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Apparently, stupidity doesn’t skip a generation in Oklahoma Idaho:
REXBURG – Controversial words spoken by kids on a school bus have some Madison County parents concerned.
Matthew Whoolery and his wife aren’t blaming the school district for what happened on the bus but they do think all parents need to be careful about what they say and teach their children.
Whoolery and his wife couldn’t believe it when their second and third graders got off the bus last week and told them what other students were saying.
“They just hadn’t heard anything like this before,” said Whoolery. “They were chanting on the bus, ‘Assassinate Obama. Assassinate Obama.’ Then adding in a name sometimes of a classmate on the bus, ‘Assassinate Obama and Kate.'”
The Whoolery’s explained to their kids what assassinate means then contacted the school about what was happening.
“I think the thing that struck us was just like, ‘Where did they get the word and why would they put that word and that person together?'” said Whoolery. |
He is missing something that could make him a solid No. 2 to Tiger Woods in the world of golf.
Oh, Mickelson is No. 2 and solidly, but he isn’t a solid position anywhere near Woods. He is well back of the world’s No. 1 player.
Mickelson’s and Woods’ play on No. 13 Saturday in the third round of the U.S. Open at Torre Pines says a lot about what the two players bring to the game.
Their reaction after their rounds says a lot about the two as competitors.
Mickelson took nine shots to find the cup on the par-5 13th.
A couple of hours later, Woods was fist-pumping after rolling in a 60-foot plus for a 3 on the same hole.
Woods went nuts after making that putt, and finished birdie-eagle to take a one-shot lead into the final round. (He is 13-for-13 in finishing with the lead after taking the lead into the final round of a Major championship.)
He had three bogeys and a double bogey, offset by two eagles and a chip-in birdie.
“What do you mean? I made 17 pars and a birdie, just a boring round of golf,” Woods cracked.
Mickelson threw three wedges at the 13th green that rolled back to him before finally landing one on top, then three-putting for a quadruple bogey.
“What can you do?” he asked. “It was really one hole that hurt the round. Otherwise, I was 1-over for the day and just played OK. So it wasn’t bad. If I make birdie there, I shoot even par for the day and I would be within striking distance (today).
“Unfortunately it happens. It sucks, but it happens.”
O …. K. Doesn’t sound nearly upset enough after posting a 9, something he doesn’t remember last doing at that hole with he was eight.
Adam Scott’s caddie Tony Navarro charged under the ropes and possibly head-butted a suspected to be inebriated heckler on Friday. The unruly fan’s son jumped into the battle along with Phil Mickelson’s caddie Jim Mackay, as the first two in the fight wrestled.
Amazingly, in this day of “amazing” video, ESPN elected not to show the fight. (The broadcast was being produced by NBC.) The network almost surely got the tussle on camera, as Scott was playing in the marquee threesome with Mickelson and Woods.
In another “why golf is different from the rest of the top sports in the country” tale, Mickelson chose not to talk to reporters after chasing his balls all around the lovely South Course on Friday. Where’s the outrage?
Now I’m not one to criticize athletes for not talking to the media after particularly difficult days (though it is cheesy to be willing to talk on the good days, not the bad ones), but when other athletes go silent in such situations, they get slammed mercilessly by the media. Judging from the national coverage, or lack thereof, Mickelson got off lightly.
The Woodlands resident K.J. Choi, who missed the cut, spent as much time on the driving range Saturday as Vijay Singh. |
You know what sounds like a terrible idea? Building a bunch of homes in an area with no existing source of water, especially in the midst of California’s worst drought in more than 1,200 years. But that’s what Los Angeles County is proposing to do.
On May 31, the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning released a draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the “Single-Family Residential Hauled Water Initiative,” which would allow the use of “hauled water”–water that’s essentially trucked in–as the primary source of potable water for new, single-family residential homes in unincorporated areas of the county where there is no available service from a public or private water purveyor and where on-site water wells are not feasible.
If adopted, more than 40,000 parcels in Los Angeles County would be eligible for building permits for single-family residences entirely dependent on hauled water. The initiative covers about 532 square miles within the 5th Supervisorial District, which includes Lancaster, parts of Antelope Valley, Acton, Santa Clarita, and the eastern San Gabriel Mountains. Many of these areas are devoid of developments and have little to no water (…which is probably why there’s been no development!).
While the proposed Initiative is aimed at creating more housing, it has far greater potential to create a wide range of problems for the county. A 2003 guidance letter from the California Department of Public Health advised against using hauled water as the sole potable water source for planned developments. The Department does not recognize hauled water as a reliable source suited for drinking, culinary, or domestic purposes, all of which are essential uses in a single-family home.
Nor does hauled water provide the equivalent level of protection or consistent level of reliability as a public water system or an approved on-site water source. As such, the Department does not believe that hauled water satisfies the requirements for potable water for planned developments.
Needless to say, we agree.
We’re skeptical of the County’s findings in its Initial Study that there would be “no significant impacts” from the proposed Initiative on agriculture and forestry resources, geology and soils, hazards and hazardous materials, and mineral resources.
On top of it all, the draft EIR for the project raises more troubling questions than it answers.
If the sole source of water is hauled water, where will this water be stored? Where is the water coming from? How do we ensure water quality is being properly maintained?
What's more, the proposed project area is located in between three fault lines. What would happen if a major earthquake were to strike? Or in the case of a wildfire? Will these sparsely populated areas have the means and resources to support larger populations? What happens when a resident can no longer afford the hauled water? Or if the hauling company goes out of business?
Many questions remain and the proposed Initiative leaves us to wonder whether it is the right solution to housing.
Similarly, the draft EIR only briefly touches on impacts to population, housing, transportation, and traffic, deeming them “less than significant.” However, with more 42,000 parcels slated for potential development, the population, housing, traffic, and transportation needs will inevitably increase. Not only will single-family homes be built, but shopping centers, supermarkets, schools, and parks will follow to support these new communities, opening the door to urban sprawl in areas with extreme water scarcity.
On a range of other important issues, the County isn’t even trying to ensure full mitigation of the project’s impacts. The draft EIR notes that there will be significant and unavoidable impacts to aesthetics, air quality, biological resources, cultural resources, greenhouse gas emissions, hydrology and water quality, land use and planning, public services, recreation, and utilities and service systems. This is deeply troubling.
We are reviewing the draft EIR carefully and plan to weigh in formally in the days ahead. But our initial take is that this project would bring more harm than good. Although the use of hauled water for potential developments could mean more housing, the host of environmental problems it would bring leads us to believe this is a bad idea.
Anyone interested in this project should consider submitting written comments, which will be accepted up until Wednesday, July 20, 2016. Comments can be submitted via e-mail at dsakamoto@dpw.lacounty.gov and by mail to:
County of Los Angeles Department of Public Works
Attn: Mr. Dale Sakamoto/Hauled Water EIR Comments
900 South Fremont Avenue, 11th Floor
Alhambra, California 91803
The draft EIR can be found at http://planning.lacounty.gov/hauled.
Thanks to my colleague Ylan Nguyen for contributing to this post. This blog provides general information, not legal advice. If you need legal help, please consult a lawyer in your state. |
Up until its last half-hour when Yul Brynner’s fearsome robot gunslinger engages relentless pursuit mode, Michael Crichton’s 1973 film Westworld is a romp. Its premise—the android attractions in a high-tech theme park malfunction with deadly consequences—may be nightmarish, but the film is rollicking. There’s a lively bar brawl set to old-timey piano, a cartoonish prison-break, a comedy underdog who appoints himself sheriff… Any blood we see is poster paint red and the brothel scenes now feel as chaste as Sunday school.
HBO’s TV adaptation goes a different route. Devoid of high-jinks, it starts serious and stays that way. This is cerebral sci-fi that asks more complex questions than "what if the humanoid attractions in a high-tech theme park malfunctioned with deadly consequences?"
The new Westworld picks up all the philosophical and ethical threads of modern AI fiction and reality—notions of freedom, identity, morality and power—and adds to them. Grief and memory are also themes, while the competing priorities of the theme park’s various behind-the-scenes departments (narrative vs finance vs auteur directorial vision) make for a neat allegory about movie-making.
Or more properly, TV-making. Even if creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy are guilty of describing it as one, this is no movie. That’s the point. It takes and expands Crichton’s feature-film into something that couldn’t fit into even 2016’s flabby cinematic run-times. The first season is ten episodes and judging by the first four previewed to press, you wouldn’t want it any shorter.
At any rate, when a TV producer says they’ve made a ten-hour film they really mean that they’ve made ten hours of TV they want you to pay attention to.
Westworld deserves and requires that privilege. Its first four scripts are finely wrought and intellectually ambitious. The extended length season opener establishes the repetitious mechanics of the theme park, a giant sandbox in which AI “hosts” indistinguishable from humans circulate on narrative loops for the benefit of visitors who come to play out their fantasies, without becoming repetitive itself.
The dialogue is satisfyingly layered with irony and allusion. An early conversation uses the image of a "Judas Steer," the bull who the rest of a migrating herd will follow all the way to the slaughterhouse, to draw comparisons between the hosts and cattle. (Even the name "host" brings simultaneously to mind images of heavenly creatures and an archaic army.)
The park characters speak in hackneyed Western movie cliche about varmints and there being bandits in them there hills, relying on our familiarity with the genre first to recognise their speech, and then to spot any slight, uncanny shifts in it.
Subtext has been layered in, too. One conversation sees a host reminisce about his misspent youth to his "daughter" who fondly asks him "Whatever happened to that fearsome neer-do-well?”
“He disappeared the day I became your father,” comes his answer, both trite sentimentality and, as it turns out, the truth in a world where hosts are rotated around the park playing various characters over the years in different stories.
That means when Evan Rachel Wood’s Delores Abernathy, the wholesome girl next-door built to offer guests a different flavor from the town’s willing prostitutes or Thandie Newton’s worldly brothel madam Maeve, speaks like a brainwashed cult member it’s not bad writing but exactly the opposite. Delores’ speeches on the true paths in life and finding the goodness in the world are deliberately banal to emphasise her programming. Her golden-hearted persona is an artificial construct. Does it really reflect her true self?
That question brings us to Westworld’s drop of genius, the angle that makes this much more than an extended remake of Crichton’s dystopian feature: the hosts and not the guests are the real protagonists.
We follow Delores and Maeve’s perspective on what happens in the park in much more detail than the perspective of the wealthy holidaymakers who come to use and, depressingly often, abuse them. The result is less "high-tech theme park robots malfunction" than "people begin to notice inconsistencies about their world that cause them to question their sanity and identity."
It’s a reversal of the original concept, and quite a brilliant one. Whether it does or not, it very much feels as though a debt is owed to Ron D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica.
It especially works because the host performances, and by extension the directing, are so strong. There’s no manic, robotic ticking or exaggerated powering down, yet the actors convey a real sense of otherness in their host states. Thandie Newton is good, but Evan Rachel Wood in particular gives a subtle, complex performance, revealing Delores’ radiant programmed self and its emerging fractures at the same time.
Wood is fantastic both in the park and out of it, where the second half of the story takes place. Our lead there is Jeffrey Wright’s Bernard Lowe, head of Programming and the chief conduit to Sir Anthony Hopkins’ Robert Ford, the park’s original creator and Creative Director. They're capably joined by Borgen’s Sidse Babett Knudson as head of Security Theresa (originally Homeland and Lord Of The Rings’ Miranda Otto, before she left the project), who keeps up the series’ tonal chill with a cool, assured performance.
Lowe is contained and engaging in a part that recalls his recent role as tech genius Beetee in The Hunger Games franchise. (The 3D map used by the ‘game-makers’ to control events in the park is also reminiscent of that series). His scenes with Wood are careful and captivating, but its his interactions with Hopkins that you find yourself waiting for.
Hopkins lends a certain nobility to Westworld. His Robert Ford is a contemplative genius, a mysterious man with a touch of melancholy and an edge that could be sinister or heroic depending on who, or what, you are. “Don’t get in my way” he smiles at one point, a warning you feel you’d be a fool not to heed.
The final main character is played by Ed Harris, another stand-out who dominates every scene he’s in, regardless of what he does in it. HBO’s reported $54 million for this season has been well spent when it comes to casting.
And to setting and effects, it almost goes without saying. There’s no poster-paint red blood here. The gore looks as uncomfortably real as the deserts and mountain ridges, which seem to extend endlessly in the many landscape shots. The sci-fi interiors are stark and minimal like expensive car showrooms with glass-walled offices and sleek decor that plays well against the park’s dusty town saloons and cowpoke camps.
Gore is plentiful. Blood bubbles from gunshot wounds and sliced throats spray fans of the stuff. A head is staved almost completely in, a drill disappears nauseatingly up a nostril. Game Of Thrones fans tuning in hoping for violence will get splashes of what they’re after in between the discussions on moral philosophy, but this isn’t pulp TV. It’s poised, brainy and dignified, or as dignified as a show can be with the inevitable HBO array of arses and tits.
If Westworld lacks anything, it’s leavening humor. There’s no mordant Tyrion Lannister and Varys pairing to blast fresh air into its hermetically sealed sci-fi chamber. So far, only the “rich assholes” paying $40k a day to vacation in the park are having any fun, and as mentioned, they’re not our guides to this world. That’s no real criticism at this point. It’s simply serious stuff, treated seriously.
If Nolan, Joy and executive producer JJ Abrams keep up this early quality, there’s scope for a continuing series here, a rare beast that can promise action, sex, philosophy, intrigue and be many things to many people. For its fifty-odd million, HBO has bought itself a two-for-one bargain in the form of a fine-looking period drama and a smart, high-end sci-fi.
A rarer achievement than that, if it stays this good, Westworld is set to join M*A*S*H, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Parenthood, Fargo and select others in the annals of film-to-TV adaptations that don't just earn their keep on the small screen, but excel.
Westworld premieres on HBO on Sunday, October 2nd at 9pm. |
2014 studio album by Freemasons
Shakedown 3 Studio album by Freemasons Released 4 August 2014 ( ) [1] Recorded 2009/2014 Genre House, dance Length 75 : 07 (CD1)
(CD1) 75 : 20 (CD2)
(CD2) 74 : 51 (CD3)
(CD3) 225 : 18 (total) Label Loaded Records / Freemaison Recordings Producer Russell Small, James Wiltshire Freemasons chronology Shakedown 2
(2009) Shakedown 3
(2014) Singles from Shakedown 3
Released: 4 March 2013
Released: 15 April 2013
Released: 5 August 2013
Released: 20 September 2013
Released: 25 October 2013
Released: 4 April 2014
Shakedown 3 is a compilation album by Freemasons. It was released on September 4, 2014.
Composition [ edit ]
As with Freemasons' previous full-length release, Shakedown 2 (2009), Shakedown 3 features singles released since then by the producing team ("Believer", featuring Wynter Gordon, "Bring It Back" or "Tears", featuring Katherine Ellis), as well as some remixes for major artists, like Whitney Houston ("Million Dollar Bill"), Hurts ("Wonderful Life"), or John Newman (Cheating).
Small and Wiltshire also decided to revive the Pegasus alias,[2] which they used for a song of the same name (released in 1998).[3] Multiple tracks from this project are thus showcased along the other tracks from the compilation.
Release [ edit ]
The physical release of Shakedown 3 consists of three CDs: the first two are mixes, and the third one contains unmixed tracks, similar to their 2007 album Unmixed.
A separate digital release, Shakedown 3 (The Acapella Album), was released on November 30. It includes accapella and "DJ tools" tracks of songs from the album.[4]
Track listing [ edit ]
All tracks written by Russell Small and James Wiltshire, except where noted.
CD3 – Unmixed No. Title Writer(s) Artist Length 1. "True Love Survivor" Small, Wiltshire, Talbot, Good Freemasons feat. HANA 4:40 2. "Nothing To Lose" Stannard, Howes, Martin Freemasons feat. Andrea Martin 4:25 3. "In The Blue" Small, Wiltshire, Stannard, Rohan Pegasus feat. Emma Rohan 4:06 4. "Believer 2014" Small, Wiltshire, Horn, Hector Freemasons feat. Wynter Gordon 3:56 5. "Bring It Back" Freemasons 3:33 6. "I Feel Paradise" Small, Wiltshire, Tzuke Pegasus feat. Judie Tzuke 4:34 7. "Walk The Mile" Freemasons feat. Randy Chapsaw 3:22 8. "Cold Light Of Day" Small, Wiltshire, Onono, Ellis Pegasus feat. Katherine Ellis 4:34 9. "The Bottle" Small, Wiltshire, Lowe Freemasons 4:08 10. "Let It B Me" Small, Wiltshire, Wilson, Jordan Freemasons feat. Amanda Wilson 3:57 11. "U Drive Me Crazy" Small, Wiltshire, Rowe, Edwards Freemasons feat. Joel Edwards 4:34 12. "Tears" Small, Wiltshire, Ellis Freemasons feat. Katherine Ellis 3:43 13. "The Fall" Small, Wiltshire, Tzuke Pegasus feat. Bailey Tzuke 5:06 14. "Intoxicated" Freemasons 3:17 15. "Sea Of Fire" Small, Wiltshire, Stannard, Rohan Freemasons feat. Emma Rohan 4:38 16. "Real Life" Freemasons 3:41 17. "Gorecki" Rhodes, Barlow Pegasus feat. Levana Wolf 5:01 18. "World Goes Quiet" Rob Humphries, Mike Hall, Adam Harris, Clark Coslett-Hughes Freemasons vs Rubylux 3:36 Total length: 74 : 51
Notes
"Discopolis" contains sections from "Tears" by Freemasons feat. Katherine Ellis.
Production / Remix and additional production on all tracks by Freemasons, except "Gorecki" : produced by Freemasons and Sarah De Courcy.
Covers [ edit ] |
I have written a paper with Orin Kerr on encryption workarounds. Our goal wasn't to make any policy recommendations. (That was a good thing, since we probably don't agree on any.) Our goal was to present a taxonomy of different workarounds, and discuss their technical and legal characteristics and complications.
Abstract: The widespread use of encryption has triggered a new step in many criminal investigations: the encryption workaround. We define an encryption workaround as any lawful government effort to reveal an unencrypted version of a target's data that has been concealed by encryption. This essay provides an overview of encryption workarounds. It begins with a taxonomy of the different ways investigators might try to bypass encryption schemes. We classify six kinds of workarounds: find the key, guess the key, compel the key, exploit a flaw in the encryption software, access plaintext while the device is in use, and locate another plaintext copy. For each approach, we consider the practical, technological, and legal hurdles raised by its use.
The remainder of the essay develops lessons about encryption workarounds and the broader public debate about encryption in criminal investigations. First, encryption workarounds are inherently probabilistic. None work every time, and none can be categorically ruled out every time. Second, the different resources required for different workarounds will have significant distributional effects on law enforcement. Some techniques are inexpensive and can be used often by many law enforcement agencies; some are sophisticated or expensive and likely to be used rarely and only by a few. Third, the scope of legal authority to compel third-party assistance will be a continuing challenge. And fourth, the law governing encryption workarounds remains uncertain and underdeveloped. Whether encryption will be a game-changer or a speed bump depends on both technological change and the resolution of important legal questions that currently remain unanswered. |
Restaurant chain will not allow open carrying on properties as CEO pens letter: many are ‘uncomfortable being around someone with a visible firearm’
A well-known Texas restaurant chain will not allow the open carrying of guns on its properties, and industry experts say other restaurants will likely take the same stand against a new state law that legalizes the practice in many public places.
Whataburger – with some 780 locations in 10 states – has drawn a mix of praise and rebuke since making the announcement this month, including a prediction of boycotts from one of the leading Texas advocates for gun rights.
In an open letter on the company’s website, Whataburger president and chief executive Preston Atkinson said many employees and customers were “uncomfortable being around someone with a visible firearm”.
Atkinson described himself as an avid hunter with a concealed-carry license and noted that patrons licensed to carry concealed handguns would still be able to do so in Whataburger.
Atkinson’s letter came one month after Texas governor Greg Abbott signed a bill that made it legal to carry handguns openly on the streets of the nation’s second-most-populous state, ending a prohibition dating back to the post-civil war era that disarmed former Confederate soldiers and freed slaves.
The law, which gives private property owners the right to prohibit open carry, was hailed as a victory for gun rights advocates who have staged high-profile rallies at the Alamo and Texas capitol. Some even brought military-style assault rifles into businesses as part of their demonstrations, prompting the Chipotle restaurant chain to discourage firearms on its premises.
Whataburger’s decision is expected to pave the way for other restaurants to enact policies that will further limit where gun owners can openly carry their firearms when the law takes effect in January.
Texas Restaurant Association chief executive Richie Jackson said he wasn’t surprised by Whataburger’s advance announcement, noting that “gun rights do not trump property rights” under the new law.
“It can’t be kept a secret,” he said. “Given the number of units that they have in Texas, they just wanted to make it very clear as to where they were going to be, and I would expect to see a number of restaurants follow.”
But Open Carry Texas founder CJ Grisham said Whataburger’s policy was “premature and irresponsible” and that the restaurant caved to “fearmongering”.
“I think most gun owners that know this policy are simply not going to go to Whataburger, like me,” he said.
The group Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America put out a statement applauding Whataburger’s actions. The organization has successfully petitioned other chains, including Sonic and Chili’s Grill & Bar, to adopt similar policies.
Stephanie Lundy, spokeswoman for the organization’s Texas chapter, said she has spoken to mothers who have teenage children working in the company’s restaurants late at night.
“They do not feel that part of their job description should involve assessing the intention of armed folks,” she said.
She described Atkinson’s announcement as “good old Texas common sense”.
“Texans are bold and brave,” she said. “And that is what you are seeing from this CEO who is a gun owner.”
Patrons have reacted in different ways. Outside a Whataburger in San Antonio, Charlie Hair said he would feel safer if the chain allowed customers to openly carry firearms.
“I prefer an armed society to an unarmed one,” he said as he left with his eight-year-old son.
But Mary Jones, who was with her 15-year-old grandson, said she was happy Whataburger had taken a stand against open carry.
“Why do you need to bring a gun into a store where there are kids?” she asked. “We are not in the wild, wild west.” |
With renewable energy the in thing nowadays, the state government is exploring the possibility of setting up a 1,000 MW solar power project. The government has initiated talks with International Finance Corporation (IFC), a World Bank arm, seeking its support for the project.
“The project is still in the conceptual stage. We have initiated talks with the IFC to seek its support for the project. We will go ahead with it depending on their response,” said DJ Pandian, principal secretary, energy & petrochemicals department.
At the current costs of Rs8 to 9 crore per MW, the 1,000 MW project could cost anywhere between Rs8,000 to 9,000 crore. The scale of the project can be gauged from the fact that total solar power generation capacity in the country presently stands at around 1,000 MW, including more than 600 MW in Gujarat alone.
The Centre is eyeing solar power generation capacity of 20,000 MW by 2022 under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission. While solar power is the cleanest form of energy, it is also the most expensive, costing four to five times the conventional power. This is solar energy’s biggest drawback, but the state government believes that the price can be brought down to the level of conventional energy.
“We have already managed to bring down cost of solar power from Rs15 per unit to less than Rs10 per unit. With better technologies, there is no reason why prices should not fall further. Our idea is to bring down solar power price at par with the grid, i.e. around Rs3 per unit,” Pandian said further.
The IFC, which is an arm of the World Bank, has said that it is keen to support such a project.
“We have funded quite a few projects in Gujarat, including solar power projects. We are keen to extend the partnership with Gujarat, and are in talks with the government to see how IFC can help in the 1,000 MW solar power project,” Anita George, regional industry director, Asia, infrastructure and natural resources, IFC, told DNA. The IFC official said that the funding agency could tie up with developers to provide funding to them.
“We could also be involved in development of infrastructure and other necessary framework for such a project,” she added. |
From now on, if you want to get in touch with me, I’m only going to be available via video chat. So if you don’t use FaceTime, or Skype, or whatever Google’s version of Skype is called, then just plan on never talking to me again. Because from here on out, it’s going to be my only method of communication. I just deleted my email address. I waited on hold for like forty-five minutes with my cell phone provider, insisting that they disable text messages for my number. Going forward, it’s just video calls.
Why? Because this is the future that we were all promised. When I grew up watching futuristic cartoons like the Jetsons, nobody ever sent text messages or boring emails. No, they got on their fancy screens and talked face-to-face. That’s how the future was supposed to be. And now we have the technology. And yet nobody answers my video calls. Come on, you don’t want to look at me? You don’t want to stare at my face while you’re talking to me? What have you got to hide? You’ll send me a bunch of emojis that don’t make any sense, but you’re afraid to look me in the virtual eye and have an actual conversation?
It’s the same with Star Trek, they’re always facing each other and talking. Even when they’re on different ships, Captain Picard has his crew hail the other ship, and Worf is like, “Captain, would you like me to send the call to your ready room?” and Captain Picard is like, “Fuck that. Throw him up on the big screen.” And Worf is like, “The big screen? The one that everyone on the bridge stares at all day? It’s huge.” And Picard is like, “Do as I say!” and then the call goes through and we all get to look at an extreme closeup of whoever it is they’re talking to. And it’s universal. They might get flung halfway across the galaxy, they’ll run into a completely alien civilization, and the first thing both sides do is start a video call. “On screen!” Because it’s the future. Because it’s something that we were promised, and it’s something that we got. And so now I want to use it. So start answering my video calls. Because I’m just going to keep calling, over and over again until you answer me. Cool? |
FRANCK FIFE/Getty Images
Bayern Munich have sacked manager Carlo Ancelotti after the German champions were beaten 3-0 by Paris Saint-Germain in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday.
Bayern confirmed the decision had been made after an "internal analysis" in a statement on their official website on Thursday and that Willy Sagnol will take over on an interim basis. According to ESPN FC, Bayern officials met with Ancelotti earlier in the day.
While Bayern were poor in Paris, in the Bundesliga they’ve also failed to show their best form this term, trailing leaders Borussia Dortmund by three points.
The pressure has been building on Ancelotti since the pre-season, when Bayern looked a long way short of their usual standards in losses to Inter Milan, AC Milan and Liverpool. However, there was hope the team would find their groove once the competitive football started.
Although Bayern beat Borussia Dortmund in the Super Cup, they’ve yet to convince in the league. A loss away at Hoffenheim meant Ancelotti attracted further criticism.
A 2-2 draw with Wolfsburg at the Allianz Arena—a game in which Bayern led 2-0—prompted more angst, while the chasm between the Bavarians and PSG in the Champions League was another cause for concern.
As noted by journalist Rafael Hernandez, early in the 2017-18 season Ancelotti has made some strange decisions:
The players didn’t seem completely behind the Italian either. When pointedly asked about whether he still backed the manager after the PSG match, Bayern winger Arjen Robben said "I will not answer that," per Matthew Scott of Goal.
Meanwhile, club chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said there was to be "consequences" after the defeat by PSG, per the Associated Press (h/t the MailOnline). Per journalist Raphael Honigstein, the good work done at the club by former manager Pep Guardiola appears to have been undone by the ex-AC Milan coach:
The position at Bayern is one of the most illustrious managerial jobs in world football and it’ll be fascinating to see which way the club turn in their recruitment.
As noted by Ed Malyon of the Independent, Hoffenheim’s 30-year-old manager Julian Nagelsmann has been tipped as a potential successor, although there may be issues getting him on board at the moment:
While Bayern have a clutch of world-class talents on their books, the next man taking over doesn’t have a straightforward job to do. After the summer departures of Philipp Lahm and Xabi Alonso, the side evidently lacks leadership, while star goalkeeper Manuel Neuer is out of action until 2018 after breaking his foot.
Ancelotti enjoyed success at Bayern in his first season, winning the Bundesliga title. However, he was expected to build on the foundations carefully built by Guardiola and overall it appears as though he was never the right man to do so. |
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More than 20 jobcentres across the country are to close or move through reforms to save money and deal with "under-used" office space.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) announced a further raft of closures on Thursday following a previous announcement last month.
On Thursday, it said that it would divest itself of 16 premises, nine of them job centres.
Under the plans, Port Glasgow will move into Greenock jobcentre, Alexandria will move into Dumbarton jobcentre while Edinburgh City will move to High Riggs and Wester Hailes.
There will be consultations on two jobcentres where the proposed distance to move is more than three miles.
They are Broxburn, which would Livingston jobcentre under the plans, and Grangemouth, which would move to Falkirk.
Jobcentres in Lanark and Wick will move into other buildings in the towns while Benbecula and Inverness are also affected.
Last month the DWP announced it is divesting itself of 13 jobcentres in Scotland, including eight closures in Glasgow.
The DWP said the way its services are delivered has changed in recent years, with eight out of ten claims for jobseeker's allowance and 99.6% of applicants for Universal Credit submitting their claims online.
Jobcentres and benefit centres are covered by old building contracts which are now coming up for renewal.
Under the plans, some smaller jobcentres will be merged with larger ones and others will be co-located with local government premises.
The department said that it will save about £180 million a year for the next ten years through the reforms.
The "vast majority" of staff will have the option to relocate or be offered alternative roles.
Employment Minister Damian Hinds said: "The way the world works has changed rapidly in the last 20 years and the welfare state needs to keep pace.
"As more people access their benefits through the internet, many of our buildings are under-used. We are concentrating our resources on what we know best helps people into work.
"The changes we've announced today will help ensure that the way we deliver our services reflect the reality of today's welfare system."
The DWP also plans to divest itself of two centres for health and disability assessments and seven back of house premises in Scotland.
It said the support provided to jobseekers will be further strengthened this year as staff numbers are boosted by a recruitment drive to hire 2,500 new work coaches.
The planned changes will be made in consultation with staff, taking into account the impact on benefit claimants and DWP staff.
The DWP said that since 2010, 2.7 million more people across the UK are in work, youth unemployment has fallen by 366,000 and the employment rate is at a record high.
Across the UK, the proposals include merging 78 smaller Jobcentre Plus offices in urban areas with larger ones nearby, co-locating around 50 offices with local authorities or other community services and closing 27 back office buildings.
More than 70 existing offices will be retained. |
This pixilated classic space logo by Jonathan Gale is one of the most impressive LEGO creations I have seen in a long time. If you look closely, you’ll see that his build is made up of thousands of LEGO lightsaber blades (5520 of them to be exact). There is an LED light behind the blades, giving the translucent pieces a glowing effect.
Jonathan said he was inspired to try this building technique after a LUG meeting where he realized that 25 LEGO lightsaber blades fit perfectly into a 2×2 stud square. This build took over 10 hours to complete and, according to the builder, came with a constant and serious risk of collapse. I can’t even imagine the amount of patience it took Jonathan to complete this beast. |
× Police: 14-year-old Wisconsin girl slits teen’s throat in hope of 1st kill
HUDSON— A 14-year-old northwestern Wisconsin girl who told police she was a psychopath looking for her first kill is accused of cycling to the home of her brother’s girlfriend, beating the girl and slitting her throat.
The Eau Claire Leader-Telegram reports that the teenager, of New Richmond, is charged as an adult with attempted first-degree intentional homicide. She is in juvenile custody.
A criminal complaint filed Thursday says police found the 15-year-old victim Wednesday morning on her bedroom floor bleeding heavily from the face and neck. The victim told police she was in bed when she was attacked and cut with shards from broken bowls.
Police say the 14-year-old girl told investigators she wanted to scare the victim to leave the area.
New Richmond is 45 miles east of Minneapolis. |
SCP-2088
Item #: SCP-2088
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures: The entrance to SCP-2088 is currently owned by the group of interest Marshall, Carter and Dark. Containment procedures are currently dedicated to maintaining consistent observations and assessing the feasibility of an interplanetary mission to the facility. Foundation personnel working for United Kingdom-based front companies have business arrangements with Marshall, Carter and Dark to regularly attend SCP-2088 events.
When not possible for a Foundation-backed observer to attend, listening devices are to be placed in the bags of the attendants.
Description: SCP-2088 is a facility located on Pallene, a moon orbiting Saturn. The purpose of this facility is to act as concert hall and general event venue. Its apparent customer base consists of intelligent species residing in the Milky Way galaxy. Patronage is heavily segregated, with separate seating areas for eleven separate races. Each divided area contains its own seats, concessions, view of the stage, and atmosphere.
The entry point for SCP-2088 on Earth is always an MC&D clubhouse. All persons who purchase tickets within the location are instantaneously teleported to SCP-2088 thirty minutes before the start of the event, and returned ten minutes after the event's conclusion. Access is generally limited to 45 individuals at one time, although this is not a fixed number. Events usually occur at least once per month, although there are usually 3 to 5 in a month.
Performances at SCP-2088 have been recorded in length between 25 seconds and 3 weeks.
Although MC&D only owns one section of seats, they appear to have also purchased the naming rights to the arena, as their iconography and logo appear prominently throughout the facility. This branding was how the area was discovered, after a Foundation satellite monitoring SCP-1683 detected an anomalous feature on Pallene's surface.
Inquiry to MC&D through Foundation front companies revealed details of SCP-2088's existence, and current containment procedures were enacted on 10/18/2002.
Addendum 2088-A: Selected SCP-2088 Observations:
Event Description: Starwatch. Top of the building was rendered transparent, with spotlights pointing out different clusters of stars and describing how they will be destroyed at some point in the future. This concluded with a lengthy description of the eventual heat death of the universe. Act(s): Brief astronomy lecture, followed by stargazing. Length: 4 hours. Notes: Free t-shirt giveaway. Only shirts specific to humans could be recovered. Contained no unusual traits, and had the Marshall, Carter and Dark logo printed on the front.
Event Description: Music. Several groups of entities performed music. Several acts did not appear to produce any sound at all, and did not appear on stage at all, but were advertised as distant masses performing with gravity waves instead of sound waves. Act(s): The only music acts with Earth-compatible translations on the schedule were named Jazz Ragged, Repetitious Mammal, and They're Certainly Dwarves. Length: 11 hours, 45 minutes. Notes: English translator of the first band's singer repeatedly said it expressed gratitude for the denizens of the milky way galaxy for coming to the show. Other acts have included references to 'greater-planetary area', 'greater Sol region' and 'collected citizens of the corporations'.
Event Description: Comedy. One performer, who appeared to be composed entirely out of matted, wet, hair, gave a standup comedy performance describing various aspects of its job as a technician. As the show went on, the entity began shedding hair and began to make mistakes in delivering its jokes. The show ended earlier than schedule when the entity shed its entire form and expired. Act(s): Standup comedy from 'DAMP'. Length: 1 hour, 13 minutes. Notes: Several members of the group were turned away due to having empty body cavities larger than were allowed by the building policy. This is apparently a permanent change as several persons attending other events have been returned for the same reason.
Event Description: Circus. Consisted of a reproduction of the Barnum and Bailey Circus act performed in the United States in the early 20th century. Contained no anomalous phenomenon, although all performers in the show wore MC&D logos on their costumes. In addition, all animals appeared to have the letters 'MC&D' branded into their backs. Act(s): An animal show, acrobatics, and a clown-produced play. Length: 5 hours, 30 minutes. Notes: All concessions being sold at the event consisted of typical carnival fare, such as turkey legs and caramel apples.
Event Description: Fight. A large, translucent creature appearing to be comprised of several hundred gelatinous cubes was placed in a cage containing a brown, trapezoid-shaped entity covered with pulsating spikes. The second entity also had a gold band wrapped around it. These two beings vibrated and bumped into each other, with the creature losing mass as cubes fell off of its body, and this eventually caused it to stop moving. Act(s): One cage match between 'Cubert' and defending champion 'The Incredible Thing'. When pressed about the naming, the group's translator claimed they had been instructed to make up names when no coherent one could be translated. Length: 14 hours, 20 minutes. Notes: N/A
Event Description: Vehicle Rally. 45 different vehicles, including two hovercraft, gas-powered vehicles, nuclear-powered vehicles, and helium-based vehicles were steered autonomously around a large, reflective track until most of them had been destroyed. Following this, the disparate parts of the vehicles were rebuilt into two large robotic entities resembling canines, which were then made to fight. Act(s): Crash rally followed by re-scrapping and re-cycling for battle purposes. Length: 8 hours, 45 minutes. Notes: Between the acts, there was a brief segment honoring one audience members's participation in the 'Battle for freedoms against those who sit' and encouraging audience members to enlist in their respective race's armed forces.
Addendum 2088-B: On 12/23/2016, a memorandum was sent from persons representing the Marshall, Carter and Dark organization to a branch of S&C Plastics in London. The text of the memorandum has been included in this document.
MEMORANDUM TO: S&C Plastics Atlantic headquarters.
FROM: MARSHALL, CARTER and DARK Ltd. RE: Let's start over on this one. Greetings to the misters and misses of the Overwatch Council, We at MC&D can't help but to have noticed that your organization seems very keen on regularly attending sessions provided by our event services. We're concerned by your need to be secretive about this. You're not exactly doing the best job at being inconspicuous, you know, and we do appreciate your business. Send a representative of your organization to the pre-agreed location, and we're confident that a mutually beneficial deal can be worked out. Regards, Greg Chamberlain, European Director of MC&D Event Services
A Foundation response is pending. |
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Japan’s nuclear crisis is intensifying. A second reactor unit at the damaged Fukushima plant may have ruptured and appears to be releasing radioactive steam. According to the New York Times, it is not clear how serious the breach may be, but the vessel that possibly ruptured is the last fully intact line of defense against large-scale releases of radioactive material.
The plant has been hit by several explosions after a devastating earthquake and tsunami last Friday damaged its cooling functions. It has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo more than 130 miles away.
The radiation levels around the plant are so high that Japanese authorities abandoned a plan on Wednesday to dump water from military helicopters in an attempt to cool the reactors. The plan was made after the company operating the reactors withdrew at least 750 workers, leaving a crew of 50 struggling to lower temperatures. And even those workers were briefly moved to a bunker because of a rise in radiation levels.
Meanwhile, Japanese Emperor Akihito made an extremely rare appearance on live TV to say he is deeply worried about the situation and is praying for the people.
The nuclear crisis has sparked international alarm. France is urging its citizens in Tokyo to move further south or to leave the country. Australia is also advising its citizens to consider leaving the capital, and Turkey has warned against travel to Japan.
We go now to Japan, where we are joined by Philip White of the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo. We’re also joined in Washington, D.C., by Peter Bradford, a former commissioner at the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s go first to Philip White in Tokyo. Can you tell us what’s the latest, from what you can tell?
PHILIP WHITE: You seem to have covered it fairly well, but certainly, at least three plants have had a significant amount of melting fuel. And certainly one has breached — the containment has been breached. And the question is whether that has also happened in reactor three. And the fourth reactor, which was actually — had actually gone into a — what do you call it? — a periodic inspection at the time the earthquake struck, so it was supposed to be stable, that — because of loss of off-site power, loss of power supply, and inability to cool the spent fuel pool, that spent fuel pool has now gone up into flames and smoke has come out and breached the roof, and a large amount of radioactivity has spewed into the sky. So, that’s a general summary of — as far as the reactors are concerned.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And this issue of the breach in one of the reactors — and there were conflicting reports last night here in terms of whether all the workers had been pulled out. They had been pulled back to a bunker. The importance of keeping workers there at the site to keep those — all of the reactors there, the six reactors, under control?
PHILIP WHITE: Well, that’s right. I mean, if they’re not being cooled — and you need water to cool them, and there’s not power — normal power supply to provide that water, then somehow or other you’ve got to have some people in there ensuring that the water supply is provided in some way or another, and were supplying it from the sea. I guess they were pumping it up in some way. And that required human beings to be involved. And if those people are pulled out, then I guess it just goes into natural — whatever escalation or whatever there is. And it’s hard to imagine how it will stop, because there are spent fuel pools in all six of the reactors.
And certainly, the first three reactors, which were operating when the earthquake struck, have very hot fuel loads inside of them. So it’s a massive amount of radioactivity. If you just consider the quantity of radioactivity that’s in all those reactors, it far exceeds what was in Chernobyl, because that was just a single reactor. The question is, how far does it get spewed out into the environment? But even if it doesn’t get spewed out, it’s sort of still sitting there, dribbling away or whatever, and it’s leaving a totally contaminated site.
JUAN GONZALEZ: We’re joined also by Peter Bradford, who was a commissioner on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Welcome to Democracy Now!
PETER BRADFORD: Thank you.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Mr. Bradford, can you tell us, in terms of being able to, in real time, as folks who are dealing with this crisis, have an accurate handle of what is actually happening in those reactors — in your own experience during the time of Three Mile Island, can you talk about the difficulty officials have in knowing exactly what is going on?
PETER BRADFORD: It’s extremely difficult. And, in fact, it’s impossible to know exactly what’s going on. The barriers to accurate information flow are very large, to start with, especially given the chaos resulting from the tsunami and the earthquake. On top of that, a lot of the monitoring equipment, the transmitting equipment, has probably been damaged. The people who are at the site, trying to deal with things that they’ve never seen and never been trained to deal with, have very little time to spend communicating and discussing with the outside world. And so, whenever one hears assertions made with a high degree of confidence, it’s important to remember that the unknowable just can’t be stated with certainty. The figures regarding radiation emissions are subject to all the inaccuracies of monitoring, plus the predilection of the government not to want to create panic. The situation in the reactor itself is infinitely complicated by the fact that this is not a situation that has been trained for and analyzed. So, there are no manuals that people not on the site can consult in order to figure out what’s going on and what will happen next.
JUAN GONZALEZ: We’re also joined by Peter Ford of the Christian Science Monitor, Beijing bureau chief, who’s been reporting on the ground from Sendai, the city closest to the epicenter of last Friday’s earthquake. Peter, what is your sense of — and especially in the northern part of the country, which is still in the midst of trying to deal with the devastating earthquake and tsunami, what is — what are people feeling as they’re hearing these reports of what is going on in the nuclear reactors?
PETER FORD: Well, it’s just one more thing to worry about. But it’s not, at the moment, the most immediate concern for the people who are in shelters or trying to find shelters or looking for food or gas or water, all of which are in very, very short supply up here. The situation complicated and made even more miserable by the fact that today it started snowing, and temperatures are close to zero. But, of course, in the back of everybody’s minds, and on the front of — and on their television screens are all the images of what’s happening in the reactor and all the uncertainties that Mr. Bradford talked about. And as you said, this is really unknowable. Nobody really knows what to think up here.
At least for the time being, the wind is blowing southeast, away from here, so there is no immediate danger of any radiation that might leak contaminating people up here. But, of course, winds can change, and the radiation levels, which, as the government says at the moment, are not an immediate hazard to human health outside the 20-kilometer exclusion zone, those radiation levels could rise if things go wrong. And it certainly seems, from what we’ve seen today — the failed effort, for example, to send a helicopter in to drop water onto one of the reactors to cool it, because the radiation levels directly above the reactor are too high — it certainly seems that, from what we’ve seen today, the situation is far from being under control.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And in terms of the government being able to continue the rescue of those directly affected, whose homes were destroyed, and, as you say, supplying these basic necessities — we’ve heard of 100,000 of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces being mobilized — how efficient has that effort been, from what you can tell?
PETER FORD: Well, it’s certainly not been efficient enough, almost by the government’s own admission. They asked today that private businesses start helping to distribute food, as well, to people. But most people are in shelters. There are, I think, still a hundred, perhaps more than that, people who are still cut off in the most remote villages in the areas that were affected by the tsunami, but there are 400,000 — more than 400,000 — people in shelters now, between those who were evacuated from villages that have been destroyed, towns that have been destroyed, and those who have been moved out of the exclusion zone around the Fukushima power plant. Now, that’s an awful lot of people to look after. Not all of them are being fed and watered and sheltered and kept as warm as they might like, but most of them are at least tolerably comfortable. But this is an enormous task. And the government is going to need help from private forces, as well, to try and meet it.
JUAN GONZALEZ: I’d like to ask Philip White — you’re familiar with the record of Tokyo Electric, the main operator of these plants, and there have been reports in recent days of an increasing rift or conflict between the government and the officials of Tokyo Electric. At one point, the Prime Minister was overheard saying, “What the hell is going on? Why haven’t you given us certain information?” Your sense of the history of Tokyo Electric in handling problems at its plants?
PHILIP WHITE: [inaudible] is basically wired to conceal things. It doesn’t want to give information. We, as an organization that deals with TEPCO directly in negotiations, particularly since the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa — the earthquake that hit that plant three years ago, and you have to extract information as you extract hen’s teeth. They had a massive scandal about 10 years — nearly 10 years ago, in which they concealed cracking within a certain piece of equipment, some equipment in their reactors, and that led to them having been forced to shut down all 17 of their reactors. Since then, they have been under tremendous pressure to improve their performance. And to some extent, they have. But it’s really a fight all the way to get them to change their natural nature, as it were.
In this case, as I — I mean, I’ve been doing lots of interviews and things, so I actually missed many of the press conferences that go on, but the ones that I’ve heard, I mean, what I would notice, firstly, they give very technical reports that no layperson could possibly understand. Then you get an interpreter from the television station telling you what that all meant. And that information, itself, has probably been accurate, but — I assume; we might find that otherwise later — but it has the problem that they haven’t given real-time data on things. And our scientists and engineers have been calling for real-time, much more detailed information, not only on things like the radiation levels, but also on the temperatures of the reactor and the pressure levels and all that sort of technical detail, to help them analyze the situation.
And as for the — both TEPCO and the government, I suppose, are involved in this — but presentation of the risks associated with this radiation, there’s been downplaying of the risks. Now, Mr. Bradford talked about avoiding panic, and that’s a real issue, and I don’t think you should present information in a way that’s going to cause panic, because that will make it much harder to handle the situation. But I think that they have not been frank about the risks with the radiation.
