
ERDAS IMAGINE 2018
Waypoint Inertial Explorer 8.7
Deswik suite 2017
FAROBox PointSense plant 18.5
EyeRadar 2.0
Leica Xpro 6.4
Trimble EdgeWise_v5.0.2SP1
Trimble Business Center 4.0
3DReshaper 2017 x64
Amberg Tunnel 2
virtual surveyor 3.6
cloudworx for revit
socet set 5.6
socet GXP 4.1
OrbitGT
Riscan PRO 2.0 x64
JAR reconstrucer 3.3.0 x64
Materialise E-stage v6.6
Virtual Surveyor 3.5
CARIS HIPS and SIPS 10.2
DP-moderler
APS 7.6
Imagestation SSK 2015
Deswik 2017.2.1234
EnterVol 2017.4 for ArcGis
Geochemist Workbench 11.0.8
Maptek Vulcan 10.1.4
Tesseral Pro 5.0.3
Tesseral 2D 7.2.8
Global Mapper 19.0.2
GEOVIA Surpac 6.8
Ventsim 4.8
MineSched 9.1.0 x64
Paradigm 17
VUMA3D-NETWORK 2018
MineSight 12.0
Maptek Eureka 4.1
whittle 4.7.0.1
Leapfrog Geo 4.0
Leapfrog Geothermal 3.2
Leapfrog Hydro 2.6
OptiSPICE 5.2
VPI transmission maker 9.8 x64
VPI photonics Analyzer 9.8 x64
VPI componentMaker 9.8 x64
socet gxp 4.3
GEOVIA GEMS 6.8.1
GamaPrintPro
PosterShop
RipCente
ProductionHouse 12
neoStampa 8.1.5
Fiery XF v6.5
ORIS COLOR TUNER WEB 3.1
ORIS PRESS MATCHER WEB 1.4
FlexiSIGN & PRINT 12
PhotoPrint 12 Cloud
ColorGate V10
neo Textil
ACRORIP 9.03
ErgoSoft RIP 15
3shape trios 1.4.7.4
OptiSystem 15
plaxis 2D 2017
plaxis 3D 2017
Rocscience SLIDE3 V2017.010
Rocscience SLIDE V7.029
Rocscience RocData v5.008
Rocscience RS3 v2.005
Rocscience RS2 phase2 v9.023
ITASCA 3DEC v5.20.250
ITASCA Griddle v1.0.1
ITASCA UDEC v6.0.323
ITASCA PFC v5.0.32
ITASCA Flac3D V6.0.48
ITASCA Flac v8.0.443
PIX4D V4.3.4
LEICA infinity 2.4
inertial explorer GrafNav 8.7
Ventsim 4.8.1.6
Deswik 2018.1.294
Maptek Vulcan 10.1.5
GEOVIA GEMS 6.8.1
EnterVol for ArcGis
Faro Scene V7.1
wilcom e3.0
halcon 13
exocad PartialCAD Denture partial framework design 2018
shoemaster 16.03
exocad 2018 with dongle
exocad PartialCAD 2018
Cimatron E14
inpho 9.0
Full cracked. Latest 2018 cracked softwares FTP download.
GIS/CAD/CAM/CAE/CFD/EDA/Mold/Geological/Structure/
cad/cam/cae/eda/optical crack ftp download software
It is part of the full software list, press Ctrl + F to search or email me.
Please email for ftp informations: tinmolo#inbox.ru change # into @
ARANZ Geo Leapfrog v4.0.0 for win10 Posted by: file_download - 3 hours ago - Forum: General Presidential Race Area - No Replies Full cracked. Latest 2018 cracked softwares FTP download.
GIS/CAD/CAM/CAE/CFD/EDA/Mold/Geological/Structure/
cad/cam/cae/eda/optical crack ftp download software
It is part of the full software list, press Ctrl + F to search or email me.
Please email for ftp informations: tinmolo#inbox.ru change # into @
ARANZ Geo Leapfrog v4.0.0 for win10
ARANZ Geo (ex. Zaparo) Leapfrog v2.2.1.44 for win10
ARANZ Geo Leapfrog Geothermal v3.2.0 for win10
ARANZ Geo Leapfrog Hydro v2.6.0 for win10
smart 3d v4.4.10
skyline photomesh v7.4
IPM.Petroleum.Expert.v10
SIRONA INLAB SW 18.0
SIRONA inLab Model cam Splint Partial Framework Check 18.0
Exocad Exoplan 2019 Matera 2.3
emtp-rv 3.5
3shape trios 1.4.7.5
3shape cambridge 2015
3Shape TRIOS Design Studio with vhf Z4 Mill
3Shape TRIOS on Dental Desktop 2018 - 2019
3Shape TRIOS Orthodontics
3Shape TRIOS Design Studio
3Shape Clear Aligner Studio
Midas soilworks v2018 korean
FlexScan3D v3.3.5.8
midas GTS NX 2019 v1.1
midas civil 2019 v1.1
midas Gen 2019 v1.1
midas NFX 2019 r2
Carlson SurvCE v6.0
ColorGATE 10
neostampa 8.3.5
Onyx ProductionHouse 12
Ergosoft TexPrint 2008 13.0
Ergosoft PosterPrint Poster Print 14
FlexiSIGN Pro 10.5.1
wasatch 7.4
GERBER OMEGA 5.0
EFI Fiery 6.3.1
CGS 3.1/CTW 3.0/ORIS COLOR TUNER WEB
printpro
Materialise Mimics 21 with design module
AVEVA P&ID 12.1 SP2 x64x32
3shape trios 1.4.7.5
3shape appliance designer 2017
UCam 10.2
3Shape Dental System v2.18.2.0
pix4d v4.3.27
Maestro Ortho Studio v3.0
Sum3D MillBox Dental Machine v2018
type3 typeEdit v10
Metrolog.XG
hyperDENT V8.12
InteractionEngine_Pro2.5
ProCad developer 14
photoprint 12.0
TerrainBuilder Stamp
Waypoint Inertial Explorer (GPSIMU) 8.7
EICAD 3
PartnerRIP ver9.0
Immersive Designer PRO
Immersive Display PRO
WYSIWYG Release 40
zemax 2017
inductoheat Advance 7
FTI.Blanknest.v7.0
Adaptive Vision Studio 4.8
Gel-Pro 5.0
BrooksAutomation-AutoMod
Adept Technology
PanaPro
leica patialAnalyzer
WinSwitch 3
vericode
TSI-Insight3G PIV
Sherlock
RationalDMIS V6.5
PSS/E v34.1.0
OmniWin
MotoSim EG
FANUC NC GUIDE V10.0
ECGLab Holter 12.NET
claricom
CAE ITE 1.0
Brill Formulation
Radan 7.5.18 _2018
HYPACK 2018 18.1.18
GEOVIA Whittle 4.7.1
Maptek Vulcan 10.1 x64
MineSight 2017 12.0 Win64
SIMPLANT Pro 17.0 with stl
SIMPLANT Pro 18.0
Hydromantis GPS-X 7.0.1
AnyBody Modeling System 7.1
DesignBuilder 5.4
NI AWR Design Environment with Analyst 14.0.9138 x64
Frontline Plug-in Solver Engines 2017/2018
Frontline Analytic Solver Platform 2017/2018
Frontline Solver SDK Platform 2017/2018
SIEMENS Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) 2018.0 x64
HTRI Xchanger Suite 7.3.2
NovAtel Waypoint GrafNav/GraphNet 8.70.6404
Materialise SimPlant Master Crystal 13.0
Synopsys RSoft Photonic System Design Suite 2018.03 Linux64
Synopsys RSoft Photonic Component Design Suite 2018.03 Linux64
DENTSPLY Simplant Pro 18.0
Mentor Graphics Tanner Tools 2016.2 x64
MAGIX Vegas Pro 16.0 x64
Rhinoceros 6.9 x64
RockWare LogPlot 8.0 x64
Geomagic Design X 2016.2.2 x64
ensilica Xtensa Xplorer 7.0.9 Linux
Honeywell UniSim Design Suite R451
Softbits Flaresim 5.2.1
Concept GateVision 6.8.12 Win/Linux
Cadence INCISIVE 15.20.001 Linux
Skyline TerraExplorer Pro 7.0.2
Concept SpiceVision 6.8.12 Win/Linux
Concept RTLvision 6.8.12 Win/Linux
SOFiSTiK Reinforcement Detailing & Generation 2019
Keysight Model Builder Program (MBP) 2017.2 x64
Keysight Model Quality Assurance (MQA) 2017.2 x64
Keysight Genesys 2018 x64
Advanced Design System (ADS) 2017.1 x64
Chasm Consulting VentSim Premium Design 5.1
Cadence Xcelium 18.03 Linux
Cadence MDV 18.03 Linux
MecSoft VisualCAM 2018 v7.0
Coventor SEMulator3D 7.0 x64
Leica Cyclone REGISTER 360 1.5.0 x64
Leica MultiWorx 2.3 For AutoCAD 2014-2019 x64
Leica CloudWorx 6.4 for AutoCAD 2015-2019
Leica CloudWorx 2.2 For Revit 2014-2019
Leica CloudWorx 5.1.4 for MicroStation V8i
Leica CloudWorx 2.1.4 For PDMS 12.1 SP4
Leica Cyclone 9.3 x64
Cadence Spectre 17.10 Linux
Prokon 3.0 SP DC 02.08.2018
Aurora FEST3D 2018 SP2 x64
Paradigm 18 Full Suite Win/Linux
DNV Patran-Pre 2018 x64
Bentley LumenRT 2018
lighttools 8.6
SPEOS for SOLIDWORKS 2017
OptisWorks 2016 x64
ultima mentor 9.4
actix analyzer 2018
DNV SESAM FULL 2018
midas gts nx 2018
midas soilworks 4.1
midas gen 2018
midas design+ 2018
midas civil 2018 v1.2
midas dshop 2018
symmetre r410
CP-Studio
kepware 5.20
saia PG5 2.1
Motocom32 dx200 plus
procon-win 3.5
midas soilworks 3.5
geostudio 2012
technet GMbH PreDesigner 2017
framecad structure v8
csi preform 3d v6
geogiga seismic pro 8.3
citect 7.2
3dbody 7.0
3shape convince
plastycad
hypermill 2018
deswik suite 2017.1
Scania XCom 2.30
tebis 4.0
3shape design system 2018
3shape implant studio 2017
Cape pack V2.15
Prinect Signa Station 2017
exoplan 2017.03
MagiCAD 2018
ExoCad 2017.12
MillBox 2016
GOM ARAMIS 6.15
Blue Sky Plan v3 x64
Maestro 3D Dental Studio 4
Sirona InLab 4.2.5
Maestro Ortho Studio Build 2.8
Zirkonzahn 2017
Dolphin Imaging 11.9
Digital Smile System 1.9.8
PlastyCAD 1.7
3Diagnosys 4.1
ArKaos MediaMaster 5.0.3
smile designer pro v2.6.1
GEO5 2017
TRUSS4 v10
exocad Partial Framework 2017
OnDemand3D Application 1.0.10.5385
Dental Master 2016
Dental Wings (DWOS) 2016
Ekahau Site Survey 8.6.1
HYPACK 2016
Dental Shaper
Orcaflex 10.0e
AQWA
MOSES
NAPA 2017
offpipe
maxsurf
DNV GL AS PHAST
DNV safty offshore 7.2
aveva bocad suite 2.2.0.3
AVEVA Engineering v14.1 SP1
Aveva everything3D (E3D) v2.1
napa ship designer
numeca fine
marine 3.1
Veristar Hull, Stability, Homer, Optimise
Hydrostar, ariane7
AVEVA Marine 12.1 SP4.29
sacs 11.0
DNV Sesam all moduels
Leica GEOMOS v5.0
Rocscience RS3
3shape orthodontic 2017
Onyx ProductionHouse v12.1
pc-dmis 2018
exocad DentalCAD 2.2 Valletta
exocad 2018
frontline genflex 3.2c1
frontline genesis 10.02
ez-fixture 9.6.4
ezgrid 9.5
ucam 10.2
em-test expert v8
3shape design system 2017 2.17.3.0
PC-DMIS 2018R1 x64
Motor-CAD/Motorcad 11.1.5
Synopsys Synplify FPGA 2017.09 Win&Linux FPGA
Golden Software Strater 5.4.948
Golden Software MapViewer 8.6.651
Waterloo Visual MODFLOW Flex 2018.v5.1
Cype 2017m
Intergraph SmartPlant Spoolgen Isometrics 2014.v08
Intergraph SmartSketch 2014.v08.00.00 R1
Intergraph CAESAR II 2018 v10.00.00 x64
Intergraph SmartPlant P&ID 2014 R1
IHS QUE$TOR 2017 Q1
Intergraph SmartPlant Review 2017 v12.00.00.0501
ANSYS Apache Totem 14.1 Linux64
Crosslight Csuprem 2018 x64
Ensoft LPile 2018.10.02
AnyBody Modeling System 7.1
Antenna Magus 2018.0.v8.0 x64
CGERisk BowTieXP 9.0.1
PDI GRLWEAP Offshore Wave 2010-7
NI AWR Design Environment with Analyst 13.03 x64
Rock Flow Dynamics RFD tNavigator 2017.v17.3 x64
CMG (Computer Modelling Group) Suite 2017.10
PHDwin2.10.3
meyer 12 2017.12
Schlumberger petrel 2017
HampsonRussell Suite 10.3
geoview 10.3 HRS 10.3
Midland Valley move 2018.1
jason 9.7
Schlumberger CoilCADE 6.0
Schlumberger StimCADE 4.0
crystal 2018.1
gohfer 9.0.1.6
omni 2017.1
tesseral pro 5.0.3b
ERDAS IMAGINE 2018
Waypoint Inertial Explorer 8.7
Deswik suite 2017
FAROBox PointSense plant 18.5
EyeRadar 2.0
Leica Xpro 6.4
Trimble EdgeWise_v5.0.2SP1
Trimble Business Center 4.0
3DReshaper 2017 x64
Amberg Tunnel 2
virtual surveyor 3.6
cloudworx for revit
socet set 5.6
socet GXP 4.1
OrbitGT
