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Conservatives are accustomed to being accused by the Left of proposing policies that will “kill” thousands or millions of innocent Americans. As National Review mockingly compiled:
The magic words underling these assertions are: “according to studies,” and with the Left owning academia, there are plenty of studies premised on ridiculous assumptions, liberally manipulated data, questionable logic, and unhedged conclusions to accuse small government types of being bloodthirsty, because more government is always the answer to human problems.
Perhaps it is time to turn their own weapon against them. My friend Mike Nadler writes:
Democrats have had a long and still active habit of accusing Republicans of promoting policies that will kill people, including running ads stating the same. Well, a study just reported in JAMA Cardiology suggests that ObamaCare may have done just that. I haven’t checked whether MSNBC, CNN, or the network news channels have reported on this.
The Wall Street Journal is the only place Mike had seen reference this:
Liberals have touted data showing that readmissions have fallen since the penalties took effect in 2013, but the JAMA researchers examined whether quality of care has improved as a result. Their observational study examined 115,245 fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized with heart failure across the U.S. in the four years prior to and first two years following implementation of the program. Researchers found that the 30-day readmission rate (adjusted for patient risk) declined to 18.4% from 20% after the penalties were introduced. Yet the 30-day mortality rate increased to 8.6% from 7.2%—about 5,400 additional deaths per year. Over a one-year period the readmission rate fell by 0.9 percentage points while the mortality rate rose by five. In other words, while fewer patients were being readmitted, many more were dying.
The logical chain here is quite strong: imposing penalties for re-admission of patients incentivizes them to deny re-admissions. So, people who do not receive follow-on care then die in larger numbers.
ObamaCare is killing thousands of Americans!
Oh, the humanity!
Let’s see how the progs like a taste of their own medicine.
Alinsky tells us that forcing the enemy to live up to its own rules is a great tactic. And since the Left owns the culture, the Deep State, the media, and the educational system, Alinsky works for us now. |
WASHINGTON — The final day of the Senate’s 2013 session ended on an anticlimactic note on Friday as senators pressed the pause button on the bickering that had kept the chamber nearly paralyzed this year.
The day opened with a bit of a scare when Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, was hospitalized in the early morning after falling ill.
Mr. Reid, who just turned 74, remained in the hospital for most of the day and was at home by the evening.
Mr. Reid’s spokesman, Adam Jentleson, said the senator went to the hospital as a precaution.
“The doctors diagnosed him as exhausted, not anything more serious, and have cleared him to go back to work,” he said. “He spent today resting, talking to family, friends and colleagues, reading the news and discussing Senate business.” |
IT SHOULDN’T be a surprise that Hillary Clinton has tough words for Republicans. Not all of them will be as deserved as the brickbats she lobbed at them on Thursday.
“I call on Republicans at all levels of government with all manner of ambition to stop fear-mongering about a phantom epidemic of election fraud and start explaining why they’re so scared of letting citizens have their say,” she said in calling for a system of universal and automatic voter registration instead of pernicious new limits on the franchise.
Politicians have waged war over voting rights over the past several years, with Democrats trying to maximize access to the ballot box and Republicans attempting to limit it. Think about that: A major political party has devoted time and effort to discouraging eligible voters from exercising their most fundamental democratic right.
GOP leaders justify their anti-voting agenda as an answer to voter fraud, but voter fraud is an imaginary problem. In fact, Republicans want fewer people to vote, especially fewer poor and minority people, because low turnout tends to favor the GOP, and poor and minority people tend to vote for Democrats. To be sure, Democrats have political incentives to increase turnout. But that doesn’t discredit the overriding logic that democracy is healthier when more people participate.
The debate about whether the government should make it harder to vote should give way to a discussion about how to maximize turnout. Some have suggested mandatory voting, which is both unrealistic and raises tough questions concerning liberty and conscience. Ms. Clinton’s universal registration idea is less radical and raises no such questions.
Voter registration has operated as a barrier to voting since states began instituting it in the 19th century. Though the Voting Rights Act and other measures ended the worst registration abuses, most of the country still uses a two-step voting process that requires opt-in registration, followed by actual voting. Perhaps the least surprising research social scientists have ever conducted has found that higher registration burdens lead to less voting. And there’s no good reason for them.
Some states have already instituted same-day registration, merging registration and voting into the same session. American University’s Jan Leighley and New York University’s Jonathan Nagler found that this has produced a 6-percentage-point increase in turnout. Automatic registration should do better than that. Automatically registered voters would get election information in the mail, encouraging them to vote, whereas same-day registration just helps those who already know when Election Day is and where their polling places are. Even Republicans should be attracted to the idea of more comprehensive, fraud-resistant voter rolls automatically filled and updated with information collected by DMVs, post offices, the Census Bureau or other government agencies.
Automatic registration is not a panacea. It wouldn’t result in anything like 100 percent turnout, especially for the country’s frequent non-presidential elections. If the system is left up to states, implementation would vary widely. A federally run system would be better, though policymakers would have to ensure that federal officials can gather the needed information, and it’s hard to imagine Congress approving this approach.
But these caveats don’t detract from the idea’s merits. Oregon is already moving forward with universal registration. Other states should follow. If they don’t, Congress should push the policy forward. |
The Guantanamo Bay military tribunals on Wednesday won their first conviction without a plea deal since 2008. Only it wasn’t a terrorist who was convicted – it was a one-star Marine general sticking up for the rights of the accused to have a fair trial.
In defending the principle that attorneys ought to be able to defend their clients free from government surveillance, Brigadier General John Baker was ruled in contempt of court and sentenced to 21 days in confinement. He also must pay a $1000 fine.
Baker is a senior officer within in the highly controversial military commissions process: the Chief of Defense Counsel. Maj. Ben Sakrisson, the Pentagon spokesman for detentions, confirmed that Baker is being confined in his quarters – at Guantanamo Bay.
“The military commissions are willing to put people in jail for defending the rule of law,” Jay Connell, who represents another Guantanamo detainee facing a military commission, told The Daily Beast. “If they’re willing to put a Marine general in jail for standing up for a client’s rights, they’re willing to do just anything.”
Baker’s sentence Wednesday was first reported by Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald, the only reporter actually at Guantanamo and who saw the hearing. He outranks the judge who sentenced him, Air Force Colonel Vance Spath.
The shocking development at Guantanamo, described as a “national disgrace and an embarrassment” by the executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, came on the same day President Donald Trump publicly mulled detaining accused New York terror suspect Sayfullo Saipov at Guantanamo. (As a lawful permanent resident, Saipov is likely ineligible for a war-crimes trial under the 2009 Military Commission Act, which specified the court is for non-Americans, even if the Pentagon decided his alleged acts rose to the level of a war crime.)
The path that led to Baker’s contempt confinement started with a group resignation and a clash with Spath.
Earlier this month, three civilian attorneys for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the accused bomber of the USS Cole in 2000, abruptly quit the death-penalty case. The attorneys said that they had significant reason to believe the government was listening in to their communications. Spath, the judge in the Nashiri case, barred them from discussing the issue with Nashiri, since it was classified. Nashiri had lost his lawyers without ever knowing exactly why.
It is not the first time that concerns over government spying have rocked the Guantanamo military tribunals. In 2014, pre-trial hearings for the accused 9/11 co-conspirators snarled after defense attorneys revealed indications that the FBI had turned their technical adviser into a secret informant, prompting the judge in that case to prohibit monitoring attorney-client communications in November 2016. And in 2013, in the same case, the CIA cut the audio feed at the war court before an attorney discussed an aspect of the defendants’ confinement at undisclosed CIA “black site” prisons.”
Baker supported the Nashiri attorneys’ decision to quit – and believed he, as chief defense counsel, had all sufficient authority to permit them to walk. Baker released them on October 11. But, facing the prospect of the Nashiri death-penalty commission snarling to a halt, Spath disagreed, and ordered them to return to Guantanamo.
Instead, Baker showed up at the war court this week, without now ex-Nashiri attorney Rick Kammen and Kammen’s team. Spath instructed Baker to change his mind and instruct Kammen and the two other attorneys that they still represent Nashiri. Baker did not, believing that Spath lacked the authority to do so. On Wednesday, Spath held Baker in contempt and ordered him to 21 days’ confinement in his Guantanamo quarters.
Connell, who represents 9/11 co-defendant Ammar al-Baluchi, said all this could have been avoided had the government simply not spied on the Nashiri team, “or allowed the defense counsel to discuss this issue with their client.” He added that Baker’s sentencing did not settle the issue of who in the military commissions process – a judge in a specific case, or the Chief of Defense Counsel – has final say over an attorney quitting.
“It will come up again the next time someone tries to resign or otherwise leave the case,” Connell said. He did not know if other Guantanamo defense lawyers would resign in protest.
Baker had a history of supporting unmonitored attorney communications, which are a bedrock principle of civilian trials. In June, shortly after learning of the suspected surveillance on the Nashiri lawyers, he advised defense attorneys “not to conduct any attorney-client meetings at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GTMO), until they know with certainty that improper monitoring of such meetings is not occurring,” according to a letter obtained by the Miami Herald.
“At present,” Baker continued, “I am not confident that the prohibition on improper monitoring of attorney-client meetings at GTMO as ordered by the commission is being followed.”
It’s possible that Baker won’t serve out his sentence. Harvey Rishikov, the convening authority of the military commissions, “will determine whether to affirm, defer, suspend or disapprove the sentence in the next few days,” the Pentagon’s Sakrisson said. |
CLOSE Eric Holcomb, Indiana's Lt. Governor, announces that he has been chosen by the state Republican party to lead the Fall ticket for Indiana's top position. Indianapolis, Tuesday, July 26, 2016. Robert Scheer/IndyStar
It took two rounds of secret-ballot voting before Holcomb secured the nomination over Susan Brooks
Buy Photo Eric Holcomb, the Republican candidate to fill Mike Pence's spot as Indiana governor, is announced in a conference room downtown, Indianapolis, Tuesday, July 26, 2016. (Photo: Robert Scheer/IndyStar)Buy Photo
The Indiana Republican central committee has nominated Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb for governor, snubbing two members of Congress in favor of Gov. Mike Pence’s former running mate.
The decision caps off a wild month in Indiana politics that saw Pence abruptly drop his re-election bid to run for vice president, upending the state’s governor’s race and leaving Indiana Republicans without a clear standard-bearer less than four months before the election.
With Tuesday’s vote, the sitting lieutenant governor and former party chairman becomes the new face of the Indiana Republican Party, and will face Democrat John Gregg in November.
"We've got work to do and a short time to get there," Holcomb said at a news conference announcing his nomination. "I'm ready to answer this next call and lead us to victory."
Gregg, though, questioned Holcomb's commitment to being governor during a year in which he ran for U.S. Senate, became lieutenant governor and is now seeking the state's top job.
"I've spent the last six years running for governor because I'm passionate about this job," Gregg said after Holcomb's selection. "I didn't start running for anything else. This isn't a consolation prize."
The 22-member state committee, comprised of party insiders and elected officials, had four gubernatorial contenders to choose from: Holcomb, U.S. Reps. Susan Brooks and Todd Rokita and state Sen. Jim Tomes.
Pushing a party unity message, Indiana Republican Party Chairman Jeff Cardwell declined to release the voting results from the closed-door meeting.
"As you know, this has been a very tough campaign," Cardwell said. "We have a very deep bench. We are blessed with a lot of great talent."
But sources with direct knowledge of the outcome told IndyStar it took two rounds of secret-ballot voting before any of the candidates reached the required majority. On the first ballot, Holcomb received 11 votes, Brooks 9 and Rokita 2. On the second ballot, Holcomb received 14 votes and Brooks received 8, sources said.
A longtime Republican political operative, Holcomb is a former top aide to U.S. Sen. Dan Coats and former Gov. Mitch Daniels. He was in the midst of an uphill primary battle to replace the retiring Coats when Pence tapped him to become lieutenant governor.
As Pence's sitting lieutenant, Holcomb had entered the race as the heir apparent though he has never won an election. But over a frenzied week-and-a-half lobbying effort, some committee members said Brooks had closed the gap by making the case that she was the more electable candidate.
Pence’s endorsement on Friday, followed by an email in which Holcomb suggested that he alone could reliably command Pence’s financial support, may have helped put Holcomb back in the driver’s seat.
That financial support was called into jeopardy almost immediately after Tuesday’s vote. The bulk of Pence’s roughly $7.4 million in campaign cash may not be available to Holcomb in his run for governor because of restrictions on how those seeking federal office can use their state accounts, according to campaign finance experts.
Pence cheered the committee's decision, saying in a statement that it gives Indiana voters a clear choice in November between his candidate and Gregg, a former Indiana House speaker and lobbyist.
"Hoosiers will choose between a veteran who has always answered the call to serve or a career politician turned lobbyist," Pence said.
Because Holcomb has aligned himself with Pence, his selection will likely be seen as a victory for social conservatives, who for years have been jockeying with moderates over the party’s direction, culminating most prominently in the bitter debate over religious freedom and gay rights.
Gregg in an interview wasted no time linking the lieutenant governor to Pence, saying Holcomb has "already endorsed the discriminatory policies of the last administration."
Gregg discussed Holcomb's selection Tuesday after touring Poynter Sheet Metal, a factory in Greenwood. Gregg, who supports a statewide anti-discrimination law, said LGBT rights represents "just one of the many" major disagreements between the candidates.
"Our focus is going to be on jobs that are high-paying," Gregg said. "That's what it's about. It's focusing on those issues, not on divisive social issues."
Holcomb declined Tuesday to distance himself from Pence’s opposition to a proposed statewide ban on discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Hoosiers.
“When you speculate about future legislation, we’ll play it as it comes to my desk should I be honored with being the next governor of this state,” he said. “But we have a balance right now of protecting our religious liberties while making sure we’re not discriminating.”
Despite his conservative roots, Holcomb has proven adept at winning friends on both sides of the culture war. As such, his selection as Pence’s lieutenant governor earlier this year — and as the party’s nominee for governor on Tuesday — widely was seen as an attempt to reconcile the two wings of the party.
“There is a little bit of a divide on those social issues,” said Rick Martin, a member of the committee who declined to share information about how the committee voted. “Eric, having worked for both Daniels and Pence, can serve as a bridge to bring back people who may have been put off by the whole RFRA thing.”
Holcomb now will have 105 days to persuade Indiana voters which Republican Party he represents — the party of Daniels, Pence or something in between.
For Democrats, Holcomb may represent the best chance to paint the November election as a referendum on Pence, an embattled governor whose approval rating had dropped to below 50 percent over the past year.
"While there may be a new name on the ballot, the issues remain the same," Gregg said following Holcomb's selection.
The Indiana Democratic Party, meanwhile, issued a news release titled, “With Eric Holcomb, Hoosiers are Getting Just Another Out-of-Touch Ideologue.
The next task for Holcomb and the state committee will be to decide who will be his running mate. A caucus meeting is scheduled for Aug. 1 to fill the ballot vacancy for lieutenant governor.
CLOSE Indiana Republicans have chosen Lt. Gov. Eric Holcomb as their candidate to replace Mike Pence in the race for governor. In doing so, they passed over two GOP members of Congress. (Dwight Adams/IndyStar) Wochit
IndyStar reporter Chelsea Schneider contributed to this story.
Call IndyStar reporter Brian Eason at (317) 444-6129. Follow him on Twitter: @brianeason.
Read or Share this story: http://indy.st/2ahORIF |
The friendship between Michigan State coach Tom Izzo and Indiana coach Tom Crean was on display in a very private way on Sunday.
Crean’s mother is having health issues and not able to travel from Michigan to Indiana for basketball games, Crean said tonight during his weekly radio show.
Crean’s mom was able to make it to Sunday’s game between IU and Michigan State in East Lansing, Mich.
Izzo arranged for his wife to host Crean’s mom in her suite area and gave Crean’s mom his personal parking pass. “It was the closest one to the arena,” Crean said.
Crean told that story as the latest example of how Izzo helps out those around him.
Crean was an assistant to Izzo at Michigan State early in his career.
The two got to know each other when Crean was coaching at Alma College while a student at Central Michigan. A trip to recruiting events in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Rensselaer, Ind., was when the friendship really began to take shape.
“He took me with him, and that was one of the greatest experiences I had about learning about recruiting, about players. But the greater experience was, this is what someone is capable of as far as caring about you,” Crean said.
“He had no other reason other than he wanted to help you. Our friendship has been incredibly strong, and he’s as close of a friend as I have.”
Crean also mentioned Izzo being up for the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame this year.
“If he’s not unanimous, they need to take someone’s credentials,” Crean said. |
Recently, we have witnessed major strides in both the animal-rights and gay-rights movements. In honor of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) Month, we spoke with activists about what these two groups can learn from each other, and how we can support the work of both. Three proud gay vegans—Ari Solomon, president of A Scent of Scandal; Dan Hanley, half of the blogging duo behind The Gay Vegans; and Jasmin Singer, co-founder of Our Hen House—weighed in on key points in both movements.
VegNews: How do you see the connection between the animal-rights movement and gay rights?
Ari Solomon: In the simplest terms, I believe that most LGBT men and women understand firsthand what’s it like to be oppressed and bullied. This is what happens to animals every day, whether it is on factory farms, or in laboratories, circuses, and marine parks. I try to make the case that because we know how it feels, we should be more inclined to go vegan and get involved with trying to end the war on animals.
Dan Hanley: Both fall into our goal of “making the world a better place for all living beings.” I believe that injustice is injustice, regardless of the community it affects or how voiceless the affected community is.
Jasmin Singer: I believe that the fundamental connection between gay rights and animal rights, as well as countless other rights movements, is the mindset of the oppressor, which is always based in the thought that, “I am better, and more important, than they are.”
VN: There is so much happening in both movements—the legalization of gay marriage is on the forefront of this election, and several major companies are phasing out gestation crates, among other pivotal issues. What are some other great strides forward that we’re seeing?
AS: With regards to gay rights, it’s wonderful that marriage is on everyone’s mind, but the truth is that you can still be fired from your job just for being gay in 29 states. I do think, however, that we are seeing amazing leaps in progress in such relatively short spans of time. I really think that in the next 10 years, LGBT people will achieve full equality in the US. With regards to animal rights, it’s been incredible to witness the growing public concern over animals on factory farms. That being said, I think the growing awareness around veganism is what excites me the most.
JS: There is much more awareness of both issues, as is evidenced by the increase in positive media coverage. And there is no doubt that the increasing acceptance of gay marriage represents a deep societal shift, though issues of discrimination and violence still remain. Though not on the same level, attention to farmed-animal issues is clearly on the rise, and the potential eradication of the gestation crate is a notable step forward, though we still have a very, very long way to go.
VN: How can activists get involved in LGBT Pride month?
AS: There are so many organizations on national and local levels that are always looking for volunteers and donations. Some of my favorites are The Trevor Project and the Matthew Shepard Foundation. But I think the most important thing to do as an LGBT activist is to talk about these issues with your friends and family.
DH: The best thing an activist can do is find out who their state representative is, and find out their opinions on marriage equality, animal rights, and any other topic important to them. All one has to do is plug in their zip code on votesmart.org to find out who represents them at their state house.
VN: In our July+August 2011 issue, Portia de Rossi told us that, “I think it’s more difficult to be vegan than gay. I think people have a harder time accepting it; people feel more uncomfortable with a vegan at their dinner table than they do a lesbian.” What do you think?
AS: In my opinion, homophobia is much different psychologically than an aversion to veganism. Men and women are beaten and killed just for being gay. My veganism might make certain people uncomfortable, but I’ve never feared for my life for being vegan. I have for being gay.
DH: With many of us living in privilege, myself included, I need to remember that LGBT people who live in poverty, live in very conservative areas, or who are yet to come out face many things an “out” vegan does not face—mainly the potential of harassment, name-calling, losing their job, and even brutality and death.
JS: Living in downtown Manhattan, it’s almost assumed you’re gay! Others aren’t as lucky to live in a place where they are accepted. But I think Portia makes a good point in differentiating the reasons that people might give you a hard time. Not everyone feels threatened by homosexuality, but almost everyone who isn’t vegan recognizes, on some level, that they should be vegan.
VN: In your own personal journey to come out and go vegan, what challenges did you face?
AS: I think it’s just about having the courage to live authentically and not be afraid to stand out. Luckily, I haven’t had too many people in my life who have an issue with either. My father had a mini-meltdown when I told him I went vegan (it was so much worse than telling him I was gay) but over the years he’s learned more about the issues, and now he begs my husband and I to cook for him when we’re back home!
DH: I was in the military when I came out, and it was extremely difficult living two lives and constantly having to lie. This was in 1990, and of course, times have changed. At the time I was also incredibly grateful for the loving support I had both off and on base. My activism began within the AIDS movement in the late ‘80s and I am always grateful for the many people who engaged me and taught me how to fight for what is right. Becoming vegan was a little difficult as I was living in the South and not in a major metropolitan area.
JS: When I came out 14 years ago, I faced some initial skepticism, worry, and misguided hurt from some family members. It seems almost ludicrous since those people are now extremely accepting of my partner and me. Of course, a lot of kids and young adults who come out face much worse ramifications from their friends and family. I can’t help but note that my dietary shift from meat-eating to vegetarianism, then to veganism, immediately preceded me shifting my sexual identity (straight to bisexual, bisexual to gay). Perhaps as I began to live a life in harmony with my ethics, I opened up space within myself to be true to my identity as a lesbian.
For more with our experts, check out our VegNews Twitter chat transcript.
Heading to a gay pride parade? Check out our local vegan guides for select cities:
Chicago
Brooklyn, NY
San Francisco |
Momentum vows to check merchandise sourcing after labour practices claim BelfastTelegraph.co.uk T-shirts sold to raise funds for Jeremy Corbyn's leadership campaign are being made by Bangladeshi workers paid just 30p an hour, it has been reported. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/momentum-vows-to-check-merchandise-sourcing-after-labour-practices-claim-34906829.html https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/article34906828.ece/8ca51/AUTOCROP/h342/PANews%20BT_P-f220f586-57e2-4e3a-a94d-a0d314178a0c_I1.jpg
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T-shirts sold to raise funds for Jeremy Corbyn's leadership campaign are being made by Bangladeshi workers paid just 30p an hour, it has been reported.
The Mail on Sunday said that it had found machinists living in poverty-stricken conditions were required to work 10 hours-a-day to make the garments which were sold for £10 each by the Momentum campaign group.
Momentum said it had cancelled the contract for the T-shirts suggesting that it may have been misled by one of its suppliers in relation to labour practices at the factory.
However The Mail on Sunday said the factory concerned was owned by the same firm which was revealed by the newspaper to have paid factory workers in Nicaragua and Haiti as little as 49p an hour to make the official Team Corbyn T-shirts for his first Labour leadership bid.
Momentum said it wanted to ensure a zero-tolerance policy on unethical practices anywhere in the supply chain and would be seeking a new supplier with full ethical standards.
The move has been taken after allegations surfaced that Momentum and one of its suppliers may have been misled by a third party supplier in relation to its labour practices.
The group said it would draw up a code of practice capable of maintaining confidence, in spite of the complexity of modern supply chains, that all campaign materials have been produced by businesses that respect labour rights and human rights.
A spokesman said: "Momentum is dedicated to championing people's rights at work both at home and overseas.
"We want every worker at home and abroad to be in a trade union, and to enjoy the full protections that the ILO (International Labour Organisation) recommends as minimum standards. We refuse to work with any supplier who does not uphold these standards."
The Mail on Sunday reported that the basic salary at the factory in Baipayl, near the capital Dhaka, was around £63 a month - well below the average wage in Bangladesh of £93.
Employees were said to live in shanty towns made of corrugated iron sheets by a polluted river with several family members sleeping together in cramped rooms. |
CLOSE Wilmington home owner, Joel Saufley gets help from members of the PBS show "Ask This Old House", plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey and host Kevin O'Connor. SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL
Buy Photo Plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey (left), who has been with the home improvement show since its 1979 debut, aided a Wilmington home owner by replacing a cracked pedestal sink with a new model. (Photo: SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL)Buy Photo
Joel Saufley first e-mailed PBS' "Ask This Old House" seven years ago, desperate to find a solution to the creaky stairs in his 1918 brick rowhome in Union Park Gardens.
Saufley moved into the English Garden-style home with his wife just before the housing market crash. It was their first home and the honey-do list quickly multiplied.
A few months ago, Saufley tried his luck again with his favorite home-improvement television show. This time, producers responded within two weeks. Vacationing on the Outer Banks, North Carolina, the couple initially thought it was a prank.
"We've been really big fans of the show since we were kids," said Saufley's wife, Jane Chesson.
Chesson grew up in a 1920s Palmyra, New Jersey, home where her mom was always knocking down walls. Since moving into Union Park Gardens, the couple has completed several weekend projects, including landscaping, painting and installing a kitchen backsplash.
But they wanted to leave the electrical and plumbing to the experts. Chesson, 33, works as an adjunct arts and humanities instructor at Wilmington University and Saufley, 35, is a financial analyst.
On Wednesday, show host Kevin O'Connor, master plumber Richard Trethewey and a film crew rolled into Delaware for their first-ever taping in the First State. Neighbors snapped photos of their branded trailer and caught a candid O'Connor munching on lunch.
Now airing its 13th season "Ask This Old House" is the spin-off of the long-running and award-winning "This Old House." The show tackles smaller home repair projects than the original, which meant that Saufley couldn't get his annoying stairs fixed.
But Trethewey did spend the morning installing a new pedestal sink in the couple's miniscule bathroom to replace a cracked one. Wearing a gray T-shirt and jeans, the plumbing guru drilled holes into the wall to mount the new sink before moving into the hallway to deal with all the piping hidden in the pedestal's leg Then he attached it to the home's drain plumbing.
The only snag came when Saufley and Trethewey miscalculated the size of a pipe needed. Then it was off to Home Depot. Even the big shots hit up the hardware store every now and then.
Buy Photo Wilmington home owner, Joel Saufley gets help from members of the PBS show "This Old House", plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey and host Kevin O'Connor. (Photo: SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL)
"You have to be a bit of a contortionist to get into those spaces," Trethewey said. Later, he complimented Wilmington for its "rowhouse feel" and revitalized downtown core.
Delaware was among a half-dozen states that the show somehow missed all these years, according to senior producer Heath Racela. The others are South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Kentucky, Alaska and Hawaii.
The couple's Gilles Street home was the team's only stop in the First State. They spent the week planting a butterfly garden in Washington, D.C., crafting a rain barrel in Baltimore and replacing an outdoor sconce in Philadelphia. The Delaware episode is expected to air early next year; no date has been set.
O'Connor, a cherub-faced 46-year-old, said his co-workers are all "reluctant TV personalities."
Word on the set is that "all the guys with the big egos are gone," he continued, without being more specific. Former host Bob Vila left the show in 1989 following a dispute over doing commercials.
The biggest issue with DIY homeowners, O'Connor said, is that "every single one of them underestimates how long and how much it's going to cost."
The Irishman knows from experience. He and his wife bought an 1894 Queen Anne Victorian home outside of Boston that took nine years to renovate. Now, they own a 1950s home, which is "relatively young" by "This Old House" standards.
Buy Photo Plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey, who has been with the home improvement show since its 1979 debut, aided a Wilmington home owner by replacing a cracked pedestal sink with a new model. (Photo: SUCHAT PEDERSON/THE NEWS JOURNAL)
The show has never had a project go so haywire that it never made it on air, according to O'Connor. But he remembers carpenter Norm Abram's reaction to an abandoned, foreclosed home in Boston from season 29.
"It should've been torn down," Abram whispered to O'Connor.
After the sink was installed and Saufley and Trethewey practiced their reactions with different inflections for the camera, it was time for the babyproofing segment.
The couple's 9-month-old, Helen, is starting to crawl, so show producers sought advice from a representative with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
In the end, the three-bedroom, 1,000-square-foot home was equipped with safety gates at the top and bottom of the stairs (screw-in preferred at the top), plates on all the electrical outlets and support brackets to anchor furniture and a flat-screen TV.
Chesson was thrilled by the opportunity to meet public television "rock stars." O'Connor even retrieved the couple's mail.
In the stack was a copy of "This Old House" magazine.
"I didn't plan that," Chesson said.
Contact Margie Fishman at 302-324-2882, on Twitter @MargieTrende or mfishman@delawareonline.com.
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Mick Gatto. The premier's decision comes after Opposition Leader Matthew Guy was criticised for remaining at a lobster dinner with alleged mafia boss Tony Madafferi. Police have banned Mr Madafferi from Crown Casino and he has been accused in court of being a member of Melbourne's mafia. However, he has never been charged with any crimes and denies wrongdoing. Victorian Attorney-General Martin Pakula told 3AW the fundraiser was a public event and tickets cost nearly $300.
Illustration: Ron Tandberg. "The premier was there with hundreds of other people," he said. Mr Pakula said Mr Andrews had not wanted to risk talking to Mr Gatto. "He probably didn't want to be in the same room as him and risk having him come up to him and have a conversation with him." A spokesman for Mr Shorten said he arrived just before he gave a speech and left straight afterwards.
"Bill wanted to pay tribute to the remarkable work of Father Bob Maguire," he said. "This night was about Father Bob and no one else." Mr Gatto said he was invited to the birthday event because of the fundraising he'd done on behalf of the Father Bob Maguire Foundation in the past. "Father Bob supports me and I support him," Mr Gatto said. "All this is causing the focus to shift from why we were actually there – raising money for homeless and underprivileged people – to what politicians were walking in and out of the room. It's not like I met or spoke to them." |
Title: Mind Over Ship
Author: David Marusek
January 2008
A Tor Book, Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY, 10010
ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-1749-0
ISBN-10: 0-7653-1749-4
Our Bright, bright horrible future
Eleanor Starke was likely murdered. Returning to earth from a meeting about the Garden Earth Project (a colonization effort that will see the have-nots sent sleeping into the void with their coma-longings for habitable planets), a probable sabotage caused her yacht to fracture in the atmosphere and deposit Ms. Starke, in her two-hundredth year, as retrievable residue at the foothills of the Andes. Her daughter Ellen was more fortunate. Ellen was benignly decapitated by her suit to receive the inheritance of a vat-grown body and her mother’s considerable fortune. Despite the schemes and ill-intentions of innumerable enemies, things are bad, but might get slightly less bad.
If you know nothing of Counting Heads, Murasek’s first novel and the predecessor to Mind Over Ship, then you should at least know of the likely murder of Eleanor Starke, future Methuselah, matron and savvy oligarch in a society where politics and business have merged under the aegis of people who are echo-chambers of synthetic intelligence and nepotism. Everyone else, the rest of us, just try to get by in a world where it’s pretty apparent that, well, things could get on just find without us, without you.
Mind Over Ship doesn’t tediously repeat the previous book (“…the Blecknick had ruled the spiral galaxy for cruel millennia when Captain Blair Campaina realized she needed their anti-fungal medication…”). The novel starts naturally and insinuates the background events and setting. If sci-fi publishers are going to keep demanding sequels from their writers, then talented authors are going to have to keep resolving issues of what info to provide and how to get it across in ways that do not completely trivialize the novel at hand.
One of Murasek’s successes is that he has created a world that is not only broadly and convincingly conceived, but that he does it with a light touch that unusual among sf writers.
Strong works of science fiction often embrace and embody a political sensibility as much as a technological one. They show the connections of the way we run our lives and the stuff we use to run it. Murasek surround his characters with a plethora of
likely and ingenious inventions without seeming awkward or heavy-handed. The technology is not only plausible, but it fits necessarily with the type of world the characters inhabit. And the world he’s created hangs together. There are a lot of ideas here-about how we’ll live; how we’ll still struggle for identity and relevance and how small most of us will be in a very determined and designed world-but there is a strong sense that Murasek has created a unified whole. The details are constant and clever, but they add up. And the man has a canny discretion, even with harrowing, unblinking details:
Although the Persuasion Channel provided its amateur interviewers triple anonymity, Oliver walked through the holospace searching for any inadvertent clues that might give his charter away to the authorities. The only agent in the tent was a generic household arbeitor. It was busy painting the soles of the boy’s bare feet with an organic solvent that cuased the skin to liquefy and slough off. The exposed nerve endings on the soles of his feet looked like the stubble of a white beard.
The boy was already crying and pleading, which made Oliver shake his head in wonder. The solvent didn’t actually hurt, and if the boy made this much fuss so soon, how would he hold up when the arbeitor broke out the hair dryer?
Murasek is wise enough to know that we do not need to see the torture, or the boy, again. But the book can also be quite absurdly funny. If you read only one work where a trollish clone mocks a character by buggering himself, make it this one. Murasek’s world is, for all its iniquity, a vital place. It’s busy. Things and events move quickly and he picks his details well.
The story involves many characters, Mary the clone (and evangeline, they’re good companions), Fred the clone (cop-types, loyal company men), Meewee the idealist, the bee with a plan and others who are caught in the turbulence caused by the death of Eleanor Starke and the regrowth of her daughter Ellen. Murasek manages to keep the multiple narrative branches moving and melding without losing coherence or movement. His future is one with very few, and somewhat murderous, winners and a mass of people caught in their wake. It’s not an usual story, but it’s unusually well-told. Anyone who has read his justly famous short story The Wedding Album knows that the man has a very humane imagination. He is able to convince us that the characters matter even as we see how little they matter to their world.
When approaching the end, you can tell that the entire story isn’t going to be resolved. The book is a bridge to another work, but it feels complete and ends satisfactorily (it doesn’t drop abruptly as if written by Neil Stephenson in a meth lab). Some books work as part of a series because there’s still more story to tell. This is one.
The man is good; the book is good. He’s the type of writer that you worry will get more praise than readers. Mind Over Ship is going to be seen as one of the best sf books of the year. Do yourself a favor, hell, do the genre a favor-buy it, read it, pass it on.
On a side note, sf readers have been clamoring for, well, decades for the most deserving authors in the genre to get the wider respect, and audience, they deserve. When writers like Atwood or McCarthy write sf and the books are both acclaimed and big money-makers, a lot of people in the field start waving their hands and gesturing to authors who were already there and doing that stuff. But sf publishers, by making the commonly-heard of demands for sequels and size constraints are effectively doing everything they can to kick the genre back to the kiddy pool. If the industry can’t embrace novels that are complete in themselves (which most classic books are), then it’s trivializing the hand that feeds it. “Look, it’s not that I don’t like Canticle, it’s just that it kills it own momentum by, well, satisfactorily ending. Can’t you butcher this baby a bit? Cliffhangerize it by 30%?)
[tags]scifi, literature, book review[/tags] |
A powerful cross-party group of MPs is to renew pressure on ministers over Brexit by forcing a parliamentary vote on whether they should reveal their plans for the UK’s future outside the EU before negotiations begin. In a further sign that cross-party alliances are forming in favour of a soft Brexit, former party leaders Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg will join forces with the shadow Brexit minister, Keir Starmer, and the former Tory minister Nick Herbert to demand a Commons debate this week.
The motion they will table will call on the government to release a substantive outline of its plan – including its broad intention for the UK’s future relationship with the single market – and ensure that parliament can amend its contents before exit talks start early next year.
The move is aimed at preventing a hard Brexit, under which the UK would retain no ties with the EU’s single market, and ensuring that MPs are not sidelined in the plans for exiting the EU.
A new poll exclusively revealed to the Observer shows a clear majority of the British public supporting continued membership of the single market, despite the narrow 23 June vote to leave the EU. Of those surveyed in a poll commissioned by Open Britain, the successor to Britain Stronger in Europe, 59% of people wanted to stay in the single market, while 41% wanted to leave.
Sturgeon vows Scottish independence vote in event of hard Brexit Read more
At the recent Tory party conference, Conservative ministers suggested that the UK would be taken out of the single market if that was the only way they would be able to win back control of the UK’s borders and control immigration.
While the survey shows remain voters overwhelmingly support staying in the single market, leave voters are divided, with 45% believing the UK should leave the single market, 28% saying it should stay in, and 26% not sure.
Alarmingly for ministers leading the push for hard Brexit, a majority of all voters believe such an approach would leave Britain worse off. Of them, 58% say leaving the single market would have a negative impact on the economy, while 32% believe the country would fare better outside the single market and 12% do not think leaving would make any difference.
Pressing the government to allow a vote in parliament on its intentions, Starmer said: “The government has now finally conceded that there needs to be proper scrutiny of its plans for Brexit. That is a real victory for parliament. Now it needs to take the next step and guarantee the House of Commons will have a chance to vote on the basic terms of Brexit before article 50 is invoked. Anything less would be sidelining parliament on the defining issue facing Britain.”
Clegg, speaking on behalf of the Open Britain campaign, said: “The government should not take decisions that will have massive consequences, like leaving the single market, without seeking parliament’s approval. David Davis [the Brexit secretary] previously advocated a pre-negotiating white paper and has always championed parliamentary sovereignty. The government must now respect that by committing to a debate and a vote in parliament on its negotiating position.”
Former police minister Herbert added that the cross-party group was not seeking to “delay or frustrate the referendum decision”, but wanted to prevent “hard Brexit ideologues” from damaging the country by pulling out of the single market without proper scrutiny.
A majority of Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat voters support continued membership of the single market, with only Ukip supporters backing the alternative, suggesting that Theresa May’s calls for a hard Brexit have yet to resonate with voters. |
Answer: When the chicken has been accepted in an across-the-table negotiation, and the banana regulation has been agreed among a group of partners on the same side of the table.
If you grasped that riddle, you will be ready for this one:
When does submission to a rule constitute an offence against national sovereignty?
Answer: When one has shared in making the rule.
If you have understood both, then you know what British nationalists of right and left mean by sovereignty, and why that quality is seen to be so uniquely offended against by membership of the European Union. Chlorine-washed chicken is among a number of worrying chemical processes used in US agriculture, currently banned in the UK and the rest of the EU, that at least some parts of the British government are willing to accept as part of a trade deal with the US. Changing one’s food standards, not because one wants to do so, but in order to secure a trade deal with a far more powerful country, might be seen as a compromise of sovereignty. Not in the view of British ministers.
The very same ministers, however, see the agreements reached among EU member states as attacks on sovereignty. The banana regulation came to symbolise these attacks when Boris Johnson, now the UK’s foreign secretary but then a journalist based in Brussels, used it as one of many examples of EU idiocy. He repeated the banana story and several others during the referendum campaign. What the EU did was to issue standard definitions for different grades of banana, so that a customer anywhere in Europe would know what a Grade I or Grade II banana meant in terms of malformations, size, etc. It was just a matter of standardising information about quality. No bananas were banned, as Johnson and others who use his story allege; no customers are obliged to take notice of it; and the rule was not ‘imposed’ on the UK. Our country was one – and a very powerful one – among those who decided on the regulation. The banana regulation is, however, seen as an insult to sovereignty, while accepting chlorine-washed chicken – possibly without having to inform consumers that this process has been used – is not.
Why the difference in attitude to the two forms of acceptance of a food quality rule? This is not a case of a preference among British nationalists for dealing with countries in what they have started to call the ‘Anglosphere’ against foreigners who insist on speaking languages the British cannot understand – important though that is for comprehending much of what Brexit is about. The UK is clearly willing to make post-Brexit trade agreements with the EU; if such a deal were to involve continuing to use EU banana nomenclature, there would be no objection – provided the government could forget that the UK had shared in making the original regulation. The difference in the chicken and banana cases is the procedure through which the agreements are reached, and that is what takes us to the heart of British understandings of sovereignty.
In a trade deal between countries both sides want something from the other, and are willing to compromise to get it, sometimes having to offer something about which they are not too happy; the overall deal makes that worthwhile. But they remain separate countries, they sit on opposite sides of the table, and do not share much common information. When an organisation like the EU makes a regulation, there will also be different interests among countries and compromises that are not always happy. The difference is that what is being reached is not a deal between separate parties, but a jointly produced and agreed regulation, on the basis of shared technical and economic data, with everyone concerned having rights to oppose and object, but in the end accepting a group decision.
It is that quality of sharing and joint production that sticks in British throats. Reaching a deal across a table, fine; jointly making a rule with others is the offence against sovereignty – even if the outcome is the same as something achieved in a deal.
This is not just how the British political class sees relations with other countries; it is how we conduct our internal politics. Coalition governments that involve parties sharing offices with others are anathema. The ‘first past the post’ voting system is preferred because it delivers single-party majorities – though in reality it has not done so since 2005. It is considered disastrous if – as happens routinely in the USA and several other countries – the executive does not have complete control over parliament. And prime ministers are considered weak if they do not dominate their cabinets. The British accept democracy only if it resembles autocratic monarchy so far as it possibly can; and relations with other countries only if we keep ourselves to ourselves.
These deeply rooted characteristics used to be offset by something that people in other European countries used to admire: the so-called British genius for compromise. Yes, we wanted strong, unified government; but we wanted it to use its power with restraint and a listening ear. Margaret Thatcher changed all that in one of her less noticed transformations of British culture. Compromise is now something that only spineless foreigners have, rather than a quality they admire in us. It is the kind of quality that makes the EU so cumbersome, insisting on consulting widely and reaching agreements – a criticism that nevertheless runs in tandem with the belief that the EU is also a dictatorship that imposes stupid rules on poor little Britain, which never seems to be included in the consultations.
And thus the British government wanders, proud and aloof, into its unknown, unplanned future: despising compromises although it does not have the power to throw its weight around without them – either within the country or in relations with the rest of Europe; despising joint decision-making with its neighbours while desperate to make urgent trade agreements with a wide range of countries, each of which understands that desperation and that urgency and knows what that does to our bargaining power. Chlorinated or not, this chicken is certainly headless. |
Actor Peter O' Toole was awarded an honorary Oscar for lifetime acheivement during the 75th Annual Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California, March 23, 2003. OSCARSPLUS REUTERS/Lucy Nichols REUTERS BS/AS
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Veteran British actor Peter O’Toole, praised for esteemed roles in classic films such as “Lawrence of Arabia,” announced on Tuesday he is retiring from acting in films and stage.
“It is time for me to chuck in the sponge. To retire from films and stage. The heart for it has gone out of me: it won’t come back,” O’Toole, who is 79 and lives in London, said in a statement released by New York publicist Bill Augustin.
O’Toole said that his career, which has included eight Academy Award nominations without a win, “has brought me public support, emotional fulfillment and material comfort. It has brought me together with fine people, good companions with whom I’ve shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and hits.”
“However,” he added. “It’s my belief that one should decide for oneself when it is time to end one’s stay.”
Early in his career, O’Toole made waves on stage in several key Shakespearean roles, including an acclaimed turn as “Hamlet,” before gaining fame in films such as “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” “The Ruling Class”, “The Stunt Man” and “My Favorite Year.”
His last Oscar nomination was for Best Actor in the 2006 film “Venus.” He won an honorary Oscar in 2003 for his numerous memorable roles.
O’Toole said he is now spending his time working on the third volume of his memoirs. The film website imdb.com listed O’Toole as co-starring in the upcoming British film “Katherine of Alexandria.”
O’Toole finished the statement by saying, “I bid the profession a dry-eyed and profoundly grateful farewell.” |
Mr. Obama sought Monday to attribute the financial upheaval to lax regulation during the Bush years, and in turn to link Mr. McCain to that approach.
“I certainly don’t fault Senator McCain for these problems, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to,” Mr. Obama told several hundred people who gathered for an outdoor rally in Grand Junction, Colo.
Mr. Obama set out his general approach to financial regulation in March, calling for regulating investment banks, mortgage brokers and hedge funds much as commercial banks are. And he would streamline the overlapping regulatory agencies and create a commission to monitor threats to the financial system and report to the White House and Congress.
On Wall Street’s Republican-friendly turf, Mr. Obama has outraised Mr. McCain. He has received $9.9 million from individuals associated with the securities and investment industry, $3 million more than Mr. McCain, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group. His advisers include Wall Street heavyweights, including Robert E. Rubin , the former treasury secretary who is now a senior adviser at Citigroup , another firm being buffeted by the financial crisis.
If many voters are fuzzy on the events that over the weekend forced Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. into bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch & Company to be swallowed by the Bank of America Corporation, the continuing chaos among the most venerable names in American finance — coming on top of the recent government seizure of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the demise of the Bear Stearns Companies — has stoked their anxiety for the economy, the foremost issue on voters’ minds.
So it was that first Mr. Obama and then Mr. McCain rushed out their statements on Monday morning before most Americans had reached their workplaces.
To the extent that travails on Wall Street and Main Street have both corporations and homeowners looking to Washington for a hand, that helps Mr. Obama and his fellow Democrats who see government as a force for good and business regulation as essential. Yet Mr. McCain has sold himself to many voters as an agent for change, despite his party’s unpopularity after years of dominating in Washington, and despite his own antiregulation stances of past years.
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Mr. McCain was quick on Monday to issue a statement calling for “major reform” to “replace the outdated and ineffective patchwork quilt of regulatory oversight in Washington and bring transparency and accountability to Wall Street.” Later his campaign unveiled a television advertisement called “Crisis,” that began: “Our economy in crisis. Only proven reformers John McCain and Sarah Palin can fix it. Tougher rules on Wall Street to protect your life savings.”