In particular, they have repeatedly said that below — this is a technical figure, but below a dose of 100 millisievert, there is no risk. Sometimes they qualify it by saying there’s no immediate risk, which is perhaps technically accurate. But they have completely refused to point out that these lower levels of radiation are scientifically recognized — there’s maybe some debate — but basically, the consensus is that there’s — your risk is proportional to your dose. And that goes right down, you know, right down to the lowest doses. So, this notion that you’re somehow or other safe below 100 millisieverts is — it’s not recognized in the scientific community. The difference is that there’s no — you’re not going to get acute radiation sickness; you’re looking more at long-term effects, such as cancer. But they have just refused to give that perspective, which — you know, that’s getting to the point of being outright deceptive, I think.
And today, for the first time, I heard a spokesman of the — and the TV station is involved in this, too. The NHK, the national broadcaster, I heard the person who had been putting forward that view and supporting the view of the government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the first time, I heard him actually say that there was this risk from lower doses. But you could see that that was in response to our — organizations like mine — saying, “This is inaccurate. You can’t go out and say this.” Yeah, [inaudible].
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Peter Bradford, former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, you said that it’s clearly — there’s not enough accurate information to be able to give a sense of what — how this will develop. But can you talk about a worst-case scenario and a best-case scenario, given what we know now, as to how this might end up?
PETER BRADFORD: I have no idea what the worst-case scenario is. It would involve a breach of one or more of the containments in such a way that the radiation was released in a way that propelled it up and out into the atmosphere. But at that point, the direction of the wind still makes a big difference in terms of the consequences.
The best-case scenario at this point is not a good one, not a good one for the public, not a good one for the nuclear industry. There is not going to be a happy ending to this story.
But let me also say, on this question of TEPCO’s corporate character, you know, we had that problem with the licensee at Three Mile Island also, in terms of whether the information was accurate, whether there had been falsification of some relevant records beforehand. And it will be important, in the context of subsequent investigations. Right now, my sense is that if TEPCO’s people were replaced by a band of angels, they still could not give very accurate information with regard to what’s going on within the damaged reactors, because much of the area is inaccessible, a lot of the equipment is disabled, and there are no manuals that describe this situation. So, the problem of inaccurate information has moved past the point at which TEPCO’s corporate character is the driving factor.
As to off-site measurements, both as to emissions levels and as to health effects, it’s certainly true that the conservative assumption that most regulators, public health officials go by is that the risk is proportional to the dose. Much of the measurement is probably not being done by TEPCO at this point. Certainly at Three Mile Island, the off-site measurements done by helicopters in the air were being done by various government agencies, state and federal. And the disagreements over the amounts released, the dosages received, are going on to this day. So, when you hear a particular number stated with great confidence, you have to put very large uncertainty bands on it in the context of what’s happening in Japan now.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And Peter Bradford, in terms of the — some of the statements from the nuclear industry that this could not happen here in the United States, obviously as the Obama administration and others in Congress are seeking to ramp up the development of nuclear plants here in the United States, your response?
PETER BRADFORD: Well, the statement, “This could not happen here,” has a troubled history in the nuclear industry. The Soviet Union came to Three Mile Island and said that accident can’t happen in the Soviet Union. And of course they got Chernobyl. The Japanese, among others, went to Chernobyl and said, “Oh, we don’t have that kind of reactor in Japan,” so now they have this. I mean, of course it’s true that particular nuclear accidents are somewhere between unlikely and simply will not repeat themselves from one decade to the next, but the underlying problem of regulators and plant builders, plant operators, deeming certain events to be impossible and therefore not something that has to be designed against and guarded against, it does seem to have a way of recurring at long intervals and rarely, thank heavens. But if you see the sentence “This cannot happen here” in that context, you ought not to believe it.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, I want to thank all of our guests: Peter Bradford, formerly of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission; Peter Ford, a reporter from the Christian Science Monitor, who is in Sendai; and Philip White of the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo. |
In the book, I had footnoted this claim to a 2011 Jane Mayer article in The New Yorker, in which she wrote that “three quarters of the spending by independent groups in North Carolina’s 2010 state races came from accounts linked to Pope. The total amount that Pope, his family, and groups backed by him spent on the twenty two races was $2.2 million.”
The distinction between funding from Pope himself and groups affiliated with him was important in the new world of campaign finance. Mayer’s article was one of the earliest exposés on the world of “dark money,” where wealthy individuals fund activities both directly and through nonprofit organizations that seek to influence the public. Worried that he would sue to stop the book over this distinction, Brookings agreed to put a paper insert in the book changing the wording “came from Pope” to “were associated with Pope.” That slight change allowed us to go forward with the publication, but the episode was a sobering reminder that rich people are vigilant about their press clippings and not afraid to pursue authors.
The day after publication, a different problem arose when The Wall Street Journal printed a review by billionaire venture capitalist Tom Perkins. It struck me as odd that the paper would choose a billionaire to review a book critical of billionaires, but Perkins had an even more glaring conflict of interest: My book specifically condemns an outrageous letter to the editor he wrote in the Journal in January, comparing criticism of the top 1 percent to Nazi attacks on Jews during Kristallnacht. (One commenter on the Journal’s site said having Perkins review my book was like having the wolf assess Little Red Riding Hood.)
Perkins’s review was filled with inaccuracies. In comparing my book to Piketty’s, he gave the wrong title for the latter, calling it Capital in the Twentieth Century. He also erroneously attributed support for a wealth tax to me, even though I don’t find the idea practical, nor do I see it as likely to be adopted any time soon. Most dismaying was his accusation that I used a “red-tinted magnifying glass” in my analysis. Having studied the Joseph McCarthy era, I knew what the choice of color meant.
But not all the reactions were hostile—balancing them was a poignant response from Jennifer Pritzker, whom I had highlighted as the first known transgender billionaire and whose leadership on transgender issues I applauded. She wrote that she understood why I had highlighted that aspect of her background and said she planned to buy copies of the book for her friends and family members. Yet something bothered her. I had described her as a lieutenant in the U.S. military, but she had been promoted to lieutenant colonel, a position of greater responsibility. She noted that she believed she was the only American billionaire who had spent most of her professional career in the military. I told her I did not want to short-change her life accomplishments, especially given the personal adversity she had encountered, and would recommend that the next printing of the book include the elevated title. With all the condemnation of their political activities, individual billionaires deserve credit for the public service they do.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com. |
Description
Hello and Welcome to Moonbase 332
Moonbase 332 is an Arcade First Person Shooter by PatchNoteStudio. You play an old American exterminator. After a War between Germany and Austria in Year 2007, a base on the Moon was found. Austria has tested there some genetically modified Plagues to use it as a weapon. Your job is now there to clean up. Fight your way through the Moonbase 332.
5 Chapters, Each with 5 levels (includes boss battle, bonus level, etc.) (25 Levels)
An absurd story (+Cutscenes)
Some secrets (hidden weapons, items, rooms, etc.)
The difficulty level varies with the player behavior.
Liquid gameplay with up to 60 FPS
The game speed increases with each level
Health regeneration does not exist
Ranking System and Online-Highscore list*
Lifetime free updates*
*These features require an internet connection and/or a free Moonbase 332 account.
Visit our Website for more. http://mb332.patchnotestudio.com/ orhttp://patchnotestudio.com/ |
About
We need your help to make a full length professionally-produced music video!
The Breaktone is a rock band from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Our self-funded debut, Lines Divide, received the honor of Best Pop CD at the 2010 New Mexico Music Awards. The band’s sound is unusually broad, and draws from jazz, ambient, post-rock, math-rock and folk influences.
The video above was filmed in our rehearsal space and is our idea of a "live music video." People, lights, microphones, sets, and the camera were choreographed to capture the performance in one continuous take. The music we played is a part of our song "Party On, Donner-Reed," a fast-burning tale of the appetites of a few greedy people. It's one of the best things we've written, and to do it justice, we want to make a fully-funded, professionally-produced music video.
In addition to the music video, “Party On, Donner-Reed” will be pressed on limited-edition 7” vinyl and released as the band’s first single.
Thank you so much for all your support.
The Breaktone is Julian Corbin, Robert Hoffman, Ryan Jarvis, Geoff St. John, and Peter Ver Brugge. |
More than fourteen years ago, I was configuring Linux-based server systems for customers. I was quickly losing track of the then-current versions of the applications I needed to install in order to make those servers perform their intended tasks. Those were the early days of the Web, database-driven websites were almost unheard of, and I didn’t have the slightest idea about programming.
One night during the fall of 1997, I started cobbling together a static HTML page containing the latest version numbers and links to the websites of the Linux kernel, the Apache webserver, and Vi, respectively. The page was using a table-based layout, used <font> tags all over the place, and was in desperate need of a name.
Tossing around a few combinations of words in my sleep-deprived head I came up with a working title for my little version-tracking page � and freshmeat was born. Little did I know that this brand would survive the dot-com bubble, see services like Google, Wikipedia, and Twitter grow to a massive scale, and be accessed from mobile phones and tablet computers over fast broadband connections.
Times change.
freshmeat has operated under the radar of its parent company Geeknet for more than a decade, while numerous sales teams have struggled to position the freshmeat brand appropriately among potential sponsors in the United States. Outside of our very own small niche of the Web, people have all sorts of associations with the name freshmeat, most of which have nothing to do with a free, open source software directory.
Due to the nature of our offering, which makes content and services available to developers and end-users for free, we rely on ad revenue to keep the lights on.
Since all of us at Geeknet agree that this site and the community powering it have tremendous potential, even after more than 14 years of existence, we decided to change the name of the site, effective immediately, to Freecode.
With this new name we expect a huge leap forward in the ability to position the site commercially, without additional efforts required to explain the name. This should result in better ad products displayed on the site, which means a better site experience for you, our users, and more resources for our community. Freecode will also be more attractive and less ambiguous to new users.
I am the first to admit that it took me a moment to realize that this change was needed. I hope I can count on you for your continued support of our efforts, now under the new name Freecode.
As always, please send your feedback our way on Twitter or on our help forum.
Sincerely,
Patrick Lenz
Site director Freecode
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Wholphin, sometimes written wolphin, is the name given to a hybrid marine mammal born by crossing a dolphin and a false killer whale, the latter of which is actually a species of dolphin, despite its name. The only verifiable examples of this are the wholphins born at Sea Life Park in Oahu, Hawaii. One is an individual named Kekaimalu, born in 1985, that is a cross between a bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, and a false killer whale, Pseudorca crassidens. Kekaimalu, a female, was born at the sea park where her mother, Punahele, a dolphin, and Tanui Hahai, a false killer whale, shared the same pool. Kekeimalu has an appearance that is intermediate between her two parents. She is darker in color than her dolphin mother, and she has 66 teeth, as opposed to the 88 of a bottlenose dolphin and 44 of a false killer whale. In the animal world, hybrids are often sterile, but Kekaimalu has had 3 calves since her birth. One died after a few days, one lived to the age of 9, and the most recent, a female named Kawili'Kai, born Dec. 23, 2004, is five years old. Kawaili'Kai is more dolphin than her mother, as she was sired by a bottlenose dolphin. While she may still be considered a wholphin, she is 3/4 bottlenose dolphin and one quarter false killer whale. She is more dolphin-like than her mother, but larger than a typical bottlenose dolphin. Wholphins have been reported to exist in the wild, but their existence is difficult to verify in the absence of DNA evidence. Some species have been known to interbreed in the wild, such as wolves and coyotes, mule deer and white-tailed deer, and barred owls and spotted owls. As a curiosity, wolphins take their place with the other unusual man-assisted crosses, such as ligers (lion & tiger hybrids) and zorses (zebra & horse hybrids). >>> Click Here To See More Wholphin Pictures |
You may not have a PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or Nintendo Switch in your house, but if you have the current-gen Apple TV hooked up to your screen, then you really do have a game console ready and waiting to entertain. Just as the Apple TV runs an array of apps, it also offers a pretty sizable selection of games—some of which are even free.
Some of these might be games that you already enjoy on your iPhone or iPad, but they’re either just as good or even better blown up on your TV. Most will also be free downloads on Apple TV if you own the iOS version. In any case, whether you’re already familiar with them or not, these are our picks for the 20 best Apple TV games you can play today. Grab your Siri Remote and get your game on.
(Note: Nearly all of these games are playable with the Siri Remote, but some may require a special peripheral or a dedicated gamepad (as noted), or are improved by a gamepad. If you’re looking for an Apple TV-compatible gamepad, then we have recommendations there, too.) |
A switch machine was so badly damaged in Monday's derailment in Penn Station that eight of the 21 train tracks at the station will be out of commission for a couple more days at least — unwelcome news for commuters who have crammed crowded trains and platforms during ongoing rail delays and cancellations. Michael George reports.
What to Know Amtrak says there's no estimate as to when the tracks affected by the NJ Transit derailment Monday will be operating again
Sources told News 4 that Amtrak hopes to have service back to normal by Friday; crews have been working around the clock to repair damages
With eight of the 21 tracks at Penn Station out of commission, NJ Transit, Amtrak and LIRR riders have been dealing with rough commutes
A switch machine was so badly damaged in Monday's derailment in Penn Station that eight of the 21 train tracks at the station will be out of commission for a couple more days at least — unwelcome news for commuters who have crammed crowded trains and platforms during ongoing rail delays and cancellations.
The New Jersey Transit train derailment has left eight of 21 tracks inoperable at the station, according to Amtrak COO Scot Naparstek. Naparstek wouldn't estimate Tuesday when service might return to normal, but transit sources told News 4 New York the agency is aiming to have service back by Friday morning.
In a press release, Amtrak said modified service would stay in place through Thursday. Delayed and canceled trains have already wreaked havoc for hundreds of thousands of travelers and commuters in the tri-state and beyond since the derailment Monday morning.
NJ Transit Riders Struggle With Service Delays
Crowds of frustrated commuters are expected to gather at NJ Transit stations as switch issues continue to plague nearly half of Penn Station tracks. Ida Siegal reports. (Published Friday, April 7, 2017)
Earlier on Tuesday, NJ Transit Executive Director Steve Santoro said it's unclear when full service on the commuter rail will resume. Crews are working around the clock to repair the damage from the derailment, officials say. Here's your guide to navigating Tuesday's commute.
"Clearly we have sympathy for the riders that are enduring this," said Santoro, who told News 4 he rides the North Jersey Coast Line and understands the frustration. "This is not something we are enjoying in any way, shape or form."
commuter alert Get Real-Time Updates From Your Key Transit Sources Here
Naparstek said, "We apologize for any inconvenience we have caused anyone. It sincerely is not our desire."
The MTA's Long Island Rail Road, which also runs on the Amtrak-owned tracks at Penn Station, has also been suffering from the derailment. The railroad had already canceled 10 trains going into Manhattan Wednesday morning and said it was terminating others in Queens. Spokeswoman Beth DeFalco says the agency is trying to prepare customers for "days of delays."
Asked what the best case scenario would look like, DeFalco said, "You'd have to ask Amtrak because they're doing the timing, but they've told us days."
Commuter Chaos After Derailment, Flooding
Not all eight tracks are damaged but the tunnels can only be accessed by certain tracks, and there are power collection differences between LIRR, Amtrak and NJ Transit that limit the tracks that each train can use, according to an Amtrak spokesman.
Investigators are still looking into why the NJ Transit train derailed just outside the station Monday morning. It was the second derailment at the busy Manhattan hub in 11 days: the first involved an Amtrak Acela. Naparstek says he believes the two derailments aren't related.
Neither Amtrak nor NJ Transit have offered any explanation for Monday's derailment. Three cars in the middle of an inbound NJ Transit train dislodged from a track as it approached a platform at Penn Station.
Penn Station Derailment Causes Chaos For Commuters
A NJ Transit train derailed in Penn Station, causing a big mess for commuters at Penn Station. The accident injured five people and now an investigation is underway into what went wrong. Erica Byfield reports. (Published Friday, April 7, 2017)
No serious injuries were reported in either derailment, but the track shutdowns caused havoc on NJ Transit and the Long Island Rail Road, and all up and down Amtrak's Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C., and Boston.
Combined with flooding problems Tuesday, the morning commute turned into an abject nightmare.
The Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast lines on NJ Transit were still operating on a holiday schedule, mucking up the commute for the estimated 100,000 people who ride into New York each weekday. More details here.
Throngs of commuters desperate for alternatives faced challenges finding them, with the PATH experiencing a brief suspension on the Hoboken-33rd Street line, delays on other lines and the crush of people causing crowding-related problems throughout the New York City subway system.
Confused crowds trying to figure out service changes packed the Hoboken PATH station, according to one commuter named Carlos. There were no announcements or updates, he said. NJ Transit trains were bypassing Secaucus and dumping passengers into the Hoboken terminal as crowding worsened. Bus and ferry lines surged as people sought alternative means of getting into Manhattan.
"I don't know how everybody does it every day," passenger Dina Lundy said. "I could never. It would not be an option to have a job in New York."
PATH says the Hoboken-to-33rd Street line was running with delays Tuesday evening, and the 33rd Street-to-Hoboken line was running via the World Trade Center line, with delays.
Long Island Rail Road riders dealt with their own nightmare of a morning commute Tuesday, and not just because of delays from the derailment. There was an additional broken rail near Queens Village, a disabled NJ Transit train in one of the East River tunnels and signal trouble near Central Islip. Also, there was a passenger in need of medical assistance at Mineola.
LIRR said Tuesday afternoon it was back on schedule, but there were still evening rush-hour cancellations and delays because of the shortage of tracks: 18 trains would be canceled and eight would be diverted, LIRR said. Here's your guide to navigating Tuesday's commute.
Commuters, Mets Fans Face Travel Nightmare After NJ Transit Derailment Wreaks Havoc at Penn Station
Mass transit riders, including thousands of Mets fans who flocked to Citi Field for opening day, are dealing with a nightmarish evening commute after the second derailment at New York's Penn Station in 11 days. Ida Siegal reports. (Published Tuesday, April 4, 2017)
"It's fair to say that the conditions at Penn affects everybody," said MTA acting chair Fernando Ferrer, addressing LIRR riders. "Even though Amtrak owns it, we all dwell in that same place and travel into the same tracks. When something bad happens like this, it affects everybody."
The two derailments at Penn Station renewed calls for accelerating progress on an ambitious, $20 billion-plus project, known as Gateway, to add a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River and expand Penn Station. The current tunnel is more than 100 years old and operates at capacity during peak commuting hours.
The cost of the tunnel, estimated at roughly $10 billion, is to be split between New York, New Jersey and the federal government, but supporters fear President Donald Trump's budget released last month could jeopardize the federal slice of the project by proposing to pay only for projects that have advanced to the final contract stage.
John Porcari, a former deputy U.S. secretary of transportation who is the interim head of the development corporation overseeing Gateway, said Tuesday that a new tunnel wouldn't have stopped the two recent derailments from happening. It would, he said, lessen the aftershock to commuters because the eight tracks currently out of service would have been able to connect to the new tunnel.
"It would have been a minor blip instead of a major nightmare for commuters," he said.
Copyright Associated Press / NBC New York |
Don't drink the water whatever they say!: Senator warns that tap water supplying 300,000 West Virginia residents is still not safe despite inspectors' reassurances one month after huge chemical spill
Democratic West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller refuses to drink the water and urges his constituents to also avoid it
The tell-tale licorice smell indicative of contamination is still present
Health officials have declared the water potable for all but pregnant women
Rockefeller says state politicians are in bed with industry and blames the cozy relationships for allowing the spill to occur
A prominent West Virginia politician is urging citizens to not drink the water despite officials saying it is ‘appropriate’ for use.
Senator Jay Rockefeller (D) told a Charleston television station that state officials are in bed with the energy industry and that people should further question both the potability of their water and how those relationships affect authorities’ judgement.
‘Even if some expert group told me it was safe, I don’t think I’d believe it,’ Rockefeller told WCHS during a blistering interview railing against both the state and heavy industry.
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Don't drink the water!: West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller is warning residents to not drink the water despite assurances from local officials that chemical levels are low enough for consumption
His comments come after both the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and the Centers for Disease Control announced that levels of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (MCHM) are at ‘acceptable’ levels in areas affected by last month’s chemical spill into the Elk River.
‘They can say it’s not hazardous or this or that, but it doesn't mean anything,’ Rockefeller asserted.
The January 9 spill from Freedom Industries holding tanks on the banks of the state capital region’s main source of water plunged hundreds of thousands of people into a panic.
Virtually overnight, 300,000 people had no drinking water and could not bathe or cook, restaurants and businesses shut down – life ground to a halt.
‘If people can’t drink the water, they can’t live,’ Rockefeller continued. ‘Everything else in the economic, social and personal life of West Virginia just disappears if you can’t drink water.’
The source: Freedom Industries has declared bankruptcy since the spill
From here: MHCP spilled from at least one of these storage tanks
Original estimates put the amount of the supposedly harmless coal processing chemical spilled at 5,000 gallons – that was later revised upward to 10,000 gallons.
Soon after, it was disclosed that an unspecified smaller amount of propylene glycol phenyl ether (PPH) had also leaked from the tank, which had not been inspected since 1991, according to Rockefeller.
He called the lack of oversight ‘absolutely astounding.’
‘It may not be a criminal act, but it ought to be,’ he continued. ‘In this case, on the part of the state or federal government, and certainly on the part of the company.’
The former governor also said it speaks to ‘the degree of control that corporations have over people.
‘They dominate in West Virginia’s life. Governors get elected - and I was a governor once - and they appoint people to regulatory jobs who helped them in campaigns. What does that tell you?’
When asked what he thought of authorities saying the amount of MCHM in the water was ‘a cceptable’ the veteran lawmaker further lashed out.
To here: The chemical seeped into the Elk River, the Charleston region's main source of drinking water
Life on line: Residents last month began lining up for water at a water filling station at West Virginia State University
‘What does that mean? It means nothing. It means absolutely nothing,’ he said. ‘It means, 'It's up to you.' If I were told it was 'appropriate,' I just wouldn't drink.
Officials have instead warned pregnant mothers against drinking the still-strange smelling water that prompted the closure of some area schools this week and held water distribution centers open.
‘Water is not supposed to have that smell,’ Kanawha-Charleston Health Department Executive Director Rahul Gupta told ABC News.
‘As long as it’s in the water, people are hav ing a difficult time drinking… myself included,’ he added.
Others are still showing exposure symptoms including nausea and rashes attributed in the past to ingesting the licorice-smelling substance pervasive in their water.
This is leading many people to consider the viability of living in the region, according to Rockefeller.
‘They’re mostly people with very young babies,’ said the Senator. ‘They look to a future of this kind of lack of regulatory control and discipline, and they say ‘Where I live is less important than my children grow up healthy.’
Ground to a halt: Bottled water was also handed out by the region's fire departments - and still is in some parts of the city
Held accountable: Rockefeller believes authorities need to be held to a firm answer on the drinking water's potability - not just a ban on pregnant mothers while the contaminant smell remains
Restaurants and businesses have reopened for the most part, but Gupta told ABC he is concerned more about the long-term effects of exposure than the immediate symptoms.
‘It is very important that we take a serious look at working to find out what the long-term impact of this chemical is,’ he said. ‘I think it would be a mistake to dismiss… without knowing the realities.’
Investigators are still investigating how the spill occurred, but Rockefeller is more immediately concerned about the health of his constituents. |
This is the official last page of the Intermission Arc, bringing all the foreshadowing and information dropping to a close…for now. Now we can return to our normal situation; a delusional, shadow-faced strangler preying on a group of high schoolers. Who can honestly say they don’t love that. Plus I’m sure some other supernatural stuff will happen too. I mean, there was a whole arc about a disembodied spirit, and there’s still that ying-yang thing haunting our main character. So something’s bound to happen. In the mean time I leave you to wonder what Reverie’s local strangler is planning at an internet café, probably nothing good.
Until next time,
Caden Reigns
P.S.
The conversion to a JPG file was acting up for some reason, so any errors on this page I can blame on the computer without feeling guilty. Though I will be looking into it for next week.
P.P.S.
I think I fixed the mess up |
Bernie Sanders and a New York Times reporter engaged in a frosty back-and-forth Monday, after she asked him whether it’s “sexist” of him not to concede to Hillary Clinton at this point in the race.
The exchange took place at a press conference in Emeryville, California, between Sanders and the NYT’s Yamiche Alcindor. Excruciatingly awkward video from Politico shows that Sanders and Alcindor first clashed over whether it was her turn to ask a question:
“Excuse me,” he says five times, as she tries to speak.
“I’m asking a question,” she shoots back.
“Other hands are up as well,” he tells her, attempting to call on someone named Jeff.
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Alcindor’s question, when she was permitted to talk: “What do you say to women who say that you staying in the race is sexist, because you’re standing in the way of what could be the first female president?”
“Is that a serious question?” Sanders asked, laugh-scoffing. Alcindor said it was, and he replied: “That any woman who is running for president — anyone who imposes—your question implies that any woman who is running for president is, by definition, the best candidate. Any woman who runs? To say that it is sexist—so if Hillary Clinton runs for president, is your point, that it is sexist for any man to oppose her?”
“No,” Alcindor responded. “My point is that if she has more delegates than you tomorrow, for you to stay in the race, is it sexist?”
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“I don’t think it’s sexist,” Sanders replied. “I think the issue is, first of all, our focus right now is running and winning right here in California. And the second point that I have made is that it is absolutely imperative that we defeat Donald Trump as a candidate for president of the United States. I believe I am the stronger candidate.”
Alcindor called Sanders’ response to her question “testy.”
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It seems like a stretch to conclude that Sanders staying in the race is inherently sexist. Stubborn? Yes. Mathematically very unlikely and actually impossible if he loses California? Yes. Sexist? Hardly, except maybe if he were staying in the race while loudly shouting that a woman is unfit to be president.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton noted in an NPR interview that tomorrow will make eight years to the day that she conceded to then-Senator Barack Obama.
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Surely the response online to Alcindor’s question will be measured and intelligent though. |
People used to think of a ladder, with species gradually evolving upwards until they arrived at the perfection that is humanity. Now we know it’s more of a bush, with different species splitting off and becoming adapted to their own environment; and the human family is no exception. We’re simply the last surviving member of a diverse bunch of upright apes.
Some of the most peculiar members of our lineage are the Paranthropines, a group of species that lived in Africa between 2.7 – 1.5 million years ago; back when we still looked like Lucy. They have a range of adaptations suited to chewing. Wide cheek bones accommodate large chewing muscles; huge jaws deal with the stress involved and there’s even a crest on the top of their skull for the muscles to attach too. The result of all this is something that looks distinctly un-human; and it’s bizarre to think that this alien looking creature is more closely related to us than chimps are.
All of these unique adaptations are clearly designed to chew. In fact, when the first Paranthropine was discovered it was nicknamed “nut-cracker”! However, stable isotope analysis has revealed their diet was very different from what you might expect; and this has some fascinating implications for our own evolutionary history.
Stable isotope analysis is based on the fact that there are slightly different versions of elements (each version being known as an isotope). The ratios of some of these isotopes remains the same over time; and consistently varies between plant species. As you eat these plants, the elements (in that ratio) are preserved in your bone, allowing scientists millions of years later to figure out what you were eating.
And when stable isotope analysis was performed on the Paranthropines; it was found they weren’t eating a tough food that required a lot of force from their massive jaws. Rather, it seemed they were living almost entirely off grass. They were grazers and their unique dentistry was an adaptation that allowed them to chew for hours at an end, which is something you need to do if you’re living off something as low calorie grass. These were literally human cows.
However, if you look at the human diet we also consume a lot of grass. Specifically cereals, mostly in the form of bread. Grasses still make up between a third and a half of our daily calories, yet we have some of the most gracile anatomy in our entire family. Tiny jaws, tiny teeth and rather pathetic muscles. Yet if it wasn’t the input that’s different, why do humans and Paranthropines look so different?
The answer seems fairly obvious: we cook and process our food. We heat it up, breaking down cell walls and making it easier to digest. We turn cereals into bread, which is a lot more calorie rich than just eating stalks of wheat all day. We use tools to cut it up into manageable pieces.
In short, the reason we don’t look like human cows isn’t because the food has changed or because our environment is different ; but because of our behaviour. As a species we’ve innovated, changed how we do things and our anatomy has changed as a result. We are the thinnest, weakest member of our family because we’re the smartest. We’re so smart we’ve changed the course of our own evolution.
And to me, that’s fascinating. I wonder where we’ll go next.
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A delegation looks at a scale model of the new Egyptian capital displayed at the congress hall in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on March 14, 2015. Photo via KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images.
Last Friday in the coastal Sinai resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, during a development and foreign investment conference entitled "Egypt the Future," Egyptian Minister of Housing Mostafa Madbouly unveiled the details of a plan to build a new national capital between the current seat of Cairo and the Suez Canal. A $45 billion project to be led by the Emirati real estate investment firm Capital City Partners (headed by the man behind the Burj Khalifa), the as-of-yet unnamed and supposedly smart and sustainable metropolis aims to house Egypt's governmental and diplomatic buildings, as well as 5 million residents, on 270 square miles of land. All of this, said Madbouly, will go up within five to seven years, ideally (although some officials estimate that 12 years may be more realistic).
The main stated impetus behind the project is a desire to take the pressure of population growth off of the already overcrowded Cairo. A megacity of 18 to 20 million people set to double in size within the next 40 years, officials want to siphon traffic and pollution into a better organized and more easily maintained environment, giving the ancient lynchpin of the nation space to breathe. Many also see the new city as an element in a larger bid to boost the nation's stalled economy, foundering since the 2011 Arab Spring, using construction jobs and new shops and government gigs to ease unemployment and fuel the goal of achieving 6 percent growth in the next five years.
Yet there's clearly an element of zealous spectacle at work in the new city, which in addition to 663 health centers, 1,250 churches and mosques, and 1.1 million homes split across more than 20 districts, claims it will boast a green space twice the size of Central Park and an amusement park four times the size of Disneyland, not to mention an airport equal to London's Heathrow. Many suspect that this city is as much an honest bid to resolve economic and urban planning woes as it is a monument to the vision of renewal promoted by coup leader-turned-president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, who aims to ameliorate years of economic, political, and social crisis. Madbouly seemed to confirm as much when he explained of the city, as quoted in The Guardian:
"Egypt has more wonders than any other country in the world, and provides more works that defy description. This is why it is necessary for us as Egyptians to enrich this picture—and to add to it something that our grandchildren will be able to say enhances Egypt's characteristics."
Given the history of purpose-built cities, raised up from nothing to suit the ideological or practical ends of a state, there's plenty of cause to be skeptical about Egypt's new project.
Up until a couple of centuries ago, creating administrative centers from scratch was commonplace for new countries or regimes. (They were especially popular in the utopian-imperialist land grabs of 19th century North America.) Eager to either find the best spot from which to defend and control, establish a neutral zone between cultures and factions, or distance themselves from old elites and create new symbols and icons, leaders often built up magnificent yet originally small and contained administrative centers. That's how Cairo got its start, built in 969 AD by the invading Fatimids as al-Qahira, which roughly translates to The Victorious. Some of these planned cities, like St. Petersburg (circa 1703), Washington, D.C. (circa 1800), or Ottawa (circa 1857), by virtue of the money lavished into their contained and well-populated nuclei, naturally and organically evolved into more formidable mega cities and commercial hubs.
Yet today purpose-built capitals and communities have developed a bad reputation, thanks to a slew of pop-up cities, often built at great expense and for poor reasons, that now sit half-empty, half-finished, or entirely soulless after exceptionally long construction periods. China's Caofeidian, a city built for one million, attracted just a few thousand, while the unfinished Emirati smart city of Masdar, a moderate community of 50,000, has only attracted a few hundred residents. Sejong City and Songdo in South Korea remain half-completed and desolate after over a decade of work each.
Egypt actually has a particularly bad reputation for unlivable and desolate developments. In Egypt's Desert Dreams: Development or Disaster?, ironically released the week of Madbouly's speech, urban planner David Sims outlines the history of at least 22 attempts in the modern nation to lure Egyptians out of the cities and into purpose-built suburbs. In every case, Sims explains, a lack of jobs, transit, or amenities for largely poor and coerced residents led to the rapid abandonment of the settlements, which now have less than a million collective residents.
"Governments think they can just move people to new areas," Simick Arese, an Oxford University urban anthropologist, recently told The Guardian summarizing the failure of modern pop-up cities. "But actually people go where they want to go."
Yet there are success stories. Astana, the new capital of Kazakhstan, which took the reins of power in 1997 as a more central, less earthquake-prone, and less ethnically homogenous site than the old seat of Almaty, seems to be developing a stable and satisfied population. Brazil's Brasília and Nigeria's Abuja (inaugurated in 1960 and 1991, respectively), although not universally beloved and much smaller than Rio de Janeiro or Lagos, respectively, still have loyal supporters who see them as legitimate, livable, and pleasant towns. And smaller settlements like Adelaide in Australia or Milton Keynes in the UK now feel just like everyday (if starkly gridded) cities.
Although every city has its own story (Naypyidaw's connection to a cruel military junta obsessed with astrology and repression or Brasília's beloved and inventive architecture) contributing to their success or failure, there are a few common lessons to be drawn from them as a whole.
"The most important thing anyone designing a new city has to bear in mind is not striking architecture or smart technologies," P.D. Smith, author of 2012's acclaimed City: A Guidebook for the Urban Age, told VICE, "but the people who are going to live there."
"The new city needs to reflect what we are and what we want in our lives if it is to be successful ... Will the new Cairo have great parks and squares? Places where people and communities can express themselves? That's fundamental. Otherwise all you've got is a collection of buildings."
On paper, it looks like the new Egyptian megacity is drawing on the best lessons from purpose-built cities of the past. Focusing on mixed-use structures and envisioned as a trade hub hooking into concurrent expansions of the Suez Canal industrial zone, Madbouly and company believe the city will create 1.5 million new jobs, providing the right economic incentives to draw people out of Cairo naturally. They've also obviously gone overboard with entertainment venues and public greenways. And with plans to build the city right on the eastern edge of Cairo, connecting it with rail and roads, the new settlement should not be isolated like old Egyptian desert towns.
Whether these jobs materialize and how well people like the public spaces is hard to predict. Smith suspects that the political climate may limit the form and potential of parks, for instance:
"The chances of a new Tahrir Square being created [as a place for self-expression] in this new Egyptian capital are looking slim," he says. "That's tragic and doesn't augur well."
Yet that's a wait-and-see concern. Right now the more pressing question is whether Egypt can even pull off such a massive project in such a short amount of time. After all, Brasília and Islamabad, which took more than half a decade to inaugurate and continued construction for ages, even now consist of only 2.8 and 1.8 million people, respectively. Many suspect that Madbouly's five-to-seven-year timeline is unfeasible, setting Egypt up for a shoddy ghost town.
However the project isn't impossible.
"[It] sounds manageable [in terms of size and population density]," says Smith. "The timescale sounds ambitious to me! [But] mind you, China manages to build infrastructure and cities at an astonishing rate. Even so, Masdar City is a much smaller project and it's taken, what, ten years?"
Madbouly claims that, all doubts aside, the government has raised the money to built the first 40 square miles of the city, featuring key government offices, diplomatic missions, housing centers, universities, technology and innovation parks, and over 6,000 miles of roads—the military has already begun a road from Cairo to the construction site. Officials also say that the project will not cost them a cent, supposedly because they're scoring billions in support from Gulf countries (explaining why at least one development will be named after a crown prince of Abu Dhabi).
"We are committed for the first phase," Madbouly recently told The Guardian. "We have already a very clear plan [sic]." |
Reddit is home to everything the web likes best, from kitten gifs to breaking news. What draws its 7m daily users? And what does it take to make it to the site's highly prized front page?
On a Monday in January, I visited the front page of the social news site Reddit to learn that, very occasionally, lobsters are pulled from the sea that are both orange and blue, the colours dividing in a neat line along the spine. Bottles of 7Up are used to contain a mood drug called lithium citrate. Somebody pointed out that, to get drinking glasses properly clean, it was best to use Sellotape to remove smudges. An eight-year-old girl had been detained wearing a suicide vest in Afghanistan, and there was a photograph of a commuter reading a tantric sex guide on the tube.
Like many people, around 7m on this particular Monday, I look in on reddit.com often, to see what happens to be capturing the imagination of this vast online community at any given moment. The people who run Reddit call it "the front page of the internet", bravado they can back up because more than 100 million unique users visit every month. A link that appears on Reddit's front page, sparely rendered in blue Verdana on a white background, will send traffic stampeding wherever it points. Gawker, an influential online voice in its own right, has called Reddit "the single dominant force in internet culture today".
"It's unpredictable, and that's powerful," Reddit's general manager, Erik Martin, told me. Martin runs the site with three dozen colleagues out of a cluttered office in San Francisco: pot plants, postcards, blinds drawn against the sun. "When I rolled up this morning and checked on Reddit, I had no idea what was going to be on the front page. And I think that's rarer and rarer. If I go on Facebook, or Twitter, or Google News, I basically know what I'm going to see. But on Reddit…"
But on Reddit there might be an item about multicoloured lobsters. The site is an ever-revising digest of distraction, dealing in new news and old, intriguing facts; in pictures, videos, songs; in broad jokes, subtle jokes, in-jokes; in questions, answers, hypotheticals; in contradictions, the scandalous rubbing up against the mawkish, trifles muddled with real outrages; in photos of babies, sloths, baby sloths – all of it sloshes through, 70,000 daily posts in Reddit's 6,500 forums, sorted by the community so the best contributions rise to become most visible.
Users vote. They click on arrows to push (say) a picture of a giant gingerbread statue up or down. Enough "up votes" and the link will rise in prominence, perhaps to the front page, where visitors are confronted by the 25 most popular posts of the moment. It was here that I learned of the death of Nelson Mandela. I also read about a man who claimed to have two penises and wept with laughter at an animated gif of people very intently dancing to electro house. I lost a night's sleep to explicit footage of a Russian car crash.
Now it was January, a time for resolution, and I planned to stop lurking on the fringes of Reddit. Instead, I'd take part, get an account and post something. Would it be possible to get to the rarefied ground of the front page? I spoke to some of the site's more successful contributors for advice.
It is thought bad form on Reddit to reveal your real name, and a user going by the name Shitty_Watercolour would not, except to say that he was an undergraduate at the University of York. "After a while you get a feel for what does well," he said, suggesting I focus on "quick, easily digestible content". A user called THENYEHHH, this confusing name no barrier to her gathering thousands of votes for her contributions, told me to keep content light, lively: "For the most part, everyone is just trying to have a good time."
The front page, as Monday evening approached, featured a picture of a cat sitting upright on its owner's lap to eat. Beneath it was an explanation of the science behind goosebumps and a trailer for the new series of House Of Cards. The American comedian Jerry Seinfeld had offered himself up to be interviewed by Reddit users, as had a porn actor. While Seinfeld discussed coffee blends and models of car, the porn actor fielded questions on the importance of good microphone positioning. She revealed an out-of-hours liking for Harry Potter and a secret talent for the mandolin. I was so taken by this last revelation, I borrowed it for my username.
Logged in as TalentForMandolin, I copied and pasted a link to an old news story from the BBC's website: a men's prison in Mexico had been subjected to a surprise inspection in 2011, where guards had found plasma TVs and sacks of marijuana in the cells, also a couple of peacocks, 100 fighting hens and 25 women. I thought this was weird and punchy enough to get some attention. I wrote a new headline for the story and pressed submit.
Some people have earned a lot of money through Reddit. In 2011, a user mused as to what might happen if a Roman legion fought America's modern military, and he wound up with a six-figure sum to write a screenplay on the subject. Others have earned just enough, for instance the struggling manufacturer of stained glass who put out a plea for custom at the end of 2013. ("Your support saved my little business," SenatorMars told the community.) Reddit's two founders are millionaires.
'When I rolled up this morning and checked on Reddit, I had no idea what was going to be on the front page. That's rarer and rarer. If I go on Facebook, or Twitter, or Google News, I basically know what I'm going to see.' Illustration: Arthur Chiverton
Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian became friends the day they moved in to student halls at the University of Virginia. "Steve wasn't so excited to meet me," Ohanian recalled. "He'd seen my name on my door and thought I'd be a girl." Huffman studied computer science, Ohanian history and commerce. Before graduating in 2005, they decided to start a company. Ohanian says, "I wanted us to be able to live like college students for as long as we could."
They spent months on a piece of software that would help people avoid queues in fast-food restaurants. It bombed in a meeting with investors, at which point they rushed together a new idea, "like a top 40 for interesting content", as they pitched it. Huffman admits to being light-fingered in the early days. He and Ohanian pinched the voting concept from a technology news site called Slashdot. From Slashdot, too, they spun off the idea of users collecting "karma" – brownie points, essentially, and worthless – in return for making beneficial contributions. Reddit's pared-down aesthetic "was copied almost entirely" from a bookmarking site called Delicious. Over a boiling summer, the friends sat at facing computers, listened to Gwen Stefani and built Reddit.
"We were lean," said Ohanian, who recalled eating little but hummus that summer. It was a phrase echoed by Reddit's general manager, Erik Martin, when I spoke to him by phone from San Francisco. "We're lean," he said of Reddit's 35-person staff. In 2014, the site looks almost as stark and unattractive as it did when it launched in 2005. This, Martin explained, allowed Reddit to continue growing (5bn page views last month) while keeping maintenance costs low.
These days, Reddit is a part of Advance Publications, which owns Condé Nast. Huffman and Ohanian, now 30, sold their creation in 2006. "Life-changing wealth," Ohanian called it, or $5m by industry estimates. Roughly speaking, Reddit has doubled in size every year since. It is yet to make a profit, "but we're not that far off", Martin said.
Given its eight years under corporate ownership, it's near miraculous that Reddit's verve, the unruliness that makes it appealing to so many, has survived. "Condé Nast realised pretty early they're not a technology company," Ohanian said. (He still serves on the Reddit board.) "They gave Reddit a ton of autonomy." Martin called Advance Publications "extremely hands-off".
Huffman has a different stance. He was kept on to run Reddit after its 2006 acquisition and launched the company's San Francisco office. Huffman found Reddit's ownership stifling and told me that by the end of his time at the company he wasn't on speaking terms with the then-president of Condé Nast Digital. One day on Reddit, the joke of the moment – there's always one – had been to mock the retail giant Sears, a big advertiser with Condé Nast. Sears complained, according to Huffman, who says he was told to remove certain posts, and eventually gave in. "I've still never forgiven them." Huffman left the company in 2009 and now runs a travel website, Hipmunk.
'Reddit is a snapshot of humanity, with all the beautiful parts and all the ugly parts intact.' Illustration: Arthur Chiverton for the Guardian
Martin told me that content is very rarely taken off Reddit. "There's only a handful of rules. Most of the time the moderators of the community remove [rule-breaking posts] before we even know about it. There are sometimes grey areas, edge cases, that we have to consider. But most of the time it's clear cut. Anything illegal is removed pretty quickly."
A forum called Jailbait, where users were encouraged to post pictures of underage girls, was banned in 2011; another called Creepshots, for secretly taken photographs of women, went, too. There are, however, plenty of Reddit forums remaining that cause unease in the wider community. (One user I spoke to cited a forum called SexyAbortions.) On a site that has a male-female balance of around 65%-35%, many find there's too much breezy misogyny for comfort. "Genuinely disappointing," Shitty_Watercolour called it.
"There is certainly a dark side to Reddit," Huffman said. "You get it all." People sometimes confess to crimes on these boards – even murder, last year, which triggered a police investigation as well as mainstream media coverage. Unflattering headlines were made shortly after the Boston bombings, too, when an innocent man was identified and vilified on Reddit as the person responsible. "Reddit is a snapshot of humanity, with all the beautiful parts and all the ugly parts intact," Huffman says.
Actually, given that people exist here anonymously, the site can seem a surprisingly affectionate and judicious place. It's a benefit of the voting system, which influences comments as well, so that ill-natured or illiterate remarks tend to be voted away out of sight. The comments under an average YouTube video might have been written by a different species. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, Reddit isn't dominated by the most tireless contributors. It's quite witty, quite warm.
Users I interviewed counselled me against trying to personify Reddit, to reduce it to this or that way of thinking. The community, it was pointed out, consisted of "homeless people to rich people, fast-food employees to doctors, agoraphobes to adventurers". Even so, it's possible to single out conspicuous leanings. Reddit is leftwing, irreligious, extremely keen on the actors Jennifer Lawrence and Patrick Stewart. A spirit of contrarianism runs deep. In 2010, when a moderator put up a test post with the instruction "please ignore", it received more than 20,000 votes and became Reddit's most popular post of all time. The top comment underneath read: "Don't tell me what to do."
My post about the Mexican prison was rising.
Seinfeld's interview now topped the front page. Underneath him was the House Of Cards trailer and a question about what would happen if China "randomly" invaded New Zealand. There was a post about worthwhile novels written in the 1940s and a video of a zookeeper masturbating a monkey. When my Mexican prison story pushed on to the front page, just after 8pm, it nudged off a cartoon about the weather in Australia.
I hadn't expected this. Plunging into the comments, I had to ask: wasn't it supposed to be hard to get to the front page? "One in a million, my friend," I was told. Someone else responded: "Meh, I've been there four times. It's no big." A veteran user called Aftli, who'd signed up for Reddit seven years ago, said one in a million was an exaggeration, but "it's pretty hard to do". And by the way, he added, "prepare for soul-crushing disappointment with the next 30 links you submit". A user called Toilet_Crusher was conciliatory. "Your post's been seen worldwide for sure!"
Sir David Attenborough took questions about mass extinction and shampooing during his Reddit AskMeAnything interview. Illustration: Arthur Chiverton for the Guardian
Martin told me that one of Reddit's great strengths was that it was both intimate and enormous. "You put something out in the universe and get a response. That response might be one comment. Or that response might put you on talkshows the next day." Ohanian said: "I like measuring things in New York City. We had 100m unique visitors last month. That's more than 12 New York Cities' worth of people. Mind-blowing!"