Riscan PRO 2.0 x64
JAR reconstrucer 3.3.0 x64
Materialise E-stage v6.6
Virtual Surveyor 3.5
CARIS HIPS and SIPS 10.2
DP-moderler
APS 7.6
Imagestation SSK 2015
Deswik 2017.2.1234
EnterVol 2017.4 for ArcGis
Geochemist Workbench 11.0.8
Maptek Vulcan 10.1.4
Tesseral Pro 5.0.3
Tesseral 2D 7.2.8
Global Mapper 19.0.2
GEOVIA Surpac 6.8
Ventsim 4.8
MineSched 9.1.0 x64
Paradigm 17
VUMA3D-NETWORK 2018
MineSight 12.0
Maptek Eureka 4.1
whittle 4.7.0.1
Leapfrog Geo 4.0
Leapfrog Geothermal 3.2
Leapfrog Hydro 2.6
OptiSPICE 5.2
VPI transmission maker 9.8 x64
VPI photonics Analyzer 9.8 x64
VPI componentMaker 9.8 x64
socet gxp 4.3
GEOVIA GEMS 6.8.1
GamaPrintPro
PosterShop
RipCente
ProductionHouse 12
neoStampa 8.1.5
Fiery XF v6.5
ORIS COLOR TUNER WEB 3.1
ORIS PRESS MATCHER WEB 1.4
FlexiSIGN & PRINT 12
PhotoPrint 12 Cloud
ColorGate V10
neo Textil
ACRORIP 9.03
ErgoSoft RIP 15
3shape trios 1.4.7.4
OptiSystem 15
plaxis 2D 2017
plaxis 3D 2017
Rocscience SLIDE3 V2017.010
Rocscience SLIDE V7.029
Rocscience RocData v5.008
Rocscience RS3 v2.005
Rocscience RS2 phase2 v9.023
ITASCA 3DEC v5.20.250
ITASCA Griddle v1.0.1
ITASCA UDEC v6.0.323
ITASCA PFC v5.0.32
ITASCA Flac3D V6.0.48
ITASCA Flac v8.0.443
PIX4D V4.3.4
LEICA infinity 2.4
inertial explorer GrafNav 8.7
Ventsim 4.8.1.6
Deswik 2018.1.294
Maptek Vulcan 10.1.5
GEOVIA GEMS 6.8.1
EnterVol for ArcGis
Faro Scene V7.1
wilcom e3.0
halcon 13
exocad PartialCAD Denture partial framework design 2018
shoemaster 16.03
exocad 2018 with dongle
exocad PartialCAD 2018
Cimatron E14
inpho 9.0
Full cracked. Latest 2018 cracked softwares FTP download.
GIS/CAD/CAM/CAE/CFD/EDA/Mold/Geological/Structure/
cad/cam/cae/eda/optical crack ftp download software
It is part of the full software list, press Ctrl + F to search or email me.
Please email for ftp informations: tinmolo#inbox.ru change # into @
ARANZ Geo Leapfrog v4.0.0 for win10 Posted by: file_download - 3 hours ago - Forum: General Presidential Race Area - No Replies Full cracked. Latest 2018 cracked softwares FTP download.
GIS/CAD/CAM/CAE/CFD/EDA/Mold/Geological/Structure/
cad/cam/cae/eda/optical crack ftp download software
It is part of the full software list, press Ctrl + F to search or email me.
Please email for ftp informations: tinmolo#inbox.ru change # into @
ARANZ Geo Leapfrog v4.0.0 for win10
ARANZ Geo (ex. Zaparo) Leapfrog v2.2.1.44 for win10
ARANZ Geo Leapfrog Geothermal v3.2.0 for win10
ARANZ Geo Leapfrog Hydro v2.6.0 for win10
smart 3d v4.4.10
skyline photomesh v7.4
IPM.Petroleum.Expert.v10
SIRONA INLAB SW 18.0
SIRONA inLab Model cam Splint Partial Framework Check 18.0
Exocad Exoplan 2019 Matera 2.3
emtp-rv 3.5
3shape trios 1.4.7.5
3shape cambridge 2015
3Shape TRIOS Design Studio with vhf Z4 Mill
3Shape TRIOS on Dental Desktop 2018 - 2019
3Shape TRIOS Orthodontics
3Shape TRIOS Design Studio
3Shape Clear Aligner Studio
Midas soilworks v2018 korean
FlexScan3D v3.3.5.8
midas GTS NX 2019 v1.1
midas civil 2019 v1.1
midas Gen 2019 v1.1
midas NFX 2019 r2
Carlson SurvCE v6.0
ColorGATE 10
neostampa 8.3.5
Onyx ProductionHouse 12
Ergosoft TexPrint 2008 13.0
Ergosoft PosterPrint Poster Print 14
FlexiSIGN Pro 10.5.1
wasatch 7.4
GERBER OMEGA 5.0
EFI Fiery 6.3.1
CGS 3.1/CTW 3.0/ORIS COLOR TUNER WEB
printpro
Materialise Mimics 21 with design module
AVEVA P&ID 12.1 SP2 x64x32
3shape trios 1.4.7.5
3shape appliance designer 2017
UCam 10.2
3Shape Dental System v2.18.2.0
pix4d v4.3.27
Maestro Ortho Studio v3.0
Sum3D MillBox Dental Machine v2018
type3 typeEdit v10
Metrolog.XG
hyperDENT V8.12
InteractionEngine_Pro2.5
ProCad developer 14
photoprint 12.0
TerrainBuilder Stamp
Waypoint Inertial Explorer (GPSIMU) 8.7
EICAD 3
PartnerRIP ver9.0
Immersive Designer PRO
Immersive Display PRO
WYSIWYG Release 40
zemax 2017
inductoheat Advance 7
FTI.Blanknest.v7.0
Adaptive Vision Studio 4.8
Gel-Pro 5.0
BrooksAutomation-AutoMod
Adept Technology
PanaPro
leica patialAnalyzer
WinSwitch 3
vericode
TSI-Insight3G PIV
Sherlock
RationalDMIS V6.5
PSS/E v34.1.0
OmniWin
MotoSim EG
FANUC NC GUIDE V10.0
ECGLab Holter 12.NET
claricom
CAE ITE 1.0
Brill Formulation
Radan 7.5.18 _2018
HYPACK 2018 18.1.18
GEOVIA Whittle 4.7.1
Maptek Vulcan 10.1 x64
MineSight 2017 12.0 Win64
SIMPLANT Pro 17.0 with stl
SIMPLANT Pro 18.0
Hydromantis GPS-X 7.0.1
AnyBody Modeling System 7.1
DesignBuilder 5.4
NI AWR Design Environment with Analyst 14.0.9138 x64
Frontline Plug-in Solver Engines 2017/2018
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This year’s homage to St Valentine presented us with the usual parade of sentimentalism and saccharine paraphernalia in high streets. Whether or not you were celebrating, it’s worth bearing in mind that a small proportion of Oxford, and the wider global community, felt a greater level of indifference than you.
For those that identify as asexual, a significant other may not lead to a quickening of the pulse and clammy hands. Fundamentally, to be asexual is to possess no sexual attraction towards other people. Rachel Thornton*, an Oxford fresher, identifies as asexual.
“Whenever people would point out someone as being physically attractive, I could never see it,” she shares. “I can appreciate people for having nicely proportioned features, but I can’t see it relating to me. I can understand why people feel attraction but I can’t feel it personally. I like people based on their characters and their personalities.”
Not only is Rachel asexual, she is also aromantic. She reflects that she feels “admiration” for her best friend, but struggles to understand romantic love. “I can do friendship,” she says. “I see it as vaguely intellectual but I can’t really progress beyond that. There are people who distinguish quite strongly between friendship and a romantic partner. I’m not sure where the two divide if you feel no sexual attraction towards them.”
However, not all asexual people reject romance. Mark Lynch*, a current Oxford finalist, describes himself as a “bi-romantic” asexual. He is romantically attracted to people of either gender – and in his case also romantically attracted to those of indeterminate genders. Yet, despite having experienced a serious relationship in the past, Lynch reflects that he “had never really experienced sexual attraction to anyone, even the person [he] was with”.
He chose to have sex with his girlfriend for other reasons. “Well, on the one hand it seemed that that was just something that people did and as such I did it,” comments Lynch. “[I thought] ‘well this isn’t actually enjoyable, I don’t get why people make this fuss about it, I wonder if everyone feels this way and just doesn’t say it’ – and it took me a surprisingly long time to realise that wasn’t the case.”
Unlike celibacy, being asexual does not hinge upon choosing to abstain from sex. Rather, it is an inherent orientation that is unrelated to the physical act of practising intercourse. While this is held as a tenet amongst self-identified asexuals, the rapid expansion of asexual discourse means that the identity is under increasing scrutiny. There is much frustration amongst asexual people when inaccurately accused of having a low libido or having experienced psychological trauma in childhood.
As it stands, a person with no sex drive can be psychiatrically diagnosed with hypoactive sexual desire disorder or sexual aversion disorder. Yet, the fact is that asexuals can possess a libido. Instead of being ‘triggered’ by another person, it can be triggered by body chemistry alone. This finding has allowed Dr Anthony F. Bogaert, a Canadian sexuality researcher, to conclude that asexuality is not necessarily pathological.
Before coming to terms with his asexuality, Mark saw himself as dysfunctional, admitting: “I thought at the time that maybe there was something wrong with me, that I was weird or a freak.” Yet, for Rachel and him, discovering asexuality as an identity and tapping into asexual communities made them feel that they were not anomalies.
The world’s largest asexual community is hosted by the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), a web forum and information portal. It was founded in 2001 by David Jay with the specific aims of “creating public acceptance and discussion of asexuality and facilitating the growth of an asexual community”.
Since then, Jay has been trying to gear asexuality towards becoming a movement and has vociferously argued in favour of its integration with the LGBTQ community.
While debate rages on, it is interesting to consider what light asexuality sheds on mainstream, non-asexual (or ‘sexual’) culture. Indeed, the loaded term ‘sexual’ seems to define the majority in a very Freudian way; it is liable to disarm any but the most promiscuous.
The new polarity between ‘asexual’ and ‘sexual’ will surely force a revaluation of our personal relationships to sex. Can sexuals be certain that the reasons they have sex are based solely, if at all, on sexual desire? And what is the nature of desire itself? Queer theory has forced society to challenge hetero-normativity since its conception. By accepting asexuality as an orientation, we may need to retrace our steps through the sexual revolution in order to reconsider modern culture as sexual-normative.
While AVEN was founded over a decade ago, it has only been in recent years that mainstream media has latched onto the evolving asexual identity. Jenni Goodchild may claim the title as the most prolific asexual Oxonian.