Mr. McCain’s reaction suggests how the pendulum has swung to cast government regulation in a more favorable political light as the economy has suffered additional blows and how he is scrambling to adjust. While he has few footprints on economic issues in more than a quarter century in Congress, Mr. McCain has always been in his party’s mainstream on the issue.
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In early 1995, after Republicans had taken control of Congress, Mr. McCain promoted a moratorium on federal regulations of all kinds. He was quoted as saying that excessive regulations were “destroying the American family, the American dream” and voters “want these regulations stopped.” The moratorium measure was unsuccessful.
“I’m always for less regulation,” he told The Wall Street Journal last March, “but I am aware of the view that there is a need for government oversight” in situations like the subprime lending crisis, the problem that has cascaded through Wall Street this year. He concluded, “but I am fundamentally a deregulator.”
Later that month, he gave a speech on the housing crisis in which he called for less regulation, saying, “Our financial market approach should include encouraging increased capital in financial institutions by removing regulatory, accounting and tax impediments to raising capital.”
Yet Mr. McCain has at times in the presidential campaign exhibited a less ideological streak. As he did on Monday, he from time to time speaks in populist tones about big corporations and financial institutions and presents himself as a Theodore Roosevelt -style reformer. He supported the Bush administration’s decision to seize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage giants, and he has backed as unavoidable the promise of taxpayer money to help contain the financial crisis.
Other than Mr. Gramm, who as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee before his leaving Congress in 2002 worked to block efforts to tighten financial regulation, Mr. McCain’s closest adviser on matters of Wall Street is John Thain , the chief executive of Merrill Lynch, who has raised about $500,000 for Mr. McCain. Unlike Mr. Gramm, Mr. Thain has a reputation as a pragmatic, nonideological, moderate Republican. That the men are Mr. McCain’s touchstones is typical of his small and eclectic mix of advisers, making it hard to generalize about how Mr. McCain would act as president.
A prominent McCain supporter, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota , signaled how Mr. McCain would try to make his antiregulation record fit the proregulation times that the next president will inherit. Mr. Pawlenty suggested in an interview on Fox News that, given the danger that “any future administration” would go too far, Mr. McCain would be the safer bet to protect against “excessive government intervention or excessive government regulation.”
Mr. Obama also does not have much of a record on financial regulation. As a first-term senator, he has not been around for the major debates of recent years, and his eight years in the Illinois Senate afforded little opportunity to weigh in on the issues.
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In March 2007, however, he warned of the coming housing crisis, and a year later in a speech in Manhattan he outlined six principles for overhauling financial regulation.
On Monday, he said the nation was facing “the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression ,” and attributed it on the hands-off policies of the Republican White House that, he says, Mr. McCain would continue. Seeking to showcase Mr. Obama’s concerns, his campaign said Mr. Obama led a conference call on the crisis early Monday that included Paul A. Volcker , the former chairman of the Federal Reserve; Mr. Rubin; and his successor as treasury secretary, Lawrence H. Summers .
Later, citing Mr. McCain’s remarks about the economy’s strong fundamentals, he told a Colorado crowd that Mr. McCain “doesn’t get what’s happening between the mountain in Sedona where he lives and the corridors of power where he works.”
One reason for both men’s sketchy records on financial issues is that neither has been a member of the Senate Banking Committee, which has oversight of the industry and its regulators. Under both parties’ leadership, the committee often has been a graveyard for proposals opposed by lobbyists for financial institutions, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which last week were forced into government conservatorships.
Industry lobbyists’ success in killing such regulations meant senators outside the banking panel did not have to take a stand on them. |
Although the fossilized traces of life discovered on Mars by NASA’s Curiosity Rover do not refer to solid proof like bones, Nora Noffke, a geobiologists, claims that some of the rock formations photographed on the Red Planet show structural similarities with the ones known to be responsible for the formation of life on our planet.
Noffke made these statements after seeing a photo taken by the Curiosity Rover at the Gillespie Lake outcrop, located in the Yellowknife Bay area that’s around the Gale Crater. Noffke said that, theoretically, that would have been a perfect place for Martian life forms. Previously, the Rover has proved that there was once water on Mars and the area explored right now was actually a lake that dried.
Some scientists believe that although it may look like there was once life on Mars, no one can really tell for sure because the proof is still inconsistent. Noffke agrees with that but says that this is her hypothesis and the evidence is there and she thinks there is plenty of evidence that could mean life once existed on Mars.
Chris McKay, a NASA planetary scientist, said it although no one has any real proof that could confirm that life exists or has ever existed on Mars, but he does find Noffke’s examination of the photos taken by the Curiosity Rover very intense.
McKay said that he has seen many papers comparing rock formations from Mars with rock formations from Earth, but that’s not enough evidence to say that there was once life on the Red Planet. But Kiffke analysis of the rock formations is the most carefully done, so that’s the reason it was published in the renowned Astrobiology Magazine.
Noffke explained that she began analyzing once she spotted something in the photos that resembled fossilized life. She said that she spent many weeks investigating certain photos, centimeter by centimeter, and compared them to terrestrial structures.
The photos showed that the terrestrial and Martian sedimentary structures are morphologically similar. Also, some patterns found in the Gillespie Lake outcrop show similarities with the microbial structures found on Earth.
Image Source: heytoday |
When dreaming up that world-changing invention, wouldn't it be great if you could just sketch out the circuits and have them magically work? That's the idea behind Circuit Scribe, a ballpoint pen that's full of quick-drying ink that'll help you doodle your circuits on notebook paper. Emerging out of research from the University of Illinois, the team is now accepting your cash through Kickstarter to help bring it into the real world. $20 will get you a pen and an LED component, while $30 will buy you a basic kit, complete with plenty of accessories to help you test the systems to their fullest. We imagine it'll be a big hit with STEM educators as well as hobbyists, but if you're not yet convinced, check out the video to watch it in action. |
Animals exported live from EU countries are routinely being subjected to abuse, illegal transportation conditions and inhumane slaughter, an investigation has found.
Dozens of undercover videos and photographs obtained by the Guardian show live cattle and sheep from EU countries being beaten, shocked with electric prods, held for days in overcrowded pens and covered head to toe in faeces as they are transported from Europe to their final destinations in Turkey and the Middle East in conditions that breach European law.
At their destination, at least some of the animals are slaughtered in appalling conditions. The footage shows cattle and sheep from France, Romania and Lithuania kicking and flailing violently as their throats are crudely cut or sawed at repeatedly, often in crowded street markets and run-down abattoirs.
The footage was collected over eight months by campaigners from the Australian animal rights charity Animals International, who worked undercover in Croatia and six Middle Eastern countries to follow animals from their departure at European ports through to destination.
FSA: 4,000 major breaches of animal welfare laws at UK abattoirs in two years Read more
The evidence they collected shows clear breaches of a number of European laws in almost every country the campaigners visited. European legislation maintains that export livestock must receive certain standards of care throughout the entire journey, including any stages that occur entirely in third countries. The standards dictate that animal handlers must carry out their task without violence or any method likely to cause unnecessary fear, injury or suffering; that transport and loading equipment must be designed, maintained and operated so as to avoid injury and suffering, and that transport is carried out without delay and at the minimum possible length.
The Guardian asked Conte & Giacomini, an Italian law firm specialising in animal rights and shipping and transport law, to review the evidence. They responded: “We might deem that the transports shown in the footage are all in breach of the [EU] Regulation EC No 1/2005 [on the protection of animals in transport].
“Moreover, we could also state that, according to the ruling of the European court of justice and to the interpretation of the regulation EC No 1/2005, the competent authorities of the member states of departure shouldn’t even have authorised these transports as they couldn’t ensure that provisions would be met,” they said.
In an EU port in Croatia, the video shows animals from at least five European countries, including Germany, Hungary, Romania, Poland and Slovenia, waiting to be loaded on to a vessel headed to Beirut. Cattle and sheep are seen being kicked, beaten and shocked with electric prods to the anus while being loaded on to the ship. A sheep is shown being picked up by an animal handler and thrown on to the boat; cows slide backwards on to each other while trying to climb steep loading ramps.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A cow exported from France is suspended by its leg in a Turkish abattoir. Photograph: Animals International
At a port in Turkey, footage shows cattle being unloaded from a vessel that has arrived from Ireland after a voyage of almost two weeks. Their hair is thick with faeces from the journey as they are crammed on to a small and open-topped truck to be transported along the next leg of the journey. In Palestine, Romanian cattle travelling unharnessed in the back of an overcrowded truck are shown being thrown violently against the railings, causing clear distress to the animals.
While European legislation covers EU export livestock up until they are unloaded at their final destination, it does not apply to the final stages of the animal’s life. The footage shows repeated instances in multiple countries of animals being brutally slaughtered. In a street market in Jordan, a Romanian sheep spasms violently across the blood-soaked pavement after its throat is cut. In an abattoir in Turkey, French cattle hang by one leg from the ceiling, kicking and twisting violently as their throats are repeatedly cut at.
Alive and kicking: Australia's animal export trade booms despite persistent claims of cruelty Read more
An Animals Australia investigation in 2011 showed the poor treatment of animals being exported to Indonesia. After a public outcry, a ban was temporarily introduced and new regulations were imposed. They include a responsibility to ensure that both the handling and slaughter of the animals in the importing country complies with the animal welfare recommendations of the World Organisation for Animal Health.
Exports of livestock from the EU to the Middle East have grown rapidly in the past two years, with exports of cattle doubling since 2014 to 650,000 last year, while sheep exports rose by a quarter to 2.5 million, mostly to Libya, Lebanon and Jordan.
The increase in exports coincided with a landmark legal case at the European court of justice in 2015, in which the judge ruled that any transport provider carrying livestock from the EU to third countries must take steps to prove that they have complied with EU legislation throughout all stages of the journey. Transport providers are required to submit a log detailing their journey to the national authorities in the country of departure. It is these national authorities who are responsible for enforcing European regulations.
However, EU officials, member states and animal rights groups have repeatedly claimed that enforcement is poor across much of the continent. In November 2016, a paper presented by several member states to the European agriculture council called on the European commission to address the problem. It stated: “The continuing shortcomings in enforcement [of animal welfare in export laws] is simply not acceptable. Since the entry in to force of Regulation 1/2005 [on the protection of animals during transport], there have been numerous examples of infringements and lack of enforcement. Both member states and commission have to intensify their efforts to put an end to transports that are in obvious breach of the regulation”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Lithuanian cow tied up in Palestine. Photograph: Animals International
Animal rights groups including the Animal Welfare Foundation (AWF) and Tierschutzbund Zürich believe that financial motives drive many export and transport enterprises to breach European animal protection regulations, as it reduces costs and administrative charges. As a result, enterprises are encouraged to operate in member states with poorer enforcement of EU law.
This view appears to be supported by the European commission’s own Animal Welfare Strategy 2012-2015, in which the commission notes that “a diverging interpretation of [protection of animals in transport] rules may result in market distortions which, combined with reduced profit margins and different administrative costs, could put a transport business operator in a difficult situation. Furthermore, a lack of vigour in enforcement may put compliant transporters at disadvantage”.
After watching the footage, MEPs from Germany, France, Lithuania and Finland said they are calling on the European commission for stronger enforcement of existing laws and an extension of legislation to cover the slaughter of European-bred animals in third countries.
Sirpa Pietikäinen, a Finnish MEP and president of the European parliament’s Intergroup on the Welfare and Conservation of Animals, said: “These shocking revelations should be the final frontier for the European commission to take this seriously. We need EU strategy on this issue. Better law enforcement, agreement with supervision on slaughtering practices, with the goal of ending the transportation of living animals for slaughter to third countries.”
The MEPs join a growing movement that is calling for reform of Europe’s animal transport regulations. The Eurogroup for Animals, the Eu umbrella group for animal advocacy organisations, has collected more than 700,000 signatures urging the EU to put an end to long distance transport of live animals.
“Europe is to all effects exporting massive animal cruelty, which is largely invisible for EU citizens”, says Reineke Hameleers, Eurogroup’s director. “It is crystal clear that the transport regulation is not fit for purpose and that we should move towards a food system where animals are reared and slaughtered as close as possible to the place where they are born. This is not only paramount for animal welfare but also essential for food security, the environment and to protect public health.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Animals exported from EU countries are loaded on to a boat in Croatia. Photograph: Animals International
A European commission spokesman told the Guardian “The level of enforcement of existing EU legislation on animal welfare during transport has improved over the last years and has been considered one of the key priorities of the directorate general for health and food safety. Although the responsibility for the enforcement lies primarily with the member states, the commission has made considerable efforts to improve the enforcement and provides active assistance to member states.”
The spokesman said: “The EU has limited power to enforce the union legislation on animal transport within the territory of non-EU countries. The commission will continue supporting training activities on animal welfare during transport and at slaughter, including for non-EU countries.”
The European commission has failed to respond to pressure on the protection of animals in transport before. In early 2016, animal rights groups Tierschutzbund Zürich, the AWF and Eyes on Animals presented the commission with a 1,000 page report detailing hundreds of cases of illegal treatment of animals being transported over land between Europe and Turkey in the hot summer months. The NGOs claim the commission ignored all their requests, including an appeal for transport of live animals to Turkey in the hottest summer months to be halted.
Brexit would be disastrous for Britain’s farm animals | Sam Barker Read more
Iris Baumgärtner, project manager at AWF, said: “Despite the fact that the commission and the member states have been well informed since 2010 of the suffering of animals transported to Turkey, the situation remains unchanged and the numbers of animals being exported are increasing. The commission and member states are ignoring the core elements of their own regulations.”
The governments of Ireland, France, Germany, Romania, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland did not respond to requests for comment. The Slovenian agriculture ministry said: “Should the Slovenian competent authority receive any information on any non-compliances in live animal consignments aboard any vessels, we would immediately institute an investigation into the problem and, based on investigation results, we would institute the required and prescribed measures for the prevention of any subsequent non-compliances.”
The Croatian agriculture ministry said they saw no truth in the accusations and that necessary procedures and checks in line with the EU regulation are implemented in order to ensure animal welfare. They said competent veterinary authorities were always present “in order to monitor and undertake necessary corrective measures if irregularities are detected”. |
One of the biggest opponents of gay marriage in California is the Mormon church. They are one of the players in the money behind Prop 8. Seems they are now catching some blow back from within their own ranks as well as bloggers. From the San Francisco Chronicle:
The church largely stays out of politics. But in this case, the Salt Lake City-based church has sent letters, held video conferences and in church meetings asked for volunteers to support the campaign. In response, some church members have poured in their savings and undertaken what may be an unprecedented grassroots mobilization for the effort. Prop. 8 is on pace to be the costliest race in the nation, except for the billion-dollar presidential election. The Yes on 8 campaign estimates that up to 40 percent of its donations come from Mormons. Some others estimate that Mormons account for over 70 percent of donations from individuals.
Seems like the Mormon Church wants to manipulate the political process for their own ideology. Well, sometimes, people fight fire with fire.
Prop. 8 opponents are increasingly narrowing their focus on Mormons, harnessing technology and open-records laws in their efforts. One Web site run by a Prop. 8 opponent, Mormonsfor8.com, identifies the name and hometown of every Mormon donor. On the Daily Kos, the nation’s most popular liberal blog, there is a campaign to use that information to look into the lives of Mormons who financially support Prop. 8.
Sunshine is a great thing and it teaches lessons. One pro-Prop 8 supporter seems to have learned a lesson:
Those words speak for Michele Sundstrom, 47, of San Jose, who has been married for 18 years and has five children. She and her husband gave $30,000 to the Yes on 8 campaign and put a sign on their home. But in response, two women parked an SUV in front of their home, with the words “Bigots live here” painted on the windshield. Sundstrom believes such responses must come from deep places of pain – and that gays and lesbians are entitled to the same rights as heterosexuals, just not the word marriage. Any animosity toward gays or lesbians is wrong, she said. “There must be such deep, deep, deep hurt; otherwise there couldn’t be so much opposition,” she said. “They’ve lived with this. I guess we’re getting a taste of where they live.”
Yup, I guess you are. Is it really worth a word?
Maybe Mormons should be more worried about Mormon Warren Jeffs and his definition of marriage rather than whether Warren marries Jeff. There are plenty of ways to help the No on Prop 8 campaign – help here. And you can donate here: |
When Tarek Bin Yameen looks into the eyes of young Syrian refugees, he sees himself.
Today he's a second-year medical student at the University of Toronto, but he wasn't always so lucky.
Bin Yameen spent the first half of his life in Yemen. When a civil war broke out there in 1994, his family suddenly found themselves internally displaced, trading the risks of being bombed for the risks of a refugee camp.
The conditions were dismal. Within a span of week, a cholera outbreak killed 40 people. Few received the necessary vaccines.
Bin Yameen made it out alive.
So when he met six-year-old Hannan, whose family arrived in Canada as refugees from Syria, he knew he had to help.
'Money we didn't have'
He met the little girl while assisting her privately sponsored family, and soon realized she was suffering from a condition called strabismus. Untreated, Hannan could eventually go blind.
"When I thought about that little young girl, I began wondering how many children here have eye conditions that are undiagnosed?"
"Even though they had federal health coverage, they never accessed eye care treatment," Bin Yameen told CBC Toronto, adding that language and transportation barriers put eye care out of reach for the family.
The Abdo family spent four years in Turkey after fleeing Aleppo. The family of seven at one point was homeless in Turkey where medical care was so expensive it was virtually out of reach. (Laura DaSilva/CBC)
That was the case for Gullistan Abdo and her family when they fled Syria for Turkey, then Canada.
"We could access [medical care], but we had to pay money which we didn't have," she told CBC Toronto, speaking in Arabic through a translator.
Stories like Abdo's inspired Bin Yameen to offer free vision clinics to Syrian refugees, and this summer, launched a pilot together with St. Michael's Hospital and non-profit group Mes Amis. Some clinics were held at Prism Eye Institute in Brampton, which donated clinical space and medical equipment.
Equipped with translators and specialists, the clinics provide families with an initial eye exam. If the refugees need glasses or a specialist appointments, they get them on the spot.
'Survival mode kicks in'
The demand was overwhelming. A hundred and eighty refugees turned out for eye exams.
So they held another, and another. The program has already treated nearly 500 refugees, Bin Yameen says.
Equipped with translators and specialists, the clinics provide families with an initial eye exam and if they need glasses or a specialist appointments, they get them on the spot. (Laura DaSilva/CBC)
"The Arabic is always a difficult thing for people to find. They can go to the clinics by themselves but they can't always articulate, you know, what their issues are. So having the translators here has been a really big plus," Mes Amis executive director Julie Mahfouz told CBC Toronto.
Like Bin Yameen, Hannan's family was lucky. They were quickly connected with a specialist in the U.S., and she'll soon undergo an operation. But as Bin Yameen knows all too well, not everyone shares that good fortune.
"I can relate to that because when you are in that condition, just survival mode kicks in. You just want to get a roof over your head, you want to get some food, you want to get some clothes," he told CBC Radio's Fresh Air. "Going to see a doctor is not your major concern."
'Paying it forward'
Three more eye clinics are scheduled to roll out in the coming months, reaching as far as the Kitchener-Waterloo area.
As he worked to examine patients today, Bin Yameen's mind travelled back to the camps where he found himself all those years ago.
"When I see these newcomers in Canada, when I see the children, they remind me of my own personal experiences that I had as a kid."
"This country gave me an opportunity to come here and study here and I'm paying it forward," said Bin Yameen.
He hopes the children he's helping can eventually do the same. |
On Thursday morning, Deion Sanders Jr., a sophomore wide receiver at SMU, tweeted this out to his nearly 65,000 followers:
Gotta get the hood doughnuts almost every morning. If my doughnuts don't come in a plain white box, I don't want them! — Deion Sanders Jr (@DeionSandersJr) April 2, 2015
His dad, NFL great Deion Sanders Sr., saw this tweet, and quickly came in to shame his son.
@DeionSandersJr you're a Huxtable with a million $ trust fund stop the hood stuff! Lololol. Son. #Truth — Deion Sanders (@DeionSanders) April 2, 2015
I’d say we should feel bad for Deion Jr. for being humiliated by his dad on social media, but he does have that trust fund, so we shouldn’t feel too bad.
(Thanks to SB Nation for sharing.) |
A witness to an altercation involving an off-duty Montgomery County, Maryland police officer was too afraid to publicly tell what she saw because she "fears retribution" from an "out of control" police officer who was "acting insanely" when he pulled a gun on men he got in a fight with after brushing one of them with his car.
Via WUSA9:
COLLEGE PARK, Md. (WUSA) --- University of Maryland police are investigating the actions of an off-duty Montgomery County police officer who is accused of drawing his gun on two men with whom he was having a parking lot altercation during the University of Maryland-University of Connecticut football game here Saturday afternoon.
[...]A witness tells 9News that the officer was driving his personal car, an older model Honda Civic, when the car brushed a man who was carrying bottled water, splashing the witness. She says the man splashed the officer's car with the water. Other witnesses say the man threw his bottled water at the officer's car.
The witness says the off-duty officer, with a child in his car, got out of the car to confront the man and ended up in a fight with the man and one of the man's friends.
The officer eventually drew his gun, sending witnesses diving behind cars to get out of the way, she said. Watch the video report:
Montgomery County Police made headlines recently for beating up a renowned photographer, they claimed he "threw himself" to the ground and "smashed himself" against their police cruiser. They then staked out his house to intimidate him.
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Chris runs the website InformationLiberation.com, you can read more of his writings here. Follow infolib on twitter here. |
Leave it to reddit to open our minds on the stark differences of our eating habits around the world.
Redditor user itsrattlesnake has created an interesting photo project that unbiasedly documents the ready-to-eat meals (MREs) armies are equipped with while on the field. Thanks to itsrattlesnake, we learned a couple of interesting things about the men and women who dedicate their lives to protecting their countries and its citizens. One, candy is a must. And two, a heating device is an invaluable part of an MRE (because really, we all deserve a warm meal).
From this glimpse into the window of the army's food world, we also get a look of how each country packs its culture with them on the go. The Italians start their day with a shot of alcohol (smart thinking), the British are supplied with tons of tea (naturally), and the French, well the French go fancy with duck confit, deer pate and a Dupont d'Isigny caramel. (And no, the Spanish are not supplied condoms in their MREs, despite what it may look like in the picture below -- so lets just get your mind out of the gutter already.)
Take a look at how these 11 countries feed their men and women in service. If you have any information on how other countries prepare their MREs, we'd love to hear about it in the comments section below.
1 Germany You're looking at: Sour cherry and apricot jams, several sachets of grapefruit and exotic juice powder to add to water, Italian biscotti, liver-sausage spread and rye bread, and Goulash with potatoes. 2 Canada You're looking at: Bear Paws snacks, salmon fillet with Tuscan sauce or vegetarian couscous for the main meal, the makings of a peanut butter and jelly (raspberry jam) sandwich for breakfast and a shocking omission of maple syrup. 3 United States You're looking at: Almond poppy seed pound cake, cranberries, spiced apple cider, peanut butter and crackers, pasta with vegetable "crumbles" in spicy tomato sauce and a flameless heater – it heats up enough to warm the plastic meal pouch. 4 France You're looking at: Deer pâté, cassoulet with duck confit, creole-style pork and a crème chocolate pudding, some coffee and flavored drink powder, muesli for breakfast and a little Dupont d'Isigny caramel. (There is also a disposable heater.) 5 Italy You're looking at: A breakfast shot of 40 percent alcohol cordiale (seriously), a powdered cappuccino, lots of biscotti, a pasta and bean soup, canned turkey and a rice salad. Dessert is a power sport bar, canned fruit salad or a muesli chocolate bar. (And there's a disposable camping stove for heating parts of the meal.) 6 UK You're looking at: Kenco coffee, Typhoo tea, a mini bottle of Tabasco, chicken tikka masala, a vegetarian pasta, pork and beans for breakfast, trail mix, an apple "fruit pocket" with packets of Polos. 7 Estonia You're looking at: Stuffed peppers, chicken-meat pâté, smoked sprats, liver sausage with potatoes, crispbreads, halva with vanilla (for dessert), and muesli with fruit pocket and honey. 8 Australia You're looking at: Vegemite, jam sandwich biscuits, a tube of sweetened condensed milk, meatballs, chili tuna pasta, a can-opener-spoon for getting at the Fonterra processed cheddar cheese, lots of sweets, soft drinks, and two unappetizing-looking bars labelled "chocolate ration." 9 Denmark You're looking at: Earl Grey tea, beans and bacon in tomato sauce, a golden oatie biscuit and Rowntree's Tooty Frooties. (Also, a flameless heater.) 10 Spain You're looking at: Cans of green beans with ham, squid in vegetable oil, pate, a sachet of powdered vegetable soup, crackers, and peaches in syrup for dessert. (There is a disposable heater with matches and fuel tabs, as well as lots of tablets: Vitamin C, glucose, water purification and rehydration.) 11 Singapore Imgur: www.mindef.gov.sg You're looking at: Butter-flavored biscuits, instant noodles, isotonic drink, Ego fish-shaped biscuit, honey teriyaki chicken noodle, sweet potato in red bean soup, apple and blueberry bar and mini packs of Mentos. |
Report: Texas fisherman killed, 2 injured on border in suspected cartel shootings
Border Patrol agent Isaac Villegas looks over the Rio Grande River into Mexico Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2016 in Roma. Keep clicking to see a gallery of other images from the U.S.-Mexico border.
Border Patrol agent Isaac Villegas looks over the Rio Grande River into Mexico Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2016 in Roma. Keep clicking to see a gallery of other images from the U.S.-Mexico border. Photo: Michael Ciaglo/Houston Chronicle Photo: Michael Ciaglo/Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 53 Caption Close Report: Texas fisherman killed, 2 injured on border in suspected cartel shootings 1 / 53 Back to Gallery
One Texas fisherman has been killed and two others injured in shootings on the Rio Grande River in an area known for suspected drug cartel violence.
The three men were in a boat on the Texas side of the river near the rural community of Fronton and were shot from the Mexican side about 4:25 p.m. Wednesday, the Starr County Sheriff's Office said. Fronton is about 100 miles south of Laredo.
All three victims were in the U.S. legally, Major Carlos Delgado of the Starr County Sheriff's Office said Friday by email. The motive for the shootings is unknown, and the case remains under investigation by Texas, U.S. and Mexican authorities, Delgado said. The two injued men are in stable condition, he said.
"It is unknown if the shooting was done by drug cartel members," Delgado stated in the email.
SMUGGLING FLOPS: Although creative, these drug disguises fizzled at the border
The location is near the site where a U.S. Border Protection agent and a Texas State Trooper were injured in shootings Nov. 25. According to Breitbart Texas, the agent and trooper were apparently caught in a shootout between Mexican law enforcement and cartel members.
On Dec. 6, Breitbart said, two fishermen were shot at Falcon Lake in Zapata County, west of the Fronton-area incidents. One of the men died from his injuries.
In October, 2010, David Hartley of Colorado was killed at Lake Zapata. According to chron.com, Hartley and his wife crossed the lake on personal water craft to tour the half-submerged town of Guerrero on the Mexican side. Hartley's wife told police "armed thugs" in boats swarmed the couple and shot her husband in the head. |
Second mapset based on my Christmas traditions survey: what kind of soup do you eat on Christmas Eve? This time people were allowed multiple answers so some places might have the most intense colors in more than one category.
It seems that beetroot soup is the most popular countrywide and present nearly everywhere, although mushroom soup and fish soup are quite popular regionally as well. Mushroom soup seems to be Christmas tradition mostly in central Poland which surprises me because there are no major woods there and mushrooms generally grow in woods. Fish soup on the other hand is popular in former Prussian territories. There is also the “other” soup category, where most of answers include fruit soup or suss which I believe is pretty much the same.
For methodology information please scroll down this blog (it was explained two posts ago). |
The much-awaited Jackson Hole speech by the Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen -- and the subsequent nonfarm payrolls data failed to ignite the prospects of a rate hike this September of 2016. The market now forecasts only a 21% probability of a rate hike in this month, according to the CME FedWatch Tool. The probability of a rate hike in December of 2016 stands at just above 50%.
According to my research, the chances of a rate hike in December of 2016 are also very bleak. Nonetheless, the Fed speakers will continue to jawbone the dollar, the way they have been doing for the whole year.
The coming week has a number of Central Banks competing with each other to unleash their monetary easing plans as if that is the only solution to all the economic problems plaguing the world. Even the failure of the past seven years has not deterred them from printing more money from thin air.
The European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan combined are purchasing a whopping $180 billion of bonds monthly. Add to it, the new bond buying program announced by the Bank of England, and the number rises even higher. All three are expected to recommend either adding to their existing bond purchases or extend their duration in their next policy meetings.
This has led the Bond King Bill Gross to warn investors of the dangerous consequences. In a letter to clients, he wrote: "Investors should know that they are treading on thin ice."
So, what should investors do? Silver will be a reliable safe-haven.
When investors realize that they are holding worthless currencies, the big money will rush into the precious metals. Consider this: The total world's investment holdings in silver are a paltry $50.8 billion, compared to $3.04 trillion in gold.
Did you know that the hedge funds alone manage around $2.7 trillion, according to Barclay Hedge data? Even if a small portion of the trillions sloshing around out there decides to enter into silver, the white metal will shoot through the roof.
Following the poor jobs report last Friday, traders jumped into silver, thus driving it higher, as shown in the chart below.
As explained in our earlier articles, investors should not only look to buy into silver, they should also explore options of investing in the silver miners. |
Destroyer of Worlds
New research suggests there was no state of grace: for two million years humankind has been the natural world’s nemesis.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 25th March 2014
You want to know who we are? Really? You think you do, but you will regret it. This article, if you have any love for the world, will inject you with a venom – a soul-scraping sadness – without an obvious antidote.
The Anthropocene, now a popular term among scientists, is the epoch in which we live: one dominated by human impacts on the living world. Most date it from the beginning of the industrial revolution. But it might have begun much earlier, with a killing spree that commenced two million years ago. What rose onto its hindlegs on the African savannahs was, from the outset, death: the destroyer of worlds.
Before Homo erectus, perhaps our first recognisably-human ancestor, emerged in Africa, the continent abounded with monsters. There were several species of elephants. There were sabretooths and false sabretooths, giant hyaenas and creatures like those released in The Hunger Games: amphicyonids, or bear dogs, vast predators with an enormous bite.
Professor Blaire van Valkenburgh has developed a means by which we could roughly determine how many of these animals there were(1). When there are few predators and plenty of prey, the predators eat only the best parts of the carcass. When competition is intense, they eat everything, including the bones. The more bones a carnivore eats, the more likely its teeth are to be worn or broken. The breakages in carnivores’ teeth were massively greater in the pre-human era(2).
Not only were there more species of predators, including species much larger than any found on earth today, but they appear to have been much more abundant – and desperate. We evolved in a terrible, wonderful world – that was no match for us.
Homo erectus possessed several traits that appear to have made it invincible: intelligence, cooperation; an ability to switch to almost any food when times were tough; and a throwing arm that allowed it to do something no other species has ever managed – to fight from a distance. (The increasing distance from which we fight is both a benchmark and a determinant of human history). It could have driven giant predators off their prey and harried monstrous herbivores to exhaustion and death.
As the paleontologists Lars Werdelin and Margaret Lewis show, the disappearance of much of the African megafauna appears to have coincided with the switch towards meat eating by human ancestors(3). The great extent and strange pattern of extinction (concentrated among huge, specialist animals at the top of the food chain) is not easy to explain by other means.
At the Oxford megafauna conference last week, I listened as many of the world’s leading scientists in this field mapped out a new understanding of the human impact on the planet(4). Almost everywhere we went, humankind erased a world of wonders, changing the way the biosphere functions. For example, modern humans arrived in Europe and Australia at about the same time – between 40 and 50,000 years ago – with similar consequences. In Europe, where animals had learnt to fear previous versions of the bipedal ape, the extinctions happened slowly. Within some 10 or 15,000 years, the continent had lost its straight-tusked elephants, forest rhinos, hippos, hyaenas and monstrous scimitar cats.
In Australia, where no hominim had set foot before modern humans arrived, the collapse was almost instant. The rhinoceros-sized wombat(5), the ten-foot kangaroo, the marsupial lion, the monitor lizard larger than a Nile crocodile(6), the giant marsupial tapir, the horned tortoise as big as a car(7) – all went, in ecological terms, overnight.
A few months ago, a well-publicised paper claimed that the great beasts of the Americas – mammoths and mastodons, giant ground sloths, lions and sabretooths, eight-foot beavers(8), a bird with a 26-foot wingspan(9) – could not have been exterminated by humans, because the fossil evidence for their extinction marginally pre-dates the evidence for human arrival(10).
I have never seen a paper demolished as elegantly and decisively as this was at last week’s conference. The archaeologist Todd Surovell demonstrated that the mismatch is just what you would expect if humans were responsible(11). Mass destruction is easy to detect in the fossil record: in one layer bones are everywhere, in the next they are nowhere. But people living at low densities with basic technologies leave almost no traces. With the human growth rates and kill rates you’d expect in the first pulse of settlement (about 14,000 years ago), the great beasts would have lasted only 1,000 years. His work suggests that the most reliable indicator of human arrival in the fossil record is a wave of large mammal extinctions.
These species were not just ornaments of the natural world. The new work presented at the conference suggests that they shaped the rest of the ecosystem. In Britain during the last interglacial period, elephants, rhinos and other great beasts maintained a mosaic of habitats: a mixture of closed canopy forest, open forest, glade and sward(12). In Australia, the sudden flush of vegetation that followed the loss of large herbivores caused stacks of leaf litter to build up, which became the rainforests’ pyre: fires (natural or manmade) soon transformed these lush places into dry forest and scrub(13).
In the Amazon and other regions, large herbivores moved nutrients from rich soils to poor ones, radically altering plant growth(14,15). One controversial paper suggests that the eradication of the monsters of the Americas caused such a sharp loss of atmospheric methane (generated in their guts) that it could have triggered the short ice age which began 12,800 years ago, called the Younger Dryas(16).
And still we have not stopped. Poaching has reduced the population of African forest elephants by 65% since 2002(17). The range of the Asian elephant – which once lived from Turkey to the coast of China – has contracted by 97%; the ranges of the Asian rhinos by over 99%(18). Elephants distribute the seeds of hundreds of rainforest tree species; without them these trees are functionally extinct(19,20).
Is this all we are? A diminutive monster that can leave no door closed, no hiding place intact, that is now doing to the great beasts of the sea what we did so long ago to the great beasts of the land? Or can we stop? Can we use our ingenuity, which for two million years has turned so inventively to destruction, to defy our evolutionary history?
www.monbiot.com
References:
1. eg Wendy J. Binder and Blaire Van Valkenburgh, 2010. A comparison of tooth wear and breakage in Rancho La Brea sabertooth cats and dire wolves across time. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02724630903413016#.UzBUcM40uQk
2. http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/news/events/2014/megafauna/valkenburgh.pdf
3. Lars Werdelin, 2013. King of Beasts. Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/magazine/sa/2013/11-01/
4. http://oxfordmegafauna.weebly.com/
5. Diprotodon.
6. Megalania.
7. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/last-giant-land-turtle/
8. Castoroides ohioensis
9. The Argentine roc (Argentavis magnificens).
10. Matthew T. Boulanger and R. Lee Lyman, 2014. Northeastern North American Pleistocene megafauna chronologically overlapped minimally with Paleoindians. Quaternary Science Reviews 85, pp35-46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.11.024
11. http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/news/events/2014/megafauna/surovell.pdf
12. Christopher J. Sandom et al, 2014. High herbivore density associated with vegetation diversity in interglacial ecosystems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 111, no. 11, pp4162–4167. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1311014111
13. Susan Rule et al, 23rd March 2012. The Aftermath of Megafaunal Extinction: Ecosystem Transformation in Pleistocene Australia. Science Vol. 335, pp 1483-1486. doi: 10.1126/science.1214261. https://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6075/1483.full
14. Christopher E. Doughty, AdamWolf and Yadvinder Malhi, 11 August 2013. The legacy of the Pleistocene megafauna extinctions on nutrient availability in Amazonia. Nature Geoscience vol. 6, pp761–764. doi: 10.1038/ngeo1895. http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n9/full/ngeo1895.html
15. Adam Wolf, Christopher E. Doughty, Yadvinder Malhi, Lateral Diffusion of Nutrients by Mammalian Herbivores in Terrestrial Ecosystems. PLOS One, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0071352. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0071352
16. Felisa A. Smith, 2010. Methane emissions from extinct megafauna. Nature Geoscience 3, 374 – 375. doi:10.1038/ngeo877. http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n6/full/ngeo877.html
17. Fiona Maisels, pers comm. This is an update of the figures published here: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0059469
18. http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/news/events/2014/megafauna/campos.pdf
19. http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/news/events/2014/megafauna/campos.pdf
20. http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/news/events/2014/megafauna/galetti.pdf |
A transnational operation led by Attorney General Jeff Sessions yielded charges against more than 3,800 gang members from the United States, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Sessions, along with law enforcement officials throughout Central America, announced that Operation Regional Shield resulted in charges against thousands of gang members from the violent El Salvadorian MS-13 and 18th Street gangs.
“MS-13 is one of the most violent and ruthless gangs in America today, endangering communities in more than 40 states,” Sessions said. “But under President Trump’s strong leadership, the Department of Justice is taking them off our streets.”
“Today, we are announcing that our partnership with law enforcement in Central America, has yielded charges against more than 3,800 gang members just in the last six months,” Sessions continued. “More than 70 of these defendants were living in the United States, from California to Ohio to Boston.”
“MS-13 coordinates across our borders to kill, rape and traffic drugs and underage girls; we’ve got to coordinate across our borders to stop them,” Session said. “That’s exactly what our courageous and professional DOJ agents and attorneys are doing. We will continue to maintain this steadfast policy and dismantle this gang.”
In March, Sessions promised to take on violent cartels and street gangs, traveling to Long Island, New York and southern California to warn MS-13 of the Department of Justice (DOJ) action that would be taken against them and their leaders.
The 3,800 gang members charged included:
More than 70 gang members living in the U.S., residing in California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Virginia;
248 gang members living in Guatemala, with six firearms seized;
14 businesses and 11 luxury vehicles seized;
12 money laundering MS-13 gang members; and
More than 1,400 gang members living in El Salvador.
Two specific cases in the operation were outlined by the DOJ:
One indictment unsealed yesterday in the District of Massachusetts charges Edwin Manica Flores aka Sugar, Chugar and Shugar, an MS-13 leader incarcerated for murder in El Salvador, with a RICO conspiracy for alleged criminal activity he directed in the United States as the leader of MS-13’s “East Coast Program.” Charges filed in Long Island on July 19 against 17 MS-13 members for 12 murders, including the April 11 quadruple murder of four men in Central Islip; racketeering; attempted murders; assaults; obstruction of justice; arson; conspiracy to distribute marijuana; and firearms.
In February, President Trump issued the Enforcement Federal Law with Respect to Transnational Criminal Organizations and Preventing International Trafficking Executive Order to help crackdown on transnational gangs like MS-13.
Since signing that executive order, Sessions created a transnational network of law enforcement agencies to dismantle violent criminal cartels and gangs in the U.S. and Central America.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. |
I have recently been using a small amount of CoffeeScript at work and evaluating its merit in my web development toolbox. This post is about a particular feature in CoffeeScript that is poorly considered.
CoffeeScript provides notation for comprehensions; A comprehension allows the programmer to concisely express operations over one or more sets of items. While Javascript programmers do not currently have a syntactic mechanism for this, it is part of the Harmony project.
Comprehensions can be found in a number of languages these days. The big names are Python (list and generator comprehensions) and C# (LINQ). Both languages took their ideas from Haskell which in turn took them from prior functional languages. In both cases comprehensions are deep and very expressive tool.
First up lets examine a comprehension in CoffeeScript. The basic notion is that a comprehension is a for loop as an expression. For example:
l = x * 2 for x in [0..5] // => [0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10]
or alternatively:
l = for x in [0..5] x * 2 // => [0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10]
This is clearly a straight forward mapping. We can also add filtering clause e.g.:
l = x * 2 for x in [0..5] when x % 2 // => [2, 6, 10]
So what is the problem? The answer is two-fold: firstly, the semantics of nested comprehensions are non-optimal (even incorrect), and secondly they are strict.
Nested comprehensions
To examine this issue, I am going to compare CoffeeScript and Python for the semantics of nested comprehensions. Firstly the CoffeeScript:
l = for x in [0, 1, 2] for y in ["a", "b", "c"] "#{x},#{y}" // => [["0,a", "0,b", "0,c"], // ["1,a", "1,b", "1,c"], // ["2,a", "2,b", "2,c"]]
And now Python:
l = ["%s,%s"% (x,y) for x in [0,1,2] for y in ["a","b","c"]] # => ['0,a', '0,b', '0,c', # '1,a', '1,b', '1,c', # '2,a', '2,b', '2,c']
This illustrates the difference quite clearly. In Python, a language with real comprehensions, the comprehension results in a single list that is the cross product of both source lists. In CoffeeScript, we get a list of lists of objects.
To illustrate that the Python version is in fact more expressive, the following Python generates the same shaped result as the CoffeeScript version:
l = [["%s,%s" % (x,y) for y in ["a","b","c"]] for x in [0,1,2]] # => [['0,a', '0,b', '0,c'], # ['1,a', '1,b', '1,c'], # ['2,a', '2,b', '2,c']]
I refer to the CoffeeScript behaviour as ‘map’ oriented comprehensions, and the Python behaviour as ‘mapcat’ oriented comprehensionsi. The mapcat model is more compositional than the map model. This means that the result of a function that is defined as mapcat oriented comprehension can be the input to itself recursively. For exampleii:
def flatten(l): try: return [y for x in l for y in flatten(x)] except TypeError, e: # horrible test for iterability return [l] flatten(1) # => [1] flatten([1,2]) # => [1, 2] flatten([[[1,2], 3], [[4]]]) # => [1, 2, 3, 4]
Strictness
Strictness is the property of a program to be evaluated in its entirety as soon as possible, in contrast to laziness which delays as much computation as long as possible. Most languages exist somewhere on the spectrum of fully strict to mostly lazy. With regard to comprehensions, a strict comprehension takes one or more lists and creates a new list. A lazy comprehension takes a stream of values and returns a stream of values, computing them by need.
The underlying mechanism of this laziness in an otherwise strict programming language is typically something resembling an iterator: You have an object with a current value and method of retrieving the remaining values. One of the advantages of this is that you can perform computations on an infinite stream. E.g. in Pythoniii, taking the first 10 items for a stream:
import itertools i = itertools.islice(itertools.cycle("abc"), 10) # i => <itertools.islice object at 0x1004c1f70> list(i) # use a list to realise the iterator and produce a print friendly # representation # => ['a', 'b', 'c', 'a', 'b', 'c', 'a', 'b', 'c', 'a']
In the example above, itertools.cycle produces an infinite stream of “a”,”b”, and “c” cycling. If you attempted to realize it completely you would be waiting forever.
We can use then these iterators in a generator comprehension. For example, the following code implements a primitive cipher function, where the key characters are cycled for the length of the message using itertools.cycle :
import itertools def cipher(message, key): return ''.join(chr(ord(m) ^ ord(k)) for (m, k) in itertools.izip(message, itertools.cycle(key))) cipher("hello, world", "abc") # => '\t\x07\x0f\r\rOA\x15\x0c\x13\x0e\x07' cipher('\t\x07\x0f\r\rOA\x15\x0c\x13\x0e\x07', "abc") # => 'hello, world'
This is a trivial example, and it could simply be replaced with an explicit loop doing some book keeping about the position into the key, yet it illustrated nicely how infinite streams can aid expressiveness.
Harmony
Both these issues are not only poor in isolation, but they are also at odds with the future of Javascript. The Harmony projectiv will introduce both generators and comprehensions to Javascript, and provide different semantics for both. There are three possibilities I see:
Break backwards compatibility for existing CoffeeScript code to support Harmony comprehensions and generators.
Add some extra syntax to support new modes (e.g. supporting {map, mapcat}✕{lazy, strict}).
Ignore Harmony’s comprehensions and generator features. This seems unlikely given the kind of developer who chooses CoffeeScript.
jQuery addendum
For completeness, jQuery provides an implementation of map and mapcat that provides all you need to macgyver together your own comprehensions with just a couple of functions and some rugous syntax. For example, you could implement flatten (see above) as follows:
function flatten(l) { if (!(l instanceof Array)) return [l]; return $.map(l, flatten); }
Due to the quirks of how jQuery’s map is actually map or mapcat depending on the return type of the function v, we can actually implement it as follows:
function flatten(l) { return l instanceof Array ? $.map(l, flatten) : l; }
See Also |
Police in Vietnam's southern province of Tay Ninh said they have fined two Vietnamese for illegally brokering marriage for foreigners.