It's why the famous are more and more likely to appear on Reddit. Not just Seinfeld; Madonna came on last summer, Arnold Schwarzenegger in early 2013, Barack Obama in 2012. In Reddit terminology, where forums are known as "subreddits", and "karma" points are discussed as though of real monetary value, these interviews are called "AskMeAnythings". Correctly so, because Reddit will ask anything.
Molly Ringwald, was it true that on the set of The Breakfast Club you were bullied by Judd Nelson? Woody Harrelson, did your dad used to be a contract killer? Molly answered (in the affirmative); Woody didn't. AskMeAnythings don't always work, but when they do, they're wonderful. Sir David Attenborough took questions about mass extinction as well as his shampooing regime. When Shitty_Watercolour, who chose that name for a reason, painted a shitty watercolour as a gift for Attenborough and put it online, there was talk of printing, framing… Schwarzenegger enjoyed his Reddit interview so much he still drops by to post. So does the actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
While my story about Mexican prisons was prospering – now at No5, No4 – Gordon-Levitt came online to put up a link. It quickly rose into the top 10 and together we made our assault on Seinfeld in the top spot. I found it absurdly exciting, Seinfeld in New York, Gordon-Levitt in California, me at my kitchen table, holding the collective attention of the internet for 15 minutes or so.
It fell apart. Our power alliance crumbled. A video about crab fishing became Reddit's new favourite item. Gordon-Levitt lodged at No7 and did not move further. Seinfeld dropped down a place. I fell off the front page altogether.
In the days that followed, the prediction by my new friend Aftli – that I would face disappointment with my next posts – proved true. I put up an item about collective nouns and a biographical fact about Bruce Willis, to no response. I tried being edgy, with a joke about Hitler, and being cute, with a picture of a baby reading a newspaper on a bus. Reddit was indifferent.
This community wouldn't be told what to think, what to click; their 20m daily votes couldn't be lobbied for. When I asked Martin if he was ever courted by companies who wanted to harness the site's awesome traffic, he said, "People who know Reddit know that we certainly don't, uh..." He paused, to chuckle. "Nobody tells Reddit what to pay attention to."
Huffman insisted that from its earliest days he'd programmed Reddit to be resistant to anyone trying to "game" their way up the rankings. "Half of Reddit's source code was dedicated to catching bad content and users cheating." I was able to confirm this first-hand when I was banned from posting, temporarily, my contributions by now so terribly unsuccessful I was marked as a potential spammer. The Mexican prison story, which had peaked at No2, generated enough fresh traffic for the BBC to make this two-year-old item its most popular Latin American news story of the day. It had been voted on by 16,246 Reddit users. My subsequent posts, added up, got a grand total of 140. Which hurt.
Tell me about it, consoled Aftli, who still felt bruised by the failure of a forum he'd once tried to found, about interesting cash registers. Aftli advised me to forget about the front page. "For me, and I think for most Redditors, the site is more about the discussion than the links that are posted." Huffman agreed – making the top 25 wasn't the point. "I guess there are individuals who feel like they're competing, and they've won something [if they get there], but in reality they're part of something much larger."
Martin advised me to try looking "at the part of the iceberg that's underwater". Ohanian also suggested I venture deeper. Why not start with his favourite forum, called BirdsWithArms? So I did, and spent a happy half-hour clicking through Photoshopped pictures of owls holding tobacco pipes, canaries brandishing swords. Then I dug about and found a fascinating debate about which inanimate object was the bigger "asshole", the printer or the automatic sink? On Aftli's advice I tried ForwardsFromGrandma. I watched a thread develop in which a woman admitted she was dreading her own wedding, mortified at the thought of her fiance's family seeing how few friends she had. Slowly, as commenters pieced together where and when the service was taking place, people offered to come along and fill seats.
"The community is where the real value is at," Huffman said. "Since very, very early on, Reddit has had a soul."
It was a Wednesday and Huffman, like me, had spent hours riveted to the on-site confessions of a former mob boss, who spoke of initiation rituals and his grandma's meatballs. Elsewhere, advice was sought about how to turn the pages of a 340-year-old Bible. Tongs or spatula? A Starbucks barista admitted intentionally misspelling teenagers' names, so they couldn't post pictures of their cups on Instagram. Later, a Reddit staffer put up a note to announce that the site would be taken offline, briefly, for maintenance. A user posted a two-word response that seemed to sum up the popular mood.
"Now what?" |
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New York photographer Spencer Tunick is calling for 100 women to stand naked with mirrors outside the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Donald Trump might appreciate it.
As the Daily Kos noted Friday: “Tunick is known worldwide for his unique art installations where gets hundreds or even thousands of volunteers to strip totally nude and pose in thoughtfully placed positions.”
Tunick told Esquire: “I could never have imagined there would be such a heightened attention to the male-versus-female dynamic of this Cleveland juggernaut of a convention. But I feel like doing this will sort of calm the senses. It brings it back to the body and to purity.”
Here’s the signup form for would-be clothes-shedders.
Many suspect Cleveland won’t allow the mass uncovering. But Tunick has found work-arounds before.
Revealing details:
Photoshoot with 100 naked women to greet Trump & RNC in Ohio: Photographer Spencer Tunick, who has a penchan… https://t.co/ZWhAAKZJEd — CryptoCoda (@CryptoCoda) May 13, 2016
Artist Spencer Tunick exploits women IMHOhttps://t.co/4nGuTmwxKz via @Esquire — TheRev1953 (@TheRev1953) May 13, 2016
Spencer Tunick Wants to Make America Naked Again https://t.co/8k2Lsiv38K — Newsdesk Art (@NewsdeskART) May 13, 2016
At least 50 women already have volunteered to take part in naked group photoshoot during RNC week https://t.co/VBySlfDwsK — Andrew J. Tobias (@AndrewJTobias) May 12, 2016
Nude-bombing GOP convention: 100 naked women sought was last modified: by
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NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Britain’s Duke and Duchess of Cambridge sat down to a musical lunch on Tuesday with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as they continued a first tour of India that has featured a cricket game with slum kids and a glittering Bollywood gala.
(William and Kate in India - see pictures here
Modi welcomed Prince William and wife Kate on the steps of Hyderabad House, once a princely residence and - like many buildings in New Delhi - designed by British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens.
Kate wore a knee-length light blue dress, William a dark suit and tie, while their host - an observant vegetarian - appeared in a traditional white kurta and cream waistcoat.
Indian sources said the four-course lunch featured Indian “veg” and “non-veg” cuisine but, citing protocol, declined to specify the dishes served. Renowned Indian classical musician Rahul Sharma played the santoor - a kind of dulcimer - rounding off his performance with the Beatles classic “Let It Be”.
The couple have spent much of their three days in India meeting children and charities that work with them. On Tuesday, they visited a shelter of the Salaam Baalak Trust that provides support and shelter for street kids in Delhi and Mumbai.
But there’s been glamour too, with A-list Bollywood film stars led by Shah Rukh Khan and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai turning out on Sunday night for a charity gala in Mumbai.
William and Kate wielded a sword at the British High Commissioner’s residence on Monday night to cut a cake to mark the forthcoming 90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth.
Slideshow (3 Images)
After paying tribute to his grandmother as “an energetic and dedicated guiding force for her family”, William read a message to the Indian people from the Queen.
Striking a lighter note, he concluded: “Now I can report back to Granny that I have done my duty!”
The week-long tour will take the royal couple to see the famed one-horned rhinos in Assam’s Kaziranga National Park, on to the isolated kingdom of Bhutan before returning to India on Saturday to visit the Taj Mahal. |
Soon you’ll be able to watch Richie Rich on Netflix.
The 1980’s cartoon is getting a live-action reboot to be hosted exclusively on Netflix, The Wrap reports. The half-hour comedy series will have a 21-episode run, debuting in early 2015.
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The show will star Jake Brennan, known for his appearance in the 2013 thriller Dark Skies. The plot varies a bit from the classic tale of a young boy who has everything and more, with Brennan’s Richie falling into extreme wealth after inventing new green technology. AwesomenessTV, a DreamWorks Animation-owned multi-channel network that makes kid-friendly shows and videos, is producing the show.
Here’s hoping this version is better than the 1990s film starring Macaulay Culkin.
[The Wrap]
Contact us at editors@time.com. |
Manchester United plan to press ahead with a soccer school in Bahrain hosted by their former striker Denis Law, despite claims that a female doctor in the country was beaten by security forces after asking the club for a minute's silence in memory of a 15-year-old boy killed in the 2011 uprising while wearing a United shirt.
The club said they had taken advice from the Foreign Office and the club's insurers, Aon, before deciding to go ahead with the soccer school in Manama. The event was organised in partnership with the local Bahraini mobile telecoms sponsor Viva but will take place this weekend against a backdrop of renewed concern over Formula One's decision to hold a race there in the light of human rights concerns.
One of the directors of the campaign group Human Rights First has called on Law to meet Dr Fatima Haji, a rheumatologist at Bahrain's Salmaniya medical complex, after she was said to be tortured partly because of her perceived association with Manchester United.
"While Law is there promoting the school, it might be nice if he went to see the family of Ahmad Shams, the 15-year-old boy who was shot by the police, according to his family, while wearing a Man United shirt in March 2011, or popped in to see Dr Fatima Haji, one of the medics in Bahrain who was tortured and interrogated about her connection to Man United," wrote Brian Dooley, a director of the New York-based organisation Human Rights First, in a blog.
According to Dooley, Dr Haji, who was sentenced to five years in custody for treating injured prisoners during the uprising before being acquitted last year, said: "I was blindfolded and handcuffed with my hands behind my back, and beaten. A man asked me: 'What is your relationship with Alex Ferguson?' I was shocked and figured out they had gone through my emails.
"A female officer hit me on the head on both sides at the same time – she was wearing what I later found out was a special electrical band on her hands, and she electrocuted me a couple of times. I felt a shockwave through my head. It was very painful and the whole world was spinning."
Hadj, along with others, had written to Manchester United to ask whether they would consider holding a minute's silence as a tribute to Ahmed after the 15-year-old fan was killed.
"Along with dozens of other medics she was arrested after treating injured protesters and tortured in custody. But her interrogation was a bit different; she had written the email asking for the minute's silence and then deleted it, knowing it might be incriminating," said Dooley.
"When she was arrested on 17 April her laptop was taken too, and a few days later – with tragic efficiency – Man United responded to her email, which her interrogators then saw."
A spokesman for Manchester United said that the club extended its condolences to Ahmed's family – and any others affected by the unrest – but had received assurances over the safety of Law and its staff and was planning to go ahead with the trip as planned.
"We condemn violent acts by any side and offer our condolences to the family and friends of those affected. We have taken advice from the Foreign Office and Aon and we are comfortable with the trip going ahead." |
Anti-democratic actions by the US Supreme Court
By Tom Carter
24 January 2012
Recent Supreme Court opinions regarding religion, voting rights and warrantless surveillance cast a shadow over existing democratic legal protections.
In a ruling January 11 that constitutes a major victory for the religious right, the Supreme Court unanimously held that employees of religious institutions could not assert their rights under federal employment legislation. The case involved Cheryl Perich, a teacher at an evangelical Lutheran church who was fired by the church after she was diagnosed with narcolepsy.
It seems clear that in firing Perich, the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church in Redford, Michigan was motivated chiefly by a desire to avoid having to accommodate Perich's disability, as well as to avoid any obligation to help pay for her medical care. Such treatment is prohibited by federal law, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. Under the provisions of the ADA and other civil rights laws, it is unlawful to discriminate against a worker on account of his or her disability.
In its ruling on the case, EEOC v. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School, the Supreme Court cited “freedom of religion” and the First Amendment as justification for granting religious organizations absolute autonomy in their treatment of their employees and allowing those organizations to escape compliance with federal employment law.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the unanimous court, declared: “When a minister who has been fired sues her church alleging that her termination was discriminatory, the First Amendment has struck the balance for us. The church must be free to choose those who will guide it on its way.”
The ruling was greeted enthusiastically in right-wing and religious circles. The Wall Street Journal opined: “Hosanna-Tabor is an important reminder that the core religious freedoms guarded by the First Amendment were not to protect the public from religion, but to protect religion from government. The case is arguably among the most important religious liberty cases in a half century, and the concurrence of Justices across the ideological spectrum will be felt for years. Hallelujah.”
The First Amendment, ratified in 1791 following the American Revolution, establishes freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition the government to redress grievances. The First Amendment has historically been understood to require the separation of church and state and preclude government interference with privately held religious beliefs.
Despite its invocation of the freedoms associated with the First Amendment, the Supreme Court ruling in Ms. Perich’s case is designed simply to promote religion and churches as against secular principles and government enforcement of workers’ rights. Longstanding precedent on the extent of permissible government regulation of religious institutions was simply brushed aside or ignored for the sake of scoring political points.
The Supreme Court’s invocation of the Bill of Rights in this case is thoroughly hypocritical. It is hardly necessary to point out that this Supreme Court presides over a judiciary that sat comfortably on its hands while the federal government asserted the powers to assassinate, torture, spy on the public, launch illegal wars and imprison without trial.
As all of this was happening, the Bill of Rights and its guarantees of due process and essential freedoms was, for the most part, brushed aside in US courts. But when the interests of a corporation or a church became involved, the justices—liberal as well as conservative—offered up paeans to the “absolute” freedoms enshrined in the Constitution.
There was a time when a “right” was thought to be something an ordinary individual possessed to protect him or her from the arbitrary actions of the most powerful institutions in society. In the Supreme Court, what are being enforced are the “rights” of the most powerful institutions in society as they are invoked against the population.
Voting rights
In a case decided on January 20, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling requiring a lower court to show more “deference” to a congressional redistricting plan developed by the state of Texas, notwithstanding the fact that the plan is plainly in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The ruling in that case, Perry v. Perez, as well as a ruling putting off a decision in a related West Virginia case, casts a shadow over the continued viability of the Voting Rights Act and the principle of “one-person, one-vote.”
Supreme Court commentator Lyle Denniston observed in an article last Friday on SCOTUSblog.com entitled “New View on One-Person, One-Vote?” that a lower federal court order blocked by the Supreme Court in the West Virginia case had declared that the principle of “one-person, one-vote” required “zero variance” in population between congressional districts as the norm. Accordingly, he wrote, the Supreme Court’s actions have “raised doubts about the authority of federal District Courts to require states to achieve absolute equality of population in drafting new voting boundaries.”
Under the challenged West Virginia plan, certain districts have thousands more members than the others, with the ultimate result that Republican votes count more than Democratic ones.
The Texas redistricting plan is, by all accounts, simply a maneuver to squeeze more Republican congressional seats out of a state already infamous for congressional districts that are gerrymandered into bizarre and irrational shapes. The Supreme Court decision on Friday legitimizes and encourages such brazenly undemocratic schemes.
As numerous commentators have observed, it is surely more than a coincidence that, in an election year, the Supreme Court has taken so many contentious cases and decided them on terms favorable to the extreme right.
Warrantless GPS surveillance
Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the contentious case involving the government’s GPS surveillance of an individual in Washington, DC without a warrant.
This case, United States v. Jones, was chiefly significant for the position taken by the Obama administration, which asserted that there was no limit on the government’s ability to secretly track any individual using GPS, without a warrant, and to compile that information for use in criminal prosecutions. (See, “Obama administration defends unlimited warrantless GPS surveillance before Supreme Court”)
During oral argument last autumn, the following exchange took place between Chief Justice Roberts and Obama’s deputy solicitor general, Michael R. Dreeben:
Roberts: Your argument is, it doesn’t depend how much suspicion you have, it doesn’t depend on how urgent it is. Your argument is you can do it, period. You don’t have to give any reason. It doesn’t have to be limited in any way, right?
Dreeben: That is correct, Mr. Chief Justice.
Several of the justices, during oral argument, were clearly rattled by the Obama administration’s provocative assertion that the government could even collect GPS data on the activities and daily whereabouts of the nine Supreme Court justices themselves. References to George Orwell’s novel 1984 were made six times during oral argument.
GPS devices, by means of satellite triangulation, are able to precisely indicate the location of targeted individuals to within, in some cases, a few feet. Government agents had surreptitiously installed a GPS device on nightclub owner Antone Jones’ car and then monitored and recorded his movements for four weeks without interruption.
Even the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, perhaps the most right-wing court in the country, thought the Obama administration had overstepped itself. “A person who knows all of another’s travels,” the DC Circuit wrote, “can deduce whether he is a weekly churchgoer, a heavy drinker, a regular at the gym, an unfaithful husband, an outpatient receiving medical treatment, an associate of particular individuals or political groups, and not just one such fact about a person, but all such facts.”
In its decision Monday, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the Obama administration’s position, finding that the secret GPS surveillance of Jones without a warrant or judicial oversight of any kind was clearly unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court was split 5-4 as to the rationale. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia stated that the government “intrusion would have been considered a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted” in 1791. Scalia’s opinion was joined by Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor.
In writing for the minority, Justice Samuel Alito said instead, that “reasonable expectations of privacy were violated by the long-term monitoring of the movements of the vehicle [Jones] drove.” Alito’s opinion was joined by Justices Elena Kagan, Stephen Bryer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The Fourth Amendment to the US constitution protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” and requires that the government obtain a warrant to conduct a search. Historically, the Fourth Amendment has been understood to offer protection from searches and seizures where there is a “reasonable expectation of privacy.”
The doctrine of Scalia and company, falsely proclaiming itself to be the “original” understanding of the Bill of Rights, would limit the protections of the Fourth Amendment to those factual circumstances that could have arisen in 1791. Accordingly, in his opinion in United States v. Jones, Scalia analogizes GPS surveillance to a constable hiding in the back of an 18th century stagecoach to record its movements.
Scalia’s “originalism,” as codified in United States v. Jones, places in doubt a long line of precedent grounded in the formulation that the Fourth Amendment applies wherever there is a “reasonable expectation of privacy.” Thus, the Supreme Court’s opinion, beneath the appearance of upholding the Fourth Amendment, paves the way for future attacks. |
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Ontarians have long known that the provincial Liberals, under then-premier Dalton McGuinty, sold out the interests of law-abiding citizens in the community of Caledonia, rather than be forced to confront lawlessness among members of the aboriginal community. And now, a judge has said so.
The ruling dates back to the 2009 occupation by aboriginal protesters of a parcel of land outside town that was slated for development. They opposed development of the land, on grounds that it properly belonged to the nearby Six Nations reserve. The occupation of the would-be development site became a flashpoint of tension; aboriginal protesters engaged in acts of sabotage, intimidation and sometimes outright violence against locals and, occasionally, members of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), who had responsibility for policing the crisis.
The occupation and standoff was a bitterly unpleasant experience. But it was hardly unprecedented — these protests happen. What was new was the extent to which the OPP, no doubt under orders from the Ontario government, utterly abandoned their duty. The police exist only to uphold the law neutrally and fairly. In Caledonia, they didn’t even try.
This conclusion, obvious to locals and most Canadians who observed the crisis from afar, was recently confirmed by a ruling in the Ontario Superior Court. Justice Kim Carpenter-Gunn found in favour of Randy Fleming, a man who sustained permanent injuries when he was tackled by OPP officers and arrested while waving a Canadian flag near the protest site. Charged with obstructing an officer — a preposterous charge, since he was minding his own business until engaged by police — Fleming ultimately had the charges against him dropped. But he sued the OPP and, last month, Justice Carpenter-Gunn ruled in his favour, awarding him nearly $300,000.
The ruling is obviously a huge victory for Fleming, who was behaving reasonably, and entirely legally, when he was falsely arrested and unlawfully imprisoned by the OPP. But it is also a victory for the people of Ontario. It verifies the truth of what happened at Caledonia: the police abandoned their duty to the people of the province, and were at the very least permitted to do so by a weak premier and a government desperate to avoid a contentious, potentially politically damaging clash with aboriginal protesters. More likely still is that the OPP abandoned their duty not with the government’s mere acceptance, but in fact, under its orders.
No one wanted bloodshed in Caledonia. But the government’s claim that the OPP was “keeping the peace” — McGuinty used those exact words in a meeting with the National Post editorial board — doesn’t hold water. The police keep the peace by enforcing the law, equally and neutrally, without concern for matters of race and political sensitivities. If they are not able to do so, because the situation is too dangerous — in other words, if there’s no peace to keep — the police can request help, via the provincial government, from the Armed Forces. It’s called Aid to the Civil Power and is (for obvious reasons) rarely used in Canada — there’s little need. But the option exists for those dire situations where the police are literally unable to enforce the law because civil order has broken down. That didn’t happen in Caledonia. What was the OPP so afraid of? Why couldn’t police enforce the law?
The people of Caledonia spent more than a year knowing they were effectively defenceless. The police did nothing when citizens were harassed by protesters. They did nothing when an electrical transformer station was torched, leaving thousands without power. They even did nothing when fellow police officers were assaulted by the mob. But non-aboriginal citizens remained subject to the law and, in the case of Fleming, could even be injured and arrested without breaking it. This remains a black mark on the reputation of both the OPP and the former premier and his party.
And it has absolutely established a precedent in Ontario: in 2013, another Ontario Superior Court judge issued a rare, public rebuke to the police for refusing to enforce a court order to end an aboriginal blockade of a railway. “We seem to be drifting into dangerous waters in the life of the public affairs of this province when courts cannot predict, with any practical degree of certainty, whether police agencies will assist in enforcing court injunctions,” Justice David Brown wrote.
Dangerous waters indeed. Hopefully Randy Flemming’s victory in the court will help reverse this slow slide into lawlessness that began under Dalton McGuinty’s watch, and continues, sadly, to this day.
National Post
mgurney@nationalpost.com
Twitter.com/MattGurney
Matt Gurney is editor of the National Post Comment section, and host of National Post Radio on SiriusXM’s Canada Talks, channel 167. |
Here's how it works: Detroit account holders who owe $250 or less to DWSD can enter their information through a simple form-based site. Required info includes address, account number, past due and current charges, and account balance. The information is then verified through the Detroit Water and Sewage Department website.
Turn on Detroit's Water is a website that matches donors with Detroiters who are struggling to pay their water bills. The site invites residents with overdue bills to submit their information. From there, the site—which is the work of Tiffani Ashley Bell and Kristy Tillman —matches them with donors willing to assume their obligation.
Last week, a bankruptcy judge ordered the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department to come up with answers for helping residents pay their overdue water bills, in light of the thousands of shut-off notices the agency has issued across the city. While the water authority must present its alternatives in court today, two resourceful women have already come up with one solution.
Would-be donors simply submit an email address. Once a donor is matched with an account holder, the donor then receives all the account information required to pay the overdue bill. The donor can't see the Detroit account holder's name, though, unless the account holder asks to reveal it.
As Bell recounts, the project was sparked in a discussion over Twitter.
So yesterday I rolled over to a story in @TheAtlantic about the water crisis in Detroit. I'd followed the story a bit already, but ugh. — Tiffani Ashley Bell (@tiffani) July 18, 2014
In any event, it wasn't enough to just sadly retweet Detroit water stories all day, so me and @KristyT decided to do something about it. — Tiffani Ashley Bell (@tiffani) July 18, 2014
Bell and Tillman's site indicates that only individual residents are eligible to participate—so a donor won't be asked to pay on one of the city's many delinquent corporate accounts. Some 4,400 homes remained without water in late June, according to reports. The department announced today that it was suspending shut-offs for the next 15 days to give delinquent account holders time to seek help.
.@tiffani and I wanted to do because we want to help Detroit residents DIRECTLY and IMMEDIATELY. #DETwaterON — Kristy Tillman (@KristyT) July 18, 2014
Tillman says by email that they began looking for residents in need on Friday and that they had identified several by this morning. Word of mouth has spread faster among donors. "We've got over 100 donors from allover the place who are getting matched up with people in Detroit right now thanks to sharing their email addresses with us," she says.
Representatives at DWSD didn't respond right away about whether they will direct delinquent customers to seek help on Tillman and Bell's website. |
Video
London and some British cities are facing a "Romanian crime epidemic, a factor that nobody dares to talk about", claims the UKIP leader.
Nigel Farage, who has returned from a trip to Bulgaria, was speaking about the numbers of people from the two countries who may head to the UK after visa restrictions are lifted in January 2014.
He was it was not in the UK national interest to allow in more people while Britain already had one million unemployed young people.
Mr Farage said it was a "complete unknown quantity" how many of the Roma people living in poverty and excluded from society may head to the UK.
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CHILDREN’S literature and religion have a close but contentious relationship. The stories of Narnia, penned by the Belfast-born writer C.S. Lewis, have a Christian subtext which the author did not hide. Jesus Christ is represented by the character of Aslan, a powerful, generous lion who could compel human beings to be honest about themselves. In the seaside village of Rostrevor on Ireland’s east coast, tourists are encouraged to explore the nearby forests to see where the writer got his spiritual and literary inspiration: it is the nearest they will ever get to Narnia.
In fact, the Christian message in Narnia was too overt for the tastes of Lewis’s friend and fellow writer, J.R.R. Tolkien. The creator of the Lord of the Rings stories was a lifelong Roman Catholic, while Lewis switched from atheism to Anglicanism. Tolkien agreed that mythology, whether ancient or newly devised, could contain multiple layers of truth, but felt these truths should be kept well hidden. It seems that the two scribes had robust, enjoyable debates about this matter in the pubs of Oxford where they both lived.
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What about a more contemporary children’s craze, the Harry Potter stories by J.K. Rowling? Religious people have argued passionately about whether their influence is healthy or otherwise. Before his elevation as Pope Benedict, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger expressed the opinion that there might be “subtle seductions” in the tales. On the American religious right, some have discouraged children from reading the stories by citing passages in the Hebrew Scriptures which forbid any recourse to witchcraft.
In interviews, Ms Rowling (pictured above) has described herself as a Christian who wrestles with doubt; she was brought up Anglican and later attended the Church of Scotland. Asked by a Canadian interviewer whether she was a Christian, she replied: “Yes, I am, which seems to offend the religious right far worse than if I thought there was no God.”
In any case, whatever her own intentions, there are plenty of people who feel that her stories contain spiritual messages, at least in a broad sense, all ready to be asserted and propagated, among grown-ups as well as children.
Take, for examples, one of the final scenes in the seventh and last instalment of the Harry Potter series. The title character walks through the Forbidden Forest to his presumed death in the hopes of defeating the evil Lord Voldemort (alas, for the select few who have not read the books, a spoiler is coming). The young hero feels buoyed up on this journey by four spirit-like people who walk beside him: his dead parents, his godfather and his professor at Hogwart’s academy. The quartet of beings say very little, but their presence gives him courage.
Contemplating this scene can reinforce people’s sense of a divine presence in their own lives, says Vanessa Zoltan, who has worked as a humanist chaplain at Harvard University. Her podcasts about Harry Potter have become one of the most successful religious messages (again, in the broad sense) now circulating in America.
Ms Zoltan penned an academic thesis on the possibility of treating secular text as though it were a kind of holy writ. Then she put her theoretical musings into practice by launching, together her collaborator Casper ter Kuile, a podcast entitled “Harry Potter and the Sacred Text” which is now regularly rated as one of the country’s five most popular spiritual podcasts. (Other top religious users of this ever-more popular medium include Joel Osteen, a Texas pastor, and the Southern Baptist Elevation Church, based in North Carolina.)
Ms Zoltan acknowledges that Harry Potter series, while certainly a cult of sorts, hardly rates as a religion in the full sense. It is far from accumulating the collective historical memory or shared culture which the world’s great belief systems can claim.
But she says there are important underlying themes and lessons in every chapter, and in her view they come in a more easily digestible and less divisive format than is offered by some of the more “mainstream” religious texts. Very few evil acts have been done in the name of Harry Potter, and that can’t be said for other religions, she argues.
She and Mr ter Kuile, who is training to be a non-religious minister, say they draw on traditional religious tools such as Lectio Divina, a type of intensive meditation on short scriptural passages which is practised in Catholicism. Ms Zoltan believes there are all manner of spiritual messages and lessons within the Harry Potter stories, pertaining to broad themes like friendship, hope, mercy, mortality, alliances and self-sacrifice.
For example, in the third book, Hermione wishes to mend her friendship with Harry and his buddy Ron. When she learns that Harry is planning a potentially dangerous excursion, she threatens to tell on him, in the hopes of keeping him safe. At one level the boys feel they have been betrayed, but Hermione’s effort to protect them reflects a bond of amity which goes even deeper, Ms Zoltan says.
At the current rate, Ms Zoltan and her collaborator have three-and-a-half years left of the podcast, if they are to plough their way through all seven books. And once they have done that, they hope to return to the first chapter of the first book to show listeners that there are still many layers of meaning waiting to be detected. It is a commonplace among all writers about religion to say that mankind’s spiritual quest is not so much a search for true-or-false propositions as a search for meaning. And the range of places where people can find meaning is broad indeed. |
By Jesse Robitaille
It takes careful thought and consideration, but there are ways – and thankfully machines – to detect even the most meticulously crafted philatelic fakes, forgeries and counterfeits.
This was the message on Oct. 18, when more than 30 philatelists gathered at a meeting of the West Toronto Stamp Club for a presentation by Canada’s pre-eminent philatelic forgery expert. Attendees came from as far away as White Rock, B.C., for the first of three presentations led by Ken Pugh, the author of an 11-part series on the forgeries of British North America (BNA), among other areas of collecting.
It’s somewhat alarming for a philatelist to hear: Pugh has 36 books in his series on the fakes and forgeries of BNA and Canada alone; that’s in addition to five books on Buenos Aires and others on Uruguay, Serbia and the Belgian Congo. Each book is between 50 and 150 pages, making for nearly 4,000 pages of reference material on philatelic fakes and forgeries from the world over.
“You can imagine how much material is out there to keep me busy writing,” said Pugh, who listed enough affected collecting interests to put a scare in most of the audience. “Believe me, there’s a lot of fakes and there’s a lot of forgeries.”
For example, Pugh warned: “If you collect anything in BNA, that area has fakes and forgeries in it.”
There was a discernible reaction from attendees, many of whom said they collect BNA. However, Pugh said, there’s plenty of room for optimism.
‘OH-MY-GOD MACHINE’
To counteract the counterfeiters, there are organizations such as the Toronto-based Vincent Graves Green Philatelic Research Foundation.
“They have equipment that can virtually detect anything,” said Pugh, who has an affectionate name for the foundation’s Video Spectral Comparator (VSC)-6000: “The Oh-My-God Machine.”
The VSC-6000 is a digital imaging system that can forensically examine a range of items, including stamps and other philatelic material. It allows the Greene foundation’s expertization committee to identify items suspected of having cleaned cancellations; altered or enhanced postmarks; counterfeit overprints; repairs or sealed tears; and removed or altered colours.
“That’s a game changer,” said Pugh, a resident of Vernon, B.C. “You guys are so fortunate to have this resource.”
A GOOD FOUNDATION
There’s a lot to consider when you’re poring over your collection in search of counterfeits, so it’s important to get a sense of things before you start.
“You have to know what you’re looking for,” said Pugh, who added you should be able to know when something doesn’t “smell right” about a particular stamp, cancel or perforation.
“How many, going through your collections, have found fakes of your own without the help of sending it to the Greene to identify it?” he asked, with more than half of the 30 attendees raising their hands.
Pugh said for “every book and every bit of research” he has done, he began by studying the genuine example.
“You have to know what they look like to compare,” he said, adding the first 75 pages of one of his books is exclusively focused on genuine Crown cancels, including what they look like; how and why they were used; and how to determine a genuine example from its usage and the stamp it’s tied to. “The rest of the book is about the 33 fakes that are out there trying to replicate these.”
HOW IT’S MADE
Pugh said the first step in detecting a counterfeit stamp is understanding how the genuine examples were produced.
“Is it a lithograph, or is it engraved, or is it a typograph?” asked Pugh, who added early forgeries were typically typographs (also known as letterpress), which use the raised surface of a plate to replicate a stamp with ink.
“It has certain characteristics,” he said. “When it’s made, the ink squishes out from the lines, and that’s an important thing to look for.”
The lines of a lithographed stamp won’t exhibit this “squishing,” he added.
When making engraved stamps, a die is used to press ink into paper, which, when removed from the die, will show a “negative ridge.”
Pugh said one of the best ways to detect this ridge is to touch the stamp.
“You can often feel it,” he added.
MASTER FORGER
Pugh said one of the best-known philatelic forgers, Jean de Sperati, used a process known as photo-lithography, with which he would directly transfer a stamp’s design to a printing surface.
Sperati, who was born in Italy but spent much of his life in France, had relatives who owned a paper mill as well as a factory that produced postcards, granting him access to endless knowledge on the subjects of printing, photography and the industrial chemicals used in both.
“When printing, he printed it over and over and over again on top of each other, so when you gave it the foil and finger test, it looked engraved,” Pugh said. “He’s a clever fellow, and there are a lot of things he did that fooled the experts.”
With his knowledge of paper and chemistry, Sperati could dissolve the inks of a cancellation while keeping the genuine stamp intact underneath.
“He would take a genuine stamp and be able to make a plate of it and print it on another piece of paper – usually from old books – so when he made his reproductions and a stamp was on laid paper, he would go to the library and find an old book with laid paper and use that.”
Sperati could also chemically dissolve paper – keeping cancellations as well as perforations – and then use photo-lithography to place an entirely different stamp on top.
“It’ll have all that, so that’s how he was able to fool all the experts, and that’s what he liked doing. His thing was trying to prove he was able to do all this.”
Pugh showed a Sperati example – the highest price ever paid for a Canadian forgery – from his personal collection. The forged 12-penny Black cost Pugh $7,500.
“He removed the ‘specimen’ overprint and re-backed it onto laid paper,” he said, adding someone would have to look “very carefully” to detect it.
“There are things we can do ourselves and things only the Greene (foundation) can do.”
For more information about Pugh’s work, visit kenpughphilatelics.com. |
MUMBAI: DLF’s run-ins with regulators continues to haunt it. On Monday, market regulator Sebi barred the Delhi-based real estate major and six of its top executives , including promoter-chairman K P Singh, from the capital market for three years due to lack of disclosure in the company’s IPO prospectus when it went public in 2007.The Sebi order follows a Rs 630-crore fine imposed by fairplay regulator Competition Commission of India (CCI) against DLF for abusing its dominant position to seriously discomfit flat owners in three Gurgaon apartments. The case is now in the Supreme Court.The Sebi order, which relates to non-disclosure of an FIR against Sudipti Estates — a subsidiary of DLF — during the IPO process, now curtails DLF’s ability to raise funds from the market.In its order, Sebi said that it found DLF and its directors, including Singh’s son Rajiv and daughter Pia, guilty of “active and deliberate suppression” of material information at the time of its public offer. The three others banned by Sebi are T C Goyal (MD), Kameshwar Swarup and Ramesh Sanka, both former directors on its board. Sebi, however, did not pass any order against G S Talwar, who was a non-executive director at that time, and gave him ‘benefit of doubt’. Sebi barred DLF and these six people from ‘accessing the securities market’ and prohibited them from ‘buying, selling or otherwise dealing in securities, directly or indirectly,’ for three years.According to sources DLF will likely contest the order in Securities Appellate Tribunal. Till late on Monday DLF, did not send its official comment on the Sebi order.DLF chairman and CEO KP Singh In April 2010, under order from Delhi high court, the market regulator started a probe to see if the disclosures made during DLF’s IPO were proper. The HC order came after Kimsuk Krishna Sinha, a Delhi resident filed a case in the HC. In 2007 Sinha had also complained to Sebi against DLF which related to the company’s dealings with other companies which were alleged to be closely related to the real estate major.After serving a show cause notice (SCN), giving DLF and its directors to examine relevant documents based on which the SCN was served, Sebi also gave them a chance for personal representation. Post the due process, Sebi barred the company and the six people.Sebi wholetime member Rajeev Kumar Agarwal found DLF and its top executives to have violated, among other laws, Disclosure and Investor Protection Guidelines and Prevention of Fraudulent and Unfair Trade Practices norms. “In this case, I have already found that the process of share transfer of three subsidiaries of DLF in Sudipti, Shalika and Felicite was through sham transactions as alleged in the SCN and that the seven entities employed a plan, scheme, design and device to camouflage the association of DLF with its three subsidiaries,” the order noted. “I am satisfied that the violations as found in this case are grave and have larger implications on the safety and integrity of the securities market,” Agarwal wrote.Through its IPO in 2007, DLF had raised about Rs 9,200 crore and the stock was listed on the bourses on July 5, 2007. |
Around the same time that Donald Trump was inaugurated, the mainstream media and Clinton partisans tried to inaugurate Chelsea Clinton as the leading spokesperson of the Trump resistance. Since January, The Hill publishes on average of two articles per week about Chelsea Clinton, usually remarking on something she tweeted.
Politico, The Washington Post and several other media outlets published profiles praising Chelsea Clinton, on top of running articles about her tweets. It’s painfully obvious that the mainstream media is shoving Chelsea Clinton down Americans’ throats with interviews, magazine covers, awards and a constant obsession over her substance-free tweets.
This deliberate elevation of Chelsea Clinton into a political celebrity invokes the same fandom as Hillary Clinton did. Any criticism about treating another Clinton as a political celebrity is met with condemnation from the Democratic establishment as it allows itself to become susceptible to the ascension of another Clinton.
Chelsea Clinton is to the Clintons as Jeb Bush is to the Bushes. Just as Jeb was the laughing stock of the 2016 Republican primaries, Chelsea Clinton is beginning to face criticisms for her handling of critics on Twitter. “Actually, it was more of an anti-American protest less than a month after 9/11. I joined real anti-war protests in 2003,” Chelsea Clinton tweeted to another Twitter user who pointed out that Chelsea Clinton joined a counter-protest to an anti-war protest at Oxford University in 2001.
The Guardian reported that the event Chelsea Clinton participated in was organized by Oxford’s Stop the War Coalition. Apparently, its organizers perceived Chelsea Clinton’s interruption as a joke because of how awful it was.
“The student convener of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Liz Hutchins, said Ms. Clinton was mistaking concern about the American government’s policy for dislike of Americans. Every student protest group has expressed its sympathy for the events of September 11. ‘But, there is quite a strong feeling that the systems the U.S. uses to rule the world are very unfair to most people. It’s a completely normal tactic to throw allegations around, rather than addressing the real issues of American foreign policy,’ she said.”
During a Variety Power of Women Luncheon, Saturday Night Live Star Vanessa Brayer joked about Chelsea Clinton’s mother losing the election, which Chelsea Clinton retorted back against during her speech. At the event, she was being honored for her role with the Clinton Foundation’s Alliance for a Healthier Generation, which is tantamount to little more than a corporate partnership between junk food companies like Pepsi and health insurance companies like Aetna.
On April 22, Chelsea Clinton called herself a “social scientist” and responded to Twitter users making fun of her self-adulating description by citing her doctorate in international relations.
Chelsea Clinton is no stranger to manipulating negative media coverage to benefit her family. In 1998, an article in Time magazine described a game that Bill and Hillary made Chelsea play at dinner that used to make her cry: “Dad was in the middle of an especially ugly re-election fight, his enemies were drawing blood, and so they all tried a game at the dinner table: Chelsea would pretend that she was her father, making speeches about why people should vote for her, and then he would attack her, say really mean things, so she would learn to protect herself. At first, the exercises reduced the little girl to tears: ‘Why would anybody say things like that?’ But after a while, Hillary later wrote, ‘she gradually gained mastery over her emotions; she came to understand people’s dark motives; and, finally, she would come back fighting, fully prepared to handle the wicked lies that enemies might tell.'”
The authors of the article noted what it would take for the public to be prepared when the Clintons’ enemies were the ones telling the truth, and it was the Clintons who were lying. Chelsea Clinton famously served as a public relations strategy to the Clintons during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Now, Chelsea Clinton is being used to not only rehabilitate Hillary Clinton’s image but to elevate herself as the heir of the Clinton dynasty. This elitist sycophancy embraces the Clintons with open arms, lavishing them with awards, book deals, highly paid speeches and praise. Critics may not be able to alleviate this undeserved, constant Clinton adoration from the political establishment and pop culture. However, they can push back against Chelsea Clinton emerging as a spokesperson for the Trump resistance, which will ultimately transition into the political office she has assured everyone she won’t be running for—at least not at the moment. |
Brewing area of Stonefly Credit: Michael Sears
MKE Diner News and notes on the restaurant scene from dining critic Carol Deptolla SHARE
By of the
The former director of coffee at Colectivo roasters and the owner of Bavette la Boucherie will open Company Brewing, a brewpub and restaurant in Riverwest, in what is now Stonefly Brewing.
Stonefly, 735 E. Center St., remains open while loose ends are tied up, said owner Julia LaLoggia. She said the goal is to close it by the end of the month.
Karen Bell, the chef who owns the Third Ward butcher shop and restaurant, said she and George Bregar hope to open Company Brewing in February after some remodeling. (You can keep tabs on Company Brewing's progress on Facebook.)
Bregar, a home brewer, said Company Brewing would open with five or six of its own beers and will add seasonal beers as well.
Beers will include takes on American and Belgian styles. Bregar said said styles he's considering for the opening include an American pale ale, a riff on a Belgian wit, an IPA and a lightly oaked red ale. He's also working on a rum barrel-aged Belgian quad.
For summer, he expects to brew beers with wild yeast, "something crisp and complex and refreshing," he said.
The site has about a dozen draft lines, and some would be given over to other brewers, such as 3 Sheeps; Bregar noted he has a relationship with 3 Sheeps because the Sheboygan company brews Colectivo's beers.
As for the food, Company Brewing will hire its own chef, but Bell will divide her time between the new place and Bavette, she said.
The food menu would have at its core nose-to-tail cooking, with some sausages coming from Bavette. Bell said the restaurant would have some family-style dishes on the menu, and noted that it won't serve small plates. "Diners can decide for themselves if they want to share," she said.
In a statement issued today, Bell said, “The menu will be creative and playful, while remaining approachable. We feel that both the beer and food need to be on the same level at Company, which at its core is about high-quality ingredients and freshness.”
The new brewpub would incorporate some beer in to menu items and will suggest beer pairings for dishes.
LaLoggia, Stonefly's owner, bought what was Onopa Brewing in 2004 and renamed it Stonefly Brewing Co. in 2006. LaLoggia also owns Ginger, a restaurant and bar in Walker's Point at 235 S. 2nd St.
"I live in Bay View now, so I want to spend some more time in this area," she said. LaLoggia said she's also planning to expand use of Ginger's second floor and spend more time working with local producers for ingredients. "That's where my passion is now," she said. |
Let's get right to the point: This is a very funny and slick show. 'Kid Notorious' is the new program from Comedy Central (the folks that brought you 'South Park' and 'Primetime Glick'), produced and created by ultimate Hollywood insider Robert Evans. The animated series follows the adventures of Bobby "Kid Notorious" Evans as he moves and shakes deals all over Hollywood. The Kid's exploits are, of course, based (however loosely) on the actual dealings of Mr Evans, a fact which, if known in advance, should lead the viewer to be fairly amazed at how smooth the Kid (and, in real life, Mr evans) really is. The Kid lives in his posh Beverly Hills mansion with his butler, English, his cook/house keeper, Talley Mae, his furry black kitten, Puss Puss ("Puss" for short), and a never-ending stream of starlets and starlet wanna-be's. The Supporting Characters bring alot with them and are not just relagated to the one-phrase, one-setting scenario often compelled upon similar charater in Network programming ("Hailing frequancies open, Captain"). Indeed, They each seem to play a strong role in the over-all make up of the show. Talley Mae brings the "real world" into The Kid's version of reality (often with very funny tirades). English, the butler, is the perfect "mark", setting-up any number of funny moments, buth verbally and physically. And Puss, well, Puss just seems to enjoy hanging around with The Kid and generally abusing English and causing mayhem en mass.
But the star of the show is Robert Evans. In creating/producing 'Kid Notorious', Evans may have finally found the singular role for which he was born to play...Himself. As the Kid, Evans exudes a graceful and cool style which is often contrasted (diliberately, I assume) with the reality of the given moment (in the first episode, The Kid smoothly talks his way out of some trouble with the mob as if her were telling English which suit to lay out with his rich, velvet voice, all the while the glaring danger of the situation seems palpable to everyone else in the room), which beggs the question, Does the Kid really live in his own fantasy world or does he actually know exactly what is going on and is just too cool to let it get to him? I was left with the feeling that it was the latter. Always smooth ("I can say, 'Baby, you take my breath away!' in 65-langueges..."), always Funny ("...except Ducth"), 'Kid Notorious' seems to have just one week point: It is Too Cool For You, so to speak. As with most "inside" films/shows, the true brilliance of 'Kid Notorious' may only be apparent to those in The Industry or those who follow it closely (read; 'The Player'). For anyone is not familier with how Hollywood works or the political workings behind the scene of any show biz project, this show may just be another cartoon written in a languege they do not understand. But to the initiated, this is a rare piece of self-deprecating humor that also manages to do a supperb job of highlighting the talent(s) and charm of it's lead character and, there-for, by default, it's creat/producer/star. Not many people could pull off so shameless an act of self promotion while at the same time taking pot shots at their own reputation. But then, not many people have led the life that Robert Evans has led. Is he great producer? Debatable. Is he a great Star? Questionable. Is he a great Insider? Undoubtedly! And this is why this show works. Robert Evans has finally found the perfect star for the perfect role of his career. Himself playing himself. Genious.
Robert Evans IS 'Kid Notorious'. |
"Gamasutra Explains" is a new format meant to help you understand the news that affects your profession as a game developer.
Lately, you've likely heard a lot about the rise of the YouTuber. Gamasutra, of course, has spent a great deal of effort reporting on it so far.
It all stems from the fact that audiences have been flocking to their output. Famously, Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg has the most popular user-run channel on YouTube -- and generated $4 million dollars in revenue last year.