Her inclusion in the BBC3 Documentary How Sex Works early last year rode a growing wave of media interest in the topic and has even generated an online, albeit unsuccessful, meme.
Greater awareness may aid us in clarifying the queries that asexuality throws up. What is certain is that the identity can bring individuals back from the brink of social alienation.
Rachel confides: “Just knowing about the community makes a lot of difference. Before I felt like I was being excluded from my friends because I was missing out on some crucial aspect of life. However, just knowing that it’s not just me being immature or strange: that there are other people who feel exactly the same way, makes it an awful lot easier to accept myself and be accepted.”
Mark concludes: “In an ideal world you don’t need any of these labels for people’s sexual, romantic or gender orientations. But we live in something very short of an ideal world and as a result they are very useful. They can really reassure people.”
* Names have been changed to protect identities. |
The American people are furious. So furious that they’re dangerously close to electing Donald Trump president. What are they furious about? Immigrants and Muslims? If that was the whole story, why didn’t they pick Cruz, Rubio, Christie or any of the other anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim Republicans? Elections in America are won by small marginal advantages. What gave Trump the edge?
In between all the lies, Trump did speak some truth — at least for a few seconds here and there — about falling incomes and the underlying reasons behind them. That’s what gave him his edge. No other 2016 candidate did that except Bernie Sanders. And even Bernie didn’t go much into the nuts and bolts. Trump talks about factory closures, tariffs, protecting and investing in new industries, and rebuilding America’s “means of making a living.” Trump has promised factories in every community — “beautiful,” “huge” and “the best” factories. If you doubt this, watch his speech at a recycling plant in Monessen, Pennsylvania, to get a taste of the rhetoric that has been firing up whole chunks of the electorate.
Like Bernie, he consistently points a finger at who’s to blame: the political establishments and economic elites that have let all this happen. It drives Democrats crazy that this (supposed) billionaire can stand up there and blame elites. But that’s what’s so appealing about him to millions of voters: He’s telling it like it is from the inside. Who could be a more trustworthy messenger than someone who has benefited from the system himself and yet condemns it? This has been particularly devastating to Clinton. Trump tells us, “Politicians like her do whatever guys like me tell them to.” And he’s got the tax breaks, bankruptcies and wedding photos to prove it.
It’s true that his wall, his ban on Muslims, his plans to round up millions of immigrants, and other subtler but equally ugly cultural issues have all played a bigger role in this election than jobs and the economy. That’s why, as many analyses have pointed out, Trumpism is not primarily a working class movement, but a movement of reactionary chunks of the middle class. (538, WP/Gallop, Jilani, Kilgore) But big chunks of the middle class are falling economically and Trump’s economic rhetoric has won them over while also motivating some working class voters — just enough to give him the nomination, and maybe even enough to win the White House.
Why are falling incomes so important? Because income adjusted for inflation has been falling for 40 years — even after they took food and fuel out of the inflation index. And in the post-2008 “recovery,” incomes for the bottom 90 percent kept falling.
FRED
For decades, there was an unspoken deal between Republicans and Democrats to never press the economic populist button. This deal was not even conscious, it was just an automatic result of the shared free market ideology of both the parties. Trumps anti-free trade populism was a complete surprise to everyone.
What has been so remarkable is how tiny of a dose of that populism propelled Trump so far. Even though he didn’t even talk about falling incomes all that much, but instead obsessed over past Miss Universes and Megyn Kelly, and even though we heard him confess on tape to being a sexual predator, even though we learned about how he has evaded paying ANY taxes, learned that virtually all his businesses were failures and that if he had just invested his dad’s $100 million in an index fund that he’d be not a fake billionaire but a real one — despite all of that, he has a chance of winning the White House because he talked about falling incomes.
So who out there is now ready to talk about falling incomes and standards of living for the working class and the declining middle class? Win or lose, a new politics is going to rise, powered by questions and answers about Americans’ sinking standard of living.
Whenever whole countries slide backward economically, eventually their politics become dominated by leaders who speak out about incomes, wealth, inequality and standards of living. Unfortunately, too often the leaders are like Trump in that they mix xenophobia and racism with their economic populism. When that kind of leader takes power, they tend to find war and hate to be much easier levers to pull compared to the straightforward but difficult work of economic development.
The genie is out of the bottle... nativist populism is back until incomes start going up.
If Trump wins the White House, he will not challenge Wall Street but will go after the most vulnerable people in our society, like undocumented workers and Muslims. Despite his isolationist rhetoric, he will find it easier to command generals to war than encourage companies to build in America.
And if Trump loses, another Trump is coming. The genie is out of the bottle. Who knows who it will be, but nativist populism is back until incomes start going up.
The only way to compete with that is to embrace the politics that many of us have been arguing for and attempting to practice for decades. I’m talking about the politics that says to the whole American people, “Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work building a better economy — and not let anything stop us.”
This means talking about mobilizing trillions of dollars of labor and resources to build missing industries, restore American research and development, build a 100 percent renewable energy economy, repair and rebuild infrastructure, hire a million new teachers, provide medicare for all, and more. Only this kind of direct-fix politics will trump Trumpism. And it’s not pandering, it’s just what the American people actually want and need. And in a democracy, they should get it!
The solutions are so simple. They are visible in action all over the world, and have been frequently employed in American history. But they’ve been totally erased from the American mind over the past 50 years. This isn’t some wacky left-wing formula, this is practical, commonsense policy like investing public money into efforts to build the newest, highest value industries here in America.
Solutions also include policies that politicians frequently pay lip service to such as rebuilding and repairing America’s infrastructure. But politicians like Hillary Clinton talk about these things disingenuously. Her tiny infrastructure plan is barely a fraction of what we wasted while pretending to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure. I know that sounds crazy, but unfortunately it’s not even an exaggeration. The American Society of Civil Engineers says we need to spend $3.6 trillion just to get everything back to normal. So that should be the starting point, not Hillary’s $275 billion over five years.
Some still ask, “Where will you find those trillions?” It’s an absurd thing to ask after watching our government mobilize trillions of dollars worth of support for too-big-to-fail banks and insurance companies. They showed us how it is done and now it’s time for the People’s QE!
But how can we practice these politics? Where will they come from? I’m throwing in my lot with Brand New Congress. We’re recruiting 400 non-politicians to run behind one plan to rebuild our economy and reform our institutions by mobilizing trillions of dollars worth of resources and work — just like we did in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the Wall Street bailouts.
The Brand New Congress plan to rebuild the economy is a work in progress but currently has six simple parts:
Rebuild and repair local communities — starting with those that have been left the furthest behind. Fix our nation’s crumbling infrastructure — starting in the most economically depressed regions of our country. Give small businesses the competitive edge in rebuilding America. Build the inevitable 100 percent free and clean energy economy immediately, not after it’s too late. Totally eliminate health care costs for American business with Medicare for All. Build new high-wage, high tech industries that America is missing. |
Isabelle Burgun (Agence Science-Presse)
21 février 2017 à 9h52 21 février 2017 à 9h52
Qu’il est simple de nous surveiller. Nous donnons nous-mêmes les clés en acceptant les multiples contrats, souvent sans les lire, pour accéder à l’univers de la vie mobile. Nous sommes entrés dans l’antichambre d’Orwell et de son célèbre 1984 – à moins que ce ne soit Le Meilleur des mondes d’Aldous Huxley.
«Le danger vient de la grande opacité des nouvelles technologies», opine Vincent Gautrais, titulaire de la Chaire L.R. Wilson (Université de Montréal) sur le droit des technologies de l’information et du commerce électronique. «Les révélations sur la surveillance généralisée sont le fruit d’un concours de circonstances, comme dans le cas d’Edward Snowden. Cela aurait pu continuer, ce qui en fait un sujet d’inquiétude.»
La surveillance de personnalités publiques et de journalistes ramène le problème des mandats globaux qui peuvent être accordés par une juge de première instance pour donner tout pouvoir aux policiers. «On peut alors s’interroger sur le niveau de connivence de la police et du judiciaire», indique Vincent Gautrais.
La grande noirceur
Les révélations d’Edward Snowden, ex-sous-traitant de l’Agence de sécurité nationale (NSA) américaine ont levé le voile sur l’espionnage à grande échelle de ces organismes, qu’ils soient américains, anglais, australiens ou même canadiens. Nous sommes tous surveillés. «Les journalistes n’échappent pas à cet univers. C’est rendu tellement facile, car nous laissons des traces lisibles partout», rappelle Dominique Peschard, de la Ligue des droits et des libertés.
Avec l’adoption en 2015 de la loi C-51, sur la communication d’informations ayant trait à la sécurité du Canada – connue aussi sous le nom de Loi antiterroriste, en droite ligne avec le Patriot Act américain – les agences canadiennes peuvent chercher des traces d’actions terroristes jusque dans les courriels et les messages vocaux.
C’est d’autant plus inquiétant pour Dominique Peschard que cette loi, la plus importante du genre au Canada, «permet l’échange des données entre les agences sur des critères assez flous et larges».
Des risques réels
Mais les risques ne sont pas tous là où l’on pense. Ne devrait-on pas se méfier plus de Facebook que de la GRC? «Nous devons arrêter d’être naïfs. Utiliser des logiciels libres, encrypter nos informations sensibles, sont de bonnes mesures à prendre», assure Dominique Peschard.
Pour rendre la surveillance plus difficile au quotidien, ces technologies devraient devenir des réflexes. «Le citoyen fait partie de la solution», soutient lui aussi le professeur Gautrais, pour qui il faut prendre conscience que les informations que nous mettons sur les réseaux sociaux sont publiques.
«Il est plus difficile de les retirer que de les y inscrire, et nous sommes responsables de nos actes et de nos propos, comme le montrent de nombreux cas en diffamation», rappelle le juriste.
Mais qu’en est-il du droit censé veiller à la protection des citoyens. «Le droit est un outil et, comme pour un paquebot, c’est long et dur d’infléchir un changement de direction. En cette matière, les journalistes sont plus efficaces pour changer la culture en dénonçant les abus», note Vincent Gautrais.
Qui surveille les surveillants ?
Si l’une des solutions apparaît du côté de la technologie et du bon sens – garder secret ce que vous ne désirez pas être révélé au grand jour! – l’autre réside dans l’action politique. «Il faut mettre la pression pour amender le projet C-51 – les libéraux ont voté pour – et réclamer un mécanisme indépendant de surveillance des policiers et des compagnies de service internet», soutient Dominique Peschard.
Mais au moment où vous lisez ces lignes, les contre-pouvoirs à ce pouvoir de surveillance s’avèrent encore bien modestes. «Les associations de droits civiques et les universitaires manquent souvent de ressources, d’où la nécessité de dépasser le droit judiciaire pour se pencher sur les questions de surveillance. Il faut reconsidérer les règles et les grands principes d’imputabilité», relève Vincent Gautrais.
Pour cela, il faudrait sans doute lever les yeux de Facebook pour aller revendiquer une réelle protection des informations personnelles. Saurons-nous le faire? «Aujourd’hui, les technologies de surveillance ont dépassé la croissance du contrôle démocratique», avertit Edward Snowden. |
The prostate gland, which develops in human males when they are fetuses, is to a great degree sensitive to estrogen. Thus, scientists have long ago speculated that prostate cancer could increase in men as a result of their interactions with estrogen-like chemicals in the womb. Unlike other cancer-causing chemicals that can bring about significant harm to DNA, Bisphenol-A or BPAappears to exact unobtrusive changes that are passed from one generation ontothe next.
“The research focus today is regardless of whether or not; environmental pollutants will incite heritable changes in genetic functions in humans. In other words, is there something that happens to alter genes without actually altering the genetic code?” asked Sokol , a scientist who studies the effects of chemicals on sperm. This new study has looked into in the part that environmental pollution and pollutants may play in altering the genetic qualities of exposed individuals. This study has also being regarded by the American Plastics Council as "captivating exploration and a great bit of research" that ought to be concentrated further. But the genuine question here is what does this mean for human health?, in light of the fact that there are excessively numerous impediments in the review for it to apply to humans.
The study stated that animals developed precancerous lesions and genetic changes when presented with low concentrations of the substance similar to the amount found in human blood and fetuses. Recently, evidence has been building that BPA causes changes in the hormones and reproductive tracts of male and female animals. Lower sperm counts; decreased testosterone and enlarged prostates were reported in male animals, and early puberty and disrupted hormonal cycles in female animals.