Nguyen Thi Thuy, 28, and Khong Anh Viet, 30, were caught arranging for three Chinese men to meet two Vietnamese women on Thursday in Thuy's guest house in Tan Bien District bordering Cambodia, 120 kilometers (75 miles) northwest of Ho Chi Minh City.
The brokers are in the police station. Photo by VnExpress/Hong Tuyet
Viet later told the police that his relatives in China often bring Chinese men to Vietnam to search for Vietnamese wives and his job was to arrange for them to meet with women who want to marry foreigners.
Each Chinese man would have to pay Viet 30,000 Chinese yuan ($4,400), of which VND30 million would go to the chosen woman's family and VND10 million paid to Thuy. Viet would then help complete paperwork for the marriage.
An offender of illegal brokering marriage is subject to fines for administrative violations of between VND10 million and VND20 million in Vietnam.
China suffers from one of the worst gender imbalances in the world as families prefer boys to girls. As a result, millions of men now cannot find Chinese brides. Many of them resort to looking for foreign women, including Vietnamese. There are also many women in China's southern neighbor country who wish to marry a foreign husband in hopes for a better life, resulting in thousands of marriages between Vietnamese women and foreign men every year.
While legal centers for marriage brokering with foreigners exist, most such marriages are arranged through illegal channels, according to Phu Nu newspaper. Many Vietnamese have ended up with abusive husbands, or fell victim to human trafficking. |
It is frustrating as fans to see gashes in the Oregon defense and know that something is going wrong, but not be able to pinpoint what it is. We are fortunate to have the guidance of the Grizzled Ol’ Coach, Mike Morris, to help us understand not only what went wrong in the game against Washington State, but to help us see the fundamental principles that define the 4-3 defense Oregon is trying to run.
Should Oregon coaches have their jobs on the line? That is not for this article, as Mike already suggested some coaching changes in an editorial yesterday on FishDuck.com. (It was simply outstanding in so many ways) Instead, this analysis will focus on the foundation players in the 4-3, the defensive tackles, and how their implementation of simple tactics and techniques form the heart of a good run defense.
From Video
At the beginning of the play above, we see how the Oregon defensive tackle (yellow arrow and is technically the Nose Tackle) is lined up on the inside shoulder of the guard in a 2i (i for inside) technique, as the coaches would say. He is responsible for the “A” gap, the area between the center and the guard. Just lining up this way gives him a huge advantage in penetrating this gap as the WSU center (to our right of the “A”) charges out of his stance to engage.
The green dotted line above, indicates where the linebacker is going to protect – the “B” gap between the WSU guard and offensive tackle.
From Video
The running play above has begun and you can see how No. 39, (looks like No. 35, but is not) the Duck linebacker, is moving toward his “B” gap to fill. The Duck defensive nose/tackle has his hands full with the combo block of the center (to his right) and the offensive guard (to his left) and he MUST penetrate the “A” gap. It is critical that he pierce through enough to make the guard stay with the center, continuing the double-team block. This way the linebacker can plug the “B” gap as planned.
From Video
The guard for WSU (red dotted line, above) feels that the center has the Oregon defensive nose/tackle handled; thus he can peel off to attack the Duck linebacker. Note the defensive tackle moving over. (yellow arrow above)
You can see (above) how to the extreme left the offensive tackle and tight end have the Oregon defensive end tied up as well. Again, the defensive nose/tackle MUST get inside the block of the center to protect the “A” gap. Fundamentally, once a blocker has his head between you and your objective (in this case, the “A” gap), then you have lost leverage and have been successfully blocked.
If No. 47 (the Duck defensive nose/tackle) had got his head inside the “A” gap and penetrated, the running back could not run through that gap. Had he tried, the play would have been stopped at the LOS quickly.
From Video
The screenshot above makes me ill. The center had a bad angle to start and now has leverage on the Duck defensive nose/tackle (yellow arrow, above) to create a lane on one side that the Cougar running back (light blue dotted line) is dashing through.
Look how far away the linebacker is from the gap; when the linebacker meets the offensive guard (solid red arrow above), it will be five yards off the LOS. That guarantees at least a good, if not great running play for the opponent. Grizzled Ol’ Coach spoke of how fast Joe Walker would identify the play and hit his gap in a flash before the peel-off blocker could get to him. He has also stated that Kiko Alonso was even faster. Really, a fraction of a second in reaction time makes all the difference here.
From Video
The WSU center (red arrow, above) had made a terrific reach block as the Oregon defensive nose/tackle (yellow dotted line) is unable to penetrate and plug the “A” gap. Note how the Cougar offensive guard (black arrow, above) is in great position to crush the Duck linebacker, and the WSU offensive tackle (light blue arrow, above) has the defensive end away from the play.
It all starts with the defensive nose/tackle; if he penetrates, the play is stuffed at the LOS. If he occupies both blockers (which plugs the “A” gap), then the Oregon linebacker is free to plug the “B” gap and that forces the running back to bounce outside, where the defensive end is waiting (another fundamental goal of the defense, but that is another analysis).
From Video
But that is not where the misery ends, as there were issues with the other defensive tackle spot for the Ducks. Note the right defensive tackle above (yellow arrow) is lined up on the outside or left shoulder of the offensive guard. This is a “3” technique, and his job is to penetrate the “B” gap in front of him between the guard and tackle and occupy the guard so that the right linebacker behind him can protect the “A” gap on that side of the center.
Please note that outside the defensive tackle of Oregon, is the Cougar offensive tackle and you can see it so indicated above.
From Video
Just after the snap (above), we see the offensive tackle slide to his right and combo block with the guard on the Duck defensive tackle. The man in green should have had his head inside that gap and inside the offensive tackle of WSU. Now it appears that the tackle is taking control of the block as he is “sealing” the Duck defensive tackle out of the gap. Meanwhile, the offensive guard (yellow dotted line above) is preparing to release and block the linebacker (who should be attacking downhill) to open the “A” gap for the Cougar ball carrier.
From Video
The worst of all outcomes is taking place above. The offensive tackle was way outside the Duck defensive tackle to start the play and yet he was able to reach block and seal the gap inside by putting his head (and body) in front of where the Oregon DT wanted to go. But it gets worse, as the offensive guard (yellow arrow above) has peeled off to block the Oregon linebacker allowing the WSU running back (light blue arrow above) to run unimpeded into the end zone.
There a couple of simple rules for defensive linemen in a one-gap 4-3 defense, and one of them is to never let the blocker you’re attacking “hook you” and get his head and far-side shoulder past you because then you have lost your gap control.
Second, penetrate like a SOB and require both offensive linemen to continue blocking you, thus allowing the linebacker to run free. If one offensive lineman leaves that combo block on you, then you better penetrate that gap by getting your head inside of the offensive lineman in the gap!
Apologists for the Oregon defense want to talk about the difficult adjustment from the 3-4 defense to the 4-3. The GOC says, “baloney” (Not really, but you get the idea). He believes that Arik Armstead and DeForest Buckner would be tearing things up in this new defense.
”The 4-3 defense is much easier to learn and play … just get your ass in the gap and attack!”
This is the first of nearly 250 analysis articles over five years where we demonstrated the negative instead of the positive plays. My attitude on this is that the primary focus is to learn football so we can enjoy the game more. By reviewing the plays that went badly, we achieve two objectives.
First, we help to answer some of the questions fans have about the Oregon defense, and second, we learn a lot about the one-gap 4-3 defense that the Ducks are working to implement. It will help us fans to watch the progress and the positive plays that will come over time.
“Oh how we love to learn about our beloved Ducks!”
Charles Fischer (FishDuck)
College Football Analyst for FishDuck.com
Eugene, Oregon
(Note: I did not list player names as they work hard enough without being singled out. One assistant coach is highly paid to simply teach the defensive tackles–two positions is all–the correct technique.)
Top Photo from Video |
Chinese state-owned firms claim 'sovereign immunity' in US courts with foreign ministry's backing
Posted
Some Chinese state-owned companies, backed by a key Chinese Government agency, claim they are protected from lawsuits in the United States because they enjoy sovereign immunity.
Key points: Aviation, building products and banking SOEs have argued sovereign immunity in courts
US law firm that represent Chinese SOEs says protection enshrined in US law
The claim of sovereign immunity is "alarming and disturbing", businessman says
China Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters at a regular briefing: "We demand that the host country earnestly respect and safeguard Chinese companies' legal interests abroad".
Mr Lu said he was unclear about specific cases.
Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), China's largest state-owned aerospace and defence company, has used the strategy twice.
China National Building Materials Group (CNBM) successfully used it in a case alleging that Chinese-made drywall led to health problems in the US.
China's Foreign Ministry complained to the US Government about attempts by lawyers to serve the drywall lawsuit on China's state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) in October
SASAC is responsible for 106 state-owned enterprises (SOEs) with nearly $US1 trillion in assets, including CNBM and AVIC.
The ministry argued in a diplomatic note that US courts have no jurisdiction in suits against a country's "state-owned properties".
The legal argument concerns whether companies controlled by the Chinese Government can be protected under the US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), which was passed in 1976, even when their US subsidiaries are involved in commercial disputes.
Some legal experts say the sovereign immunity defence, intended under international law to shield governments from legal rulings made by a foreign power, is not a new or unexplored area of the law, but that it typically does not apply to commercial cases.
Other legal levers to pull
The use of sovereign immunity by Chinese SOEs is a reflection of how China's capitalist and legal regimes are increasingly running into conflict with Western regulation and jurisprudence, particularly as the country's overseas investment rapidly grows.
I think there is a mentality in China that, 'hey, we are behind these big walls and nobody can touch us'. Bill Perry, trade litigator with law firm Harris Moure
"I think there is a mentality in China that, 'hey, we are behind these big walls and nobody can touch us'," said Bill Perry, a Seattle-based trade litigator with law firm Harris Moure.
Chinese audit firms also have withheld working papers of Chinese firms listed on US stock markets during investigations by US regulators, stating that Chinese state secrecy law prohibited them from doing so.
A US judge held Bank of China in contempt in November for refusing to surrender account records on customers accused of selling counterfeit luxury goods.
The bank argued that providing the records would violate Chinese laws, but complied with the order after the judge imposed a daily fine of $68,000.
US firms unsure where they stand
The claim of sovereign immunity is "alarming and disturbing", said Greg Levesque, a senior adviser to Tang Energy Group, a Dallas-based clean energy company currently in arbitration with AVIC.
The US court's acceptance of the lawsuit ... has seriously infringed on the national sovereignty and interests of China. China Foreign Ministry diplomatic note to the US
"Anyone working with AVIC or its subsidiaries has to wonder, if a dispute arises, whether they're going to claim immunity or act responsibly."
In the drywall case, China's Foreign Ministry called SASAC's inclusion in the lawsuit "extremely ridiculous".
"The US court's acceptance of the lawsuit and the attempt to serve on SASAC through various channels has seriously infringed on the national sovereignty and interests of China," its diplomatic note said.
James Stengel, a partner of the New York office of law firm Orrick which represented the drywall provider CNBM in the suit, said the sovereignty doctrine "is highly relevant" for Chinese SOEs.
"You can make the argument that a different economic and political system gives Chinese companies an advantage in some ways," Mr Stengel said.
"But that's US law, and the US Government has made a clear decision that we will recognise the sovereign immunity of appropriately structured enterprises."
Reuters
Topics: business-economics-and-finance, economic-trends, globalisation---economy, banking, industry, china, united-states, asia |
Greens deputy Adam Bandt defends bushfire attack on Tony Abbott
Updated
Deputy Greens leader Adam Bandt has defended his decision to use the New South Wales bushfires to criticise the Coalition's climate change policy.
Mr Bandt has received fierce criticism on social media for posting a picture of the emergency and saying the Coalition's plan will lead to more like it.
Why Tony Abbott's plan means more bushfires for Australia & more pics like this of Sydney instagram.com/p/fjntyWkpGK/ theguardian.com/commentisfree/… — Adam Bandt (@AdamBandt) October 17, 2013
Mr Bandt continued to argue his case this morning, despite admitting he knows it is an uncomfortable issue to discuss.
"Talk about the timing - it's October and we're having a tragic bushfire," he told ABC News Breakfast.
"Meanwhile Tony Abbott and his ministers have been out every day this week saying that they're going to take Australia backwards when it comes to combating global warming."
Mr Bandt said the link between extreme weather events and global warming needs to be recognised.
"Global warming is the biggest threat to Australian life," he said.
"I don't want every summer, let alone every spring, for us to be worrying about whether we are going to see these kind of bushfires again, to have to worry about threats to people's property and threats to people's safety.
No one anywhere should seek to politicise any human tragedy, let alone a bushfire on this scale. Environment Minister Greg Hunt
"That is what we're living through at the moment.
"I know it's uncomfortable to have a discussion about it, but I think it's our job as politicians.
"The rest of the country's looking at New South Wales, worried about what is happening and... what we should be saying is, 'what can we do to stop this happening again?'
"I think given that Parliament's about to resume shortly and global warming is on the agenda for debate, we should be talking about how we as politicians can do everything we can to protect the Australian way of life."
Greens leader Christine Milne backed her deputy this morning:
IPCC says more fires, hottest winter leads to horrific early NSW fires, Abbott boasts dumping climate action, time to face nation.#auspol — Christine Milne (@senatormilne) October 17, 2013
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt lashed out at Mr Bandt, saying he is politicising human tragedy.
"There has been a terrible tragedy in New South Wales," he said.
"No one anywhere should seek to politicise any human tragedy, let alone a bushfire on this scale."
Topics: climate-change, environment, bushfire, fires, disasters-and-accidents, government-and-politics, nsw, australia
First posted |
Much of northern China is in the grip of a heatwave, forcing authorities to issue a "yellow alert", the lowest of the four tier warning system.
Temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius began on Thursday and the hot weather has encompassed Beijing, Tianjin, as well as parts of Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Liaoning and Shandong.
A cold front is expected to sweep in from the northwest during the weekend. This will introduce significantly cooler air, originating over Mongolia and Siberia.
Temperatures will remain in the mid-30Cs throughout the weekend in Beijing. This compares with a mid-May average of 27C.
By Monday, temperatures will have fallen sharply, with a daytime maximum of 20C at most. The dramatic fall in temperature will be accompanied by around 15mm of rain. This is the equivalent of two weeks of rain during a typical May.
A 2015 study of heatwaves in China revealed that the number of deaths due to excess heat had increased by a factor of 20 between the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of this one.
Interestingly, in the same period deaths from storms, floods and droughts had all decreased.
Whilst changing weather patterns, El Nino and climate change are all thought to have played a part in this dramatic rise, urbanisation has certainly played a major role.
This is borne out by the fact that during heatwaves nighttime temperatures in China have shown particular increases. This is the result of the urban "heat island" effect, whereby daytime heat is absorbed by buildings and roads and then re-radiated during the night.
The old and the young are thought to be particularly susceptible to extreme heat, and with China's population aging rapidly, heatwave related deaths will become an even greater problem in the decades ahead.
Meanwhile, the hot, settled weather has done nothing for the country’s poor air quality. Much of northern China’s air quality is currently classified as "unhealthy" or "very unhealthy". In some areas, including Beijing, the air may become "hazardous" before the fresh, clean air from the cold front brings about a temporary respite. |
The Avengers are a group of super heroes, with large egos and even larger physiological issues. They are a messed up team of over-achievers with high potential. Together, they can save the world or wreak havoc if they aren't handled with care.
At work, we all deal with similar over-achievers that are the best of their class. However, they have flaws that make it challenging to collaborate with, work as a team. Here are some tips that I've learnt over the years, which might help to deal with these Avengers at work.
Iron Man: Tony Stark is a billionaire industrialist and inventor, who wants to always do the right thing. He is the most talented person in the team. However, he is also arrogant and thinks he can do things better than anyone else, is sometimes not a team player.
The right thing to do in a situation like this, is to be transparent and let the employee know that they are part of a bigger universe, explain how their actions impact the team. Guide them so that they can develop into great employees that understand their strengths and weaknesses, are able to help the entire team, ask for help when they can't solve a problem.
Also, bias your hiring and employees towards a culture where the team is more important than self. Hire folks that care about winning as a team more than anything else. Don't ever tolerate brilliant jerks.
You have become a problem, a problem I have to deal with. Contrary to your belief, you are not the center of my universe. I have bigger problems than you in the southwest region to deal with." - Nick Fury to Iron Man
Captain America: Steve Rodgers is a scrawny little kid, that transforms into Captain America, the super hero that saves us all. He also has a fixed view of the world and wants to do things his one way.
Part of the problem is that these employees truly believe that this particular solution is the only way to solve the problem. A good starting point to deal with this is ensure that there is a relationship of trust, that you are actively listening to this person's view points. After that, if you still believe that this person is not open to thinking differently, you would work on re-phrasing the problem so that it is clear that this is a trade-off problem. It is not always black and white. Sometimes, it is all about making the least worse choice.
"
We're going to neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen.""I thought the punishment usually came after the crime.""We can't afford to wait that long.""Who's we?"―Conversation between Nick Fury, Captain America
Thor: He is a demigod that is super powerful. Thor however belongs to a different world. An equivalent employee is someone who doesn't understand how to work in companies that are different from what they have been involved in before.
First and foremost, clearly articulate what you expect from these employees. Once you do that, invest a lot of time upfront in helping them build the right skills. Partner them with someone who can help bridge the gap. Pairing them with someone with complimentary skills helps both individuals grow.
I see this a lot with employees that have experience in startups and haven't worked with later stage companies and vice versa. They don't understand that the challenges are very different and are not able to adapt to these hurdles. You will need to help them understand the differences and assist them to grow. Sometimes, you might just not hire this employee, as that is not what the team needs at this stage of growth.
Thor: I thought humans were more evolved than this. Nick Fury: Excuse me, did WE come to YOUR planet and blow stuff up?
Bruce Banner/Hulk:
Hulk does one thing and he does that really really well -- Smash. Unfortunately, that is the only thing Hulk is good at. Some employees I've worked with are great at one thing, but poor in others such as communication, team work, building relationships or product thinking etc.
I generally prefer hiring employees that can wear multiple hats, are well rounded and are not a one trick pony. More on that in a future post.
Sometimes you need to hire the expert, that is the best at one thing and not good at others. If you absolutely have to do that, make sure you do everything humanly possible to allow these individuals to channel their entire energy on the problem, and are not distracted. Point the biggest alien spaceships to them, clear everything else out of the path and unleash the mass of green fury. Communicate on their behalf, isolate them if need be, hire collaborative team members that are comfortable working with these employees. Sometimes, you need to sub-optimize parts of the system to optimize for the whole.
Black Widow (or) Hawkeye:
Black Widow and Hawkeye do all the dirty work, that other Avengers don't do well. Hawkeye is a sniper, an observer. Black Widow is a spy, can get information that is critical to the success of the team. On their own, they can't fight the bad guys. However, without them Avengers have zero chance of success.
The biggest challenge with Black Widows and Hawkeyes is that they don't get as much credit or screen time as the stars. It is important to spend time with these employees and help them scale to become rockstars. Acknowledging that they play a crucial role to success of the team is paramount. Helping them identify, hone their skills is an important trait of a true leader. Who knows, these employees with the right inspiration and investment can be better than the stars.
What are your tips? How do you handle Avengers at work? |
Sony's phones are almost always more expensive than competing devices, and the XZ Premium is no exception. It arrived in the United States for a whopping $799, making it one of the most expensive (mainstream) phones on the market. Here we are, about a month and a half after its release in 'Murica, and the phone has already dropped $100.
The XZ Premium has a Snapdragon 835, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of expandable storage, a 5.5" 4K HDR display, and a 3,230mAh battery. The main selling point is the 19MP back camera, capable of recording 960fps slow-motion video. The 4K HDR screen is pretty nice too, but it only switches to 4K resolution during media playback (in select apps).
The biggest downside to this phone, besides the price, is the fingerprint sensor. Or rather, the lack thereof. The US model doesn't have a working fingerprint sensor due to some agreement/legal matter, but flashing the international variant's firmware turns it back on. If you're still interested, you can grab it from various retailers below. |
Channeler The Concept The main idea of a channeler is to be a character with lots of vercitility. All of its abilities push this idea, with the main two mechanics, Point Based Spellcasting and Token Manifestations being the best examples. Point based spellcasting gives the user more vercitility when casting a spell, since they can more easily risk using a spell when others cant. That said, the Channeler, similar to the Warlock, can't cast as much as most spellcasters, due to having a lower then suggested amount of points Token Manifestations work like Eldritch Invocations, but they can be changed during rests, giving them more versatility and ability to change based on the situation. To counter this ofcourse, they are generally weaker, and you get less of them in total. Where a Warlock is about having choices in level up, a Channeler is about having choices in game to game play Similarly, you could call them too the (UnearthedArcana) Psion as the Warlock is too the Wizard. The Lore I don't really want to finalize the Lore untill I also have the final 10 levels, since the Prime version of the Channeler is an important part of what defines them. That said, Channelers work similarly to warlocks, getting their powers from a source, rather then arcane or devine magic. However, instead of their source being a patron, the channeler gets their powers from concepts and powerful existencial ideas that the Channeler gains authority over. In this document, I have created 4 Channeler Authorities that go up to Level 10. These include: Humanity, gaining power from the whims of the people, gets features and tokens that can help with RP and Proficiancies Spirits, gaining power from the spirits of the dead, gains features and tokens that can help with being stealthy, and assasinating specific targets Pain, gaining power from the pain of others whether emotional or physical, features and tokens based around becoming better fighters Realms, gaining power from the non-material realms, features and tokens based around becoming a better spellcaster. Playtesting I lack the ability or resources to playtest this properly, so if you can, talk to your DM about using this class, and contact me at continuityOfficer@gmail.com, /u/continuityOfficer, or at continuityOfficer.tumblr.com to tell me how it went, if you felt you where under or over powered, if you had any problems with the rules, and if you where having fun playing. Credits Homebrewery: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/ Art from Page 2: http://teaink.deviantart.com/art/Grond-607486755 Art from Page 3: http://kimsokol.deviantart.com/art/Healing-Light-476575429 Past Level 10 I want past level 10 to continue the vercitility theme. Aswell as obviously giving you more tokens and casting points, I want the abilities to add to this aswell. There will only be 1 more authority feature, at Level 14, and 2 more authority tokens at the first level of each game tier. The Level 20 ability I want to be something that allows you to change out a single Token on the fly. Either by using Casting Points and as an action, or as allowing it a limited amount of times between short rests and having it take a minute. I'm unsure about how to balance 6+ level spells, since no matter what, theres a problem if they can cast even 3 level 9 spells in a day, and potencially more with the Realms Authority. Balancing I have tried to make this as balanced and as fun as possible, to try and incentive types of play, and make the character feel useful but not overpowering. That said, its easy to miss things, so please contact me by the same way you can as a playtester if you notice anything obvious.
Channeler The Channeler Level Proficiency Bonus Features Casting Points Max Spell Level Known Tokens 1st +2 Source Magic, Channelers Authority 2 1st - 2nd +2 Token Manifestation, Authority Token 4 1st 2 3rd +2 Innate Meditation 6 2nd 3 4th +2 Ability Score Improvement 8 2nd 4 5th +3 - 10 3rd 5 6th +3 Authority Token 12 3rd 5 7th +3 Authority Feature 14 4th 6 8th +3 Ability Score Improvement 16 4th 7 9th +4 - 18 5th 8 10th +4 Authority Feature 20 5th 9 Class Features As a channeler, you gain the following class features Hit Points Hit Dice: 1d8 per channeler level
1d8 per channeler level Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + your Constituion modifier
8 + your Constituion modifier Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constituion modifier per channeler level after 1st Proficiencies Armor: Light Armor
Light Armor Weapons: Simple weapons
Simple weapons Tools: any 1 artisians tools Saving Throws: Wisdom, Constitution
Wisdom, Constitution Skills: Choose two from Arcana, Insight, Investigation, Perception Equipment You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background: (a) a dagger or (b) 1 simple weapon
(a) Scholar's Pack or (b) any 1 Equipment Pack
Leather armor Source Magic With your ability to channel the energies of your Channelers Authority, you also gain the ability to cast a number of spells. Quick Cantrip At 1st Level you know 1 cantrip of your choice from the Channelers spell list. You do not gain additional cantrips as you level up, however, you can unlearn your cantrip during a long rest to learn a new cantrip from the Channelers spell list. Spells Known at First Level and Above At 1st Level you know 2 1st Level Spells, and at every Level past 1st, you learn 1 additional spell from any Spell Level including or bellow your Maximum Spell Level shown on the Channeler Class Table. When you Level up, you may unlearn any number of known spells equal to Half your Channeler Level, and learn any number of spells equal to the number you unlearnt.
Point Based Spellcasting Channelers, unlike most spellcasters don't use spell slots, instead they can sacrifice a number of 'Casting Points' to cast a spell. Cantrips are cast for free, but to cast spells from 1st level or higher, you must sacrifice a number of points corrosponding to the level of the spell from the list bellow. Spell Level Casing Points 1 2 2 3 3 5 4 6 5 7 Spells of Level 5 and bellow can only be cast twice each before become uncastable untill you take a long rest. Spellcasting Ability Wisdom is your spellcasting ability for Channeler Spells, since your magic is dependant on your ability to perceive and intuit, and thus manipulate the world around them. You use Wisdom whenever a spell refers to your Spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your wisdom modifyer when setting the saving throw DC for a Channeler spell you cast and when making an attack role with one. Spell Save DC = 8 + your proficiancy bonus + your wisdom modifyer Spell Attack Modifyer = your proficiancy bonus + your wisdom modifyer Spellcasting Focus A Channeler does not cast magic directly, and instead casts magic by manipulating the energies of their Channeler's Authority. Thus, they act as if they have a Focus at all times Channelers Authority Select a Channelers Authourity, the source of energy that you draw your power from, such as Humanity, Spirits, Pain or Realms. Your choice grants you features when you choose it at 1st level, and again at 3rd, 7th and 10th Level. Along with these features, it also grants you access to bonus Token Manifestations, whitch you gain at 2nd and 6th level. Token Manifestation Your channeling allows you to manifest Tokens, whitch are abilities or objects that can give you certain effects while you have them manifested. You learn Tokens from your Channelers Authority at 2nd and 6th Level, and when leveling up, you can gain new Tokens from the Token List at the end of Class Description, totalling so that you know tokens equal to the 'Known Tokens' list in your Class Table (ignoring your tokens learnt from your Channelers Authority). You can only have a number of Tokens manifested equal to your proficiancy bonus, so at 2nd Level, you can manifest 2, while at 5th Level, you can manifest 3. By taking a short rest, you can unmanifest any number of tokens equal to your Wisdom Modifyer or bellow, and manifest any number of tokens equal to the number you unmanifested.. By taking a long rest, you may Manifest any number of Tokens, and Manifest any number of tokens equal to that however many you unmanifested Some tokens can be manifested multiple times, those tokens are marked as '(Stackable)'. When you level up, you can unlearn any number of Tokens, equal to half your proficiancy bonus (rounded up), annd learn any number of Tokens equal to however many you unlearnt. Innate Meditation Whenever you take a short rest, you recover Casting Points equal to half your Channeler Level. Ability Score Improvement When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.
Channelers Authorities At 1st Level, a Channeler selects an authority. This Authority is where they gain their powers from. These Authorities grant the Channeler features and manifestation tokens. You can select your Channelers Authority from the list bellow. Humanity Not limited to only humans, instead humanity refers to the whims and energies of all concious creatures. Oracle's Third Eye At 1st Level, when you select this Authority, you gain the ability to better sense the actions that someone has once taken. If you touch someone, you can roll an Investigation Check to see what they have done within the last 24 hours. Things a person are trying to hide are very difficult to see, while things they would be willing to give easily are very easy. Authority Token Starting at 2nd Level, and again at 6th Level, your authority gives you access to certain Token Manifestations that others can not access, these tokens are instantly learnt as you reach their prerequesit level. Badge of Talent (Stackable) 2nd Level This token manifests as a badge sewn into your clothing. If that clothing is removed, you lose this tokens effect. When you manifest this token, select one skill or tool that you are not proficiant in. While this token is manifested, you are proficiant in that skill. Charming Gaze 6th Level When this token is manifested, your eye's change from whatever color they where previously to a rainbow of colors. If you or the target are blinded, you can not use the effects of this Token. While this Token is manifested, you can use 1 Casting Point to cast Charm Person at any time. After the charm is completed, the charmed person does not know that they where charmed. Telepath At 7th Level, you can telepathically communicate with people within 60 feet of you. You can send thoughts to people within 60 feet of you freely, however, if you want them to be abkle to cummunicate with you while they are within 60 feet, you must preform a 10 minute ritual to create a link between your mind and their's. Aslong as 2 people are linked to you, they can also communicate with eachother, however, you also hear any thoughts they send to eachother. Embued Charisma Starting at 10th Level, you can use 5 Casting Points, and select 1 person within 30 feet of you. For the next 24 hours, you gain advantage on any Charisma based skills against that person. Spirits The energies of a Channeler under the Spirits Authority comes from those who have died. Not simply the undead, but all those who have died over the millenia's of existance. Spirit Sight Starting at Level 1, when you select this Authority, you can use 1 Casting Point, then select 1 person or creature within your line of sight. For 1 action (6 seconds) that person or creature can not see you. Authority Token Starting at 2nd Level, and again at 6th Level, your authority gives you access to certain Token Manifestations that others can not access, these tokens are instantly learnt as you reach their prerequesit level. Ghost Walk Level 2 When you manifest this token, it takes the form of of a ritualistic symbol imprinted somewhere on your body. While this Token is manifested, you can teleport up to 10 feet using your bonus action. Secret Assassin Level 6 When you manifest this token, it takes the form of of a peice of paper with anciant writing on it. You must be able to touch this token to active this tokens ability. By using 2 Casting points, you can cast Unseen Servant as a Level 1 spell. Unlike a normal Unseen Servant however, your Unseen Servant can attack. Defaultly, it holds an invisible dagger, doing 1d4 damage on an attack, but as an action, you can give it a different weapon. It is proficiant with all weapons you are. When your Unseen Servant attacks a target, the target may attack the Unseen Servant as a reaction, however, the target has disadvantage on this attack. Medium Starting at 7th Level, you can use any number of Casting Points to ask a dead person any number of questions equal to the number of Casting Points you used. This acts as if you cast Speak With Dead on the corpse, and follows the question answering as such. However, although you need to be in the place the person died in, you do not need to have the corpse. Spirit Form Starting at 10th Level, you gain the ability to use 5 Casting Points and become your Spirit Form for up too 1 minute. While in this form, you gain the following effects: you are invisible, you ignore tough terrain, you can fly at half your movement speed. Attacking or casting a spell in this form takes you out of Spirit Form.
Pain Despair and anguish, this is the energies a Channeler with the Authority of Pain use. Dread Infusal Starting at Level 1, when you select this Authority, whenever you take damage, you can use 1 Casting Point, and on your next attack roll done with a weapon, you can add half the damage you took to the attack. Authority Token Starting at 2nd Level, and again at 6th Level, your authority gives you access to certain Token Manifestations that others can not access, these tokens are instantly learnt as you reach their prerequesit level. WarForging (Stackable) Level 2 You need a weapon you are not proficiant in to manifest this ability. When you manifest this token, symbols. From now on, you can use that weapon as if you where Proficiant in it, and if the weapon is non-magical, it acts as if it is a magic weapon with no effect. Material Despair (Stackable) Level 6 You need a weapon to manifest this Token. When you manifest this token, you select a weapon, that weapon is surrounded by a dark mist. If used multiple times on the same weapon, the mist becomes thicker and darker. The weapon this is manifested on becomes a Magic Weapon if it is not already, and gains a +1 bonus to attack and damage. Metaphysical Tactition Starting at 7th Level, you can select a Fighting Style from the Fighter's Fighting Style list and gain its effects. If you have a long rest, you can choose to lose the effects of your chosen fighting style, and gain a new one. Karmatic Judgement Starting at 10th Level, whenever you take damage equal to or more then 20, you can roll a d10 and have the source of that damage take damage equal to your roll. Realms The non-material realms, as infinate and magestic as they are, is where the Channeler with Authority over Realms gets their energy. Unlocked Magic Starting at Level 1, when you select this Authority, you gain access to the Cantrip lists of all classes. From now on, when you take a chnage your cantrip with your 'Quick Cantrip' ability, you have access to the cantrip list of every spellcasting class. Also, you can change your cantrip during Short Rests also. Authority Token Starting at 2nd Level, and again at 6th Level, your authority gives you access to certain Token Manifestations that others can not access, these tokens are instantly learnt as you reach their prerequesit level. Forbidden Knowledge (Stackable) Level 2 This Token manifests as a book, you must be able to hold the book to use its effects. When this token is manifested, you can choose 1 Spell below level 5 that is in or below your 'Max Spell Level' as shown on the Channeler Class Table from the wizard spell list. You can cast that spell as if it was one of your known Channeler Spells. Power Source Rift Level 6 This token manifests as a small floating ball of energy the hovers around you. While this token is manifested, you gain casting points equal to your wisdom modifyer + half your Channeler Level. Occultist Starting at 7th Level, you always know when Magic is being used. You act as if you always have Detect Magic activted, however, to find out the school of magic the magic is coming from, or to determine the exact possition of the magic costs 1 Casting Point. Plane Walker Starting at 10th Level, you cast Contact Other Plane as a ritual by using 5 Casting Points. However, instead of a DC 15 Intelligence Saving Throw, you only have to suceed a DC 10 intelligence saving throw.
Tokens Bellow is a list of tokens the player can select from when they learn a new token through level up. Great Heels (Stackable) This token manifests as a marking on the heels of your feet. If you manifest this token multiple times, the markings grow increasingly large. If you are wearing shoes, or otherwise unable to have the heels of your feet touch the ground, this tokens effect does not work. While this token is manifested, you gain +5 movement speed. Artifact Inclined Level 10 This token manifests as a glove with arcane markings and anciant words scribled on top of its fabric. As long as you have one attunment slot open, you can touch a Magic Item with this glove, and attune to it in 10 minutes, instead of the usual short rest. Item Unoriginal (Stackable) This token manifests as a an object of your choice worth less then 5gp. If this token goes is further then 10 feet away from you, it will dissapear in 1 minute. If this token dissapears in this way, you can use a 1 minute ritual to get it back. When you unmanifest this Token, that object dissapears. Third Eye This token manifests as a tatoo or marking of an eye possitioned on your forehead. While this token is manifested, you gain +2 to passive perception. Channeler's Curse Level 5 This token manifests as a large burn like marking on the Channeler's face. While this token is manifested, you can have a spell of Level 4 or bellow be cast as if it was 1 spell level higher by usuing 1 additional Casting Point while casting the spell. This can only be done if the casted spell is atleast 1 level bellow your 'Max Spell Level' as stated in the Channeler Class Table Unlearnt Experience (Stackable) This token manifests as a peice of cloth, like a scarf or a cloth belt, with an introcate pattern in it. When you manifest this token, you can select 1 skill, and gain a bonus skill modifyer equal to half your Wisdom Modifyer (Rounded Down) Immaculate Resistance (Stackable) This token manifests as a natural plating on your skin, with a marking resembling a damage type of your choice. While this token is manifested, you gain resistance to the selected Damage Type. Warded Ability (Stackable) This token manifests as a small pixie like spirit that follows closely to you. When this token is manifested, select 1 ability, when you make a save using that ability, add 1d4 extra to the roll Witch Spell Level 5 This token manifests as an hat similar to that of a witches hat. While this token is manifested, you can cast the spell Hex as a First Level spell for 1 Casting Point, however, you can not transfer the spell to someone else after the person you cast it on has did or become unconcious. Lucky Motif (Stackable) This token manifests as a small lucky trincket (such as a rabits foot or a 4 leafed clover). Once per long rest, you can use the effect of the lucky feat to reroll any 1 dice roll. If you use this effect of this token, you can not un manifest this token untill you take a long rest. AfterMath Level 7 This token manifests as a small vial of infinatly deep clear liquid. After you kill a creature, injesting this bottle will restore 1d10 health Miricle Rod This token manifests as a small rod with a devine ingraving somewhere on it. While this token is manifested, you can cast the Prestidigitation cantrip as a second cantrip Token Companion This token manifests as a familier, choosing from the listed familiers from the Find Companion spell. That familier acts as if you summoned it by using a Find Familier Spell. |
"I hope voters get to see former GOP Governors Gary Johnson and Bill Weld on the debate stages this fall," Mitt Romney tweeted. | AP Photo Romney wants Libertarian Gary Johnson on debate stage
Mitt Romney on Wednesday said he wanted voters to get a chance to see Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson debate with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
"I hope voters get to see former GOP Governors Gary Johnson and Bill Weld on the debate stages this fall," tweeted Romney, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts and the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.
Story Continued Below
Weld, another former Massachusetts governor, is Johnson's running mate.
To earn an invitation to the first debate, Johnson, the former New Mexico governor, needs to score more than 15 percent on an average of five national polls the debate commission has picked as its criteria. The most recent surveys from the polls pegged Johnson’s average at 8.8 percent, down from 9.2 percent a week ago.
Romney has an openly hostile relationship with the current GOP nominee, having campaigned against Trump in the primary and calling him unfit for office. Trump has publicly ripped Romney and accused him of having "choked like a dog" in his 2012 loss to President Barack Obama. |
One of the two tethered aerostats that make up the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS), broke loose from its moorings today and drifted across the skies of Maryland and Pennsylvania, before coming down to earth 160 miles away. Two Air National Guard F-16 fighters were scrambled to monitor its movements, while its trailing tether took out power lines in Pennsylvania, causing blackouts across the state.
JLENS' twin aerostats are (or were) supposed to provide airborne early warning and targeting of low-flying airborne threats coming in from the Atlantic, covering a radius of 300 miles with their look down search and targeting radar. They have been the subject of much controversy because of the cost of the program; a recent Los Angeles Times report called the $2.7 billion dollar project delivered by Raytheon a "zombie" program: "costly, ineffectual and seemingly impossible to kill."
The twin white balloons with their radomes are usually visible from Baltimore and much of surrounding Maryland, flying on tethers at sites in Baltimore County and Harford County near the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground.The 242-foot long JLENS aerostats are designed to operate at altitudes of up to 10,000 feet, and can stay aloft for up to 30 days at a time before being retrieved for maintenance. The tethers, made of Vectran (a substance similar to kevlar), are 1 1/8 inches thick, and are designed to withstand 100 mile-per-hour winds. However, the Harford County tether, near Aberdeen Proving Grounds' Edgewood Arsenal facility, broke today, about halfway up to the JLENS aerostat, allowing the unmanned, unpowered blimp to be carried off while trailing 6,700 feet of cable. High winds during a storm that passed through the Baltimore region, or perhaps wind shear associated with the storms, snapped the tether just after noon local time, setting the aerostat adrift.
The tether is designed to withstand 100 mile per hour winds, according to Raytheon, and had withstood a 106 mile-per-hour wind in a storm the system was exposed to accidentally during testing. The Army was standing by to pull the JLENS balloons down to prevent damage last month when Hurricane Joaquin threatened the mid-Atlantic region. The North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) and the FAA are coordinating tracking of the drifting aerostat and routing air traffic around it, according to NORAD spokesman Michael Kucharek, who told the Baltimore Sun that NORAD was working with other agencies "to address the safe recovery of the aerostat."
In the meantime, the aerostat has left a trail of destruction as its flight path approaches higher terrain.The cables dangling from the blimp took out power lines in Pennsylvania, resulting in massive power outages across the the eastern part of the state, affecting Lancaster, Harrisburg, and much of the Poconos region. The wanderings of the JLENS have become the subject of multiple Twitter accounts, including @noradblimp and @bmoreblimp.
@ABC @GMA Landed in bloomsburg right by my school. Knocked out the power at CMVT. pic.twitter.com/WLJydKVf2I — Fisher P Creasy (@FPCreasy) October 28, 2015
At about 4:30 Eastern time, the aerostat came to ground in Moreland Township, Pennsylvania, having apparently lost helium during its ordeal. A Pennsylvania State Police spokesperson said that the balloon had been "contained," and the military was moving in to recover it. |
Manchester United have confirmed the signings of Matteo Darmian, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schneiderlin. These follow the early acquisition of Memphis Depay who was unveiled by the club on Friday. United have been ruthless in the transfer market in recent times and more new faces are expected at Old Trafford. However, United’s tradition has been to bring young players through their academy and introduce them into the first team: an era which seems to have passed.
Last summer, there were mixed feelings regarding the departures of Danny Welbeck, Tom Cleverley and Federico Macheda. There has not been any casualty yet this summer, but Jonny Evans’ days as a Manchester United player are numbered. Fellow centre-backs Phil Jones and Chris Smalling recently signed new contracts and with the Red Devils in the market for a top defender, Evans could see himself as the club’s fifth-choice centre-back.
United have also been merciless in clearing out players who have failed to perform at Old Trafford, albeit for a reduced price. The sale of the trio Nani, Anderson and van Persie did not fetch even £10 million, showing how eager the club to get some players off their books. Rafael and Javier Hernandez have been deemed surplus to requirements and the club will be looking to ship them out quickly.
Clubs spend big for the finished article and send their academy products out on loan which almost always fails to materialize. There’s certainly been a transition and there are many possible reasons for the change in approach.
Manchester United, Tradition and the Money
Level of competition
This new trend is not seen only at Old Trafford, but it’s the way the game has evolved. There is a lot more competition for trophies and success and clubs need to spend for immediate success. Winning the league has become an even greater challenge with at least four teams having pre-season expectations of becoming champions. The ‘smaller’ sides in the league can no longer be brushed aside and clubs cannot risk fielding young players, especially considering the tight competition at the top.
Alan Hansen is remembered for his famous comment: “You’ll never win anything with kids.” This came in 1995 after Sir Alex Ferguson fielded young players Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and David Beckham. United would go on to win the domestic double that year. The issue twenty years on is not with age but being good irrespective of the age. There are few young players who can play at the highest level for a club like Manchester United and such players go for a commanding fee. United have a lot of potential in Adnan Januzaj, Andreas Pereira, James Wilson, Nick Powell and Patrick McNair, but these players cannot do a job each week for the club and thus will have to play a bit-part role or be shipped out on loan for more first-team action.
Stature of the club
Manchester United are a real force in world football and boast one of the largest fanbases of them all. The large number of fans adds to the expectation, coupled with the financial interests the club lose when they fail to perform. The Red Devils faced a huge turnover in their finances following their abysmal 2013-14 season. Manchester United’s ‘brand’ is the first to be worth over $1 billion, according to a report by Brand Finance, surpassing Bayern Munich and Real Madrid. The club’s recent deals with Chevrolet and Adidas have boosted its financial position and thus there is a lot of money ready to be spent. The revenue generated places United in a safe position as regards UEFA Financial Fair Play Rules. The spending will not stop and fans can expect the club to continue to compete in the market for years to come.
Progress of other clubs
A few years ago, just a handful of clubs could splash out £20 million on a single player but pretty well every club in the Premier League is now in the position to do that. The teams at the top outbid the mid-table clubs for players because they could flex their financial muscle. They can still outbid the smaller clubs, but the smaller clubs do not back out easily and the lure of first-team action pulls some of the players to the smaller clubs.
In January, Chelsea were in the market for Andrej Kramaric but lost out to Leicester City who were in the bottom three at the time. Leicester’s bid was acceptable and it came down to Kramaric’s choice. Last summer, United paid a record fee for Angel Di Maria and spent a staggering £32 million for Luke Shaw, who was 18 at the time. There were other clubs interested and United had to outbid them to secure his signing.
Agents, third parties and clauses
Most clubs have had to overpay in recent times for their transfer targets. This is partly due to the interests of agents, other third parties, release clauses and sell-on value percentages. Liverpool paid £29 million for Roberto Firmino with only £18 million going to his former club TSG Hoffenheim. Manchester City have agreed a £49 million deal for Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling, but his former club QPR will receive 20% of the transfer fee.
The clauses inserted during negotiations and agents wanting the best possible deal for their clients contributes to the high transfer fees and clubs will have to pay to secure their targets. Signing young players comes with so many clauses these days and should they go on to fulfil their potential, their sell-on value becomes so high, the club will want the maximum benefit from any deal.
With the club searching for a swift return to the summit of English and European football, Manchester United have had to spend a lot. The club cannot risk trusting first-team duties to players from their academy and wait for them to develop. That era is over. The famed La Masia of European Champions Barcelona has failed to bring through a star in the past three years with the club having to spend to maintain its position at the top. The academy will still run and produce some quality players, but these players need to be something special to be able to break into the first team. |
Neighbors in Johnstown, Pa., called police when they witnessed the young mother outside taking off her clothes and lying naked on the ground. But police arrested and jailed the woman, identified as Ashley Whisman, 26, of the city's West End, for what they allegedly found inside toys belonging to the woman's three-year-old child. Namely, drugs and drug paraphernalia.