The movement has been building for some time, but the ubiquity of game streaming equipment and video services to host its output, audience interest in videos, and the financial viability of making a living from them has reached an inflection point. We are now smack in the middle of a trend that will only gather steam, as late-movers and aspirants enter the space, and developers and publishers scramble to take advantage of the phenomenon.
This guide is designed to help you understand this complex topic.
"YouTubers" are affecting how people make games
YouTubers were originally a response to the rise of YouTube as a platform and video games as a medium. Video games are now responding to YouTubers.
"I now believe there's a direct correlation between how good your game is and how many unique YouTube videos it can yield," Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski recently said. "The YouTubers have taken over, folks!" The way games look on video is now fundamentally affecting how Bleszinski makes them -- and he isn't an upstart, but someone who's already found massive success making games.
Bleszinski may be one of the biggest developers to change so radically and publicly, but he's far from the only veteran developer shifting how he makes games for the YouTube era. "We have already decided to change our genre and gameplay for the next game designed around getting attention in the new world we live in," veteran developer John Ardussi wrote in a comment to his recent blog post on YouTubers.
Game developers aren't just thinking about whether their game is good to play, but also whether it is good for others to watch.
This trend will only intensify as the relationship between YouTubers and game developers gets closer. 3BlackDot, that startup from popular YouTube personalities SeaNanners and Syndicate, has launched a game called Zombie Killer Squad that features the YouTubers as playable characters in the game -- and, in turn, they promote it to their fans. Game makers are going beyond the pre-roll ads, and incorporating popular YouTube personalities into their games, for promotional purposes.
Trends don't occur in isolation, either; even developers who don't actively use YouTubers for promotion are affected. Plenty of games are released at alpha; still more get post-release patches for new content, bug fixes, and to address community concerns. In that universe, how YouTubers play can become a roadmap to fixing -- or altering -- your game.
Key Quote: "Well, I think a lot more about how fun games I make are to watch, that comes with the sacrifice of certain design roads though. But, at the same time, it puts the limelight on some overdue roads too... randomization and emergent systems, namely." - Tower of Guns developer Joe Mirabello
What do "YouTubers" do?
YouTubers play games, record their play sessions -- and themselves -- and then post the results to YouTube. Many also stream at Twitch.tv, or do both.
The movement grew out of the basic Let's Play form, which began in the pre-video era with screenshots and text commentary on web sites. It's expanded to encompass more varied forms of content, but that's the gist of it.
It's a bit silly to merely explain when you can simply watch the top YouTuber, PewDiePie, in action:
The number of YouTubers has recently begun to explode, and each has his or her own approach. Some carefully craft videos using a mixture of live action footage, motion graphics or animation, and gameplay footage; others practice and rehearse their play before recording; still others simply play games and record video, and then post whatever comes out.
The content of the videos can be very loose or extremely tightly controlled; it can be heavily edited or just flow freely in realtime; it can be serious or comedic. A video might be a deep exploration of what makes a game tick, or just somebody screwing around while a game is running in the background.
In general, however, it's recordings of people playing games and their reactions to them. We're starting to again hear the word "infotainment," which last had cultural currency in the 1990s when news shows like Inside Edition (which sought to entertain as much as inform) were ascendant. In this case, it refers to the fact that these videos are in themselves entertaining, yet don't have the same goal as traditional editorial content, like video reviews produced by core video game sites like IGN.
Key quote: "What I and other YouTubers do is a very different thing, it's almost like hanging around and watching your pal play games. My fans care in a different way about what they are watching." - Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg
Who are these people?
There are lots of YouTubers -- and more every day. One of the most striking things about the phenomenon is how it's possible to suddenly hear of someone well after they've already picked up a million or more subscribers.
The biggest name in the game is 24 year old Swede Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, who has over 29 million subscribers as of this writing -- making his the most-subscribed channel on the site that's not an automatically generated category like "music."
The top-subscribed game-related YouTube channels, ranked by total subscribers
1. PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg) - 29,143,000
2. Machinima - 11,614,000
3. SkyDoesMinecraft (Adam Dahlberg) - 10,224,000
4. VanossGaming (Evan Fong) - 8,067,000
5. CaptainSparklez (Jordan Maron) - 7,791,000
6. TheSyndicateProject (Tom Cassell) - 7,746,000
7. Rooster Teeth - 7,666,000
8. Yogscast Lewis & Simon (Lewis Brindley and Simon Lane) - 7,065,000
9. RocketJump - 6,957,000
10. TobyGames (Toby Turner) - 6,730,000
As you can see from the chart above, PewDiePie sets the standard -- by some distance. Other notable names include Adam "SeaNanners" Montoya, (4,657,000 subscribers), John "TotalBiscuit" Bain (1,726,000 subscribers), Jon "JonTron" Jafari (1,156,000 subscribers), Ryan "Northernlion" Letourneau (339,000 subscribers), and the Game Grumps (currently formed of Arin "Egoraptor" Hanson and Leigh Daniel "Danny Sexbang" Avidan, with 1,674,000 subscribers).
This is just a sampling, of course, and the number of YouTubers (and subscribers) grows daily. Notably, while most of these channels are run by individuals and generally hew to the "Let's Play" format we've described, others veer into different formats (Machinima posts publisher-supplied trailers, for instance; Rooster Teeth produces Halo-inspired comedy series Red vs. Blue. While RocketJump focuses mainly on games, it also posts non-game related comedy shorts.)
(Note: All subscriber numbers have been rounded off and are current as of this posting.)
Key Quote: "I keep replaying the baby part and each time I laugh harder and make a really ugly face. Just sayin'." - A YouTube comment on a PewDiePie video |
NHL.com continues its preview of the 2014-15 season, which will include in-depth looks at all 30 teams throughout September.
The question came from a perturbed fan in the stands at TD Garden for the Boston Bruins' annual State of the Bruins town hall meeting just before the start of training camp.
The fan alluded to the notion the Boston Celtics only hang banners for their world championships because that's their only goal, but the Bruins have banners commemorating their division and conference titles, in addition to their Stanley Cup championships, because they're not as committed to winning world titles.
It didn't take Bruins president Cam Neely a breath to grab the microphone and respond to the disgruntled customer by flatly denying the person's premise was accurate. After the event, Neely expanded on what the Bruins' biggest target is every season.
"We talk all the time: What's our Stanley Cup roster look like? We talk about that constantly," Neely said. "So I can understand frustrations, especially coming off the heels of last playoffs. But we talk about winning all the time. That's first and foremost here."
Winning proved almost easy for the Bruins during the 2013-14 regular season, when they won the Presidents' Trophy with 117 points. Their plus-84 goal differential was 27 goals better than the next closest team. They ranked second in goals against and third in goals for. In just about every way, the Bruins dominated the NHL.
PROJECTED LINEUP FORWARDS M. Lucic D. Krejci L. Eriksson B. Marchand P. Bergeron R. Smith C. Kelly C. Soderberg M. Fraser D. Paille G. Campbell J. Caron DEFENSEMEN Z. Chara D. Hamilton D. Seidenberg J. Boychuk T. Krug A. McQuaid GOALIES T. Rask N. Svedberg
Then after about a month of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the domination ended. The Bruins lost to the Montreal Canadiens in the Eastern Conference Second Round in seven games. Everything the Bruins did, including committing to pay several players performance bonuses that would hamstring them under the NHL salary cap the next season, went for naught.
Instead of heading into 2014-15 riding the remnants of a championship celebration, the Bruins are beginning the season with motivations to make sure they don't feel that level of disappointment again.
"Well, it was disappointing. But it happens," center David Krejci said. "You need a little luck to go all the way. When we won it, we had a little luck, a couple times in Game 7, and when we went to the Finals we had a little luck as well. That didn't happen, but I've put it behind me. It's a new season. So I'm ready, I'm excited and I can't wait for the season to come."
Unlike most teams that come up two rounds shy of the Final, the Bruins did little to change their roster. General manager Peter Chiarelli was content with the talent and depth in his organization, plus he had little wiggle room under the salary-cap ceiling. Chiarelli did manage to get defenseman Torey Krug and forward Reilly Smith signed to identical one-year, $1.4 million contracts Monday. Barring trades, what openings in the Bruins lineup there are because of unsigned players and a couple who defected will probably be filled with reinforcements from the organization.
Any discussion of the Bruins forwards has to start with two-time Selke Trophy winner Patrice Bergeron, who shared the team lead with 30 goals last season. Bergeron is the foundation of the forward corps and is almost always joined on his line by left wing Brad Marchand. Although Marchand scored 25 goals, his season was considered a disappointment because of some lengthy goal droughts and a goal-less postseason. Marchand reported to camp in better shape than a year ago and should boost his stats by joining one of the power-play units. Smith, coming off a 20-goal season, figures to plug right back in next to Bergeron and Marchand.
Krejci led the Bruins with 69 points last season. He'll again have Milan Lucic on his left wing. But on the right side the Bruins might not decide on a replacement for Jarome Iginla until as late as opening night. The job as Krejci's right wing was one of at least three up for grabs during camp for any number of veterans and prospects.
Left-shooting Loui Eriksson was the favorite to be that line's right wing based on his track record as a former 30-goal scorer. Eriksson had a disappointing first season in Boston with 10 goals in 61 games. Now that Eriksson is healthy and more comfortable, he could be a fit there.
"He's a great player, he can pass the puck, and I feel if I play with him I'll get even more goals because he's a great passer," Krejci said of Eriksson. "But we'll see what happens. Obviously I'm excited, I would love to play with him, but we'll see how camp goes and go from there."
Center Carl Soderberg will center a line in the Bruins' bottom six. Veterans Chris Kelly, Daniel Paille and Gregory Campbell figure to plug in someplace, but where they land will depend on which young players earn jobs. Ryan Spooner and Alexander Khokhlachev are centers who could make the jump from the American Hockey League. One of them might force Campbell to the wing.
Wings Matt Fraser, Jordan Caron and Justin Florek had their moments with big goals in the playoffs last season and could keep it going into this regular season. The Bruins love 2014 first-round draft pick David Pastrnak's speed and skill. And camp tryout invitees Simon Gagne and Ville Leino might last into the season.
The Bruins probably won't try to replace right wing Shawn Thornton with another tough player, so the fourth line will have a different look.
The defense is overflowing with qualified players, and Chiarelli hasn't been shy about the notion that at some point he's going to have to relieve the logjam. With Krug signed, Chiarelli was talking about having nine legitimate NHL defensemen.
We know who the Bruins' top four will be, barring a trade. Perennial Norris Trophy candidate Zdeno Chara is back along with Dougie Hamilton and Johnny Boychuk, who each has been Chara's partner for stretches the past couple seasons. After missing most of last season with an ACL/MCL injury, Dennis Seidenberg is back at full strength.
Adam McQuaid missed most of last season with injuries. He's healthy again, but Kevan Miller proved a sufficient replacement for McQuaid and is in a fight to keep one of Boston's bottom-pair jobs. Krug is coming off a 14-goal, 40-point rookie season. He improved greatly on defense last season and was a major part of the Bruins' resurgent power play. Matt Bartkowski had his struggles in the playoffs but gained valuable experience playing up and down the depth chart last season. And David Warsofsky, who has six games of NHL experience, could also be an answer as well, especially on the power play.
"It's a good problem to have," Chara said about defense depth. "No matter how you look at it, to have that many players capable of playing gives you obviously an advantage. And like I said, it's a good problem to have and it would be obviously a different situation if we would be on the other side of it. So sometimes things are out of your control as far as trades and other things but as a player you … have to do your best to make the team and the lineup, and the rest of it is up to the management."
For the third time in the past six seasons a Bruins goaltender won the Vezina Trophy: Tuukka Rask earned the award for best goaltender with a 36-15-6 record, 2.04 goals-against average and .930 save percentage. Rask played 58 games in the regular season and was almost better in the playoffs (1.99 GAA, .928 save percentage). If there were any questions about Rask's worthiness of an eight-year, $56 million contract, he answered them.
For the third straight season, Rask will have a different backup. Following in the footsteps of Anton Khudobin and Chad Johnson likely will be Niklas Svedberg, who spent two years learning the North American game with Providence in the American Hockey League. Svedberg didn't make the Bruins despite an impressive camp last year and then had a 2.63 GAA and .910 save percentage for Providence.
"Every year you get more experience and you play more games. … Maybe I had some rougher parts last year down in Providence. But I think it helped me mentally to get better, some good experience, and overall it's been good," Svedberg said. |
Updated August 23, 2017 at 11:15 am: The full deck for the Metrolinx AMO presentation is now online.
On August 14, 2017, Metrolinx attended the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference in Ottawa with a presentation “Connecting the Region”. Although this was not a formal unveiling of the next iteration of the GTHA’s “Big Move” regional transportation plan, it gives a sense of Metrolinx thinking and what might be in the pipeline.
Compared with the original plan in 2008, this iteration is much more about building what is already in the pipeline as opposed to a grand vision with more lines than anyone could ever hope to see. This is an important evolution for Metrolinx from a purely planning agency to construction and, eventually, to operation of a large transit network.
During the past decade since the 2008 plan was developed, the GTHA has evolved in both its population and in the type of development that “growth” implies. Although the original plan foresaw a great deal of new transit, even that ambitious scheme would only barely keep up with growth in travel demand. Even this would be uneven with better transit in some of the “easy” corridors such as the rail lines, but much less to serve region-to-region travel.
That was always an issue with The Big Move – at best it would cap the growth in auto travel provided there was a massive, sustained investment in infrastructure and service, but a real decline in “congestion” and all that entails would be much more challenging. The pols put a brave face on the plan talking of reduced commute times, lower pollution, more time for families, but the benefits are not spread equally through the region, and much work remains to be done. Some of that is comparatively “simple” in the sense of one-shot, big-ticket construction projects like The Crosstown and the GO Transit upgrades for RER. But the more complex issue remains the need for local service to feed the new corridors, and for service in the large areas where there is no new infrastructure.
[An aside: this is the only graphic in this presentation in Metrolinx’ new black and white colour scheme for reports that arose from its adoption of a new brand/logo. Wiser heads appear to have prevailed for the remainder of the deck. More on that folly in another article.]
Projected population growth outside of the City of Toronto is substantial, and on a percentage basis is highest in areas where there is a great deal of empty land. What this might say about our ability to grow “sustainably” is a topic in its own right, but it shows a huge problem facing any transportation plan – growth continues to occur in a way that makes transit a difficult if not impossible alternative for much travel.
Many projects are underway, but we are in the difficult phase where comparatively little has been completed, and the government’s fading popularity could change the entire context for transportation debates and investments in the near future. Metrolinx listed what is already done or in progress.
Yes, you read that correctly: the Sheppard East and Scarborough RT projects are still in their list even though we know that both have been sacrificed on the altar of “Subway Champions”. To say that these are even being “planned” is a real stretch.
As for the rail plans, we know that GO/RER is supposed by be completed by 2025, but there is no published roadmap showing when each component will be available to riders.
The map of a future network is equally interesting for what it includes, but moreso for what it excludes. The first map shows many new GO stations, some of which only exist because of John Tory’s SmartTrack project. City Council has agreed to these in principle, but there is a further “stage gate” to pass through once cost estimates for “SmartTrack” have been firmed up.
Although the Eglinton West LRT extension (itself part of the SmartTrack package) appears in a later map, there is no mention of a scheme for a regional hub at Pearson Airport.
Also missing from the rail corridors is the “High Speed” link to Kitchener-Waterloo and London, and the “missing link” freight bypass project that will free up capacity in that corridor. These are not Metrolinx projects per se, but the future of service in the KW corridor depends on what happens with both of them.
The subway extension map shows the Yonge extension to Richmond Hill and the Relief Line to Don Mills & Sheppard, and includes but does not flag the Scarborough Subway as a “future” expansion.
Although the Sheppard East LRT is on the map, it is not flagged. The Eglinton East LRT extension is nowhere to be found. I checked with Metrolinx about this, and they refer to it as a City of Toronto project, hence its exclusion. This is a bizarre attitude for a “regional” agency that must plan for a transportation network to be provided by multiple investors and operators. Leaving routes off of the map because they are not “your own” projects is rather odd, especially when the same presentation includes references to lines few people believe will ever be built.
This network, whatever it might include, must be viewed in the context of travel demand.
It is no surprise that the demographics of the GTHA’s population are changing as the Baby Boom ages out of the workplace.
However, these percentages are not the whole story because population overall is growing, and with it demand for work, school and recreational travel.
The total trips taken rise and with them, almost lock-step, the shares for each mode. There is a hope that auto travel can be shaved by a few percentage points and that transit can hold its own relative to 2011, but these changes are well within the level of accuracy of projections. There will be more trips to be accommodated by each mode, but no big shift in share to transit. And that presumes that all of the projects on which the projections rest are actually built.
Of particular concern is the future distribution of trips by mode within and between various parts of the GTHA.
(In the chart below, note that the values are shown as percentages, not as absolute numbers and so one must infer the actual volume of trips each component represents.)
Travel for work within downtown Toronto is only a small part of the regional travel, and it will continue to be dominated by transit and active modes (walking, cycling). Similarly, travel to downtown is mainly the preserve of transit, but there is no decline forecast in the percentage of auto trips. With the total demand to downtown rising, this is a troubling situation given the lack of available road capacity.
Travel from outside of Toronto into the city as a whole will continue to be over 80% by auto, and the percentages for travel outside of Toronto are similarly high. An important issue once one gets away from downtown is that travel is a “many-to-many” problem that is not easily served with a few high-capacity corridors. Even the 400-series highways and the major arterials are full, and there is limited growth for auto travel. One good example lies at Pearson Airport where road access constrains intensification of development, and yet the network serving the area is overwhelmingly road-based. A transit network linking a broad catchment area to the airport will be challenging to construct. The situation is even worse for areas with less potential for concentrated development.
By even the most rosy of political posturing, this is not a “Big Move”.
Employment growth will continue modestly in Toronto with a downtown focus, but is projected to rise substantially in the regions. It is not at all clear how the proposed regional network addresses the volume and location of projected growth.
Another major source of travel demand is for trips to large academic campuses. This follows a different pattern both in space (many campuses are not located in the areas well-served by job-oriented transit lines) and in time (travel occurs at a different time of day, and travel can be counter-peak to “conventional” commuting). This is a particular problem because students are more likely to be transit customers if only the transit exists to carry them.
An important aspect of any large-scale planning is engagement with the public and with the many municipalities and agencies that will be affected by any new transportation network.
The photo intrigued me because the presentation boards clearly refer to the Fare Integration Study that has been underway for a few years, and which has been the subject of much debate as to the appropriate way riders should pay for transit service. The AMO presentation is silent on the issue, but Metrolinx advises that an updated study report is expected at the September 14 board meeting.
What is particularly striking through the AMO presentation is the absence of local transit operations and funding. Queen’s Park continues to steadfastly say they are not in the business of paying for local transit beyond the gas tax now assigned for that purpose, and mainly used for capital, not operating costs in most cities. This leaves cities on the hook for the operating cost of feeder services to Metrolinx’ network improvements, not to mention the operating costs for Metrolinx-funded capital facilities. One might argue that “increased provincial funding” is a big shell game where any new money “given” to the cities is clawed back by various schemes to force their support for operating provincially built lines, not to mention using the provincially-mandated fare system, Presto.
The draft “Next Big Move” will be released in September for consideration by the Metrolinx board followed by public meetings. If they run true to form, we can expect a preview through selected media. The public face of the plan will be rosy – that is how Metrolinx works – even though the political and financial future of regional transit is murky.
All of this wraps up by year-end, just in time for a revised plan to become fodder for the 2018 election. |
Eventually, somebody’s going to blow the whole thing up. Maybe it’ll be your player-characters (PCs); maybe it’ll be non-player characters (NPCs) in cahoots with the PCs; and maybe it’ll just be you because that’s what your roleplaying game (RPG) campaign will be all about. Any which way, suddenly you’re in a situation where technological development has rapidly accelerated. How do you factor that in?
Well, there are some general rules of thumb to remember:
1. ‘Diffusion of innovation’ is a remarkable thing. It took a while for scurvy to get fully wiped out, even once the incredibly simple methods of fighting it were found. On the other hand, pretty much everybody dropped what they were doing to wipe out smallpox, virtually the instant that a safe inoculation method was discovered. Admittedly, smallpox is also infinitely scarier than scurvy is, but the basic point is this: instant, or even near-rapid universal adoption of a new technological process or concept probably just won’t happen on its own. All of this means that you can safely assume an uneven adoption of whichever technology that you want your campaign world to unevenly adopt.
2. Swapping out for new technology is expensive. It’s expensive in new materials, it’s expensive in building infrastructure, and it’s expensive in training new workers. This means, in practical terms, that if you drop gas turbines in Napoleonic-era England it will still be a while before the British Navy will start putting them on their ships… even if you’re giving them the fuel for free. It also means that new technology enclaves have a tendency to cluster a bit. Spies and saboteurs, take note.
3. The rapid adoption of technology can often come down to one individual. Would England have won the Battle of Britain if Air Chief Marshall Hugh Dowding had slipped on the soap in 1935 and broken his neck? Quite possibly: they’d still have had radar, but it was Dowding that figured out how to turn it into an effective air warning system. In other words, it’s perfectly acceptable to make the adoption of a particular technological advance the baby of one particular NPC. It’s also perfectly acceptable to make that NPC somewhat, or even deeply, weird: going back to that example, Hugh Dowding happened to believe in fairies.
4. There will always be somebody who gets thoroughly inconvenienced by the new technology. That person -- or persons, which is infinitely more problematic -- will rather justifiably feel that they have been unfairly treated by The New Ways. Whether it’s a riot in the industrial district or a vengeful vendetta in court (of either type), there’s always an excuse to have a bona fide enemy of the new technology around.
5. Prototypes blow up a lot. Or melt down, or shatter, or otherwise collapse in a heap. Hand an AK-47 to Erskine Allin, and he could have generally recreated everything except the primer for the ammunition -- but it’d probably take several tries before he could create a gun that wouldn’t fall apart when fired. This is largely unavoidable.
More on the next page.
6. Militaries are faster to adopt new technologies than they are to learn how to use them effectively. See: World War I, History of. There was no particular excuse for European General Staffs not understanding that machine guns and barbed wire would comprehensively change how infantry could fight; after all, the American Civil War had happened within living memory. Likewise, mustard gas was introduced into combat situations by the Germans before an effective protection against it was also developed, despite the fact that such a thing would have been useful for the Germans themselves to have.
7. Just because somebody did something one way doesn’t mean that everybody’s going to do it that way. Eric Flint’s 16XX alternate history series revels in this concept. The basic concept -- late 20th Century technology and ideas gets dumped right in the middle of Thirty Years’ War Germany -- inevitably and organically lends itself to a culture where people apply new scientific principles to create different technologies. Why? Because...
8. Knowing how to build something is not the same as being able to do so. If your time-traveling PCs want to build, uh, PCs in ancient Rome then they had better start out by figuring out how to mine the rare earths needed, how to construct the electronics needed, how to get a reliable power grid up… or else they can just hijack a cargo ship full of laptops and the USS John F Kennedy. Then all the PCs have to do is wire Rome for power and Internet. This is a much easier task to accomplish. On the other hand...
9. Knowing that you can build something gets you half the distance towards being able to do so. The first time somebody was ever air bombed (and survived), three thoughts likely flowed through his head: first, What is that!?! Second, That’s impossible! Third, ...we have got to get something like this. And the fact that they know that it’s not actually impossible will act as a powerful spur for development.
10. Eventually the tech gets out. It will get stolen, duplicated, bought, scavenged, or simply reverse-engineered. If it’s juicy enough, alliances won’t matter. Unless the technology is capable of literally conquering the world, there will be ‘foreign’ versions of it. Probably not as good, but possibly serviceable enough.
Bottom line is, of course, that it’s your campaign world, which means that things happen the way that you want them to. But if they happen in a reasonably organic and plausible way, then you don’t have to think quite so much about the world-building. This can be handy when you have to make something up on the fly... |
February 17, 2000, Thursday
Dr. James Dobson's Statement on Gary Bauer's Endorsement of Senator McCain
DATELINE: COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Feb. 17
Speaking as a private individual and not as the president of Focus on the Family, Dr. James Dobson expressed disagreement yesterday with former presidential candidate Gary Bauer's endorsement of Senator John McCain as Republican nominee for U.S. President. The Senator has offered no assurances that he intends to appoint a pro-life running mate or pro-life justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. Indeed, he voted for pro-abortion Stephen Breyer and pro-abortion ACLU-activist Ruth Bader Ginsburg for that Court and for David Satcher for Surgeon General, who supports partial-birth-abortion. McCain also voted in support of President Clinton to expand fetal-tissue research.
Furthermore, McCain has accepted huge contributions from the gambling industry and apparently is comfortable with the proliferation of gambling in American society. He has also accepted large contributions from producers of alcohol. McCain is in favor of combat assignments for women in the military, and has sought and received enormous financial and political support from the Log Cabin Republicans and other homosexual activists. McCain also supports Most Favored Nation status for the brutal regime in China, and voted against our nation's monitoring of Communist Chinese commercial fronts operating in the United States. He seeks to appease the bloated Federal public school bureaucracy and has refused to support vouchers.
"The Senator," Dobson said, "is being touted by the media as a man of principle, yet he was involved with other women while married to his first wife, and was implicated in the so-called Keating scandal with four other senators. He was eventually reprimanded by the Congress for the 'appearance of impropriety.' The Senator reportedly has a violent temper and can be extremely confrontational and profane when angry. These red flags about Senator McCain's character are reminiscent of the man who now occupies the White House."
Gary Bauer's endorsement of the Senator is troubling for another reason. When Clarence Thomas was being considered for Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Bauer actively championed his candidacy. However, Warren Rudman who is John McCain's National Campaign Chairman and his most likely choice for U.S. Attorney General was a pro-abortion Senator who opposed confirmation of Clarence Thomas, despite the fact that he voted for him in order to get three federal judgeships approved. He said about the Thomas decision, "It's a vote I'm not proud of."
Given these concerns about McCain, it is difficult to understand how Gary Bauer can support him "with great pride and with absolutely no reservation."
This statement is not intended to imply Dr. Dobson's endorsement of anyone else's candidacy for the presidency -- simply to clarify his lack of support for Senator McCain.
SOURCE Dr. James Dobson |
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I’m absolutely guilty of complaining about the abundance of remakes, reboots and sequels and the lack of original content out there, but, admittedly, I’m also part of the problem. Scream is one of my favorite films of all time and it’s impossible not to want more of it – even if it has to be MTV-friendly and packed with frustratingly familiar characters.
Clearly there’s some serious doubt about MTV’s plan to turn the 1996 hit horror film into a scripted show here, but MTV and Dimension TV just announced the guy who’s directing the pilot episode and it does offer a little hope. Hit the jump to find out who it is.
Jamie Travis is officially on board to direct the pilot of the Scream series. He’s the guy behind the underrated and under-seen 2012 comedy, For a Good Time, Call …, and also directed five episodes of MTV’s Faking It. If you’re not of the MTV demographic, odds are, Faking It probably isn’t the strongest calling card, but if you give the show a chance, you might be pleasantly surprised. In fact, I’m not all that into MTV’s lineup, but in preparation for an interview with Gregg Sulkin for his recent release, Affluenza, I blew right through it and actually enjoyed it quite a bit. The core concept does get a little ridiculous every now and then, but the show still rocks some solid lead performances and also backs its goofiness with just the right amount of honesty and heart.
There’s no way that same mixture will work for a Scream TV show, but if Travis is able to conjure such strong work from his cast and also serve the tone of the show so well there, there’s no reason to think he can’t adjust and do the same with what he’s getting here.
However, Travis isn’t writing the script. Jay Beattie and Dan Dworkin did that. I haven’t watched much Revenge and never even touched The Event, so I’m not in a position to judge their work, but even then, these character descriptions aren’t the best start:
Willa Fitzgerald as EMMA DUVAL – a classic beauty whose looks and popularity hide a natural shyness and intellectual nature. Her new life with the “in crowd” leaves her estranged her from childhood best friend Audrey. Amy Forsyth as AUDREY JENSEN – the daughter of a Lutheran pastor, Audrey is an artsy loner who aspires to be a filmmaker. John Karna as NOAH FOSTER – creative computer genius with a vast knowledge of pop culture and the tech world. Best friends with Audrey. Carlson Young as BROOKE MADDOX – charismatic leader of the popular crew whose personality vacillates between bubbly sweetness and ferocious sex appeal. Amadeus Serafini as KIERAN WILCOX – the mysterious new kid in town, Kieran’s got a dark side and a tough exterior that hints at experience beyond his years.
So basically this is Mean Girls’ Cady Heron and Janis Ian, Erik Knudsen’s character from Scream 4, Billy Loomis 2.0 and then yet another brooding guy with a harsh exterior who I’m sure is just super sweet and total boyfriend material at the core. Perhaps this is too harsh and these are only bare bones descriptions for casting purposes, but if that’s the case, why put them in a press release? And especially without an official synopsis!
So now that I’ve given you my completely schizophrenic assessment of the potential of this TV show, what do you think? Does MTV’s Scream have any hope? |
Junction Craft Brewing announces new brewery opening in 2017
Toronto – Junction Craft Brewing has announces its move to a new 16,000 sq-ft Heritage building at 150 Symes Road in The Junction.
“We’re very excited to be up and running there by early next year,” said President Tom Paterson. “We’ll be opening a facility that, in addition to a new 25hL brewhouse and increased production and distribution capabilities, will offer brewery tours, an event space, and an expanded tap room and retail bottle shop. We hope it will be a place that all craft beer lovers will enjoy and want to keep coming back to.”
Situated less than a kilometre from Junction Craft’s current location, this impressive Art Deco structure was built by the City of Toronto and opened in 1934. The design and construction of the project took place under R.C. Harris, Toronto’s longest serving Commissioner of Public Works. Known originally as ‘Destructor on Symes Road‘ and later as ‘Symes Road Transfer Station’ when it was converted into a waste transfer facility, it is a rare survivor of West Toronto’s early 20th century’s industrial era in the former Ontario Stockyards area, according to Junction Craft.
The move is slated for early 2017. |
Westport has seen a major uptick in gun violence this year.
According to stats collected by the Westport Regional Business League, there were 16 gun-related weapons offenses in the district in 2016. In 2017, there were 65 — and that's only through Oct. 31.
A Missouri law that took effect in January allows people to carry guns without a permit in nearly every public space, so there’s not much business owners or police can do to keep guns out.
A coalition of Westport business owners are behind a proposal to privatize the sidewalks in entertainment district. That would allow them to ban guns in the district and screen for them on busy weekend nights.
The proposal has drawn criticism from members of the city council and from several community organizations, who fear screening for guns could put other civil liberties at risk.
But Kim Kimbrough, director of the Westport Regional Business League, says they’re out of other ideas.
"We really don't have a Plan B, there isn't one. If there were one, that would be the direction we'd be going," Kimbrough says.
Kimbrough says they’ve increased the number of police officers in the area and improved coordination between KCPD and private security, all to no avail.
Missouri law says there's nothing an officer can do about a gun in a public space until it’s pulled or it goes off — but making the sidewalks private property would circumvent the state law.
If it were to pass, this measure would be unique
Under the proposal, Westport would barricade sidewalks between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. on weekend nights and for special festivals. To get in, people would have to pass through a metal detector to make sure they weren't carrying a gun.
Such a sidewalk vacation (as it's technically called) isn't common. Lawyers for the WRBL haven't been able to give examples around the country where it's been implemented successfully.
That worries Councilman Quinton Lucas.
"I have some serious skepticism when we're creating a lot of new processes that deprive people of their rights. Their rights to traverse through a neighborhood, their rights to just go out on the town like anyone else," Lucas says.
Lucas would like to see fewer firearms in dense areas like Westport, but he is cautious about turning over public infrastructure.
"When we start to transfer public space to private actor there is a question, and I hate slippery slopes, but there is this question as to where to we stop. Do we infringe speech, protest rights, do we infringe commercial rights for folks?"
Does screening for guns pave the way for racial discrimination?
Kimbrough and other business owners in Westport say they don’t want to limit anyone’s right to gather and express themselves. He says Westport’s diversity is part of what makes it unique.
That was true for 30-year-old Phyllis Williams, who moved to Kansas City almost nine years ago. She says as a black woman in her early 20s, she was worried about finding a place that felt inclusive.
"Westport was a breath of fresh air, I remember walking into Firefly night club and hearing A Tribe Called Quest record and being like, 'OK, maybe Kansas City has a chance.'"
She says she still frequents Westport, but she’s worried about how that could change if she had to walk through a metal detector to get in.
"I think to go to a bar to have a beer and for that to be part of the experience, definitely would change my attitude of Westport." — Phyllis Williams, Westport patron
"I think to go to a bar to have a beer and for that to be part of the experience, definitely would change my attitude of Westport... It would definitely discourage my wanting to go to that district more regularly," Williams says.
Williams says she understands that business owner just want to keep her and everyone else in the district safe. But she wants to be sure that screening for guns doesn’t alienate anyone.
Another Kansas City entertainment district, Power and Light, is still in court over allegations they were using a dress code to keep some black people out.
Beau Williams (no relation to Phyllis) owns a whiskey bar in Westport. Testifying to a city council committee last month, he said none of this is worth it if it makes people feel unwelcome.
"Please, please, please let’s change course if it starts restricting that diversity in our neighborhood and it starts restricting certain rights, infringing upon rights of our patrons."
The ordinance includes a provision that would allow the city to take back ownership of the sidewalks should they choose, although Lucas anticipates that once the sidewalks are turned over, it will be difficult to get enough votes from the city council to get them back.
Supporters say the same civil rights protections the city abides by are written into the ordinance. The measure also includes additional safeguards, like promising to never implement a dress code.
But with half a dozen people shot in the last year near the heart of Westport, including a homicide over the summer, bartenders and restaurant owners in the area are first and foremost worried about keeping their patrons alive.
Chris Paone, longtime bartender at Kelly's, says knowing that there aren’t guns outside his bar could give him some peace of mind.
"I don't have to worry about a friend leaving the bar, or our staff leaving the bar," he says.
Right now, Paone says his staff leaves the bar in a group after closing the bar.
Before advancing the measure along to the city council, the city plan commission received dozens of letter of opposition to the idea. BikeWalk KC also opposes the measure.
So far, the measure has the support of the Ad Hoc group against crime and the KCPD Central Patrol division.
As of last week, the Urban League was still considering their position on the issue.
Still, Lucas thinks there has better solution out there.
"Does that require us to have more investment of Kansas City, Missouri police officers in the area, does it requite us to go through better lighting types of issues? There needs to be this more holistic approach, I think, in connection to how we address the problem," Lucas says.
"Because I will tell you this, I am not in favor of us just vacating streets and sidewalks around literally every district with some density in Kansas City, Missouri."
The city's planning, zoning and economic development committee will take up the issue on Wednesday.
Lisa Rodriguez is a reporter and the afternoon newscaster for KCUR 89.3 Connect with her on Twitter @larodrig. |
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Some people think they are names of death metal bands. Others think they are made up names stolen from some Tolkien book on elvish lineage. The fact is that all of IKEA's products follow a logic and have a meaning. Ish.
Here's an overview:
Bookcases are occupations in Swedish
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The famous Expedit means shop assistant.
Hall furniture, beds, and wardrobes are named after Norwegian places
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The Mandal beds are named after this Norwegian town:
Dining tables and chairs are Finnish and Swedish places
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That's the Bjursta table, a tiny village in Västernorrland County, Sweden:
Carpets are named after Danish places
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This Vemb rug is a small town in Denmark:
Bathroom storage and accessories are named after Scandinavian rivers, lakes, and bays
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These Limmaren bathroom bottles are named after this little lake in Sweden:
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Desks and chairs are named after men's names
The Micke desk is short for Mikael, Swedish for Michael, like Mikael Blomkvist:
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Fabrics, materials, and curtains are women's names
Those curtains are called Merete. These two women are named Merete:
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Curtain accessories are mathematical and geometrical terms
These curtail rails are named Kvartal, or quarterly in Swedish
Bed linen, covers, pillows, and cushions are plants, flowers, precious stones
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The Smörboll duvet cover and pillowcases means globeflower in Swedish:
Lighting gets pretty crazy. It can be music terms, seasons, months, days, chemistry, meteorology, measures, weights, boats, nautical terms:
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The Årstid series is Swedish for season. But then have the Stockholm, which is a city.
Kitchens are grammatical terms, and there are also exceptions
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The Rationell cabinet system is rational in Swedish, which seems like a pretty apt name.
If you want a translation for all of them, you always have the IKEA dictionary. Here's the letter V as a sample:
V
VACKER beautiful
VAKEN awake
VARIERA vary
VARSAM careful
VASEN the vase
VASS sharp
VEJMON village in north Sweden
VERKLIG real
VERKSAM active
VERSAL capital letter
VESSLA weaselW
VETE wheat
VILDBÄR wild berries
VILSE lost
VILSHULT village in south Sweden
VITSKÄR tiny godforsaken Swedish island
VÅG wave
VÅGEN the wave
VÅRLJUNG spring heath
VÄGGIS made up -IS word 'Vägg' means 'wall', so 'väggis' could mean 'wall thingie'
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VÄGHULT tiny place in Småland
VÄNLIG friendly
VÄXT (a) plant
Why these names?
IKEA—which itself is an acronym for Ingvar Kamprad (the founder), Elmtaryd (the farm in which he grew up) and Agunnaryd (the village in which he grew up)—says that the name convention comes from the fact that the founder of the company is dyslexic and needed a code to classify the products.
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I just like to think that those crazy Swedes are just fucking up with us.
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A regular-season NFL game has earned a higher television rating than the World Series.
The "Sunday Night Football" matchup between the last two Super Bowl champions drew an 11.8 overnight rating and 18 share. Game 4 of the World Series had a 10.4/16.
The Saints beat the Steelers 20-10 on NBC. The Giants defeated the Rangers 4-0 on Fox.
NBC had skipped airing a Sunday night game during the World Series the first four years of its current NFL contract. NBC said Monday this was the first time an NFL game outrated the World Series.
Ratings represent the percentage of all homes with TVs tuned into a program. Shares represent the percentage of all homes with TVs in use at the time. Overnight ratings measure the country's largest markets.
NFL Week 8 Roundup
Giants Blank Rangers 4-0 in World Series Game 4
Pictures: 2010 World Series
Game 3 earned the second-lowest television rating for a World Series game.
The Texas Rangers' 4-2 win over the San Francisco Giants on Saturday night on Fox drew a 6.7 rating and 13 share, beating only the 6.1 for Game 3 of the 2008 Phillies-Rays series. That game was delayed 91 minutes because of rain and didn't start until after 10 p.m. on the East Coast.
The rating was down 26 percent from the 9.1 for Game 3 of last season's Yankees-Phillies World Series.
This year's series averaged an 8.1 through three games, up 5 percent from the record low of the 2008 World Series.
Saturday's game began at 7 p.m. EDT, the earliest World Series start since 1987. Baseball and network officials had for years resisted earlier start times despite concerns about losing younger viewers, saying the later the game, the higher the rating - and the greater the revenue. To help offset potential revenue losses from the earlier Game 3 start, sponsor Chevrolet committed to increased advertising.
Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig wouldn't assess the ratings.
"Let me study things," he said before Game 4.
For the first time during this World Series, Cablevision's more than 3 million New York-area subscribers were able to watch the game after the company settled its dispute with Fox.
The rating is the percentage watching a program among homes with TVs. The share is the percentage tuned into the broadcast among those households with TVs on at the time.
Fox is a unit of News Corp. |
Elisabeth is a reporter for Verdict, covering global news, economics and business. You can reach her at elisabeth.perlman@verdict.co.uk
A treasure trove of coins discovered behind a sofa last week has sold for more than £30,000 ($37,888) at auction.
“It was incredible. My eyes lit up – it was quite a find,” said the homeowner who found the hoard of gold sovereigns and silver bars during a routine house clearance, BBC News reported.
An estimated 100 22-carat gold sovereigns dating back to the mid 20th century and 16 solid silver bars were sitting inside a zipped-up suitcase.
I went to pick it up and I almost pulled my shoulder out of its socket, it was so heavy – so I had to drag it out unceremoniously, he added.
Auctioneer Jonathan Humbert described the find as “incredible”.
The homeowner requested to remain anonymous.
In 2015 the Bank of England (BoE) warned that British people are hoarding up to £3bn in cash, with much of that hidden down the back of sofas or under mattresses.
The average householder has about £345 hidden around the house, BoE estimates suggest.
Last week’s discovery coincides with the 200th anniversary of the modern gold sovereign, “a constant of British coinage, admired and trusted through times of change,” according to the Royal Mint, the body responsible for producing UK coins.
“The Sovereign has endured for centuries, and the fact that it is anchored almost as much in the heart as in the purse has defined its character and made it immeasurably more than money,” said Dr Kevin Clancy, director of the Royal Mint Museum, in a statement issued to Verdict. |
Impeachment of an American president is a weighty measure that’s only been used a handful of times in our history. And on two of those occasions, the judgment of history has come down against the impeachers.
Andrew Johnson was an awful president, but the move by Radical Republicans in Congress to remove him from office reeked from top to bottom of an effort to resolve a policy dispute by ginning up a legal one — passing a law to bar Johnson from firing Cabinet secretaries and them impeaching him for breaking it. Bill Clinton’s impeachment, if anything, suffered from the opposite problem. The charges against him, even if you believed them, simply seemed to have too little to do with the duties and responsibilities of his high office. Republicans had hoped a sex scandal would damage Clinton’s approval ratings, it didn’t really, and then they went berserk.
The exception that proves the rule is Richard Nixon, whose misdeeds were legitimately “high crimes.” Nixon also went down at a period in American history when the ideological polarization of the parties was low — some of his staunchest policy allies were conservative Southern Democrats, while some liberal Republicans were sharp critics of his administration. His downfall represents a kind of founding myth of modern American civic culture, complete with a Robert Redford movie that reserves a key heroic role for conservative icon Barry Goldwater.
The question that faces Congress today is whether the Trump case is more like Nixon or closer to Clinton or Johnson. And the answer is that it’s a highly Nixonian situation. Donald Trump is charged with misconduct that is serious and directly relevant to his public office but that isn’t simply a reiteration of longstanding ideological disagreements in American life.
The impeachment tool is somewhat clumsy and rarely used, in part because of how clumsy it is. It’s not so much that presidential misconduct is rare as that replacing the incumbent president of the United States with his hand-picked vice president is rarely a reasonable remedy for anything controversial and significant. But it’s ideally suited to the particular moment in which the country now finds itself. Democrats have enormous disagreements with Mike Pence, but those disagreements are fundamentally unrelated to the core of Trump’s obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and financial conflicts of interest — for now, at least.
It seems natural to expect that a successful impeachment would follow the Watergate template — the special prosecutor, the investigative reporting, the congressional select committee, the claims of executive privilege, the litigation, all unfolding over a period of years. But the winds of fate have dealt us a different hand, and the smoking gun is already in our possession.
Trump should be impeached. Now.
Trump handed the smoking gun to Lester Holt
Watergate began with clear evidence of what was clearly a crime — the break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters — which then led to an investigation of who was involved, which led, eventually, to the discovery of a secret taping system inside the Oval Office. The quest to get the contents of the tape revealed to the public then became its own drama.
But when the tapes were finally heard they contained a “smoking gun” — clear evidence that Nixon had tried to use the powers of his office to stymie an FBI investigation. In the crucial conversation, Nixon told his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, to call in the CIA and tell them, “The president believes that [the investigation] is going to open the whole Bay of Pigs thing up again. And, ah, because these people are plugging for, for keeps, and that they should call the FBI in and say that we wish for the country, don’t go any further into this case, period!”
There it was. The question had been whether Nixon himself was engaged in the Watergate cover-up. That tape proved he was. And that was it. The Watergate saga took a long time, but two days after the tape was released, Republican congressional leaders went to the White House to tell Nixon it was over. Two days after that, Nixon resigned.
In Trump’s case, there’s no need for extensive litigation over a secret tape because the smoking gun already aired in the form of an interview with NBC News’s Lester Holt, where Trump explained his reasons for firing Comey. Though his White House had said Comey was fired after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wrote a memo concluding Comey’s handling of the Clinton email case was indefensible, Trump, in a moment of admirable candor, explained that this wasn’t true.
“In fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself,” Trump told Holt, “‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.”
A contemporaneous memo from Comey further confirms that Trump specifically asked him to stop investigating former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Rosenstein confirmed Thursday to members of the United States Senate that Trump had already made up his mind to fire Comey before Rosenstein wrote the memo that the White House later briefly claimed was the basis for Comey’s firing. Here, then, is the timeline, which is now publicly known, and widely accepted:
In February, President Trump met with FBI Director James Comey and asked Comey to drop investigations of Michael Flynn and tell the public that Trump’s ties to Russia were not under investigation. Trump also repeatedly denounced the whole idea of an investigation in public statements and tweets.
In March, Comey clarified to Congress and the public that a very real, very serious, ongoing investigation was underway.
In April, Trump fired Comey. He put out an implausible pretext for the firing, and then quickly got bored with the thin deception and explained on national television that he really fired Comey because he was frustrated about the Russia situation.
That’s the entirety of the case. Trump was meddling with an FBI investigation, he fired the FBI director when he wouldn’t go along with it, then he lied about why he’d fired the FBI director, and then later he confessed the truth. That the facts have emerged so quickly is disorienting, but it shouldn’t blind us to the basic reality that the whole saga has played out. And in terms of Trump’s basic unfitness to continue in office, there is little need for further investigation.
The White House’s defense that firing Comey was within Trump’s legal rights is no defense at all. It would have been “legal” for Steve Bannon to shoot Comey in the head and receive a presidential pardon, but it still would have been an abuse of power. It’s legal for a private citizen to buy a friend a gift or to fire an employee, but it becomes illegal to do those things if the purpose of doing them is to obstruct an investigation.