Of more than 100 research studies that inspected low concentrations of BPA, 94 financed by government organizations discovered destructive impacts in lab animals. Polycarbonate, which cannot be manufactured without BPA, is a clear and shatter-free plastic that has been seen to initiate prostate cancer in plastic container. In addition to beverage bottles, utensils and food packaging, it is used in automobiles, medical equipment and compact discs. Little concentrations of this environmental pollutant can leach from plastic containers , particularly when warmed, cleaned with brutal cleansers or presented to acidic drinks or beverages. It also is used in children's dental sealants and as a resin lining metal food cans. |
BRASILIA, Brazil, August 16, 2012 (ENS) – A halt to construction of the controversial Belo Monte Hydroelectric Dam on the Amazon’s Xingu River was ordered late Monday by a federal court in the Brazilian capital. If built, Belo Monte would be the world’s third-largest dam, diverting up to 80 percent of the Xingu River from its natural course.
Indigenous people of the Xingu River region and conservationists from Brazil and other countries have been demonstrating against the proposed dam for years.
They object that Belo Monte’s two planned reservoirs and two 75 kilometer-long canals would flood a total of 668 square kilometers of which 400 km2 is forest, releasing the greenhouse gas methane and forcing some 20,000 people from their homes in Altamira and Vitoria do Xingu.
In its ruling, the Federal Court of the 1st Region, TRF1, upheld an earlier decision that declared Congress’s authorization of the project in 2005 to be illegal.
The court ruled that the Brazilian Constitution and International Labour Organization Convention 169, to which Brazil is a party, require that Congress can only authorize the use of water resources for hydroelectric projects after an independent assessment of environmental impacts and subsequent consultations with affected indigenous peoples.
Federal Judge Souza Prudente, who authored the ruling, said that the views of affected communities must be taken into consideration. “The property is different for the Indian to white. The Indian has a mystical vision of the property, and the Constitution guarantees it.”
“The court’s decision highlights the urgent need for the Brazilian government and Congress to respect the federal constitution and international agreements on prior consultations with indigenous peoples regarding projects that put their livelihoods and territories at risk. Human rights and environmental protection cannot be subordinated to narrow business interests,” said Judge Prudente.
Project consortium Norte Energia, S.A., led by the parastatal energy company Eletrobras, faces a daily fine of R$500,000 (US$250,000), if it does not comply with the suspension.
The consortium is expected to appeal the decision in the Brazilian Supreme Court.
“This latest court ruling vindicates what indigenous people, human rights activists and the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office have been demanding all along,” said Brent Millikan of the nonprofit conservation group International Rivers, based in Brasilia.
“We hope that President Dilma [Rousseff]’s attorney general and the head judge of the federal court, TRF1 will not try to subvert this important decision, as they have done in similar situations in the past,” Millikan said.
Norte Energia has not yet received communication from Eletrobras on the court order. The construction site was quiet on Tuesday because it was a holiday in Para commemorating the accession of the state to Brazil.
The court ruling came on a statement filed by federal prosecutors in the state of Pará where the dam construction is taking place. The prosecutors argued that Congress should have determined that affected communities must heard before, not after, approving the 2005 legislative decree, authorizing the work.
“Only in a dictatorship” is it done posthumously, the prosecutors argued. “The Constitution says that previous studies have to be done.”
In the latest of many protests, indigenous people from the ethnic Juruna, Xikrin, Volta Grande Arara and Kayapo tribes camped at the dam site from June 21 through July 11, keeping about 2,500 workers off the job.
After two days of meetings in Altamira July 9 and 10, an understanding was signed between Norte Energia and the Middle Xingu indigenous leaders.
The indigenous people withdrew from their encampment, and the company agreed to some of their demands.
The parties agreed to establish two committees – one to monitor the flow downstream of the Xingu River and another to monitor the conditions of the Basic Environmental Project – Indigenous Component.
The meetings were conducted by Norte Energia CEO Carlos Nascimento, who was accompanied by a representative of the Secretariat of the Brazilian Presidency, Nilton Tubino.
Also present was Marta Maria Azevedo, the president of FUNAI, the National Indian Foundation, the Brazilian government body that establishes and carries out policies relating to indigenous peoples.
Negotiations involved not only the Indians occupying the site, but other affected ethnic groups as well.
Regarding the protection of indigenous lands, Norte Energia has committed to deliver five operational bases and two checkpoints. The first two, to be deployed in the villages of Arara and Koatiemo, were promised for completion in September.
Nascimento said dialogue with the communities must be maintained. “Understanding always prevails,” he said at the end of the meeting, noting that it took two days of intense negotiations, and a joint effort with government institutions to come to agreement. “We have a responsibility to fulfill the development of the terms of the negotiations respecting the culture of these peoples.”
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2012. All rights reserved. |
The last two years have been the Golden Age of crankery and fake news. And not just in the ways everyone is already talking about. Hardly a month goes by that I’m not bombarded with queries from puzzled fans about this or that astonishing story about ancient sources for Jesus. You really should check the facts yourself first before coming to me, though. Because otherwise I get hit with dozens of requests, and that’s really not a good use of my time. Here’s a guide on how to vet these claims yourself, using several prominent examples, complete with links on how they’ve been debunked.
Fake News:
The First Century “Testimony of Paterculus”
Tons of people keep circulating (and then asking me about) the World News Daily story, “Newly-Found Document Holds Eyewitness Account of Jesus Performing Miracle,” claiming the first century pagan historian Velleius Paterculus recorded facts about Jesus. The World News Daily is a fake news site. Enough said. But if you really need more, Snopes has you covered. Please, people. Check that first before asking me about stories like this. Always verify the source is real and not a joke website like that. You can do this on your own. And if you don’t know how, get cracking on teaching yourself. Because it’s now an essential skill in the 21st century.
Still, I realize this isn’t always easy. Even some real news sources were fooled. So how do you tell?
Two rules: (1) If the article you are reading cites no source for any of its facts, it’s bullshit. Toss it into the fire to warm your hands by. This follows even if the article is in a real news source. Competent news writers cite sources. Incompetent ones write articles for tossing in fires to warm hands by. And (2) if you just can’t let it go, or it does cite a source, vet it. First see if reputable experts have already reviewed or debunked it. Google will help you find out (often so will Snopes). And if no one has, go to the source and vet it yourself.
Uncited sources can be found by Googling telltale keywords in the article you are trying to find the source of (e.g. Googling distinctive words in the real Guardian article would have led you to the fake WND article that started it all). Cited sources are even easier to Google to. Either way, walk the chain of evidence all the way back until you are at the first version of the story. You can tell because it will cite primary sources like named and interviewed persons, or academic journal articles or official press releases from a university or some such, all of which (persons, journal articles, press releases) you can also check to see if they are real. Then you can vet that source: Is it a fake news / satire site like World News Daily? Some random unaffiliated crank? An actual university—one that actually exists, and where this story is actually on its actual website? Etc.
If you want help determining if a site is fake (and its About page doesn’t already clue you in), check it at RealOrSatire.com.
Then, after all that, if it still looks legit to you, you can bother me with asking what I think of it. Otherwise, please do the work yourself. I’ll appreciate it!
Confused News:
The Leather-Bound “Gospel of Barnabas”
The Daily Mail (UK) among other tabloid sources reported the story of a mysterious ancient “leather-bound Gospel” that would shake the foundations of Christianity, using the very Dan Browny headline, “Seized from Smugglers, the Leather-Bound ‘Gospel’ Which Iran Claims Will Bring down Christianity and Shake World Politics.” That spurred all kinds of spin-off news articles around the internet, by gullible reporters thinking this was real. It might be “real” in the sense that a leather-bound Gospel manuscript in Syriac may really have been seized from smugglers and so on. But those details got mixed in right away with total bullshit…and arithmetical errors.
The original source was The National Turk, which reported the manuscript was “1500 years old,” and contained the Mohammed-predicting Gospel of Barnabas, among other things. Those who can count can figure out that means it dates to about 500 A.D., the early Middle Ages. No use for origins-of-Christianity research. But that date would still be remarkable for a Gospel largely believed to be a post-Islamic fabrication. In actual fact the manuscript itself says it was transcribed in 1500 A.D. That’s the year 1500; not 1500 years ago. You’ll discover this if you Google around even minimally (e.g. it’s revealed in an article at The Inquisitr). Oops. Someone goofed in their math and misread “as old as 1500” as “1500 years old.”
And, as a general rule even, you might also check to see if some debunking has already happened on Wikipedia. Lo and behold. As Wikipedia reports, under the “Gospel of Barnabas” entry, besides all the useful history of this Gospel and its manuscripts that you might need, the “leather-bound” manuscript these stories were about did not contain the Gospel of Barnabas, but just a random collection of quotes from the canonical Gospels. Oh well. The story deflates into nothing on just a cursory fact-check online. It wasn’t ancient. And its contents weren’t as claimed. Done and dusted.
Anyone can do this kind of vetting. You can do this. You don’t need me for that. So the next time you see an astonishing story like this, please do vet it yourself. Indeed, if you want to make me happy, the first time you ever contact me about it, do it by sending me the best debunking articles you already found! You don’t need to ask me for help. You can help me!
Crank News:
The “Lead Codices” (aka the “Jordan Tablets”)
I keep getting sent and asked about this story, even after years. I wrote about it already in Amazing Proofs of Jesus and Lead Tablets of Jesus! They are actually part of a codex of lead and copper leaves with hammered inscriptions on them in Greek and Hebrew, supposedly found in a Jordanian cave and claimed to be the earliest Christian texts ever composed, 2000 years old. But alas, they have been well-known as forgeries since almost day one (constructed from copying other inscriptions unrelated to Christianity to produce nonsense sentences). Wikipedia has an article now. They are the brainchild of a crank or conman who sometimes goes by the name of David Elkington.
As the Israel Antiquities Authority put it, these lead (and copper) books are a “mixture of incompatible periods and styles without any connection or logic.” And as Jim Davila at PaleoJudaica put it:
The Greek [on the tablets] is lifted nonsensically from an inscription published in 1958. The forger couldn’t tell the difference between the Greek letters alpha and lambda. [Some of] the Hebrew script is taken from the same inscription. The Hebrew text is in “code,” i.e., is gibberish. The “Jesus” face is taken from a well-known mosaic. The charioteer is taken from a fake coin. The crocodile has a suspicious resemblance to a plastic toy. This forger was not Professor Moriarty. This forger was a careless bumbler. That makes it all the more galling how readily the media fell for the scam.
His latest update continues the saga [and now this]. The conmen trying to pass these off as authentic claim to have had scientific tests of some sort done to prove their antiquity. This has kept them in the news. But as Davila summarizes the actual situation:
[In] the five and a half years since [these tablets’] existence was first announced, not a single peer-review publication on them has been published. Any scholarly discussion of them has yet to begin. Now if someone wishes to defend [what’s being said about them] by publishing the evidence in a peer-review publication, I and others will be happy to have a look and evaluate the evidence presented and the arguments for the claims.
The tests even as claimed got wildly inconsistent results. Some indicating some of the lead is ancient, some medieval, some modern. But ancient lead is easy to obtain. And it’s the new trend among forgers to create their fakes using genuinely ancient materials. The lead codices in this respect have a lot in common with the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife (see below): proved to be forgeries by mistakes made in their construction, because the forgers relied on modern source templates; that undeniable evidence is then dismissed in favor of scientific tests proving ancient materials were used, even though that’s exactly what a smart forger would use; even some bona fide experts are fooled; and an infamous conman is revealed to be behind them; and pretty much every expert now agrees they are fake.
So please don’t ask me about things like this, when all those articles already exist and are easily found, that already answer your question, and have been there for years.
BTW, another example in this category (of crank news), which I get asked about a lot, is of course the Caesar’s Messiah nonsense. For those who don’t know already, when you see the flashy, official-looking press releases from that tinfoil hatter Joseph Atwill (like this one), claiming amazing new proof has surfaced that Christianity was a hoax perpetrated by the Roman Imperial government—in fact the very confession to having faked it was found!—please don’t fall for that. It’s bunk. See Atwill’s Cranked Up Jesus. But even without consulting my critique, you could probably have called bullshit on this all by yourself. An ancient confession found? Uhuh. What peer reviewed journal was it published in again? … Oh, right. None. Honestly. That tells you all you need to know.
