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New Delhi. The begging mafia in Delhi is getting ingenious and keeping with modern times. After using pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses to extract money from the believers, beggars are now using pictures of Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, and swindling money from internet savvy residents of the national capital in the name of donation to the community driven free web-based encyclopedia.
“I was surprised when this 9-year-old kid knocked on my window and showed me Jimmy’s picture,” Rashi Taneja, a final year MBA student at FMS recalled her experience when she was driving last evening, “Of course I use Wikipedia for my project reports too often and I couldn’t help giving 50 rupees to the kid, who gave a thumbs-up to me as if liking something on Facebook.”
Such pictures of Jimmy are taking people by surprise at traffic lights
It was only later that Rashi realized that she might have been cheated, for an organization like Wikimedia Foundation would never employ child labor and begging tricks for raising funds.
“I was shocked to find out that there was no mention of ‘donating on traffic lights to beggars’ as a way to give money to Wikipedia on their website,” Rashi said, “Oh my god, I guess he was the same kid who had sold me a heart-shaped balloon for 100 rupees on Valentine’s Day.”
The Delhi police have denied any knowledge of the fake Wikipedia donation racket being run by the begging mafia in the city.
“Begging was banned only during the Commonwealth Games,” Ranjeet Sharma, a traffic police constable informed, “we can’t act against them till there is any written complaint against this Jimmy guy. Who is he by the way?”
Unlike the police department, the begging mafia in Delhi has accessed and updated themselves with all the information about Jimmy Wales, and the beggars have been trained to answer any queries by suspecting Wikipedia users.
“His first wife’s name was Pam,” says 13-year-old Suraj designated at India Gate, further adding with a wink, “Not Pamela Anderson if you thought so.”
Ravindar, the kingpin of the begging mafia in Delhi, confirms that the latest “initiative” has returned favorable results and they were all set to take the campaign to the next stage and make it more “impactful”.
“We have ordered Jimmy Wales masks, similar to Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi masks,” informs Ravindar, “our kids would wear them and suddenly appear at the windscreens of cars at traffic lights, just like Jimmy Wales’ picture suddenly loads on a Wikipedia pages currently.” |
http://gty.im/835655698
Detroit Improves To 2-0 With A Home Win Against New York.
Lions vs. Jets was the highlight in Detroit on Saturday, as the Lions made their home debut. After coming off an impressive win over the Colts in week one, the kool-aid was getting passed around Detroit as fans jumped on the Kenny Golladay train and believed that the defense did improve. Injuries to defensive end Kerry Hyder and linebacker Brandon Copeland scared fans as they feared for the worst before the season even began. Detroit was able to put up another winning performance on Saturday and brew up more kool-aid for their fans.
Offense
Matt Stafford had a complete 180 from last week. While there was another drop that was popped up and could have been an interception, the Jets messed up that opportunity. Stafford was able to throw a dime touchdown to Marvin Jones and finish the day 8/10 for 84 yards and one touchdown. Jake Rudock had a good week one, and a bad week two, finishing 8/13 for 84 yards and an interception. Brad Kayaa went 4/7 for 38 yards.
The rushing game existed somewhat for the Lions, finishing with 70 yards on the ground. Stafford was able to set up some pass plays based off the run, something that wasn’t possible last season. Dwayne Washington finished as the leading rusher with eight carries for 24 yards, while starter Ameer Abdullah finished with four carries for 16 yards. Tion Green also had eight carries, but only for 14 yards.
Marvin Jones was the main man this week, getting four catches for 34 yards and a touchdown, after recovering from a drop earlier in the game. Golden Tate had two catches for 34 yards and a drop as well, something all the wide receivers need to work on. TJ Jones had one catch for 11 yards as the number three wide receiver and the hype train for Kenny Golladay cooled as he finished with only one catch for six yards. Jace Billingsley had three catches for 29 yards, as he looked like a Golden Tate clone out there, and rookie tight end Michael Roberts had two catches for 29 yards.