It is simply not possible for America’s federal law enforcement officers — the FBI, the other federal police agencies, and the dozens of US attorneys’ offices around the country — to do their work properly if they know the president of the United States can and will fire them without consequence if their efforts to fully investigate criminal activity anger the president by implicating his associates.
Firing Comey for improper reasons has implications not just for the Russia investigation but for every federal law enforcement and regulatory action that could conceivably touch on Trump’s sprawling business interests — or those of his donors, Cabinet, and circle of acquaintance. These implications are toxic — and they are important given the sheer scale of Trump’s various financial conflicts and business dealings. If we know the president is willing to fire an FBI director who won’t improperly tamper with an investigation into his campaign team, then how can any federal regulatory agency be trusted to supervise the various business ventures of the Trump and Kushner clans?
This is what impeachment is for
Back in 2014, I reviewed Andy McCarthy’s interesting book Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment.
It demonstrates, more than anything else, the fundamentally paradoxical nature of the impeachment provision of the American Constitution. McCarthy argues, persuasively, that it's a mistake to see impeachment as an essentially judicial process. It is undertaken by elected officials and is meant to be a political action that serves political purposes. Republicans erred in the 1990s, he argued, by going after a president they didn’t like via trying to catch him in a legal violation that was fundamentally unrelated to their real complaints about his administration.
Such violations, McCarthy argued, are neither necessary nor sufficient to make the case for impeachment.
Instead, he wanted to impeach Barack Obama on the grounds that his post-2010 efforts to advance a progressive agenda through executive action in the face of a hostile Congress were fundamentally illegitimate.
The problem here, obviously, is that the impeachment mechanism is a terrible tool for resolving a political disagreement. For starters, you’ll never get 67 Senate votes for something like that. But more broadly, the problem is that the vice president just takes over. Plenty of liberals were hot to impeach George W. Bush over various actions related to Iraq and torture, but bringing Dick Cheney to power would have been a perverse remedy for any of Bush’s wrongdoings. Those kinds of controversies require something like a parliamentary system’s vote of no confidence process, not America’s impeachment process.
Trump’s obstruction of justice happens to be the rare situation to which impeachment is well-suited. It is a genuinely big deal that is directly relevant to his performance in office. And yet it’s quite idiosyncratic. You don’t need to be a fan of Mike Pence on any level whatsoever to see that nobody thinks he’s in cahoots with the Russians or needs to cover for some kind of Paul Manafort money laundering scheme.
If Republicans would move quickly toward removing Trump from office, they could put a different, better-qualified man in his place. That wouldn’t settle all of Trump’s critics’ disagreements with his administration — but it would put them in the realm of ordinary politics where they belong.
A prosecutor and a commission would be good
None of this is to say that investigations aren’t worth doing.
As best as we can tell, the feds are currently taking hard looks at both former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort. These men, and potentially others, are under suspicion of various crimes that mostly seem to relate to their handling of Russian money. These are good things to investigate — and given the political sensitivities involved with a special prosecutor, this is the right way to investigate them. It’s possible that Trump himself is even implicated in criminal wrongdoing.
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller has been named special counsel at the Department of Justice and is taking up the investigation. The appointment is welcome news given the questions swirling around some of Trump’s key associates. But in parallel, there is a continuing real need for either a Senate Select Committee or some kind of independent commission to look at the broader issue of Russia, the 2016 election, and election meddling in the future.
The goal here should be to try to understand the truth of what happened and formulate some policy recommendations that the United States government and civil society could use to better harden ourselves against future tampering. The model would be something like the 9/11 investigations rather than anything prosecutorial. We’ve seen from subsequent elections in the Netherlands and France that the Russian government plans to continue messing around in Western politics.
Western countries have a real interest in developing countermeasures to foreign governments interfering in their elections while also not creating a domestic political climate in which no debate or disagreement around Russia policy is permitted. Both the Russia issue and the question of Russia-related illegal activity are much bigger than Trump himself and require serious inquiry. But inquiring into them is not a substitute for removing a president who abuses power and obstructs justice. Indeed, removing him is a necessary precursor to rigorously examining the rest.
The case for speed
The case against Trump is clear and obvious. Republicans are, of course, reluctant to agree. The basic logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is naturally compelling to the human mind, and the basic instinct to defend your party’s president when the other party attacks is understandable. Republicans also recognize that Democrats, fundamentally, object to huge aspects of the Trump policy agenda that they embrace. The goal of Trump’s critics isn’t just to bring Trump down but to stymie the entire program.
And then there’s the politics. Trump remains popular with the Republican Party base, and congressional Republicans learned from bitter experience in the 2016 primary that their voters are not inclined to defer to their judgment on the subject of Donald Trump. Further exacerbating the situation is the attitude of Fox News and the leading talk radio shows, all of which are firmly in the Trump-o-sphere and eager to dismiss all these charges as “fake news.”
But nobody ever psyched themselves up for their first congressional run by saying they wanted to go to Washington to engage in knee-jerk partisanship or to take direction from second-rate cable news hosts. To the extent Republicans came to Washington to advance the big ideas of the conservative movement, they ought to recognize that Trump is doing daily damage to those ideas, and the more protection the Republican Party offers him, the wider the circle of people who are going to end up being brought down with him.
Take Pence. As of a week ago, his hands looked pretty much entirely clean in the whole Flynn situation. But we learned Thursday that the Trump transition project — which Pence was ostensibly heading — was in fact informed of ongoing investigations into Flynn’s secret lobbying for Turkey, at the very same time that Flynn, on behalf of the transition, was delaying a Pentagon plan to attack the ISIS capital of Raqqa that the Turkish government disliked. Given the totality of the situation and the tangential nature of Pence’s involvement, this seems forgivable enough to me.
But the longer Pence occupies a high-level role in an administration governed by gangster ethics, the more trouble he’s going to find himself in. Like a loyal soldier, Pence came out swinging with the argument that the Comey firing was all about Rosenstein’s memo, only to have Trump himself contradict him the next day. Credibility is an exhaustible resource, and with every passing day Pence has less of it.
One of the reasons Gerald Ford was able to move on from Watergate with a modicum of success is that by happenstance he’d only been vice president for eight months when Nixon resigned. There is a lesson in that for Pence, and for the Republicans who would prefer to see him in office.
The tape of the No. 1 and No. 2 Republicans in the House of Representatives “joking” about how Trump is probably on Putin’s payroll is another case in point. They probably were really joking. But the joke is only funny if you acknowledge that there is something creepy and weird about Trump’s affection for Putin, and something suspicious and odd about Trump’s totally nontransparent finances. Every day that Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy persist in declining to use their authority to actually look into those finances, they implicate themselves more and more as co-conspirators in whatever may eventually be uncovered.
A fast, decisive break from Trump is extremely unlikely at this point. But a slow, ugly, painful divorce only means that Trump’s sins will more and more become the sins of the entire party, and impeachment will look like less and less of an appropriate remedy for wrongdoing that can only be redeemed by a broad and deep electoral landslide. |
New Plaza Medina project at 2151 Main St. made public
The project would include stores, condos, restaurants and more focused on the Latino community. ( Artist rendition: Fara Shimbo / )
The former Kmart on north Main Street, vacant for five years, is the center of a planned development to serve the growing Latino population in the Longmont area.
Plaza Medina, a new 11-acre Latino marketplace project, was unveiled Saturday morning by the trio spearheading the plan.
Marta Loachamin, Nino Gallo and Steve Elliott shared their vision with a group of city officials and residents and described how the Plaza Medina would support the community in a variety of ways.
Loachamin has been in the Longmont area since 1999 working in mortgage and real estate. She also teaches Spanish classes for the St. Vrain Valley School district in Niwot and serves on the Boulder County Long Term Flood Recovery Committee, National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Colorado Board of Directors, and the Advisory Committee for Boulder County's Latino History Project.
The Plaza Medina would be an 11-acre project on north Main Street. (Artist rendition: Fara Shimbo /)
Gallo coordinates the Personal Investment Enterprises program that is a matched savings account for low-income individuals. Currently he is the President of the Board of Directors of the Immigrant Legal Center of Boulder County.
Elliott is a Colorado native and a consultant on organizational development and process improvement. He moved to Longmont in 1984.
"A great idea sparks from a need," said Marta Loachamin. "The Latino population of Longmont is very diverse."
And it's growing, she explained, at 8 percent a year.
The area would become a multi-zoned retail, commercial and residential development that would serve the Latino population, while also building Latino assets through ownership of condominiums and small businesses.
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"This is a very exciting project for the city and community of Longmont and our Latino community," said Janine Ledingham, small business director for the Longmont Area Economic Council. "We are looking forward to supporting this project to help it become a reality and an asset for our community."
The plan would include three levels of between 120 and 160 affordable west-facing condos, with sizes ranging from one-bedroom to four-bedroom units.
Unlike most developments where the retail stores lease, this plan would involve selling the property to the shop owners, allowing them to build equity. This, Loachamin said, will make the businesses more sustainable and when shop owners retire they will have property to sell or pass on to future generations.
To get the project started, the group plans to secure short-term investment, after which the stores would be sold directly to the businesses that wish to occupy them. There will be dozens of small and large shops in the plan as well as restaurants, meeting halls, galleries, and more to serve the Latino community.
"Of course it's always money," said Steve Elliott about launching Plaza Medina. "I'm encouraged that the investors we've been talking to, think this is a reasonable thing."
At least three levels of condominiums would face to the west at Plaza Medina. (Artist rendition: Fara Shimbo /)
Elliott added that the city is very supportive, as is the Latino Chamber of Commerce of Boulder County.
"Anytime there is a bottom line that says sales tax revenue, they are encouraged by that, and they want to help us move it along."
Elliott also says the Plaza Medina tackles a problem long on the city council agenda: affordable housing. "We're hoping to solve several problems for the city."
"If you think about what this does for the image of Longmont as a center that welcomes diversity, this really is a shining star."
"I think Longmont is a perfect community for this," said Nino Gallo, a past president of the Latino Chamber. "Because we have 27 percent Latino population, and within five miles we have a population of around 21,000." He added that within 15 miles of the Plaza Medina site, the Latino population is close to 40,000. "In a small area we can reach a lot of Latinos."
Next up for the trio is preparing a prospectus for stockholders, preparing an investor packet, canvassing retailers and signing a contract for the property.
The team believes the contract for the former Kmart will be signed this spring.
"This is just our first meeting with the public," Loachamin said. "These things take time and we're looking at a two year timeline.
Loachamin, Gallo and Elliott have formed the Plaza Development Corp. and hope to have a website with more information up and running by May 1, at www.plazamedina.com.
Vince Winkel: 303-684-5291, winkelv@times-call.com or twitter.com/vincewinkel |
TORONTO – A taxi driver in Toronto has taken the cab industry’s heated battle against Uber to the next level by comparing the ride-sharing service to the Islamic State.
“Uber is going to be like ISIS my friend. Uber is ISIS,” said a driver identified as Suntharesan Kanagasabai during an anti-Uber protest in downtown Toronto Wednesday morning.
The cabbie made the comment while he was being recorded on the livestreaming service Periscope by Global News reporter Mark McAllister.
“John Tory, he’s not listening. He’s just yapping. The law is in the book,” he said.
The remarks were made as taxi drivers staged a city-wide protest to urge politicians to enforce city bylaws against Uber.
Several main arteries into the city were delayed during the morning rush hour as taxi drivers made their way downtown.
Uber’s comparison to ISIS isn’t the first. Last year, a Philadelphia taxi association president was recorded comparing the ride-sharing company to the terrorist group during a board meeting.
The city is currently working on new rules that will reduce regulations for the taxi industry and introduce regulations for services like Uber but those rules aren’t expected until next year.
Toronto Mayor John Tory has said that while Uber is operating outside legislation, it would be impractical to devote the police and bylaw attention necessary to shut it down entirely. |
The Death Of Fiat Currency: The Race To Zero
Thousands of fiat currencies have failed throughout history and it has been said many times that eventually all fiat currencies inevitably reach their inner value of zero. Many popular currencies today like the U.S. dollar and Canadian loonie have already lost over 95 per cent of their value. This means that the cost of buying products has dramatically increased, as a direct result of the self-destructive monetary policies that we continue to operate with. It is suggested that many countries around the world are now racing through a currency war that will inevitably see the end of fiat currencies as we see them today; prompting an unprecedented global financial crisis.
Episodes of hyperinflation have occurred many times throughout human history. And the list of countries where hyperinflation is or could soon be a problem continues to grow, with financial experts saying that it will inevitably come to the West. There are countless countries that are facing trillions of dollars in debt. Citizens in Venezuela are stuck battling rampant inflation that's up an estimated 720% with a state of emergency now declared for the country. South Sudan recently devalued their currency in December and now many businesses are being forced to close as a result; they're saying hyperinflation is already present. Japan is another that's facing an economic crisis over its decision to follow the same path of monetary failure with quantitative easing. Puerto Rico is having debt problems, Canada is experiencing economic turmoil, Greece still hasn't sorted out its own debt dilemmas, and there are many others.
We are facing a situation unlike any time in the history of the markets. As the debt has continued to pile up over the past few decades, we have now reached a tipping point say many. As the economy rolls over, we are going to see the currency fiat wars heat up, according to financial expert Mike Maloney, and it's going to be a race to the bottom.
However, some other financial experts, like Jim Rickards, say that the toolkit isn't empty just yet for the central banks, and we could still see more of the same with quantitative easing and negative interest rates. But these "solutions" aren't going to address any underlying problem and they will only delay the inevitable failure.
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The poor man’s Barkha Dutt strikes again. Just yesterday we had discussed how a highly misleading story in the Hindustan Times had led to widespread misplaced outrage. Hindustan Times ran a story titled “Eat what you order: Modi government to fix portions of food served in hotels”, which was curated by many in the media.
But the truth emerged later, when a video of the Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan came out, where he categorically said that he had no plans of “fixing portion” size. Rather he was more interested in getting restaurants to specify the quantity being served. Below is the relevant portion of the transcript (full video and transcript here):
We don’t want to control anything. We are doing this in the interest of consumers. Where are we saying that you should keep only so much quantity in one portion, we are only saying you should mention the quantity being served in each portion.
Subsequent to this video coming out, many media reports came out with a different headline altogether, and the “fix portion” hysteria was replaced by the more factual “specify portion” version, which tallies with what the Food minister had said. One may find both ideas moronic, but there is a huge difference between “fixing” portion size and asking someone to “specify” the portion size.
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However, NDTV and Nidhi Razdan had other ideas. NDTV and Nidhi had framed a narrative: Is India becoming a Nanny State, and a debate was decided to be held on this issue. One of the sub-topics which “proved” this narrative, and which was eventually debated was the “portion” size issue. But NDTV and Nidhi kept on repeating the lie of “fixing portions” and based on this straw-man conducted a debate on prime time television:
Worse, this clarification was given by Paswan to NDTV itself. NDTV’s Sunetra Choudhury had taken the byte from Paswan where he clarified that the intent was to ask restaurants to specify portion size and not fixing of the same. This is very similar to the incident where Nidhi, in association with an abusive lying troll, repeated a lie, when the same lied had been clarified by Barkha Dutt on her show a few months ago!
Coming to the debate, it was entirely focused on the “fixing portions” angle which was obviously fake, and the arguments were various ranges of whataboutery, given by the panelists as well as Nidhi herself: “What about food grains rotting, what about the wastage of security forces by giving security to MPs”!!!
As for the BJP spokesperson GVL Narsimharao, he ensured that he made a laughing-stock of himself. He never once mentioned that the minister had clarified his position and that NDTV had gotten the topic itself wrong. Instead he compounded his problems by first branding all Indians as irresponsible and insensitive when it comes to food habits and then proceeding to make largely irrelevant arguments.
While this was one debate on Nidhi’s show, the topic of the second debate lent a bit of irony to all the proceedings:
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3) How "false equivalence" works. My mailbox is swamped with messages from Republicans asking when "the media" will get on Joe Biden's speech tonight with the same list of factual errors they/we produced after Paul Ryan's "post-truth" convention speech last week. Also, when Biden will be attacked the way Ryan has been about his marathon claims.
The answer to the second question is: Biden had his version of this problem back in the 1980s, when he got in trouble for appropriating anecdotes from a Neil Kinnock speech as if he'd experienced them himself. But people at the time didn't think that they had to find equal criticisms of, say, George H.W. Bush or Dick Gephardt; Biden attracted the criticism because he had created the problem.
The answer to the first question is: If someone comes up with illustrations of Biden mis-stating facts as grossly as Ryan did in his speech, then he will deserve and get comparable grief for them. But the expectation in most of these notes, interestingly, is that it shouldn't matter whether there is any objective difference in who is bending the truth at any given time. If you point out problems "on one side," then you'd better find some equal and offsetting problem on the other, or else the game is rigged. Whether or not the problem is there.
3A) On the speech overall: I thought it was not one of his best but that it did the job. "The job," in this sense, was having the party leave the convention feeling as if they had a case to present. I don't buy the argument that some of the home-run speeches of the convention -- by Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama, Deval Patrick, Julian Castro, Andrew Tobias, and others including in their particular ways John Kerry and Joe Biden -- "raised the bar" for Obama or "set him up for disappointment." At the Republican convention last week, speakers like Chris Christie and Marco Rubio were outright auditioning to be the candidate in 2016. That ambition depends on Romney's failure this year. Everyone at the DNC was pulling to get Obama and Biden across the line this year; each speech built on the others rather than competing with them for attention.
And, OK, 4): Nice to hear a plain statement that climate change "is not a hoax." That is it for now. |
During the turbulent days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, New Orleans police shot 10 civilians, at least four of whom died, according to interviews and internal police documents.
Some incidents involving police were widely publicized and have prompted a U.S. Justice Department inquiry into the conduct of the New Orleans Police Department that has brought dozens of officers before federal grand juries to testify.
But a fresh examination of the post-storm period — a joint effort by ProPublica, The New Orleans Times-Picayune, and PBS “Frontline” — raises additional questions about the actions of police who shot civilians. It also reveals deep flaws in the department’s efforts to investigate its officers’ use of deadly force in the chaos after the storm.
Any time an officer squeezes the trigger, a few issues immediately arise: Was the shooting justifiable, a situation that left the cop with no choice but to use lethal force? Or did the officer fire on someone who didn’t truly pose a threat?
At the NOPD, each shooting is supposed to be thoroughly scrutinized to ensure the decision to shoot was proper. But in the Katrina shootings, the department performed only cursory investigations before exonerating their fellow officers, interviews and internal police documents show.
Cops who were present when the gunfire occurred took no statements from witnesses, or even their names and phone numbers. They repeatedly failed to gather important physical evidence, like weapons and bullet casings.
Weeks later, when homicide detectives began looking into the shootings, they did little more than speak to the officers involved. Interviews with the cops who fired shots lasted as few as seven minutes.
In one case, the lead NOPD detective examining a fatal shooting completed her 12-page report without reading the autopsy. She did not realize the victim, a 45-year-old man, had been shot in the back, an injury that contradicted the officers’ version of events, sworn testimony shows.
More than four years later, the performance of the police after Katrina remains a matter of debate. Many officers who stuck it out during those days behaved selflessly, saving lives while working in the worst of conditions. However, Katrina also dealt the department’s image a blow, as hundreds of officers abandoned their posts, and some were spotted stealing from stores.
Many of the facts surrounding the post-Katrina police shootings are murky. But the available evidence suggests they’re part of a broader pattern of violent encounters between police and civilians, one that is now under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. In the week after Katrina, New Orleans police killed and wounded as many people as they do in a typical year.
A federal grand jury is looking into the death of Henry Glover, who died on Sept. 2, 2005, allegedly while in the custody of NOPD officers on the West Bank. His charred remains were discovered in a burned automobile near the Fourth District police station. The NOPD did not launch a probe of his death until after news reports about it surfaced in late 2008.
Among the officers that probe is centered on, sources close to it say, is Capt. Jeff Winn, who commanded the department’s SWAT team when the storm struck and who has been widely regarded as a hero for his work during the storm.
Federal agents are also examining the Sept. 4, 2005, incident in which police officers on the Danziger Bridge fired on a group of civilians, killing two and injuring four more. Detectives in that case cleared their colleagues without collecting key evidence. And as The Times-Picayune has reported, witnesses supposedly interviewed by a one police detective might not exist.
Under duress
NOPD Commander Bob Young said the department wouldn’t comment on any post-Katrina incidents because of the federal inquiries.
“There’s a perception that because an investigation wasn’t thorough, that there is something sinister there,” said Capt. Mike Glasser, president of the Police Association of New Orleans. “I don’t think that’s a fair assumption.”
Glasser thinks people who “sit in judgment” of the department’s actions need to be aware of the extraordinary challenges posed by Katrina.
He pointed out that floodwaters deluged police headquarters. Patrol cars floated away. Radio communication collapsed, and cell phone reception was spotty. With the department’s command structure crippled, the department splintered into smaller factions of officers who roamed the city, doing what they could to help people.
Normal police practices had to be jettisoned. “This was as close to an apocalyptic event as you can see,’’ Glasser said.
And attorney Eric Hessler, an ex-police officer who represents two officers who are at the center of the U.S. Justice Department’s probes, said flaws in the NOPD investigations of the shootings reflected the chaotic conditions after the flood. “There was no way to do a proper investigation during Katrina,” Hessler said, adding that it was “physically impossible.”
“Evidence wasn’t able to be collected and maintained and stored properly because there was no evidence room,’’ he said. “The NOPD evidence room was under 15 feet of water.”
Experts who reviewed the available case files at the request of reporters acknowledged the storm was devastating, but they said it was no excuse for the shoddy shooting investigations, which stretched into mid-2006.
“The quality of the police work was abysmal,” said Dennis Kenney, a former cop who now teaches classes about policing at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. After reading the documents, Kenney said the shootings demand further scrutiny.
Looking into the past
Seeking to reconstruct events from those days, reporters spoke to law enforcement sources and witnesses to the shootings and obtained hundreds of pages of documents, including NOPD reports, autopsy records, court filings and internal affairs data. The journalists focused on four violent encounters between police officers and members of the public.
In three of the incidents — which will be detailed in the coming days by The Times-Picayune, PBS “Frontline” and ProPublica — police fired on citizens. A fourth possible police shooting identified by reporters was not described in any official documents. Its aftermath, though, was glimpsed by Times-Picayune City Editor Gordon Russell, who describes what he saw in an accompanying story.
In normal times, a whole series of protocols kicks in when a New Orleans officer fires a shot.
First, the officer is taken off the streets and given a temporary desk job. An NOPD homicide detective — typically a supervisor — promptly starts conducting interviews and collecting evidence, detailing all the findings in a report. Ultimately, the shooting is deemed justified or unjustified. The detective’s report is then sent to the district attorney’s office, where prosecutors in the screening unit decide whether to charge the officer with a crime.
The Katrina time period was anything but normal. The NOPD wrote very few police reports related to violent crimes or deaths from Aug. 29 to Sept. 12. No reports were written for murders, shootings or aggravated batteries, according to the department.
Several police sources have said then-Superintendent Eddie Compass instructed police on the scenes of officer-involved shootings to write up only a brief report and mark the incident as “NAT,” the police code for “necessary action taken.” This was noted in one initial report, which included a sentence that Compass “advised that a short gist was needed.” Compass declined to comment.
Homicide detectives didn’t begin scrutinizing many of the police shootings until weeks after the floodwaters had receded, and the investigations dragged on well into 2006. Former Lt. Jimmy Keen, who commanded the Major Case Homicide unit at the time, said it took time for news of the police shootings to work its way to his staff. And for a time, his detectives weren’t investigating anything — they were deployed to patrol for looters in eastern New Orleans.
Given the obstacles facing the city at the time, investigating police shootings wasn’t a priority, Keen said. When the detectives heard about the shootings, they went to supervisors to take over the cases, he said.
Red flags in reports
Detectives did not fault their colleagues for firing their weapons. Officers were cleared of any wrongdoing in the three shootings detailed in this series. And in all three cases, the district attorney’s office declined to press charges.
However, the official case files raise questions about the quality of the investigations.
A police officer shot Danny Brumfield Sr. in the back, something NOPD’s homicide detective DeCynda Barnes never learned. Her 12-page report erroneously stated that he was shot in the left shoulder. Under questioning in 2007, Barnes said she never read Brumfield’s autopsy report.
Two police officers shot Keenon McCann repeatedly for brandishing a handgun. But when officers approached McCann, they couldn’t find a weapon. NOPD detectives never questioned civilians who observed McCann’s shooting, and they didn’t know how many times he had been shot or where those bullets struck him, the homicide report indicates.
An officer shot Matthew McDonald in the back with an AR-15 assault rifle, killing the man. McDonald’s relatives, who live in Connecticut, said authorities told them he was murdered by another civilian. Family members didn’t know otherwise until they were contacted recently by a reporter.
Experts were sharply critical of how the NOPD investigated the shootings. A key issue, they said, was how detectives conducted interviews. Homicide detectives spent between seven and 12 minutes questioning the officers responsible for the shootings, according to transcripts of those interviews.
Experts said that’s nowhere near long enough for a detailed question-and-answer session.
“That raises a red flag,” said Sam Walker, professor emeritus in the criminal justice department at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and author of numerous books on policing. “I don’t know how in the world you can do a shooting interview that quickly.”
Detectives also relied heavily on the stories told by the officers directly involved in the shootings, doing little to verify or corroborate those accounts. The experts faulted investigators for repeatedly failing to question civilians who witnessed the events.
Barbara Attard has studied police misconduct cases for 25 years, most recently as the independent police auditor for San Jose, Calif. She is now a consultant on police practices.
After reading the interviews in the two cases for which they are available, Attard said NOPD detectives “are just taking statements from the officers and going with that. They’re not trying to contact anyone else. … Somebody should’ve been collecting the names of witnesses and trying to verify the facts.”
‘Didn’t have the luxury’
Not all of the NOPD’s investigations of police shootings have been so limited.
In December 2006, for example, detective Harold R. Wischan examined the death of Gerald Arthur, who died after a scuffle with police during a drug arrest. Wischan’s investigative report is far more comprehensive than most of the post-Katrina reports.
When an officer shot Herman McMillan in 2008, detectives went door to door looking for witnesses. They questioned at least eight civilian witnesses, the homicide file shows.
Department supporters say the NOPD simply lacked the time or resources for thorough investigations into the post-storm incidents.
“On a normal police shooting you’d have a whole squad of detectives, which would be a homicide lieutenant, a sergeant, and at least three additional detectives,” said Hessler, the cop-turned-attorney who represents NOPD officers. “They didn’t have the luxury of that. You might be lucky if you had a sergeant. You didn’t have a crime scene photographer to photograph the evidence as it laid there. You didn’t have a crime scene technician.”
But Kenney, the professor at John Jay College, notes that detectives were still examining the post-Katrina shootings in the spring of 2006. By that time, he said, investigators could have at least done lengthy interviews with the officers involved and compiled other evidence.
“In any legitimate society, the police should hold a monopoly on violence,” he said. “The follow-ups assure us that the monopoly on violence we’ve given them is being used appropriately.”
By A.C. Thompson, ProPublica, Brendan McCarthy and Laura Maggi, Times-Picayune |
Global warming alarmism is predicated not on observation and empiricism, but on models and religious faith. The problem is that the models have now been around long enough to be either confirmed or falsified, and they are refuted by observation. The alarmists have tried to blur this fact by surreptitiously changing land temperature records to make the past look cooler and the present warmer, but this is at best a holding action.
Our one accurate, transparent and un-tampered with set of data–satellite temperature measurements–is now 37 years old. That is enough time to test the alarmists’ models, which rely on fanciful positive feedback effects to magnify the small and almost certainly beneficial consequences of increased atmospheric CO2 into a nightmare scenario. So how do the alarmists’ models stack up against observation? Let’s go to Ken Haapala of the Science and Environmental Policy Project:
In his written testimony submitted to the US House Committee on Science, Space & Technology on February 2, John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville presented the results of a basic empirical test. Do the climate models simulate what has occurred in the atmosphere since the advent of comprehensive satellite measurements of atmospheric temperatures in the last few weeks of 1978 – the only comprehensive global measurements of temperatures existing – and independently supported by four datasets from weather balloons, which are not comprehensive. The test period includes the entire satellite record from 1978 through 2015 – 37 years. As Christy wrote: I was able to access 102 CMIP-5 rcp4.5 (representative concentration pathways) climate model simulations of the atmospheric temperatures for the tropospheric layer and generate bulk temperatures from the models for an apples-to-apples comparison with the observations from satellites and balloons. These models were developed in institutions throughout the world and used in the IPCC AR5 Scientific Assessment (2013). There were a total of 32 models represented in these 102 simulations. Of these 32 models only one tracked well against global mid-tropospheric temperature variations – the Russian INM-CM4. On average, the models overestimated global warming by 2.5 times that measured. When comparing mid-tropospheric temperature variations as simulated by the 32 to models with actual observations in the critical tropics, the models did worse. On average, they overestimated warming by 3 times that measured. Again the Russian INM-CM4 outperformed the others. As Christy fully recognized, such a test is not suitable for prediction or for public policy. For example, the results from the Russian INM-CM4 model came from one simulation. Multiple simulations may produce different results. The model may not capture the various influences on climate correctly, and may fail in the future. But the test clearly shows that long-term projections/predictions from the group of models, ensemble, are unsuitable for public policy that has a dramatic, destructive effect on the economy as proposed by many western governments. Conversely, the Russian model is a start.
*** It will be very interesting to see how this model performs in the future. As to the bulk of the other models, waiting for an ensemble of models to perform well may be as futile as waiting for an ensemble of questionable musicians to perform the Beethoven’s 5th beautifully, without a conductor.
All you need to know about the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming theory is summed up by Richard Feynman, one of the world’s most eminent scientists:
In general we look for a new law by the following process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is – if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. That is all there is to it. |
After Steve Bannon’s widely viewed interview with Charlie Rose on 60 Minutes Sunday night, professional photographer Peter Duke uploaded a video to YouTube explaining how CBS may have used color adjustments to make the former Trump advisor ‘look bad’ in the interview.
In the video’s description, Duke writes “It seems like 60 minutes would like you to listen less and look more at Steve Bannon. By subtly tweaking the color of the video, they make him look like a bleary-eyed drunk. I show you how they did it.”
Duke goes on to explain how CBS adjusted shots of Bannon to make his eyes and lips red by increasing saturation levels. One clue that photographic trickery was afoot is the difference in color between Bannon’s orange blinds when comparing shots of Charlie Rose and Bannon. Rose’s shots were noticeably ‘cooler,’ to make the host’s make-up more subtle.
GREAT VIDEO. Networks do this a lot. That's why conservatives seem to look so much better on Fox News. https://t.co/jWmP5YcYxQ — Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 11, 2017
CBS Responds
In response to Duke’s video, a representative for CBS curtly told decider.com “It’s nonsense.”
Duke, in response to CBS’s ‘Nonsense’ comment, told Gateway Pundit’s Joshua Caplan that “All professional video production uses color correction in the editorial process. Minor tweaks can be done in all digital video editing tools, but the majors use Avid Media Composer or Davinci Resolve to add the final finish to the work.
In addition to my experience as a photographer and technologist, I spent 5 years of my career working as creative director at a post-house that produced marketing videos, electronic press kits, for every major studio in Hollywood.”
INBOX: @peterdukephoto responds to CBS calling his Bannon-60 Minutes video "nonsense" pic.twitter.com/GrWJ8qyFQX — Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) September 12, 2017
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The failure of this approach has led some to suggest other avenues of breaking up the logjam -- the result of U.S. President Barack Obama's lack of political will and the failure of the rest of the world to pick up the pieces without U.S. involvement. It is in this political limbo that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is finding itself toying with an old-new formula: A role for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
In a meeting with members of the Ebal charity in October, which is made up of Jordanians of Palestinian (Nablus) origin and hosted by Jordan's speaker of the upper house, Taher al Masri, Jordan's Prince Hassan bin Talal opened up the issue. In the speech, recorded and posted on the jordandays.tv website, the prince stressed that the West Bank is part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which includes "both banks of the [Jordan] River." He added that he "did not personally oppose the two-state solution," but that this solution is irrelevant at the current stage.
The October 9 talk received little attention until a former PLO leader repeated the idea, albeit in a different tone. Farouk al Qadoumi, one of the founders of the PLO's Fatah movement, gave an interview to the London-based Al Quds Al Arabi, in which he suggested the return of the West Bank to Jordan as part of a federation or a confederation. Qadoumi, who opposed the Oslo Accords and has refused to step foot in the Palestinian Authority areas, has little clout in the PLO, and at one time accused Abbas of being behind the poisoning of the late Yasser Arafat. Qadoumi's statement was quickly opposed by the secretary of the PLO, Yaser Abed Rabo, who called it "naïve."
But earlier this month, Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported that Abbas informed several PLO leaders "to be prepared for a new confederation project with Jordan and other parties in the international community," and that his office has already issued reports that evaluate "the best strategies to lead possible negotiations with Jordan" toward "reviving the confederation." He has reportedly asked PLO officials to prepare themselves to pursue this strategy. This report, if confirmed by official sources, could be a watershed moment for the Palestinian national movement, and the highest profile endorsement of this persistent proposal.
Abbas's willingness to explore a Jordanian confederation comes on the heels of the United Nation's recent declaration of Palestine as an observer state by a 138-9 vote. This clear victory for Abbas gives him the political capital to explore such a potentially controversial move -- and also the international recognition of sovereignty that would allow Palestinians to enter into a confederation with Jordan as equal partners.
The idea of Jordan having a greater role in Palestine is attractive for various parties. With the Israelis claiming that the Palestinians might repeat the Gaza rocket problem if they withdraw from the West Bank, the idea of a Jordanian security role in the West Bank can defuse such Israeli concerns. A role for Jordan in Palestine would be publicly acceptable in Israel, where the Hashemite enjoy consistent respect among everyday Israelis. Americans would also find such an idea easier to deal with if talks ever return. And even among Palestinians who are unhappy with the PLO and its failures to end the Israeli occupation, any process that can end Israeli presence in Palestinian territories is welcome -- even if that is replaced, temporarily, by an Arab party, whether it is Jordan or any other member of the Arab league. |
The HTC Vive, a headset developed in conjunction with Steam giant Valve, is one of the most promising VR solutions yet, and we were expecting it to come out sometime this year. That's still going to be true for a select few people, but it sounds like a regular commercial launch isn't happening before 2016.
In a press release announcing the company's presence at the PAX Prime expo, Valve says that "HTC will offer the first commercial Vive units via a limited quantity of community and developer systems" later this year, "with larger quantities shipping in calendar Q1 2016." Developer units have been available for free since May.
Q1 2016 is, if you're keeping track, when the first consumer version of the Oculus Rift is set to ship, and Sony's Project Morpheus PS4 headset is also planned for release in the first half of the year. The virtual reality platform wars are now set to take place over a more condensed, crowded, and probably confusing period of time. |
Government borrow more in first quarter of financial year (£26bn) than it originally expected to borrow in the year as a whole (£24bn)
21 Jul 2016, by Geoff Tily in Economics
Public sector net borrowing for the first quarter of the current financial year (2016-17) was £26.6bn, down from £27.9bn over the same period of 2016/17.
On twitter the ONS are celebrating the lowest figure for the month of June since 2007. But this is hardly the point: the point of substance is the extent of the improvement relative to expectations. On this the government’s performance has been and remains disastrous.
Already the rate of improvement is significantly below that needed to meet the forecast made only a few months ago in the March 2016 Budget. Then the forecast for the current financial year 2016/17 as a whole was £55bn, a 23% improvement on 2015/16. The improvement in the year to date is only 8% – way short. But more important is the performance against original expectations. Borrowing for 2015/16 was first expected to be £24bn (November 2011). This annual total is already outstripped by borrowing in the first quarter.
Here’s how the expectations for borrowing has changed since spending cuts were originally imposed in June 2010.
Repeated upward revisions to borrowing follow as cuts hit growth and therefore tax revenues much harder than expected.
This effect on the economy means that cuts are wholly counterproductive from a macroeconomic perspective and well as disastrous socially. With cuts of the same scale currently planned for the current parliament, there can be no resolution to this vicious cycle. Obviously it was good sense to ditch the surplus rule, but it was pure fantasy to think that surplus would ever be restored on the present course.
To state the obvious: the threat from Brexit makes a change of course absolutely imperative – let’s hope they walk the walk. |
Those suffering from dysphoria—feeling unhappy and experiencing elevated depressive symptoms—respond to positive experiences with a marked reduction in their depressive mood.
A recent study in the Journal of Clinical Psychology found that experiencing or even just anticipating uplifting events in daily life was related to feeling less depressed that same day.
The study, conducted by University of Rochester assistant professor of psychology Lisa Starr and Rachel Hershenberg, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University, found that a decrease in depressive mood was especially marked when the experience included interpersonal uplifts, such as participating in fun activities with friends or family.
“It’s the social activities—positive, everyday experiences that involve other people—that may be most likely to brighten the mood of those struggling with depression,” says Starr.
A number of laboratory-based studies suggest that the moods of people with depression are relatively unresponsive to positive stimuli. In other words, when people with depression experience a positive event in the laboratory—like receiving a financial reward—their mood is unlikely to improve markedly. The crux here is that laboratory research doesn’t always translate to real-life settings.
The Rochester study is one in a growing number of studies to examine how real-life events with direct relevance to the study participants affect their moods. The authors wanted to know if people with elevated levels of depression felt better when good things happened to them. The answer is simple—yes. The same is true for the expectation of good things to come.
“Consistent with previous data, we found that people with higher levels of depression are less likely to anticipate that tomorrow will include positive experiences,” says Starr. “However, when they do have moments of anticipating positive next-day experiences, it’s linked to reductions in daily depressive symptoms.”
The study included 157 young adults of whom two-thirds had mild, moderate, or severe depressive symptoms. The remaining third had no symptoms, allowing the authors to examine whether the level of depressive symptoms changes the way people respond to positive experiences. The study subjects completed a two-week online diary, tracking their mood as it related to recent and anticipated positive events in their lives–like time spent with friends, or exercising.
Funded by the University of Rochester, the study that is attracting interest in the field, including a positive review in Psychology Today.
Those with greater baseline dysphoria, that is to say those who reported higher levels of depressive symptoms at the onset of the study, showed stronger associations between daily uplifts and lower daily depressive symptoms, particularly when the uplifts were interpersonal in nature. Generally speaking, those who are depressed are less likely to anticipate positive next-day experiences. However, when they did anticipate positive experiences, they experienced greater reductions in their depressed mood.
“The findings have really important implications for treatment and are especially compatible with a treatment model called Behavioral Activation, which suggests that if you can help depressed people to engage in positive experiences—despite their low motivation to do so—their mood may improve,” says Starr.
In other words: If you’re feeling seriously blue—make a concerted effort to do something fun with friends.
Category: Society & Culture |
Pak n' Save has been forced to pull an advertisement promoting "meat week" at its supermarkets after vegetarians complained it was offensive.
The ad first ran on television on Sunday, but it has been pulled from rotation and the company's Facebook page and YouTube while it is reviewed.
Wellington vegetarian Tashee Smith, 24, said she was upset that the sarcastic advertisement made a mockery of her belief system.
It began with a warning to vegetarians to look away while they showed meat on a conveyor belt, which was "okay'', she said.
"Then the punch line of the ad says, 'Alright vegetarians, you can look back now. It's a carrot. Just kidding, it's a sausage'.
"The whole tone of it I felt really was just quite offensive. It was made to offend.''
It was a high profile company that was often trying to promote organic, ethical and responsible trading, but it now came across as unwelcoming to thousands of vegetarians and vegans, she said.
Smith had emailed Foodstuffs to ask for an explanation and apology, but was yet to hear back.
Several people on Facebook also voiced their displeasure about the ad, claiming it was in "bad taste" and vegetarians did not need to be victimised.
The New Zealand Vegetarian Society warned its followers about the advertisement on Facebook, saying it went further than the normal jokes about vegetarians.
"This contributes to the underlying belief some people hold that it is ok to get a laugh on a vegetarian by tricking them in this way.
"This is in fact bullying, and particularly affects children.''
Foodstuffs spokeswoman Antoinette Shallue said as well as the online feedback several customers had phoned the company upset about the ad.
The ad was obviously "having a dig'' at vegetarians but was not meant to offend anyone.
"It was tongue-in-cheek, it was supposed to be a bit of fun.'''
It was currently being reviewed and no decision had been made about whether it would return or not, she said.
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Blogs Congress Considers Updating 20-year-old Rules, Witnesses Squabble July 25, 2012
Congressional Committee hearings have the tendency to come across as a bit dry at times [read, a lot of the time]. Members of Congress attempt humor that falls flat, drop references to their local sports team, and respectfully disagree with their colleagues about legislation or Constitutional interpretation. The witnesses provide testimony from the perspective of their organizations/industries, take subtle jabs at the opposing position, and answer Members’ questions, or listen to Members use the majority of their question time to make drawn out positions statements.
However, yesterday’s Senate Commerce hearing on “The Cable Act at 20” was different. It became so feisty at one point that I expected popcorn and soft drinks to go along with the entertainment.
First of all, the topic is one that is relatable for the average consumer. The Committee discussed the impact of the Cable Television and Consumer Protection Act of 1992 on the video market and how it affects consumers 20 years later. We should congratulate the Senate Commerce Committee for their timing of this hearing. As cable prices continue to rise, and growth in online video outlets like Netlifx, Hulu, Vimeo continues, the issue of video content and the rules that regulate how consumers access content become more relevant. Suddenly Congress does not seem so esoteric.
Senator Rockefeller kicked off the hearing with several core questions about the ’92 Cable Act:
Why hasn’t competition succeeded in bringing cable rates down? And providing more choices? And providing more selections within those choices? Should the protections in the Cable Act for various entities be maintained? How do we make sure that consumers are protected and see real benefits as video moves to the Internet, where people are increasingly watching?
What followed was an enlightening and (and somewhat revealing) information session about the witnesses’ industries, their thoughts on who’s to blame for why video prices are so high, and what can be done to protect consumers. Here’s my take on the witness testimony:
National Association of Broadcasters rep: “Retransmission consent is great. We shouldn’t change a thing. The cable guys are the reason your constituents pay too much for content. Think of your local broadcasters in West Virginia, South Dakota, Arkansas (and any other State represented by Senators on the Committee). Hey look, I’ve got graphs!”
Time Warner Cable rep: “The ’92 Cable Act is outdated. Do you know many special perks these broadcasters receive and how much protection they get from you guys (the government)? They don’t need all of this protection anymore. I’m right, he’s wrong. Listen to these stats and figures I have!”
CBS rep: Retransmission consent is fine. There’s no dysfunctional marketplace. Don’t change anything at all. Not for us, but think of the little guys. You wouldn’t want to hurt the little guys, would you? If that happens South Carolinians might have to rely on broadcaster services from Atlanta, or even (gasp) New York City!
American Cable Association rep: Everything CBS just said is wrong. I will spend the next few minutes explaining how wrong CBS is.
Consumer Federation of America rep: Cable and broadcast are both guilty. Spectrum sharing is the way of the future. Let’s look at unlicensed spectrum more. Exclusive broadcast licenses are the original sin here.
Academic: Principled deregulation is the way to go. Repeal compulsory licenses.
Here is the link to the complete hearing, so you can see the entire ping ponged debate unfold for yourself.
All of the witnesses recognize that the cost of cable service for the consumer has increased significantly in the time since the 1992 Cable Act was passed, they just cast blame on the other guys for passing those costs along to the consumers (cable blames broadcast, broadcast blames cable). Whether the two factions will ever be on the same page is anyone guess, but as John Bergmayer points out in his white paper Tomorrowvision, there are real policy changes that Congress needs to make to improve the future of video.
The Future of Video subject is one that we at Public Knowledge intend to follow closely over the next several months. In fact, PK President Gigi Sohn testified at last month’s Future of Video hearing. We’re happy that Congress is considering updating a seriously outdated regulatory structure that is keeping TV stuck in the past. Perhaps, Congress, the cable companies and broadcasters will find a way to hold hands (or hold their noses) and work together for the best interests of the consumers. |
Archery at the Summer Olympics Governing body WA Events 4 (men: 2; women: 2) Games 1896
1900
1904
1908
1912
1920 1924
1928
1932
1936
1948
1952 1956
1960
1964
1968
1972
1976 1980
1984
1988
1992
1996
2000 2004
2008
2012
2016
2020 Medalists
Records
Archery had its debut at the 1900 Summer Olympics and has been contested in 16 Olympiads. Eighty-four nations have competed in the Olympic archery events, with France appearing the most often at 31 times. The most noticeable trend has been the excellence of South Korean archers, who have won 23 out of 34 gold medals in events since 1984. It is governed by the World Archery Federation (WA; formerly FITA). Recurve archery is the only discipline of archery featured at the Olympic Games. Archery is also an event at the Summer Paralympics.
History [ edit ]
The second Olympic games, Paris 1900, saw the first appearance of archery. Seven disciplines in varying distances were contested. The next Olympics, St. Louis 1904, featured archery events, but no athletes outside the United States competed. At the 1908 Summer Olympics, three archery events were held. Archery was not featured at the 1912 Summer Olympics but reappeared in the 1920 Summer Olympics.
Between 1920 and 1972, archery was not contested at the Olympic games. The archery competition featured at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich consisted of a double FITA Round (from 2014 known as a '1440 Round') competition with two events: men's individual and women's individual. This form of archery competition was held until the 1988 Summer Olympics, when team competition was added and the Grand FITA Round format was used. Starting at the 1992 Summer Olympics, the Olympic Round with head-to-head matches was adopted and has been used ever since.
In 1984 at Los Angeles, Neroli Fairhall of New Zealand was the first paraplegic competitor in the Olympic Games.