NorthlandsNewsCenter.com reports that police said Whisman's speech was slurred, her arms were covered in track marks, scratches and lesions. On her way to the hospital, police said she tried to hide a baggie of marijuana and a needle, the website adds.
The 3-year-old allegedly told EMS he was very hungry, the station reports. And among the child's toys, police found drug paraphernalia, marijuana bongs, grinders and even syringes, the website writes.
Whisman faces drug and child endangerment charges. |
Richard Dawid examines a critique of quantum mechanics, string theory and inflationary cosmology.
Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe By Roger Penrose Princeton University Press: 2016. 9780691119793
The eminent theoretical physicist Roger Penrose is worried about the current path of physical research. In Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe, he argues that the eponymous triad of trends has become overly powerful in contemporary fundamental physics. This core message is delivered in language that demands some mathematical sophistication of the reader. Penrose also discusses some of his own ideas, such as twistor theory — his take on a synthesis of quantum theory and general relativity.
Image: Illustration by Eoin Ryan
Penrose claims that even well-confirmed theories, such as quantum mechanics, are 'oversold' with respect to their presumptive stability. Quantum physics has had an impressive record of predictive success, ranging from quantum chemistry to elementary particle physics. But it faces a deep conceptual problem. Whereas quantum mechanics has a perfect internal consistency when it describes a system that evolves without being measured, the way in which it represents measurements is not coherently embedded in that description. To Penrose, this indicates that the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics have not yet been found and will rely on the elusive full integration of gravity into quantum physics. He argues that the success of quantum mechanics tends to make physicists insensitive to the theory's conceptual problem and generates an unjustified degree of faith in its basic principles as a solid foundation of physics.
Another source of undue trust in a theory, Penrose asserts, is the physics community's tendency to follow fashion — that is, to settle on one strategy of dealing with a problem before severely testing the theory's empirical predictions. Penrose views string theory (a theory of quantum gravity) as the pre-eminent example.
The final trend in Penrose's triad is fantasy — that is, a wildly speculative idea that goes far beyond what is implied by the known data. Penrose assigns that category to inflationary cosmology, which he argues is treated as an established theory despite a lack of evidence.
Of these three, Penrose's discussion of quantum mechanics ('faith') is the most successful. On the basis of an inspired presentation of quantum mechanics, he makes a case that the theory's enormous scientific success does not remove serious doubts about the finality of its basic principles. His discussions of fantasy and fashion, however, are problematic. He paints an exaggerated picture of their role and systematically underrates the merits of the theories he criticizes.
Fashion and fantasy are presented in separate chapters as independent influences that have become too powerful. But, as Penrose acknowledges, fantasy has always been at the root of new theories. Just think about the atomist speculations that led to the kinetic gas theory in the nineteenth century. For Penrose, the trouble arises when fantasy is given too much credit before a theory is empirically tested. This occurs, he says, when a theory becomes the subject of fashion. In this light, it is difficult to see the independent role of 'fantasy' in Penrose's argument.
Inflationary cosmology is, moreover, not a good illustration of fantasy, even by Penrose's own account. As he acknowledges, recent precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background agree with typical predictions of inflationary cosmology, so it seems difficult now to call it a mere flight of fancy. Penrose presents his important criticism that inflation generically does not explain the low initial entropy of the Universe (although explanations have been suggested in certain models; see S. M. Carroll and J. Chen. https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0410270; 2004). But he presents the case against inflation in a way that hides the independent significance of problems that can be solved by it, such as explaining the homogeneity and flatness of the observed Universe.
There are similar issues with Penrose's claim that fashion is the main reason for string theory's influential position. His analysis of its problems is not up to the task of debunking proponents' physics-based reasons for confidence. Penrose's main complaint about string theory is that it lacks a clear specification of its number of degrees of freedom. He tries to show this in several contexts. However, he tends to omit information that could make the situation less confusing than he takes it to be. For example, he expresses unease about 'gauge–gravity duality', the claim that string theory is empirically equivalent to a quantum field theory in a lower-dimensional space. (If generally valid, that would mean that a string theory in three extended spatial dimensions was empirically equivalent to a quantum field theory in two spatial dimensions.) Such a claim looks startling, because one would naively expect that a three-dimensional theory has more degrees of freedom than a two-dimensional one. Penrose presents this as one of many questionable implications of string theory.
Curiously, however, he presents his case without mentioning that Gerard 't Hooft, who is cited in the book, provided a general understanding of the reduced number of degrees of freedom in quantum gravity without any reference to string theory, before cases of gauge–gravity duality were conjectured in the context of string theory (G. 't Hooft. https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9310026; 1993). In this light, by generating examples of gauge–gravity duality, string theory does not, as Penrose maintains, make one more prima facie implausible claim, but opens up perspectives for a more thorough understanding of a characteristic of quantum gravity that had already been suggested.
It is always inspiring to read Penrose's uncompromisingly independent perspective on physics. He seems more at home with developing visionary ideas than with detailed criticism of prevalent theories. Unfortunately, this book offers too few of the former and too much of the latter.
Author information Affiliations Richard Dawid is a philosopher of science at the University of Stockholm. Richard Dawid Authors Search for Richard Dawid in: Nature Research journals •
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Google Scholar Corresponding author Correspondence to Richard Dawid.
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Notes:
Before jumping to the conclusion that DE troops are superior to ‘regular’ troops in all situations, consider the adjusted efficiency figures at the bottom. These figures use an elixir to DE conversion rate based on the maximum possible production rates at a TH10 base with upgraded resources (essentially this converts game time into the resource). However, the two currencies are not interchangeable, so direct comparison between troops in terms of cost effectiveness is somewhat misleading. These numbers are perhaps a better guide for deciding on when to start farming for DE, building dark barracks, etc.
None of the above figures factor in troops’ special abilities. For example, the witch looks awful on paper, but her skeleton troops bump her useful stats up quite a bit. Similarly, the wallbreaker or healer provide much needed features, but have poor measurable qualities. Their value is up to how the player uses them.
One of the more interesting conclusions is the Goblin. It provides a very good balance of HP and DPS per housing space and is a fast mover. It may be an effective and inexpensive addition to defensive CC’s during war (though use is limited on offense during raids).
When cost is no object (during war), use the housing efficiency columns to make your decisions. For raiding, farming, etc, the cost efficiency side of the chart, as well as the adjusted efficiency at the bottom, should factor into your decisions.
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Over the last year, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the sacrament of marriage while teaching a course to undergraduates on precisely this topic. As I teach this course, I’m always amazed by the gift of sacramental marriage in ecclesial life. The couple’s consent binds them not simply to one another but to one another through Christ. The couple becomes in the sacrament of marriage an icon of Christ and the Church, mediating Eucharistic love to the world. The couple does so through family life, the charism of mundaneness that renews every aspect of the created order.
It is precisely in this context that I have come to recognize that couples struggling with infertility have a particular charism within the sacrament of marriage itself.
When I tell people that my spouse and I cannot have children (at least thus far), there is always one of two reactions. The first is a question: Have you heard about the Creighton Model of treating infertility? We say yes. The second reaction is a well-intentioned (though deeply idiotic) word of comfort when they learn that we have adopted a child: “Well, I hope you can have one of your own one day.”
Both of these reactions fundamentally see infertility as a curse alone. They reduce fruitfulness within the sacrament of marriage to the act of procreation. And therefore, they see the fruitfulness of the nuptial mystery solely in the birth of children. If a marriage cannot produce progeny, then something must be done. Either through medical treatment or divine intervention.
I’m not objecting to the gift of medical treatment for infertility, especially the Creighton Model. My wife and I have participated in treatment for infertility and could participate again one day. But the problem with such an approach is the failure to recognize that even with medical treatment, the couple themselves cannot determine the end to which their relationship is directed. In bestowing consent to one another, they offered their wills not simply to one another. Instead, their self-giving love (which is right and just unto itself) is now lifted up into the language of God’s own gift-giving revealed in the Trinity.
It is precisely the charism of the infertile couple in the Church to remind us that the fundamental end of marriage is not reproduction at all costs. Rather, it is the giving over of the entire life of the couple to God. As Cardinal Ouellet notes in his Mystery and Sacrament of Love: A Theology of Marriage and the Family for the New Evangelization:
Because they belong to Christ and to the Church, the couple and the family seek to live their relationships in availability to Christ, the Head and Bridegroom. It is ultimately he who chooses the measure of the simultaneously supernatural and natural fruitfulness granted to the couple. It is not the couple’s task to determine what the particular mission of their family should be. In an authentically Marian attitude, they allow Christ to determine their relationship with him, their relationship to one another in him, and their relationship as parents to the spiritual and bodily children they receive from the Creator Spirit, the Sanctifier. (184)
The infertile couple serve as a sacramental sign to the Church and the world alike that the mission of marriage is not self-determined. Rare is the couple that would choose to be infertile. But such infertility is like the cross, a strange gift, a strange charism. Through this infertility, the couple is to love unto the end, to transform even this diminishment into an occasion of Eucharistic love. For in Christ’s Cross and Resurrection, every dimension of human life can become a new occasion for fruitfulness.
For the fecundity of marriage is not first and foremost experienced in the birth of children per se. Rather, such fecundity “can be seen as an overflowing source of trinitarian life, a specific participation in the very fruitfulness of God in Christ. From the moment of the consecration of marriage, this participation is no longer received by two individuals, but by a new community: by an ‘I-thou’ that has become a ‘subjective and objective we'” (Ouellet, 97).
The couple need not wait to have children to belong to a family. Rather, their love is necessarily familial insofar as they participate in a love that is fertile in Christ. Children are a gift within this new community, a sign of the fecundity of love that the couple gives to one another. At the same time, not having children does not mean that this sign of love is absent. In the woundedness of the infertility, God’s fruitfulness is there.
The infertile give their suffering unto God. They lift it up to the Father in Eucharistic love, asking that it may be transformed. For some, they give their suffering over to become adopting or foster parents. For some, they bestow their diminishment upon the Eucharistic altar, discovering there a new mission in the world to love those on the margins. The infertile couple fulfill the mission of marital love whether they have children or not.
The infertile have a particular charism in sacramental marriage, because they remind the Church that the goal of marriage is not the production of a happy family alone. Procreation itself can become an idol if it is treated as a measure of our own success as a sexual being, as a couple in love, as a form of “Catholic identity.” Fecundity reduced solely to the natural level is a form of righteous paganism, one that would fail to recognize the nuptial love of Mary and Joseph.
The radical mission of all marriages is to give the entirety of oneself away through nuptial consent to the Trinitarian love of God. The infertile couple serves as a sacramental sign in our midst that such Trinitarian love typically goes through the cross.
And rather than treat the infertile as piteous, we should acknowledge their suffering and pray with them that their diminishment may become Eucharistic. We should acknowledge that with their suffering comes a wisdom that married couples who have children need. It is the wisdom of the cross, for the gift of children is always also a cross. It is also an occasion of diminishment. For the children that are born into the world, our progeny, are never “ours” to begin with. Some of them will die. Some of them will reject our love.
But the fruitfulness of nuptial love isn’t about our success, the replication of our own self-identity through the ages. It is instead a radical uniting of natural love to the supernatural love revealed upon the cross. It is the transformation of every dimension of human life, as lived within the family, into an occasion for self-gift. For every marriage, whether it is blessed with children or not, is a participation in the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In this sense, it is time to recognize in our midst the charism of infertility for the Church and the world alike. |
Pearls on a String
Volume 1
Chapter 3: Journeys
Beacon Academy
Saturday Morning
Evelyn Black's eyes shot open. She lay in her bed for a quiet moment as she gathered her wits about her, trying to ascertain what caused her to wake before her alarm went off.
Lessee… Not a weekday, no classes… Did we have something planned today, or… Oh, Dust!
She bolted upright with a wide smile across her face. She knew her tail was swishing madly behind her, but paid it no more attention than her furiously twitching furry ears on the top of her head. Today's the day!
"Good morning, Evie," a soft, lightly accented voice called out to her from across the room.
Still smiling, the Cat Faunus turned to regard the speaker, her ears swiveling over first. "Hey, Lustre, should have known you'd be up first as usual… You ready for today?"
The dark-skinned girl put down her book that she was reading in bed. Her perpetually disheveled hair looked the same as it always did, which Evie thought to be monumentally unfair for those who actually had enough hair to deal with bed-head. Lustre was wearing her usual white kimono pajamas with the light blue sash just barely visible, though her crossed legs were covered by her sheets still.
"Indeed," the silver-haired girl grinned. "I am wondering if we should wake the others as well, perhaps actually get breakfast this morning."
"That'd be a first this semester," Evie laughed softly, pulling her black camisole down from where it had bunched up. She glanced over her shoulder at her partner. Pip was sprawled across her bed that was up against the wall, her silky though currently disheveled long blond hair spilling across her face and sticking to her cheeks somewhat from the drool. A soft snore was issuing from her mouth.
"Perhaps we should give sleeping beauty here a little more rest, though," the Faunus conceded. "She gets cranky if she's woken early."
"Mmm," Lustre agreed. "Beryl as well." Evie leaned over to spy the small girl on her bed behind Lustre. The blue-haired girl was curled up into a tight ball and facing the wall.
"Well, why don't the pair of us get some breakfast?" the raven-haired girl asked. "Start the big day off right."
"That sounds like an excellent idea."
The two friends got dressed quickly and silently before sneaking out of the room. They walked next to each other, amicably chatting until they could get trays of food and sit at their usual spot.
"Feels kinda weird, doesn't it?" Evie asked, chewing thoughtfully on a bite of her seafood omelette. "I mean, this is gonna be the last time we see Beacon for a few months or so."
"Is it any more unusual than our winter or summer breaks?" Lustre asked curiously, a cup of tea raised to her lips. She blew across it before taking a grateful sip.
"Oh, I suppose not…" the Faunus conceded. "Still… We're actually going to Vacuo!"
"Now that does indeed feel strange. Even more so considering we are the only second-year team, so we will be alone in our classes there."
"Oh, wow…" Evie blinked in surprise. "I didn't even think of that! Dust, I hope we make some friends…"
"Of course we will!" Lustre laughed, her ice-blue eyes twinkling merrily. "Between you and Pip, we will have the entirety of Shade eating out of our hands in no time."
"Speaking of eating… What in Oum's name is that you got this time?"
"This?" Lustre looked down at her plate. "It is merely an omelette."
"It's red, Lustre. Omelettes aren't supposed to be red."
"There are some very tasty peppers in it. I had the kitchen make it especially for me. They come from Vacuo, actually, as does the hot sauce also used in its creation."
"Joy…"
"Would you like a bite?"
"No, Lustre, no I would not."
"Are you sure?"
"I have never been more sure of anything in my entire life."
Back in their room, they found that Beryl was already awake and getting a shower, by the sounds of things from the adjoining bathroom. Pip, naturally, hadn't budged.
"Should we wake her?" Evie asked with an arched eyebrow, her ears twitching in anticipation. Sometimes she had these… instincts. She couldn't help them really, and her team made her feel much better about having them and also not being embarrassed over the expression of such. And right now, the cat in her really, really wanted to pounce.
Lustre must have picked up on it, though the tail swishing lazily behind her might have been a clue. "Are you sure that is the best way to do so?"
"Am I sure? No. Do I want to anyways?" Evie grinned over at her friend, her slightly extended canines showing like miniature fangs. "Oh, yes."
Snorting softly, the silver-haired girl shook her head as she walked over to sit on her bed. "I shall remain out of the collateral damage zone, then."
Evie's grin widened as she crept across her bed on all fours, low to the mattress and with her rear end swishing in tune with her tail. Both ears were upright and focused forward on her snoozing prey as she readied herself for the pounce.
Too late, Pip's aura warned her of the incoming danger. She cracked a pale red eye open to peer about cautiously. "Oh no, Evie don't you even think of WAAAUGH!"
The lanky blonde let out a shriek as the giggling Cat Faunus landed playfully on her torso.
"Ooof, Evie, you're crushing me!"
"No I'm not you big baby. C'mon now, you've been pounced, you know the rules…"
With a humorous sigh and accompanying roll of her eyes, Pip obliged the raven-haired girl. She reached up between her black furred ears and scratched at the base of them.
Evie gave an enthusiastic purr and curled up at Pip's side. She'd missed this for so very long, the ability to be playful and let her kitty cat out. She came from a rather large, very boisterous extended family with numerous siblings, and though she was quite happy to get away from them, she was happier by far to have found friends dear enough to her to become a second family. One who, even though they were not Faunus themselves, didn't have a problem with her acting like one.
The Faunus of Remnant had come a long way from the days of constant persecution and hate, though much bigotry still existed today. Thankfully there were laws in place now to protect the Faunus way of life, but she still had to be careful how she acted in public.
Just not in the privacy of her dorm room with her team.
"You know," Lustre commented wryly. "One of these days I am going to capture that on video."
"And that will be the day I murder you in your sleep," Evie replied sweetly through her happy purrs.
Pip snickered but reached her other hand across to flick the raven-haired girl on the nose. "No threatening of life this early," she chided gently. "Be a good kitty cat or I'll stop."
Evie pouted slightly, snuggling in closer to her partner and friend.
The bathroom door opened to reveal Beryl, clothed now but with a towel held to her hair while she dried it. "Oh, is the kitty cat being playful this morning?" she grinned, her light bronze eyes twinkling with humor.
"Seems to be that way," Pip giggled. "I'm guessing she might be excited for today."
"Mmmayyybe just a little bit," Evie giggled back. She sat up and stretched as only a Cat Faunus could, her back arched in a most inhuman fashion. "Go on, Pip, grab a shower, your hair's a mess."
"And whose fault is that?" the blonde quipped as she rolled off out of bed, unabashedly pulling her nightshirt off as she walked towards her dresser.
Evie snorted as she slinked over to her own bed, her movements sinuous and graceful. "Not mine, you were a mess before I even pounced on you."
"Likely story," Pip scoffed, grabbing her underwear and ducking into the bathroom. She closed the door on any retort Evie could make.
"Brat!" the raven-haired girl called out.
"So, we're all packed up, yeah?" Beryl asked as she walked over towards her dresser. "When does the airship leave?"
"Yes, we should all be prepared by now," Lustre replied, her nose buried in her novel once more. "I checked our bags last night, we merely need to ensure our toiletries are included. Also, the airbus for the central terminal leaves at ten, which will allow us plenty of time for the airship departure at noon."
"Cool," Beryl replied, dropping her towel in the hamper. She changed her mind as she realized that it would be a mildewy mess by the time they returned, and instead picked it back up and draped it over the foot of her bed. "Either of you guys need a shower?"
"Nope, we did so last night, remember?" Evie replied from where she sprawled on her stomach. Her tail flicked back and forth in the air above her. "Hey, you guys nervous any?"
"Nervous?" Lustre asked, pulling her book down into her lap. "Not necessarily, no."
"I am, maybe a little," Beryl admitted as she flopped at the end of Lustre's bed. "You know I don't do well in, um… new social situations."
"Don't you worry any, Beryl, we got your back," Evie grinned, her head resting on her folded arms. "We'll help you with any anxiety you might have."
"Never stop moving forward," Lustre commented quietly, repeating the motto that their team had adopted from Ruby Rose.
"Absolutely!" Evie agreed. "Just stick with us, okay?"
"Always do," Beryl replied softly.
Evie's ears flicked slightly at the tone in her friend's voice, but as usual she chalked it up to the diminutive girl's timidness. It was a facet of her personality so at odds with her fierceness on the battlefield, the fact that she was so incredibly shy sometimes, even around her teammates. Dust, it took her a week to even talk to us after initiation, other than monosyllabic answers!
Lustre had started out the same way, of course, though in her case it was simple introvertedness and unwillingness to converse rather than intense social anxiety. She came out of her shell quickly enough, but Beryl sometimes just seemed to go with the flow and follow the other's lead more often than not.
Still, there's nobody outside of my team, Beryl included, I'd rather have at my side in a fight. I'm so very lucky to have these girls in my life.
The Cat Faunus smiled softly as she reminisced upon some of the adventures they'd had over the past year and a half, from pranks gone disastrously wrong to fights against overwhelming odds that they emerged from victorious. As a team, as a unit, there was nothing that they couldn't accomplish.
Well, except for maybe getting Lustre to like the taste of coffee.
"You okay there, Evie?" the blue-haired girl asked curiously. "You got an odd look on your face."
Evie looked over at her friend and gave her a wide smile. "Eh, just reminiscing. And impatiently waiting for our fearless leader to finish up. Is she taking longer than usual?"
"Well, she does have a lot of hair," Lustre replied mildly.
"And she might want to primp a little extra for our arrival," Beryl added with a smirk.
Evie nodded sagely as she sat up. "Ah, very true, first impressions and all that. So, any bets as to how long till her first hook-up?"
"Hmm," Beryl mused, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "I give her three days."
"Five," Lustre murmured without looking up from her book.
"Pfft, you two seriously underestimate the power of her hormones," Evie snickered. "I say by the second day at the latest. There's bound to be a cute boy that catches her eye by then."
"Ten lien?" Beryl asked mischievously.
"Agreed," Lustre replied. Evie nodded as well.
"Well, then," the blue-haired girl commented nonchalantly as she rose from her perch.
The other two girls watched as she calmly strode over towards the bathroom, opened the door, and walked inside.
Evie turned to Lustre in confusion. "What is she…?"
The sound of the toilet flushing was just barely audible over Pip's shrieks.
"WHAT THE FUCK!?" they heard the blonde scream.
"Sorry, Pip!" Beryl called out over her shoulder as she walked back into the room. "We're running late, hurry up okay?"
"You conniving little girl," Evie grinned. "You're rushing her to blow her first impressions, aren't you?"
"Well, I did go for longer than the two days you picked," the blue-haired girl replied quite reasonably. Pip's muttered curses were clearly audible now through the open bathroom door. "I figure, by the second day she's gotten another shower, primped better, and will hook up by the following day. This way she won't want to go out tonight."
"That's fighting dirty, Blue," the Faunus smirked.
Beryl returned the smirk in earnest. "Hey, ten lien is ten lien."
"The two of you are incorrigible," Lustre sighed resignedly.
"But I didn't do anything this time!" Evie protested.
"Only because you did not think of it first, otherwise you would have blocked the door."
"Well…" The Cat Faunus glanced at her friends with a wry grin. "Yeah, okay, probably."
Pip chose that moment to stride out of the bathroom, one towel around her waist and another around her hair. Her lacy red bra was on, though it clung to her wet skin. Interestingly, though her bust was slightly smaller than Evie's, the Cat Faunus and Lustre both shared the same measurements. Beryl, much to her vociferous chagrin, wore the smallest cup size that they made adult bras for, in keeping with her slight and short stature.
"Seriously, Beryl, was that necessary?" the lanky blonde grumped, trying to wring out her long hair in her towel.
"Sorry again, Pip, but we don't want to be late, right?"
Evie snorted softly. By unspoken agreement, any wager placed on a teammate was not discussed with the girl in question so as to make the bet impartial. That didn't mean they wouldn't cheat outrageously, as Beryl just did, but that was the one rule they followed.
Theirs was an oftentimes odd friendship.
"Okay, Team Pearl, we all set?" Pip asked, her voice muffled by the school blouse she was slipping over her head rather than unbuttoning it. All of the Beacon students were required to wear their school uniforms on the trip. Though their team greatly preferred their usual combat attire for everyday wear, they tolerated the red plaid skirt and black jacket over the white blouse well enough. Lustre was the only one to flaunt the dress code blatantly with the omission of the red ribbon that was customarily tied at the collar, as well as the white ankle socks. For her part, Beryl preferred black full-length stockings to cover up the knobby knees she was so embarrassed over, while both Pip and Evie wore knee-high socks.
"Yep, just lemme grab my toiletries!" Beryl chirped as she skipped back into the bathroom. Evie and Lustre shared a grin at their diminutive teammate's enthusiasm. Seems she's just as excited for a new adventure, even if it means she might have to talk to new people as well!
A few minutes later saw the teens lugging their assorted suitcases, weapons cases, and duffle bags across campus. They met their peers with cheerful waves as they were wished luck. Pip had to stop every so often to speak with some of the members of her past liaisons as they expressed their own versions of 'good luck'.
"I don't know why you even bother putting lipstick on," Beryl grumbled as she struggled with the larger duffle containing her armor and sword case. Her shield was strapped onto the back of her rolling luggage, making it seem as if she were towing an overly large blue tortoise.
Pip snickered softly. "Can't help it if I'm popular with the boys," she laughed. "It's a tough job…"
"...But someone has to do them all," Evie finished for her with a smirk. "Oum, girl, is there any boy at Beacon you haven't hooked up with yet?"
"I'm not that bad!" the blonde protested as they arrived at the waiting air bus. There was a line of similarly-dressed students waiting in line to board, all laden with luggage. "I do have standards, you know!"
"It is alright, Pip," Lustre interjected soothingly, seeing how their leader was beginning to take offense. "We are not implying you are, merely teasing."
"Oh, right." Pip rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "I knew that."
Evie gave her friend a bump with her shoulder that was amicably returned. "You know I love you," she murmured with a wink.
"Back atcha, kitty cat," the lanky blonde grinned.
They stashed their luggage in the cargo compartment before heading for an open set of seats. Evie sat down in between Pip, who cheerfully grabbed the window seat, and Beryl, who was becoming more withdrawn as more students filed in.
"Hey," the Faunus said quietly. "You alright, Beryl?"
"Yeah, I'm just… I don't really know any of these third or fourth years very well." The blue-haired girl looked around nervously. "I'm really only going to know the three of you, aren't I…"
"We're not going to leave you anywhere on your own," Lustre reassured her from the other side.
"Yep, you're stuck with us!" Evie chirped as she grabbed Beryl's hand, capturing it over into her lap. "So just relax, okay?"
"Y- Yeah, relax… I can relax…"
Evie noted curiously that the small girl did not seem to be relaxing at all, despite her assurances. In fact, she seemed to be even more flustered. She turned to Pip with a small frown, who for some odd reason rolled her eyes at her.
Did I say something wrong?
Before she could pursue the matter, Pip cleared her throat. "Okay, Beryl, let's get that strategic mind of yours working for us. Give us a run-down of the teams from Beacon that are heading to Shade."
Beryl nodded her head firmly, her earlier apprehension slipping away as she sat up straighter and peered around with a new analytical look in her eyes. Evie grinned to herself. Trust in Pip to find a way to set our resident tactical nerd at ease. The shield-bearer was always watching the other students fight, always analyzing their moves and researching the other teams to figure out ways to improve their own maneuvers.
Unfortunately, to the team's general dismay, Pip was the one who came up with the ridiculous names for said maneuvers.
"Well, we have two third-year teams and three fourth-year teams. Honestly I don't even know what DDLN is even doing here…"
Lustre snorted softly, glancing over at the four female students who looked like they would have been more at home in a library than in an arena. "They are all proficient dust-wielders, but I agree, their utility in a standup fight is sorely lacking."
"Well, Dandilion might surprise us…" Pip mused, tapping a finger on her chin. Evie sent her a skeptical look, but she knew as much as Beryl knew how teams fought, Pip knew people. She had a knack for figuring out who might be a diamond in the rough and confound everyone's expectations.
"So Team MRLD are mostly long-ranged, close with them and they fall apart easily," Beryl continued softly. "I figure they might get past the first round but after that the others will figure that out. They won't go past doubles."
Pip grinned widely and leaned forward, rolling her hand in a motion to indicate she should continue.
"Both Teams AQUA and CBLT are pretty well-rounded and strong. In our league." The blue-haired girl stated the last without a bit of conceit, which also caused Evie to chuckle. How easily we accept that a pair of fourth-year teams are our equals…
"Who's the last one left?" Evie asked when Beryl fell silent.
Her petite friend sighed. "I actually don't know the other third-year team, IRIS, very well. They come off as ninjas, strike-and-fade sort of attacks. Never seen them do a standup fight. I'm not sure how they will fare."
"I know Raye," Lustre commented. "She took the advanced Dust Mechanics class with me this semester. She is strong of will."
"So at least one Dust Mage on their team," Pip said thoughtfully.
"Hey Lustre, why were you in that class anyways?" Evie asked curiously. "I mean, sure you're the closest we have to a Dust Mage, but not really…"
"I found it interesting," the silver-haired girl replied. "If nothing else to understand how others wield Dust more efficiently."
The Faunus nodded and shifted in her seat. She noticed that she still had Beryl's hand captured in her lap, and gave it a squeeze before letting it go. The blue-haired girl seemed to be reluctant in dragging it away again.
"So that's it then?" Pip asked. Beryl just nodded her head, blushing lightly. I don't know why she gets embarrassed sometimes when we pay attention to her like this. She's got an awesome mind for this kinda stuff!
"Nice job," Evie murmured softly in encouragement as she bumped the smaller girl with her shoulder. Beryl just nodded again, her blush intensifying. The Faunus just sighed, deciding to leave it alone for now.
Before too long they arrived at Vale's central terminal where the airship bound for Vacuo was waiting. After unloading their baggage, dragging it over to the appropriate terminal and waiting for about a half hour while they grabbed a quick lunch, they found themselves repeating their earlier process. Luggage was stored and they grabbed a row of far more comfortable seats in the same order as before.
"Okay, gang, time to relax," Pip sighed as she stretched her long legs out in front of her luxuriously. "Got a number of hours until we touch down again."
"Why is it you take the window seat when you intend to sleep the whole way?" Lustre asked humorously as she watched the blonde close her pale red eyes.
"'Cause I'm the leader," she snarked in reply. Evie swished her tail over to flick the lanky blonde on the nose, which made her partner giggle.
The others seemed content to follow her example and settled down contentedly. Their naps were interrupted by the serving of dinner, which to Evie's delight had the option of salmon.
"Oh, Evie," Pip grinned as she watched her Faunus friend drool over the dish being placed in front of her. "Looks like you're gettin' chocolate!"
"Mmm," the raven-haired girl moaned softly, chewing slowly on her first bite. "Oh, yes…"
"Damn, girl," Lustre chuckled. "You enjoying that meal?"
"Sounds more like she's having sex with it," Pip snarked, causing Beryl to choke on her drink. The others shared a laugh at the blue-haired girl's discomfort while she wiped her face off with a napkin.
"Can we please not talk about sex in public?" Beryl whispered hoarsely.
Pip giggled. "Then tell Evie to stop making those noises."
"I can't help it if I enjoy my food," Evie replied loftily. "I don't get salmon all that often, and this is really well done."
"Besides which, you are the only one who would recognize such noises as being associated with sex," Lustre added.
"True enough," the blonde conceded.
Beryl sighed irritably. "Again with the sex talk!"
The Faunus reached over to pat Beryl's hand. "Okay, we'll behave. Right guys?"
She received a chorus of agreements, causing Beryl to relax again slightly and smile at Evie in wordless thanks.
After dinner was cleared away, Pip sat up straighter and stared out the window. "Hey, guys… I think we're crossing into Vacuo's territory! Look at all the sand!"
The other three leaned over her, crowing around the single small porthole. "You know, there's an observation deck we could go look out of," the Cat Faunus commented.
"Where's the fun in that?" Pip snarked.
Beryl hummed thoughtfully. "That is a whole lot of sand," she stated.
"Indeed," Lustre agreed. "Though I do see some patches of green. I believe they are called oases."
"Oh-ah-seas?" Beryl asked.
"Oases. The plural form of Oasis."
"What an odd word."
"Indeed," Lustre agreed once more.
"C'mon, nerds," Pip chuckled, pushing back gently. "This means we'll be landing soon. Let's get our stuff together."
They straightened up their seating area as the sun began to set through the window. By the time Shade itself was visible, set just on the outskirts of the city of Vacuo, the sunset highlighted the grandiose structure.
"Well, that's a bit different from Beacon," Evie breathed, enchanted with the sight.
Shade Academy, unlike the grand tower of Beacon, was a collection of tiny minarets spaced around a large, square structure. What was notable were the colors on the rooftops, each tiny tower glittering like a rainbow in the light of the fading sun.
"Is that just one big building?" Beryl gulped, intimidated by the size of it.
Lustre shook her head, her disheveled silver locks swaying gently. "No, my understanding is that it is a large wall surrounding the buildings which are set into the wall itself. In the center is an open courtyard used for training and practice."
"Still, it's… big."
Evie reached over and gave her friend's arm a gentle squeeze. "Don't start fretting, alright? Just breathe. I'm sure it will look less intimidating closer up."
As it turned out, Evie couldn't have been further from the right of it.
The collection of Beacon students, led by a chipper Shade student guide who introduced herself as Bonnie, paused at the massive gates that led into the hunter academy.
"Evie?" the blue-haired girl squeaked.
"Yeah, sorry sweetie," the Faunus replied, slightly awestruck herself.
"Whelp," Pip announced, grabbing her team up into a hug from behind them. "No use standing around girls, this is the start of our big adventure together! C'mon, let's go see what our room looks like!"
The guide pointed out to the the dining hall as they passed it, as well as the other dorms. The visiting students from Atlas, Haven, and Beacon Academies were housed in a separate dorm furthest from the dining hall but closer to the instructional buildings. The students noted that the complex was filled with small passageways, almost like a warren, that threaded in between the buildings and the giant walls, sometimes running under the buildings themselves. As they traversed one such shortcut they came across a small garden set off to the side with benches and overhanging greenery clustered around a tall fountain.
"It's actually really pretty here," Evie mentioned. "I like the feel of it, though it's maybe a little… closed-off for my tastes."
"I like it too," Beryl added, sticking close on her team's heels though she still struggled with her bags. Fortunately there were no stairs on their path, which is why the guide took them that way. "I just hope we don't get too lost on our own."
"I will not get us lost," Lustre assured them. "I have already mapped the facility out in my head."
"Such a dork," Pip laughed affectionately. "You going to be our planner again?"
Evie grinned at Lustre's irritable huff, though it was tinged with amusement. At the beginning of each semester, even their very first one, the silver-haired girl had drawn up schedules for them along with locations and a detailed map for the routes they'd need to take in order to be as efficient as possible.
Honestly, in the Faunus' opinion, their academics would have been in the toilet without Lustre's help.
"Of course," the dark-skinned girl replied levelly. "Unless you do not wish it."
"Nope, we wish it!" Beryl broke in worriedly. "We're all kinds of wishing for it right here!"
"Relax, Beryl, we're only teasing," Pip laughed. "Lustre knows how much we appreciate her efforts."
Lustre nodded with a smile. "So long as you keep me supplied with my tea, I consider it to be a fair trade."
By that point they had arrived at their dorm. Each academy was given a floor to themselves, along with their own lounge and kitchenette, and theirs just happened to be on the ground level.
"Thank Oum," Beryl sighed.
"Almost there, babe," Pip grinned enthusiastically. "Don't drop on us now!"
"I still find it odd that the smallest of us has the greatest amount of baggage," Lustre commented as they headed down the hall. She nodded and smiled to Raye as they passed her team heading into one of the rooms.
"What is this, a toothpick case?" Pip snarked, hefting her greatsword case that she had slung over her muscular shoulder.
"Yes, for an oversized toothpick," Evie deadpanned.
"Says the girl with a bent blade."
"It's a scimitar, you oaf, and I can dance circles around you with it," Evie grinned at their usual banter.
"Dance? I'll make you dance next sparring we have!" Pip grinned back evilly.
"Girls, we are here," Lustre sighed indulgently, opening the door to their room.
The four of them staggered inside and dropped their bags to the floor.
Beryl looked around wide-eyed. "Well, this is…"
"Different?" Lustre supplied helpfully.
"Kinda exotic," Evie commented.
Pip laughed cheerfully. "I like it!"
The room was slightly larger than their second-year room at Beacon, and not just because of the different sleeping arrangements. There were a pair of bunk beds to each side, each seemingly hand-crafted out of wood into curved, almost organic shapes. The matching dressers were squat but wide with mirrors on each one, and instead of separate desks there was one long table straight ahead against the window overlooking the courtyard. Four separate cubbyholes with a small bookshelf on top adorned the table, and four ornate upholstered chairs were spaced apart. The floor was stone, though there was a fancy, red-patterned plush carpet that was spread out in the middle of the room.
Pip walked over to the door on the right and poked her head in. "Wow, nice-sized closet."
"Oh, you guys," Evie breathed as she did the same through the left-hand door. "You gotta come see this…"
The bathroom was the full length of the room, though a quarter of the width. At the near end was a toilet stall with a privacy gate bordered by a shower. A very long countertop had four separate sinks in it across a large, gild-framed mirror.
But the crowning glory lay at the far side of the bathroom.
"Is that a bathtub?" Beryl squeaked.
"It looks more like a hot tub," Pip replied, walking over. "Yeah, it's got nozzles in it for the water, and it's big enough for the four of us all at once."
Lustre sighed, a dreamy look in her eyes. "We shall be so very spoiled with all of this."
"I ain't complaining!" Pip laughed gleefully. "You guys wanna try it out tonight?"
Beryl blushed lightly. "Um, no, sorry… I didn't bring a bathing suit."
"Do you even own a bathing suit?" the Cat Faunus asked.
The blue-haired girl's blush intensified as she looked at the floor and mumbled in the negative.
"Well, I wasn't planning on using bathing suits anyway," their blonde leader proclaimed.
"What!?" Beryl squawked. Evie sighed, thinking that her face at this point might be considered an adequate heating source in the wintertime back home.
"Look, just think about it, okay?" Pip tried to sooth their diminutive teammate, her hands held out pleadingly. "I'm just saying it might be fun, and only with the four of us. You know nobody's gonna judge, right?"
Beryl opened and closed her mouth a few times like a fish out of water before turning and stomping back into the room wordlessly.
"I'd take that as a 'no', fearless leader," Evie snarked.
Pip grinned unabashedly. "Eh, she'll come around. I'm still game to try tonight. How about you guys?"
Evie shrugged. "Yeah, sure." She didn't have a problem with nudity so much, having developed an immunity to the blonde's lack of modesty.
Lustre hummed quietly. "I shall consider it," she hedged.
They three of them walked back into the room to see Beryl laying out on one of the bottom bunks on the other side and staring at the underside of the bed above her.
"Picked out yours already, babe?" Pip queried.
"Yes," Beryl replied shortly without looking over.
"Well, I did always wonder what it would be like having bunk beds," her partner commented. The silver-haired girl hefted herself up to the bed over Beryl's, stretching out with a relieved sigh. "And it is very comfortable as well."
Evie turned to her own partner. "Top or bottom?" she queried.
Pip grinned at her in reply. "Do you have any idea how many jokes I could make with that setup?"
"Please don't," Beryl moaned, throwing an arm across her face.
The raven-haired Faunus merely rolled her eyes. "Would you care to sleep on the top bunk or the bottom bunk?" she reiterated with precise enunciation.
"Eh, I'll take the top if that's okay with you."
"I suppose your snoring won't keep me up any more above me than it would next to me…"
Pip let out an offended gasp. "I don't snore!"
"Yes, you do."
"I so do not."
"Do I need to dig out that video we captured the last time we argued about this?"
"That was clearly doctored and cannot be used as credible proof."
Evie chuckled as Pip launched herself up onto her new bed, bouncing a few times before she settled down. The Faunus sat on the edge of the bottom bed, glancing across the room. "Guys, back me up here. Does Pip snore?"
"Yes," Beryl and Lustre replied in monotone unison.
"See?"
"That's not proof, that's you guys ganging up on me."
"You are so delusional," Evie snarked as she stretched out on her mattress. "Oooh, this really is comfy."
"Delusional? Them's fightin' words, kitty cat."
"Oh, please, Pip. I can take anything you dish out."
"Guys," Beryl interrupted, finally rolling over to gaze at the other bunk. "As entertaining as I'm sure you think you are, it's been a long day already. Tomorrow will be exhausting as it is, can we maybe have lights out early?"
"But it's only nine!" Pip protested.
Evie reached a foot up and kicked upwards experimentally, causing the blonde to yelp. That's gonna be useful, she grinned to herself. "Pip, she's anxious about meeting folk tomorrow. Be nice."
"Aw, sorry babe, I didn't mean it like that," Pip said to Beryl. "Sure, we can turn in early." She hopped back off and began stripping off her uniform. "Okay if I take this dresser next to the bathroom?"
"Sure," Evie replied, sitting up and pulling her shoes and stockings off. "Lustre, you going to set your alarm per usual?"
"That was my intention, yes," the silver-haired girl stated evenly. "Though it will not be easy for me to reach the desk from here."
"I can slap it off for you," Beryl assured her as she hopped off of her bed to unpack. "Which dresser you want?"
"It matters not, you may choose. And please do not slap my scroll."
"Sorry, Lustre, just an expression…"
The four girls quickly got their luggage unpacked while stashing their weapons and armor in the closet for the time being. Their guide had told them that after their morning classes on Monday, the relevant information for which had already been transferred to their scrolls, they would be guided to the armory and assigned temporary rocket lockers.
Pip had already mostly undressed and stood in her matching lacy red underwear. "So, who's gonna join me in the hot tub?"
"I shall pass," Lustre replied as she undressed and slipped her white kimono pajama over her shoulders.
Evie smiled at her partner. "Yeah, I'll join you."
Beryl didn't deign to answer, merely pulled her blue sleep pants on with her back turned.
The bath was incredibly relaxing. They couldn't quite figure out the jets, but they did automatically circulate the hot water pleasantly.
"I wonder if they sell, like, bath salts or fragrances or something like that here," Pip murmured sleepily, her arms draped over the edge and her eyes closed. She kept her long blonde hair out of the tub, the silken strands cascading down the steps behind her.
Evie sighed happily, sitting across from her naked partner. "I'm sure they do, we'll add it to the list."
"We have a list?"
"Sweetie, we have Lustre on our team. Of course there's a list."
"Point."
They were silent for a while, the sound of the water jets bubbling soothingly in the background.
"You know, you really should ease up on Beryl," Evie finally commented.
Pip cracked an eye open to peer at her Faunus partner. "Really?" she asked.
Evie frowned at the unidentifiable insinuation in her friend's voice. "Yes, really. Some things she's just not ready to break out of her shell for. Maybe never will be. Teasing her about it just makes her all flustered and upset."
"Hmm," Pip murmured. "I'm sure that's the only reason…"
"Pardon?" Evie really wasn't sure what her partner was getting at. Perhaps she'd been in the water for too long? Her own tail was getting rather water-logged, and though she didn't really have a problem with getting wet she didn't like to soak overly long. Perhaps humans might get the same way?
"Oh, nothing," the blonde mumbled. "You're awfully concerned for her."
"Of course I am, she's our teammate and friend."
"And sister?"
"Well, yes, I love all of you like my sisters. You know that."
"Hmm," Pip hummed in reply.
Evie snorted in exasperation, splashing a small wave of water at her friend as she made to get out. "Your brain is waterlogged, you're talking strange. C'mon, let's get some sleep."
"Yeah, yeah… Hey you want me to help dry your tail off?"
The Cat Faunus froze as she was wrapping a towel around her nude body. "Er, no."
"You sure?"
Evie sighed and closed her eyes. She knew her partner was just being her usual warm and friendly self, but she'd made a promise earlier to let all of her team know anytime something like this came up. "Pip, that's a rather… intimate thing to suggest."
"Oh." Pip blinked uncertainly at her when Evie looked her way. She stood in the middle of the hot tub as it drained with her hands on her hips, the water cascading over her lean and lanky body. "Um, sorry."
Evie waved her apology away as she turned back around to dry herself off. "I know you didn't mean anything by it."
She could hear Pip getting out of the tub and grab a towel for herself. "You know…" the blonde began hesitantly. "This maybe isn't the best of times to discuss this, with us being naked and all…"
"Oh, this oughta be good," Evie snickered softly.
"Being serious here. I haven't had the chance to talk with you about this yet… but are you gonna, you know… maybe finally branch out a little bit here, or are you still, um…"
The Cat Faunus shook her head mildly as she pulled her black camisole over her head and slipped on her sleep shorts. She knew her partner meant well, but…
"My feelings on this haven't changed," she said softly as she turned. Pip was still standing with her towel in hand, drying her legs off. As usual, she didn't pay the blonde's nudity any mind. "You know I'm waiting."
"Yeah, I get that, I do," Pip insisted, pulling her cherry red nightshirt over her head before continuing. "But, you know… being away from Beacon and all, maybe you can test the waters some. Just date someone, that's all, and even if not someone from Shade or one of the other schools… maybe there's someone from Beacon you could get close to, and they would return with us…"
Evie tilted her head curiously. "Do you know of someone who likes me?"
"No, no of course not!" Pip backpedaled. The Faunus sent her a disbelieving look, to which she sighed and shook her head. "Look, I promise you, there is nobody who has expressed to me any interest in you, okay? But, babe… how are you gonna find a mate if you don't look?"
"Pip, we're students in a school training to be huntresses. When would I even have the time for such nonsense?" Evie tried being reasonable, knowing that her partner merely wanted her to be happy. And she was, really, unbelievably happy with her team, and that was plenty for her. "I don't need to be looking right now, okay?"
"Okay, I'll drop it," Pip grinned. "Besides, that just leaves more pickings for me."