TJ Lang made his debut for the Lions and did well with only one noticeable mistake. Left guard Graham Glasgow struggled somewhat last week, improved and looked better besides one hiccup play. Greg Robinson looked good again at left tackle, while Cyrus Kuondijo struggled with a holding penalty and was spun around on one play. The Jets had eight sacks in their first game of the preseason, today they were held to just three.
http://gty.im/835655682
Defense
The defensive line looked strong again, even without starting end Kerry Hyder. Anthony Zettel started last week in place for Ansah, who likely won’t play a snap this preseason, and did well with two tackles. Akeem Spence did well with his time on the field, getting two tackles and a sack. Cornelius Washington started in place for Hyder and made his debut and landed a shot on Christan Hackenberg. The line ended up with two sacks total and 85 rushing yards allowed.
Hackenberg just got wrecked by Cornelius Washington #Lions pic.twitter.com/47fwwNkkzk — Russell Brown (@RussNFLDraft) August 19, 2017
Jarrad Davis did well again this week, getting two tackles and playing well in space. The linebackers did well in coverage as well, allowing one tight end catch for only 12 yards, and only allowing running back Bilal Powell to catch two passes for 14 yards. Another rookie linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin looked well despite only getting one tackle. Paul Worrilow seemed to be a good depth linebacker addition, getting three tackles.
The Jets weren’t allowed to throw the ball in Detroit, as the Lions defensive backs allowed 165 yards through the air. D.J. Hayden had a tackle and a pass deflection, and Nevin Lawson had a pass deflection as well. Jamal Agnew was the main cornerback tonight, leading the team in tackles with seven and getting a pass deflection as he was targeted heavily in the second half, and while he did allow a few completions, he did well with the competition. Miles Killebrew started with Tavon Wilson sitting, and he finished with three tackles, one for loss. Charles Washington was able to get a sack as well and Rolan Milligan got a late interception.
Special Teams were impressive again, Matt Prater ended with 3/3 on field goal attempts, his longest from 50 yards out. Punter Kasey Redfern was solid again, punting six times for 266 yards, two landing inside the 20. TJ Jones was the main punt returner, getting three returns for 18 yards, while rookie Jamal Agnew had one return for six yards and Keshawn Martin had one for 22 yards. Keshawn Martin was the only one returning kicks, getting two for 60 yards.
Preseason Week 2: What It Means
TJ Lang coming back means he is close to returning 100 percent, which is good news for Lions fans. He should be ready to go in full capacity by the season opener.
Kenny Golladay practiced with the first team once last week, and played with them on one drive, but never got a look from Stafford. TJ Jones had one catch and returned more punts, so if he does lose the number three wide receiver job, he could possibly stay as the main punt returner.
Detroit was able to create pressure with many different guys, something that wasn’t popular in 2016 as Kerry Hyder and A’Shawn Robinson were the main two linemen that could get to the quarterback and create pressure more than anyone else.
Preseason Week 2: What To Think About
Two drops in the first quarter for Detroit and both from veteran receivers, Marvin Jones and Golden Tate. Detroit dropping the ball on offense was one of the main issues last season, and with it continuing so far in the preseason isn’t a good look.
Producing turnovers was an issue for the defense in Detroit last season and like the drops on the offense, it showed again on Saturday. Detroit was able to recover a fumble on a missed punt return for the Jets and get a late game interception but missed out on two more fumble recoveries and an interception that was dropped by Glover Quin. If Detroit wants to win more games, or more games without having to pull a fourth quarter comeback, getting those turnovers and scoring on drives off those turnovers are things that they need to do.
Detroit has done well in its first two games, but the competition hasn’t been the greatest. Luckily for them, they play the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots next week, and that is the week where the starters play the most. That will give Detroit a good check on how they are with the best of the best, as a possible full half of Stafford vs. Brady could be entertaining.
Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @BKnappBlogs, find me on Reddit at /u/sportsguy4life and leave me your thoughts on the Detroit Lions subreddit. |
Well, it’s finally happening. FC Cincinnati (USL) will host Columbus Crew SC (MLS) in the fourth round of the US Open Cup. Talks about an Ohio Derby between the two clubs have emerged recently if FC Cincinnati were to be granted an MLS Expansion bid.
For now, they’ll settle with meeting in the nation’s oldest single elimination soccer tournament. Established club will meet new kid on the block in the fourth round of the competition next week.