Dubious News:
The “Gospel of Jesus’s Wife”
This began as an intriguingly possible medieval Coptic Gospel in which Jesus is perhaps referring to having a wife, possibly even in fact named Mary. It ended exploded as a complete fake promoted by a conman. It was never very relevant to the origins of Christianity—unlike the fake “lead codices,” the forger didn’t try to claim the manuscript fragment was ancient; it was passed off as early medieval. As such, had it been authentic, it would have been useless for studying the origins of Christianity; it would only attest to a centuries late heretical legend. But alas, it wasn’t even medieval. The papyrus was. The ink may even have been. But the text was 100% modern bullshit.
Several prominent experts tried really hard to defend its authenticity for a long time, very irrationally I might add (the evidence it was forged using a modern digital text—which had a typo, giving away the forger’s use of it!—was slam-fucking-dunk and should have ended the matter…see my article from 2016, and my article from 2012), but even they have acquiesced now, after a reporter tracked down and exposed the forger. The story in The Atlantic is so wild it’s well worth reading. I highly recommend it. (Or see Mark Goodacre’s summary.) The bottom line is, the document was faked, and the documents authenticating the document were faked. Because Harvard professor Karen King, who staked her reputation on its authenticity (egg on her face now), did not let experts examine the authenticating documents, the forgery survived scrutiny far longer than it should have. But it’s over now.
Lesson learned: Whenever you hear an amazing claim like this, ask some necessary questions first. How is the document being authenticated? Have independent experts even vetted it yet? And always remember the fiasco of the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife. Even an endorsement from a bona fide Harvard expert doesn’t mean much anymore. Because until it’s properly vetted, it could well all fall apart. Just like the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife.
The “Mummy Gospel of Mark”
A different class of dubious news relates to the claim made by a bunch of Christian fundamentalist scholars that ancient mummy masks owned by the Hobby Lobby family happened to contain tons of scraps of ancient Christian Gospels in them, including one of Mark that physically dates, they say, to the first century! See my past coverage of that in Amazing Proofs of Jesus. And yet no peer reviewed publication has surfaced. They keep claiming it’s coming out “next year.” It’s been a lot of years since. We’re assured this time they mean it. They really mean it. There really will finally be a peer reviewed report on it published in 2017. Hold your breath everyone!
I’ll place bets now. What will get published under peer review, if anything ever does, will be that—at best—the fundamentalists were overzealous in claiming the first century date, that the mummy masks probably actually date no earlier than the second century and possibly even date to the fourth century. There is no “first century” manuscript of Mark. There may be a second century one—that would be newsworthy, but wouldn’t change anything much, especially as it’s just a fragment and thus contains perhaps just a few sentences at most, if even that (that’s right, by “manuscript of mark,” they mean one tiny rip from one page of Mark, not the whole Gospel). But it may turn out to be a third or fourth century fragment. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Typical of news coverage was the LiveScience news report on this in 2015. Back then they were still claiming it would be published any minute now. Even though fundamentalist apologists had been boasting of the find since 2012! So the latest claim, that it’s due for publication in 2017, may require taking with a grain of salt. But Larry Hurtado wrote about the sensationalist stories circulating in 2015, and spilled some sobering cold water on the matter. He also summarizes the backstory, one notable part of which is that this claim was used by fundamentalist Dan Wallace against Bart Ehrman in a debate in 2012…which is dirty fucking pool, citing evidence that has never been published before, and never gone through peer review, and that Ehrman couldn’t even have examined or known anything about. Now, just contrast Hurtado’s comments with Wallace’s. What a difference.
If I hear anything new on this Gospel fragment, I’ll let you know [and lo, here you go]. Real papyrologists are working on it. (Dirk Obbink has started discussing his work on the mummy mask finds, for example, though so far he hasn’t mentioned any Christian texts.) So I expect something will come out eventually [and lo, here you go]. But it’s probably not going to vindicate Wallace’s wild claims. In the end, all the hype aside, there might be a new early manuscript fragment to add to the list of the ones we already have, but I doubt there is any “first century” manuscript of Mark.
The lesson here is: (1) don’t trust fundamentalists; (2) wait for peer reviewed publication; (3) then discuss. Until then, nothing about this is usable data.
Conclusion
Be wary of all this kind of stuff in future. Surely more fake news about Jesus sources, more confused news about Jesus sources, more crank news about Jesus sources, and more dubious news about Jesus sources will appear in coming years. Arm yourself against it now. If you ask me anything about it at all, make sure you already can supply me with all the links you could find of experts already talking about it, and the original source of the claim. Do the work first. Check facts. Check reliability. See how vetted a claim is, where it’s coming from, what stage of verification it’s in. What experts are saying. And keep applying the proper rule that extraordinary claims, require extraordinary evidence. |
The WSJ is reporting that Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus went on preorder in South Korea on Friday, following their official launch this Friday, October 31st, as part of the next wave of iPhone rollouts. Analyst estimates show that presales for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus topped 100,000 units. By comparison, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 recorded a third of that number (around 30,000) in preorders in a similar timeframe when it launched in September.
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The iPhone appears to be off to a great start on Samsung’s home turf, mirroring its success around the world. However, some qualifications to the preorders comparison should be noted. Primarily, the 100,000 number is essentially combining sales of two devices (one of which is a phablet) versus sales of just one Samsung Galaxy Note device. If you cut the numbers in half, Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus is still outperforming its domestic rival but by nowhere near the same margin.
In addition, Samsung launches many varieties of its phablets across the year, practically on a monthly basis. This means that Galaxy phone launches are not as ‘landmark’ as the once-a-year iPhone schedule. Although there is little doubt that the iPhone will do well in South Korea, we will have to wait for more concrete sales numbers to fall out before making any firm judgements on customer preferences.
The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus go on sale in the region this Friday. |
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At least five people have contracted the infection in the food scare, prompting Victorian company Patties Foods to expand its recall
More frozen berry products have been recalled due to possible hepatitis A contamination, with at least five people contracting the infection in the food scare.
Victorian company Patties Foods announced on Sunday it was expanding its recall to include all 300g and 500g packs of Creative Gourmet Mixed Berries.
On Saturday, all 1kg packs of Nanna’s Frozen Mixed Berries were recalled when the Victorian Health Department warned of a potential hepatitis A contamination.
Patties Foods CEO Steven Chaur said the wider recall was a precautionary measure.
“We have decided that all our frozen mixed berries should be recalled until such time as we receive the results of further laboratory tests,” Chaur said. “The recall is an important step to ensure public safety and confidence.”
The suspect berries were packed in China before distribution in Australia.
At least three people in Victoria, and two in NSW, who have eaten the frozen berries have since been diagnosed with hepatitis A.
Symptoms include abdominal pain, nausea and fever as well as yellow skin and eyes, and anyone experiencing these symptoms are urged to see a doctor.
“An investigation by all health agencies is underway but at this early stage we are not sure how many people may be affected,” said Dr Vicky Shepherd, director of NSW Health’s communicable diseases branch.
“There is the potential that others may be sick with hepatitis A now, or develop the disease over the coming weeks.”
Supermarkets have been told to pull all of the recalled berry products from sale. Households that have the recalled products in their freezer are advised to bin them or return them to the place of purchase for a cash refund.
Hepatitis A is spread when traces of faecal matter containing the virus come in contact with hands, water or food and then enter a person’s mouth.
The hepatitis A scare comes as a number of Victorian hospitals are told to dispose of chocolate mousse, which has been found to contain listeria.
Hospitals are contacting patients who might have consumed the dessert recently, though no cases of illness have been reported and the product is not supplied to the public. The contamination came to light after the company conducted routine testing of its products.
Listeria is particularly dangerous for pregnant women, their unborn babies and the elderly.
Concerned consumers can call Patties Foods on 1800 650 069.
Recalled
• Nanna’s Mixed Berries 1kg, up to and including Best Before Date 22/11/16
• Creative Gourmet Mixed Berries 300g, up to and including best before bate 10/12/17
• Creative Gourmet Mixed Berries 500g, up to and including best before date 06/10/17. |
North of Ship Canal Ballard’s Fu Kun Wu is offering $6 drink specials all night on Monday. A DJ will provide tunes from 8:30 to midnight, with happy hour commencing at 5 and ending at 7. Costumes? Encouraged.
La Carta de Oaxaca and its new Queen Anne counterpart, Mezcaleria Oaxaca, are bringing in a live mariachi band on Monday as part of a Día de Muertos celebration. The music starts at Mezcaleria at 5 before moving on to Ballard around 6:15. You can also expect a special food menu.
The always festive Bottleneck Lounge hosts Halloween Triple Threat Scary Movie Night on the 31st. The screening of Tremors, Mars Attacks, and Army of Darkness gets underway at 6:30, with special cocktails to accompany each. Word has it the Kevin Bacon Manhattan with candied bacon strips is one not to miss. The popcorn’s provided.
On Monday stop by Pike Brewing in costume and score dollar discounts on the “devilishly spiced” Harlot’s Harvest Pumpkin Ale.
Another one for beer buffs: Redhook ‘s Haunted Brewery Bash. The $3.50 pint specials and two floors of live entertainment go down Saturday 8:30pm-midnight. Admission costs $10 (purchase them on Brown Paper Tickets or at the door), and sorry kiddies, this one’s 21-plus. We also hear of $1 keg pours and a costume contest.
Re-Bar promises “scary good beats” when jockeys Darek Mazzone of KEXP, DJ Rhythma, and DJ Darwin take the booth during its Saturday bash starting at 10pm. Tickets are $10 at the door. All proceeds benefit FIUTS; also 21 and over.
Vermillion is throwing a bash on Saturday, the same night the Hideout, the Sorrento, and Vito’s team up for the now-annual ER Costume Crawl. Expect live music and festivities at each. Best outfit wins $500, and nota bene: you’ve got to be wearing a getup to get in. Things kick off at 9pm. (Also: a reminder Vito’s is hosting another notable party Monday.)
Starting Friday at the CanCan the Heavenly Spies put on a saucy Halloween burlesque show, running through Saturday evening. Tickets go for $10 to $45.
What else? |
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A series of extraordinary photos show how hundreds of Kashmiri villagers who turned out for the funeral of suspected terrorist Shiraz Ahmed, who was killed in a gunbattle with government forces.
Relatives sobbed while other mourners covered their faces in grief, as the funeral procession moved through the village of Panjran, 28 miles south of Srinagar in India.
Three suspected rebels were killed on November 20, during an encounter with security forces in Tral area of Pulwama district in South Kashmir.
Hundreds of Kashmiri villagers turned out for the funeral of suspected terrorist Shiraz Ahmed, killed in a gunbattle with government forces
Mourners watch as the funeral procession moves through the village of Panjran, 28 miles to the south of Srinagar in India
The men were thought to be members of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the militant group India believes is responsible for the 2008 attack on Mumbai that killed 166 people.
According to local reports, police said Ahmed transported militants, who were involved in the killing of Assistant Sub Inspector Farooq Ahmad.
The reports state Ahmed had been studying journalism in Islamic University of Science and Technology.
'It was his fourth semester while recently he had rejected a government job,' his father Muhammad Sultan told the Kashmir Dispatch.
Ahmed was thought to be a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group India believes is responsible for the 2008 attack in Mumbai
Relatives sob as the suspected rebel is carried through the village in a funeral procession that was watched by hundreds
Muslim Kashmiris prey before the body of suspected terrorist Shiraz Ahmed, killed in clashes with government forces in south Kashmir
'We are well off and are a part of fruit industry', he added. 'I failed to understand what prompted my son to join militant ranks when I was providing him every comfort of life.'
Kashmir, India's only Muslim majority state, is divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both. The two countries fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947 over the Himalayan region.
Lashkar-e-Taiba (translated as Soldiers of the Pure) is one of the most militant groups fighting against Indian control in Kashmir and believed to be responsible for a number of deadly attacks both in the Muslim region and across India.
The extraordinary photographs show hundreds of men and women who attended the funeral in the suspected rebel's village
Ahmed was one of three suspected rebels were killed on November 20 during an encounter with security forces in South Kashmir
Kashmir, India's only Muslim majority state, is divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both countries |
Hop in the hot springs, dunk your head, freeze your hair in the –20 C air, and snap a photo.
That's how people can enter to win the annual International Hair Freezing Contest in Yukon.
(Submitted by Takhini Hot Springs)
"If you have long hair, lay your head on the side of the pool. Once it starts to freeze, you can prop it up and put it in basically any shape you want."
That's the Takhini Hot Springs owner Andrew Umbrich's tip for those looking to win this year's very Canadian competition.
(Submitted by Takhini Hot Springs)
If you're lacking hair on the top, Umbrich says there are still other ways to enter.