Evie chuckled while draping her wet towel over the rack. "You're assuming I'm into boys."
The blonde dropped her towel in surprise. "Wait, seriously? You're into girls? Why has this never come up before?" She scratched the back of her head as she bent to retrieve the fallen towel. "No, wait, I distinctly remember you mentioning a boyfriend in the distant past…"
"Yes, back when I actually dated at Signal, before Beacon, I did have a boyfriend." She smiled slightly at the memory and the fun she'd had with the Monkey Faunus, his playful nature bringing out the same in her. "But he turned out to not be my type for a lasting relationship."
"Sooo…?" Pip drawled, before her eyes lit up in understanding. "Oh, you like both?"
"Well, I don't dislike either," Evie replied. "I just don't have a preference. Not that I'm looking."
"Interesting," the blonde murmured as she walked towards the door. "Good to know."
Evie blinked forward, using her semblance to interpose herself between Pip and the door. "Pippin Cerise, you are not about to set me up with anyone," she warned.
"Nope, absolutely not!" Pip grinned back disarmingly. "C'mon, let's get to sleep."
As she lay in her bed, listening to the soft breathing from both beds across the room, and her partner's attempts to get into a comfortable position, though she'd be sprawled on her stomach come morning anyways, Evie pondered her friend's words.
I'm not here for romance, I'm here to learn to become a huntress. Well, at Beacon anyways, here at Shade we have a tourney to prepare for, alongside the schoolwork that we still have to keep up with. There's no possible way anything like that is going to happen.
Still, while her eyes were closed and her breathing slowed, a small part of her brain insisted that, even with as happy as she was with her team, sometimes she did long for something… more. A warm pair of arms to hold her at night, perhaps…
Evie ruthlessly pushed that little voice aside. Or at least she tried to as she eased herself into sleep once more, curled up on her side and facing the other bunk beds.
Maybe it would be nice… someday…
A/N: So, yeah, bit of a long chapter here. I just needed to carry forth in Evie's voice for a little longer. I actually split the chapters up because of this one, it kinda got away from me. It happens sometimes. I'd love it if every chapter were this long, but we'll see, since I'm doing it scene by scene depending on the voice I'm using. I suppose I could change voices midway through, but eh.
Ultimately I did decide to break this one up as it just got too unwieldy, so next chapter is in Evie's voice as well.
I realize I'm taking a few liberties with the Faunus here. But I also think that, as much as Blake becomes comfortable around her teammates, she's still not about to actually act out the instincts she might have. Some are involuntary, like her love of fish and with the laser pointer. But I imagine she suppresses as much as she can. So, for this story, I'm imagining how a Faunus might act with folk she considers to be family in an era where it isn't as shameful to be a Faunus. Yes, there's still discrimination, and that will come up at some point I think. But Evie's team accepts and loves her, especially when acting like a kitty cat.
It can be liberating to be able to be yourself.
Much love for reading, and hugs to those who have favorited, followed, or reviewed! And if you haven't yet, please do drop me a quick review and let me know what you think!
DustGremlin: Thanks, I'm glad you noticed the distinct voice I was giving Lustre! Hope this chapter and the next serve to fulfill your Evie and Pip shenanigan needs!
Stay shiny! |
Our stars have finally aligned - and in a big way. We have been taking care of business, bringing home 4 of 6 road points against divisional rivals. Meanwhile, said rivals are lavishing us with the the gift of their missed opportunities.
Vancouver - The Whitecaps were rolling...they had taken 13 points in 7 MLS games and won the Canadian Cup (and qualified for CCL next year). Then came the Sounders, trouncing them in Vancouver 3-0 and then trouncing them in Seattle 3-0 bouncing them from the CCL group stages. The Caps previous good form still has them up on us...but by only three points.
LA - the Galaxy looked invincible. An already very good team had added Gerrard and Dos Santos. They started August with 4 MLS wins and 2 CCL wins...all convincing. Then, mortality. A loss to San Jose, a draw at home against Montreal, and a 3-1 thumping at Salt Lake...just 1 point from a possible 9 has the Sounders just two points back.
Kansas City - Wow...KC is in the middle of a run that is reminicent of the Sounders' July...but they aren't short players...they are just playing bad soccer. It started with a 5-0 thumping in Kansas City by San Jose. Since that time, the Sporks have taken just 4 points of a possible 21. Let that sink in. FOUR of TWENTY-ONE!
Portland - Don't worry Timbers...when you fall in the forest, we're always there to hear it. The Timbers have taken just 2 points in their last 4 MLS contests. 3 of those were at home. 3 of 4 games at home, and they bring (keep?) home just TWO of TWELVE possible points.
San Jose - In August, the 'Quakes rattled off 4 wins in a row including two on the road and a win over the then-invincible-looking Galaxy. They had caught up to the Sounders in the standings and had a staggering number of home games left on their schedule. Since that time, they lost to the THE UNION..AT HOME. They followed that with two consecutive home draws - one to us, one to Montreal. Then they travelled to NYCFC and lost. That's TWO of a possible TWELVE points over a four game stretch that included three home games.
Of the teams in the race in West, only Dallas has fared well over this stretch. They were very fortunate to play in Columbus while the Crew were missing nearly half their team. They only recently came back to earth, losing 3-1 in Kansas City (the Sporks only win in their last seven tries).
Meanwhile, the Sounders have taken 13 of a possible 18 points since getting their stars back. They have taken 4 valuable road points against divisional opponents. They advanced in CCL while breaking the spirit of a rival and leaving that rival with a long and pointless journey to Central America to look forward to.
This is good. This is very, very good. IT COULD GET BETTER. How does 1st in the West sound? How about 1st in the Shield Race? It could happen. It could happen by Monday.
Naturally, all of this assumes that we go to Kansas City and give them hell. Even in this endevour, we find the universe consipring with the Sounders. Feilhaber and Besler both hit yellow accumulation and will miss the game. With Besler gone and Opara long ago lost for the season with a ruptured Achilles tendon, SKC's depth at center back will be tested. The complete opposite is true for the Sounders. We will likely see Sigi's ideal XI and ideal XVIII (for the post-Torres '15 Sounders - Fuerza Roman!). The only other players listed on the injury report are Craven and Correa, who were never going to see the field in this game. Beating KC is never easy...especially there....but this one is ripe for the picking. Let's go for the throat - 5-1 win!
We still need some help from our "friends".
NYRB need to lose to Orlando...in New York Jersey. Impossible you say? Well...it has already happened. 5-2. Crazy. Kaka had 3 assists. Larin had 3 goals.
The Union need to get a result against the Revs. This seems highly unlikely...but this is the same Union that gifted us a San Jose home loss. It could happen.
A Timbers-Crew tie in Columbus. I normally would not wish for a Portland road point..but the Crew are two points up on us in the Shield race. A point each gives us what we want. You can count on a violent war of attrition, as they have drawn Petrescu for this one.
A NYCFC upset in Vancouver. We'll see if Vancouver's spirit is broken by back to back 3-0 losses. NYCFC has won two in a row (both at home) and are still fighting for a playoff spot. They have plenty to lose. Go NYC!
LA plays Dallas in LA. LA has been devastatingly good at home - the best in MLS. However, as detailed above, they have been cold lately. This cold run includes a draw with Montreal in Carson. We want another draw here. 0-0 would be great.
As a bonus, RSL beats San Jose...although, as long we keep winning, San Jose can't catch us.
If all of the above comes to pass, the Sounders - by virtue of tiebreakers - would move to 1st in the West. 1st in the Shield race. True story. This is how much things have shifted in recent days. Thanks "friends"! |
The never-ending push for in Pennsylvania is on the move again, but this time there’s more of a tangible campaign targeting the conservative base. , State Representative Daryl Metcalfe has introduced some form of Right to Work legislation, but this year’s legislation was (Lancaster, PA). Last January, Jen Stefano from the Koch Brothers funded American’s for Prosperity in Pennsylvania held a press conference with Representative Metcalfe and announced that the legislation will become law. Currently, it appears that dark money groups tied to right wing think tanks like and are teaming up with a conservative activist from Southeastern Pennsylvania, and are astroturfing a social media and media campaign by using Facebook and Twitter accounts to push anti-union news and rhetoric from “independent” media outlets.
The players in this story are Simon Campbell – a conservative grassroots activist from Yardley, PA, dark money think tanks, and astro-turfed media and social media outlets. Simon Campbell is a local conservative activist from Bucks County PA. He jumped on the scene when he was elected to the Pennsbury School District. The cause-celeb he ran on was a teacher bashing and anti-teacher strike platform. While sitting on the Pennsbury School Board, Campbell started . In 2013, Campbell’s four year term on the local school board was up and he and his colleagues were sept off board. Weeks after the election, Campbell organization called , and thanks to his non-profit social welfare status, Campbell’s group is able to receive a whole lot of dark money. Campbell’s resume as a right-wing activist has him giving speeches at luncheons or sitting on training sessions at Koch funded think-tanks like the statewide and .
Then there’s a growing social media campaign. It appears that Campbell has been running a facebook page since June 2013, and has amassed over 20,000 followers. That’s either one hell of a grassroots campaign or Campbell’s group has a few thousand sitting aside for social media promotion. Then the page regularly posts stories from Pennsylvania media outlets that deal with union issues, but the majority of the posts come from two “independent” media outlets, Media Trackers and Watchdog Wire. Out of the two media outlets, is more savvy when it comes to hiding their funding sources and who is actually writing their articles. According to their website, :
Media Trackers is dedicated to media accountability, government transparency, and quality fact-based journalism. Our site examines stories published in the mainstream media, explores claims made by some of the more partisan political groups, and provides the facts on the issues, people and elections that matter.
A 2012 Mother Jones article :
Conservatives have their think tanks, at the and level. They also have a corporate-funded legislation mill in the . What conservatives lacked, Ryun told the donors, were nimble attack blogs that could quickly capitalize on the latest missteps by big-government politicians or the “liberal” media—essentially hard-hitting, opposition-research-style shops that prize scoops, speed, and scandal over policy briefs and press conferences. His pitch: Create a network of one- and two-man digital media outlets with low overhead, rapid response, and a nose for controversy.
The donors loved it. They ponied up seed money in the low six figures, and Ryun’s conservative attack machine, , was born. Bonus: As a nonprofit, Media Trackers can keep the identities of those donors secret. To obtain their non-profit status, Media Trackers changed their name to during the , claiming that a liberal sounding name will ease the process. When looking for Media Trackers’ journalists or blog staff, some of their writers were from the , a , and a . The second fake independent media outlet involved in this campaign is , whose describes it as a “project of the Franklin Institute.” Watchdog Wire’s media outlet is ran by the Franklin Center’s communications department. Under the Franklin Center’s , it lists staff. The Franklin Center also has ties to two Pennsylvania groups, the Commonwealth Foundation, a right winged think-tank, and the Pennsylvania Independent, one of those “independent media” outlets. to statewide think-tanks like the Commonwealth Foundation: Franklin Center Director of Communications Michael Moroney told the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) in 2013 that the source of the Franklin Center’s funding “is 100 percent anonymous.” But 95 percent of its 2011 funding came from , a spin-off of the that functions as a large “donor-advised fund,” cloaking the identity of donors to right-wing causes across the country (CPI did a review of Franklin’s Internal Revenue Service records). Mother Jones called DonorsTrust “the dark-money ATM of the conservative movement” in a February 2013 article.Franklin received DonorTrust’s second-largest donation in 2011. The Franklin Center also receives funding from the Wisconsin-based , a conservative grant-making organization. The Franklin Center was launched by the Chicago-based (SAM), a 501(c)(3) devoted to pushing free-market ideals. SAM gets funding from the , which is partially funded by The Claude R. Lambe Foundation. , one of the billionaire brothers who co-own Koch Industries, sits on the board of this foundation. SAM also receives funding from the . What we are witnessing are the cogs turning in the right-wing infrastructure gearing up for an . There has been a quiet 14-year movement to make Right to Work a possibility in Pennsylvania, and now the volume is being ratcheted up a few notches. We are witnessing a “grassroots,” social welfare, non-profit group that has the potential to collect dark money run a social media campaign that is pushing for one issue; screwing workers’ rights. The social media campaign, run by Pennsylvanians for Union Reform, is constantly pushing anti-union rhetoric from dark money dominated non-profit media outlet, like Media Trackers, or the Koch Brother funded, Franklin Center’s communication’s department at Watchdog Wire. This is how the right wing infrastructure, with all their minions, all their think tanks and all their communications departments are going to try to undercut labor laws in Pennsylvania just like they did in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Florida in 2011. |
There was a lot of levity at last night’s Golden Globes, as well as a few cringe-worthy moments, oh-snap jabs, and walking memes. And then there was actress Gabourey Sidibe.
What people — women especially — wear to awards shows is now so easily absorbed, dissected, and snap-judged in 140 characters. Predictably, people indulged in a round of body-shaming, and concern trolls commented on Sidibe’s weight and health.
This morning, Sidibe, who currently stars in American Horror Story: Coven, addressed those who found the need to shame, and put everything in perspective:
Proof that Gabby Sidibe was the real winner of last night’s Golden Globes: pic.twitter.com/Ke2xSn2wDr — Spencer Althouse (@SpencerAlthouse) January 13, 2014
This isn’t the first time she’s had to fend off trolls. Last fall, fans of American Horror Story ridiculed Sidibe on Twitter after an episode of the show. Many viewers were surprised and even offended that she didn’t attempt to lose weight to fit the mold of every other actress on television. How rude of her to not conform to outdated standards of beauty.
She also had a good zinger last night, which many women will understand:
My underwear hurts….. Need more booze. Send help! #GoldenGIobes — Gabourey Sidibe (@GabbySidibe) January 13, 2014
Put ‘em on blast, Gabby.
Photo via Greg Hernandez/Flickr |
Son Fulfills Dream That Racism Denied His Mother
When Terry Walls of Springfield, Mo., decided to go back to college at age 52, he wanted to put to rest a family rumor. He had heard his mother was denied admission to Missouri State University, and he was pointed toward Meyer Library on the MSU campus for answers.
There, he discovered an eloquent letter typed on fragile, onion-skin paper and signed with his mother's maiden name: Mary Jean Price. It was dated Oct. 2, 1950, and it was addressed to the university registrar:
"My Dear Mr. Thompson, I desire at this time to explain why I want to enter the college and why I believe my application should be granted. If denied admission, I must either abandon my ambition, or go elsewhere to obtain the same advantages which could be made available to me at home. My parents are not well-to-do ... "
Friday, Walls is graduating from the same university that denied his mother admission because of the color of her skin.
'The Colored Girl'
Missouri State University, previously called Southwest Missouri State College, was an all-white school in 1950. Price was the daughter of a black woman and a white man. She was the salutatorian of her graduating class.
"[The letter] brought tears to my eyes. It was unreal," Walls says.
He kept digging for more information about his mother's application. He came across a series of letters between the university president and the presidents of the other state institutions. They all refer to "the colored girl" who had applied for admission.
"My understanding of the applications of that time is that there was not a form, a box to check for race," says Ann Baker, the university archivist who oversees these documents at MSU. "However, in the example of Mrs. Walls, she went to Lincoln High School. And that right there would have been the giveaway, because Lincoln High School was the African-American school."
She says the last letter suggests that the presidents all met in a Kansas City hotel to talk further. Clearly, Price's application posed a problem for them.
The following week, the university's board of regents held a special meeting, where a group of eight white men decided Price's fate. The formal minutes reveal that her application was denied because those same classes were available at the all-black college four hours away in Jefferson City.
But Price's family didn't have the money to send her there.
'Swept Up Under The Rug'
Today, Mary Jean Price Walls is 80. She still lives in Springfield, and until her son brought her that letter, she hadn't breathed a word about it in six decades.
"I kept waiting and waiting and waiting, and I never got an answer. I always had the hope, but I never got a formal 'yes' or 'no,' " she says. "They did it like they'd do all the rest. It was just swept up under the rug."
She says her only desire as a child was to become a teacher, and that she always had her nose in a hand-me-down book from the all-white schools.
But instead of diving into Thoreau and Dickinson, she married a welder and gave birth to eight children.
She cleaned houses for white families, and then worked as a janitor until she retired.
Two years ago, MSU awarded her an honorary degree, recognizing that she had been robbed of one of life's greatest achievements. She says although she was angry at the administrators from 1950, she bears no hard feelings toward the university today.
In 1954, four years after she applied, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that the color line had been erased.
Friday afternoon, as Walls crosses the stage, shakes the dean's hand and receives his diploma, his mother will be watching from the audience. |
"He who controls Kandahar, controls Afghanistan" - at least that's how the saying goes there. In that respect, the murder of Ahmad Wali Karzai by a suspected Taliban "sleeper" among his bodyguards raises the question once more: who is in charge in Afghanistan? Ahmad Wali Karzai was one of the most enigmatic political figures in the country.
He was needed by many - from Pashtun families in need of help on the one hand, to NATO on the other. Karzai tried to make himself indispensible to everyone. But he was a dubious figure, and he was considered highly corrupt. Ahmad Wali Karzai often made bigger headlines in the contested southern part of the country than his older brother, President Hamid Karzai, made in the capital, Kabul. Their relationship was seen as close - contrary to western media, Hamid Karzai never referred to his half-brother as such; always simply his brother.
The two shared a father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, who was an important figure during the time of Afghan King Zahir Schah. He was the leader of the Popolzai, a powerful and respected Pashtun tribe with direct ties to the Afghan rulers. After the fall of the king, Abdul Ahad Karzai opposed the communist regime during the 1980s and later opposed the Taliban. In 1999, he was shot by radical Islamists in neighboring Pakistan. More than ten years later, the Taliban have now taken his son, who saw himself in the role of his father as a bridge-builder and servant of his tribe.
The King of Kandahar
Like many members of the Karzai family, the 50-year-old Ahmad Wali left Afghanistan when soldiers from the Soviet Union marched into the country. His escape led him to the United States, where he ran an Afghan family restaurant for several years in Chicago. When the communist regime was toppled in 1992, Karzai came back to his native country.
But it wasn't until the fall of the Taliban that Karzai began his rapid economic and political ascent in his home town of Kandahar, the capital of the province of the same name. It played right into his hands when his brother Hamid became president of Afghanistan after the Western intervention.
President Karzai, (second from right) and Ahmad Wali Karzai (left) had the same father
Until his murder on Tuesday, Ahmad Wali Karzai held only one post, and that didn't give him too much power: he was the head of the provincial council of Kandahar. Nonetheless, he was considered one of the most powerful men in all of southern Afghanistan.
His estate in the city of Kandahar was a place of pilgrimage. In his role as the head of the Popolzai tribe, Karzai settled conflicts. His word was law, he punished and sympathized, wrote important letters, provided work, headed the tribal council, and consulted the elders. Karzai was constantly engaged in projecting the outward image of a benevolent leader. But accusations that he was a drug baron and a money launderer, or a highly-paid informant of the CIA, conflicted with his self-made reputation.
Under his rule in Kandahar, the heart of the Afghan uprising, a corrupt, mafia-like network was said to have operated that broke every law. In April, 2009, Carl Forsberg from the Institute for the Study of War wrote a detailed study saying that "Ahmad Wali Karzai's influence in Kandahar was the main obstacle" keeping the West from its goals.
Forsberg added that the brother of the president was helping to discredit the government and was leading young people into the army of the Taliban. In Kandahar and Kabul, according to the study, there was a dangerous overlap of family interests and affairs of the state.
The accusations
In October 2009, the New York Times published a report that stated Ahmad Wali Karzai had considerably helped the CIA with constructing the so-called "Kandahar Strike Force." This paramilitary unit operated under the direction of the CIA against insurgents and was based in the property in which US special forces had set up their regional command in Afghanistan.
The compound used to belong to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and according to the Times, Ahmad Wali Karzai was paid so that the Americans could use it. This intensive cooperation with the CIA has reportedly been going on since 2001.
President Karzai didn't refer to Ahmad Wali as his half-brother
The younger brother of the Afghan president was also in charge of logistics and security on big projects in the south. He was involved in several Afghan companies, including the Asia Security Group and Watan Risk Management, which meant he was closely connected to tribal militias. These private armies should have actually been disarmed, but instead, they currently secure NATO supply trains coming in from Pakistan. They control the main roads in the south and reportedly earn money doing so.
On those same roads, Ahmed Wali Karzai is reported to have conducted a large amount of drug trafficking. In 2007, Karzai was openly described by some members of the Afghan parliament as a drug dealer. But his brother, the president, provided protection.
According to a report in the German magazine "Der Spiegel," Hamid Karzai called the claims "complete nonsense." He reportedly looked through all the charges against his brother and found nothing untoward.
It's probably no coincidence that proven cases of election manipulation in the 2009 presidential election that benefitted Hamid Karzai were especially high in Ahmad Wali Karzai's jurisdiction.
Fought accusations to the end
Ahmad Wali Karzai continued to fight against all the accusations until his death. In an interview with the British newspaper "The Independent," he said the accusations were "very painful."
"The only crime no one has accused me of so far is prostitution," he told the paper.
He denied that he was paid a lot of money by the CIA. Karzai pointed out that his family had been fighting the Taliban long before the West ever became involved. He said he was just a tribal leader who would do his duty no matter what others said about him, adding that all the accusations against him and his family were politically motivated.
Karzai's death leaves a power vacuum in Kandahar
But among the people of Kandahar, Ahmad Wali Karzai was more feared than loved. They knew about his power and his connections. It was said that, if it was beneficial to him and his businesses, he would also cooperate with the Taliban. According to the few available opinion polls, less than a quarter of all people in Kandahar had trust in the Afghan state, which was represented by Ahmad Wali Karzai.
For the CIA, Karzai seemed to have been an indispensable partner. The NATO-led ISAF force in Afghanistan has said its goal is to try and win the hearts and minds of people in Afghanistan, and Karzai was a critical component. The Obama administration has tried, without much success, to free itself from his influence. Now, the seat of power that Ahmad Wali Karzai once occupied must be filled by someone new.
Author: Sandra Petersmann / mz
Editor: Michael Lawton |
Education minister and Leader of the House Christopher Pyne has been unable to confirm Prime Minister Tony Abbott has the numbers to retain the Liberal leadership if the party goes to a ballot on Tuesday.
Mr Pyne appeared on TODAY this morning to address reports of a possible leadership spill following Mr Abbott's plunging popularity in the polls but only further inflamed speculation when he was unable to confirm Mr Abbott would have the support of the majority of the party.
"I can't speak for all of my colleagues in a secret ballot and it's obviously very hard to do so," Mr Pyne said.
"I assume that the party room knows that the worst thing we could possibly do is change leadership right now.
"[But] I can't rule it out."
Mr Pyne's comments come as News Corp reports Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has offered to serve as Malcolm Turnbull's deputy on a potential ballot.
Do you want Malcolm Turnbull to take over as prime minister? Yes 13755 No 8590
Do you think Prime Minister Tony Abbott will still be in the job after next Tuesday's party room meeting? Yes 19925 No 40419
When asked by host Karl Stefanovic if Mr Abbott would be prime minister following a party room meeting on Tuesday Mr Pyne said "I certainly hope so".
Labor's Anthony Albanese said Mr Pyne was insinuating the prime minister did not have the numbers to retain leadership.
"When you start having senior people can't say that the prime minister has the numbers then it's over," Mr Alabanese said.
"See you with a new leader next week."
After flying back to Adelaide from his Sydney appearance on TODAY, Mr Pyne immediately went into damage control, appearing on Sky News to "clear up any misinterpretation" over his "entirely unremarkable comments".
"My position is totally unchanged. I don’t believe there should be a spill motion on Tuesday, I don’t believe Tony Abbott should be replaced as leader of the Liberal party, I believe we have the right team in the right positions right across the cabinet and the government, and that they should remain in place and that we should get on with the job of doing what the Australian people want us to do which is make their lives easier," he said.
"Obviously I can’t know what is in the minds of my colleagues. I was simply pointing out he obvious, I can’t pretend to have extra-sensory perception."
During the show Mr Pyne had also moved to calm reports of a secret "closed-door meeting" between Mr Turnbull and Mr Abbott where Mr Turnbull pressed the Prime Minister on how the government would address its leadership woes.
Fairfax Media reports Mr Turnbull was "underwhelmed" by Mr Abbott's response when he reportedly simply repeated the key themes of his National Press Club speech.
Mr Pyne today confirmed Mr Turnbull had spoken to Mr Abbott last week but said ministers held meetings with the Prime Minister all the time and this was nothing unusual.
"All the cabinet were in Canberra last week for two days of meetings and we all had meetings with the Prime Minister of one kind or the other and Malcolm had a regular meeting with the Prime Minister," Mr Pyne said.
Mr Abbott today addressed the speculation at an appearance in Melbourne saying he would not talk about the "contents of private conversations".
"I'm certainly expecting we will have a strong and constructive party room meeting next Tuesday," he said.
"We are going to get on with government next week and the last thing that you'll see from me is any deliberate distractions.
"I'm not going to play the usual Canberra insider games."
He is reportedly confident neither Mr Turnbull nor Ms Bishop were campaigning for his job, saying he "trusts" the two potential contenders.
The communications minister last night said Mr Abbott had the support of his entire front bench.
Mr Turnbull was at a 'Politics in the Pub' event in Karen McNamara's electorate of Dobell, when he was forced to address the speculation.
"I've been leader of the Liberal party, I know what it's like to lead a political party," he said.
"There is no tension between Tony and any of his senior colleagues.
"It is a very, very cohesive team and we are all supporting him."
Mr Turnbull had been in Dobell to speak to the Member for Dobell about the rollout of the NBN.
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2019 |
Do mortgage lenders have a duty to serve underserved communities and potential homebuyers? A new book on sustainable homeownership has a provocative chapter on DTS that many lenders won't like much.
Many lenders already have several "duties to serve," through the Community Reinvestment Act, the affordable housing goals of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (still on the books, though targeted for extinction by some) and to a smaller degree, the Affordable Housing Program of the Federal Home Loan Banks, point out authors Adam Levitin and Janneke Ratcliffe.
"Financial service providers have a social responsibility as well as a shareholder responsibility," Levitin and Ratcliffe maintain in a chapter called "Rethinking Duties to Serve in Housing Finance," in the new book, Homeownership Built to Last.
This duty to serve should be leveled on all lenders, depositories and non-depositories alike, they add in the book, ajoint publication of the Brookings Institution Press and the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.
It's a controversial assertion. How can institutions in a free market economy have such duties to serve social policy? According to the authors, the duty emanates from the federal government's dominance in mortgage lending.
If lenders want to benefit from deposit insurance, the government-sponsored enterprises' subsidies of mortgage rates, the mortgage interest tax deduction, Federal Housing Administration insurance, Ginnie Mae guaranteed securities and other government-led incentives, then it's only fair to expect them to abide by rafts of government rules, argue Levitin and Ratcliffe.
But what about non-depositories? The authors write that they, too, depend on the government sugar and should have the same duties to serve as depositories.
Mortgage banks are heavily involved in Fannie and Freddie, while private mortgage insurers are also dependent on the GSEs, which require PMI if down payments are below 20%. And other non-depositories are reliant on depositories through warehouse lending.
Levitin and Ratcliffe take their argument a step further, maintaining that this level playing field for the primary market should also extend to the secondary market. This not only means Fannie and Freddie, but also big banks that have grown out of their CRA britches by lending through "affiliates and subsidiaries that do not fall under the CRA."
Levitin, professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and Ratcliffe, executive director of the University of North Carolina's Center for Community Capital, advocate that there should be tools, metrics and incentives behind the duty to serve mission, as well as a credible enforcement mechanism behind these goals. That could mean an independent commission, ombudsman, or inspector general, perhaps under the auspices of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The authors take care to debunk commonly heard perceptions that the GSEs' housing goals caused risky lending, and that CRA lending helped cause the housing collapse.
"In fact, the majority of toxic loans that triggered the recent financial crisis were subject to neither the CRA nor the [GSEs'] housing goals: non-depository lenders and private label securitizations." In response to allegations that CRA lending has hurt lender profitability, they cite a study that claims 78% of CRA lending was profitable or at least break even.
Not everything in this article will be anathema to lenders. The writers acknowledge DTS needs to be consistent with good business sense. And they do assess failures not just to lenders but also to regulators, though partly in being less than diligent in enforcing CRA requirements.
Some lenders would sign on to their assertion that they do not advocate lenders offering identical loans to all borrowers. "There cannot, however, exist a two-tracked, separate and unequal housing credit system in the United States, with wealthier (and whiter) communities offered traditional, nonpredatory products from depositories and prime lenders while low to moderate income and minority communities go unserved or served only by non-banks offering higher-cost and nontraditional products."
This is an excellent book, thoughtful and provocative. Access to credit will be a key to the overall health of the mortgage business in the immediate future, and not just for low-mod mortgages. I'm guessing the idea of DTS extending to non-depositories through their indirect association with depositories may be hard to sell. More bureaucracy will be a tough sale, too.
But I believe the authors have this concept well in hand as we head for the uncertain but hopefully radiant future when they write, "consumers' access to a government-constituted market must be offered in a nondiscriminatory and accessible manner to all."
Mark Fogarty, Editor at Large at National Mortgage News, brings more than 30 years of sector experience to his analyses of the mortgage market. |
Congress has recessed for the Memorial Day holiday on Monday, May 27, which has slightly delayed the introduction of a new online poker bill.
A new proposal is expected to be introduced in early June, according to Poker Players Alliance Executive Director John Pappas. Encouraged that legislators are taking the time to draft the measure in a passable form as opposed to rushing the matter, Pappas stated on 2 + 2 that a sincere effort is being made to gather support for what he called the Internet casino and poker bill.
Reading between the lines, one can surmise that Pappas is alluding to the failed Reid-Kyl bill in 2012 as a bill whose language was not passable and would not find acceptance among lawmakers. That bill, sponsored by Senators Harry Reid and Jon Kyl, was never introduced in Congress following the 2012 November elections. It was often criticized for favoring Reid’s home state of Nevada and was strongly opposed by the National Governors Association and a number of state lotteries, among others.
With legislation slowly progressing on the state level, federal lawmakers continue to contemplate advancing a workable online poker and gambling bill that would allow all states to join in upon approval of each state legislature. States would have the option of opting in or out to the federal framework.
Thus far, Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey have enacted various forms of online gambling legislation. Other states such as California, Pennsylvania and Illinois are considering Internet gaming statutes of their own. Utah is the only state that has already passed legislation opting out of any federal online gambling scheme that may be passed at a future date.
Another bill on the federal level proposed by Rep. Joe Barton is expected to be introduced later this summer. Pappas indicated that he recently met with the Texas lawmaker’s staff and was told that their proposal was also a work in progress. Barton has sponsored bills in previous years that failed to garner enough support. But that has not deterred the Republican lawmaker from trying again.
Legalized online poker began in the U.S. on April 30 when Ultimate Poker launched the first product. Met with much initial excitement, some of the luster faded when a number of Nevada residents encountered log on problems. Most of those glitches have since been corrected.
While legislative progress on the state level has certainly been encouraging, players are still clamoring for legislation on the federal level. Such a regime would eliminate many problems that a state-by-state format will likely encounter. Also, the whole country would be able to participate much more quickly if only an opt-in to the federal plan is all that would be required. Waiting for each state to propose and pass their own legislation will take a considerable length of time. |
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Spacey is having treatment following the allegations
House of Cards could be soon returning to production following the sexual harassment and assault allegations made against its star, Kevin Spacey.
The hit Netflix show was forced to take a break following the claims and Spacey has now been dropped from the show.
Pauline Micelli, senior vice president at the show's studio, Media Rights Capital, recently wrote to staff to say its hiatus was being extended.
"We continue to work with Netflix with the hope of resuming production soon."
Crew on the show will be paid until 8 December "as we continue these discussions," her letter went on.
Netflix previously announced it "will not be involved with any further production of House of Cards that includes Kevin Spacey".
'Loyal and talented'
Ms Micelli's letter addressed how stressful a period it had been for everyone working on the show.
"These last two months have tested and tried all of us in ways none of us could have foreseen," she wrote.
"The one thing we have learned throughout this process is that this production is bigger than just one person and we could not be more proud to be associated with one of the most loyal and talented production cast and crews in this business."
Image caption Spacey was at the Old Vic between 2004 and 2015
In the letter, published in the Hollywood Reporter, she added: "Our hope is that the entire crew will be able to reconvene when production resumes.
"But we want you to know that we will certainly understand if crew members need to find other work in the interim, which will prevent them from re-joining us. We sincerely appreciate all you have done".
She said that the writers would be continuing their work during the hiatus - presumably working on how to write Spacey out.
'Deeply inappropriate'
Spacey, who was artistic director at London's Old Vic theatre, is currently being investigated by Scotland Yard over two allegations of sexual assault.
He also faces claims of "on-set sexual misconduct" by members of the House of Cards production crew.
Initial allegations about Spacey were made by actor Anthony Rapp in October.
Rapp said he was 14 when Spacey allegedly harassed him following a party in 1986.
Spacey claimed to have no memory of the alleged incident while offering an apology to Rapp "for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behaviour".
The Old Vic has said that an internal investigation found 20 people claimed they had been the victims of inappropriate behaviour by Spacey, who was at the theatre between 2004 and 2015.
A spokesperson for Spacey said the Oscar-winning actor has been "taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment" since the allegations surfaced.
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk. |
Lady Kahina Tijani Loren's unofficial entourage began a tour of the outer gas giants in the Sol system. Hundreds of privately owned Federation-registered vessels turned out to greet the Senator, in lieu of an official welcome, as she continued her passage through the Sol system despite continued apathy from officials.
Chancellor Blaine made a rare appearance at a Senate meeting in order to address remarks made earlier in the week by Senator Denton Patreus. "It is with regret that I must deny the honourable Senator’s request to access the Emperor’s medical records," he said . As has always been the case, for reasons of national security the Emperor’s medical records are only accessible by the Emperor’s personal physicians. I will continue to act in the Emperor’s stead, according to his will. As for the question of succession, that will be addressed when the situation calls for it and not before."
The Kappa Fornacis Farmers Union was up to its old tricks again, as news started to come out of the region that Onionhead is once again available in the ports around Panem. In a brief written statement submitted to GalNet news, Commander Virgil Kyle, of the exploration-fitted Asp, Spirit of Indianapolis, claimed to have been the first to visit what he called Sol's ‘true North Star’. "Wregoe TV-L C24-0 is over 1,200 light-years north of Sol's position in the galactic plane, and less than a light-year from her position otherwise," he explained. "Due to the jump distances involved, the system can only be visited by Asps and Anacondas fitted to achieve near-maximum jump ranges."Lady Kahina Tijani Loren's unofficial entourage began a tour of the outer gas giants in the Sol system. Hundreds of privately owned Federation-registered vessels turned out to greet the Senator, in lieu of an official welcome, as she continued her passage through the Sol system despite continued apathy from officials.Chancellor Blaine made a rare appearance at a Senate meeting in order to address remarks made earlier in the week by Senator Denton Patreus. "It is with regret that I must deny the honourable Senator’s request to access the Emperor’s medical records,". As has always been the case, for reasons of national security the Emperor’s medical records are only accessible by the Emperor’s personal physicians. I will continue to act in the Emperor’s stead, according to his will. As for the question of succession, that will be addressed when the situation calls for it and not before." |
In recent days there has been much debate over Islam’s position on homosexuality. Anyone who has read any Persian poetry, read a forthright travel guide to the Gulf or heard Pakistanis or Afghans joking knows that same-sex attraction and activity has not been unusual in Muslim societies. A wealth of top quality scholarship has demonstrated that Islam, Muslim societies and the Shariah tradition did not conceive of ‘homosexuality’ as an identity. But they did acknowledge that same-sex attraction occurred, often for ‘natural’ reasons (e.g. it was considered normal for men to be attracted to beardless youths, who shared feminine beauty). It is only specific actions, such as sodomy (in Arabic, Liwat)[1], that show up on the Shariah radar as sins or punishable offenses. It is not same-sex attraction or desires that the Shariah prohibits. It is acting on them.
In the wake of the Orlando shooting, however, Islam’s disapproval of same-sex acts has come under renewed scrutiny. Some critics have argued that any disapproval of homosexuality is homophobic, and that any indulgence of homophobia lays fertile ground for violence against the LGBTQ community. Others have made more specific objections, namely that the death penalty for sodomy (Liwat) in the Shariah creates a particularly slippery slope towards violence against gays. If the Shariah prescribes death for homosexuality, they contend, then wasn’t the Orlando shooter just executing God’s will? Isn’t that a huge problem?
Disagreement over the Punishment for Sodomy in the Shariah
In response, some Muslim scholars have presented arguments that, though certain same-sex actions are prohibited in Islam, there is no death penalty for homosexuality in the Shariah. The problem with this argument, however, is that, far from uncovering a popular misconception about Islam or discovering some long-hidden true teaching of the religion, it simply reproduces millennium old debates within the Shariah tradition. Yes, the main position in the Hanafi school of law for many centuries was that someone convicted of sodomy (which in all the schools required four witnesses to the act of penetration) was not executed but only given a milder punishment or perhaps only disciplined by a judge. But the other three Sunni schools of law did consider sodomy to be a death-penalty offense (at the very least for the active partner). This disagreement exists because of how different schools of thought in the Shariah weighed evidence from the Quran and the Prophet’s precedent and how they interpreted it. For the schools of law that upheld the death penalty for sodomy, their evidence was 1) several Hadiths of the Prophet in which he states that those who commit ‘the act of the people of Lot’ should be killed, the main one being the Hadith of Ibn ‘Abbas[2]; 2) an analogy between sodomy and Zina (heterosexual fornication or adultery), which was often punishable by death; and 3) the rulings of many Companions of the Prophet and other early Muslim scholars. The Hanafi school differed with this position because 1) the school did not permit declaring something to be a Hudud crime (see below) by analogy (sodomy might be analogous to Zina, but God and the Prophetﷺ had commanded Muslims to seek the most minimal possible application of Hudud laws, so extension by analogy was indulging) [3]; 2) Hanafis argued that the Hadiths asserting the death penalty for Liwat were of debatable authenticity[4]; and 3) there was far too much disagreement over the proper punishment for sodomy amongst early Muslim scholars to suggest that death was the clear conclusion.[5]
Respecting the Law of the Land
There is another problem with the ‘no death penalty for homosexuality in Islam’ argument in the context of debate since the Orlando shooting. Although there has been great disagreement amongst Muslim scholars over the appropriate punishment for Liwat in Islam, there has been no disagreement over Liwat being prohibited in Islam.[6] So the objection of critics remains: Islam’s disapproval of same-sex acts is homophobic, and homophobia is a slippery slope towards violence against gays.
Lost in this discussion is something that should be obvious to everyone: your personal morality is not the law, and you don’t take the law into your own hands. Regardless of what law one lives under, it is the job of the recognized organs of justice to apply it. Regardless of how vile you consider an act to be, it is the law of the land that determines if that act is a crime and what its punishment should be.
According to the Shariah, Muslims living in the West (or other non-Muslim states) are essentially visitors from the perspective of the sacred law. The standard definition amongst Muslim scholars for the Abode of Islam (Dar al-Islam) was those lands where the Shariah reigns.[7] Muslims outside that space reside in lands and countries as guests of whatever legal or religious system reigns there. If the law of the land were to prohibit Muslims from carrying out a duty required by the Shariah, such as prayer, or require them to do something clearly forbidden in Islam, such as drinking alcohol, the standard opinion amongst classical Muslim scholars was that Muslims could no longer reside there (a second opinion was that they should remain so that the religion of Islam would not vanish there). Otherwise, Muslims must respect the law of the land. Their decision to reside in those lands represents their agreement to a contract with the governments ruling them. As the Quran commands Muslims, “be true to your agreements” (Quran 5:1), and as the Prophetﷺ taught, “Muslims are bound by the conditions [of their agreements].”[8] The Shariah continues to govern Muslims’ private worship and whatever areas of law the local system leaves open (such as contracts, inheritance and marriage in the US), but Muslims must respect and abide by the restrictions, duties and regulations placed upon them.
'Kill the one who has committed sodomy' & The Rule of Law in the Shariah
How do Muslims reconcile the principle of the rule of law with the commands of their sacred scriptures? The Quran echoes the Bible in its tone regarding justice. ‘A life for a life, an eye for an eye…’ (Quran 5:45) has an immediacy about it, as does the Prophet’s Hadith (contested, as mentioned above) ‘Whoever you find committing the act of the people of Lot, kill the active and passive partners.’ Aren’t commands like this directed at us as individuals?
This question was posed to the most famous scholar of thirteenth-century Cairo (and Damascus, for that matter). Ibn ‘Abd al-Salam was asked whether a person who had committed a grievous crime or mortal sin was allowed to take the law into his own hands and kill himself. The answer was no, ruled the scholar. If the person wants to be punished, he should confess before a judge so that he could be dealt with ‘in the legal manner (‘ala al-wajh al-shar’i).’ Scriptures like the Bible and the Quran address mankind at the level of conceptual default, as individuals unmediated by governments. At that level, Ibn ‘Abd al-Salam explained, it was indeed individuals who sought justice for wrongs done them, who exacted ‘an eye for an eye.’ But, he continued, the Shariah delegated this power and role to governments because of the serious risk of abuse.[9]
This became the standard position of Muslim scholars regarding punishing people for the Hudud crimes as well as for handling crimes like murder. In the Hanbali school (my school), the position has been clear: “For us the principle is delegating the Hudud to the authority (imam), because it is right of God, so it should be delegated to His deputy [on earth].” A later Hanbali scholar explains that this is because enforcing such laws “requires exercising discernment and reason (ijtihad)” to make sure that justice is being done.[10] In the case of murder, the family of the victim has a God given (even natural) right to see justice done and to see the killer punished. But if a family member kills the murderer himself, without permission from the ruler or judge, he can be seriously punished. If someone kills the murderer when the judge has explicitly ordered they not be touched, then the vigilante will themselves be charged with murder. There can be no execution of a murderer, even one whose guilt is known, without permission from the ruling authority (these are examples from the Hanafi and Shafi schools of law).[11] As summed up by the late, great Muslim jurist Wahba al-Zuhayli, “It is an agreed upon principle that applying the punishments of the Hudud and Qisas (eye-for-an-eye crimes) as well as other discretionary punishments falls under the special purview of the authorities (imam).”[12]
How Was Homosexuality Dealt with in Pre-Modern Islamic Civilization?
The short answer is that it wasn’t. Like a DEA agent watching a Keith Richards interview, the guardians of the Shariah (judges, concerned scholars, market police, etc.) turned a blind eye to the private lives of the populace. Thus, despite the endless production of poetry extolling the beauty of young boys, instances of people being punished for Liwat are exceedingly rare (I have only come across a few examples in Islamic history). Of course, Muslim jurists knew that homosexuality existed all around them. And they disapproved. As Ibn ‘Abd al-Salam wrote, people only seem concerned about sins if they were socially rejected, not if they were objectionable to God. People were mortified by eating in public during Ramadan, he complained, but they saw no problem with ubiquitous sodomy.[13]
Why this dissonance between the rules of the Shariah and their application? This dissonance only existed for the Hudud crimes, those ‘Limits of God’ whose punishments had been laid out clearly by the Quran and the Prophet’s precedent (adultery/fornication, sexual slander, certain kinds of theft, intoxication, apostasy from Islam and banditry/violent robbery). Though some of these crimes were grave threats to public order (e.g. banditry, theft), and others included violations of the rights of other members of society (e.g. slander), what unified the Hudud crimes was that they were also seen as transgressing the ‘rights of God.’ They were particularly offensive to Him. But because God is most merciful, the Quran and the Prophet’s teachings made it almost impossible to actually punish someone for one of the Hudud crimes. The Quran ordains that the punishment for fornication is 100 lashes, but it also requires four witnesses who saw penetration occur to prove it (the Quran adds that, if someone makes this accusation without four witnesses, s/he is punished with 80 lashes for slander) (Quran 24:2-4). Furthermore, in a commandment that has been central to the application of justice in Islamic history, the Prophet ordered judges to “Ward off the Hudud from the Muslims as much as you can, and if there is a way out for [the accused] then let him go. For it is better for the authority to err in mercy than to err in punishment.” Muslim jurists encapsulated this rule in their maxim ‘Ward off the Hudud by ambiguities (shubuhat),’ compiling vast lists of all the procedural technicalities by which Hudud punishments could be set aside. For example, if a thief stole an item below a certain value, or from an unsecured location, or if the thief simply denied he’d stolen it, he could not be punished with the Hudud punishment of having his hand chopped off (see the appendix for a list of the ones for theft). That does not mean that the thief would escape punishment. His crime would simply drop from the Hudud-level theft (sariqa) to a lower level of theft, which was punishable by a duty of restitution and perhaps a punishment like a year in prison. Since the majority of Sunni schools of law considered Liwat to be an extension of the Hudud crime of Zina, the same procedural safeguards applied. If there was any ambiguity, the Hudud punishment would not be applied. As with the Hanafi school’s ruling on Liwat, dropping the Hudud punishment didn't mean that the guilty party was not punished. But the punishment would be much less severe.