Columbus Crew SC-FC Cincinnati: U.S. Open Cup Match To Get More Recognition Than Usual
News broke that Columbus would play FC Cincinnati after their 3-0 win over the 2016 MLS Cup champions Seattle Sounders last Saturday. It was confirmed once Cincy knocked off Louisville City in the third round of the U.S. Open Cup. This is a game that they were waiting for.
Once Crewville found out their opponent for the tournament, supporters were right on the jump, figuring out how to purchase tickets. One supporter even worked on getting a bus trip down to Nippert Stadium for the match. Once tickets went on sale, Crew SC supporters went crazy.
A Fourth Round showdown in the 2017 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup is set for June 14 in Cincinnati.
🏆🇺🇸 https://t.co/6roZV7pYBi pic.twitter.com/jUZcy2tzph — Columbus Crew SC (@ColumbusCrewSC) June 1, 2017
Here’s why.
How Many Traveling Supporters?
FC Cincinnati, the current tenants at Nippert Stadium, opened up one section for traveling fans. Within a day, those seats were sold. FC Cincy staff opened up another section for the Black and Gold faithful, and that too sold out. A third — yes, a whole other section — opened up and…well, you get the point. It appears that Crew SC supporters will occupy four sections for this match.
If calculations are correct, and all seats in all four sections are purchased, over 1,100+ Crew SC supporters will be making the two-hour drive from Columbus to Cincinnati.
According to the Twitter page ‘@NorOnTour,‘ there are still 17 spots left on the bus down. It’s pretty much guaranteed those will be gone soon. By the sounds of it, there may be two buses going down, but it may just be the one.
It’s also worth noting that once tickets went on sale to the general public, the FC Cincinnati website crashed due to “extremely high call volume and traffic.” Over 15,000 tickets have been sold to the general public.
We’re experiencing EXTREMELY high call volume and traffic on our website for tickets to our #USOC2017 match. We’re working to get to you! https://t.co/yeJvbJ6ZAu — FC Cincinnati (@fccincinnati) June 6, 2017
In addition, ‘The Bailey,’ the main supporter group area for FC Cincy supporters has also sold out.
The modern era attendance record for this round was set when Real Salt Lake played a then NASL side Minnesota United FC. That match saw 17,212. Columbus versus Cincinnati could potentially break the record.
The match is set for Wednesday, June 14. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:00 pm EST from Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio. |
LIMA, Peru — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad might want to think twice before fleeing to Latin America with his family.
He is reported to have sent his deputy foreign minister, Faisal al-Miqdad, on a trip to Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela to sound out their respective leaders about the possibility of asylum.
All three countries have left-wing governments that are, to varying degrees and in different ways, antagonistic toward the US.
The most likely destination for the Syrian despot would appear to be Venezuela. Its President Hugo Chavez recently described Assad as his country’s “legitimate” leader.
That remark came despite the fact that Assad was appointed by his late father and Syria’s previous unelected leader, Hafez al-Assad, and has spent the last two years presiding over a massacre of thousands of his compatriots as they fight to topple him.
Cuba could be another real possibility. After half a century of cold war with Washington, the Caribbean island might feel it has little to lose by offering Assad an escape route from a similar fate to that of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi.
Meanwhile, Ecuador is already locked in a face-off with the US, UK and Sweden after granting asylum to WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange.
Now holed up in a tiny room in Ecuador’s embassy in London, Assange faces questioning over alleged sex crimes in Scandinavia and, he claims, potential extradition to the US for trial over leaking classified documents.
Yet it is far from clear whether any of those three governments would actually want to offer refuge to Assad.
And even if one of them did make that controversial move, they would likely be offering Assad no more than temporary respite from a potential high-profile trial for crimes against humanity.
In Venezuela, Chavez was re-elected in October but the odds of him actually seeing out his new six-year term appear increasingly long.
In the final weeks of the campaign, the former army officer seemed to be in full remission from the cancer that had seen him shuttling to Cuba for radiotherapy several times during the previous year.
Yet, he appears to have sickened again since his election triumph and is now returning to Cuba for more treatment, prompting speculation that his remarkable recovery was the result of the temporary use of steroids and other unsustainable drugs.
Should Chavez die in the first four years of his six year term, Venezuelan law requires a presidential election to be held within 30 days.