"Unfortunately, bald men don't really get good frozen hair," he says.
"But as long as you have eyelashes, eyebrows, they can still freeze. Or in some cases, if you have a lot of body hair and you're tough enough to stay out of the water long enough, your body hair will all freeze too."
(Submitted by Takhini Hot Springs)
One of the most unusual shots so far this year was a collaboration between a woman with dreadlocks and a man with long hair.
"They froze their hair together," says Umbrich. "It looks strange but it's a nice picture."
(Submitted by Takhini Hot Springs)
Some took to social media to show off their icy Medusa 'dos.
Some ended up with beaver tails on their heads.
The competition was started in 2011 by a former manager of the hot springs who didn't have much hair himself, says Umbrich. "It was just a good, clever idea."
Since then, the competition has run every year in time for the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous festival in February. The first few years it was a small event, garnering only 10 to 15 submissions per year.
But in 2015, after Umbrich took over the hot springs business, frozen hair became an international sensation on the internet.
"We got very lucky in 2015. We had some great photos that went viral, and ever since, our competition has got more and more popular."
The competition now runs all winter. There have been 35 submissions so far this year.
Prizes this year are larger: $750 and a membership at Takhini Hot Pools for the gold; $200 and a 12-punch pass for second place; and $100 and three complimentary day passes for third. |
Two major supermarkets were cordoned off by police after a man shocked shoppers by spraying urine on the food.
The raider entered Morrisons in Glevum Way, Gloucester at around 11.20am on Friday and fired a "foul-smelling substance" - thought to be urine - on meat, salad and fruit.
He fled the store and went to Tesco four miles away in Quedgeley, where he again terrified customers and staff by spraying the fluid on produce.
A 42-year-old man from Gloucester was arrested at the Tesco store on suspicion of causing criminal damage and remains in police custody. One man is thought to be behind both incidents.
Police do not believe the substance poses a risk to public safety, but the shops have been sealed off while Environmental Health officers carry out inspections.
Staff are waiting in canteens of both stores, which are shut, and witness statements have been taken from several customers who saw the discharge of the liquid.
A Gloucestershire police spokesman said: "It is alleged that a man was spraying a foul-smelling substance, thought to be urine, on the foodstuffs, including the salad bar, fruits and meat.
"The device he was using is described as a kind of tube. Clearly this is a very unusual incident. A man has been arrested and a full investigation is under way. We are appealing for any witnesses who have not already contacted us to come forward.
"The substance is believed to be of no threat to public safety."
Officers say they have no clues about the motive.
>> Vote in our latest web poll |
UNDERSTANDING is easy, acceptance is absolutely impossible, which is why Ronan O'Gara is still very much an integral part of the Irish set-up.
UNDERSTANDING is easy, acceptance is absolutely impossible, which is why Ronan O'Gara is still very much an integral part of the Irish set-up.
Those charged with piloting the fortunes of the Ireland rugby team have decreed that it's Jonathan Sexton's time to lead Ireland from the out-half berth. With a World Cup just over two years away, the pragmatist in O'Gara understands the logic.
That said, the competitive instinct that has driven the Munsterman to 125 international caps, 1,075 international points, 107 European appearances (106 of them as a starter), 1,303 Heineken Cup points, four Triple Crowns, RBS Six Nations Golden Boot as top points scorer in 2005, '06, '07 and '09, two Heineken Cups and a Grand Slam, will never accept that reality is beyond challenge.
O'Gara is understandably proud of his remarkable personal record, confident that he has achieved so much that his rugby legacy will always be substantial in any comparison. He also shows with his comments that he is the ultimate team player.
"I understand it, absolutely," said O'Gara. "Since the World Cup there's been a decision that it's Jonny's time. And I agree with that. But I don't accept it. If you accept that situation you're no good to the squad.
"Whether it's five minutes or 50 minutes off the bench, or 80 minutes from the start, you have to try and make a positive impact and that's something I'm determined to do whenever I'm called on. I think I've proved over the years that I am still able to do a job for the team."
The hunger to succeed that saw him win his first cap against Scotland back in 2000 still drives him with every bit as much intensity as he approaches his 126th. "You'll be retired long enough. I see a lot of team-mates and friends of mine who have been forced out of the game because of injury and I know how lucky I am. And when you get support from the people who pay to go into the games you know that you're doing something right," he said.
"I derive huge confidence from what I've achieved and I truly believe that I can achieve more. I'm certainly not putting the lid on the tin, there's more to come."
BREEDING GROUND
THAT O'Gara remains as relevant as ever in an ever-evolving game is further testament to his warrior nature. It is, according to the man himself, thanks to the upbringing he received back when the AIL was truly significant.
O'Gara cut his teeth playing for UCC for his fresher year before taking the road less travelled by students by joining Cork Constitution in his second year.
It was a hugely contentious decision, one amplified by the fact that his father Fergal – recently retired – was lecturing at the university. Back then the All-Ireland League was awash with money as clubs desperately tried to hang on to their players in the face of professional offers from England.
Cork Con lost Paul Burke to Bristol and turned to the young College out-half to lead their charge. They weren't disappointed. "The AIL was a fantastic breeding ground back then. It was basically cup rugby every weekend in front of 10,000 or 12,000 people at a ferocious intensity, which is what Test rugby is all about.
"For me playing against the great teams of Garryowen, Shannon and Young Munster was a learning ground that I think is lost to the new generation. I wouldn't have had my career or be the player I am if I hadn't gone through those games where I was getting the s**t kicked out of me in Limerick on a weekly basis.
"Sometimes if you take the right messages from a beating you can learn more. And unfortunately I don't think people understand just how great an education those cup games were back then, which is a loss to the game."
IRELAND HAVE TO SET THE PACE
THE lessons learned from the South African loss must be applied this weekend if Ireland are to beat what is a hugely impressive Argentina side.
Whereas before the Pumas were all brawn with very little brain behind the pack, they are now a far more rounded side and one O'Gara feels will test Ireland in every facet, especially after their experienced in the Rugby Championship.
"Just the very fact that they were playing Test rugby against some of the best teams in the world three weeks ago will have brought them on a ton," said O'Gara, "and they were very impressive during the championship.
"What we have to do is set the pace in this game. With every game of rugby there is one team who sets the pace and one who is chasing.
"We set the pace for 40 minutes against South Africa. For the first half I thought we were really good, played with great intensity and just did the simple things well and were pretty much in control of the game.
"But in the second half we stopped doing what had been yielding dividends and South Africa came back at us and strangled us a little. From everyone's point of view it's hugely disappointing to lose when you were 12-3 up at home. It's very rare in the last 10 years that we have squandered those leads.
"It's hard to give a reason for what happened. Everyone will be coming at it from a different angle. Absolutely we will talk about it because it's important to air what you're feeling, but that will be done in-camp."
There is little time to apply any of the fixes that are deemed necessary with the Argentina game just five days away, but looking ahead O'Gara believes that the onus is on the younger generation to take ownership of the team.
"There are a lot of new faces coming through now and there's not that familiarity there was a couple of years ago because it's a hugely changed team. That's the natural evolution of the thing and it takes time for the bond between players to grow. But they have to grasp this opportunity now or risk seeing it pass them by."
IT'S ABOUT WINNING
O'GARA is, of course, at a different stage of his career than most of his Ireland team-mates, but there is absolutely no hint of his enthusiasm waning. He is as competitive and driven as ever and is still demanding more from himself.
"You could ask the likes of Henry Shefflin why he keeps going with nine All-Ireland medals already in his locker. When you get on to a good thing you actually work harder to try and put distance between you and your opposition.
"It's about winning big games. That's what good seasons come down to, winning big games, and I still want to win the big games."
His contract with Ireland (and Munster) is up at the end of the season. It's not something that has ever really cost O'Gara a thought. His relationship with his employers has always been straightforward and up front.
It's pretty much a given that he will be offered a new central contract. For sure, he plans on playing next season and insists he hasn't actually thought about what will happen around the annual contract negotiations.
"Ireland decide what kind of contract you're offered," he said. "We'll just wait and see. It's seven months away. I haven't even thought beyond Christmas to be honest. I would hope to be playing next season."
Irish Independent |
March 15, 2016 Javier Eguiluz
This article is the last one in the New in Symfony 2.8 series. It explains five minor but useful improvements introduced in several Symfony components.
Added a non-static API for the CssSelector component¶ Contributed by
Christophe Coevoet in #15934. In Symfony 2.7, the CssSelector component exposed a static API to convert the CSS selectors into XPath expressions. In Symfony 2.8, we added a new non-static API: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 // Before use Symfony\Component\CssSelector\CssSelector ; $expression = CssSelector :: toXPath ( 'div.item > h4 > a' ); // After use Symfony\Component\CssSelector\CssSelectorConverter ; $converter = new CssSelectorConverter (); $expression = $converter -> toXPath ( 'div.item > h4 > a' ); This new API allows to keep a reference to the Converter object and all its internal object graph, which in some situations may be faster than recreating everything whenever you perform a conversion. Besides, HTML is now selected as the default format. If you are working with XML contents, pass false as the argument of the CssSelectorConverter class: 1 2 3 4 5 // Before use Symfony\Component\CssSelector\CssSelectorConverter ; $converter = new CssSelectorConverter ( false ); $expression = $converter -> toXPath ( 'items > item > title' ); This component is mostly used by Symfony developers through the DomCrawler component in their tests. In that case, this change doesn't affect you in any way and you don't have to make any additional change.
Added domain exceptions to the Console component¶ Contributed by
Jérôme Tamarelle
in #14894. The Console component used generic PHP exceptions such as InvalidArgumentException and LogicException . In Symfony 2.8, to make the component consistent with other parts of the framework, custom exceptions are used. These "domain exceptions" allow to generate better error messages. For example, when some command wasn't found, in some places we just threw this exception: 1 throw new \InvalidArgumentException ( $message ); Now, we throw this other custom exception which allows to define a series of alternative commands with similar names to the one not found: 1 throw new CommandNotFoundException ( $message , $alternatives ); These are the first custom exceptions defined for the Console component: CommandNotFoundException
ExceptionInterface
InvalidArgumentException
InvalidOptionException
LogicException
RuntimeException
Added a new ClassCache cache warmer¶ Contributed by
Tugdual Saunier
in #16263. In order to improve performance and reduce I/O load, Symfony generates a big classes.php file in the cache with the contents of the most accessed classes. Bundles, including yours, can add new classes to this file through the addClassesToCompile() method. In Symfony 2.8, we added a new cache warmer that generates this classes.php file. This new warmer removes the known slowness of the first hit to a Symfony application (even when cache has been warmed up). Besides, this feature also allows to make a Symfony application runnable on a read-only filesystem (such as in a Docker container for example).
Allowed to warm up Twig templates in non-standard paths¶ Contributed by
Kevin Bond in #14764. As you may know, Symfony applications can define custom Twig namespaces. Suppose that you're using some third-party library that includes Twig templates that live in vendor/acme/foo-bar/templates . You can refer to those templates as @foo_bar/<template-name> if you define the following configuration: 1 2 3 4 5 # app/config/config.yml twig : # ... paths : "%kernel.root_dir%/../vendor/acme/foo-bar/templates" : foo_bar In Symfony 2.8, the templates defined under those custom namespaces will be automatically compiled during cache warm up. This will result in a (minor) performance improvement.
Allowed to configure a user checker per firewall¶ Contributed by
Lynn van der Berg
in #14721. During the authentication of a user, additional checks might be required to verify if the identified user is allowed to log in. Symfony performs these checks with classes that implement the Symfony\Component\Security\Core\UserCheckerInterface . This interface defines two methods called checkPreAuth() and checkPostAuth() to perform checks before and after user authentication. In Symfony 2.8, these user checkers became more useful because you can use a custom user checker per firewall thanks to the new user_checker option: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 services : app.admin_user_checker : class : App\Security\AdminUserChecker arguments : - "@request_stack" security : firewalls : secured_area : pattern : ^/admin # ... user_checker : app.admin_user_checker |
What begun as a sort of arts-driven guerilla marketing campaign for the fictional return of a historic streetcar in the border communities of El Paso, TX and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, is becoming a reality, a demonstration of the power of art to capture the imagination of a community and help them look at old problems in different ways and imagine creative solutions.
This story is part of arts and culture month at T4America & Smart Growth America, where we’re telling a handful of stories about how arts and culture are essential to building better transportation projects and stronger communities. It’s adapted from a longer case study that will be featured in Transportation for America and ArtPlace America’s upcoming field scan on arts, culture and transportation.