Beyond the general caution with which Hudud crimes were punished, there was also a widespread cultural acceptance of same-sex attraction in Muslim societies. Muslim scholars and judges agreed that Liwat was a grievous sin, but it was too widespread not to treat it with humor. And appreciating male beauty was not unknown to them. A thirteenth-century scholar visiting Cairo from Bukhara would play on his own name and the famously strict criteria that the great Hadith scholar al-Bukhari had for evaluating the soundness of Hadith. When this scholar saw a handsome boy he would say, ‘This is sound according to the criteria of al-Bukhari!”[14] An influential ninth-century Sunni scholar and chief judge of Baghdad was well known for delighting in encountering handsome young men – and writing poetry about it - to the extent that a critic devoted a whole poem to “a judge who would apply the Hudud punishment for adultery but who sees nothing wrong with Liwat.” But all of this was just fodder for the judge’s banter with the caliph during their meetings.[15]
The Red Herring of Intolerance in Pluralist Societies
In an interview the other day, I was asked if Islam’s position on same-sex sexual acts meant that Muslims could not live in the West. That question is very odd if you think about it. There are lots of features of life in America that Islam (and Muslims, presumably) disapproves of: drinking alcohol, premarital sex, eating pork, wearing revealing clothing, the list could go on. Intoxication is a Hudud crime in the Shariah, punishable by eighty lashes, and premarital/extra-marital sex is condemned as severely as sodomy. Yet there is no appreciable evidence that Muslims seek to carry out the Hudud punishments for these acts in the US. In fact, Muslims live around such practices every day in the US without incident. Despite Donald Trump’s claim that Muslims have failed to integrate into American society, they seem quite willing to accept the plurality of American lifestyles and even to stand up for the rights of other Americans to hold beliefs Muslims might not share. A recent Pew survey shows that 45% of Muslims in the US say homosexuality should be accepted by society (vs. only 36% of evangelical Protestants).
Although I’d hesitate to trace this feature of the Muslim community to some strain in Islamic history, it’s hardly surprising that Muslims would have this attitude. In classical Islamic civilization, Muslim authorities allowed Zoroastrians to engage in brother-sister marriage, Jews to charge interest, and Christians to cultivate wine and pigs. [Author's Note and Correction: In the initial publication of this article I added ‘Muslim judges could even hear such cases brought by non-Muslim litigants by applying the laws of their respective communities instead of the Shariah.’ I cannot actually find any evidence to back this up. To the contrary, all evidence seems to be against this.]. Tenth-century rabbis in Baghdad acknowledged that Jews were settling their divorces and registering properties in Muslim courts, and Muslim scholars in fourteenth-century Damascus figured out how a Muslim judge was supposed to appraise the value of a Christian’s wine stock (either by its value in a sales contract or by its grape juice equivalent).[17]
Towards the end of his Social Contract, Rousseau asserts, “It is impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned.” Translated into our time, his rule might read ‘It’s impossible to live in peace with those whose core identities you refuse to validate.’ This is the assumption underlying one school of thought about tolerance in liberal societies (you might call it the ‘don’t judge’ school). At its base it’s both principled (can you really treat as equal citizens those of whom you profoundly disapprove?) and practical in an instrumental sense (teaching children that judging others is wrong is the best way to shape a peaceful society). And this assumption provides the basis for the position that any moral or religious disapproval of homosexuality is a dangerous impediment to the LGBTQ community receiving equal rights and enjoying security in a society.
But Rousseau’s rule is also simply wrong in the context of American society. It’s flawed in principle because it unduly restricts freedom of conscience and religious belief; it’s not uncommon for religions to teach that non-adherents are damned and misguided, and it’s very hard to maintain a belief in a code of ethics and rules if you can’t disapprove of those who violate at least some of them. In a society filled with diverse, sometimes polar opposing views on religion, politics, lifestyle, etc., forcing uniform approval or mutual validation from all parties would leave few belief systems, political positions or worldviews standing.
Rousseau’s rule is also empirically wrong in the American context. Americans have lived and continue to live side by side with fellow citizens whose beliefs and lifestyles they deplore. As a Muslim, everyday I encounter (in fact, am related to) people who think it’s absurd to believe in God, idiotic to believe in Islam, and barbaric to uphold Muslim values. Being a believing Muslim is core to my identity, but demanding that everyone else consider my views morally or metaphysically valid would be absurd. One might object that being gay is not a choice, while being religious/Muslim is. But being religious might well be genetically determined (can we be so sure it’s not?). Furthermore, a central premise in the argument for recognizing transgender identity is that it is a person’s subjective understanding of their own identity, not their objective biological features, that we should validate. Saying that my religiosity is any less core to my identity than my sexuality is to privilege a narrow conception of both these aspects of identity, and it’s precisely such imposition that the LGBTQ movement opposes.
In pluralist societies like the US, people have dramatically different beliefs and worldviews. They might even consider those who don’t share them to be morally deficient or even less than human (see current presidential election sloganeering or right wing invectives against President Obama for the past 7 years). Given all the diversity of belief systems and worldviews held by Americans, it is totally unrealistic to propose eliminating all their aspects of disapproval or condemnation. It is much more feasible to emphasize that moral disapproval or religious condemnation cannot be allowed to violate the rule of law that safeguards us all.
The Orlando Shooting and Muslims' Stance on Homosexuality in America
We often hear the question ‘What’s wrong with Islam, that so many Muslims are terrorists?’ The obvious answer: there is nothing wrong with Islam that makes Muslims terrorists, since the percentage of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims who engage in terrorism is a statistically insignificant 0.01% (rounding up).[18] Omer Mateen’s horrendous act of violence shocks us all, but he was just one person. His act does not in any way show that Muslims’ views on homosexuality represent some real threat to the safety of the LGBTQ community. It only does so if we assume the Rousseau rule to be true and then read the Pulse shooting as proof of that. How many other acts of violence towards gays have been carried out by Muslims in the US? A 2011 Pew poll of Muslim Americans’ views showed that 45% of them felt that homosexuality should be discouraged by society. When I check to see what percentage of the Muslims who hold that view have engaged in violent attacks on the LGBTQ community, I get 0.0001% (rounding up).[19]
As a Muslim American, I support the right of same-sex couples to have civil marriages according to US law. Islam does not approve of same-sex acts, but I don’t believe that the social or religious traditions of any one group should dictate what sort of contracts or unions those of other beliefs can engage in. I want to preserve my right to have my Shariah marriage contract with my wife recognized by US law even though I know many Americans consider Islam’s conception of marriage to be unpalatable. I don’t see the desire of gay couples as any different. Like Muslim judges adjudicating incestuous Zoroastrian marriages, acknowledging that we live in morally and religiously pluralist society does not mean condoning everything done in it. I believe that it is the right of every religious community to advocate for its own vision of sexual propriety. As the Supreme Court held in the historic Obergefell v. Hodges case, “it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned.” This right is as important and sacrosanct as the right of minorities (be they Muslims or the gay community) to engage in unions and contracts free from the hobbles of majoritarian bias.
As we all attempt to deal with the shock of Omer Mateen’s bloody crime in Orlando, we should keep in mind what was truly criminal in his actions. Many find his religious beliefs revolting. Many find his homophobia disturbing. But Americans have a right to disagree on these things. The crime Mateen committed wasn’t believing that God declared that same-sex acts are sinful. The crime he committed wasn’t hating gays. The crime he committed (with all asterisks for presumption of innocence, etc.) was that he intentionally, knowingly and with malicious intent shot, killed and even executed in cold blood 49 innocent people, wounding dozens of others. He might have thought he was doing God’s work, but the Shariah has made it clear since the beginning of Islam that it is not for individuals to take God’s law into their own hands. Even if Mateen were living in some medieval, idealized Muslim city, ruled by the Shariah and free from all the evils of the modern world, he would be dragged in chains before the kadi (judge) on the charge of mass murder. The people he killed had not been given a trial or even formally accused of the crimes he imagined. Even if they had been tried, it’s highly unlikely that a Muslim judge would have found them guilty of a Hudud crime. And whatever the verdict, it would only be the recognized legal authority that could have punished them. |
GOP chairman Reince Priebus last night on Greta van Susteren's show on Fox, finally admitting the real reason Republicans want Todd Akin to quit: they don't think he can win.
Media bias is one thing, but I also think that when something is so blatantly obvious, that you're putting our party in a worse scenario in this particular race, that you ought to step up and do the right thing. [...] I would hope that he would see it the same way and realize that, you know what, we'd probably be better off if you allowed one of these other folks to run in your place. [...] I think it's an important race for us to win in Missouri and if Congressman Akin believes the same things that he would do the right thing to do which is to put ourselves in a stronger position to win that seat.
It's been obvious all along that the Republican freakout over Akin didn't reflect genuine outrage over what Akin said. After all, Akin's position is the exact same position that Mitt Romney held until Monday, it's the exact same position that Paul Ryan continues to hold, and it's the exact same position that the GOP's platform endorsed just this week. It wasn't the substance of what Akin said that worried them—it was the political implications of the way he said it.
And now, as Priebus admitted last night, Republicans want Akin to quit the race not because he offended them, but because they think a different candidate will give them a better shot at winning. They aren't angry with Akin because of what he believes—they're angry because he admitted it out loud. And if they get their way, whoever takes Akin's place will be fighting for the exact same agenda that he was trying to defend. |
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While some people are merely praying for rain, weather modification meteorologists and pilots are trying to coax a little more water from the clouds.
For more than 30 years, weather modification programs across Texas have been giving potential rain clouds that extra nudge to make more rain fall to the ground through cloud seeding.
Cloud seeding is the process of producing more rain from convective cumulonimbus clouds by the use of silver iodide chemicals sent through pyrotechnic flares. When the flares disperse the silver iodide into the clouds, water particles attach and grow heavy enough to fall to the ground, creating rainfall.
The process of cloud seeding first started in West Texas in 1971 at the Colorado River Municipal Water District.
“We started because of the drought. There was a pretty severe drought,” CRMWD general manager John Grant said.
For 33 years, CRMWD had a weather radar, meteorologist, pilot and plane on hand to watch out for any developing clouds that could be seeded for rain.
During a mission, a meteorologist would watch on a C-Band radar for convective cloud systems to form. If a potential cloud was spotted, a pilot would be called out within minutes to fly underneath a developing cloud around 3,000 to 5,000 feet above ground level in a plane outfitted with silver iodide flare racks. An updraft would help disperse silver iodide into the cloud.
In total, a mission could be completed in 30 to 45 minutes, Grant said.
“You have to make those decisions pretty quickly,” Grant said. “They would be on call every afternoon. The airplane would be sitting out there on the runway ready to take off.”
Seeding missions were conducted over 14 counties with prime target areas over Borden, Scurry, Howard, Mitchell and Coke Counties. Within the target counties, water runoff could be directed to Lake J.B. Thomas and the E.V. Spence Reservoir.
While CRMWD’s program was successful enough to provide additional rainfall, Grant said, not enough cumulus cloud systems moved into the area to be seeded.
Though the additional precipitation is most beneficial to parched areas like West Texas, cloud seeding is most successful in more tropical climates,said meteorologist Greg Jackson of the National Weather Service in Midland.
“If you don’t have at least clouds billowing up through the atmosphere to begin with, you won’t have clouds big enough to produce rain. Out here in West Texas, it’s more difficult to achieve a positive result,” Jackson said. “They (the clouds) are so shallow and contain so little water, you have rain evaporating just a few thousand feet below the cloud; you wouldn’t get a raindrop on the ground.”
As drought conditions persisted in the area, CRMWD suspended its cloud seeding operations in 2006. Grant said the water district is instead focusing on water education for fourth- and fifth-grade students.
“We think the program worked, but we looked at the cost-benefit and it didn’t work well in a drought,” Grant said of the cloud seeding program, which cost around $150,000 to $200,000 a year. “You could take the money that we were spending in hopes that you were going to get more rain and spend it on education and probably get more benefit out of it in continued water awareness and water conservation.”
Seven other weather modification programs are continuing cloud seeding missions in Texas. The Plains-based program Seeding Operations and Atmospheric Research, or SOAR, conducts seeding operations in the Southern Ogallala and Trans-Pecos areas.
Formed in 2001 after separating from the Lubbock High Plains Underground Water District, SOAR conducts seeding missions mostly during the summer from May to September. Unlike CRMWD, which used cloud seeding to add water to reservoirs, SOAR uses cloud seeding for agriculture.
SOAR staffs their own meteorologist and radar pilots to track clouds. They also have a pressurized plane, which can go directly into a cloud to disperse the silver iodide flares.
SOAR chief pilot and project director Gary Walker said seeding missions have continued during the drought, but the program is experiencing the same lack of cloud coverage CRMWD faced toward the end of their program.
Walker said since May, only about two dozen seeding missions were flown in the Trans-Pecos area. Normally, 10 or more missions would be flown in a single month.
“It was definitely less than average,” Walker said. “When you’re in a drought, and there are no clouds, there’s nothing to seed. Everybody’s really hurting. I hate it for our agriculture people, but that’s just the hand we’re dealt.”
High pressure systems positioned north of the Permian Basin have been redirecting winds full of moisture normally coming from the Gulf of Mexico away from much of West Texas. Combined with hot temperatures at ground level and in the atmosphere, there is barely enough moisture to form clouds ideal for seeding, Jackson said.
“We’re missing out on moisture for those two reasons,” he said. “We sort of see the signs out there that drought troubles could continue, but it’s not hopeless. To some degree, luck is always involved.”
Walker said when clouds are available seeding missions can help produce 10 percent to 20 percent more rain. Because there has been little rainfall this summer, Walker said the seeding mission have also made little impact in additional rain.
“If you have 10 inches of rain, then we probably contributed an inch or two of that. If we have one inch of rain, 10 percent is one-tenth an inch. It’s practically nothing,” Walker said as an example.
SOAR’s program costs around $20,000 a month to have operations on standby; Walker said 2011 costs will be lower than usual since fewer flights have been conducted.
Even though clouds are popping up in the area less than usual, Walker said cloud seeding programs are still vital in helping get additional water in the area as the drought increasingly threatens groundwater and surface water sources.
“Our main goal is to (provide) additional water so our farmers don’t pump as much from Ogallala (aquifer), because we don’t have another water supply,” Walker said. “In these small communities, we have to rely strictly on water in the ground, and we know it’s declining at a fairly fast rate. We’re all about trying to reduce usage of the Ogallala.”
@OAlifestyle
DID YOU KNOW
Midland was site of the earliest cloud-seeding attempts in West Texas, under the direction of Gen. Robert St. George Dyrenforth in 1891. He used explosive balloons and artillery to "break the balanced state" of nature and make rainclouds develop. It didn't work, and the project moved on several times before being determined to be a waste of the Department of Agriculture's funds. |
China’s second largest cryptocurrency exchange BTCChina has announced it is shutting down on Sept. 30.
In tweets Thursday, the exchange, which also comprises an international arm BTCC, said the move was a direct result of Chinese regulatory statements.
It added BTCC would continue operating as normal.
2/ BTCC products, including BTCC Pool, are not affected by this change. Please contact us at support@btcc.com if you have any questions. https://t.co/r3HvINU20p — BTCC (@YourBTCC) September 14, 2017
Bitcoin continues to decline in price in the aftermath of China banning ICOs, and rumors circulating of a second ban on Bitcoin-to-fiat exchange.
BTCC initially said it would “change its business model” in the event of a ban, and a potential full closure will come as a surprise to the industry.
Mainstream press sources had also prophesied a ban on exchanges, leading to widespread criticism in the face of non-official statements explicitly demanding closure.
Data from Bitcointicker shows prices dipping under $3700 meanwhile, with major support only hiding at the $3000 mark according to an analyst reported by Cointelegraph yesterday. |
By Christopher R Rice
First, a big thank you to everyone who's been reading and following me. This is for you. Besides a heads up, I also need to know who else is aware of these plans. So far it seems that only Russia, China and the Saudis are aware of this but I hope that I'm wrong.
So, if anyone else out there has any information on what I'm about to disclose please get in touch with me. Everyone else, I'm sorry to poop in your Cheerios, I'd much rather be delivering a hand full of drugs than this shi**y newz.
First, there's many variables and not everything is set in stone. Simply because those making the plans can't predict everyone else's behavior or reactions. Most, but not everyone's. That's where we come in.
So, lets start with the certainties. Donald Duck is elected President which leads to urban warfare / civil war. America is not letting go of Syria and will provoke Russia and China into WWIII, over Russia's oil deal with China.
That much I know. I've wrestled with writing about it, but why bother?
Iran and Korea are loose cannons, intentionally. America is hoping and has been attempting to provoke Russia and China into open conflict since they went around the petro dollar in their oil deal. Big Oil and Big Banks may or may not crash the stock market to get Trump elected.
Update: A strong economy would guarantee a Clinton victory / presidency. And last time I checked the 'powers-that-be' didn't want Clinton in the White House or she would've beat Obama eight years ago.
I've exposed and stopped these things before during the Reagan years.
I do not need to talk to you if you merely have heard shit in the media and have funny feelings. I need to talk to the real mutha fu*kers out there that want to take advantage of the holes left in their fu*ked up plans. That instead of whining and blogging about this cra*, want to use it against the muther fu*kers.
Here's how to contact me:
Go to
https://hack.chat/
Create chat room, text link to:
949-288-1173 There is no internet on this phone line so give me a few minutes to respond. This is an extremely secure line. I will not use this line / phone to talk to you because I do not know that your line is secure. Thank you and good luck.
(Due to Censorship) Blog has been shifted to:
http://www.copsrcorrupt.com/
Articles and videos from now on will be posted at:
Underground America Inc. |
The Republican victory in the 2014 midterms is less than 24 hours old. But already, the hawkish wing of the GOP is planning an ambitious battle plan to revamp American foreign policy: everything from arming Ukraine’s military to reviewing the ISIS war to investigating the U.S. intelligence community’s role in warming relations with Iran.
In an interview Wednesday, Sen. John McCain, the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he has already discussed a new national-security agenda with fellow Republicans Bob Corker and Richard Burr, the likely incoming chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“Burr and Corker and I will be working closely together on everything,” McCain said. “For example, arms for Ukraine’s [government], examination of our strategy in the Middle East, our assets with regard to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin in the region, China’s continued encroachment in the South China Sea.”
You could call it the neoconservatives’ revenge or the year of the hawks. But it has produced an interesting moment in Washington, where even the dovish side of the Republican Party now acknowledges the midterms were a win for their party’s American exceptionalists.
As Ron Paul, the isolationist father of Sen. Rand Paul, tweeted Tuesday evening: “Republican control of the Senate = expanded neocon wars in Syria and Iraq. Boots on the ground are coming!” William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, was in rare agreement with the elder Paul. “I think Ron Paul told the truth,” Kristol told The Daily Beast. “And the truth is that his son had a bad election season and the Republicans who were elected are various species of hawks and not Rand Paul-like doves.”
Those hawks include some new faces in the Senate like Tom Cotton, the Republican from Arkansas whose campaign was boosted in its final month with ad buys from Kristol’s Emergency Committee for Israel.
Other hawks like McCain have been around for years, but are now back in control of the powerful committees that exercise oversight of the Executive Branch’s foreign policy and war fighting.
McCain said his first order of business as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee will be to end the budget rule known as sequestration, which requires the U.S. military to cut its budget across the board. “I want to start an examination of our policies in the world and then find out whether we have the capability to meet these expectations,” McCain said. McCain also said he would use his chairmanship to root out overspending at the Pentagon, but he emphasized his desire to reverse sequestration.
Another major issue for the new Republicans will be a potential Iran deal. President Obama was circumspect Wednesday at a press conference on the current nuclear negotiations between Iran and six major powers that are set to expire in November.
Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican likely to replace Rep. Mike Rogers as the next chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told The Daily Beast Wednesday that he would like to begin digging into the administration’s Iran talks—in particular, the role played in those talks by the U.S. intelligence community.
“There is going to be real scrutiny from the House and Senate in what’s taken place on the entire Obama administration’s tenure dealing with the Iranians,” Nunes said. Nunes said he was interested in following up on why U.S. intelligence officials who briefed his committee did not acknowledge their role in negotiations with Iran when asked by the committee’s chairman, Mike Rogers, earlier this year.
Nunes would not get much more specific. The Republicans will not likely choose committee chairmen in the House until next week. But the interest of Nunes, who is currently a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in the role of U.S. spies in Iran talks is significant.
For years the CIA and the State Department have relied on interlocutors as channels to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps. In 2007, 2008, and 2009, the U.S. intelligence community participated in talks led by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad with representatives of Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force and the man reported to be helping lead Iraq’s ground campaign against ISIS.
To date, much of the details of the diplomacy and even the interim deal between Iran and the West are shrouded in secrecy. Before November 2013, when the current talks were announced, the State Department and the White House kept from the press the private discussions with Iranian counterparts taking place in Oman.
Gary Samore, who served as the White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction in Obama’s first term, said the Oman discussions were kept quiet at the request of the Iranians. “We were happy to have this be an open meeting,” he said. “Meaning that it would be public knowledge that it would take place. The Iranians insisted on secrecy, for them the sensitivity about meeting bilaterally with Americans is very acute.”
If Nunes pushes further on the details and extent of the Iran talks as chairman of the House intelligence panel, he will be taking a very different tack from some of his colleagues.
Republicans and Democrats this year tried to pass new sanctions on Iran aimed at taking effect after talks expire if Iran does not dismantle its nuclear program. The White House was able to kill the sanctions bill this year and persuade key Senate Democrats like Sen. Robert Menendez, the outgoing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to hold off on pushing for a vote.
Recent reports say the United States would be willing to allow Iran to keep thousands of its centrifuges in place, if the machines were disconnected and incapable of producing a cascade of enriched nuclear fuel.
Nunes said he thinks the deal being contemplated could lead to disaster.
“Shouldn’t the Congress be concerned about the Iranians getting a nuclear weapon,” he said. “They are going to be close to getting a nuclear weapon because of this deal, this should matter to the American people.”
McCain said he, Corker, and Burr are also interested in pursuing more vigorous oversight of the Iran deal as well. “The Iranians are helping [Syrian dictator] Bashar Assad,” McCain added. “They are the ones that got the 5,000 Hezbollah guys into the fight [against Syria’s rebels], they are gaining more and more influence in Baghdad. And we somehow believe we make a nuclear deal with them and that will lead to other areas of cooperation.”
One silver lining for Obama may be on the issue of a new congressional authorization for war against ISIS. Earlier this year, when Obama began bombing targets in Syria, his administration said the legal authority for the new war stemmed from the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that specifically targeted the people, groups, and states responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Many legal scholars found the rationale for the war specious because while ISIS was at one point a franchise of al Qaeda, it has for nearly a year been in open warfare with al Qaeda’s franchise in Syria.
On Wednesday Obama said he would ask Congress to vote on the new war against ISIS during the lame-duck session of Congress that starts in December.
“I think it’s time for an AUMF, I do,” McCain said. “The one passed after 9/11 specifically talks about the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and ISIS has exceeded that definition.” |
This article reviews previous studies and presents new data on pesticide exposure in order to provide some indications of the extent and significance of childhood exposure to xenoestrogens, including pesticides, epoxy resins, and polycarbonates. After more than four decades of pesticide use, little is known about their adverse effects on health. There is a need to address the potential risks associated with the current contamination of water, soils, and foods in many agricultural areas. In southeastern Spain, along the Mediterranean coast, extensive areas alongside residential zones are devoted to intensive farming in plastic greenhouses, with the use of large amounts of pesticides. Human tissue samples have been investigated for pesticide residues. Samples of fat from children living in farm areas contained a total of 14 pesticides, including lindane, HCH, heptachlor, aldrin, dieldrin, endrin, endosulfan, o,p'-DDE, and o,p'-DDD, among others. Of the 113 samples studied, 43 were positive for one or more pesticides, some of which have estrogenic activity. The number of new substances that mimic the action of endogenous estrogens is increasing rapidly. These endocrine-disrupting chemicals are not restricted to pesticides. Several different compounds used in the food industry, in plasticizers, and in dental restorations are also estrogenic. The few studies that have investigated their effects in humans all indicate that concerns are warranted. If there is indeed an association between zexposure to substances with hormone-disruptive activity and certain disorders of sexual maturation, the incidence of such disorders should be greater in areas where exposure to agents with this activity is high. We used a spatial ecological design to search for variations in orchidopexy rates and to analyze relationships between these differences and geographical variations in exposure to pesticides. Our results are compatible with a hypothetical association between exposure to hormone-disruptive chemicals and the induction of cryptorchidism. Several methodological limitations in the study design make it necessary to evaluate the results with caution. In conclusion, a closer scrutiny is required to determine whether epoxy resins and polycarbonates contribute, together with estrogenic pesticides, to the exposure of human consumers, especially children, to xenoestrogens. |
Jordan Schmaltz is a 20-year old sophomore defenseman that plays for the University of North Dakota. Schmaltz was drafted 25th overall by the Saint Louis Blues in the first round of the 2012 NHL Entry Level Draft.
This year, Schmaltz has been one of UND’s best defensemen along with senior captain Dillon Simpson (Edmonton Oilers). Simpson and Schmaltz have proven to be a calming force on a young defensive corps, which includes four freshmen defensemen that have rotated through three roster spots, during the first four games of the season. Simpson, Schmaltz and junior Nick Mattson (Chicago Blackhawks) are the elder statesmen, in a talented the group of defensemen, that’s very young.
Schmaltz’s game is simple; he isn’t going to make a lot of mistakes. On the season, Schmaltz and Simpson are a combined plus-3. All of the other UND defenseman on the roster are a combined minus-10.
After having a semi-tough freshman season with UND, Schmaltz has come out and played a solid, disciplined game. He’s also shown a lot of poise on the backend and has yet to take a penalty through three games. You can see why Blues picked him in the first round of the 2012 draft.
Coach impressed with d-man’s play
This is what UND head coach Dave Hakstol had to say about his young defenseman Jordan Schmaltz.
“Much like any young prospect coming into the program it’s a process,” Hakstol said. “I think that Jordan is doing a really good job of working through that process. I always judge things… if you look back on some of my comments on other players. I guess I judge the way a player is practicing on a consistent basis, I think we’re starting to see a real maturation in Jordan in terms in of his work day habits. His practice habits, he’s been very good over the last two to three weeks. That will transfer to his game performance, which has been pretty good. I think he’s about where he should be and I think he’s pushing the envelope hard to continue to work towards the next level.”
On the back end with Dillon Simpson
This is what Dillon Simpson had to say about his defense partner.
“For me coming in, this is my first time, really playing with him this year,” Simpson said. “I think we’ve grown a lot the first month and a bit. He’s a great guy to play with. We keep each other accountable, but we have some fun with it too. He’s come a long way as well. Even this year, he’s starting to play really well, perform really well, every day in practice. It makes it easier for me when your D partner is on his game.”
I interviewed Jordan Schmaltz and this is what he had to say.
Eric Burton: What’s it like playing with Dillon Simpson on the top defensive paring?
Jordan Schmaltz: Dillon is a special player, he’s really smart player with a high hockey I.Q., and it makes my job pretty easy. We have some pretty good chemistry and it’s only going to get better.
EB: I would describe your game as simple, you don’t make a lot of mistakes, you get the puck out of the zone, and you have a nice shot on net. Is that an accurate description?
JS: Yeah, I think so. Like you said, especially last year, I learned to make the simple play, and as long as you can get the puck out moving north, it makes the game that much easier. Sometimes, you don’t have a play and you have to go off of the glass. If I can’t make a play, I let my skill take over. Those are things that I try to focus on.
EB: Last year, did the game against Yale leave a bad taste in your mouth? Do you have something to prove this year?
JS: Yeah for sure. I think that it left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. Obviously, it was disappointing. We felt like we underachieved. This year, you come back with a chip on your shoulder and you got to build towards the tournament. Hopefully, by April your whole team clicking and you’re playing your best hockey.
EB: Did that loss motivate you in the offseason for your training?
JS: Yeah for sure. Anytime you lose out, you’re a little pissed off, a little more hungry, so like you said, you’re a little more motivated to work even harder.
EB: What was your impression of the first weekend (in Miami)?
JS: I think it was good. They’re a good team; they have a lot of good forwards. They’re fast; they come fast on the fore check. It’s going to be a good league; I think it’s only going to be separated by a couple of points. We have to take what we can get every night. It’s going to be a war every night.
EB: Do you think they (Miami) kind of mirror UND in a way?
JS: For sure. They come hard, just like us, they have good goaltending. When they come up here it’s going to be another battle.
In conclusion, what has stood out to me is that Jordan Schmaltz has been doing it quietly, meaning he hasn’t gotten a lot of press or fanfare, but he’s getting it done on the ice and he’s making an impression on his head coach and his teammates and that’s all that matters. |
Dr. Schlenke was well aware that many insects gain defenses from their food. Monarch butterflies, for example, are protected from birds by the toxic compounds they get from the milkweed plants they eat. To see how alcohol influences the enemies of the flies, Dr. Schlenke unleashed a parasitic wasp, Leptopilina heterotoma.
Dr. Schlenke allowed the wasps to attack two kinds of fly larvae: one kind reared on alcohol-free food, and another that ate food spiked with 6 percent alcohol. In the presence of alcohol, the wasps laid 60 percent fewer eggs, possibly because of the fumes wafting from the food. “Presumably the wasps felt really ill,” Dr. Schlenke said.
It turned out that alcohol was even worse for their eggs. Wasps growing in flies that ate alcohol-free food always grew normally. But inside boozing flies, 65 percent of the wasps died.
Photo
Dr. Schlenke discovered they suffered a hideous death: Each wasp’s internal organs had shot out of its anus. “All their guts are outside the wasps,” he said. “I don’t know how to explain that.”
This deadly effect occurred only if the flies consumed alcohol after the wasps laid eggs in them. Taking in alcohol beforehand, by contrast, had little effect. This discovery led Dr. Schlenke to wonder if the flies might seek out alcohol to kill the wasps, using it like a medical drug. “I wondered if they were smart enough to know that,” he said.
To find out, he and his colleagues filled petri dishes with alcohol-rich food on one side and alcohol-free food on the other. They then placed flies that did not have wasps inside them on the alcohol-free side. A day later, they found that 30 percent of the flies had crawled over to the side with alcohol. When they repeated the experiment with wasp-infested flies, 80 percent of the flies headed for the spirits. “There’s a big difference there,” Dr. Schlenke said.
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Likewise, when the flies started out on the alcohol side of the dish, 40 percent of the healthy flies crawled to the other side after 24 hours. Many infected larvae started moving to the other side as well, but then returned to the alcohol. Dr. Schlenke speculates that they were exploring for even higher alcohol concentrations that would be even more toxic to their parasites.
“They know the wasps are infecting them, and they seek out the alcohol,” Dr. Schlenke said. “The flies self-medicate by getting schnockered.”
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Some wasps appear to have evolved ways around this tipsy defense. Dr. Schlenke repeated these experiments on another species, L. boulardi, which unlike the other wasp can lay its eggs only in D. melanogaster. Dr. Schlenke found that the specialist wasp L. boulardi suffered far less when its host consumed alcohol. Only 10 percent of its larvae died, compared with 65 percent for L. heterotoma. Dr. Schlenke suspects that its specialization allowed L. boulardi to overcome the alcohol. “The wasps are tracking their hosts over evolutionary time,” he said.
“This article is exciting in several ways,” said Michael Singer, a biologist at Wesleyan University who was not involved in the study. Over the years, scientists have gathered a few examples of animals medicating themselves. Chimpanzees eat plants with antiparasitic compounds when they get intestinal worms, for example. Dr. Singer and his colleagues have shown that woolly bear caterpillars go out of their way to feed on toxic plant leaves when parasitic flies lay eggs in them. But Dr. Schlenke’s research is the first to show that an animal uses alcohol as medicine.
Alcohol is common in nature, and Dr. Schlenke speculates that other species may seek it out to self-medicate. When it comes to humans, however, Dr. Schlenke has no idea whether a bout of heavy drinking has any effect on a parasite.
“As far as I can tell, no one’s ever tested whether we humans can make life hard for our bloodborne pathogens by getting our blood alcohol levels up,” he said. |
With the great and the good meeting in Davos, it is worthwhile taking a look at how the top 1 percent is doing, courtesy of a wonderful website – The World Top Incomes Database. I can’t do justice to all the data this website contains so I’ll just throw out a few numbers but take the time to visit the site and do your own ‘inequality-sleuthing’.
How much of national income does the top 1 percent take up and how do we compare? Well, the Irish top 1 percent is up there at the top. Our top 1 percent takes up over 10 percent of all national income. Our wealthy take less than those in the UK but more than the top 1 percent in all others.
There has been a long-term growth in the national share taken by top income earners – consistent with trends in other countries though, in most cases, not as extreme as we saw above.
The top 10 percent increased their national income from 27 percent in 1977 to 36 percent in 2009
The top 1 percent increased from 5 ½ percent to 10 ½ percent
The top ½ percent increased from 3 ½ percent to 7 ½ percent
It should be noted that when the crash hit, the income shares of the top 1 percent and ½ percent fell slightly (crashing property /speculation income would have contributed to this). But by 2009 this had stabilised and, in the case of the top 10 percent, has started increasing.
So, with a slight interruption, the long march of the top income groups continues apace.
And just to get an idea of how much these income groups earn, the follow table lays it out.
Those in the top ½ percent earn on average over half-a-million Euros. It should be noted that this probably does not include capital gains. If it doesn’t, income would higher as most top earners receive capital income.
Consistent with the growth in income shares, actual income levels at the top would appear to be growing at a faster rate than average incomes. Between 1995 and 2009
The average income of the top 0.5 percent grew by 134 percent in real terms (i.e. accounting for inflation)
The average income of the top 1 percent grew by 117 percent in real terms
The average income of the top 10 percent grew by 73 percent in real terms
Average compensation for all workers grew by approximately 40 percent in real terms.
But there’s nothing surprising in all this. The ol’ maxim – the rich get richer – holds; it’s just in Ireland, this has particular force.
Our top 1 percent experienced the highest real income growth (after inflation) than their counterparts in other European countries.
The Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance are attending the Davos summit. Maybe someone will raise these numbers with them. Maybe someone will ask what they intend to do about growing income inequality. Maybe they will have an answer.
Maybe. Maybe. Hopefully.
Maybe. |
The English Wikipedia has reached 5,000,000 articles with Persoonia terminalis (a type of shrub), created by Australian contributor Cas Liber on 1 November 2015 at 12:27 UTC .
Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing. Jimmy Wales, co-founder
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Wikipedia was founded in 2001 as a project to build an online, free-access, free-content encyclopedia entirely from scratch. Since then, it has grown to be the largest encyclopedia ever created, comprising more than five million articles in English, while still relying on the contributions of volunteers. The English Wikipedia community thanks the millions of users whose edits over the past fourteen-plus years have made this remarkable accomplishment possible.
A brief history
Wikipedia officially launched on 15 January 2001, with Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger as its leaders, on a single computer server as the successor to Nupedia. Its first major mainstream media coverage was in The New York Times on 20 September 2001. In the first year of its existence, more than 20,000 encyclopedia entries were created – a rate exceeding 1,500 articles per month. Today, there are Wikipedia editions in more than 200 languages, accompanied by a dozen additional free-content projects, such as Wikimedia Commons. In March 2006, the English Wikipedia reached one million articles. According to Alexa, Wikipedia is currently the world's sixth most popular website, receiving approximately eight billion pageviews per month. We reached five million articles on 1 November 2015.
A work in progress
While Wikipedia is an incredible success, it remains a work in progress. There are still great gaps in its coverage with millions of important topics missing from its pages. Many articles – even vital ones – are not yet considered high-quality. Of our 5,810,435 articles, only a few tens of thousands have passed a vetting process for good or featured status, and more than half are short stubs or start-class articles. There are also more than 200 non-English-language editions of Wikipedia that need volunteers. In other words, there is still much work to be done – and you can help!
How you can help
Video of Wikipedians from around the world who contribute to a variety of Wikipedia's language editions
Wikipedia is written by the people who use it. Anyone, regardless of background, can contribute to building the encyclopedia. You don't even have to register an account (though there are good reasons to do so). If you find an article you can improve, edit the article to make it more accurate and useful for others. Each page contains edit buttons for you to make those changes immediately. Any improvement, whether it's fixing a typo or drafting a brand new article, is greatly appreciated.
Wikipedia values boldness and the pursuit of consensus. Don't be afraid or disillusioned if your first contributions are undone – Wikipedia is a collaborative project, which means that sometimes we disagree. That's okay. Each page on Wikipedia has a talk page dedicated to discussing improvements, and fellow editors have a talk page where you can contact them individually.
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If you're new here, firstly: welcome. We sincerely hope you like it here and decide to stay. Below are some helpful links to get you started:
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This week's article for improvement is Cheeseburger
If you get stuck, a variety of resources are available to assist you. The page Wikipedia:Questions lists locations where you can ask for help. The most valuable assets, however, are your fellow Wikipedians. If you have any questions about editing Wikipedia, friendly Wikipedians at the Teahouse will be more than happy to provide answers. You can also meet Wikipedians in person in many places around the world; see Wikipedia:Meetup for more information.
If you are already a Wikipedian, thank you for your contributions. We hope you continue to contribute to this amazing compendium of human knowledge. |
This was a homework assignment for art class.
The theme was "pears/pairs" and that was subject to interpretation.
Well I suppose I wanted to do a pear tree but decided deer antlers serve as better branches.
Long story short, that is XD
(I noticed that mostly after finishing it *facepalms*) So a pair of pears dangling from a pair of antlers.. eh? Anyone?(I noticed that mostly after finishing it *facepalms*)
I was going to add leaves but I didn't want to take away from the image. The ink dropping was too fun to do.
I like how this turned out I'd think! I can't say for sure. I like it but I'm not sure what I've created XD
And thanks for coming to the stream as well all you fabulous viewers
I just kinda.. went with the flow XD Didn't really know where I was going with the designs and whatnot Oh well! I hope you guys like it tooI just kinda.. went with the flow XD Didn't really know where I was going with the designs and whatnot
DRAW ON!
Canson 98 lb 9 x 12" paper
Capukat/Celine ChandraWinsor & Newton watercolors, M Graham Gouache, Speedball Pen & Ink, Princeton art brush, one badly damaged brush for texture,...6 hours (estimate) |
Overview
Job Description:
Are you interested in having a direct impact on the success of a company? We’re a startup working hard to revolutionize the $30 billion self-storage industry, and we’re looking to hire an all-star Sales Guru to help us spearhead to success.
Responsible for defining and executing sales strategies, this person will be an essential part of the team and key to our success here in NYC and eventually helping us scale nationally. You will work side by side with a small team of young professionals allowing you to exercise your skills and grow within the company.
About us: We make self-storage easier by bringing the storage unit to you. We pick up, store and return your items within the five boroughs of New York City. We provide sturdy storage bins and keep your stuff secure in a brand new climate-controlled facility. You can track what you have in storage online and have your bins back within 3 hours- all starting at $30/month.
Sales Manager Responsibilities:
Initiate contact with potential clients and execute the entire sales process through deal closing
Research the storage industry and create lead lists
Provide the highest standard of customer service at every step of the sales cycle
Skillful in identifying new business opportunities and building relationships at all levels
Present sales pitches to a range of prospective partnerships via in-person meetings, phone and email
Represent Simplify at industry/networking events
Drive top performance out of existing employees through mentorship
Prepare monthly reports for meetings on sales initiatives.
Sales Manager Requirements:
Bachelor’s degree in business, marketing or related field.
5+ years sales experience.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
Great interpersonal skills
Social Media savvy
Competency in Microsoft Office
Entrepreneurial Spirit / Self-Starter
Knowledgeable in CRM Systems- i.e Hubspot
Benefits: |
A nuclear power plant near the town of Brattleboro, Vermont is being shut down thanks to local environmental activism. The Vermont Yankee plant ceased splitting atoms on Dec. 29 after more than 42 years of activity. The victory is one that will surely bring relief to activists and citizens alike, as the plant’s reactor was the General Electric Mark I, the same design as that of Fukushima, which infamously melted down and exploded, spewing radiation into the atmosphere.
Due to a hefty push-back in 2010 from Citizen’s Awareness Network, the Vermont Senate voted 26 to 4 on Feb. 24 that year to phase Vermont Yankee out of operation after 2012. That has now come to pass, but it was largely the result of activists raising awareness of the possible negative health effects of the reactor. At the time of the vote, the plant was leaking radioactive tritium into the air following the collapse of a cooling tower back in 2007.
The structural dismantling of the plant, meanwhile, will not be completed until 2040.
The plant is owned by Entergy, a corporation that has a history almost as toxic as the fossil fuel it deals with. The company has a number of alleged misdeeds including stealing overtime wages from workers, overcharging customers, and having a general lack of regulatory oversight that likely contributed to the 2007 mishap.
A similar fiasco recently occurred at the Browns Ferry nuclear plant near Athens, Alabama, from which a leak of radioactive water released tritium into the environment sometime during the week of Jan. 5. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the plant, maintained that the leak was quickly stoppered and no significant public risk was presented. One could be forgiven, however, if he or she still had qualms about the integrity of the reactors, particularly as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission determined that the plant’s three units are at some risk from potential earthquakes. In the midst of climate change, that serves only to exacerbate already existing concerns.
The plant has long been in the crosshairs of Mothers Against Tennessee River Radiation, a group representing concerned citizens, environmentalists, and workers. Garry Morgan, a retired U.S. Army medical officer who has monitored radiation around Browns Ferry for the group, remarked, “Any leak of radionuclide contaminant into the environment indicates a failure of oversight and/or attention to detail, maybe both, on the part of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Tennessee Valley Authority.” He added that cancer mortality rates have increased by 20 percent above the U.S. average since Browns Ferry began generating power in 1974.
The problem of leaking tritium, which is a radioactive form of hydrogen, does not end there. According to the Associated Press, the contaminant has leaked from at least 48 reactors – and perhaps as many as 65 – across the U.S., and often ends up in groundwater. This information was taken by AP from Nuclear Regulatory Commission records as part of their coverage on the matter. Furthermore, tritium from at least three of those sites – two in Illinois and one in Minnesota – has actually seeped into the drinking wells of residential homes, said the report.
In conclusion, while one plant with Fukushima-type reactors has been defeated, others remain, and are contributing to environmental toxicity. Greenpeace noted, “The world is still running more than 400 inherently dangerous nuclear reactors. Millions of people are at risk. Nuclear energy is not a necessary evil, because affordable, safer, and cleaner energy solutions exist. They are only a matter of political choice.”
Photo: Vermont Yankee plant. | AP |
By Jim Moore
Good luck trying to figure this one out. The guys in Vegas can’t even come up with a favorite, currently listing Sunday night’s Seahawks-49ers game as a pick-’em.
Looking at the matchup, you can see why. They’re similar teams from the same division, as you know, relying on good rushing attacks and solid defenses. They also feature two quarterbacks who aren’t alike in stature, but Russell Wilson and Colin Kaepernick certainly have a resemblance in style.
The Seahawks have averaged roughly 3.5 offensive touchdowns per game since they managed only two field goals during a loss to the 49ers in Week 7. (AP)
Because it’s a toss-up, I’m looking even harder for reasons to side with one team over the other, and naturally slanting the analysis toward the Seahawks:
• Seattle has an edge in the kicking department. Steven Hauschka is 22 for 25 on field goals while David Akers is 25 for 35. Akers’ job could be in jeopardy if he has another inconsistent game, and hopefully he’ll succumb to the pressure Sunday.
• Defensive lineman Justin Smith might not play because of an elbow injury. This guy’s an ironman who has made 185 starts in a row. Consider some of his numbers this season – 77 QB pressures and 52 QB hits. If he doesn’t play – Smith hasn’t practiced this week – it has to help the Seahawks.
• Ted Ginn Jr. burned the Seahawks last year with a punt return for a touchdown and a kickoff return for a touchdown in Week 1, but he’s been fumble-prone and shaky this season. Hopefully that will continue Sunday in the din of CenturyLink Field.
• The Seahawks have a much more potent offense than they did when they met the Niners in San Francisco in October, losing 13-6. Wilson has been fantastic ever since, and I’m guessing he’ll want to atone for his worst game of the year.
• The Seahawks are unbeaten at home.
But when you look at it from the 49ers’ point of view …
• San Francisco also has a more explosive offense now that Kaepernick has replaced Alex Smith. I was hoping he would struggle on the road, but he hasn’t – the Niners are 2-1 with Kaepernick at quarterback, winning at New Orleans and New England and losing in overtime at St. Louis. He did have a horrible pitch against the Rams, but he’s been mostly terrific. Maybe the 12th Man will rattle him; he’s never played in a stadium like this.