Medal tables [ edit ]
This table includes archery competitions in 1900, 1904, 1908, and 1920. These four years preceded the modern, standardized archery competition under the rules of the World Archery Federation.[1] They were contested by three nations at most in any given year, and were dominated by home nations in both the number of participants and number of medals won. The nations that competed during that period were France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and the United States. In some events in Antwerp (1920) bronze medals were not awarded.[2][3]
Rank Nation Gold Silver Bronze Total 1 Belgium (BEL) 11 6 3 20 2 United States (USA) 6 6 6 18 3 France (FRA) 5 10 6 21 4 Great Britain (GBR) 2 2 1 5 5 Netherlands (NED) 1 0 0 1 Totals (5 nations) 25 24 16 65
From 1972 [ edit ]
1972 marked the beginning of the modern archery competition at the Olympic Games. The events began to use standardized forms and many nations competed.[1]
All years [ edit ]
This table includes archery competitions in 1900, 1904, 1908, and 1920 in addition to the ones from 1972 on, which are shown above.
Qualification [ edit ]
Qualification spots in archery are allotted to National Olympic Committees rather than to individual athletes. The minimum age for an Olympic archer is 16. There are two ways an NOC may earn qualification spots: by team or by individual. For each gender, an NOC that earns a team qualification spot may send three archers to compete in that team event; each archer also competes in the individual competition. NOCs that earn individual qualification spots are limited to a single entry in the individual event.
For each gender, there are 12 team qualification spots: the host nation, the top 8 teams at the World Archery Championships, and the top 3 teams at the Final World Team Qualification Tournament.[4]
In addition to the 36 entries awarded through team qualification, an additional 28 individual qualification spots are available for each gender, bringing the total number of competitors in each individual event to 64.
Qualification for the mixed team event is done through the ranking round at the Olympics.
2012 [ edit ]
For 2012, the qualification rules were adjusted slightly. The host nation continued to receive three spots, as did the top eight teams at the World Championship. However, only 8 further individuals qualified through the individual placement at the World Championship. The continental tournaments received unbalanced allocations, with Africa and Oceania receiving only two qualification spots to the other continents' three. The Tripartite Commission retained its three selections. The remaining 13 spots were decided by Final Qualification Tournaments. Three additional team spots (9 individual spots) were allocated through the Final Qualification team event, and the last 4 spots through the Final Qualification individual tournament. If any of the NOCs qualifying through Final Qualification had already earned an individual spot, one more spot as added to the individual Final Qualification quota.[5]
2016 [ edit ]
Africa received 3 qualification spots in the continental tournaments, leaving Oceania as the only continent to receive 2 spots rather than 3.
2020 [ edit ]
For the 2020 Olympics, the five Continental Games were added to the qualification pathway. The winning NOC in the mixed team event at each of the five receives one allocation spot per gender; there is also one quota spot per gender for the individual event winners at the Asian, European, and Pan American Games. The World Championship allocation was reduced to 4 per gender and the Tripartite Commission allocation was reduced to 2 per gender. The European continental tournament received an additional spot (up to 4) at the expense of Oceania (down to 1) and Africa (down to 2). The base allocation for the final individual qualification tournament was reduced to only 1 per gender, though this tournament also reallocates unused quota spots.
Competition [ edit ]
From 1988 through 2016, Olympic archery consisted of four medal events: men's individual, women's individual, men's team, and women's team. The mixed team event is being added in 2020. In all five events, the distance from the archer to the target is 70 meters.
Individual [ edit ]
In the individual competitions, 64 archers compete. The competition begins with the ranking round. Each archer shoots 72 arrows (in six ends, or groups, of 12 arrows). They are then ranked by score to determine their seeding for the single-elimination bracket. After this, final rankings for each archer are determined by the archer's score in the round in which the archer was defeated, with the archers defeated in the first round being ranked 33rd through 64th.
The first elimination round pits the first ranked archer against the sixty-fourth, the second against the sixty-third, and so on. In this match as well as the second and third, the archers shoot simultaneously 18 arrows in ends of 3 arrows. The archer with the higher score after 18 arrows moves on to the next round while the loser is eliminated.
After three such rounds, there are 8 archers remaining. The remaining three rounds (quarterfinals, semifinals, and medal matches) are referred to as the finals rounds. They consist of each archer shooting 12 arrows, again in ends of 3 arrows. The two archers in the match alternate by arrow instead of shooting their arrows simultaneously as in the first three rounds. The losers of the quarterfinals are eliminated, while the losers of the semifinals play each other to determine the bronze medal and fourth place. The two archers who are undefeated through the semifinals face each other in the gold medal match, in which the winner takes the gold medal while the loser receives the silver medal.
2008 changes [ edit ]
All matches in 2008 were in the previous finals round format, using 12 arrow matches. Archers alternated shooting by arrow.
2012 changes [ edit ]
The individual match system was completely overhauled for the 2012 Olympics, though the single elimination with bronze medal match format was retained. The matches now consisted of sets. Each set comprised both archers shooting three arrows. The archer with the best score in the set received two points; if the set was drawn, each archer received one point. The match would continue until one archer reached six points. If the match was tied after five sets, a single arrow shoot-off was held with the closest arrow to center winning.[6]
Team [ edit ]
The team event uses the results of the same ranking round as the individual competition to determine seeding for the teams. The team's three individual archers' scores are summed to get a team ranking round score. The competition thereafter is a single-elimination bracket, with the top 4 teams receiving a bye into the quarterfinals. The semifinal losers face each other in the bronze medal match. The set format from the individual competition was not used in 2012, but was used beginning in 2016.[7] In team matches prior to 2016, each archer shot 8 arrows, with the best overall team score (for the total of 24 arrows) winning the match. Beginning with 2016, the set format (with each archer shooting two arrows per set for a total of six arrows per team per set) is used.
Mixed team [ edit ]
The mixed team competition uses the results of the ranking round to both qualify and seed teams. Each of the 16 teams that compete consist of one man and one woman.
Events [ edit ]
Early Games [ edit ]
Early Olympic archery competitions had events that were unique for each of the Games.
Modern Games [ edit ]
Current program Event 72 76 80 84 88 92 96 00 04 08 12 16 20 Years Men's individual X X X X X X X X X X X X X 13 Men's team – – – – X X X X X X X X X 9 Women's individual X X X X X X X X X X X X X 13 Women's team – – – – X X X X X X X X X 9 Mixed team – – – – – – – – – – – – X 1 Events 2 2 2 2 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 45
Participating nations [ edit ]
The following nations have taken part in the Archery competition.
96 In the table headings, indicates the Games year, from 1896 to 2012 3 Number of archers participated in the specified Games Archery not competed in these years Host nation for the specified Games NOC did not compete in Games or was superseded or preceded by other NOC(s) during these years
Records [ edit ]
The Olympic records for archery are for the competition format established in 1992.
Men's
Women's
See also [ edit ] |
Sometimes, people are willing to believe some incredible things about technology because they have an understandably low interest in the inner workings of said technology. It happens. Sometimes, though, these people are willing to believe some really dumb shit. (No, Uncle John, they have not finally discovered a way to create a perpetual motion device that the oil companies don't want you to know about, and I do not want to invest in it.)
Today's classic case of "I read it on the internet, therefore: it is true" comes from Facebook, as do many of the internet's best conspiracies these days. Basically, there's a video of some guy claiming the Samsung NFC sticker wrapped around his Galaxy S4's battery is a government or corporate surveillance device placed there to steal all your photos and monitor all your phone calls. It is completely, utterly false and also surprisingly bigoted (!), so please note that this video is probably best tagged NSFW for language / anti-Semitism. With that in mind, here's the (auto-play warning) link to it.
If you don't want to watch (can't blame you), the short version is that this guy pulls the NFC sticker off his Galaxy S4's battery, mumbles about it stealing all your photos and videos, says something offensive, then continues being dangerously misinformed about the short-range antenna he's now probably broken for about 30 more seconds (this is the entirety of his evidence). At this time, the post we've seen has over 250,000 shares on Facebook and has likely spread its viral wings into the feeds of many tens of millions of users by now. So if you see someone post it, maybe do everyone a favor and calmly let them know it's a hoax.
If they won't take you at your word or the so-obvious-it-hurts stupidity of installing an easily removable (LITERALLY A STICKER) "spying" device, it's probably time to step away from the feed and remind yourself that you're probably arguing with someone who believes that the US government is spraying us with classified pharmaceuticals using jetliners. |
A car crashed into a power pole and fire hydrant in Valley Village, killing two and injuring six. The driver has been ordered to stand trial.
Families of two good Samaritans who were electrocuted when they tried to rescue a driver who crashed into a power pole and a fire hydrant have filed wrongful death lawsuits, blaming the city’s utility for creating "a concealed trap" that led to their deaths.
The families of Irma Yolanda Zamora and Stacey Lee Schreiber filed the civil lawsuits in Los Angeles Superior Court in May.
Zamora and Schreiber were killed Aug. 22, 2012 when they tried to rescue Arman Samsonian who was trapped in his SUV that hit a light pole and sheared a fire hydrant in the 12000 block of West Magnolia Boulevard in Valley Village.
Zamora and Schreiber were electrocuted when they stepped into a pool of water that had come into contact with exposed wires electrified by 4,800 volts.
Good Samaritan Remembered
Family and friends held a funeral service for a local woman who died while coming to the aid of someone involved in a car crash. (Published Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012)
Among those named in the lawsuits are the city and county of LA, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and Samsonian.
Samsonian was arrested in the case and this week pleaded not guilty to charges of felony vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.
Lawyers for the families did not return calls seeking comment. A call to the DWP was not returned. A spokesman for the LA City Attorney's Office said he wouldn't comment on pending litigation.
More Southern California Stories: |
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan and the United States are exploring the possibility of Tokyo acquiring offensive weapons that would allow Japan to project power far beyond its borders, Japanese officials said, a move that would likely infuriate China.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (R) reviews Japanese Self-Defence Forces' (SDF) troops during the annual SDF ceremony at Asaka Base in Asaka, near Tokyo, in this October 27, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Issei Kato/Files
While Japan’s intensifying rivalry with China dominates the headlines, Tokyo’s focus would be the ability to take out North Korean missile bases, said three Japanese officials involved in the process.
They said Tokyo was holding the informal, previously undisclosed talks with Washington about capabilities that would mark an enhancement of military might for a country that has not fired a shot in anger since its defeat in World War Two.
The talks on what Japan regards as a “strike capability” are preliminary and do not cover specific hardware at this stage, the Japanese officials told Reuters.
Defense experts say an offensive capability would require a change in Japan’s purely defensive military doctrine, which could open the door to billions of dollars worth of offensive missile systems and other hardware. These could take various forms, such as submarine-fired cruise missiles similar to the U.S. Tomahawk.
U.S. officials said there were no formal discussions on the matter but did not rule out the possibility that informal contacts on the issue had taken place. One U.S. official said Japan had approached American officials informally last year about the matter.
Japan’s military is already robust but is constrained by a pacifist Constitution. The Self Defense Forces have dozens of naval surface ships, 16 submarines and three helicopter carriers, with more vessels under construction. Japan is also buying 42 advanced F-35 stealth fighter jets.
Reshaping the military into a more assertive force is a core policy of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He has reversed a decade of military spending cuts, ended a ban on Japanese troops fighting abroad and eased curbs on arms exports.
RILING CHINA
Tokyo had dropped a request to discuss offensive capabilities during high-profile talks on revising guidelines for the U.S.-Japan security alliance which are expected to be finished by year-end, the Japanese officials said. Instead, the sensitive issue was “being discussed on a separate track”, said one official with direct knowledge of the matter.
But any deal with Washington is years away and the obstacles are significant – from the costs to the heavily indebted Japanese government to concerns about ties with Asian neighbors such as China and sensitivities within the alliance itself.
The Japanese officials said their U.S. counterparts were cautious to the idea, partly because it could outrage China, which accuses Abe of reviving wartime militarism.
The officials declined to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the closed-door deliberations. A Japanese Defense Ministry spokesman said he could not comment on negotiations with Washington.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Asian countries had a right to be concerned about any moves to strengthen Japan’s military considering the country’s past and recent “mistaken” words and actions about its history.
“We again urge Japan to earnestly reflect on and learn the lessons of history, respect the security concerns of countries in the region and go down the path of peaceful development,” Hua told a daily news briefing in Beijing.
Japan would need U.S. backing for any shift in military doctrine because it would change the framework of the alliance, often described as America supplying the “sword” of forward-based troops and nuclear deterrence while Japan holds the defensive “shield”.
Washington did not have a position on upgrading Japan’s offensive capabilities, “in part because the Japanese have not developed a specific concept or come to us with a specific request”, said another U.S. official.
“We’re not there yet - and they’re not there yet,” the official said. “We’re prepared to have that conversation when they’re ready.”
NORTH KOREAN MISSILES
North Korea lies less than 600 km (370 miles) from Japan at the closest point.
Pyongyang, which regularly fires short-range rockets into the sea separating the Koreas from Japan, has improved its ballistic missile capabilities and conducted three nuclear weapons tests, its most recent in February 2013.
In April, North Korea said that in the event of war on the Korean Peninsula, Japan would be “consumed in nuclear flames”.
Part of Japan’s motivation for upgrading its capabilities is a nagging suspicion that the United States, with some 28,000 troops in South Korea as well as 38,000 in Japan, might hesitate to attack the North in a crisis, Japanese experts said.
U.S. forces might hold off in some situations, such as if South Korea wanted to prevent an escalation, said Narushige Michishita, a national security adviser to the Japanese government from 2004-2006.
“We might want to maintain some kind of limited strike capability in order to be able to initiate a strike, so that we can tell the Americans, ‘unless you do the job for us, we will have to do it on our own,’” said Michishita, a security expert at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.
Reflecting Japan’s concerns, Abe told parliament in May 2013 that it was vital “not to give the mistaken impression that the American sword would not be used” in an emergency.
“At this moment is it really acceptable for Japan to have to plead with the U.S. to attack a missile threatening to attack Japan?” Abe said.
Under current security guidelines, in the event of a ballistic missile attack, “U.S. forces will provide Japan with necessary intelligence and consider, as necessary, the use of forces providing additional strike power”.
SHROUDED IN EUPHEMISM
The informal discussions on offensive capabilities cover all options, from Japan continuing to rely completely on Washington to getting the full panoply of weaponry itself.
Japan would like to reach a conclusion in about five years, and then start acquiring hardware, one Japanese official said.
Tokyo had wanted the discussions included in the review of the Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation Guidelines that are expected to cover areas such as logistical support and cybersecurity. Those talks, which formally kicked off last October, are the first in 17 years.
But the United States was keen to keep discussions on offensive capabilities separate to avoid riling China and South Korea, another Japanese official said. Beijing and Seoul each have territorial disputes with Tokyo and accuse Abe of failing to atone for Japan’s wartime aggression.
Reflecting the sensitivities of the issue even in Japan, any talk of an upgraded offensive capability is shrouded in euphemism.
Itsunori Onodera, who stepped down last week as defense minister in a broad cabinet reshuffle, a year ago described it as “the capability to attack enemies’ military bases and strategic bases for the sake of self-defense”.
Defense guidelines compiled by the government in December watered this down to a “potential form of response capability to address the means of ballistic-missile launches and related facilities”. |
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For four decades, the National Rifle Association worked to get concealed carry laws passed, culminating in Illinois becoming the last state to pass such a bill in 2013. Typically those laws required a permit and training for those who want to carry a concealed weapon.
Now the NRA wants to upend those laws and grant even greater license to hidden, loaded handguns. It wants concealed carry with no training or permits required, “no license, no fees, no government hoops to jump through,” as state Sen. David Craig (R-Town of Vernon) declared in a press release announcing a bill the NRA says could make Wisconsin the 13th state with such a law, though it appears only nine states have actually passed a permit-less carry law.
Craig and Rep. Mary Felzkowski (R-Irma) are among 41 co-authors of the “Right to Carry Act”, as they’ve dubbed it. That right, of course, already exists; this bill simply removes any responsibilities for those claiming this right.
The Wisconsin bill would also end the current law’s restriction that prevents people from bringing guns into all police stations, secure mental health facilities and schools in the state; this would now be allowed unless any such institution explicitly bans guns from its property. The measure also allows people to carry tasers, and eliminates the prohibition on carrying guns, bows and crossbows in wildlife refuges, and while operating all-terrain vehicles.
“The strange thing about this is I’m not sensing a ground swell of public demand for this legislation,” says Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, who opposes the bill.
No indeed. A recent survey of Wisconsin’s registered voters found 91 percent supported a requirement that a background check, permit and fee should be required of anyone carrying a concealed weapon. That included support from 86 percent of gun owners in the state.
And just 21 percent of voters supported allowing people to bring concealed weapons into K-12 schools.
This legislation is being pushed not by the citizenry, but by the NRA, whose spokesperson Amy Hunter told Wisconsin Public Radio that those carrying guns openly aren’t required to have training or a permit, yet “if they put a coat on or if they need to put their firearm in their purse, you instantly become a criminal.” That language was repeated by Sen. Craig, who declared: “If you decide to throw on a coat, you should not be considered a criminal.”
To which Jeri Bonavia, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, responds, “that’s actually pointing out a flaw in the current law: those openly carrying a gun should also be required to get training and a permit.”
There are now 300,000 people with concealed carry permits in Wisconsin. Chisholm and Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn have decried this trend, with Flynn calling the law “insane” and complaining, “we are doing everything we can to make sure our criminals have unfettered access to high-quality firearms and get to carry them in record numbers. There are more guns out there every year.”
Flynn has said the law puts officers at risk. Under the CCW law, he noted, “when the police see someone carrying a gun we are to assume they are carrying legally, even in a high-crime neighborhood where there are hundreds of crimes that happen.”
Chisholm and Flynn have pleaded with Wisconsin legislators to tighten the guidelines for concealed carry, to prevent “habitual offenders” (who’ve committed at least three misdemeanors) and those convicted of misdemeanors such as “endangering safety by use of a dangerous weapon” or “pointing or aiming a gun” from getting a permit to carry.
“We thought we were making some headway on this,” Chisholm says. “And then this bill shows up.”
So far, no one from the law enforcement community in the state has endorsed the proposal.
Jim Palmer, Executive Director of the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, says his group opposes it. “Our elected leadership of officers from around the state overwhelmingly opposes an expansion of the law which eliminates the need for any kind of training whatsoever. Having some training component is a benefit to both public safety and officer safety.”
Appleton Police Chief Todd Thomas told Green Bay TV station WBAY that “Legislation like this, in a time when we continue to see random and impulsive acts of mass murder… only makes Wisconsin less safe. Police officers, first responders, and our medical professionals all too often are dealing with tragedies that occur because of the accidental discharges of firearms or impulsive acts by those who are in crisis. To eliminate the required training to carry concealed… should concern all of us and not just law enforcement.”
School leaders also oppose the bill. The Wisconsin Association of School Boards has adopted a policy saying “The WASB supports safe learning environments for all children, free of guns and other weapons. Further, the WASB opposes any initiatives at the state or federal level that would legalize any further ability for anyone, with the exception of sworn law enforcement officers, to bring a weapon or possess a weapon, including a facsimile or ‘look-alike’ weapon, concealed or otherwise, in school zones.”
If it seems inconceivable that a Republican-led legislature would push for a law that police across the state see as dangerous, it is a reflection of how radical Wisconsin has gotten. As Capitol columnist Steven Walters has written, a hard right group of eight or nine state senators are likely to dictate much of what makes it into the state budget. On more general legislation like this, you need bigger numbers, but can still pass a bill with no Democratic support and some GOP dissenters.
A Wisconsin Republican operative told the Washington Examiner the bill is likely to pass “with big majorities.” Others dispute this, saying passage is far from certain.
“It doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of support coming from the Republican leadership on this,” says Bonavia. Gov. Scott Walker has yet to endorse the bill.
The reality is that voters are not in favor of this bill. Palmer points to a survey his group commissioned with the St. Norbert College Strategic Research Institute, which found more than 70 percent of respondents opposed allowing concealed carry within K-12 schools and college campuses.
Voters want more, not less restrictions on gun owners. A Marquette Law School poll found both gun owners and non-gun owners support requiring background checks of gun buyers, with 82 percent of owners and 81 percent of non-owners favoring this. Flynn and Mayor Tom Barrett have lobbied the legislature to pass such a law, with no luck.
The reality is that the opinion of average voters counts less than the clout of the NRA, which spent $3.6 million since January 2008 to support GOP and conservative legislative and statewide candidates, including about $23,400 on the legislative elections last fall, as the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign reported.
That included $75,900 in campaign contributions to nearly four dozen Republican legislators, who are the most likely candidates to support what Democratic state Sen. Jennifer Shilling has called a “completely irresponsible” bill.
Or as Palmer puts it, “this new proposal is an unnecessary overreach that will do nothing to improve the safety of our communities and the officers that patrol them.”
If you think stories like this are important, become a member of Urban Milwaukee and help support real independent journalism. Plus you get some cool added benefits, all detailed here. |
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor bowed out of his speech on income inequality today after learning that Occupy Philadelphia protesters planned to storm the University of Pennsylvania campus where he was scheduled to speak.
Cantor's office cancelled the speech just hours before the Majority Leader was supposed to take the stage at Penn's Wharton School of Business, citing changes in the attendance policy that would have made the event open to the first 300 members of the public who showed up.
According to the Daily Pennsylvanian, between 500 and 1,000 protesters from Occupy Philadelphia and other activist groups planned to rally outside the event in the hopes of getting national media attention, and campus police were gearing up for crowd control.
You may remember that Cantor has been one of the most outspoken critics of the Occupy Wall Street movement, referring to protesters as a mob and criticizing supporters as "condoning pitting Americans against Americans."
Today's speech would have reprised some of those comments, so its not surprising that Cantor did not want to face the "mobs" in Philadelphia.
Here's an excerpt, obtained by the Daily Pennsylvanian:
There are politicians and others who want to demonize people that have earned success in certain sectors of our society. They claim that these people have now made enough, and haven't paid their fair share. But, pitting Americans against one another tends to deflate the aspirational spirit of our people and fade the American dream. I believe that the most successful among us are positioned to use their talents to help grow our economy and give everyone a hand up the ladder and the dignity of a job. We should encourage them to extend their creativity and generosity to helping build the community infrastructure that provides a hand up and a fair shot to those less fortunate, like that little 9-year-old girl in the inner city.
You can read the whole thing here > |
In an apparent attempt to broaden their appeal, the Pakistani Taliban have launched a women’s magazine.
Published by notorious Islamist group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the first edition of Sunnat E Khaula (The Way of Khaula) features a completely veiled woman on the cover, seen facing away from the camera. Articles include an interview with the wife of TTP’s leader Mullah Fazlullah, who married at 14, making the case for child marriage. “We have to understand that mature boys and girls if left unmarried for too long can become a source of moral destruction,” she argues. Another story derides western-style education.
The editorial says the aim of the 45-page, English-language publication is to “provoke women of Islam to come forward and join the ranks of the muhajidin [holy warriors] of Islam.” To that end, an advice column advises women to begin weapons training. “Like-minded” women should “get together” and “learn how to use a grenade,” it suggests. Readers are urged to “organize secret get-togethers at home”, arrange “physical training classes for sisters” and “learn how to use simple weapons.”
TTP is implicated in many of Pakistan’s worst terrorist attacks, including a school massacre in Peshawar in 2014 that left 150 people dead — most of them children. In a separate attack on a playground, a suicide bomber killed more than 70 people.
Pakistani Taliban launches women's magazine offering advice on how to use a grenadehttps://t.co/ySN8NA2oc8 — The Telegraph (@Telegraph) August 4, 2017
Read the full story at The Times and The Telegraph.
Related
3 women arrested were ‘radicalized fanatics,’ suspected of preparing ‘an imminent, violent act’ in Paris
Don’t mistake Western “jihadi brides” for naive or lovesick teens, writer says
Women a “mainstay” of ISIS propaganda and recruitment |
Demonstrators listen to speeches at Freedom Plaza at the start of the “Justice for All” march in the District.
Dec. 13, 2014 Demonstrators listen to speeches at Freedom Plaza at the start of the “Justice for All” march in the District. Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post
The Rev. Al Sharpton guided thousands of people in a civil rights march from Washington to the U.S. Capitol.
With the families of slain black men and children walking with him, the Rev. Al Sharpton guided thousands of people in a traditional civil rights march from downtown Washington to the U.S. Capitol on Saturday.
With the families of slain black men and children walking with him, the Rev. Al Sharpton guided thousands of people in a traditional civil rights march from downtown Washington to the U.S. Capitol on Saturday.
In a strong display of unity since the shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., the relatives of African Americans killed by officers in incidents dating back more than a decade shared a stage Saturday to call on Congress to make changes in the criminal justice system.
Speaking in the cold afternoon air, mothers and fathers of those who were killed said their children were let down by prosecutors and grand juries that did not indict police officers in many of the cases, saying the attorneys have too close a relationship to police to fairly represent shooting victims.
On the stage, passing a microphone like a baton, one speaker after another addressed tens of thousands of racially diverse marchers at the “Justice for All” rally organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. They vowed to continue protesting until Congress takes action, such as requiring a special prosecutor to investigate controversial police shootings.
“We will come here as many times as it takes,” said Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who died in Staten Island in July after an officer held him in a chokehold as the 43-year-old said, “I can’t breathe.” The arrest was caught on video, and a grand jury’s decision earlier this month not to indict the officer shocked liberals and conservatives alike.
The Washington march was one of many that took place across the nation Saturday.
Bishop D. Demond Robinson and 25 residents of Ferguson took an 800-mile road trip from Missouri to Washington to march with other protesters from around the country in opposition of police brutality. (Whitney Leaming/The Washington Post)
Under the slogan “National Day of Resistance,” rallies were held in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Bloomington, Ind., and Lexington, Ky., among other places, part of a groundswell of protests since August.
A “Millions March” in New York started big and grew much bigger within hours, from a densely packed crowd in two city blocks to a mass as far as the eye could see as the march closed on its destination near New York University.
The crowd in New York reflected the diversity of the city. “I’ve never seen something so beautiful,” said Josh Toney, an African American man in his 20s. “Seeing the Asian community, seeing union workers, seeing people who probably don’t even speak English.”
Like the D.C. march, police declared the New York march peaceful with no arrests. In Boston, however, police made multiple arrests when protesters clashed with officers.
The demonstrations sweeping the country have their roots in the months-long protests in Ferguson, where what happened between Michael Brown, 18, and the officer who shot him remains contested by many. A grand jury’s decision in November not to indict the officer sparked more unrest in the St. Louis suburb where protesters and police clashed in the days immediately after the shooting.
The grand jury decision in Garner’s death was announced a little more than a week later, and has further intensified the nation’s focus on race and policing. The video left many expecting an indictment.
His mother called the support from other families and from the thousands of demonstrators around the country overwhelming. “I mean, look at the masses. Black, white, all races, all religions. We need to stand like this at all times,” Carr said moments after she was engulfed by a hug from Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin. Her son was shot in the chest in 2012 during a struggle with a self-appointed neighborhood watch volunteer.
A crowd of thousands jammed between Third and Fifth streets NW on Pennsylvania Avenue listened as each speaker thanked them for turning out.
“We will get justice for our children, believe that,” said Samaria Rice, the mother of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was shot to death by a Cleveland police officer while playing with a toy gun. A video of the shooting showed that the officer shot the child within seconds of arriving at the scene, no questions asked.
“I want to thank the nation for supporting us,” Rice said, as her hand trembled and her voice cracked. “That’s the only way I’m standing today, that I’m standing right now.”
The father of another victim, John Crawford III, who was shot dead in a Wal-Mart store by police officers in a Dayton, Ohio, suburb, said the same criminal justice system he works for “is the same system I’m receiving injustice from.”
Police said they thought a BB gun the younger Crawford carried was lethal. A video of the shooting shows that he was on a cellphone before he was shot. A grand jury decided not to indict the officers who fired the shots.
“My son was murdered in the biggest retail store in the world,” Crawford said. “These cases should be open and shut. Let’s stay focused on that. Don’t forget my son’s name. They will all be vindicated.”
Lesley McSpadden, the mother of Michael Brown, said “it speaks volumes” that the march was so large and diverse. She said those who have died have been immortalized. “It is almost like you don’t need to say any words, you can just look out and see all of the people. They shot our sons, but they did not die.”
Several protesters walked up to Michael Brown Sr. seeking hugs, handshakes or a picture. Brown tried to be accommodating to the many requests, at one point showing a young man how to take a selfie.
“This means the world to me, to see everyone coming together for a common cause,” Brown said.
When it was her turn to speak, Sybrina Fulton said shootings of unarmed black men and children are nothing new.
“This is something that’s been going on a long time. It’s just that some people have just woke up.”
Fulton’s point was punctuated by the remarks of Kadiatou Diallo, the mother of Amadou Diallo, who was shot 19 times in 1999 by New York plainclothes police officers. They said they thought the wallet he pulled out to show his identification was a gun.
Diallo held up a dated magazine cover featuring her son with the caption, “Cops, Brutality and Race.” “Today — 16 years later — we are standing here saying the same thing,” she said.
Like two other speakers, Fulton took a moment to thank someone else. “This guy to my left, the Rev. Sharpton. Where would we be without him? People don’t understand. They talk about we’re not together. I look around. We are together.”
But on that issue there was wide disagreement. Few if any young protest organizers who fueled the movement after Michael Brown was shot were invited to speak. Until Saturday, protests had been organic and original, and not surprisingly the burgeoning movement has shown generational fractures from its earliest days in Ferguson.
At one point, before the procession left its gathering place at Freedom Plaza near D.C. city hall, a group of young demonstrators mostly from Ferguson seized the stage. Opposed to Sharpton, who they view as a celebrity activist seeking to take over a movement they started, they said young advocates who did the heavy lifting should be at the forefront of the march.
But when Sharpton took the stage at the Capitol, he urged the marchers not to let “provocateurs” divide them, by generation or race. “This is not a black march or a white march,” Sharpton said. “This is an American march so the rights of all Americans are protected. I’m inspired when I see white kids holding up signs saying ‘Black Lives Matter.’ ”
What’s next? Sharpton and others said they would press Congress to pass legislation requiring body and dashboard cameras for all police officers, special prosecutors to investigate police misconduct and beefed-up laws against racial profiling. Sharpton is also pushing for a new division within the Justice Department to deal with the tensions between African Americans and police departments.
“Members of Congress, beware,” Sharpton said. “We’re serious. When you get a ring-ding on Christmas, it might not be Santa. It may be Rev. Al coming to your house.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the first name of Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton.
Keith Alexander, Moriah Balingit, Hamil Harris, Mariam Baksh and Whitney Leaming in Washington and Philip Bump in New York contributed to this report. |
Charles Bissell knows what you're going to ask, and the answer is "soon." He understands why you might not take his word for it, but he's serious this time. Above all, he is genuinely grateful for your patience.
Bissell, the guitarist/vocalist for The Wrens, has spent the better part of a decade working on a follow-up to the group's 2003 album The Meadowlands — perhaps the most beloved indie album ever put out by a group of middle-aged New Jersey rockers. And while he's claimed for years that the album is basically done, he's really, honest-to-goodness finally finished...almost. Ahead of his "rare public appearance" at Union Hall on Friday, we talked with Bissell about what the hell is taking so long.
So, how's that new album coming along? Wait, when does the sun explode beyond its normal orbit and swallow the solar system?
Ha. You know that I'm journalistically obligated to get an answer out of you. OK, realistically, I'm sort of finishing up these last two things. I've got a couple mix-y things to do. If I get this all done and get it into mastering, even by the end of next week, and then that turns around quickly and everything's good, which, with this mastering machine, it always is, it's still... well, we're looking at Spring.
It would not surprise me if they were like, 'Hey we could get this out for like June 1st' or something. Or, we can just leap frog over the summer and come out in September. Because the summer is traditionally a no person's land for releases at a certain level. Maybe it's less true now, I don't know.
The weird part is, it's not far-fetched that I could get this all done even by like next week or get it in and then be like looking at almost a year from now, pending a release, which doesn't make me unhappy. It's weird because from the outside it looks like nothing happens, but because I've been working on this every day, I am so unthinkably fried on this thing. I really need some time off.
You've put out sort of an open-invitation lately for people to come check out the album. What's that been like? My motivation for originally doing it was sort of like as this art project thing, but over time it helped me actually finish. So, every time someone comes, I play them like the first four songs, which are set and done, and when they hear them they don't cringe or vomit. Then I always play one or two that I'm still working on — I'm going upstairs to put a vocal down on one I just changed when we get off the phone, which is always what happens. Eleventh hour stuff, although I seem to have a succession of 11th hours. But I'm sure you know how it is, when you're working on something, you lose perspective — you're like this is terrible, or good, or whatever.
Somehow, having a room full of people in a little studio off our kitchen is extremely clarifying about what's good or bad about the song in a way that I can't hear on my own. It doesn't even matter if they like it, necessarily or not. They're not like, 'Yay.' There are few standing ovations or applause. But, just that they're hearing it, suddenly I hear it in a way that's like, 'Oh, my word, that is not a good vocal. Or, why did I put that section back in?' That sort of thing.
I'll kind of politely excuse myself to the kitchen and I'll rattle a few dishes and clean up and put stuff away. But I can totally hear everything in the next room. It's like sort of pulling out some weird, nude, childhood picture of yourself and being like, 'Hey, check this out.' This is embarrassing for me. Everyone look at it, a group of strangers, come check this out.
You've also made yourself incredibly accessible. I think anyone who follows the Wrens online basically feels like they know you, personally. Yeah, well, we're not operating at like a Kanye-level or anything. So far everyone's been just unbelievably cool and nice. People tend to bring brownies, or bottles of whatever, beer and whatnot. The studio really is small, so it's six people comfortably. Ten is really pushing it. And no one ever knows anyone else, so it's always a mixed group.
You guys have this reputation as a Jersey band — I didn't realize you were in Brooklyn. We were all New Jersey folks. Fundamentally, we still are. Kevin and I pushed the boundaries of dorm living. I was living with him until my 40s. Just he and I in his house. He had a real job, so he actually bought a home, like an adult. And I moved out in 2005. So, I've been here, over in Windsor Terrace. It's cool.
What's the relationship like with the other members these days? I mean, it's always been sort of a weird thing. One of the reasons we even lasted this long as a band is everyone's sort of been allowed to do their own thing. With The Meadowlands, that was tracked as a regular band, and we put band arrangements together. Just like anyone, we rehearsed and recorded those, and that only took a few months. But then for like three and a half years it sat there, for better and worse, and we rewrote stuff, we re-recorded stuff. It's good and bad.
To me, the song that still works best on that record is probably "Happy," which is I think the only one where you sort of hear that it's a band arrangement. All those decisions were made in real time in the basements, like 'Hey, if you do this, I'll try this' and whatever. As opposed to like this solo, Spock-chess, thing, where you do all these things yourself across a week, only to find it doesn't actually work.
But for this record, we didn't do any band arrangements. My songs were just demos that over time I fleshed out and, a couple years in, had Jerry replace either my hand percussion or drum loops with like actual drums. The difference though, this time, is that Kevin, the other song-writer, singer, he stepped up and did all his songs, for the most part, at his house.
There was a good two years or something when Kevin — he was still working in Manhattan then — would come over like a couple times a week and we'd compare stuff. He'd show what he was working on and I'd show what I was working on and then we'd overdub some stuff and record, you know maybe crank out a rough mix of something. It was, in a way, more collaborative than the last one even though it wasn't full band, if that makes sense. Because those guys all, they all have real jobs and we all have young'uns at this point.
I don't know, I think I'm like 75 years old. I'm old enough I can no longer remember. I mean, I'm not sure, I think I was born in the '40's. I might've been at 'Nam.
It occurred to me that 7 years passed between Seacaucus and Meadowlands, and it's been 14 years since Meadowlands. So at this pace, the next, next Wrens album won't come for another 28 years. Right, so that's like 2040 something? I think Blade Runner will actually be happening. And we'll be like, 'There's a new record.' And, they're like, 'The robot mind does not care.' Oh, crap.
Maybe you guys could switch to EDM? Yes, finally.
Moving beyond the production stuff, it seems as though you changed your entire songwriting approach between Secaucus and The Meadowlands, with the latter being much more personal and confessional. Is that something we can expect on the new record? Yeah, I think so. And, like the production, Secaucus was definitely much more of a band thing. But that was also like, what 22 years ago. Even though it's only two slots back in the old discography, that's a long time.
What do you say to people when they ask what's taking so long? The funny part is that, when you're working on something this long — we're going on seven plus years now — everyone understandably is like, 'Oh, it's seven years, they get together when they can.' And, it's like, no, this is like every day for me.
It's been kind of telling. I've had to face this: I'm just not that talented. Because if I was, it would not take seven years of literally constant work to end up with what I've got here. Which I know, you haven't heard, but it's sort of become like a running joke.
I know quite a few people who'd disagree with that assessment. Now, when you say you've been working on this bit-by-bit, everyday, is it this same collection of songs? Or is there a trove of other Wrens material out there? A little of both, but mostly just the same batch of songs — that's sort of what The Meadowlands was too. I think maybe we tracked as many as 20 and then sort of quickly made a working list of like 15 or so which seemed to be the best ones. Over time the other ones just fall by the wayside only because they're not nearly as complete as the ones you're working on. You know what I mean? It's like, 'Oh, yeah, that's a piece of crap.'
It's sort of the same thing this time, even though I vowed, going into this record, I was not going to make a record the same way. It's a really dumb way of going about it, where you're like, well these songs aren't that great and they're not working, so rather than re-record different versions of them, or do new ones, I will just musically bang my head against the wall for, I don't know, three quarters of a decade and see if that helps.
So, it's really an asinine thing. It would be better to be like, 'Hey, you know what? Let's record a full band version of this one. Everyone let's figure out a schedule and go in the basement, and arrange it the way it should be, and track it, get a better tempo, whatever.' Instead, it's become easier to at 9 o'clock decide that I'm going to put in three or four hours tonight and at least go do that and see what I come up with. You can always incrementally sort of make changes and vague improvements until you're like, 'Oh, that's definitely better.' Then you do that for like a month, and you get to a certain point with a song and you set it to the side, and go on to another one.
Next thing you know, you do 15 songs and it's a year and a half later. The individual folders for each song, sometimes, are 15, 16 gigabytes. It all started from the same original demo but then sometime the root forks off this way, but then you abandon it, and then place something else in and go back to an earlier version and proceed from there. It's all variations, if that makes sense? Or different versions of the same demo or take or, I don't know, we need a new terminology.
Would you say you're experimenting more this time around than you did on Meadowlands? Well, we made the jump to recording on a computer. Meadowlands was on these ADAT tapes. So yeah, especially initially, the songs were definitely more sonically, I don't know, diverse. Suddenly I was on the computer with plugins. I could do all these crazy whiz bang sounds and stuff. Then [Kevin] would show up with his songs, with these wonderfully recorded acoustic guitars, or pianos, or whatever, just done in his house. And so, to a certain extent, that steered the direction of the record, but there's still plenty of studio trickery and, actually some weird time signature stuff. But it's definitely more toward a real sound. I think, if Kevin hadn't been here, I would've somehow taken even longer. To me, it feels the same, or like a logical extension from last one.
Does it surprise you that your fans seem to have stuck around — to be seriously waiting on an album — all these years later? Does the constant 'are you done yet' line of questioning ever get annoying? Yes, it's infinitely surprising and it's never annoying. Sometimes it's hard because I feel bad that I'm taking so long and I feel beholden to sort of explain. But, even as I'm typing any explanation, I'm like, I have typed these same exact words two fucking years ago. It's almost done. I'm mastering this last thing. I'm going to have chocolate now.
The other thing that's sort of stuck me is how the bulk of the folks that are replying online, or coming by, are considerably younger than myself. That might also just be who has time to go hear some band's record in their basement. That's sort of a self selecting thing, but yeah, if you're asking if it's surprising that people are still interested in us: Yes very much. It's crazy. Even at the tiny level that we operate at, yeah it's crazy.
Do you ever worry that you'll never be able to hand this thing off? That, like, even after you finally finish, you're going to wake up in the middle of the night with an urge to just tinker with one more thing... See, you would think that there's a constant perfectionism operating at some level here. But to me, when it's done, I always sort of know, and then I am more than happy that it is done. I don't ever have to hear it again.
Even when I play these songs for folks here at the house, it's sort of a litmus test. I know when I play the first few that open the record, I don't cringe. I hear them and I'm like, 'Yep, they're absolutely, completely done.' There's always things that I could change but part of it is that I don't actually want the extra work, even seven and a half years into it. I am very happy when I hear these. I don't even know if it's good. But, somehow, it's crossed this line where, for what it was, or what it's ended up as, it's definitely done. I don't have to ask anymore, myself.
I'm sure it's an enormous weight off your shoulders. It's sort of like the world's shittiest recipe. Add guitarist. Bake seven and a half years. Serves one. Enjoy.
Charles Bissell, Friday, October 27th, Door at 7 p.m. // Union Hall, 702 Union Street, Brooklyn // $10 |
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The three men are going hunting for mushrooms, a prey just as elusive if not as mobile as any beast or fowl.
The three men inside also don’t fit the redneck stereotype. The driver is Jim Jaworski, the clean-cut owner of Winnipeg’s Kenaston Wine Market. In the passenger seat is Bernard Mirlycourtois, a retired Winnipeg chef famous for his gentle demeanour. Jaworski’s son Scott, who runs a digital-media company in the U.K., is in the back seat.
Ahead is a pristine-looking SUV whose driver is meticulously avoiding the muddy holes along the trail. It’s an unlikely vehicle for a morning of off-roading.
Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 11/7/2015 (1326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/7/2015 (1326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
SANDILANDS PROVINCIAL FOREST — On a sunny Tuesday morning, I’m bouncing along a four-by-four track winding through sandy, rolling Crown land in southeastern Manitoba.
Ahead is a pristine-looking SUV whose driver is meticulously avoiding the muddy holes along the trail. It’s an unlikely vehicle for a morning of off-roading.
BARTLEY KIVES / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Jim Jaworski, collecting chanterelles in Sandilands Provincial Forest.
The three men inside also don’t fit the redneck stereotype. The driver is Jim Jaworski, the clean-cut owner of Winnipeg’s Kenaston Wine Market. In the passenger seat is Bernard Mirlycourtois, a retired Winnipeg chef famous for his gentle demeanour. Jaworski’s son Scott, who runs a digital-media company in the U.K., is in the back seat.
The three men are going hunting for mushrooms, a prey just as elusive if not as mobile as any beast or fowl.
While wild fungi can’t flee from foragers, they are the very definition of ephemeral: The fruiting bodies sprout from the forest floor without warning after it rains. They may only exist for days or even hours before they’re consumed by worms, destroyed by rot or picked by voracious humans, who prize several species so highly they guard the locations of favourite patches like family secrets.
"Prepare to swear to secrecy respecting the GPS co-ordinates," the elder Jaworski intones before the excursion to Sandilands Provincial Forest, a 3,000-square-kilometre tract of trees that’s neither wilderness nor fully managed landscape.
Sandilands exists primarily as a timber preserve. More than 70 small-scale logging companies harvest trees within the forest, using quotas reviewed by Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship every five years.
As a result, almost every patch of pines within the Sandilands has been logged at some point since European settlers moved into southern Manitoba. This logging, along with wildfires, has thinned out the underbrush, providing an open-forest playground for hunters, cross-country skiers, ATV riders, mountain bikers and people who forage for wild edibles.
BARTLEY KIVES / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Scott Jaworski, Jim Jaworski and Bernard Mirlycourtois survey clearcut land in Sandilands Provincial Forest. A favourite chanterelle-picking spot was destroyed.
The multiplicity of uses can lead to conflicts. Cyclists, for example, stand the risk of being mistaken for venison on the move if they choose to ride in the Sandilands during the white-tailed deer hunt in the fall. ATV users have been blamed for fires, such as a massive blaze that consumed 34 square kilometres of Sandilands in 2008.
This week, Jim Jaworski and Mirlycourtois are aghast at a clearcut in a corner of the forest that just so happened to include some of their favourite places to forage for chanterelles and boletus mushrooms.
"See that high ground over there?" asks Jaworski, pointing to a ridge of rubble amidst a clearcut that appears to be a few months old.
"We used to go up and down those ridges. They were the top-producing areas for chanterelles. It’s just shocking and devastating."
Jaworski and Mirlycourtois discovered the destruction of "their" mushrooming area last week. It is of course not theirs at all, existing as it does on Crown land.
As well, hundreds if not thousands of Manitobans are aware of the location of prime chanterelle, bolete, morel and matsutake patches within the province. They just don’t advertise this information in often-vain attempts to keep the fungi for themselves.
As a result of this secrecy, it’s all but impossible to estimate the number of active mushroomers who forage for personal use or commercial sale, let alone contact them if need be.
Hence the irony of Jaworski’s ire about the clearcut: He wanted the province to issue a notice about the logging operation.
Manitoba Conservation says regional forestry teams will take mycological considerations into account when they approve tree-harvesting plans — provided foragers give up the locations of their prized mushroom patches.
"The team will hold this information in strict confidence, identifying it only as an area of interest with specific management strategies to protect the sensitive area from any negative impacts of timber harvesting," the ministry said in a statement.
Jaworski, 60, has been mushrooming for two decades. He learned how to hunt golden-yellow chanterelles and reddish-brown boletes two decades ago from the 67-year-old Mirlycourtois. The chef in turn learned how to find mushrooms as a 12-year-old, accompanying his father on excursions into the Forest of Tronçais in central France.
After driving from the clearcut to a still intact patch of forest, the Jaworskis and Mirlycourtois step out of their vehicle, each wielding a curved mushrooming knife in one hand and a cloth shopping bag in the other. Mesh bags get caught on trees, apparently.