Unlike San Diego, CA and Tijuana, Mexico, which are separated by 20 miles, El Paso, TX and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico sit immediately adjacent to one another, separated only by the width of the Rio Grande River and the international border between the United States and Mexico. Until 1846, El Paso was in fact part of Juárez and Mexico, and the two independent cities today form the world’s largest binational metroplex, with thousands of daily crossings by foot, car, and bus; billions of dollars of trade; and five border crossings connecting the two cities and region. For generations, residents on both sides of the border have crossed frequently for work, school, recreation, and to visit family; more than 80 percent of El Pasoans identify as Latinx.
Until it was closed down in 1974, these border crossings were facilitated in part by an international streetcar system that connected the downtowns of both cities. As in many American cities, the streetcar system ran President’s Conference Committee (PCC) streetcars, with a sleek Art Deco design that was introduced after the Great Depression to lure new car owners back onto public transportation.
The iconic streetcars and stories of their transnational past served as the inspiration for Peter Svarzbein’s Masters of Fine Arts thesis project at New York’s School for Visual Arts. In 2012 Mr. Svarzbein, a native of El Paso, created the El Paso Transnational Trolley, which could be described as part performance art, part guerrilla marketing, part visual art installation, and part fake advertising campaign. The project began with a series of wheatpaste posters advertising the return of the El Paso-Juárez streetcar, and continued with the deployment of Alex the Trolley Conductor, a new mascot and spokesperson for the alleged new service. Alex appeared at Comic Cons, public parks, conferences, and other public spaces to promote the return of the streetcar, while additional advertisements appeared across El Paso, sparking curiosity and excitement for the assumed real project.
Eventually, Svarzbein admitted that the project was a graduate thesis masquerading as a streetcar launch, but rather than graduating and moving on, he decided to move back home to El Paso.
When Svarzbein learned that the City of El Paso planned to sell the historic PCC streetcars, he lobbied the city to cancel the sale, and instead return the streetcars to the streets of El Paso. Thanks to the region’s dry climate, the streetcars have remained in relatively good shape for the past four decades even though they’ve been stored in the open desert at the edge of El Paso.
After gathering thousands of signatures in support of the project and with the strong backing of the City of El Paso and Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Commissioner Ted Haughton, the El Paso trolley won a $97 million grant from TxDOT. It is now slated to begin service in El Paso in 2018. The third phase of the project will include a connection to the Medical Center of the Americas, while the second will include the much anticipated transnational connection to Juárez.
In one of the most surprising twists in this long tale, shortly after this funding was awarded, Svarzbein rode the wave of public support for the once-fictional project to win a seat on El Paso’s City Council.
Svarzbein’s approach as an artist transformed the discussion. The project’s website quotes artist Guillermo Goméz-Peña: “An artist thinks differently, imagines a better world, and tries to render it in surprising ways. And this becomes a way for his/her audiences to experience the possibilities of freedom that they can’t find in reality.”
Clearly, Svarzbein credits his creative campaign with helping to get the project off the ground and building the community support needed to win funding, claiming that “there is a sort of responsibility that artists have to imagine and speak about a future that may not be able to be voiced by a large amount of people in the present. I felt that sort of responsibility. If I couldn’t change the debate, at least I could sort of write a love letter to the place that raised me.”
This story is another example of how transportation professionals are exploring new, creative, and contextually-specific approaches to planning and building transportation projects. They are collaborating with artists and the community in new ways to transform transportation systems into powerful tools to help people access opportunity, drive economic development, improve health and safety, and build the civic and social capital that binds communities together.
This project is just one of the many case studies that will be featured in our upcoming field scan on arts, culture and transportation, commissioned by ArtPlace America. The field scan is intended to examine the ways in which arts and culture are helping to solve transportation challenges while engaging the community in a more inclusive process.
Stay tuned for more about arts and culture during the entire month of September. |
Just before Christmas, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth wrote about a new area of expansion for the firm’s Ubuntu operating system. He described it was a “snappy” version of Ubuntu and Christened it Core. And it’s designed to power the Internet of Things (IoT).
Today, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona we got the first proper outing for Core – and it’s a lot more finished than frankly I expected.
The basis of Core, says VP for IoT Maarten Ectors, is that its essentially a lightweight version of Ubuntu Server with an easy-to-use web interface. There’s a bunch of images available, each designed for specific hardware like the Raspberry Pi, Beagleboard and so on.
So far, so wonderful for providing hackers building homebrew projects with a desktop-like environment to use them in. Ectors demoed a Beagleboard hooked up (via Bluetooth) to a fitness band. The band’s sensor was being used to determine the unique characteristics of his own heartbeat, turning it into a biometric doorpass (pictured above). Easy to set up using Core, apparently.
Neat.
Where Ubuntu Core gets interesting, however, is where it’s closer to taking on the duties of a traditional server. It supports a (limited, at the moment) app store-like method for installing packages and maintenance, not unlike Microsoft’s Azure platform. Using this, Ectors showed a standard network switch running Ubuntu Core, which could be quickly configured to add extra features like a firewall, an F5 instance and even a control app for a robot arm in a mouse click. Snappy – the delivery mechanism – keeps everything automatically updated and theoretically safe too.
The most impressive demo involved a mobile base station running Ubuntu Core. This, explained Ectors, could be instantly provisioned with a Netflix app, say, for locally caching videos and reducing bandwidth consumed. Ectors argues that this kind of versatility is going to be essential for mobile operators.
“No-one in the world is ready for the amount of traffic that’s going to be generated by 4K video cameras in home security systems,” he says, explaining that an app which can filter traffic and quickly provisioned would be a cinch using Snappy. By increasing the capabilities of switches and base stations, the increased load of thousands of sensors distributed around a city – he uses the example of data from hundreds of smart parking bays – is that bit easier to cope with.
Which makes Core a strange but compelling prospect. Big enough for a network operator to trust, easy enough for a homebrew project on the Raspberry Pi.
An intriguing mix. |
Syrian opposition fighters have seized the largest remaining military base in Idlib in one of their most significant victories in the province since taking Idlib city in March, reports say.
Abu Yazid, a spokesman for Ahrar al-Sham, one of Syria's most powerful armed groups, told Al Jazeera the fighters took over the entire town of al-Mastouma and its army base after days of heavy clashes with security forces.
Ahrar al-Sham is part of the Fattah Army, a coalition that controls most of Idlib province, in Syria's northwest.
Yazid also said that a subsequent offensive in the northern town of Ariha, one of the last government bastions in Idlib, is forcing Syrian troops to withdraw.
"The military has begun withdrawing from Ariha," he said.
He said at least 50 troops had been killed in recent fighting in Idlib.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, and numerous activist groups on the ground in Syria have confirmed the takeover of entire al-Mastouma.
Syrian state television reported that army units at the base were moved to Ariha to reinforce defence lines there.
Ahrar al-Sham's advances come almost two months after the Fattah Army seized Idlib city, which is strategically located near the main highway connecting the the country's second city Aleppo and the capital Damascus.
Heavy fighting has also continued in the Idlib city of Jisr al-Shughur, where government forces are bombarding rebel-held areas in an attempt to rescue many soldiers reportedly besieged in a hospital.
Praise for Iran
Against this backdrop of military reverses, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has praised Iran, the main foreign source of military, political and economic support for his government, as a "key pillar".
Tuesday's statement came during Assad's meetings with Ali Akbar Velayati, a foreign affairs adviser to Iran's supreme leader, who was the third Iranian official to visit Damascus in less than a week.
"The support given by Iran to the Syrian people constitutes a key pillar in the battle against terrorism," state news agency SANA quoted Assad as saying.
Velayati's visit came days after the two countries struck a series of major economic deals in a wide range of sectors, including electrical, medical and oil industries, according to SANA.
Last Thursday, Alaedin Boroujerdi, head of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy, visited Damascus and said that Iran's support for the Assad government was "firm and eternal". |
"Ever since I arrived at Cambridge as a student in 1964 and encountered a tribe of full-grown women wearing puffed sleeves, clutching teddies, and babbling excitedly about the doings of hobbits, it has been my nightmare that J.R.R. Tolkien would turn out to be the most influential writer of the twentieth century. The bad dream has materialized. At the head of the list, in pride of place as the book of the century, stands The Lord of the Rings."
These dismal words expressing disgust that The Lord of the Rings had been voted the greatest book of the twentieth century in a major national opinion poll in the U.K. were written by the militant feminist, Germaine Greer, who rose to fame in 1970 as the author of The Female Eunuch, one of the most influential books of the women’s liberation movement. Why, one wonders, does Tolkien’s magnum opus have the power to give feminists nightmares? What is it about Tolkien’s work that causes such an apoplectic reaction?
Perhaps the most obvious reason is that Tolkien assigns his female characters decidedly feminine roles. Arwen is betrothed to Aragorn, serving as his inspiration, but her own direct role in the plot is minimal and is defined more by her powerful absence than by her presence. On a less grandiose but a nonetheless noble level, Rosie Cotton serves as an inspiration to Samwise Gamgee during his absence from the Shire and, upon his return, becomes his wife and the mother of his children. Éowyn proves herself in battle, defeating the Witch-king, but she finds her ultimate fulfillment in marriage to Faramir. Her renunciation of her erstwhile desire to fight like a man is described by Tolkien as a conversion of soul, and even a healing of the spirit:
Then the heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood it. And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her. ‘I stand in Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun,’ she said; ‘and behold! the Shadow has departed! I will be a shieldmaiden no longer, nor vie with the great Riders, nor take joy only in the songs of slaying. I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren.
Although Éowyn’s embrace of fertility and her willing surrender to Faramir’s love are guaranteed to outrage the feminist reader, it would be a gross and grotesque error to see her change of heart as a defeat of her powers as a woman. Her status as the slayer of the Witch-king is not diminished, nor is the fact that the Witch-king’s defeat could only be accomplished by a woman negated. There is indeed a religious significance in Éowyn’s victory over Sauron’s evil emissary. In her triumph, she parallels the role of the Blessed Virgin in the crushing of the head of the serpent. In this context it is significant that Tolkien agreed with a friend who had compared the image of Galadriel, another significant female figure in The Lord of the Rings, to that of the Virgin Mary. Tolkien confessed that “all [his] own small perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity [were] founded” on his love for the Virgin Mother of Christ.
In the symbolic parallel of the roles of Éowyn and Galadriel to that of the Blessed Virgin, we see the reverence and respect with which Tolkien holds his female characters. Such reverence and such respect throw into confusion the efforts of feminists to cast the author of The Lord of the Rings in the role of the male chauvinist who seeks to trample roughshod on the rights of women. His weakness, if indeed it is a weakness, is not that he looks down on women, but that he places them on a pedestal above his head. His crime, if it is a crime, is that he bestows upon his female characters a dignity that is perhaps undeserved.
The complaint of women to Tolkien’s treatment of them is only tenable if it is centered on the desire to be removed from the pedestal, not if it is rooted in a demand to be raised from the floor. Women may not deserve to be treated in the way in which Tolkien treats them; if so, it is because they are not worthy of such reverence and respect. In the final analysis, Germaine Greer’s hostility to Tolkien can be likened to the ingratitude of a maiden who has no desire to be saved from the dragon.
--
This blog post has been reproduced with the permission of The Imaginative Conservative. The original blog post can be found here. The views expressed by the author and The Imaginative Conservative are not necessarily endorsed by this organization and are simply provided as food for thought from Intellectual Takeout.
[Main Image Credit: New Line Cinema/Youtube] |
CALGARY – With oil prices remaining below $50 a barrel and predictions they could fall even further, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) estimates the energy industry downturn led to over 35,000 layoffs in Alberta’s oilpatch in 2015. CAPP said those cuts include 25,000 in the oil services sector and another 10,000 in exploration and production. Those figures don’t include the thousands of other people who have lost their jobs as the fallout from the oil price collapse continues to impact the province and the country.
There are no hard and fast numbers on the job losses. Alberta employers must reports layoffs of 50 or more people to the provincial government’s ministry of Jobs, Skills, Training and Labour. Between Jan. 1 and mid-November, just over 18,000 workers were let go in group notices.
But countless layoffs involve a handful of employees at small and medium-sized businesses and so fly under the radar. And according to emails to Global News from energy industry workers, some companies are laying off employees in groups of less than 50 in order to avoid reporting the job losses to the provincial government.