• The Seahawks’ defense allowed an average of 3.3 yards per carry through the first six weeks but have allowed an average of 5.3 yards since, last in the league. I stole that nugget from Mike Sando’s NFC West blog at ESPN.com, and it worries me more than anything else when you consider that Frank Gore rushed for 131 yards against the Seahawks in October.
• The Niners are 5-0 in prime-time games this year and 5-2 on the road. They’re also 10-3-1 overall and have incentive – they need to win to get the No. 2 NFC playoff seed over 10-4 Green Bay. The No. 2 seed is a much bigger deal than the No. 3 seed because you get a first-round bye.
• Jim Harbaugh is 3-0 against Pete Carroll. You’d expect the Seahawks’ coach to break through at some point, but can you expect the breakthrough Sunday night? We’ll see. Until it happens, Harbaugh has the edge.
• Aldon Smith leads the NFL with 19.5 sacks. How do you stop him? You start with Russell Okung and then hope that Wilson will be nimble enough to avoid him.
The 49ers have the slightly better team, but I said it last week, and I’ll say it again: if I’m going to blather on and on about the Seahawks being Super Bowl contenders, I have to ride them to the finish, and you’ve gotta love ’em at home.
Prediction: Seahawks 27, 49ers 21
Season against the spread: 11-3
The Go 2 Guy also writes for his website, www.jimmoorethego2guy.com; www.seattlepi.com; and www.kitsapsun.com. You can reach him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @cougsgo. |
Oscillating chemiluminescent reaction using a luminol-H2O2-KSCN-CuSO4-NaOH system.
Long ago, according to the second law of thermodynamics, chemical reactions could only go one way, from starting material A to product B, since in every natural thermodynamic process the sum of the entropies of all participating bodies is increased. The except is the oscillating reactions, a classical example of non-equilibrium thermodynamics.
In 1951 Boris Pavlovic Belousov noted, while investigating the citric acid circle, that in a mix of potassium bromate, cerium(IV) sulfate, malonic acid, and citric acid in dilute sulfuric acid, the ratio of concentration of the cerium(IV) and cerium(III) ions oscillated, causing the colour of the solution to oscillate between a yellow solution and a colorless solution. Belousov made two attempts to publish his finding, but was rejected on the grounds that he could not explain his results (because of the second law of thermodynamics) to the satisfaction of the editors of the journals to which he submitted his results.
During the last 60 years, several oscillating chemical reactions have been described, some of them uses luminol as a chemiluminescent indicator as seen on the above gif. Chemiluminescent reactions are also among the most fascinating demonstrations. Many of these demonstrations can be found in the Journal of Chemical Education.
9:30 pm • 20 September 2015 • 235 notes • View comments |
Since most of you are lazy ignorant fucktards anyway, I'll spare you the trouble of looking him up. You probably know Oliver Reed better as "that old guy who got sold queer giraffes" in Ridley Scott's Gladiator. But he was so much more than that. He was a hard-drinking, tough-talking motherfucker who was more interesting in getting into bar fights than he was in furthering his acting career. At one point, he was heavily considered to replace Sean Connery as James Bond but his inability to keep his reckless personal life under wraps derailed his chances at playing the charming, sophisticated secret agent. Most people would be pissed off if they blew their shot at such a profitable recurring role but Reed didn't care one fucking bit, probably because he knew he could beat the shit out of James Bond. Reed was a hellraiser to the end and his death was one of his crowning achievements. Oliver Reed died of a heart attack in Maltese bar on May 2,1999 after beating five Royal Navy sailors at arm-wrestling. Not only were the sailors MUCH younger than him, but Reed was also piss drunk at the time. During his final bar trip, the 61-year-old actor consumed three bottles of Captain Morgan Jamaica Rum, eight bottles of German beer, and several doubles of Famous Grouse whiskey. The bar tab came to 270 Maltese lira, almost $725 in real currency. And if there is still any doubt in your mind that Oliver Reed was the coolest SOB who ever lived, consider this: the scenario described above took place while he was on a LUNCH BREAK from filming Gladiator. Here are some other Reed facts:
• He puked on Steve McQueen.
• He died before completing his Gladiator scenes. Ridley Scott had to spend three million dollars to digitally recreate Oliver Reed's face for the incomplete scenes, putting the movie three million dollars over budget.
• He was stabbed in the throat while filming a swordfight for 1973's The Three Musketeers. This would kill most normal people.
• He turned down the role of Quint in Jaws because Jaws was boring and gay.
Awesome, right? And here are some quotes from the man himself:
"I believe that my woman shouldn't work outside the home. When I come home and I'm tired from filming all day, I expect her to be there and make sure that everything is cool for me. You know, like drawing my bath and helping me into bed. That's the kind of job she had and, in return for it, she can bear my children and if any man talks bad to her, I'll hit him." "My only regret is that I didn't drink every pub dry and sleep with every woman on the planet."
"Richard Burton was hitting the bottle with (John) Hurt the night before his death. He knew it was going to kill him, but he did not stop. I don't have a drink problem. But if that was the case and doctors told me I would have to stop, I'd like to think I would be brave enough to drink myself into the grave." "American men like their women to have these special teeth and be perfectly coiffured and have amazing breasts. Have you seen an Italian mama with those kind of teeth, that kind of hair and that kind of waist? They're not like that. They're in the kitchen cooking for their families - doing what they should do."
The bottom line here is that Oliver Reed was the baddest bad ass who ever assed. If you think you're pretty tough yourself, you're wrong. You are a fucking pussy. If you were really cool, you'd be dead by now. Real badasses drink themselves to death: Oliver Reed, Bon Scott, John Bonham, the list goes on forever. The only exception to this rule is me. I cannot be killed by the copious amounts of alcohol that I consume because I am The One True Pirate King; it is my birthright. And although I can never have the glorious honor of an alcohol-related death, I fully encourage the rest of you to pursue this end. Life is only valuable so long as there are those who waste it. |
Canada's International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada, February 17, 2016. REUTERS/Chris Wattie
TORONTO (Reuters) - Dialogue with China about a free-trade agreement has increased since Canada’s new Liberal government took office late last year, Canada’s international trade minister said on Wednesday.
Chrystia Freeland made the comment in an interview after an event in Toronto where Xue Bing, China’s consul general in Toronto, said Canada and China should start negotiations on a bilateral free-trade agreement as soon as possible.
Freeland declined to say whether informal negotiations had started on a deal, but said there had been “increased dialogue” around the issue since November.
Expanding trade with China is one the goals cited by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in his mandate letter to Freeland.
Trade deals typically take years to negotiate. The Liberals said in January they would take the “technical step” of signing a 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, but have not yet said whether they will formally ratify it. The deal does not include China.
In her speech at the event on Wednesday, Freeland also noted that when in opposition the Liberals made it clear that it was “a lost opportunity” for Canada not to have joined the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) as a founding member.
“We are a government that likes to keep its promises, so stay tuned,” she said in the speech.
Canada’s former Conservative government had said last year it was actively considering joining the AIIB, despite U.S. and Japanese reservations, but Canada was not among the 50 nations that signed the articles of agreement. |
People I know with December birthdays tend to get a little uppity about their limelight being stolen by a certain other, late in the month, celebration that seems to encroach on their fun. Sam is no exception to this rule, stating that no C-word related shenanigans can take place until after the 13th… which is fair enough. I’d totally have a tantrum if the attention wasn’t firmly on me!
So I thought I should make an effort to bake him a cake – something we realised I’d never done for him before. When it comes to cakes, he’s all about chocolate, the more the better. But for his ultimate dessert, we have to have a throw-back to the 80s. We’re talking the quintessential powerhouse dinner party menu of the time: prawn cocktail, steak and finished with a large slab of Black Forest Gateau.
But as it’s Christmas and I rarely stick with run-of-the-mill, I thought I’d try my hand at a roulade version of a BFG (see…the title always makes sense eventually!)
I looked around the internet for suggestions, taking inspiration from a recipe by Delia Smith, but instead of curls of dark chocolate on top, I opted for a chocolate ganache that allowed the obligatory forking to achieve the look of bark.
In hindsight, I should have thought about this more in advance – it required half the cream I had for the filling, so ended up with the inside not being packed as well as I would have liked.
The cherries I felt we’re a little bland too, despite being fairly feisty and making multiple attempts at escape! This may have been the fault of the make I bought, but if I made it again, I’d be inclined to include a layer of cherry jam.
However, the birthday boy thought it was a hit and I was surprised by how easy it was…especially the rolling part. It would work well as a dessert for any celebration, including the C-Word!
So if you’re a fan of BFGs or chocolate cake in general, give it a try. Yule be a fool not to!! #christmascrackerjokesrock 😉
WHAT YOU’LL NEED:
For the sponge:
3 large eggs
100g caster sugar
75g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
15ml hot water
For the filling:
300g black cherries in syrup
200ml double (heavy) cream
Cherry jam (optional)
For the ganache topping:
100ml double cream
100g dark chocolate (broken into pieces)
METHOD
For the sponge, preheat the oven to Gas Mark 7 (220C) and line a cm deep baking tray (at least 20cm x 30cm).
Put the eggs and sugar into a bowl and whisk until fluffy. The whisk should leave an impression in the mixture. Sieve the flour and cocoa together then fold into the eggs and sugar carefully, using a metal spoon and ensuring no lumps. Finally, stir in the water.
Pour into your baking tray and smooth out. Bake for 7-9 mins until risen and springy. Whilst baking, prepare a sheet of greaseproof paper to turn it out onto and sprinkle with a little sugar.
Immediately turn the sponge onto the paper once out of the oven and trim the paper’s edges. Lay another sheet of greaseproof on top and loosely roll the cake and allow to cool fully on a wire rack.
Meanwhile, drain the cherries and whip 200ml of your cream until stiff peaks appear. Set to one side.
To make the ganache (do not make this until the cake has cooled as it will set), break the dark chocolate into a pan and add the 100ml of cream. Heat gently (no need to boil) and stir until all chocolate has melted.
Carefully unroll your cooled base and spread first with jam (if using), then an even layer of whipped cream. Place the cherries as randomly or as uniformly as you like across the surface then carefully re-roll, squishing in any runaway fruit!
Pour over the prepared ganache and smooth over the surface. Allow to set for 5 minutes then with a fork, make it look as artistic as your inner-carpenter will allow.
Keeps in the fridge for a week – if it lasts that long! Enjoy. 🙂
Image Credits: All my own.
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Please note that the use of any recording equipment to capture this film is strictly forbidden, including: camcorders, cameras, cell phones, charcoal, ink, paint (oil or water-based), and the human brain. On leaving the theatre, you will be assaulted by baseball-bat-wielding ushers, who will pummel your skull until you forget what you have seen.
Any remaining memories are yours to keep and enjoy, provided you do not discuss them with others or make them available via mankind’s collective unconscious. In addition, your experience of this film may not be remixed in any form; dreams involving any of its characters must adhere strictly to the film’s actual plotline and running time, and must also comply with copyright laws in your state or territory. Any sexual fantasies based on it may not exceed the film’s M.P.A.A. rating.
This film is licensed only for public exhibition in first-run theatres, and is not to be screened in schools, on oil rigs, or in prisons. If you are watching it in a school, on an oil rig, or in a prison, you must immediately drop out, throw yourself off the edge and swim to safety, or plan an elaborate escape with the help of a ragtag team of charming criminals, most of whom were wrongly accused, and all of whom wish to become productive members of society. The rights to the story of your escape immediately become the property of the makers of this film, in any and all forms of expression now extant or to be invented in the future, throughout the universe and three feet beyond, just for good measure.
If you wish to opt out of any of the above terms and conditions, you must now walk up to the screen and check one or more of the following boxes with an indelible black Magic Marker:
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The film will begin in ten seconds. Please use this opportunity to locate the blindfolds and earplugs that have been provided for your safety and convenience. ♦ |
Debbie Wasserman Schultz is on her way out –> Jeff Zeleny at CNN: “Hillary Clinton’s campaign is taking the reins of the Democratic National Committee, installing a new top official on Thursday to oversee the party’s day-to-day operations through the general election. Brandon Davis, national political director for the Service Employees International Union, will become the general election chief of staff for the Democratic Party. His selection formalizes the coordination of the Clinton campaign and the committee, a stark contrast to Donald Trump who is currently at odds with his party… The leadership of the Democratic National Committee, particularly Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, has come under fire throughout the presidential primary fight. Bernie Sanders has called for new leaders at the party, a point he raised during his private meeting earlier this week with Clinton.”
Sanders confirms: he’s staying in it until the convention –> In a speech last night, Sanders told his supporters that he will be continuing his candidacy right into next month’s party convention in Philadelphia. But he also called for his followers to organize in a way that is bigger than his presidential campaign. From his speech, via Time magazine: “Here is a cold, hard fact that must be addressed. Since 2009, some 900 legislative seats have been lost to Republicans in state after state throughout this country. In fact, the Republican Party now controls 31 state legislatures and controls both the governors’ mansions and statehouses in 23 states. That is unacceptable. We need to start engaging at the local and state level in an unprecedented way. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers helped us make political history during the last year. These are people deeply concerned about the future of our country and their own communities.”
Banks, others say no to Trump –> Companies who were previously reliable donors to Republican causes and candidates are opting not to fund the party’s convention in Cleveland next month, not wanting anything to do with Donald Trump. Zachary Mider and Elizabeth Dexheimer for Bloomberg Politics: “Among those to signal in recent days that they won’t sponsor the convention this year are Wells Fargo & Co., United Parcel Service Inc., Motorola Solutions Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Ford Motor Co., and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. All of those companies sponsored the previous Republican conclave, in Tampa, Florida, in 2012.”
But: Individual Wall Street elites are climbing on board with Trump. A fundraiser with $50,000 tickets — and hosts paying $250,000 per couple — will be attended by investors John Paulson, Stephen Feinberg and real estate magnate Peter Kalikow, all three of whom had not publicly supported Trump before now.
Trump and the Dark Age of Unreason –> Here at BillMoyers.com, Bill Moyers and Michael Winship write that the Republican Party’s “acquiescence, their years of kowtowing to extremism in the appeasement of their base, have allowed Trump and his nightmarish sideshow to steal into the tent and take over the circus.”
State Department dissent –> Mark Lander for The New York Times: “More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical of the Obama administration’s policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad to stop its persistent violations of a cease-fire in the country’s 5-year-old civil war.”
No looking back –> 350 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide per every million molecules of air is considered the safe amount for a stable climate. But a new study shows the world has passed 400 ppm for good — the world will remain past that threshold far beyond our lifetimes. Ed King at Climate Home: “The study… shows scientists are getting better at understanding the role of the carbon cycle, and the importance of vegetation growth in regulating emission levels. But for many following the debate over climate change slowly, the sight of 400 ppm in their rearview mirror will just be another sign of the global failure to move away from fossil fuels.”
RIP –> Jo Cox, a member of the British Parliament and rising star in the Labour Party, died yesterday, shot and stabbed while visiting constituents. “One eyewitness told the BBC they heard her attacker shout ‘put Britain first’ at least twice beforehand,” the broadcaster reports, a likely reference to Cox’s position that Britain should vote to stay in the EU during the upcoming “Brexit” referendum. In the wake of the tragedy, both sides of the debate have suspended their campaigns, although the vote itself, scheduled for this coming Thursday, has not been postponed.
Morning Reads was written by John Light and edited by Michael Winship. See a story that you think should be included in Morning Reads? Tell us in the comments!
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CHARLOTTESVILLE – Undisciplined penalties, ghastly turnovers and fed-up fans exiting Scott Stadium early: Friday night was Virginia football under Mike London encapsulated.
Boise State embarrassed the Cavaliers 56-14, and the difference, in personnel, preparation and coaching, was as glaring as the final score indicates.
The Broncos’ offense, defense and special teams were superior throughout, and while long a quality program, let’s not forget they arrived here unranked and had a true freshman quarterback making his first collegiate start.
But rather than take advantage, rather than give its ever-dwindling fan base a glimmer of hope, Virginia authored its most inept performance since the 2-10 debacle of 2013. The Cavaliers committed five turnovers – Matt Johns threw two pick-sixes -- and nine penalties, and the final quarter was witnessed by more Boise State fans than Virginia.
The scene was reminiscent of Nov. 28, 2009, when in Al Groh’s final game as coach the Cavaliers lost at home to Virginia Tech 42-13.
U.Va. football in pictures.
Eight games remain in London’s sixth, and almost certainly, final season leading the program. The primary questions now:
Can Virginia (1-3) shed Friday’s haunting images and salvage something, anything, from the year? And might the administration, athletic director Craig Littlepage and university president Teresa Sullivan, consider relieving London, a wonderful nurturer but overmatched big whistle, before season’s end?
A bye week looms, the most logical time for such a move. But given London’s gracious air and the school’s genteel nature, I suspect they hold off.
And really, what would an immediate firing accomplish? Everyone understands the likely end game, and it’s not like Littlepage and his top lieutenant, Jon Oliver, can begin interviewing potential successors.
Virginia committed nine for 80 yards, many on special teams. Virginia committed nine for 80 yards, many on special teams. SEE MORE VIDEOS
Besides, if you can just ignore Friday’s margin for a moment, I think it’s safe to say that the only teams remaining on Virginia’s schedule that might approach Boise State/Notre Dame/UCLA caliber are Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech.
I harken to 2003. Clemson faithful pleaded for Tommy Bowden’s turfing after a 28-point loss at Wake Forest left the Tigers at 5-4. Clemson closed the season with four victories, including an upset of No. 6 Tennessee in the Peach Bowl, and Bowden was voted ACC Coach of the Year.
Not to suggest Virginia is going to win nine games and that London should clear a spot for a plaque. But if the team that challenged Notre Dame throughout and played decently for a half at UCLA reappears, the Cavaliers will be competitive.
None of which excuses Friday.
“After our first play from scrimmage,” London said, “it all went downhill.”
Self-inflicted turnovers have plagued Virginia quarterbacks for years, but Johns had avoided the malady – until Friday’s first snap. Looking deep for T.J. Thorpe off a play-action fake, Johns was swarmed by the rush, and rather than take the sack, he blindly flipped the ball forward. Defensive tackle Justin Taimatuia gladly accepted the gift and cruised 21 yards for a touchdown.
“It was just a stupid play by me, really,” Johns said.
It got worse.
Keyed by Jeremy McNichols’ 47-yard sprint around left end, Boise State scored a touchdown on its first series and, after Johns’ second pick, added a field goal for a 17-0 bulge. This marked the fourth time in as many games that the Cavaliers trailed by double-figures.
Thorpe gave Virginia a pulse when he turned a deep out from Johns into a 75-yard touchdown on his first catch as a Cavalier – I could have sworn he stepped out-of-bounds, but a replay review confirmed the score.
But even on that play, defensive end Tyler Horn flattened Johns, part of the Broncos’ night-long harassment of Virginia’s quarterbacks. Johns was sacked three times combined in the season’s first three games. Boise State had four, one that forced Johns into an intentional-grounding penalty in his end zone, a safety.
That’s on the offensive line for failing to block, even when Boise State (3-1) rushed just three. That’s on the offensive coaching staff for not adjusting protections.
Run blocking was no better as Virginia rushed for 40 yards on 33 carries.
The defense and its coaches fared as poorly. For the second time this season, the Cavaliers faced a true freshman quarterback, and for the second time they made him look like a seasoned all-star.
Much like UCLA’s Josh Rosen in the opener, Boise State’s Brett Rypien threw for 321 yards and three touchdowns without an interception – Virginia has yet to force a turnover in 2015 and has committed nine.
Virginia enters its bye week with the eight-game ACC schedule to follow. The start would be welcoming for most teams.
First the Cavaliers head to Pittsburgh (2-1), which has lost tailback James Conner, the conference’s 2014 Player of the Year, to a knee injury. Moreover, incumbent quarterback Chad Voytik has been unseated by Nate Peterman.
Virginia hasn’t won a road game since 2012 at North Carolina State – the losing streak is 11 – but of its four ACC trips, Pitt appears the least daunting. The Cavaliers’ other league roadies are at North Carolina, Miami and Louisville.
Following Pitt, Virginia returns home to face Syracuse. The Orange is 3-0 entering Saturday’s visit from No. 8 LSU but is down to its third quarterback. |
Updated A huge ransomware outbreak has hit major banks, utilities and telcos in Ukraine as well as victims in other countries.
Check out our full analysis of the software nasty, here.
Early analysis of the attack points towards a variant of the known Petya ransomware, a strain of malware that encrypts the filesystem tables and hijacks the Master Boot Record to ensure it starts before the operating system on infected Windows PCs. Early reports suggest the malware is spreading using by network shares and email but this remains unconfirmed. The outbreak is centred but not confined to the Ukraine. Victims in Spain, France and Russia have also been reported.
Victims include Ukrainian power distribution outfit Ukrenergo, which said the problem is confined to its computer network and is not affecting its power supply operations, Reuters reports. Other victims include Oschadbank, one of Ukraine's largest state-owned lenders.
Global shipping outfit Maersk Group is also under the cosh.
Hackers behind the attack are demanding $300 (payable in Bitcoin) to unlock each computer. It's easy to ascribe any computing problem in Ukraine to Russia because of the ongoing conflict between the two countries, but the culprits behind the latest attack are just as likely to be cybercriminals as state-sponsored saboteurs, judging by the evidence that's emerged this far.
"While ransomware can be (and has been) used to cover other attacks, I think it's wise to consider Ukraine attack cybercriminal for now," said Martijn Grooten, editor of Virus Bulletin and occasional security researcher. ®
Updated at 1500 UTC to add: Allan Liska, intelligence architect at Recorded Future, said the attack has multiple components including an attack to steal login credentials as well as trash compromised computers.
"This appears to be a multi-pronged attack that started with a phishing campaign targeting infrastructure in the Ukraine," Liska said. "The payload of the phishing attack is twofold: an updated version of the Petya ransomware (older version of Petya are well-known for their viciousness, rather than encrypt select files Petya overwrote the master boot record on the victim machine, making it completely inoperable)."
There is some speculation that, like WannaCrypt, this attack is being spread using the EternalBlue exploit, which would explain why it is spreading so quickly (having reached targets in Spain and France in addition to the Ukraine). "Our threat intelligence also indicated that we are now starting to see US victims of this attack," according to Liska.
There are also reports that the payload includes a variant of Loki Bot in addition to the ransomware. Loki Bot is a banking Trojan that extracts usernames and passwords from compromised computers. This means this attack not only could make the victim's machine inoperable, it could steal valuable information that an attacker can take advantage of during the confusion, according to Recorded Future.
Updated at 1509 UTC to add: Reg sources from inside London firms have been notifying us that they’ve been infected. We were sent this screenshot (cropped to protect the innocent) just minutes ago: |
Formula E racing, Formula One’s all-electric cousin, announced plans for a race series featuring autonomous electric cars starting in 2016.
The series, called Roborace, would be the first commercial races using self-driving car technology, and a highly public showcase of how advanced it has become. Organizers are hoping that the races will attract a younger audience to motorsports by creating a sci-fi version that just a decade ago would have seemed impossible to pull off.
The autonomous car races, announced on Friday, will take place before Formula E events using the same tracks. This season, Formula E’s races wind through the hearts of cities including Beijing and Buenos Aires.
Formula E, which premiered in 2014, is overseen by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the same body that organizes Formula One. The Formula E cars reach maximum speeds of around 140 mph compared to more than 200 mph for F1.
Formula E has been marketed as a forward-looking effort to attract a younger crowd to auto racing through innovative (and controversial) features like music played at the track during races. Another is an unorthodox system called FanBoost that gives drivers who win an audience vote a one-time jolt of power for their cars that lets them drive faster.
Roboracing is intended to build on that youth appeal. Formula E describes Roborace as “a global platform to show that robotic technologies and artificial intelligence can co-exist with us in real life,” clearly conscious that it’s as much a PR push as a competition.
Roborace would continue a competitive tradition that has been fundamental to driverless car development. Starting in 2004, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, hosted a series of “Grand Challenges” that offered big cash prizes to teams racing autonomous off-road vehicles through the Mojave Desert. There were no finishers the first year, but a team from Stanford took the prize the second year, and the competition has continued to spur advances in robotic vehicle design.
Operating an autonomous car at 140 miles an hour would present a new set of challenges for sensor and software design. But it could also be a new wrinkle for the nascent autonomous vehicle industry, which has pitched driverless cars as a safer alternative to human drivers. Speed is hardly the emphasis. Last month, for example, police stopped a Google driverless car for traveling too slowly.
The urban nature of Formula E courses creates an obvious tension between safety and speed. The image of super-fast robot cars zipping through downtown London could be great for public acceptance of driverless systems—right up until one collides with fencing around the track and kills a spectator. That has happened 46 times in conventional auto racing between 1990 and 2010.
By some accounts, in fact, danger is fundamental to the appeal of motorsports—seemingly acknowledged by Formula E’s own excited highlighting of crashes. But that could make autonomous vehicle designers reluctant to even participate in Roborace because of the potential risk to their image. Then there’s the complicated web of liability that is still unresolved even for autonomous passenger vehicles being tested on city streets.
Formula E hasn’t yet announced any participating teams, although it is being co-sponsored by the London-based venture capital firm Kinetik, overseen by Yotaphone creator Denis Sverdlov. One of the companies Kinetik has invested in, the electric truck maker Charge, will provide electrified trucks to service the robo-racers.
Have a look at one robocar that’s the opposite of fast in this Fortune video: |
Drawing heavily upon nature for inspiration, a team of researchers has created a new artificial lens made up of thousands of nanoscale polymer layers that is nearly identical to the natural lens of the human eye.
The lens may one day provide more natural performance in implantable lenses to replace damaged or diseased human eye lenses, as well as consumer vision products; it also may lead to superior ground and aerial surveillance technology.
This work, which the Case Western Reserve University, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, and PolymerPlus team describes in the Optical Society’s (OSA) open-access journal Optics Express, also provides a new material approach for fabricating synthetic polymer lenses.
Gradual bending of light reduces distortions
The fundamental technology behind this new lens is called “GRIN” or gradient refractive index optics. In GRIN, light gets bent, or refracted, by varying degrees as it passes through a lens or other transparent material. This is in contrast to traditional lenses, like those found in optical telescopes and microscopes, which use their surface shape or single index of refraction (how much it is bent) to bend light one way or another.
“The human eye is a GRIN lens,” said Michael Ponting, polymer scientist and president of PolymerPlus, an Ohio-based Case Western Reserve spinoff launched in 2010.
“As light passes from the front of the human eye lens to the back, light rays are refracted by varying degrees. It’s a very efficient means of controlling the pathway of light without relying on complicated optics, and one that we attempted to mimic.”
The research team followed nature’s example: it built a lens by stacking thousands of nanoscale layers, each with slightly different optical properties, to produce a lens that gradually varies its refractive index, which adjusts the refractive properties of the polymer.
“Applying naturally occurring material architectures, similar to those found in the layers of butterfly wing scales, human tendons, and even in the human eye, to multilayered plastic systems has enabled discoveries and products with enhanced mechanical strength, novel reflective properties, and optics with enhanced power,” explains Ponting.
To make the layers for the lens, the team used a multilayer-film coextrusion technique (a common method used to produce multilayer structures). This fabrication technique allows each layer to have a unique refractive index that can then be laminated and shaped into GRIN optics.
It also provides the freedom to stack any combination of the unique nanolayered films. This enabled the fabrication of GRIN optics previously unattainable through other fabrication techniques.
A better optical implant
GRIN optics may find use in miniaturized medical imaging devices or implantable lenses. “A copy of the human eye lens is a first step toward demonstrating the capabilities, eventual biocompatible and possibly deformable material systems necessary to improve the current technology used in optical implants,” Ponting says.
Current-generation intraocular replacement lenses, like those used to treat cataracts, use their shape to focus light to a precise prescription, much like contacts or eye glasses. Unfortunately, intraocular lenses never achieve the same performance of natural lenses because they lack the ability to incrementally change the refraction of light. This single-refraction replacement lens can create aberrations and other unwanted optical effects.
And the added power of GRIN also enables optical systems with fewer components, which is important for consumer vision products and ground- and aerial-based military surveillance products.
This technology has already moved from the research labs of Case Western Reserve to PolymerPlus for commercialization. “Prototype and small batch fabrication facilities exist and we’re working toward selecting early adoption applications for nanolayered GRIN technology in commercial devices,” notes Ponting. |
Police are searching for one of two men accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl before throwing her off the roof of a building in Brooklyn.
Investigators say Antonio Owensford and Anwar Desouza lured the girl to the rooftop near Miller and Hegeman avenues around 4 a.m. on July 14.
The victim was taken to a hospital with multiple injuries to her arms, legs and neck.
Police arrested the 24-year-old Desouza and charged him with second-degree attempted murder, first-degree rape, first-degree assault, first-degree criminal sex act and second-degree strangulation.
Owensford, 26, remains on the loose, and police are actively seeking information regarding his whereabouts.
Neighbors recognized Owensford from his picture, though no one knew where he lived.
Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS. |
The Yukon Research Centre is growing plants through the winter in a project that could revolutionize the availability of fresh food in the north.
The "Agridome" is the brainchild of project manager Glenn Scott with Yukon College's Cold Climate Innovation.
"Unfortunately we didn't have a terribly cold winter here in the Yukon. I was probably the only guy sitting around praying for negative 40 because I wanted to see exactly what the dome would do," says Scott.
"Right now it's certainly in a very, very big experimentation phase but the unit definitely works, we're getting some good, solid plant growth here."
Glenn Scott, inventor of the Agridome, has successfully grown plants over the winter. (Mike Rudyk/CBC) Scott built a greenhouse, or rather a green dome, that optimizes the amount of space used to grow plants, while using minimal heat.
"The less space that I have to use, the less money that will have to be spent on actually heating that structure."
Scott says domes are the most energy efficient structure by virtue of their surface-area-to-volume ratio.The opaque structure is super-insulated and lined with plastic sheeting to reflect the energy-efficient lighting inside.
Vegetables and herbs grow in neat vertical rows, getting their nutrients from a spray which is absorbed by soil-less "rockwool" around the plant roots.
The system, called vertical aeroponics, means 32 square feet can grow upwards of 600 plants. This winter, Scott successfully experimented with conventional plants, including tomatoes, peppers, sweet peas and herbs.
"On the couple of nights when it actually did go down to -35C, with only a standard space heater consuming 1,500 watts, I was still able to maintain a temperature of 15 degrees in here," he says.
"That was a very clear indicator that yes — this structure is entirely appropriate for these kinds of extreme environments."
Cheap vegetables
Plants grow in vertical rows, getting their nutrients from a spray which is absorbed by soil-less "rockwool" around the plant roots. (Mike Rudyk/CBC) He's already inventing a method of wiring and shelving, to hold the heavy fruits of his labour. Right now Scott's plants are tiny, but he has big expectations for them to grow in the next month or so.
Scott hopes this prototype will eventually be used in communities throughout the Yukon, providing cheap and fresh vegetables, using a minimum of money and energy.
The Yukon Research Centre is funding the Agridome project, with money from the Yukon and federal governments.
Stephen Mooney, director of Cold Climate Innovation, says they are always looking for bright ideas like this one.
"Any Yukoner can come through our doors, meet with our team, and sit down and discuss the ideas. And we get all types of ideas, it doesn't just have to be greenhousing — we're open," says Mooney. |
LAKEWOOD
AGGRAVATED BURGLARY, CLARENCE AVENUE: A burglary attempt ended with a physical fight at one residence Oct. 2.
Officers arrived at the home, broke up the fight and arrested the burglary suspect.
TURFING, ROCKWAY AVENUE: Bar patrons and their designated drivers heading home for the night should take extra care with residential properties.
A man watched a passing motorist drive across his front yard shortly after 1 a.m. Oct. 3.
Officers were advised that this happens often enough around closing time. Special attention will be lent to the neighborhood.
SUSPICION, DETROIT AVENUE: A man was found sleeping in the hallway of an apartment building Oct. 3.
He told officers he had been visiting friends in the building, but they did not realize he was out there.
COMPLAINT, HOPKINS AVENUE: A concerned resident reported finding what he thought was human fecal matter in his yard Oct. 3.
An officer stopped out and confirmed that it was actually a dog’s fecal matter, located in at least 15 to 20 spots throughout the yard. The man was advised to keep an eye out for negligent dog walkers.
WEAPONS, BEACH AVENUE: Dispatchers heard what sounded like a man yelling about a gun during a 911 call Oct. 3.
Officers followed up with the man in question and arrested him for unlawfully transporting weapons and for disorderly conduct while intoxicated.
ANIMAL AT LARGE, ATKINS AVENUE: A concerned resident reported seeing a dog trapped on the roof of a nearby house Oct. 3.
Officers noted that the dog was OK and had access into the home.
COUNTERFEIT BILLS, MADISON AVENUE: A customer was cited after passing a fake $10 bill at a local convenience store Oct. 3.
CHILD ENDANGERING, QUAIL AVENUE: A drunken woman came to Harrison Elementary School to pick up her daughter well after school had let out for the day Oct. 3.
She was arrested and later released, along with her daughter, to a family member.
SUSPICION, WASCANA AVENUE: Unsure of the situation, a resident reported seeing a man in a Monte Carlo pull up to two girls and ask them questions Oct. 3.
Officers looked into the matter and learned that the driver was the girls’ uncle. He was just speaking with them before parking.
COMPLAINT, DETROIT AVENUE: Officers received word that there was a group of bigger children, likely teenagers, using the swings and not letting younger children play at Edwards Park.
The children were advised to be a little more equitable in their playground use.
BURGLARY, WEST CLIFTON BOULEVARD: A man reported his guitar stolen from his apartment Oct. 3. Police are investigating.
COMPLAINT, DETROIT AVENUE: A man was selling political pins at a local drug store Oct. 2.
Officers noted that he worked for a nearby campaign field office. He was told to stay on that property.
PETTY THEFT, CLIFTON BOULEVARD: A woman was arrested after being caught stealing several energy drinks Oct. 2.
See more Lakewood, Ohio, news at cleveland.com/lakewood |
Combine garlic, ginger, half the sliced onion, curry leaves, green chilli and tomato in a food processor and process to form a paste.
Heat oil in a large wok over high heat. Add paste and cook, stirring frequently, for 5 minutes or until slightly coloured. Add curry powder, tomato paste, cumin and soy sauce, and stir to combine. Add carrot, cabbage and remaining sliced onion, and cook for 1 minute or until vegetables are almost tender. Add roti and cook for 2 minutes or until warmed through and starting to colour. Push mixture to the side of the wok, add beaten egg and stir for 1 minute or until just set. Stir to combine then serve with lemon wedges, extra chilli and coriander.
Notes
• Curry leaves, Sri Lankan curry powder, roti canai and paratha are from Asian and Indian food shops and select greengrocers.
Photography by Mark Roper. Food preparation by Phoebe Wood. Styling by Justine Poole.
As seen in Feast magazine, February 2015, Issue 39. |
MANKATO, Minn. — Christian Ponder can look around the Minnesota Vikings locker room and see several faces of proud veteran players who’ve come close or reached the pinnacle of the NFL because they’ve played with great quarterbacks.
Brett Favre. Aaron Rodgers. Ponder has almost become linked to the two standouts simply because of his association with Minnesota and the older teammates that inhabit the Vikings’ locker room. In essence, minus a six-game run by Donovan McNabb at the start of the 2011 season, Ponder has been Favre’s replacement.
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Some of the veterans that now rely on Ponder once put their complete trust in Favre. He brought the likes of Adrian Peterson, Jared Allen, Chad Greenway as close to the Super Bowl as they’ve been in that fateful 2010 NFC Championship game. Even Ponder’s newest teammates, such as receiver Greg Jennings, bring a new comparison. Many want to know what Jennings see in Ponder after his years catching passes from Rodgers.
Ponder doesn’t mind hearing, from teammates at least, about Favre or Rodgers. There’s no sense of insecurity or weariness about having his name and game compared and contrasted with two of the biggest stars at his position in recent history.
“It’s not tiresome,” Ponder said. “They played with great quarterbacks and they understand what it takes to be a good quarterback. They understand success and I want to get to that point. I understand what I can do well and what others can do well, compared to myself. But I do want to be the best at what I can do and what I bring to the table. I’m finding that out as we go.”
Those comparisons have certainly taken on new life with Jennings’ arrival. Jennings thrived with Rodgers, becoming one of the league’s best receivers and winning a Super Bowl in the process. Jennings’ role as mentor on the Vikings’ is as much for Ponder as the young receivers.
“One of the big things he talked about is anticipating throws,” Ponder said of his communication with Jennings. “That’s something that Aaron does really well; just trusting myself and trusting receivers that they’re going to be where they’re supposed to be. And that’s one of those things, the whole trust factor kind of encompasses a big, especially the quarterback position, it’s a big aspect of the game. We need to keep building that trust and we’re going to keep doing that as we build this chemistry and we get more comfortable in this offense and with the guys that we have.”
Jennings is still building the trust with Ponder, though he has said he sees the potential in his new quarterback. Most of the Vikings have gone through Ponder’s growing pains and have started to trust as well.
Ponder’s NFL career has been, at best, inconsistent and void of some of many of the big moments Favre and Rodgers shared with their teammates. Even last year, with Minnesota playing in the playoffs, Ponder couldn’t be on the field because of a triceps contusion.
He missed his chance for a signature postseason snapshot like Favre and Rodgers. But Ponder did have his moments last year that has Minnesota believing in him entering his third NFL season.
Coming off perhaps his worst game as a pro and with his season spiraling downward, Ponder recovered to play his best as Minnesota won the final four games of the regular season to earn a playoff berth.
“It was so encouraging, just to see in a moment where our team could have gone either way at that 6-6 juncture, for him to step up and really begin to make some crucial plays and really take more of a rein from a leadership standpoint,” coach Leslie Frazier said. “It really kind of gave me more confidence about the future with him.
“It was just good to see. We needed him to play well at that point in the season. And you always need that from your quarterback at that point of the season, that month of December. He played at a very, very high level at a crucial time. So it was really encouraging for all of us.”
Those games, such as the regular-season finale when he had a career-best 120.2 quarterback rating with three touchdown passes, proved to his team he’s capable of leading the team on another, hopeful, playoff run. The final game of the regular season also resonated with Ponder.
“As a young team, I think we showed a lot of maturity,” Ponder said of the win over Green Bay. “For myself, finding that right balance of making plays downfield and checking the ball down, not trying to force things that aren’t there; I was learning from those mistakes I had throughout the midseason and that’s something I’ve got to keep carrying on through this season.”
Frazier and many of Ponder’s teammates have said he is more confident. Meanwhile, he says more confidence is a by-product of having more experience. He’s focused on two areas for improvement: decision-making and accuracy.
Ponder faces scrutiny from outside of the organization. His teammates know what they need from the quarterback position because of their experience with Favre and Rodgers. Ponder is OK with the attention he gets as the quarterback. He embraces it.
“That’s why I play the position,” Ponder said. “I want to be the guy that has the ball in his hands when it’s time to win the game.”
Follow Brian Hall on Twitter |
Militiamen loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi ride on an army vehicle on a street in Aden, Yemen, March 20, 2015.
Yemen's foreign minister says President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi has asked neighboring Gulf countries for military intervention to thwart the Shiite rebel power grab.
Riad Yassin says Hadi has also asked the United Nations to impose a no-fly zone so that the rebels known as Houthis, who he says are backed by Iran, cannot use the airports they seized.
Yassin spoke to Saudi-owned Al-Hadath TV Monday. He says that "time is not on our side."
The Houthis seized control of the capital, Sanaa, last September, along with several northern provinces. Hadi, who fled from house arrest in Sanaa last month, has set up a power base in the southern port city of Aden.
The Houthis and allies from supporters of ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh are now advancing toward the south.
A purported affiliate of the Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the mass killing of 29 soldiers last week in a southern city taken over by the country's local al-Qaida branch.
They made the claim Monday on a Twitter account known to be associated with the militants, who previously claimed responsibility for suicide bombings Friday in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, that killed 137 people. U.S. officials have been skeptical about whether the militants have direct links to the Islamic State group.
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Al-Qaida in Arabian Peninsula took over the city of al-Houta on Friday before being pushed out by Yemeni forces. Al-Qaida militants had not claimed the soldiers' killing in al-Houta.
The chaos comes as the country's embattled president faces a Shiite rebel insurrection. |
Building the Second Avenue Subway line. *
Illustration: Peter Grundy * NYC subway map of the future.New Yorkers are used to waiting for the subway and all, but this is ridiculous. Their first new line in 70 years— the T— is finally getting built. The Second Avenue Subway, as it's known, was proposed in 1929 and has been on the drawing board in this incarnation since 1999. Workers are now rerouting utilities and preparing to assemble a 250-foot-long tunnel-boring machine at 92nd Street. Next June, as part of the $4.3 billion Phase I, it'll begin gnawing its way south through 20 blocks of Manhattan schist (bedrock!) to 72nd, where a new station will be built. Ultimately, after decades of work, the new T Line will unite the Upper and Lower East Sides.
The tunnel-boring machine will cut through 50 feet of Manhatten shist (bedrock) a day.Start Previous: Two New Football Helmets Do Battle Against Concussions Next: 10 Best: Battle Cries — 'By the Power of Greyskull... I Have the Power!' |
EXCLUSIVE: Comedy Central is betting big on actress-comedian Natasha Leggero. The comedian, who garnered a lot of attention with her wild set as a roaster at last year’s Comedy Central Roast Of James Franco, is a voice cast member of Comedy Central’s animated series Brickleberry and a recurring guest panelist on the network’s breakout new late-night show, @midnight. Now Comedy Central has greenlighted a scripted pilot starring and executive produced by Leggero and a stand-up special headlined by her.
The pilot, Another Period, hails from Ben Stiller’s Red Hour, with Drunk History co-creator/director Jeremy Konner directing. It was created by and stars Leggero and Riki Lindhome as Victorian-era heiresses. Shot reality style, the comedy follows the misadventures of Newport’s first family, The Bellacourts, a family with nothing to offer the world, but who have so much money that it doesn’t matter. The show centers around the oldest Bellacourt sisters, Lillian (Leggero) and Beatrice (Lindhome), who care only about how they look, what parties they are invited to and becoming famous — which is a lot harder in 1902. Leggero and Lindhome executive produce with Konner and Red Hour. Leggero previously starred on the first season of Red Hour’s popular online series Burning Love.
Leggero’s one-hour standup special will shoot in April at the Wilbur in Boston. Additionally, she has her web series Tubbin’ With Tash, recurs on Suburgatory and does frequent guest spots on Chelsea Lately. Leggero is with CAA, Brillstein Entertainment and attorney Lev Ginsburg, Lindhome and Konner are with WME. |
Everyone knows about 3-D printed guns. Now a hobbyist from Tennessee has created 3-D printed shotgun slugs. Then he sent them to his friend, who took the slugs and blasted away.
In a video posted to internet this week, Jeff Heeszel, a 48-year-old industrial technician from Visalia, California, is seen firing three 3-D printed slugs from a Mossberg 590 shotgun. The first two slugs both hit their targets at a range of about 25 to 30 feet. The first slug penetrated a dart board. "It went right through that," Heeszel tells Danger Room. And then carried on to penetrate through a water jug. The second slug blasted through a 2x12 piece of pine wood, and then bored a hole in a wire reel. A third slug with a three-pointed front was then fired at much closer range at a mannequin's head, but just knocked it over.
Heeszel was surprised at the first two. "I didn't think it would go through the first piece of wood at all, much less hit anything," he says. But he also called them more of a novelty than a practical bullet. "I thought the thing was kinda lame, but I realize there's a lot of novelty with the 3-D printed gun, and I thought it was kind of timely. But overall I think they're kind of crappy little rounds," he adds.
Heeszel, who runs the popular YouTube channel Taofledermaus, isn't an anarchist or a political activist like Cody Wilson, who created the world's first fully printable gun. Heeszel's videos are more like Nickelodeon-style entertainment with firearms, with lots of slow-motion and videos of silly putty and frozen Vienna sausages being blasted out of shotguns. It's also why his friend Tony Griffy, a 50-year-old design-build contractor from Chattanooga who designed the printable slugs, chose him to shoot the things.
"I might be a redneck from Tennessee, but I love the technology," Griffy says. Griffy, who runs a YouTube account ArtisanTony – where he also shows off a printable knife and buckshot rounds – tells Danger Room he printed the slugs more for their own enjoyment. "Because a real gun shooting plastic bullets is more fun than a plastic gun shooting real bullets," he says. "You have to spend six hours printing a barrel that you're going to use one time, and it's not as much fun. It's more about the enjoyment and the sport. And if you're having to labor that much, then the enjoyment goes away."
Griffy says he printed the slugs with a Solidoodle 3 3-D printer – which retails for $800 – using ABS thermoplastic using dimensions from one of Heeszel's non-printed slugs. Griffy then created the computer-aided design files, converted them to a stereolithography format, and checked the files for inconsistencies with the 3-D printing software Netfabb. He also designed slugs in three sizes. The largest slug takes about an hour to print. The others take about 30 minutes. He also added a lead ball to each slug to give them more weight. The final step was mailing them to Heeszel, who fitted the slugs into hollowed-out – non-printed – shotgun cartridges.