Scott Jaworski quickly spots a sizable king bolete at the side of the four-by-four track. In a matter of seconds, Mirlycourtois bends down, snips it off at the stem, trims the dirt off the base and plops the cleaned mushroom into his bag.
The smaller chanterelles are more plentiful but more elusive. They tend to be covered with a litter of dry pine needles. You almost need to look sideways to spot them.
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"You have to have a good eye. Sometimes, you almost walk on the mushroom, but you don’t see it," said Mirlycourtois.
He said he loves foraging even when he doesn’t find mushrooms, thanks to the exercise and the fresh air. "It’s like when you go fishing. You don’t catch fish all the time," he said.
And what happens when you meet other mushroom hunters on the trail? "You try to beat them," he said.
To the mushrooms, he means.
At least that’s what I think the gentle chef meant.
bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca |
The Movie (4.5/5)
The year is 2010, I am in tenth grade, and have recently discovered a passionate love for Hiyao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke. With a vicious hunger, I hunt down every single film Miyazaki has directed up to that point, and devour them all. Not being totally satisfied, and having more free time than I know what to do with, I decide to make it my quest to watch not just everything directed by Miyazaki, but also everything every produced by his production company, Studio Ghibli. This leads me down various paths, such as the local library, and dark, nefarious corners of the internet, where I move quickly through films such as Whisper of the Heart, and Grave of the Fireflies, until the only film I have left is Isao Takahata’s Only Yesterday. Only Yesterday is a unique case, as at the time Walt Disney Home Video is the exclusive rights holder to all things Ghibli in America. Because of their kid friendly reputation, and the film’s more adult themes and content, Walt Disney chooses to pass on producing a DVD of Only Yesterday, forcing me to create my own TERRIBLE subtitled DVD to watch the film.
Cut to 2015, and the game has changed. In the wake of low box office returns for their English language productions of Ponyo and The Secret Life of Arietty, Disney decides to pass on non-Miyazaki directed films for theatrical release in the United States. Instead, a newcomer, GKids steps into the ring, producing star-studded English productions of Ghibli productions such as From Up on Poppy Hill, The Tale of Princess Kaguya, and When Marnie Was There – all excellent films, but not the easy box office that would convince Disney to drop everything and produce their own releases. Finding success with limited releases of those three films, GKids announces that they have decided to produce an English production of Only Yesterday, with a voice cast led by none other than Star Wars: The Force Awakens star Daisy Ridley. They announce a limited theatrical release in early 2016, with a Blu-ray release, the first ever home video release of the movie in the United States. In this moment, I have finally found peace.
Only Yesterday, adapted from a manga of the same name, is a film about self-reflection and nostalgia, as it follows a 27 year old woman named Taeko as she takes a trip to the Japanese countryside. Single, and working for a nameless company in Tokyo, she decides to take a trip that’s rooted in her childhood experiences. Throughout the film, we get frequent flashbacks into Taeko’s childhood in the 1960s, as she recalls memories of childhood romance, frustrations with her schooling, and growing up with her siblings, memories which help shape her decisions as an adult on her trip to the countryside, as she meets new people and potentially finds romance.
Unlike Miyazaki’s films, which are epic adventures set in fantasy worlds, Takahata usually makes more grounded, human stories. This film is no different. Only Yesterday is probably his most grounded, never resorting to tragedy or anything particularly extreme or exaggerated to tell the story of Taeko. Instead, the film presents a series of family conflicts and school stories, set in contrast against the story of a young woman who lives a life devoid of excitement, one where she feels stuck. The film tells a story in which a twenty-something measures herself against the grandiose ideas she had as a child, and faces the reality that she’s come up rather short. It’s the kind of move that speaks to many post-college adults who can easily identify with what Taeko is going through as she runs off to the countryside to escape. It’s the kind of film that doesn’t typically come out of the animated film industry: a grounded, mature adult drama with realistic characters and outcomes that also appeals to children. Usually it’s the other way around.
Visually speaking, the film is beautiful; animated by hand in tradition Japanese style, the film has a watercolor-esque color palette, with pale reds and greens, as if to emphasize the nostalgic qualities of the flashback sequences of the film. Facial animations are moderately realistic, unlike most animated faces, due to the fact that spoken dialogue was recorded first, and animators created their facial expressions based on that, which is fantastic. The score, composed by Katz Hoshi, is appropriately matched with the themes of the film, and plays off almost as a character that interacts with the aged world presented in the film. The new English dub is well casted, and scripted, as is par for the course with GKids productions.
Only Yesterday is a slow, meandering film that really takes its time in exploring Taeko’s past, and its ramifications on her current place in life. It reflects upon the trials and tribulations of childhood in a way that we all do from time to time, exploring its impact with depth in a way that most films tend to gloss over while also being a fulfilling romance feature. Takahata’s films are often overlooked when it comes to the Ghibli films, as focus often tends to center on Miyazaki’s more grandiose offerings, which is a shame, especially with Only Yesterday. It has always been a favorite of mine, and hits home in all the right places.
The Video (5/5)
Only Yesterday, originally released in 1991 to Japanese theaters, was animated by hand, and shot on 4-perf 35mm film, for a theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. This Blu-ray, sourced from a digital restoration of the film most likely produced in 2012 for the original Japanese Blu-ray release of the film, is presented in 1080p resolution, maintaining the 1.85:1 aspect ratio.
Only Yesterday looks incredible. Traditionally animated films look great on Blu-ray if treated right, and the film has received the star treatment. Colors are beautifully saturated and consistent across the entire run time of the film. Line detail and background art looks sharp and perfectly preserved in the transition to Blu-ray. The transfer maintains a healthy layer of film grain. It shines in 1080p.
The Audio (4/5)
Originally presented in stereo on Japanese theatrical prints, and dubbed into English by GKids for their American release of the film, Only Yesterday features two soundtracks: a DTS 2.0 English soundtrack, and a DTS-Master Audio 2.0 Japanese soundtrack.
Both soundtracks sound excellent in stereo, with lines being delivered clearly, sound effects register clearly, and the soundtrack fills the two channel presentation quite nicely. The English dub sounds excellent, but the decision to include only a lossy version of the soundtrack is a puzzling one. The Japanese soundtrack just sounds slightly more full than its English counterpart, but both soundtracks sound excellent overall.
Special Features/Packaging (4/5)
Presented on home video by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, Only Yesterday comes packaged in a standard blue keepcase, as well as a matted slipcover. The front slipcover and case artwork features the artwork of Taeko as a child and an adult taken from the film’s English poster, while the back artworks feature a couple of shots from the film, a paragraph about the film, a list of bonus features, credits, and technical info. The packaging is colorful and eye catching, an excellent effort from GKids and Universal.
Onto the features:
Feature Length Storyboards – the entire feature, presented via the original storyboards used as a basis for the animation of the film.
The Making of Only Yesterday – a Japanese feature about the creation of the film, sourced from a standard definition master. The piece covers the relationship between Takahata and Miyazaki, the inspiration for the film, and the overall production in detail.
Behind the Scenes with the Voice Cast – a feature that introduces the voice cast that participated in creating the English dub for this release. They discuss what it’s like to work on such a beloved film, what it means to them, and a bit about their experience.
Interview with the English Dub Team – a panel style interview, taken from a screening of the film, in which the people responsible for creating the dub talk about its long history, and how it felt to work on such a movie in front of a live audience.
Foreign Trailers and TV Spots – 4 separate TV spots and trailers from the Japanese release of the film.
US Trailer – the film’s US theatrical trailer, produced by GKids for its 2016 release.
With the inclusion of the full feature’s storyboards, as well as a variety of English dub interviews and a full length feature on the film’s production from Japan, Only Yesterday comes with a nice collection of features to complement the excellent packaging.
Technical Specs (click for technical FAQs)
Video
Codec: AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio
DTS 2.0 Stereo (English)
DTS-Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (Japanese)
Subtitles
English SDH, English, French
Overall (4/5)
Only Yesterday is phenomenal film. In its initial release, it went on to become the highest grossing film of the year in Japan, where it resonated with adults and children alike. The story is engaging, the way it’s told is fascinating enchanting – its use of flashbacks to explain character motivations is wonderful, and the story it tells is satisfying, yet grounded in reality. The film’s Blu-ray features an excellent video transfer, an excellent Japanese soundtrack and a puzzling English soundtrack, as well as a nice set of features and excellent packaging. Only Yesterday has finally received the treatment it has always deserved on home video here in the United States. I am, for now, at peace.
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I have always believed that the hallmark of a good book lies in its power to pull you back into its pages from time to time. This year, too, I had the pleasure of indulging in a few stellar books. Of all the books I read, I have selected the five titles which totally held my imagination.
I started this year with my mind set on reading at least 25 non-fiction books. I couldn’t quite reach that figure, but I did manage to read some awesome books on the way.
I have always believed that the hallmark of a good book lies in its power to pull you back into its pages from time to time. If you are an avid reader like me, there is no way you won’t have a bunch of such books in your library.
To name a few of my own: Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s ‘The Black Swan’ and ‘Antifragile‘, Umberto Eco’s ‘Turning back the clock‘ and ‘Inventing the Enemy‘, Leonard Mlodinow’s ‘The Drunkard’s Walk‘, John Allen Paulos’ ‘Innumeracy‘, Vincent Poscente’s ‘The Ant and the Elephant‘, and so on.
I can’t seem to have enough of these books. Like an inveterate drug addict, I somehow gravitate to them. These books ooze with the pure effervescence and electrocution of joy.
This year, too, I had the pleasure of indulging in a few stellar books. Of all the books I read, I have selected the five titles which totally held my imagination. These books both awe-inspired and enlightened me. If you are looking for a solid, non-fiction book, pick up one of the following, I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. These were honest, arresting and challenging pieces of work:
From being a gang member to running a million-dollar business, Ryan Blair has a major turn-around story to tell. A story that is both motivating and engaging.
Add to that his blunt, no-nonsense candour, and you have on your hands a book that leaves with you a lingering sense of inspiration.
Sub-genre: Entrepreneurship
This book is a powerhouse. In her first book, Rana Foroohar tracks the whole nine yards of financial greed, she puts the spotlight on how financialization has wedged the real economy away from the Wall Street economy.
If you love to read an in-depth, striking book on the Wall Street antics, then you must have ‘Makers and Takers’ on your shelf.
Sub-genre: High finance
Antonio Garcia Martinez rains on the Silicon Valley cheerleading parade in his blistering memoir ‘Chaos Monkeys’. The haloed money-making apparatus of the Valley, apparently, has an obverse side. A side only insiders are privy to.
Thanks to Martinez, you get a guided tour into Silicon Valley’s dark secrets.
Sub-genres: Entrepreneurship, Memoir
It’s a nerve-wracking one. Glenn Greenwald’s audacious journalism gets us a commentary on Edward Snowden’s revelations of the NSA’s malpractices
‘No Place to Hide’ shines an ugly spotlight on the devastating consequences of a state’s paranoid obsession with its security apparatus.
A must read if you love hardcore investigative reporting.
Sub-genre: Civil rights
Grab a cup of hot coffee and indulge in this freewheeling chat between two bibliophiles: Umberto Eco, the late Italian literary maestro and Jean-Claude Carrière, the legendary French writer and academy award honoree.
If you are a book-lover and have a penchant for interesting stories, get this book right now.
Sub-genre: History
I would love to hear from you, what books totally fueled your imagination in the year 2017? Do share the names, I look forward to the conversation.
©2017 BookJelly. All rights reserved
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The RCMP used cellphone-tracking technology in a way that was "not lawful" six times, Canada's privacy commissioner said in a report released Thursday.
Mobile device identifiers (MDI) — also referred to as IMSI catchers — work by mimicking a cellphone tower to interact with nearby phones and read the unique ID associated with the phone's International Mobile Subscriber Identity, or IMSI. That number can then be used to track the phone, and sometimes to intercept text messages or calls.
Between 2011 and 2016 the RCMP used IMSI catchers in 125 criminal investigations, 29 of which were in support of other Canadian law enforcement agencies, the report from Daniel Therrien's office found.
In the majority of cases, the RCMP obtained a warrant to use their IMSI catchers. In 13 cases, no warrant was obtained. Seven of those were what the RCMP call "exigent circumstances" — cases requiring the police to act quickly in order to "prevent the loss of life or grievous bodily harm."
The remaining six cases took place during a time when the RCMP was operating under the notion that no warrant was required — between March and June 2015.
The force made the decision to stop obtaining warrants to use the device after receiving guidance from the National Wiretap Expert Committee (NWEC), which provides legal advice to law enforcement and prosecutors.
In June 2015, the RCMP once again began requiring its officers to obtain a warrant before using the device.
Therrien's office launched an investigation into the RCMP's use of IMSI catchers in early 2016, after receiving a complaint from OpenMedia, a group that advocates for a surveillance-free internet.
The group wanted to know whether the RCMP was using the devices to collect tracking data, monitor large groups of people and intercept voice and text communications. It also wanted clarity around whether a warrant was required to use IMSI catchers, and under what circumstances.
More transparency
Up until last spring, the RCMP was cagey about admitting its use of IMSI catchers. In April, a months-long CBC News/Radio-Canada investigation revealed that someone was using IMSI catchers in the area around Parliament Hill. At the time, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Canadian agencies were not involved and that the RCMP and CSIS were investigating. That investigation is ongoing.
Laura Tribe, executive director of OpenMedia, applauds the privacy commissioner's report, which comes after her group filed a complaint in March 2016 about the RCMP's use of IMSI catchers. (CBC )
After the CBC News/Radio-Canada report, the RCMP held a technical briefing for a select group of reporters about IMSI catchers and how the force uses them.
Therrien said in his report that he is now satisfied the force is in compliance with all of Canada's laws when using mobile device identifiers.
The report said the devices the RCMP uses "are not capable of intercepting private communications" like calls or text messages. The report also said any third-party information collected by the RCMP is being properly secured and destroyed at the end of any court proceedings.
Therrien did praise the RCMP for the access it granted his office during his investigation, but warned the RCMP to "continue to make efforts toward openness and accountability in terms of the technologies it employs in its law enforcement activities."
OpenMedia's executive director is happy with Therrien's report and said the force must continue to heed the privacy commissioner's call for transparency.
"To make sure that when the RCMP is using these devices and implementing new policies that they're really clear and forthcoming with the public from the start — as opposed to having to go through these really long investigative processes to get this information out," Laura Tribe said.
In a statement, RCMP acting deputy commissioner for specialized policing services Joe Oliver said, "The RCMP is committed to finding ways to strike a balance between public transparency on the use of the technology and, at the same time, protecting this important tool for public safety and law enforcement purposes."
How IMSI catchers are used
The report also offers a glimpse into how the RCMP use the IMSI catchers. The force has 10 devices, and first used one in 2005.
The RCMP will set the device up in at least three different locations to collect data. After gathering the IMSI numbers in the areas, the data is filtered to see which numbers were found in the same locations as the suspect or suspects. In order to connect an IMSI number with a suspect, another warrant is required ordering a telecom provider to give authorities the name, address and phone number connected to the IMSI number.
The RCMP use the technology in a variety of investigations including those relating to national security, organized crime and during kidnappings. |
Image caption Pastor McConnell arriving at court in Belfast on Monday morning
The trial of an evangelical preacher accused of making "grossly offensive" remarks about Islam has begun.
Pastor James McConnell denies two charges relating to a sermon he gave in a Belfast church last year.
Belfast Magistrates' Court heard that Pastor McConnell called Islam "satanic" and "heathen".
His remarks were made at the Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle in north Belfast in May 2014 and were streamed online.
Pastor McConnell, 78, of Shore Road in Newtownabbey, County Antrim, is charged with improper use of a public electronic communications network and causing a grossly offensive message to be sent by means of a public electronic communications network.
The prosecution against Pastor McConnell centres on his remarks about not trusting Muslims.
In a sermon criticising Islam in May last year, the pastor said: "I don't trust them [Muslims]."
A prosecution barrister told the court this meant the pastor was saying he did not trust a single Muslim.
From the back of the court, Pastor McConnell shouted "no".
The barrister acknowledged the shout, but said the sermon had been grossly offensive, and was outside any legal protection given to preachers from the pulpit.
The court was also read transcripts of an interview the pastor took part in with BBC presenter Stephen Nolan.
The barrister said the pastor was "unrepentant" in the interview about what he said about Islam.
However, he made it clear that the prosecution was based on what was said in church, not in the BBC interview.
More than 100 supporters of the preacher sat in the public gallery in court 12.
The trial is expected to last three days. |
Eric Medero is accused of breaking into his ex-girlfriend's home and strangling the family cat.
MIAMI - A Miami man broke into the home of his ex-girlfriend and strangled her cat while she and her mother were away, police said.
Eric Medero, 25, faces charges of stalking, armed burglary, criminal mischief and animal cruelty.
Miami-Dade police said Medero broke into the home near Southwest 58th Avenue and Southwest 48th Street about 11:40 a.m. Thursday, using a crow bar to pry open a door.
The resident was at work when she saw someone inside her home while watching a security camera. She called police.
A short time later, officers arrived and saw a man, later identified as Medero, walk out the front door. Police said Medero ran off but was caught after a brief chase.
When officers searched the house, they found the resident's cat dead in her daughter's bedroom. The resident told police that the cat was alive before she left for work.
Police said Medero, who is the ex-boyfriend of the woman's daughter, had scratches on both forearms that were consistent with being clawed by a cat.
The woman told police that her daughter had a pending injunction that needed to be served against Medero.
Medero was arrested and taken to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, where he was being held without bond on the armed burglary charge.
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Copyright 2015 by Local10.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
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More than 138 million people, nearly 44% of the U.S. population, live in areas where air pollution reaches dangerously high levels during parts of the year. While exposure to low quality air has declined in recent years, some cities still experience alarming levels of pollution.
Based on “State of the Air,” a report released annually by the American Lung Association (ALA), 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the 10 leading metro areas with the highest levels of year-round particle pollution. The Fresno-Madera, California metro area led the nation with the worst long-term pollution level.
Click here to see the 10 most polluted cities
The report considers two types of pollution: ozone pollution and particle pollution, which can be measured both in short and long-term. Speaking to 24/7 Wall St. Janice Nolen, assistant vice president of national policy at the ALA, explained the three measures. Ozone is a gas formed in the atmosphere through heat, sunlight, and certain gases that can attack lung tissue. Particle pollution is tiny pieces of matter so small that they can bypass the body’s defenses and be inhaled into the lungs. The long-term particulate measure is the average, daily pollution generated by factories, fires, and transportation. Long term particle pollution is measured in micro-grams per cubic meter (ug/M3).The short-term particulate measure represents how many days of extreme air pollution occur, and usually reflects how extreme conditions such as fire or drought are creating abnormally high levels of unhealthy particles.
In the 2015 report, six cities set local records for the most days with dangerously high levels of particle pollution, including the San Francisco and Visalia, California metropolitan areas. Nolen said these were surprising results. “We’ve been doing this report for 16 years, and generally speaking, you’ll see a variation in pollution levels from one year to the next, but almost never do you set new records because we’ve made huge improvements in reducing pollution.” Nolen went on to explain that these cities, all in the Western United States, had just begun to experience drought conditions — that are still ongoing — when these data were collected from 2011 through 2013. The drought has only worsened since 2013. “When we get into next year’s report and the year after, I think we’ll see even higher levels in these areas.”
Several of the most polluted cities, notably Pittsburgh and Cleveland, are former manufacturing and production strongholds. While these areas are no longer the industrial strongholds of their heydays, enough industrial and manufacturing production remains for the cities to maintain their standings among the most polluted places in the country. While Pittsburgh’s skies are no longer blackened with the smoke from steel factories, it still generates a great deal of particulate pollution. According to Nolen, the biggest source of pollution in the area is the U.S. Steel plant.
Several of the most polluted cities are located in or near the Central Valley in California. In addition to the wildfires and drought that have affected the region, the area’s natural topography exacerbates the pollution problem. The Central Valley is surrounded by mountains on three sides, which traps the pollution from the San Francisco Bay Area in the valley. Five of the 10 most polluted cities, including parts of the San Francisco metro area, are in the California Central Valley.
Air pollution, both ozone and particulate, contributes to lower life expectancy. In particular, polluted air poses significant health risks to individuals who already have certain respiratory conditions. While there is no evidence that proves that air pollution is the reason that asthma has increased in prevalence in the last 40 years, Nolen said, air pollution exacerbates the effects of asthma and can be the cause of an asthma attack. In Los Angeles, one of the cities with the worst air pollution in the country, more than 1.6 million residents are living with asthma.
While conditions in some cities have worsened, the air quality in many of the cities with the worst air pollution has improved since last year’s report. Nolen explained that every five years, the Environmental Protection Agency determines the safe levels of ozone and particle pollution. Cities and communities around the country have to formulate and implement plans to reduce pollution in order to meet national air quality standards set by the EPA. People in cities such as Philadelphia, which reported its lowest levels of annual particle pollution to date in the 2015 report, have the Clean Air Act to thank. Nolen attributed more efficient vehicles, cleaner-burning fuel, cleaner power plants and an overall reduction in emissions and pollution since 1970 to the Clean Air Act.
To identify the 10 most polluted cities, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the metropolitan statistical areas with the highest levels of year-round particle pollution from the ALA’s 2015 “State of the Air” report. The number of area residents with asthma, including the number of adults and the number of pediatric cases of the disease, also came from the ALA. The incidence of cardiovascular disease, and the number of residents who have been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at some point in their lives also came from the ALA. All estimates of pollution levels are based on three-year annual averages from 2011 through 2013.
These are America’s 10 most polluted cities. |
How To Choose The Safest Motorcycle Helmet
In a crash, the right helmet can mean the difference between living and dying.
I am frequently asked to make a recommendation for the best motorcycle helmets. As a motorcycle journalist, and a practicing attorney handling head injury and occasional defective helmet cases, I have many years of personal experience with helmet use, and vicarious experience with helmet performance in actual accidents.
Choosing a helmet always seems to start with the question of whether a helmet should be a half, three-quarters or full face helmet. Are you kidding? Unless you are highway patrol with a need that interferes with the choice of a full face helmet, this is a non-decision. I belong to an internet motorcycle list, one of whose members suffered what should have been a very minor injury crash. Because the helmet was a convertible style, the chin protection flipped up, and the rider suffered an injury to the mouth and jaw. Result? Death. If you are even considering anything other than a full face helmet, do a little bit of research on the internet about facial injuries suffered in motorcycle accidents. Are you really willing to risk hitting your teeth on a curb?
The United States utilizes two standard rating systems to help you distinguish between helmet specifications, the DOT (Department of Transportation) standard, and the Snell standard (private firm). The Snell standard is a much tougher standard and involves a standard impact replication test with two strikes to the exact same spot. It measures the effect on the EPS liner, and determines if the helmet passes. Both of these standards are limited, because it is impossible to duplicate how a helmet functions in the real world. The DOT standard is a set of guidelines required of all helmet manufacturers for a helmet to be legal.
Many top experts in the motorcycle helmet field are highly critical of the Snell standard, because it causes helmets to be too rigid. They point out in particular that the ability to withstand two hits in the same place has nothing whatever to do with real world crashes. By making the helmet too rigid, instead of softer, many preventable head injuries occur in more common lower impact accidents. Some experts seriously recommend not purchasing a Snell certified helmet, particularly since Snell upped it standard a few years back. I discussed this at length with an MD who rides motorcycles, and his response was to purchase a European helmet, because it was softer. Given that this issue is so well known, it seems reasonable to expect change in the not too distant future.
As a solution, I recommend looking into European manufacturers. There is a major difference between the European and US approach to helmet design, directly related to the hardness and softness of various helmet components. In some impacts, a harder material provides better protection; in others a softer material provides better protection. In gross terms, the softer material is better for greater impact protection, while the harder material works better in more common, but lesser impacts.
Current helmet technology involves an inner liner to absorb shock, made of EPS foam, similar to a harder version of Styrofoam. There is a comfort liner that riders often mistake for a protective component, which normally also provides some padding. A proper helmet should also have EPS foam in the lower area if it is to properly protect the face and jaw.
Even the safest helmets have some technological limitations. First, many head injuries result from rotation. The brain floats in fluid inside the skull. If the head is snapped in rotation, the motion can induce tearing of the brain, even if the skull and outer layer of skin remains in perfect condition. Similarly, the brain can be slammed back and forth in the skull, resulting in injury against the rough contours of the inside of the skull. At least one company is marketing a helmet that has a loose moveable outer membrane, with the claim that it can reduce rotational brain injuries by 65%. To date, I have been unsuccessful in purchasing a full face model of this helmet for shipping to the United States.
A second limitation is that the EPS foam only absorbs force in direct relationship to its thickness. A significant blow will overwhelm the foam. Several companies have begun to experiment with “non-Newtonian” materials. These materials are made up of polymers with long molecules. Like too many big rigs trying to exit the city, in response to a hard force, the polymer molecules lock, causing the material to become inflexible, and spread force over its entirety. These materials are lighter in weight for a given level of protection, of softer consistency, and mold to your contours when warm so they fit better. Further, some forms of them are liquid, which could be particularly beneficial if a liquid layer could be incorporated in a helmet, which would lock molecules on contact. The downside of these materials will be cost, and the fact that they degrade over 2-3 years.
Fit is essential to finding the best helmet for you. What needs to fit is the EPS liner, not the comfort liner. Heads are different not only in size, but in shape. A rough measurement should be taken from above the eyebrows, around the head at the furthest point of the back of the head, and around. A helmet must always be tried on, and checked for fit. The chin strap should be tightened so that only two fingers will fit between the strap and the head. There should be no gaps at the top, front, back, or side of the head, although it should not be painfully tight. The helmet should be worn for a few minutes to gauge the fit. If you attempt to rotate the helmet, your cheeks should move. If the helmet moves or slips with rotation, or up and down, it is not a good fit. To test the chin strap, look down toward your chest, and see if the back of the helmet can be pushed upward.
Keep in mind that there are non-safety factors that make a big difference. These include the feel of the safety liner, the amount of air flow, and the size and shape of the eye opening. Sound level is somewhat of a safety consideration, because it affects what is heard, and because wind noise over time will damage your hearing. Weight is more a comfort factor than a safety factor, but in an accident, the physics of weight may make a difference
At the end of the day, the most important thing is that the helmet fits your head correctly, and that the chin strap holds it on your head.
If you want some direct recommendations, here are my top picks:
Top 11 Safest Motorcycle Helmets
1. Arai Corsair V
The structural integrity of the Corsair V is Snell approved and reinforced by its peripheral belting which extends across the forehead. This feature does not increase the size of the shell and maintains flexibility while still remaining light weight. This means that the force from impacts will be distributed more evenly causing less injury. The Corsair also features an Emergency Release Tab for cheek pads creating access for medical technicians in the event of an accident. The cost for this helmet comes close to $1,000.
2. Shoei X-12
The Shoei X-12’s shell is both DOT and Snell approved. The construction technology used by this company to produce the shell combines fibers to create material for the shell. It requires a laser to cut and evenly distributes force from impacts. The Shoei X-12 features the Emergency Quick Release System for cheek pads. In the event that the helmet must be removed by medical personnel, the process is rapid while eliminating as much further injury as possible to the rider. The Shoei X-12 helmet pricing begins just after $600.
3. HJC CL-16
The HJC CL-16 provides high standard DOT and Snell approved safety features. The shell is lightweight and has been fabricated with Computer Aided Design technology.
It requires no tools for quick shield installation and removal with a RapidFire Shield Replacement System.
The superior quality face shield offers 95% protection from UV rays.
This helmet does not offer all of the safety features of others; however, it does fall at the lower end of the pricing spectrum hovering between $70 and $100.
4. Scorpion EXO-R2000
The Scorpion EXO-R2000 features a TCT Composite Shell and is Snell certified. It is designed from five layers which consist of Aramid, fiberglass, and poly resin fibers that are organic. This helmet includes the cheek pad Emergency Release System for quick and simple removal during traumatic situations.
The state of the art EverClear face shield is fog free. It features inflatable AirFit cheek pads for an optimal fit and added protection. The Scorpion EXO-2000 provides many of the same technologically advanced safety features as other, more expensive helmets, while falling just below the $400 price mark.
5. Arai RX-Q
The Arai RX-Q offers a face shield similar to that of the manufacturer’s Corsair model. The new cheek pads feature the Emergency Release System which allows medical technicians expedient and simple access in the event of a crash. The Arai Company states that fiberglass is the most suitable material for constructing helmet shells and use it to build each of these helmets by hand. The Arai RX-Q exceeds or meets safety standards of both the DOT and Snell M2010. This helmet can be found for between $500 and $550.
6. Bell Star
Bell Star helmets are designed with a TriMatrix composite consisting of extremely lightweight Kevlar, fiberglass, and carbon fiber. Kevlar is especially created to and used for impact distribution and absorption. The 3Mode, ClickRelease face shield features an anti-fog coating.
It has received both a DOT and Snell M2010 certification. Bell Star helmets can be found on the market for around $350.
7. Bell RS-1
The Bell RS-1 is designed from a fiberglass/Kevlar shell making it very durable. This combination creates a light weight composite which does not interfere with maneuverability. Kevlar first effectively absorbs the force from impact then distributes it evenly greatly reducing injuries.
This helmet is Snell M2010 certified. It features a quick, Click Release face shield which is treated with an anti-fog coating. The Bell RS-1 can be purchased for just under $400.
8. Shoei RF-1200
The Shoei RF-1200 liner features a double layer possessing two different impact density levels. It is also designed with a wide base for quick, easy removal. It has been constructed with a Quick Release Self-Adjusting face shield base plate which is spring loaded. Both the Quick Emergency Release shield and wider base provides simple accessibility to medical technicians in the event of an accident. It is priced between $420 and $450.
9. Shark Evoline
The Shark Evoline has been designed with a Lexan Polycarbonate shell which effectively provides high impact protection. The helmet is DOT and ECE 2205 approved. The chinbar Auto-Up System offers easy manipulation and is ECE 2205 certified in the closed and open positions.
The Shark Evoline has been constructed to weigh around a half of a pound or 200 grams. Its streamlined design effectively cuts buffeting and noise levels. This helmet is available on the market for about $450.
10. Schuberth SR1
The Schuberth SR1 helmet is both Dot and ECE approved. The aerodynamic design prevents uplift in accelerated speed and high winds. The duroplast matrix is created with a superior glass fiber reinforcement which includes a carbon layer thereby reducing the helmet’s overall weight. The A.R.O.S. is a safety feature of all Schuberth helmets which ensures the chinstrap is adjusted and secured properly. The Schuberth SR1 helmet features an aero acoustically designed wind deflector to improve noise levels. It is offered for around $900.
11. HJC CL-17
The HJC CL-17 creators used Computer Aided Design technology to construct this Polycarbonate Composite Shell to be lightweight. Its face shield offers riders a UV protection against 95% of rays. This helmet features an extremely secure, locking, RapidFire Shield Replacement System. An air deflector that is integrated into the helmet provides effective noise reduction. The HJC CL-17 is both Snell and DOT approved up to size 2X. Beyond that the helmets are only DOT certified. The helmet may be purchased for about $125.
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Former A Current Affair reporter Ben McCormack has pleaded guilty to child porn charges.
YOUNG, charismatic, sometimes famous and so sincere: the new breed of sick paedophiles preying on children are not the grubby old men of the stereotype.
They hang around on the internet rather than public toilets and playgrounds.
They are not obvious creeps with greasy ponytails who a parent could more easily suspect and keep other children away.
The new type of paedophile is often a professional in well paid job with a public profile.
They are TV reporter Ben McCormack, good looking YMCA worker Jonathan Lord, suave father Benjamin Lawson and goofy nanny supervisor Shannon McCoole.
They are jokester and showman, dance teacher Grant Davies, and IVF scientist and rugby union player Michael Quinn.
What they do have in common with the old sleazy image of the paedophile is an absolute and sick obsession with children.
The new face of paedophiles is a sobering reality for their potential victims and their families because they are hiding in plain sight.
As the Sunday Telegraph reported, many paedophiles are under 40 and male, but they come from all backgrounds and occupations and in many cases seem “like really nice guys”.
The running average inmate population in NSW for child sex offenders is around 1500.
These include older men who are serving prison time for crimes they committed against children when they themselves were young men under the age of 40.
Like the late Dennis Raymond Ferguson, who raped children in a hotel room with his partner Alexandra Brooks, or deviant Catholic priest Gerard Ridsdale, they were sinister old men.
But how do parents or even police recognise monsters like Sydney hotel worker Bryan Walter Beattie, who paid as little as $12 to watch live, sexual abuse of Filipino children on Skype.
Beattie — who can be heard on videotapes instructing a Filipino man while children as young as eight years old are raped — did so from the comfort of his Surry Hills, Sydney, lounge room.
The self-confessed gaming nerd was also a member of a private Facebook group for paedophiles who would share child abuse material with each other.
Beattie is of an increasing number of child sex offenders to use online platforms to exploit their twisted desires.
But how do police track them down and bring them to justice?
According to a senior NSW police officer formerly with the Sex Crimes Squad, a key trait police keep seeing in the new breed of paedophile is charisma.
Detective Chief Superintendent John Kerlatec, director of the NSW State Crime Command’s Serious Crime Directorate said offenders very likability is what helps them net their victims.
“A common denominator is actually charisma,” Superintendent Kertalec told the Sunday Telegraph.
“When we’ve charged a teacher, we will often be bombarded with emails saying, “no it couldn’t possibly be that person”.
“If they weren’t likeable, they would have no chance of building a rapport.”
These are the new breed of paedophiles.
BEN MCCORMACK
Occupation: Current affairs reporter
Age on arrest: 42
Crimes: Use a carriage service to transmit child pornography.
Personality: As a foot-in-the-door reporter and Channel 9 star, McCormack came across as ambitious but affable.
Dressed in his TV suit, he doggedly pursue those who wronged others, like dole bludgers, fraudsters and sex offenders like Robert Hughes.
But his other side was beach-loving Ben, the keen surf lifesaver happy to volunteer his spare time teaching young nippers the ways of the waves.
As his vile sex tapes reveal, McCormack deliberately placed himself where he could ogle the “perfect bodies” of little boys in Speedos
As Oz4skinboi online the “proud ped” discussed having sex with boys, “I want to make love to one so badly.”
Sentence: Sentenced in November.
JONATHAN LORD
Occupation: YMCA childcare worker
Age on arrest:
Crimes: Pleaded guilty to 29 child sexual and indecent charges against 12 young boys in southern Sydney.
Personality: Lord worked at a YMCA crèche and in the organisation's before-and-after school care program. He also worked privately as babysitter
Sentence: A minimum six years prison, maximum of 12.
SHANNON MCCOOLE
Occupation: Government childcare worker, NannySA
Age on arrest: 30
Crimes: Sexually abused seven children, including a disabled child, one with autism and an 18-month-old. Ran a “dark web” internet service for paedophiles, for which he was convicted of persistent sexual exploitation of children, sexual intercourse with children, and the production and dissemination of child pornography.
Sentence: 35 years, for 18 state and two federal offences.
Personality: Highly regarded by colleagues, “everybody loved him” and there was “competition” to secure him to work in a number of childcare houses.
BENJAMIN LAWSON
Occupation: Mechanic
Age on arrest: 30
Crimes: Inciting a man on Twitter to anally penetrate that man’s own daughter.
Personality: Handsome man able to conceal his base desires in a marriage and job and engage with people on social media.
Sentence: A maximum five years jail.
GRANT DAVIES
Occupation: Dance teacher
Age on arrest: 39
Crimes: 47 child sex offences against nine victims aged as young as nine.
Personality: Friends described him as “friendly and charismatic”. A quirky jokester who promised pupils and their mothers that he would make the little girls stars, Grant Davies took every opportunity to get close to his prey. He was so charismatic he even convinced one mother to give him naked photos of her child. Davies also travelled to the US with his sister and company partner to appear on the Dance Moms show with Abby Lee Miller. His sister did not know that he was molesting his students, but told a royal commission that she should have done more to protect children from her brother.
Grant Davies had been investigated previously for child sexual abuse but managed to cover it up and continue on.
Sentence: 24 years prison.
MICHAEL QUINN
Occupation: IVF geneticist
Age: 33
Crimes: Attempting to pay a pimp $260 so he could rape a six-year-old boy.
Personality: Well-liked professionally and as an amateur ruby union player.
Sentence: Twelve years in a Californian prison.
RICKIE WILLIAM EGGLETON
Occupation: Primary schoolteacher
Age: 33
Crimes: Ten counts of child abuse, including abusing a seven-year-old girl
Personality: Engaged and groomed young girls
Sentence: 16 years in prison. |
The Amazon gladiator frog is a fighter. But it could become a ghost. Extinction threatens 40 percent of amphibian species worldwide, and they are vanishing at alarming rates.
This March, Robin Moore, a photographer and the communications director for the organization Global Wildlife Conservation , traveled to Panama to search for a single photo that would convey the gravity of the global extinction crisis threatening frogs, toads and other amphibians. After eight days of waiting for the right frog, at the right place and the right time, he captured that picture, which he titled, “The Vanishing.” Its single long exposure was designed to give the frog a ghostly appearance and communicate that amphibians are disappearing forever around the world.
Since 1980, more than 200 amphibian species have disappeared from the planet as a result of habitat loss, killer fungi, viruses, pollution, and the exacerbation of these threats from climate change. But in recent years some amphibian species that were thought to be lost have in a sense, emerged from the dead, leading scientists to study how they escaped extinction.
In 2010, Mr. Moore and his colleagues created a Top 10 Most Wanted poster for lost frogs and launched “The Search for Lost Frogs,” a campaign that took 100 scientists across 19 countries to find these Lazarus frogs. Its success led to a book, “In Search of Lost Frogs,” published in 2014. Since then, the journey has continued and conservationists are working to establish ecotourism and nature reserves to protect the vital habitats where the lost frogs are found. |
Conceptualized by Dr. Peter Waterland, Quantum Resistant Ledger ($QRL) is a cryptocurrency ledger that uses hash-based digital signatures (proof-of-stake algorithms) instead of proof-of-work algorithms.
Because of this, it is resistant to both quantum and classical computing attacks. QRL is one of the first blockchain-based ledger to use post-quantum cryptography technology. For this reason, it has generated a lot of interest among cryptocurrency enthusiasts and blockchain developers alike. The companies cryptocurrency $QRL is currently trading as an ERC20 token on various exchanges including Liqui, Tidex and the most popular Bittrex.
QRL plans to allow mining (Genesis block) in September 2017. The number of coins in the Genesis block and the final distribution, which will happen in 200 years, are 65 million and 105 million respectively.
What is Quantum Computing?
Quantum computing is basically the use of quantum computers to perform computer-related tasks. Quantum computers store information in quantum bits (qubits) instead of bits. It is important to note that a qubit can store multiple numbers at once (a zero, a one, both a zero and a one, or any other value between a zero and a one).
For this reason, a quantum computer can perform multiple calculations simultaneously. Put another way, a quantum computer can work in parallel, allowing it to solve complex mathematical problems involving factorization, such as “prime factors” of a large number. This means that quantum computing can break cryptographic protocols, including the ones used by blockchain networks.
How will Quantum Resistant Ledger help crypto currency eco systems in a post-quantum computing world?
The conventional encryption protocols used to protect blockchain networks including Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm or ECDSA, elliptical curve cryptography (ECC) and large prime number cryptography (RSA) are vulnerable to quantum computing.
More specifically, quantum computing would make it possible to reverse engineer private keys quickly, thereby rendering the aforementioned encryption protocols useless. This is where QRL comes in handy. QRL uses post-quantum cryptography technology, which means it is theoretically immune from quantum computing attacks.
Protecting Our Future: Quantum Computing Threats & Considerations
Let's start with preparing for cyber-war scenarios.
So far, blockchain-based encryption algorithms such as ECDSA have been able to keep cybercriminals at bay because classical computers cannot break such algorithms. However, the introduction of quantum computing could potentially lead to a blockchain Armageddon because of the following threats:
1) Government Applications: Governments across the world are increasingly investing in post-quantum cryptography in order to protect their monetary systems, which are increasingly threatened by blockchain-based digital currencies. Put another way, quantum computing could help governments destabilize the blockchain ecosystem.
2) Business Applications: Quantum computing has a wide range of business applications. However, organizations that develop this technology are likely to monetize the technology by either selling it or leasing it to other parties. This could be a problem for blockchain networks, especially if the technology falls into the wrong hands.
3) Heists and Robbery: Quantum computing would make digital currency networks such as Ethereum and Bitcoin vulnerable to cybercriminals. More specifically, hackers can apply Shor's algorithms to such networks and steal cryptocurrencies.
The items above are expanded on within a recent post on one of the QRL blogs.
Quantum Resistant Ledger's ICO
During its presale in mid-2017, QRL created 65 million tokens. Out of these, it distributed 52 million tokens to contributors, with each token priced at $0.08. Generating over $1 million USD in BTC/ETH within the first seven days, the presale eventually hit the hard-cap of $4 million, causing QRL to cancel the public crowdsale. After the ICO, QRL distributed ERC20 tokens to its network members upon request. QRL plans to launch its own MainNet soon to allow its network members to swap their ERC20s for QRL's independent protocol token at a 1:1 ratio.
Read their official press release to learn more.
QRL: Roadmap & Announcements
According to QRL's roadmap featured on their website, the project began in August 2016 when Dr. Peter Waterland conceived the idea of a secure hash-based digital signature library to protect blockchain networks from quantum computing threats.
A month later, September 2016, Dr. Peter Waterland created a POW ledger based on Winternitz and Lamport one-time signatures, and Merkle signature scheme addresses. Then, with input from developers, post-quantum cryptographers, Dr. Peter Waterland wrote a whitepaper on QRL.
The whitepaper was published in November 2016. The QRL community designed a proof-of-stake algorithm (POS) in December 2016. In January 2017, the community designed a prototype node. The following month, February 2017, the community designed and launched the first iteration of the block explorer, followed by testing of POS algorithmic updates in March 2017.
Other key milestones in 2017 include the launch of the Alpha TestNet (April), public ICO (May), public TestNet (June) and genesis block (September). Other milestones on the roadmap include Ephemeral (October 2017 to 2018) and PQ secure digital identification (2018 to 2019).
Executive Team Members
QRL's executive team consists of the following members:
Dr. Peter Waterland (Founder and Core Developer) – Dr. Peter Waterland is a qualified medical doctor as well as an amateur coder with 20 years of coding experience.
Peter has been investing in Bitcoin since late 2012 and he is an early-stage ethereum investor.
Peter developed the hash-based digital signatures underlying QRL in mid-2016.
Dr. JP Lomas (Full Stack Developer) – Similar to Peter, Dr. JP Lomas has a background in medicine, with particular expertise in healthcare management.
At QRL, he serves as the full stack developer. His duties at QRL include planning and executing the token migration process, backend admin scripting, blockchain explorer developer.
Other key members of the executive team include Kaushal Kumar Singh (Blockchain Developer), Leon Groot Bruinderink (PhD student post-quantum cryptography), and Michael Kolenbrander (Technical Solution Architect).
Internal Drama, Challenges, & Obstacles
Shortly after QRL's successful ICO, disagreement arose between the then Operation's Manager Jomari Peterson, and the founder Dr. Peter Waterland. Jomari accused Peter of, among other things, misappropriating funds, failing to deliver on the QRL's commitments to the QRL community and contributors and preventing Jomari from performing his work duties. On his part, Peter accused Jomari of making unrealistic demands and greed, including demanding a huge QRL percentage, contrary to their original agreement.
Both parties eventually hired lawyers to represent them in the dispute. Immediately after the drama started, the value of QRL dropped about 30%.
However, the token has recouped most of those losses over the past few weeks. Given the recent gains, it seems Jomari's departure was a good thing for QRL despite the drama. Overall, the long-term outlook is positive and optimistic.
$QRL Coin – Should You Invest?
The QRL is essentially a long-term investment because it is reliant on the rise of quantum computing, which is likely. Put another way, it is a potentially rewarding long-term investment.
Quantum Resistant Ledger: Movement & Community
The QRL community is a vibrant with various communication channels including:
Slack: http://slack.theqrl.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/qrledger
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/QRL/
Today's Vision, Protecting Tomorrow's Realities
We're optimistic on the future of the $QRL token. We love their management team. Despite recent challenges, Jomari Peterson's departure appears to be for the better where a tremendous weight has been lifted off the shoulders of the current management team.