Major Alberta energy industry layoffs announced in 2016 and 2015:
February 24, 2016
Encana announces plans to cut its workforce by 20 per cent this year. The company didn’t say how many jobs would be affected by the latest round of layoffs, but based on last year’s figures, it’s expected another 500 people would lose their jobs this year.
Calfrac Well Services Ltd. announces it’s shed more than 1,700 jobs from its Canadian and U.S. workforce since the end of 2014, reducing its head count by 40 per cent in Canada and 60 per cent in the United States as it faces the worst oilpatch downturn in three decades.
November 16, 2015
Pipeline operator Enbridge cuts five per cent of its workforce in a move that affects 500 people at all levels of the company in North America–about half of which are in Alberta. The company says it is also leaving 100 positions unfilled.
October 28, 2015
Devon Energy cuts 15 per cent of its Canadian workforce as the company responds to lower capital spending plans. About 200 employees have been let go in all areas of the company’s Canadian operations, including its Calgary offices and northern Alberta field operations.
September 29, 2015
Power company TransAlta announces it is cutting 239 positions, most of them at the company’s corporate head office in Calgary. Earlier in the year, TransAlta laid off 247 people from its Canadian coal and mining operations.
September 24, 2015
TransCanada says it is cutting 20 per cent of its senior leadership positions. The pipeline firm says there will be more job losses to come because of low world oil prices and the “current environment.”
September 23, 2015
Halliburton, in an internal memo posted on the oilfield services giant’s website, says it is planning more cuts to its workforce, including management positions in North America. That’s in addition to the 14,000 layoffs already announced.
September 22, 2015
Cenovus Energy says there will be more layoffs in October but would not confirm the number. CEO Brian Ferguson says this year’s job cuts will amount to about 20 per cent of the company’s workforce.
September 11, 2015
PHX Energy Services, a Calgary-based drilling company, says it’s laying off more than 500 employees, almost half of its workforce.
September 3, 2015
Tervita, an oilfield services company, confirms it has cut 15 per cent of its corporate staff.
September 1, 2015
Penn West Petroleum Ltd. cut its workforce by 400 full-time employees and contractors — most of them working at company headquarters in Calgary. Most of the job cuts were effective immediately and the rest will be complete by the end of 2015.
ConocoPhillips Canada said it would cut another 400 employees and 100 contractors after its March announcement of 200 layoffs. The company said after October, the total reduction will be 21 per cent of the workforce. The company’s global office announced a 10 per cent average workforce reduction across worldwide operations, and a spokesperson said the Calgary announcement was part of that.
July 30, 2015
Cenovus Energy, which cut 800 jobs earlier in the year, says it’s looking to cut another 300 to 400 jobs in the second half of this year. It is also chopping its quarterly dividend by 40 per cent.
June 23, 2015
TransCanada says it is laying off 185 workers throughout its North American operations. The Calgary-based pipeline company said the layoffs are the result of a restructuring in its major projects department.
May 13, 2015
Trican Well Services announces it has cut 2,000 employees from its North American workforce, including close to 800 in Canada. The update was included in Trican’s first-quarter financial report, which shows the company had a $35.7-million net loss and a $60.3-million adjusted loss in the first quarter.
March 20, 2015
Trican Well Services confirms it is cutting up to 500 jobs across the country, 150 of them reportedly in Red Deer.
March 18, 2015
ConocoPhillips Canada confirms it is laying off 200 workers. The cuts represent about seven percent of its workforce in Canada, and will primarily affect employees in Calgary. In February, the company told its 2,800 Canadian Business Unit employees it would announce staff reductions by the end of March.
March 17, 2015
Talisman Energy, based in Calgary, announces it is cutting as much as 15 per cent of its workforce at its head office. Of its 1,300 workers in Calgary, between 150 to 200 will be let go. Talisman is being acquired by Spanish energy giant Repsol in a deal worth $15.1 billion Cdn.
Nexen Energy, a subsidiary of China’s CNOOC, announces 400 job cuts, 300 of them in Calgary. The layoffs account for almost 15 per cent of the company’s workers in Canada.
March 11, 2015
Husky Energy tells 1,000 tradespeople at its Sunrise oilsands project they are out of a job. The company says construction at the site is largely complete, although work was not expected to end until the summer.
February 19, 2015
Finning International says it will reduce its workforce in Alberta and B.C. by roughly nine per cent or about 500 people, some of them based in Edmonton and the oil sands. The company supplies heavy equipment.
February 17
Trinidad Drilling, headquartered in Calgary, announces it is laying off 20 per cent of its salaried staff. Other measures include a seven per cent across-the-board wage cut with a 10 per cent cut to executive salaries.
February 15, 2015
Cenovus, one of Canada’s biggest energy players, says it’s slashing its workforce by roughly 15 per cent. That translates into 800 jobs, the majority of them contract positions.
February 12, 2015
Precision Drilling, Canada’s biggest drilling company, announces it is cutting its budget in half. It confirms it has 1,000 fewer people working the rigs compared to the same period in 2014.
Husky Energy confirms there will be job cuts in a $400 million budget hack but gives no firm figures. In February, it announced it’s reducing this year’s capital budget by as much as $400 million and looking for up to $600 million in operational savings in response to the ongoing low-price environment for oil and gas.
February 10, 2015
Oil services giant Halliburton announces plans to slash its workforce worldwide by eight per cent, or 6,400 jobs. It declined to provide numbers on specific regions but the cuts were expected to affect hundreds of jobs in Alberta.
Sanjel, a Calgary-based private oilfield services company, confirms it has been laying off workers. The company has more than 4,000 employees.
February 5, 2015
Weatherford International, an oilfield services company, announces it is laying off 8,000 workers- about 15 per cent of its workforce. Reports say almost 1,000 of those layoffs will be in Alberta.
Evraz, a company that makes steel plates and tubes for drilling rigs, lays off roughly 150 workers at its Calgary plant, according to Global News sources.
February 3, 2015
Newalta, an oilfield services company based in Calgary, lays off 180 workers. The cuts amount to 15 per cent of its staff.
January 19, 2015
GasFrac Energy Services of Calgary, a company that pioneered a waterless technique to fracture shale, files for bankruptcy protection. The company went out of business in April, throwing around 200 people out of work.
January 15, 2015
Schlumberger, the world’s biggest oilfield-services company, says it will cut 9,000 jobs. Number of workers affected in Alberta: unknown.
January 14, 2015
Suncor Energy announces it is cutting 1,000 people from its workforce of about 14,000.
January 9, 2015
Royal Dutch Shell announces hundreds of job cuts at a massive oil sands project. Shell said it is laying off less than 10 per cent of its 3,000 workers at Albian Sands.
Do you know of any layoffs in Alberta’s energy industry not on this list? Email calgary@globalnews.ca – your name will be kept confidential. |
Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night: Donald Trump will participate in a Reddit Ask Me Anything event on Wednesday.
The Republican presidential nominee is scheduled to begin fielding questions online starting at 7 p.m. ET; users are invited to start posting inquiries at 6:30 p.m.
So whether you're curious about Trump's stance on immigration and healthcare, wonder where he gets his spray tan, or are just fascinated by slow-motion car crashes, grab some popcorn and visit www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald Wednesday evening.
As Mashable points out, the AMA begins on the third night of the Democratic National Convention—just before President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are set to take the stage.
Obama has participated in several Reddit AMAs. During his first Q&A session in August 2012, the President drove such heavy traffic to the page that Reddit crashed more than a few times. Three months later—on the day of his second general election—Obama made a surprise appearance on Reddit, urging users to cast their vote before polls closed.
The AMA platform, where nothing is off limits, has played host to the rich and famous (Bill Gates, Chris Hadfield, Stan Lee, Michael Bolton, Peter Dinklage) and the everyman ("I buy guy's used socks on eBay!"). |
(Corrects to make clear it is Congress Party, not Indian government)
By Bappa Majumdar
NEW DELHI, Feb 7 (Reuters) - India’s Congress Party on Saturday said the international community should consider declaring Pakistan a terrorist state in light of the latter’s release of a scientist who sold nuclear secrets around the globe.
"It is time for the international community to think whether to declare Pakistan a terrorist country," Manish Tewari, the Congress party spokesman said in New Delhi, in reference to the end from house arrest of Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
India’s Congress Party rules in a coalition, and the call to the world community was from the party, not from the Indian government.
Khan, the man at the centre of the world’ most serious nuclear proliferation scandal, was released on Friday after five years of house arrest.
Revered by many Pakistanis as the father of the country’s atomic bomb, he confessed to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya in 2004. He was immediately pardoned by the government, although his movements were restricted.
India’s Congress party, which faces election in April, where security is likely to be a major voting issue, said Khan’s release was a serious security concern.
"Defending him proves Pakistan as not only an exporter of terrorism, but has also given rise to doubts of certain countries, including (United States) America, that nuclear weapons could go into the hands of terrorists," Tiwari told reporters.
Earlier, the Indian army chief said militant camps in Pakistan were thriving and had increased in the past year, as India put pressure on Islamabad to bring militants behind last November’s attacks in Mumbai to justice.
"I would not talk about the numbers specifically right now...but infrastructure is existing and active," General Deepak Kapoor told the Press Trust of India (PTI).
India has said the militant attack on its financial capital Mumbai last November, in which 179 people were killed, was planned from a camp in Pakistan.
Relations between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan have been strained since then, with India saying Pakistan was not doing enough to rein in militants.
Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said this week Pakistan’s main spy agency was linked to planners of the Mumbai attacks.
Pakistan has denied any involvement by state agencies and has said it was investigating a dossier of information from India, to which it will reply next week. (Additional reporting by Sujoy Dhar in Kolkata; Editing by Matthew Jones) |
WASHINGTON—Congressional Republicans on Tuesday announced a new investigation into the troubled rollout of President Barack Obama’s health care reforms, aimed at learning what role the White House may have played in decisions about the design and development of problem-plagued website Healthcare.gov., built by a subsidiary of Canada’s CGI Group Inc. of Montreal. In a letter to two top White House technology officers, Republicans on the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee said their investigation already points to significant White House involvement in discussions between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and contractor CGI Federal.
A woman looks at the HealthCare.gov insurance exchange internet site in this October 1, 2013 file photo in Washington, DC. With America's budget battles over at least until December, Republicans stepped up attacks against their favorite target "Obamacare" on October 22, 2013, seizing on technical nightmares to try to delay its rollout. AFP PHOTO / Karen BLEIER ( KAREN BLEIER / AFP/GETTY IMAGES )
CGI Federal is a subsidiary of CGI Group Inc., Canada’s largest technology company which employs 39,000 people worldwide and recorded revenue of $4.8 billion in 2012. CGI officials have also told committee staff that the widely criticized design feature requiring visitors to create accounts before shopping for insurance was implemented in late August or early September, barely a month before the Oct. 1 start of open enrollment. The requirement is said to have led to a traffic bottleneck that worsened underlying flaws in a system intended to serve millions of Americans under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The technology problems have frustrated attempts by many to sign on and allowed only a trickle of enrollments.
Article Continued Below
The probe, the second House Republican investigation into Obamacare, is the latest example of efforts by the party to advance their opposition to the law after failing to derail it during a 16-day government shutdown in October. For Republicans, the healthcare law is an unwarranted expansion of the federal government. Obama said on Monday he was frustrated by the website’s problems and that the administration had called in leading technology experts to help to fix it. A prolonged delay in getting Healthcare.gov to work could jeopardize the White House’s effort to sign up as many as 7 million people in 2014, the first full year it takes effect. The White House and the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees CMS, had no immediate comment on the Oct. 21 letter addressed to U.S. Chief Information Officer Steve VanRoekel and U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park. “We are concerned that the administration required contractors to change course late in the implementation process to conceal Obamacare’s effect on increasing health insurance premiums,” said the letter authored by panel chairman Darrell Issa and four Republican subcommittee chairmen. Under Issa’s leadership, the oversight committee has pursued the Obama administration on one matter or another since Republicans took control of the U.S. House in the 2010 elections. As chairman, or earlier as its senior Republican when Democrats controlled Congress, Issa established a record of leveling accusations against the White House and demanding reams of documents that then become administrative minefields.
They have included inquiries into aspects of the financial crisis, the September 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, and allegations this year that the Internal Revenue Service targeted applicants for tax exempt status because of their political beliefs. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has started its own investigation and is scheduled to question U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and several contractors at separate hearings within the next eight days. |
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