It will also take hours to set up a machine to print them in a workable shape. 3-D printers print by squirting out thin layers of melted plastic, which harden and cool into a design. "The biggest problem I had was the print sticking to the bed of the printer," he says. The printer's base is heated, which causes skinny printed objects to warp when the upper layers begin to cool. He solved this, he says, by creating and painting a slurry mix to the printer bed. It took "30 to 40 hours just reading forums" to find the right mix, he adds. Then he spent hours more tinkering with the printer's settings.
The slugs are also still really lightweight. It doesn't "have a fraction of the force that a real slug would have," he says. The interior of the slug is mostly hollow, and Griffy says he'd like to modify it to make it more solid in the future, allowing it to better stand up to air resistance. (This will also make them take longer to print.) But he doesn't plan to mass-produce them, and he doesn't claim to have any political motives.
"Printers are really designed for prototyping, not production work. It's really, honestly, just for fun," he says. "I like Jeff, I love his videos, he's the one who got me into slow-motion stuff. It's all about the hobby of producing neat videos with some character. And of course I love the high-tech stuff."
As for Wilson and his 3-D printed guns? Griffy has toyed around with the 3-D printed handgun, but doesn't plan to share it himself. "They want people to think they're liberty-minded, but really they're making money off of these young people out there who just want to see a fight." He's more happy to stick with seeing just how far his printable slug will go. |
The oil business is nothing more than a rat race. Oil companies continually have to drill new wells to offset the decline from legacy wells. If they drill too much it causes the price of crude to crash and can often result in their own demise. If they don't drill enough, the world condemns them as greedy because of the pain they're feeling at the pump. It's an endless cycle that has played out before and is playing out again before our very eyes with oil companies now hitting their breaking point, no longer having the cash resources to drill enough wells to maintain production. As such, it has the potential to start another cycle where producers won't be able to keep up with demand, likely causing a painful spike in prices before the decade is out.
Can't keep up
According to a report by Rystad Energy, 2016 will be the first time in years that oil companies will add less oil from new fields than they're expected to lose to the natural decline of legacy fields. According to its estimate, about 3 million barrels of new oil production will come online this year thanks to projects from a variety of oil companies, including for example, Anadarko Petroleum's (NYSE:APC) Heidelberg field in the Gulf of Mexico, which is adding 80,000 barrels per day to global oil production after coming online this January.
Those 3 million barrels of incremental production, however, won't fully cover the 3.3 million barrels of production that will be lost as production from legacy fields declines or is depleted. That's because companies like Whiting Petroleum (NYSE:WLL) for example, just don't have the cash to keep drilling. In Whiting Petroleum's case it only has enough cash to enable it to continue fracking wells through the first half of this year after weak crude prices forced it to slash its spending by 80% over last year's level. Because of that under investment, the company's average daily production is expected to decline 18.5% from last year's average, which is roughly 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. It's not alone, joining dozens of oil companies in the North America that can no longer afford to invest what it would take to offset declines from legacy wells.
Only going to get worse
While this year's global supply shortfall is projected to be relatively minor at 300,000 barrels per day -- easily covered up by the glut of oil already on the market -- it's all downhill from there. According to Rystad by 2017 declines will outstrip new supply by 1.2 million barrels with an even wider shortfall projected in 2018 before significantly worsening by 2020 given current projections. That's all coming as oil demand is expected to march higher by about 1 million barrels a day per year because of global economic growth. It's an alarming scenario that offshore driller Transocean (NYSE:RIG) pointed out in the following slide:
On that slide, Transocean takes an amalgamation of estimates from Rystad and others, which is then run through three different oil price sensitivities. The result is a potential significant shortfall in oil supplies should oil prices remain under $50 a barrel for the next three years.
One reason for this potential huge shortfall in supply is the high cost and long lead-time it takes for offshore projects to be developed. Using Heidelberg as an example, that field was initially discovered in 2009, but the project wasn't sanctioned until May of 2013 and didn't deliver first oil until this past January. That three-year construction period suggests that major offshore oil projects sanctioned today might not start producing until 2019. However, given where oil prices are right now analysts only expect nine of the 232 pending projects to be given the green light this year because most of these projects aren't economic. That lack of projects moving forward is causing Transocean to caution that it's business might not see a pickup in the dayrates of offshore drilling rigs until the 2019 to 2020 timeframe because it will take the industry that long to get back up to speed.
That could leave a big production gap to fill in the near term, which actually bodes well for shale producers like Whiting Petroleum, because shale is much shorter-cycle, often delivering production in months as opposed to years. Having said that, given the significant balance sheet deterioration during the downturn, oil prices would need to be significantly higher in order to entice shale producers to ramp up activity. That just might happen because higher oil prices would be the result of a significant shortfall in supply.
Investor takeaway
At the current sub-$40 oil price, oil companies have finally hit their breaking point. They no longer have the cash flow or access to capital that they need in order to bring enough new supplies online so that they can overcome declines from legacy wells. It's a situation that's only expected to get worse over the next few years unless oil prices vastly improve, which would enable shorter cycle shale wells to fill in the gap until the industry can bring larger offshore developments online. It's an outlook that suggest that there could be just as much volatility to the upside over the next few years as the sector has seen to the downside in recent years. |
Tens of thousands of refugees, mostly from the Yazidi sect, are trapped on Mount Sinjar in Iraq’s north, having fled there after Islamic State (also known as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL) fighters delivered an ultimatum to convert to Islam or die. British Foreign Minister Philip Hammond greets Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott outside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. Credit:Getty They are trapped without food or water and human rights experts have warned of the potential for genocide within days. “There is a darkening situation in the Middle East, in particular northern Iraq,” Mr Abbott said. “There is a continuing humanitarian catastrophe in and around Mount Sinjar. “The murderous hordes of ISIL, now the Islamic State are on the march.”
ISIL had been crucifying, decapitating and summarily executing men, women and children, Mr Abbott said. Prime Minister Tony Abbott in London speaking about a possible return to Iraq for Australian troops. Credit:Getty Australian C-130 aircraft based at al-Minhad near Dubai will begin dropping aid packages to the Mount Sinjar region before the end of the week. Australia is consulting with its partners including the US and Britain about what further assistance it could provide, Mr Abbott said – including protection of those on the mountain from the Islamic State fighters. Australia will “provide what assistance we reasonably can to protect the people who are at risk not just from the elements, from starvation, from dehydration, from exposure on Mount Sinjar - but also who are at risk from ISIL forces”, Mr Abbott said.
“We have seen over the last few months murderous intent … towards everyone who does not submit. Plainly, as President Obama has pointed out, this is potential genocide. “We should do what we can to protect people from potential genocide … No one wants to stand aside in the face of a potential genocide.” Asked if that could include military action, Mr Abbott said “we certainly don’t rule that out”. “We are talking to our … security partners about what we can usefully do to help.” Mr Abbott said he could not go into details of what military support had been requested from Australia, or what he had offerred.
“These are ongoing discussions,” he said. “Australia is not without capacity and we want to use the capacity we have for good.” However, he stressed that this was a humanitarian cause, with the aim of protecting people from murder at the hands of ISIL terrorists – it did not have a “geopolitical objective”. “There is a world of difference between getting involved to prevent genocide and the kind of involvement we have seen in recent years by Western countries in the Middle East. Just a world of difference and no one should conflate the two.” He did not go into detail on whether the action would be air-based, or include troops on the ground. “We are in discussion with our partners and allies,” he said.
Most of Australia’s troops left Iraq when combat operations ended in 2008, though some military officers remained several years longer as advisers and providing embassy security. Australian troops withdrew from Afghanistan at the end of 2013. Labor's foreign affairs spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek said on Wednesday that Australia should be providing more aid money to strife-torn Iraq and criticised a decision to axe aid to Iraq in May’s budget. ‘‘It’s a shocking thing to realise that last year we gave $7.7 million in overseas development assistance aid to Iraq,’’ Ms Plibersek told ABC radio on Wednesday. ‘‘Australia has the capacity to do much more for the people of Iraq.’’
In June Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop announced $5 million in aid for those fleeing ISIL. On Tuesday, Mr Abbott met Brtiain's Joint Intelligence Committee, which oversees the country’s intelligence agencies and briefs the government, and held talks with the British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon. He also spoke with PM David Cameron – who is on holiday – over the phone. Mr Abbott said there was no higher priority for his government than the safety of the Australian people “in a difficult and dangerous world”. “We want to do everything we can to counter terrorism at home and abroad,” Mr Abbott said. “That means doing what we usefully can to help people who are threatened by terrorist activity whether it be in northern Iraq or whether it be on the streets of London or on the streets of Sydney.” He said this motivated Australia’s work in Ukraine, his government’s new anti-terror legislation, and his own trip to Britain.
“What happens in Syria and Iraq doesn’t happen in isolation,” he said. “What happens in these countries does have ramifications in Australia, in Britain and around the world.” He said the image of an Australian seven-year-old in Syria waving a severed head “as if it was a showbag at the Easter Show” was a hideous, gruesome image that “indicates the mentality of the people who are fighting with the Islamic State and the other terrorist groups in the Middle East”. “It is absolutely essential that we do whatever we reasonably can to ensure that the Australian community is safe form people who have been radicalised, militarised, brutalised by the experience of engaging in terrorist activities in the Middle East,” he said. Mr Abbott said that this security focus was behind new customs and intelligence measures, including upcoming legislation making it easier to prosecute and jail people who engaged in terrorist activity abroad. Loading
It was also part of the push to retain internet metadata. Asked about Russia’s proposed '‘humanitarian'’ mission to Eastern Ukraine, Mr Abbott said “we should be sceptical of Russia’s intentions… all of us are in favour of humanitarian assistance but no one wants to see what is effectively an invasion under cover of a humanitarian convoy”. |
The Red Sox’ yearlong rotation struggles received a reprieve on Wednesday night, an eight-inning effort from Steven Wright that ranked as one of the team’s best all year.
Wright became the first Red Sox pitcher in 10 years to throw eight or more innings while yielding one or no runs and punching out at least nine batters on the road against the Yankees. The last to do it? Appropriately enough, Tim Wakefield, in a memorable 1-0 loss to Randy Johnson in 2005. The last pitcher to hit those marks in a win in Yankee Stadium was Pedro Martinez in 2000, when he outdueled Roger Clemens in a 2-0 win.
It was a brilliant effort for a team that’s experienced a dearth of them in 2015. The Red Sox rotation has a collective 4.90 ERA this year, easily the worst in the American League, and one that signals a mandate for change this offseason (even if the bullpen may be the more challenging mess for the team, as I explore in a look at the state of Red Sox pitching).
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The missteps of the last 371 days – the acquisitions of Joe Kelly, Rick Porcello, Wade Miley, and Justin Masterson, with only Miley performing close to expectations – are the natural target. Yet the impetus for the acquisition of those players is an even more significant issue.
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Brian MacPherson, in the third and final part of the Providence Journal’s excellent three-part series on the team-building breakdowns that have led the Red Sox to this nadir, notes that the Red Sox stand almost alone (the Blue Jays have been considerate enough to join them) in their inability to develop a young starting pitcher with staying power in the rotation over the last eight years.
It’s fair to quibble and suggest that Felix Doubront was an important contributor in 2013, but the broader point remains: The Sox have been propelled into the market time and again because they haven’t had a young pitcher ready to step in. A failure to change course on that front likely will subject the team to further volatility or outright failures.
What the team sees from Henry Owens down the stretch thus becomes critical to a more level road going forward, and there remains a chance that Brian Johnson (elbow) could return and position himself as part of the long-term answer.
While those two will command the lion’s share of attention as the team’s most highly regarded pitching prospects, Wright – still a rookie – shouldn’t be ignored. Despite his understated personality, he’s well-versed in the Outwit, Outlast, Outplay phenomenon. The 30-year-old is the only man standing from last season’s audition that included Allen Webster, Rubby De La Rosa, Brandon Workman, and Anthony Ranaudo, and at this point, he’s established himself as a competitor who is unafraid to throw strikes and compete.
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In an organization that can leave no stone unturned to reverse its pitching misfortunes, there is something fitting about looking at a knuckleballer as part of an unconventional solution to a problem that has reached unconventional depths.
More by Alex Speier
Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com . Follow him on Twitter @alexspeier |
Earlier this week, Bashar al-Assad served notice to ISIS that the tide may have just turned in the battle for Syria. The Kremlin’s move to increase its “logistical” and “technical” support for government forces at Latakia appears to have breathed new life into the regime which carried out a series of air raids in the de facto ISIS capital Raqqa on Thursday.
This came amid reports that Assad’s forces were using new “highly effective and very accurate” weaponry. "There are modern weapons that the regime didn't previously have, be they rocket launchers or air to ground to missiles," The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters.
Needless to say, Russia’s move to bolster Assad and the suggestion by Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moualem that Damascus may soon formally request Russian ground troops for the fight has alarmed Washington which, until now, was content to bide its time until Assad finally fell before swooping in to “liberate” the country from whatever militia managed to prevail. As we outlined on Friday, that option is now officially off the table, as toppling Assad will now mean ISIS, al-Nusra, YPG, and the various and sundry other groups operating throughout the country will need to first defeat Russia, an exceptionally unlikely outcome and one that the Pentagon certainly cannot afford to wait out. With its back against the wall in terms of explaining to the public why it seems more and more like the US would rather allow ISIS to continue to operate rather than ally with Russia and Assad to defeat them, Obama and Kerry folded on Friday, instructing Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to phone his Russian counterpart to begin coordinating anti-terror activities in Syria. Here's The New York Times:
As the first Russian combat aircraft arrived in Syria, the Obama administration reached out to Moscow on Friday to try to coordinate actions in the war zone and avoid an accidental escalation of one of the world’s most volatile conflicts. The White House seemed to acknowledge that the Kremlin had effectively changed the calculus in Syria in a way that would not be soon reversed despite vigorous American objections. The decision to start talks also reflected a hope that Russia might yet be drawn into a more constructive role in resolving the four-year-old civil war. At Mr. Obama’s instruction, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter on Friday opened a dialogue on Syria with his Russian counterpart, Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu, aimed at making sure that American and Russian forces avoid running into each other by mistake. “The Russians are going into Syria because the regime’s position in the north is deteriorating,” he noted. “The Pentagon has been unable to recruit and train a viable opposition to fight the Islamic State because the rebels’ main interest is in fighting Mr. Assad. Given divisions between Moscow and Washington, it’s hard to see how you turn convergence on tactical military issues into a collective and viable political strategy to stabilize Syria and end the war.” But that appears to be precisely Mr. Kerry’s goal. “They allege that they also share the goal of a political transition that leads to a stable, whole, united, secular Syria,” Mr. Kerry said of the Russians on Britain’s Channel 4. “The question always remains, Where is Assad’s place and role within that? And that’s what we need to have more conversation on.”
Note that this is a bitter defeat for Washington. Moscow, realizing that instead of undertaking an earnest effort to fight terror in Syria, the US had simply adopted a containment strategy for ISIS while holding the group up to the public as the boogeyman par excellence, publicly invited Washington to join Russia in a once-and-for-all push to wipe Islamic State from the face of the earth. Of course The Kremlin knew the US wanted no such thing until Assad was gone, but by extending the invitation, Putin had literally called Washington’s bluff, forcing The White House to either admit that this isn’t about ISIS at all, or else join Russia in fighting them.
The genius of that move is that if Washington does indeed coordinate its efforts to fight ISIS with Moscow, the US will be fighting to stabilize the very regime it sought to oust.
In other words: checkmate, courtesy of The Kremlin.
And while Washington scrambles to decide its next move, Assad was back on offense Friday, launching what observers said were the heaviest air strikes yet on ISIS targets near the ancient city of Palmyra. Here’s BBC:
About 25 air strikes left at least 26 people dead, including 12 militants, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. IS captured Palmyra, which includes a Unesco World Heritage site, in May. Elsewhere, air strikes on Idlib killed 17 people, the Observatory said. The city of Idlib is a stronghold of an alliance of jihadist and Islamist groups calling itself the Army of Conquest. Syrian military sources quoted by Reuters have said Syria is using new types of very accurate weapons supplied by its ally, Russia. The latest air strikes came a day after Syrian air force jets attacked Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS. "In the past two days, the regime has intensified its air raids against areas controlled by the Islamic State group," Observatory spokesman Rami Abdel Rahman said.
And from Al Arabiya:
Syrian warplanes unleashed a wave of deadly airstrikes on the militant-held town of Palmyra in central Syria on Friday, killing at least 15 and wounding many more, activists said, in some of the heaviest bombardment since the extremist group seized the ancient town May 10. The Palmyra airstrikes come a day after the Syrian army carried out heavy air raids in the northern city of Raqqa, also held by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria group (ISIS). A local activist who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons reported at least 30 air raids on Palmyra Friday. A local media collective called the strikes a “massacre” and said 15 people were killed and more than 120 wounded. It said Palmyra’s only hospital was suffering severe shortages in staff and equipment, and some of the wounded had to be taken to Raqqa, more than 200 kilometers (125 miles) away.
In short, the Assad regime appears to have gone from depleted and exhausted, to “massacring” rebel fighters in the space of just two weeks, a remarkable turnaround which certainly seems to suggest that if the US doesn’t figure out a strategy soon, the whole thing could be over and Assad restored.
Incidentally, Hezbollah claims to have beaten back a rebel advance in Foua on Friday. Here's Al Arabiya again:
Meanwhile, a coalition of rebel groups launched a major ground offensive on two predominantly Shiite villages in the northern province of Idlib, firing dozens of rockets and detonating at least seven booby-trapped vehicles on their outskirts. The coalition, known as Jaysh al-Fateh, or “Army of Conquest,” attacked Foua and Kfarya villages earlier Friday. Both are held by pro-government forces in an otherwise rebel-controlled province. Syrian TV and Manar, a station owned by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, said popular defense forces - a term used to refer to Shiite militias - foiled attempts by “terrorists” to attack Foua and destroyed five armored vehicles. Hezbollah fighters are also fighting to defend the two villages.
Bear in mind that the main reason for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Moscow on Monday is to prevent Russia's presence in Syria from strengthening Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the man some suspect of masterminding the entire effort to restore the Assad regime, Quds commander Major General Qassem Soleimani, seems to understand the US strategy all too well - we close with the following from Iran's PressTV: |
MONSTERS is a gripping sci-fi short that tells the story of Jenn, a bright, inquisitive 9-year old girl cloistered in an underground bunker with her parents and older brother.
Like a princess in an ivory tower from a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, Jenn (Caitlin Carmichael) has spent her entire life in her family's bunker, forbidden to venture outside due to the decimated world being ravaged by horrifying, mysterious monsters.
However, Jenn's curiosity gets the better of her.
She defies her parents, and manages to escape.
What she discovers outside the bunker changes her life forever.
Written, produced, and directed by filmmaking team Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman, MONSTERS is dark, and deeply unsettling.
The most valuable player in this eerie, claustrophobic short is young Caitlin Carmichael, who portrays Jenn with precocious charm.
When you first meet her, you instantly become invested in her well-being as she embarks on an odyssey to discover the truth about her world - and the monsters that inhabit it.
I will say the plot twist at the end of the film is completely unexpected, but it doesn't feel trite or arbitrary.
In fact, the shocking reveal may leave you feeling more disturbed at the film's conclusion than you did at its beginning.
Watch MONSTERS in its entirety here... |
Jax Taylor is the unequivocal villain on Vanderpump Rules, but he’s not shying away from that portrayal, nor is he pretending to be anyone but himself for the sake of fame. Quite the opposite, actually, Jax is tired of Hollywood and ready to live a normal life!
In a revealing new interview, Jax is unabashed about his televised mistakes and flippant about his future stardom. “I hate [Hollywood],” he laments. “I hate it. It’s nothing. It’s bullshit.”
Jax, a former model, was actually in the process of leaving SUR and LA behind to become a firefighter in Florida when Lisa Vanderpump persuaded him to stay, because ‘something big’ was about to happen, which would change his life.
CLICK THE CONTINUE READING BUTTON FOR MORE!
And indeed something big has happened. Vanderpump Rules has become an enormous hit – this generation’s reality television cultural touchstone akin to The Hills. Everyone from A-list celebrities to viewers are obsessed with the incestuous and dysfunctional relationships between the over-the-hill (by Hollywood standards) bartenders and waiters who collectively alternate between f–king each other and f–king each other over.
At the center of the salacious drama is Jax.
Jax, who promises nothing we see from him is fake and acknowledges is part of what makes the show so riveting. “It’s authentic,” he declares, panning other reality shows – including other Bravo shows – for being “not real.”
Jax’s performance as himself has garnered him such acclaim he recently appeared on WWHL alongside super-fan Jennifer Lawrence (who also reportedly reads Reality Tea!). “She was like, ‘I’m obsessed with you,” Jax tells Complex. “She wanted to know everything about me, she had opinions on everything. And I’m, like, shitting myself because she’s Jennifer Lawrence, she’s the biggest actress on the planet.”
Likewise Lady Gaga recently gushed over him during a recent dinner, plus Robert DeNiro‘s wife is an uber-fan. Jax shrugs off being star-struck, although he concedes the caliber of his fans is surprising. “These are, like, great, great actors. What do I do?” What Jax does, so well, in my opinion, is unapologetically be himself. Sure – Jax (insincerely) apologizes for Jaxing people over, but he doesn’t apologize for who he is, and he expects both the viewers and his friends to accept him – [alleged] warts and all.
And, for as long as he remains a part of Vanderpump Rules, Jax vows to fight to maintain its authenticity. “I will not be on a show that’s contrived,” he swears. “I will not.” This includes keeping his co-stars earnest.
“Look, I love Tom [Sandoval]. We’re best friends, he’s a brilliant guy, really talented, but I tell him all the time, to stop trying to act on the show,” lectures Jax. “Stop trying to portray yourself in a certain way. It doesn’t work.”
Jax also takes issue with James Kennedy and Lala Kent returning next season. His hatred for James is real – on camera, and off. “If they’re around next year, I won’t be a part of that,” Jax promises. “I’ll stick to my guns on that.”
Another thing Jax promises is that he’s realistic that Vanderpump Rules and it’s accompanying attention won’t last forever; which is fine: He’s not using reality TV as a gateway to find success in the entertainment and fashion industries like his co-stars. Instead Jax’s goal is to become “regular.” He hopes to retire from the spotlight to marry Brittany Cartwright and start a family. He also apparently harbors the desire to write a book about his experiences. (Call me – I’ll ghostwrite!).
“Yeah, there are always those opportunities,” acknowledges Jax, who says his co-stars “take advantage” of promotional ventures and endorsements “way more ” than he does. “I’m 36. I’m too tired for all that.”
But Jax isn’t exhausted yet. Appearing on reality TV cheating, drinking, fighting, pooping, lying, getting arrested, and any other number of depraved behavior that is considered career suicide and detrimental to your personal life, is “what he signed up for.” Jax remains indifferent to condemnation, likewise he doesn’t blame editing, because what he signed up for has also made him well-off even, wealthy even, according to his estimations.
Jax won’t give up a number for how much he earns, but declares, “Put it this way, if I’m smart about it, and if I live reasonably, I’ll be good for the rest of my life.”
Well there you have it – The Jax Taylor Humblebragging Tour.
Tonight Vanderpump Rules returns with Katie throwing her engagement party at Villa Rosa. Katie may have reconnected with Stassi and Kristen, but Lisa hasn’t forgiven or forgotten and doesn’t want them attending! Jax continues to have an existential crisis over his choices – including moving in with Brittany. Meanwhile Tom 1 shoots a music video for his band, and James confesses to Kristen that he still has feelings for her!
Reality Tea will be live-tweeting.
TELL US – DO YOU THINK JAX DOESN’T CARE ABOUT FAME OR THE LA LIFESTYLE? WILL HE QUIT VANDERPUMP RULES?
[Photo Credit: La Niece/WENN.com] |
The Secrets to Broadway Bodies: How Performers Stay Trim, Toned and Tight
Broadway stars, chorus troopers, medical specialists and a theatre ninja from Mark Fisher Fitness (where Broadway goes to get "snatched"), share secrets from behind the scenes — and at the gym — to stay healthy and flexible onstage and off.
Who doesn't want a Broadway body? Actors on Broadway, like athletes, face particularly taxing physical demands, thanks in part to their eight-show work week and the repetitive movements they're tasked with executing each performance in their respective shows. As a result many are extremely fit, especially if their roles require a chiseled look or are built around their level of physical agility. Several performers, as well as physical therapists, and a Mark Fisher trainer, recently spoke with Playbill.com about their fitness routines, the unique challenges of their respective shows, and whether or not a Broadway body is necessary to find your way in the profession.
For Ramin Karimloo, currently playing Jean Valjean in the Broadway revival of Les Miserables, fitness is built into the role he plays eight times a week. Karimloo took inspiration from Hugh Jackman in the film version when preparing for his current run in the show. "I liked how he was getting in shape for the part," he says, "and how strong he was getting, because strength conditioning is conducive to Jean Valjean. That's all Valjean had: hard labor. He managed to not let his body deteriorate. That's what I love about Valjean is he let his body become his sword as well as his mind. So however he did back then, he thought, 'I'm going to get stronger, because when I come out I'm going to take revenge on the world.'"
Karimloo embarked on a six-month exercise regimen to prepare for the role, inspired by his wife, a fitness professional who introduced him to the Insanity workout, a home fitness program and nutrition plan that helped him achieve his Valjean body. He recalled his reaction after the first day's workout. "At the end of that 25 minutes, I was a pool of sweat on the floor. She [Karimloo's wife] had to pick me up and literally put me in the shower." Though he embarked on a tour with his band shortly after beginning Insanity, he experienced fast results and decided to continue even while on the road. Of the noticeable changes in his body that he began to observe, he noted, "For me, recognition of progress is fuel."
Katie Webber, currently performing in Honeymoon in Vegas, maintains a heightened awareness of her fitness routine and diet as a result of the show's revealing costumes. When Webber has down time during the show, she'll build exercise into her backstage routine. "If I have a 15-minute break or a 10-minute break," she says, "I have some weights in the dressing room and I'll do some five-pound weights with my arms, or if I have a minute I'll do some sit-ups or squats. I'm the girl that's so annoyingly stage right, waiting for my entrance, doing leg-lifts." Webber goes to the gym, but she prefers 20-minute bursts of running on the treadmill to a more intense weight-based workout. "The idea of working out in a gym is so not attractive to me," she says, "so I love to be able to just get it in where I can fit it in."
Paul Canaan, an Angel in Broadway's Kinky Boots and one of the show's assistant dance captains, works out at the gym five times a week and takes over the physical therapy room backstage at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre before each show to spend some time doing yoga and stretching. His exercise routine has developed over the course of several stints on Broadway. "I have a pretty set yoga, stretching, resistance band thing," he says, "that I trust gets my whole body warm and ready, which I didn't have when I was younger in New York — I was just kind of winging it... A body is an imperfect thing, and you've got to be ready for anything. You have to eat right, drink a lot of water, exercise, especially in a Jerry Mitchell show. He'll kill you."
Canaan's fellow Angel Joey Taranto agrees. "Eight shows a week is not for a wuss," he says. "You have to stay physically and mentally on top of your game in order to perform and perform at a Broadway caliber... A Broadway show is so demanding in itself that you have to do everything you can to meet the demands."
Though Taranto says that the pressure he feels to look the part comes more from within than from the production team, Broadway veteran Rachelle Rak has felt pressure in the past. "I like to look good in my clothes, in a bikini and in life," she says, "I learned at a young age the hard way. I was once put on weight warning in a show. Yes, they can do that."
Rak has since gone on to be known as one of the fittest among her peers on Broadway and has performed many times as part of Broadway Bares, an annual celebration of Broadway bodies that also serves as a fundraiser for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Of her time in Broadway Bares, Rak says, "At the time when I started Bares, you had to be in a Broadway show, so once I got in a show, and that show was Fosse, I signed up. It took a year and some coaxing to get Jerry Mitchell to agree for me to play Wonder Woman. I had done a Wonder Woman number when I was six years old, so I gave him the photo and said, 'This must happen.'"
Angels Canaan and Taranto have experienced physical setbacks during their time in Kinky Boots. Canaan broke one of his toes executing a dance move at director Jerry Mitchell's house, ultimately missing two months of performances and utilizing the show's physical therapists during his recovery. Taranto broke a foot a mere two days after the show's opening when his heel caught on the edge of a runway that's part of the show's set, missing 11 weeks of performances. When performers are out of commission, they often count on physical therapists, some of the unsung heroes of the Broadway community, to help them make a safe and speedy recovery. While Rak was performing in Oklahoma!, she had a hip tear that required surgery and a year in and out of a physical therapist's office. "I did everything she said and more," Rak says. "I went into the next show three months after therapy, but it took one year for me to be able to do all of my acrobatic tricks. Therapy is the only way to remain on Broadway for me."
The job of a physical therapist isn't limited to rehabbing injuries though. Physical therapists, who are often employed by a show's producers, place the majority of their focus on exercises and techniques to prevent injuries from occurring in the first place.
Sean Gallagher, a founder and director of Performing Arts Physical Therapy, the specialty practice that provides services for Kinky Boots as well as a number of other Broadway productions, understands the importance of his work for the theatre community. "Physical therapists who work with performers," he says, "understand the body and the injuries and the mechanism of injuries that are specific to this population of people." He emphasizes that anatomy, biomechanics, ergonomics and physiology all come into play.
He and his colleague Amanda Ting make sure to analyze the needs of an individual production early on in the run. "With every show," Ting says, "I look at what the performers are doing with respect to choreography and staging, the presence of a raked stage or automation, how the costumes and footwear may be affecting their posture and overall movement, if they lift or carry props, and the overall endurance it takes for each particular track." Ting says the most common issues faced by Broadway performers include "ankle sprains…Achilles tendinitis, patellofemoral pain, knee meniscal injuries, hamstring strains, hip labral tears, low back pain and rotator cuff tendinitis."
Chris Koerner, a physical therapist at Neurosport Physical Therapy, which works with John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask's Hedwig and the Angry Inch in addition to a number of other shows, describes what actors do as being akin to those in athletic professions. "A lot of our time, at least when we're first introducing ourselves to a new client, is actually convincing them that they are professional athletes, especially some of these high-level performers in terms of dance and movement, and they need to maintain their bodies as such."
For Rak, her time in Starlight Express was the embodiment of this actor-athlete comparison. The show, she says, "demanded me not only to be a dancer but to become an athlete. The entire show was done on roller skates, and so I was taken completely out of my comfort zone and off my feet and into skates." For the Angels in Kinky Boots, as well as Hedwig's stars, heels present a similar challenge. In providing physical therapy for Hedwig, Natalie Kinghorn, who is a director of Neurosports along with Koerner, has found "the one thing that's consistently been there — you know, you're talking about males playing a female role — so they're in heels and they're jumping, so there's consistently been, not serious injuries, but cumulative trauma to knees and ankles. They're jumping, and then in the meantime you have to stabilize yourself above that so you can sing the mess out of the show for an hour-and-a-half."
The challenges in working with a specific cast are often informed by the physical circumstances of their workplace. Ting says, "I currently work with the cast and crew of Matilda the Musical, which is performed on a raked stage. As part of physical therapy for the show, we provide an injury prevention lecture to address the difficulties encountered with performing on a rake and exercises to help alleviate its effects. In the lecture, we teach alignment exercises to be performed on the stage before the show to acclimate the body to the rake and then after the show on an even surface to realign the posture."
Aside from working backstage with physical therapists, time at the gym is key for the performers we surveyed. Geoff Hemingway, a former performer and a trainer at Mark Fisher Fitness in midtown (his wife is Broadway actress Rose Hemingway), praises his gym's unique approach to fitness.
Mark Fisher, which takes up several storefronts on 39th Street, has thus far maintained a small but loyal clientele. The gym's facilities, which are painted in neon colors, reflect that colorful approach to fitness. Their mascot is a unicorn, and those who work out there are called ninjas. "You come here and people know your name," Hemingway says, "It's very much 'Cheers.'" Along the way, Mark Fisher Fitness has been touted as one of the go-to gyms for Broadway performers. (Patina Miller very publicly developed her Pippin arms thanks to Mark Fisher's trainers.)
Of the gym's Broadway clients, Hemingway says, "I think that the performer side of them really embraces what we have to offer. It's kind of off-kilter, a little loosey-goosey with the scary, yell-y sports discipline part of it. Some other gyms, you'll get guys who just scream at you, and we scream at you but the things we say at you are funny, like we scream musical theatre references at you."
Hemingway has found that his theatrical ninjas each come in with their own unique set of needs. "Whether it's 'I have to be shirtless in this show and I want to be ripped,' or we have a lot of people who come in and they're like, 'Hey man, I'm about to go off and do 42nd Street, and every time I do three time-steps in a row I'm out of breath; I need to get better conditioning.' That's a big part of what we do, because so many shows, especially if you're in the ensemble and you're dancing a ton, the physical conditioning is ridiculous, so we help condition them and get their air flow and help them so they know how to breathe when they're under stress, when they're in that fight-or-flight situation." Hemingway says knowing your type is an important component of developing a fitness routine. "By the time they get to us," he says, "people know their roles in that community — they know what they're going in for. They know if they're leading man, leading woman, ingénue, or character guy, and they just want to come in and feel great."
Occasionally, though, the gym pulls in ninjas who want to move from one type to another. He recalls one particularly memorable client. "When she started," Hemingway says, "she was like, 'I just played Tracy Turnblad in this regional production of Hairspray. That was my dream role, and now I've done it and I don't want to be fat anymore.'" Since coming in to Mark Fisher, she's shed about 50 pounds and is now being seen for ingénue roles. Despite the effects that a physical transformation can have for a performer, Hemingway still maintains that confidence is key above all else. He says, "I think a lot of people get wrapped up in that stigma of a Broadway body. I see a lot of people coming in and they're like, 'Man, if I can just get fit I'll work all the time,' and that's not true. The fitness doesn't breed work. I think the confidence from exploring something new or learning that you can do something, that you have the skills in you, that all it takes is just a little bit of time to learn the skills, I think that's what breeds work."
Karimloo, for his part, agrees. He says that, for him, "it's about being happy, because you can be in the best shape possible, but if you walk into an audition and you're not confident in yourself and you're not prepared and you're not happy — or for whatever reason you're not in your zone, on your A-game — well, it doesn't matter. It's like having a beautiful car with no engine. You've got to take care of the engine first, and I think all shapes and sizes should be celebrated."
Canaan says, "There's a place for everybody, especially in [Kinky Boots]. In the big finale of our show, there's every shape and color on that stage – there's humongous guys in boots and little tiny drag queens and young girls and older women." Kinky Boots is just one of many shows that require different types to make up their diverse casts. Ultimately, Hemingway says, "it's that inner confidence — knowing that you feel good, that you feel your best." |
Update: During a small roundtable with State Department reporters late Monday, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto urged the Zimbabwe military to implement “real, genuine, economic [and] political reforms" and to ensure elections scheduled to be helpd next year are fair and transparent.
The message came hours before Zimbabwe's parliament speaker announced President Robert Mugabe had resigned Tuesday.
Yamamoto said the international community wants to lift sanctions against Zimbabwe and see the country, once an economic success story, become a pillar of stability on the continent, according to VOA News.
The way for Washington to lift sanctions is for Harare to carry out the due process, to respect human rights, and to give the opposition a genuine opportunity to form a government.
“What we don’t want is a manipulation by the government or by the ruling ZANU-PF party - holding rush elections, not taking into consideration a lot of the reform issues that the opposition wants to implement; also, not giving political space for Zimbabwe people for them to express what they want to see in a new government," Yamamoto said.
US Ambassador to Zimbabwe Harry Thomas has been meeting with officials from ZANU-PF party and the opposition party behind the scenes to try and help push the political process forward.
* * *
Zimbabwe’s Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda had barely finished reading the rules and regulations of how impeachment proceedings would proceed against President Robert Mugabe when the 93-year-old leader and former revolutionary surprised his colleagues by officially resigning the presidency – something he had been reluctant to do even after the military placed him under house arrest last week.
Both Reuters and the Associated Press confirmed that Mugabe had resigned, citing an announcement made by Mudenda.
BREAKING: President Robert Mugabe has resigned, Speaker of Parliament confirms — Zim Media Review (@ZimMediaReview) November 21, 2017
"I Robert Gabriel Mugabe in terms of section 96 of the constitution of Zimbabwe hereby formally tender my resignation... with immediate effect," said speaker Mudenda, reading Mugabe's letter.
"My decision to resign was voluntary on my part."
Zimbabwe's Parliament has erupted in cheers as the speaker announces the resignation of President Robert Mugabe. The speaker stopped impeachment proceedings to say they had received a letter from Mugabe with the resignation "with immediate effect." It is an extraordinary end for the world's oldest head of state after 37 years in power.
Mugabe’s resignation came days after the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party fired him as its leader and ordered him to step down. In his place, Emmerson Mnangagwa, 75, who Mugabe dismissed as vice president earlier this month, will take over as interim leader and the leader of ZANU-PF, the country's ruling party. Mnangawa will also be ZANU's candidate in presidential elections next year, the party said.
Drama! Drama!
As The Speaker was presiding over the impeachment, Justice Minister Bonyongwe interrupted him, carrying a letter. Speaker Mudenda then asked MPs to excuse him. They grumbled.
But this was it. He announced the letter had come. Mugabe has resigned! — Zim Media Review (@ZimMediaReview) November 21, 2017
Mugabe came to power in 1980 after Zimbabwe gained its independence from the UK. He was ousted earlier this month after he fired Mnangagwa and appointed his much-younger wife, Grace, 52, in his stead. Mugabe, it was widely believed, was positioning Grace to succeed him as ruler of Zimbabwe.
Zimbabweans tear down Robert Mugabe's portrait after announcement that the longtime leader has resigned. https://t.co/djH1RyF3QJ pic.twitter.com/FtsYne1hhV — ABC News (@ABC) November 21, 2017
Once an shining example of economic progress, Zimbabwe's economy began crumbling in the early 2000s as Mugabe seized land from white farmers and turned it over to friends of his government. The country's currency experienced a hyperinflationary spiral that rendered the savings of millions of Zimbabweans worthless. The recent unrest has sent many Zimbabweans scrambling to buy bitcoin, which recently traded at $13,000 on Golix, the country's primary bitcoin exchange. That's a more than 50% premium over its global price. Bitcoin's global price of around $8,000.
Mugabe baffled many of his countrymen on Monday when he refused to resign during a widely watched public address, insisting instead that he would lead the next Congress. In response, both opposition and Zanu-PF lawmakers said they would immediately begin impeachment proceedings.
The president furnished his resignation after only three cabinet ministers showed up for a cabinet meeting he called for Tuesday.
The BBC tweeted footage of Mudenda reading Mugabe's resignation letter aloud: |
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A stash of frozen treats and other supplies rocketed toward the International Space Station on Sunday, this time from Virginia’s cold eastern shore.
NASA’s commercial shipper, Orbital ATK, launched the cargo ship just after sunrise from Wallops Island, aboard an unmanned Antares rocket.
The Cygnus capsule should reach the orbiting lab Tuesday. It’s loaded with 7,400 pounds of cargo, including sweet treats for the six station astronauts. There are frozen fruit bars, ice cream bars, ice cream sandwiches and cups of chocolate and vanilla ice cream — about 80 in all, according to NASA.
The crew expects pizza as well. Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli has been craving pizza for months.
“Pizza and ice cream on the way!” NASA astronaut Joe Acaba tweeted following liftoff. “Eagerly awaiting the arrival.”
This marked Orbital ATK’s first launch from its home turf in more than a year. The last time it made a space station delivery, it used another company’s rocket flying from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Crowds gathered at Wallops in freezing temperatures and cheered as the rocket soared toward the southeast. Sunrise made it hard to see the launch farther afield. The field of visibility stretched from New England to the Carolinas.
A launch attempt on Saturday was nixed after a plane strayed into the restricted airspace. Sunday’s try was almost foiled by a couple of boats that briefly wandered into the keep-out zone.
Orbital ATK named the capsule after the last man to walk on the moon, Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan, who died in January. During the final minutes of the countdown, a launch controller paid tribute to Cernan as well as J.R. Thompson, a high-ranking NASA and Orbital ATK official who died last week.
The capsule will remain at the space station until the beginning of December, when it’s cut loose for a test of close proximity flying, a series of mini satellite deployments and, lastly, a fiery re-entry with a load of trash.
SpaceX is NASA’s other prime supplier. It’s next station delivery is next month. |
Mazda North America has moved into its new headquarters at 200 Spectrum tower in Irvine. The four-floor workspaces include neighborhood hubs for collaborating. (Courtesy of Mazda)
Mazda North America has moved into its new headquarters at 200 Spectrum tower in Irvine. The four-floor workspaces include executive suites for Irvine employees and associates from its main base in Japan. (Courtesy of Mazda)
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Mazda North America has moved into its new headquarters at 200 Spectrum tower in Irvine. The four-floor workspaces include small nooks for quiet work or collaboration. (Courtesy of Mazda)
Mazda North America has moved into its new headquarters at 200 Spectrum tower in Irvine. The four-floor workspaces include spaces for dining. Because many of the desks are shared hotel spots, there is no eating over the keyboard. (Courtesy of Mazda)
Hotel desks at the new Mazda North American Operations’ headquarters include check-in technology. This desk is available all day but employees are encouraged to balance office time with telecomuting. (Samantha Gowen, Orange County Register)
Hotel desks at the new Mazda North American Operations’ headquarters include check-in technology. This desk is available all day but employees are encouraged to balance office time with telecomuting. (Samantha Gowen, Orange County Register)
Lockers are available for Mazda employees who use hotel desks instead of a permanent spot at the new Mazda North American Operations’ headquarters in Irvine. (Samantha Gowen, Orange County Register)
A Mazda camshaft is displayed with other pieces of art at the company’s new North American Operations’ base in Irvine. (Samantha Gowen, Orange County Register)
Modeling clay is still used at Mazda when designing a vehicle. (Samantha Gowen, Orange County Register)
Mazda has moved to its new home at 200 Spectrum Center Drive. The group moved to the new building in June. A sign was installed on the building over the weekend. (Photo courtesy of Mazda North American Operations)
Mazda has moved to its new home at 200 Spectrum Center Drive. The group moved to the new building in June. A sign was installed on the building over the weekend. (Photo courtesy of Mazda North American Operations)
A view of Irvine Spectrum Center from the 10th floor of 200 Spectrum where Mazda’s North American headquarters has relocated. (Samantha Gowen, Orange County Register)
One of many conversation nooks found in the hallways of Mazda North American Operations’ headquarters in Irvine. The state-of-the-art workspace is loaded with new technology and open-floor offices for better collaboration. (Samantha Gowen, Orange County Register)
A view of Irvine Spectrum Center from the 10th floor of 200 Spectrum where Mazda’s North American headquarters has relocated. (Samantha Gowen, Orange County Register)
Hotel desks. Huddle rooms. Touch-screen projectors and 84-inch Microsoft Surface Hubs.
Rich wood flooring. Mood lighting. Conversation nooks and a barista or two.
These are just some of the modern touches that grace the new headquarters at Mazda North American Operations’ in Irvine. The company, in the city since 1987, relocated this year, moving about a block to 200 Spectrum tower from its previous base. The gleaming 21-story edifice of glass bears the Japanese automakers’ name.
Mazda held a ribbon cutting Friday, Aug. 25. Irvine officials and the media swarmed its first-floor lobby, where a shiny red MX-5 RF sports car and a CX-5 SUV stood as sentries.
Blase De Leo, the division’s vice president for brand engagement, called the new offices “more than just a location.”
De Leo said the automaker wanted to make its U.S. headquarters a “premium place to work” while emphasizing a work-life balance. The open-floor workspaces focus on collaboration for 350 on-site employees, who are also encouraged to telecommute from home.
The company has not disclosed how much it spent on the new HQ, but the workspace screams “expensive.” Finishes are top-notch and all the equipment is new and high-tech. Desks flex. Elegant lockers flank the walls. Office departments are called “communities.”
Beyond Irvine, the automaker recently made headlines when it announced a partnership with Toyota. Together the companies will build a $1.6 billion U.S. assembly plant. The site has yet to be announced.
In the joint venture, Toyota will acquire about 5 percent of Mazda, which will hold a 0.25 percent stake in the bigger automaker, according to both companies. The two will produce Corolla cars and Mazda crossovers at the shared factory in 2021, creating as many as 4,000 jobs. Mazda’s best-selling vehicle is the crossover CX-5. The company on Aug. 1 reported it had sold 68,000 CX-5s year to date, an increase of nearly 10 percent.
Mazda had not said yet how its U.S. division might be impacted by the development of the U.S. plant. The company is investing $500 million, as is Toyota.
The Irvine base encompasses five floors (the lobby plus levels 6-10) and 113,000 square feet. Here are some stats from the new HQ: |
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