QRL is a bold, ambitious project, which someone must get behind and support. QRL recognized the opportunity to protect against quantum computing threats as it relates to blockchain and cryptocurrency applications and seized it. |
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WEBVTT >WITH A CHILL ALREADY HERE ANDAN EVEN COLDER NIGHT ON THE WAY,MICHAEL GRANT IS TRYING TO SHAKEOFF HIS LATEST LET DOWN AND ISNOW PREPARING FOR ANOTHER ROUNDOF SHIVERING AND SLEEPLESSNESS>> IT'S ACTUALLY TERRIFYING WHENYOU'RE SO COLD LIKE THAT, ANDPLUS YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'REGOING TO DO NEXT TIME YOU GETCOLD.TOM: HE'S JUST LEARNED HIS LONGWAIT FOR A SPOT IN A SHELTERWON'T PAY OFF TONIGHT.>> I WASN'T SURPRISED, BUT I WASDISAPPOINTED THERE'S NO ROOM ANYMORE, THERE'S TOO MANY PEOPLE.TOM: THE COUNTY'S WINTERSANCTUARY PROGRAM ONLY HAS ROOMFOR 100, LOADED UP AND DRIVENOFF TO A LOCAL CHURCH TO HOSTTHEM.ALL 100 SPOTS ARE TAKEN.ALAN OSTERSTOCK IS THE PROGRAMMANAGER.>> WE ALWAYS TRY TO GET THEMCONNECTED WITH ANOTHER SERVICE,BUT, YEAH, IT'S AWFUL.TOM: ONE OF THOSE SERVICES ISTHE CITY'S NEW HOMELESS TRIAGECENTER THAT OPENED TWO WEEKSAGO.HOWEVER, ONLY 50 OF THE PROMISED200 BEDS ARE CURRENTLYAVAILABLE.ALL THE MORE CONCERNING AFTER 78SACRAMENTO COUNTY HOMELESSPEOPLE DIED IN 2016.AND THE MAYOR SAYS AT LEAST 40MORE THAN THAT HAVE ALREADY DIEDTHIS YEAR.THE HOMELESS, THE DESTITUTE-- TOM: AT A MEMORIAL SERVICE FORTHOSE HOMELESS MEN AND WOMEN,THE MAYOR REMAINED OPTIMISTICABOUT THE NEW SHELTER.>> NO, I'M NOT FRUSTRATED.I RECOGNIZE THAT A LOT OF GREATPEOPLE WORKING TO GET THIS UPAND RUNNING AS QUICKLY ASPOSSIBLE SO IT'S 50, WE'RE GOINGTO GET TO 200 AND WE'LL GET TOTHAT FULL CAPACITY WITHIN ACOUPLE WEEKSTOM: HOWEVER, GRANT WORRIES ACOUPLE WEEKS COULD BE TOO LATE,AS RIGHT NOW HE'S JUST WORRIEDABOUT MAKING IT TO TOMORRO>> WE'RE ALL FREEZING TO DEATHOUT HERE.I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO.
Advertisement Controversial north Sacramento homeless shelter only ¼ open City: Extra time is needed to put up partitions Share Shares Copy Link Copy
A new homeless triage center in north Sacramento is only one-quarter functional two weeks after it opened. Just 50 of the promised 200 beds are currently being used while the city continues to set up the facility and get it operational. On nearby North A Street, Michale Grant is among the hundreds of homeless who are spending the night on the street.“It’s actually terrifying when you’re so cold like that, and plus you don’t know what you’re going to do next time you get cold,” Grant said. He waited in line at a different homeless service, Sacramento County Winter Sanctuary. But after three hours, he was told there wasn’t enough room for him. “I wasn’t surprised, but I was disappointed there’s no room any more," Grant said. "There’s too many people."The winter sanctuary program only has room for 100 people who are driven to a local church to host them each night. On Thursday, like most nights, all 100 spots were taken. “We always try to get them connected with another service, but yeah, it’s awful,” Program Manager Alan Osterstock said.Meantime, all 130 beds at the Salvation Army’s homeless shelter were also full. In 2016, 78 homeless people died on the streets of Sacramento County, including two last January in front of Sacramento City Hall. At a memorial service commemorating those deaths, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said the number has increased this year by an additional 40 deaths. He also remained optimistic about the new shelter. “No, I’m not frustrated,” he said. “I recognize that a lot of great people are working to get this up and running as quickly as possible. So it’s 50, we’re going to get to 200, and we’ll get to that full capacity within a couple weeks.”The extra time is needed to add partitions to will increase privacy and decrease noise.However, Grant worries a couple weeks could be too late. Right now, he’s just worried about making it to tomorrow. “We’re all freezing to death out here," he said. "I don’t know what to do. I just hope more programs open up." |
Rams quarterback Case Keenum was among the players who suffered concussions in NFL games this season, a number that was up sharply from 2014 (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
The number of reported concussions suffered by NFL players increased sharply this season, according to injury data released Friday by the league.
League medical officials said they suspect that more sophisticated detection and more diligent reporting of concussions contributed to the increase.
But more study is needed, they said, to determine whether the number of head injuries suffered by players rose, or if those injuries merely were being identified and reported more often.
“These are the data and now we seek to understand the reasons,” Elizabeth G. Nabel, the NFL’s chief health and medical adviser, said in a conference call with reporters.
There were 271 reported concussions suffered by players during the 2015 preseason and regular season, according to the league’s data. That was up from 206 in the 2014 season, an increase of 32 percent. There were 229 reported concussions in 2013 and 261 in 2012.
[Discipline possible against teams, individuals for future violations of NFL’s concussion procedures]
The sharpest increase came in regular season games. There were 182 reported concussions suffered in regular season games in 2015, up 58 percent from the 115 suffered last season.
“We’ll pore over the numbers. … We’ll look for ways to improve the health and safety of our players,” said Jeff Miller, the NFL’s senior vice president of health and safety policy.
Miller said the NFL has greatly increased the amount of concussion-related screenings undergone by players and is seeing an unprecedented level of concussions being reported by players. Doctors also might be putting players into the league’s concussion protocol more readily, he said.
“These are factors,” Miller said. “These are issues that we’re going to pursue.”
[Everything you need to know about Super Bowl 50]
Richard G. Ellenbogen, the co-chairman of the NFL’s head, neck and spine committee, said those within the sport have become better educated about the dangers of head injuries.
“I think the education is working,” Ellenbogen said. “I think we’re lowering the threshold” of when a concussion is reported.
Said John York, the co-chairman of the San Francisco 49ers and the chairman of the NFL owners’ health and safety committee: “We must uncover whether our players suffered more concussions this year and if so, why. … Our work will be guided by the data and the experts.”
More NFL
House Democrats seek records on NFL ‘veto power’ for NIH concussion study |
All of which is to say it is especially frustrating to people from my village when critics or theorists write about literature with the assumption that the typical reader remembers everything. Or worse: that we not only remember everything but that we know where all the good stuff is in it.
You’re about to reread The Mayor of Casterbridge . That’s excellent. Then you can remind me what happens in it. You just opened Paradise Lost to a random page and found something surprising? Do tell. I promise to be equally surprised. It’s been quite a while since I looked in on it.
We’re like this in my village. Humane. We know very well that to read a book is not to have read it. Forgetting and noncomprehension must be given their due. And more than their due.
However! Suppose that I (prompted by shame) decided to engineer a little ol’ Utopia project. I pore over the book for a week and think, Huh—this is full of good stuff! At that point I would say to my neighbors, Hey, when’s last time you looked in on More’s Utopia —?
Wait. They didn’t think gold was valuable. I forget why. Their toilets were gold. Or the chains that they loaded prisoners with. Or something. Not toilets; chamberpots. And the narrator had some cross-eyed name like Holofernes Hwum-buppa-zipplebibble or something.
“X” is always some acknowledged literary classic everybody reads early in life and then forgets. For example, More’s Utopia . I did read it, but I might as well not have. I was nineteen. Anyone today who had just read the back cover of a copy of Utopia would, in a knowledge contest, smoke me like a cheap cigar. About the book’s narrative I remember … well, nothing.
In my village, we have an idiom. “When’s last time you looked in on [X]—?”
On going through the hundred and fifty-four of them, I find forty-nine which seem to me excellent throughout, a good number of the rest have one or two memorable lines, but there are also several which I can only read out of a sense of duty.
Every time I think of this passage, I GET SO ANGRY. I’m like, Why, why, and why-why-why do you mention having picked out the forty-nine best, and then not tell us which ones you mean? What, you think I’m going to go through all 154 of those jumping-jack-doing, nine-dimension hieroglyphs, on the outside chance I can spontaneously regenerate your list?
To quote Gloucester in King Lear: “Give me the letter, Sir!”
❧
I am about to come to the point. Auden had “done the work” on the sonnets, and then withheld the results. This was evil, but … that was a different time. The point is, I’m not going to do that to you. Get ready for this. I, unlike you, have read every word of Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary (1906)—and read it recently. And it gets better. I, at the cost of an ocean of labor, have cherry-picked the seventy-four best bits out of the approximately three thousand billion trillion entries, and I am going to give you those seventy-four: yours, free of charge, to judge and find wanting.
I wish to note, before the presentation, that in assembling this set I looked at no other. I would have looked, if H. L. Mencken, who was a great admirer of Bierce, had made one. But as far as I can see, he did not. Also, it bears mentioning that my original selection contained around 250 entries, was winnowed to 100, and then further winnowed to 74.
So what do you think, Subhuti? When’s last you looked in on The Devil’s Dictionary—? Here, allow me, like a good neighbor, to refresh you.
Abdication, n. An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high temperature of the throne.
Absent, adj. Peculiarly exposed to the tooth of detraction; vilified; hopelessly in the wrong; superseded in the consideration and affection of another.
Acephalous, adj. In the surprising condition of the Crusader who absently pulled at his forelock some hours after a Saracen scimitar had, unconsciously to him, passed through his neck.
Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves.
Advice, n. The smallest current coin.
Air, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.
Alliance, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pocket that they cannot separately plunder a third.
Applause, n. The echo of a platitude.
Archbishop, n. An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.
Armor, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.
Babe or Baby, n. A misshapen creature of no particular age, sex, or condition, chiefly remarkable for the violence of the sympathies and antipathies it excites in others, itself without sentiment or emotion.
Back, n. That part of your friend which it is your privilege to contemplate in your adversity.
Blackguard, n. A man whose qualities, prepared for display like a box of berries in a market—the fine ones on top—have been opened on the wrong side. An inverted gentleman.
Cabbage, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man’s head.
Cat, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.
Cemetery, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target, and stone-cutters spell for a wager.
Centaur, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who followed the primitive economic maxim, “Every man his own horse.” The best of the lot was Chiron, who to the wisdom and virtues of the horse added the fleetness of man.
Cerberus, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance—against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance.
Childhood, n. The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth—two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.
Christian, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.
Consul, n. In American politics, a person who having failed to secure an office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.
Conversation, n. A fair for the display of minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of this neighbor.
Curse, v.t. Energetically to belabor with a verbal slap-stick. This is an operation which in literature, particularly in the drama, is commonly fatal to the victim.
Deputy, n. A male relative of an office-holder, or of his bondsman. The deputy is commonly a beautiful young man, with a red necktie and an intricate system of cobwebs extending from his nose to his desk. When accidentally struck by the janitor’s broom, he gives off a cloud of dust.
Die, n. The singular of “dice.” We seldom hear the word, because there is a prohibitory proverb, “Never say die.” At long intervals, however, some one says: “The die is cast,” which is not true, for it is cut. The word is found in an immortal couplet by that eminent poet and domestic economist, Senator Depew:
A cube of cheese no larger than a die
May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie.
Dog, n. A kind of additional or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world’s worship. This Divine Being in some of his smaller and silkier incarnations, takes, in the affection of Woman, the place to which there is no human male aspirant. The Dog is a survival—an anachronism. He toils not, neither does he spin, yet Solomon in all his glory never lay upon a door-mat all day long, sun-soaked and fly-fed and fat, while his master worked for the means wherewith to purchase an idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned with a look of tolerant recognition.
Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
Elegy, n. A composition in verse, in which without employing any of the methods of humor, the writer aims to produce in the reader’s mind the dampest kind of dejection.
Envelope, n. The coffin of a document; the scabbard of a bill; the husk of a remittance; the bed-gown of a love-letter.
Epicure, n. An opponent of Epicurus, an abstemious philosopher who, holding that pleasure should be the chief aim of man, wasted no time in gratification of the senses.
Exhort, v.t. In religious affairs, to put the conscience of another upon the spit and roast it to a nut-brown discomfort.
Exile, n. One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador.
An English sea-captain being asked if he had read “The Exile of Erin,” replied: “No, sir, but I should like to anchor on it.” Years afterward, when he had been hanged as a pirate after a career of unparalleled atrocities, the following memorandum was found in the ship’s log that he had kept at the time of his reply: “Aug. 3d, 1842. Made a joke on the ex-Isle of Erin. Coldly received. War with the whole world!”
Fork, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth. Formerly the knife was used for this purpose, and by many worthy persons is still thought to have many advantages over the other tool, which, however, they do not altogether reject, but use to assist in the charging of the knife. The immunity of these persons from swift and awful death is one of the most striking proofs of God’s mercy to those that hate Him.
Frog, n. A reptile with edible legs. The first mention of frogs in profane literature is in Homer’s narrative of the war between them and the mice. Skeptical persons have doubted Homer’s authorship of the work, but the learned, ingenious and industrious Dr. Schliemann has set the question forever at rest by uncovering the bones of the slain frogs.
Gallows, n. A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which the leading actor is translated to heaven. In this country the gallows is chiefly remarkable for the number of persons who escape it.
Geology, n. The science of the earth’s crust—to which, doubtless, will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up garrulous out of a well. The geological formations of the globe already noted are catalogued thus: The Primary, or lower one, consists of rocks, bones of hired mules, gas-pipes, miners’ tools, antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors. The Secondary is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary comprises railway tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy boots, beer bottles, tomato cans, intoxicated citizens, anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.
Graces, n.pl. Three beautiful goddesses, Aglaia, Thalia and Euphrosyne, who attended upon Venus, serving without salary. They were at no expense for board and clothing, for they ate nothing to speak of and dressed according to the weather, wearing whatever breeze happened to be blowing.
Handkerchief, n. A small square of silk or linen, used in various ignoble offices about the face and especially serviceable at funerals to conceal the lack of tears.
Harangue, n. A speech by an opponent, who is known as an harangue-outang.
Hearse, n. Death’s baby-carriage.
Hemp, n. A plant from whose fibrous bark is made an article of neckware which is frequently put on after public speaking in the open air and prevents the wearer from taking cold.
Hog, n. A bird remarkable for the catholicity of its appetite and serving to illustrate that of ours. Among the Mahometans and Jews, the hog is not in favor as an article of diet, but is respected for the delicacy of its habits, the beauty of its plumage and the melody of its voice. It is chiefly as a songster that the fowl is esteemed; a cage of him in full chorus has been known to draw tears from two persons at once.
Hostility, n. A peculiarly sharp and specially applied sense of the earth’s overpopulation.
Idleness, n. A model farm where the devil experiments with seeds of new sins and promotes the growth of staple vices.
Innate, adj. Natural, inherent—as “innate ideas,” that is to say, ideas that we are born with, having had them previously imparted to us. The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the most admirable faiths of philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore inaccessible to disproof, though Locke foolishly supposed himself to have given it a “black eye.” Among innate ideas may be mentioned the belief in one’s ability to conduct a newspaper, in the greatness of one’s country, in the superiority of one’s civilization, in the importance of one’s personal affairs and in the interesting nature of one’s diseases.
Interpreter, n. One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter’s advantage for the other to have said.
Interregnum, n. The period during which a monarchical country is governed by a warm spot on the cushion of the throne. The experiment of letting the spot grow cold has commonly been attended by most unhappy results from the zeal of many worthy persons to make it warm again.
Introduction, n. A social ceremony invented by the devil for the gratification of his servants and the plaguing of his enemies.
Kilt, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland.
Lap, n. One of the most important organs of the female system—an admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males. The male of our species has a rudimentary lap, imperfectly developed and in no way contributing to the animal’s substantial welfare.
Litigation, n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
Logomachy, n. A war in which the weapons are words and the wounds punctures in the swim-bladder of self-esteem—a kind of contest in which, the vanquished being unconscious of defeat, the victor is denied the reward of success.
Mayonnaise, n. One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.
Me, pro. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive.
Meander, vi. To proceed sinuously and aimlessly. The word is the ancient name of a river about one hundred and fifty miles south of Troy, which turned and twisted in the effort to get out of hearing when the Greeks and Trojans boasted of their prowess.
Medicine, n. A stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.
Misdemeanor, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.
Miss, n. A title with which we brand unmarried women to indicate that they are in the market. Miss, Missis (Mrs.) and Mister (Mr.) are the three most distinctly disagreeable words in the language, in sound and sense. Two are corruptions of Mistress, the other of Master. In the general abolition of social titles in this our country they miraculously escaped to plague us. If we must have them let us be consistent and give one to the unmarried man. I venture to suggest Mush, abbreviated to Mh.
Mustang, n. An indocile horse of the western plains. In English society, the American wife of an English nobleman.
Nose, n. The extreme outpost of the face. From the circumstance that great conquerors have great noses, Getius, whose writings antedate the age of humor, calls the nose the organ of quell. It has been observed that one’s nose is never so happy as when thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell.
Notoriety, n. The fame of one’s competitor for public honors. The kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. A Jacob’s-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending and descending.
Ostrich, n. A large bird to which (for its sins, doubtless) nature has denied that hinder toe in which so many pious naturalists have seen a conspicuous evidence of design. The absence of a good working pair of wings is no defect, for, as has been ingeniously pointed out, the ostrich does not fly.
Piano, n. A parlor utensil for subduing the impenitent visitor. It is operated by depressing the keys of the machine and the spirits of the audience.
Piracy, n. Commerce without its folly-swaddles, just as God made it.
Plague, n. In ancient times a general punishment of the innocent for admonition of their ruler, as in the familiar instance of Pharoah the Immune. The plague as we of to-day have the happiness to know it is merely Nature’s fortuitous manifestation of her purposeless objectionableness.
Polygamy, n. A house of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with several stools of repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which has but one.
Prejudice, n. A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.
Quiver, n. A portable sheath in which the ancient statesman and the aboriginal lawyer carried their lighter arguments.
Rear, n. In American military matters, that exposed part of the army that is nearest to Congress.
Recruit, n. A person distinguishable from a civilian by his uniform and from a soldier by his gait.
Sycophant, n. One who approaches Greatness on his belly so that he may not be commanded to turn and be kicked.
Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.
Telescope, n. A device having a relation to the eye similar to that of the telephone to the ear, enabling distant objects to plague us with a multitude of needless details. Luckily it is unprovided with a bell summoning us to the sacrifice.
Tenacity, n. A certain quality of the human hand in its relation to the coin of the realm.
Anthony Madrid lives in Victoria, Texas. His second book is Try Never (Canarium Books, 2017). He is a correspondent for the Daily. |
PETERS TOWNSHIP (KDKA) — Leaving a bag behind at the grocery store might not normally be a big deal unless the bag contains marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms.
And that’s exactly what Peters Township Police Chief Harry Freucht says was inside a black bag found at the Giant Eagle.
A customer found the bag and turned it over the folks at the store. The store called police.
And police say 31-year-old Joseph Moody called the store to see if anyone had found a black bag. When he was told to go to police, he did and was taken into custody.
“I’d say he’s pretty stupid,” said one shopper. “I think he’s pretty stupid.”
“That’s pretty unbelievable that he would do that,” added another shopper.
“He’s probably pretty desperate,” a woman said.
He’s being held on a parole violation. Charges have yet to be filed over the bag of drugs.
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Throughout last Friday’s daylong conference at the Radcliffe Institute on slavery and its historical ties to Harvard and other universities, the conversation kept coming back to something that writer Ta-Nehisi Coates had said during the morning’s keynote address. “We talk about enslavement as if it were a bump in the road. And I tell people: it’s the road. It’s the actual road.”
Coates was talking about slavery’s colossal formative influence on American history, from the founding to the present; but universities, too, have been finding out in recent years just how deep their own roots are sunk into, as Harvard historian Sven Beckert phrased it Friday, “the violence of the slave trader, the Middle Passage, the auction block, and the whip.” Researchers at Yale, Princeton, Brown, William & Mary, the University of Virginia, Rutgers, Georgetown—and Harvard—as well as other schools, have uncovered sometimes extensive historical connections to slavery: slave owners among the faculty and administration; significant gifts from slave-owning donors; endowment money and investments in the slave trade; campuses built and subsidized in part by slave labor. University scholars authored many of the racist scientific theories that legitimized slavery’s existence. One reminder of that scholarship on Friday was the shirtless man staring out from the conference program. Radcliffe dean Lizabeth Cohen explained that his name was Renty, a Congolese-born slave whose daguerreotype image was taken in 1850 on a South Carolina plantation and commissioned by Harvard professor Louis Agassiz. A biologist and geologist and a student of Earth’s history, Agassiz developed the theory of polygenesis, which denied the existence of a common human ancestor and held that blacks were inferior to whites. The Renty daguerreotype, along with others from Agassiz’s tour of Southern plantations, was lost for decades, until archivists at the Peabody Museum rediscovered it in 1976.
The North’s “Great Alibi”
Photograph by Tony Rinaldo
In his keynote, Coates was unequivocal about what he believes should happen next. “I think every single one of these universities needs to make reparations,” he said, as the auditorium broke into loud applause. “I don’t know how you get around that, I just don’t. I don’t know how you conduct research that shows that your very existence is rooted in a great crime, and just say ‘Well,’ shrug—and maybe at best say ‘I’m sorry,’ and you walk away. And I think you need to use the language of reparation, I think you need to say that word.” Coates’s Atlantic article “The Case for Reparations” launched a national conversation in 2014, arguing that the United States owes monetary damages to African Americans for centuries of slavery, segregation, and discrimination. In that article, and again in the Radcliffe auditorium, he spoke often of how blacks had been systematically “plundered.” The United States, he said, “was not a country with a little bit of slavery, but a vast slave society.” (Later, in conversation with him, President Drew Faust, a Civil War historian, agreed that recent scholarship had stripped away the North’s “great alibi” that it, unlike the South, was untainted by slavery.) Coates told conference-goers, “When you stand on the backs of other people who have been exploited, you have to—any institution that wants to teach people about morals and ethics, you have to do the right thing and make some amends. I just don’t know how you get around that.”
Later, discussing the chain that links slavery to contemporary ills like mass incarceration, Coates offered another caution: “My great fear is that if this is not dealt with, this will mark us for our whole history. It’s that deep, that profound, that threatening.”
Acknowledgement “Cannot Be Purely Symbolic or Rhetorical.”
Other speakers, including Faust, echoed that same sentiment, though with less specificity. “We cannot successfully move forward as a university, as a nation, or as citizens, without acknowledging this history and making it important to the understanding of our present,” said Harvard’s Beckert. “And to be meaningful, that acknowledgement will have to have economic and political consequences; it cannot be purely symbolic or rhetorical.” Stanford historian James T. Campbell, who a decade and a half ago led Brown’s effort to research its own past, said, “There has to be some response in the present to what you know about the history.” Conceding the impossibility of any full remedy, he added, “Nothing you do in the present even approaches the significance and scale and scope of the crime. That doesn’t mean you can’t do anything.” Adam Rothman, a Georgetown historian involved in that university’s archival effort, asked how many in the audience thought his university ought to help subsidize the education of people descended from slaves that it had owned in the early 1800s. Most hands went up.
As schools move forward in their efforts to reckon with centuries-old questions that have suddenly become urgent, Coates offered a few bits of advice. For one thing, he said, “Do not limit the study of enslavement to slavery.…Recognize that the plunder of enslavement does not end with enslavement.” He also counseled them to “listen, and don’t be self-congratulatory, and don’t get too mad.” People will be angry with them, he warned, and with good reason. “The worst thing you can do is retreat into your shell.…You’ve got to listen. You’ve got to listen, and you’ve got to hear that anger. It comes from a deep, deep place.”
Photograph by Kevin Grady
Harvard’s Slave History
The Harvard conference was the latest major acknowledgement of its kind. (An accompanying exhibit, “Bound by History: Harvard, Slavery, and Archives,” is on display at Pusey Library.) Convened by the Radcliffe Institute, it was prompted by an op-ed in the Crimson last March, in which Faust called for a fuller examination of Harvard’s “mostly untold story.” The day’s discussions drew an overflow crowd of nearly 500 (plus another 1,000 watching online), including community members from outside academia and scholars from more than two dozen institutions. In her opening remarks, Faust declared that Harvard had been “directly complicit” in slavery from the college’s earliest days in the seventeenth century until the system of bondage ended in Massachusetts in 1783. After that, “through financial and other ties with the slave South, Harvard continued to be involved with slavery,” she said, “up until the time of emancipation.”
Much of that history was unearthed by Beckert, who in 2007 began leading an undergraduate research seminar on a subject that at the time was still a mystery. (This was before any official University blessing or encouragement for the research.) In 2011, he and his students detailed their findings in a booklet, “Harvard and Slavery: Seeking a Forgotten History.” On Friday, one of those students, Alexandra Rahman ’12, now a doctoral candidate at Harvard Business School, laid out one discovery from the seminar’s work: the collaboration between Harvard botanist Oakes Ames and West Indian sugar merchant Edwin Atkins. A slave owner in Cuba, Atkins made gifts to Harvard, and in 1899, the University established a botanical research station on Atkins’s sugar plantation; it was 13 years after Cuba’s emancipation of slaves, and Atkins hoped the research conducted there by Harvard students would help him transition from human to mechanized labor. Rahman quoted from a letter Ames wrote during one of his visits to the plantation, in which the professor makes rueful mention of the giant bell whose “doleful” note had once driven Atkins’s slaves to and from work. “But it’s interesting that he doesn’t go on to address that this is a problem,” Rahman said. The gist of Ames’s letter, she added, is “that this is an issue that people faced a long time ago, and isn’t antiquity fascinating. This was 20 years after slavery, and he was working for the slave owner.”
There were worse stories. Daniel Coquillette, Harvard Law School’s Warren visiting professor of American legal history, and the author of the 2015 book, On the Battlefield of Merit: Harvard Law School, the First Century, gave an account of Isaac Royall, whose bequest led to the 1817 founding of the law school and whose newly revealed slave legacy roiled the campus last year with intense protest and controversy. A West Indian planter and strikingly cruel man, Royall owned a sugar plantation on the island of Antigua during the eighteenth century. Sending gasps through the audience, Coquillette described how Royall brutally suppressed a major slave revolt there in 1736. More than 350 slaves had mobilized, but “at the last moment,” Coquillette said, they were betrayed. After it was over, 77 slaves were burned at the stake, and six others were drawn and quartered. The leader of the uprising, a slave named “King” Court, was gibbeted alive.
Following student-led protests, organized under the name Royall Must Fall, the law school decided last spring to change its shield, which was based on the Royall family crest. At the same time, professor Janet Halley, who is the school’s Royall professor—one of the country’s oldest named chairs—began taking first-year law students on tours of the slave quarters at Royall’s home in Medford, as a way of engaging the University’s heritage. On Friday, MIT historian Craig Steven Wilder noted that on campus after campus, students have consistently been the force pushing reluctant administrations toward uncomfortable reckonings with their racial histories. They “helped keep the conversation alive,” he said; they “kept us honest.” But he called it an unfair burden, especially for black students. The author of the 2013 book Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of American Universities, Wilder said, “Perhaps it’s time for us to stop that. Perhaps it’s time for us to really take responsibility for our own history—our faculties, our trustees, our administrators—to confront the past, rather than depending on our students once again.”
“A Moment of Transcendent Courage”
As the day wound on, researchers from other universities shared experiences from their own excavations. Campbell, now at Stanford but previously at Brown, recalled how the research effort got under way there in 2003, when Ruth Simmons, then Brown’s president—and the first African-American president of an Ivy League university—announced that a steering committee would investigate and publish the school’s ties to slavery. “This was a moment of transcendent courage,” Campbell said. And although the announcement made news around the world, “there wasn’t a single peep from another university even suggesting that this was an act worthy of the university,” Campbell said. “Certain people just kind of waited to see.” Brown’s groundbreaking report, “Slavery and Justice,” published in 2006, inspired Beckert to launch his research seminar the following year.
There were moments during those years of study when the centuries collapsed into the present. Campbell remembered sitting up one night reading archived commencement addresses given by Brown students. One, delivered in 1798, was by James Tallmadge, who would later go on, as a New York congressman, to propose an amendment requesting that Missouri be admitted to the Union as a free state. The amendment never passed the Senate, but it precipitated the Missouri Crisis of 1819, an early step along the road to eventual civil war. In the commencement address, Tallmadge spoke about the “barbarous” slave traffic, before an audience that, Campbell guessed, was likely half-full of merchants connected to slavery. Tallmadge ended his speech by calling out the “absurd” idea that darker-skinned people were inferior to those with lighter skin. “He said this is a matter for future generations to investigate,” Campbell said. “I was reading this late at night—I was sitting by myself, and I just started to cry. Somebody left a message in a bottle.” The discovery proved to him that “We were not, as some alleged, projecting our values onto some past that you couldn’t get to. We were, in fact, engaging the past in precisely the terms that they had done. We were re-entering a conversation that had gone on on our campus for a really long time.”
“Telling the Story”
At Georgetown, Rothman, too, said he had been overwhelmed by the “emotional power vested in archival material.” That university’s recent investigation turned up evidence of the Jesuit-owned, slave-worked plantations and farms in Maryland that supported and sustained Georgetown’s educational and religious mission. Enslaved people also worked on the campus itself; at one point, Rothman reported, about 10 percent of all people on campus were slaves. The most devastating revelation, however, revolved around a sale in 1838 of Georgetown’s last 272 slaves, for the sum of $115,000, which was used to pay off the university’s debts (and keep its tuition free for students).
Tracing the fate of those sold slaves, Rothman and his colleagues discovered their descendants living all over the country—in Louisiana where the sale had taken many of the slaves, and in Minnesota, California, Maryland. Rothman encountered one of those descendants at an academic talk he gave last year, presenting archival material, including slaves’ baptismal records, letters the Jesuits had written about slavery, and records from the sale. He noticed a man standing at the back of the room who “didn’t fit”: he was African American, wearing a track suit, and covered in tattoos. “He raised his hand and said the names he was reading on the bill of sale were names he recognized from his ancestors.” Suddenly, Rothman said, the man began to break down, asking how priests who were supposed to protect their flock could have sold those people and “sent them to the wolves.” Said Rothman: “He was having a crisis of faith right there. And he said, ‘How could this happen, and what are we going to do about it?’ And I had no answer for him.”
Last fall the university announced it would grant legacy status to those descendants, giving them preferential admission to Georgetown, and also that it would change the names of two buildings on campus. Students “did not want to live with those names anymore,” Rothman said. “We tried to find new names for those buildings that would not erase this history but would bind us to this history in new ways.”
Moderator Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Thomas professor of history and of African American studies, asked Rothman if changing campus names lets universities off the hook too easily. It was a question that came up repeatedly throughout the conference. “It depends—you have to memorialize the renaming,” Rothman said, echoing comments from other panelists. “You have to be honest about these conflicts and moments; you have to historicize the name change. At Georgetown, it wasn’t good enough to take the names of the two Jesuits off the building. The real test of character comes when one renames the building and memorializes it.” (Coquillette offered similar remarks about Harvard’s decision to remove the Law School shield: “You don’t go around erasing this and that and pretend things didn’t happen.”)
Rothman noted that the facts about Georgetown’s past had never been hidden. Jesuit historians had been writing about it since the early twentieth century; a 1989 bicentennial history discussed it. Yet the story was not widely known. That disconnect, he said, shows the failure of scholarship to reach the broader public. “We have not been successful in telling the stories we know are true.” Later he added, “Part of the process of reconciliation is telling the story.”
“Walking into the Desert”
Higginbotham asked another important question during the panel: why now? One answer: it’s safer now. In 2004, the dismissal of a major reparations lawsuit against corporations eased the threat of litigation against universities like Harvard, which was speculated in the early 2000s to be a primary target. Plus, an emerging critical mass of institutions undertaking similar investigations offers safety in numbers. Wilder noted that for much of the past 20 or 30 years, “there was no upside” for universities to efforts like this. But now, he said, “the audience has changed.” What in the 1970s might have been a salient issue for small numbers of black students has now moved from the fringes to the mainstream. In part that’s because there are more students of color on campuses these days. But also, “There is not a lot of reason for us to assume that there are lots of students in the majority population who want to sit in front of stained glass windows of happy slaves picking cotton and embrace that as part of their educational experience,” he said. “The landscape has changed.”
Wading deeper and deeper into the day, as panelist after panelist talked about the profound effects and long roots of slavery, and the moral imperative to do something about it—even as that something remained not fully known—there was a gathering sense of the enormity of it all, that as these investigations have become easier to embark upon, they have also taken on a kind of inevitability. The problem is knowing how to proceed once the history is out there, how to find what is possible, how to get it right. Campbell said that the Brown steering committee members spent as much time agonizing over the report’s five pages of recommendations as they did discussing the historical research.
During the conference’s final panel, which drew together university leaders from South Africa and the Caribbean to discuss the legacy of slavery, racism, and apartheid on their campuses, Hilary Beckles, Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, talked about the “pedagogy of forgetfulness” that had gripped West Indian governments for generations, and the danger of paralysis and indecision now. During the Nuremburg Trials, he said, judges and lawyers wrestled with the lack of precedent and jurisprudence to guide their work. The task before them was unavoidable, but the path was unknown. “They were becoming disillusioned,” Beckles reported. “One of tem actually said, in the midst of his despair, not knowing how to proceed, ‘We are walking into the desert, and somewhere out there is water. Let us go and find it.’ And with that metaphor, they moved through those trials.” Now universities must do the same, he argued. “All of us who are leaders of universities and institutions, we are walking into the desert. And somewhere in that desert is an oasis we need to find. And I think we should brace ourselves and prepare ourselves and walk into the desert.” |
One day after Mayor Rob Ford called for the firing of a city worker and the outsourcing of recreation workers after a picture was circulated of a city employee allegedly sleeping on the job, the mayor was the subject of his own viral photo, showing him with his eyes closed during a marathon meeting two years ago.
The top photo on the Reddit Toronto page Thursday morning depicts the mayor leaning back on his chair, his hands clasped on his stomach and his face relaxed, with his eyelids shut.
Ford flatly denied he was sleeping in the photo.
“I’m not sleeping,” Ford said during a rare scrum with reporters Thursday afternoon. “You know what this is ridiculous. This is during the 24-hour meeting when deputants are every three minutes. It is so farfetched it is not even funny.”
After seeing the picture, Ford dismissed it.
“Oh buddy, that’s not how I sleep,” he said, according to reports.
The photo, posted to a “social-democratic” blog two years ago, was apparently taken during a 22-hour meeting of the mayor’s executive committee from July 28 to 29, 2011. A Twitter posting of the picture is dated July 29.
The meeting featured 168 citizens speaking to the executive committee about contentious cutbacks to city services, including, memorably, a teenage girl breaking down in tears while discussing her love of the city’s libraries and a man using a sock puppet to tell councillors not to act like puppets.
The newly circulated picture shows Ford at the head of the executive table. With 168 people speaking in about 22 hours, Ford would have been introducing speakers at a clip of one approximately every five minutes. Speakers were given about three minutes to talk, and councillors then had a few minutes to ask questions.
Ford left the meeting just a few times, but then-deputy mayor Doug Holyday said: “I can tell you other mayors never stayed this long.”
The Star reported that Ford left twice for about an hour each time.
The mayor also found himself under criticism for a comment at the 16-hour mark of the meeting, after the author of a children’s book called Words that Start with B spoke, prompting an off-camera remark from Ford.
“I can think of another word for her,” Ford can be heard saying in video.
‘COMPLETE EMBARRASSMENT’
The latest image of Ford — who at the best of times always seems to be caught in an unflattering pose — was an easy target for the mayor’s critics given his comments Wednesday.
Ford said the photo of a city employee allegedly sleeping at his desk at a North York rec centre, provided by staff member of Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, was a “complete embarrassment” and he was taking it seriously.
“If this is the case, I’m going to ask for the manager and the employee to be dismissed. We cannot tolerate this,” he said. “I want people to show up to work and do their job. If they can’t do their job, there’s thousands of other people that are willing and able to do their job.”
Ford also suggested his office, always on the lookout for a way to downsize government, was looking into contracting out parks and recreation jobs.
CUPE Local 79 president Tim Maguire denounced the city employee picture’s release and said: “Our assumption, until further information, is that this employee was on a mid-morning break.”
He also called it a “media stunt.”
Toronto’s Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Sarah Polley was among those circulating the Ford photo Thursday.
https://twitter.com/SarahEPolley/status/390822627587026945
With files from Natalie Alcoba, National Post |
Samsung has been gradually rolling out its Android Lollipop updates to a number of devices this month and Indian Galaxy S4 owners are be next to receive a tasty new update. Just as with the Russian update at the end of January, the Galaxy S4 is being updated to Android 5.0.1 in the country today.
The update applies to the GT-I9500 Galaxy S4 model, the version with Samsung’s Exynos 5410 SoC, and contains the new Material Design UI, notification tweaks, improved multitasking menu, and other features that we have seen demoed in past leaks. The update is also said to improve the handset’s battery life, security features and performance.
Samsung has only starting rolling out its Lollipop update for the GT-I9500 in Russia and India so far, but other regions should hopefully join the party in the coming months.
If you don’t fancy waiting for the update to reach you, SamMobile has hosted the files, which you can flash through Odin in the usual manner. Let us know what you think of Samsung’s Lollipop in the comments below. |
The good news for the Jon-Snow-lives crowd is that the hair (both the beard and the curls) remain intact.
The bad news is that they’re no longer in Ireland, suggesting that perhaps whatever Kit Harington was filming there has finished. (For now. Or forever.) Over the weekend, a fan spotted him in Spain.
Oddly enough, the area of Spain that Kit Harington is hanging out in is…Almería, which, as we know, is one of the multiple new locations that Game of Thrones will be filming come September and October.
Coincidence? I mean, probably. After all, Almería is a location that many places have used for filming. And his new project, Brimstone, has Spain listed as one of its locations. So it’s most likely that that’s why he’s there. Brimstone may also be why the promised shave and a haircut was forestalled—now that he’s presumably done filming his funeral scene, perhaps it’s forthcoming.. All Harington Hair Watches from here on out will be keeping that in mind.
Kit Harington hoy en un bar en Almería, España. pic.twitter.com/qWERmKt3O6 — Kit Harington Spain (@KitHaringtonSP) August 2, 2015
But, don’t let that stop you from speculating wildly anyway. |
Verlander (5-5) improved to 4-0 in his last five meetings with the White Sox, delivering seven innings of two-run ball on five hits with a walk and eight strikeouts. Four of those five hits went for extra bases, but Chicago couldn't capitalize beyond solo homers from Jose Abreu in the first inning and Todd Frazier in the sixth.
DETROIT -- Justin Upton's two-run double completed a four-run fifth inning, providing the support for Justin Verlander to complete the Tigers' three-game series sweep of the White Sox with a 5-2 win Sunday at Comerica Park.
DETROIT -- Justin Upton's two-run double completed a four-run fifth inning, providing the support for Justin Verlander to complete the Tigers' three-game series sweep of the White Sox with a 5-2 win Sunday at Comerica Park.
Verlander (5-5) improved to 4-0 in his last five meetings with the White Sox, delivering seven innings of two-run ball on five hits with a walk and eight strikeouts. Four of those five hits went for extra bases, but Chicago couldn't capitalize beyond solo homers from Jose Abreu in the first inning and Todd Frazier in the sixth.
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"I think even early we had some opportunities and we didn't execute, didn't get some guys in from third," White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. "Really you want to give [Jose Quintana] a little room to work with, and it just seems like he doesn't get that."
Video: CWS@DET: Verlander fires seven strong innings in win
Quintana (5-6) kept pace until a bases-loaded walk turned a fifth-inning jam into a game-turning rally. J.D. Martinez's walk put Detroit on top for good and extended the inning for Nick Castellanos' RBI infield single. With the bases still loaded, Upton swung away on a 3-0 pitch and laced a double to the left-field corner.
Video: CWS@DET: Castellanos plates Maybin with a single
"Nobody wants to be terrible. I've been terrible up to this point, I'll be the first one to tell you," Upton said. "But I haven't stopped working. I knew that I can contribute. I know at some point they're going to need me and they're going to be leaning on me."
The Tigers' fourth win in five games drew them back to .500 after a four-game losing streak. The White Sox fell to one game over .500 with their 10th loss in 12 games and their 18th in the last 24.
"We just need to be united. We have to be united," Abreu said through interpreter Billy Russo. "It's the only way to get out of this tough moment. Everybody knows that, it's the only way we can do it. It's not just one man can take this team and get us out of it. It's the whole team."
MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
Verlander escapes third-inning jam: Verlander had runners at second and third and the top of the White Sox order due up after an Alex Avila walk and Tyler Saladino double. But the righty ended the threat with some of his better pitching of the day. Verlander's curveball induced a weak comebacker from Adam Eaton before Jason Coats chased high fastballs and Abreu went for a slider off the plate for back-to-back strikeouts. More >
Video: CWS@DET: Verlander fans Abreu to escape a jam in 3rd
Digging the long ball: The White Sox didn't connect often against Verlander, but when they did, they made it count. Abreu homered with two outs in the first, a 443-foot blast per Statcast™, and his first long ball since May 17. Frazier added his 18th homer of the season with two outs in the sixth, going deep on a 3-2 offering and tying him with Mark Trumbo for the Major League lead. For his career, Abreu is a .315 hitter with 12 homers and 23 RBIs against 11 previous Cy Young Award winners.
Video: CWS@DET: Abreu opens the scoring with a solo homer
"I felt much better in the series," said Abreu, who has five hits in his last 12 at-bats. "But I know I need to keep working because I'm not in my normal groove. It's a matter of work. It felt very good, but I need to keep getting better."
Iglesias makes diving stop: The Tigers' defense picked up Verlander with two highlight plays in the fifth inning to strand Jimmy Rollins on third with the potential go-ahead run. Jose Iglesias, playing in with the rest of the infield, made a diving stop and throw to rob Tyler Saladino of an RBI. Eaton put down the next pitch for a bunt down the first-base line, but James McCann made a lunging throw to barely beat him at first.
Video: CWS@DET: Iglesias makes a diving stop to save a run
"You see a lot of times a team makes a phenomenal defensive play and then, all of a sudden, throw up a run, throw up two runs," McCann said. "It's a momentum thing. If you can find a momentum shift in a game, it's a big thing."
Video: CWS@DET: McCann fields bunt barehanded, gets the out
Lapse in control: Quintana could have escaped a tough fifth-inning situation after retiring Victor Martinez on a foul popup to Abreu with the bases loaded and one out. But after jumping ahead at 0-2 on J.D. Martinez, Quintana threw four straight pitches out of the zone to walk in the go-ahead run. Quintana had walked 14 over 72 innings coming into the game. The White Sox are now 0-8 overall in the last eight starts from Quintana and Chris Sale.
Video: CWS@DET: Kinsler scores after Martinez walks
"I think that inning changed the game for me. It was a hard situation," Quintana said. "I have a lot of confidence in all my pitches at this moment, but I missed a spot a couple of times. I take my responsibility for the game." More >
QUOTABLE
"Yeah, it was a little strange, but I think we were both excited for it. I know I was. I just tried to compete." -- Avila, on his 1-for-2 showing against Verlander, who threw to Avila for 804 2/3 innings while they were both with Detroit -- more than any catcher in the ace's career
Video: CWS@DET: Verlander tries to pick off his old teammate
"Win one game and try to keep going day by day." -- Quintana, on how the White Sox can get back on track
SOUND SMART WITH YOUR FRIENDS
Francisco Rodriguez converted his 17th consecutive save opportunity since his last blown save on Opening Day in Miami. It's the longest streak by a Tigers closer since Joaquin Benoit converted his first 22 save chances in 2013. Rodriguez leads the American League in saves.
Video: CWS@DET: K-Rod gets Garcia to ground out, seals win
WHAT'S NEXT
White Sox: Mat Latos (6-1, 4.02 ERA) remains in the White Sox rotation, even with the addition of James Shields, and he takes the mound for his 11th start of the season Tuesday night in Chicago against the Nationals at 7:10 p.m. CT. Latos has given up 23 earned runs over his last 31 2/3 innings.
Tigers: The Blue Jays make the trip to Detroit to open a three-game series at Comerica Park at 7:10 p.m. ET on Monday night. Michael Fulmer (5-1, 3.24 ERA) will try to continue his dominant stretch opposite J.A. Happ (6-2, 3.06).
Watch every out-of-market regular-season game live on MLB.TV. |
SPAIN’S Foreign Minister has provoked outrage after dismissing footage of Spanish police attacking voters in Catalonia’s independence referendum as “fake news”.
Alfonso Dastis seemed to suggest that reports of violence meted out by his Guardia Civilia had been manufactured, and that if anyone had been beaten up they probably deserved it.
“I’m not saying that all [of them] are fake pictures, but some of them are and there have been a lot of alternative facts and fake news here,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show.
“As I said, if there was at all – and according to the pictures there was – some use of force, it was not a deliberate use of force. It was a provoked use of force.”
Reports in the immediate aftermath of the referendum on October 1 suggested at least 1,066 people had been hurt and needed medical assistance.
Spain’s national police force stormed polling stations, dragging out voters and forcibly stopping others from casting a ballot. Footage of them shooting rubber bullets into crowds and dragging people by the hair was seen all over the world.
The police operation was criticised by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who said he had been “very disturbed”.
On Saturday, hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Barcelona to protest the decision of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to effectively take control of Catalonia.
Rajoy invoked Article 155 of Spain’s constitution to “restore the rule of law, coexistence and the economic recovery and to ensure that elections could be held in normal circumstances”.
If approved in the senate on Friday, Madrid will take direct rule of Catalonia that day. Reports suggest the government will also seek to take control of the region’s local police force and its public broadcaster, TV3.
“We are going to establish the authorities who are going to rule the day-to-day affairs of Catalonia according to the Catalan laws and norms,” Dastis told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
“I hope everyone will disregard whatever instructions [the current Catalan government] will be planning to give because they will not have the legal authority to do that.”
The speaker of the Catalan parliament, Carme Forcadell, called measures announced by the government on Saturday a “de facto coup d’etat”.
Dastis denied this, saying “If anyone has attempted a coup, it is the Catalan regional government”.
In an address on Catalan television on Saturday night, Puigdemont – speaking in Catalan, Spanish and English – described the move as the worst attack on Catalonia’s institutions since General Franco’s dictatorship.
He said: “We cannot accept these attacks. Those who have scorned the Catalans now want to govern us.
“I will ask parliament to decide how to respond to these attacks on democracy and to act accordingly.”
Puigdemont has said he has the “moral authority” to issue a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) if the government invokes Article 155.
But Spain’s attorney general says if Puigdemont tries that he will be charged with “rebellion”, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. |
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