Given the lack of an obvious Chavez heir and the strong campaign run by challenger Henrique Capriles, who argues that Venezuela should be allying itself with “democracies” rather than the likes of Iran and Syria, asylum for Assad in Caracas today could easily lead to the dock tomorrow, either back in Damascus or in the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
Meanwhile, Cuba’s leader, Raul Castro, is now 81 and the regime he heads has been in power since 1960. As the world passes Cuba by — most Cubans have never even used the internet — the day must surely be nearing when the country transitions out of the shadow of Raul’s older brother, Fidel.
And that begs the question of whether Raul Castro would even want to grant asylum to the cornered Syrian autocrat.
The Cuban leader appears more pragmatic than his senior sibling who, for all his nose-thumbing at the US, never stooped to anything as low as offering refuge to a man quickly moving up the rankings of history’s greatest mass murderers.
That leaves Ecuador, and its obstreperous, wildly popular president, Rafael Correa, purveyor of some of the region’s most sophisticated anti-American rhetoric.
Correa has, in the recent past, booted out the US ambassador and delighted in facing down Washington and London over the fate of Assange.
More from GlobalPost: In Ecuador, a quiet war on whistleblowers
Yet the former economics professor in charge of Ecuador is nothing if not a canny operator. And there is a vast qualitative difference between putting up WikiLeaks’ vain self-publicist and Assad, his hands stained with blood and, with the exception of the governments in Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China, facing universal condemnation.
Latin America has a long tradition of providing shelter to those facing persecution, justly or unjustly, in their homelands.
Mexico, for example, granted asylum to everyone from Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, attempting to escape Stalin's clutches, to the film director Luis Bunuel, fleeing Franco’s regime in Spain, and the widow of ousted Chilean President Salvador Allende.
Yet a more appropriate analogy for Assad’s possible Latin American escapade might be that of the wave of Nazis who fled to South America, with or without the blessing of the local authorities, as the Third Reich crumbled around them.
Many spent the rest of their lives in hiding, constantly looking over their shoulders for Mossad assassins, and dying lonely, anonymous deaths.
But the most famous of them all, former SS officer Adolf Eichmann, was seized by Israeli agents in 1960 from his home in Argentina. He was eventually tried and hanged for helping orchestrate the Holocaust.
With some 20,000 Syrians dead as a result of the stricken strongman’s desperate clinging to power, a similar sticky ending could surely not be ruled out were Assad to embark on his own Latin American adventure. |
New Delhi: The Indian community living in the African nation of Democratic Republic of Congo has been the target of a massive protest over the past few days following the gruesome murder of a Congolese national in South Delhi last week.
Thousands of angry protesters have reportedly taken to the streets in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa, demanding appropriate action from their government in response to the attack in India.
Kinshasa's Indian community who are mostly shopkeepers have been the target of a massive public outcry.
According to some reports, shops owned by Indians were pelted with stones, and other forms of retaliation, prompting the local police to whisk some of them away to safety.
An amateur video of the protests in Kinshasa, which was uploaded on social media, shows an Indian shopkeeper was shutting down his shop in the presence of police officers, while a large number of people gathered outside and shouting.
The Indians have been reportedly asked to keep their shops closed till the tension ends. There are reportedly about 5,000 Indian shopkeepers in Kinhasa alone.
Last Friday, Congolese national Masonda Ketada Oliver was bludgeoned to death in Delhi's Kishangadh area during a street brawl.
The 29-year-old was returning home in South Extension from Kishangadh area near Vasant Kunj when he got into an argument with three local youths over an auto rickshaw.
Olivier suffered an agonising death after his head was smashed with a stone.
His sudden death has shocked his friends who had planned a surprise birthday bash for him the next day.
According to police, Oliver used to teach French language in a private institute.
Although the police maintain that it was a case of street fight, the victim's friend who was with Olivier and managed to escape after the fight broke out, has alleged that it was a racial attack.
Three men, allegedly drunk, came and argued over hiring the same auto rickshaw, he said.
The brutal killing was captured in a CCTV camera.
Police said one of the accused Mobin Azad Saifi (23) has been arrested, while two others - identified as Mukesh and Prakash - are absconding.
The attackers have criminal history and have been jailed in the past.
Meanwhile, the envoys of several African nations in Delhi have termed the assault as a racial attack and demanded the Indian government to guarantee the safety of Africans.
Responding to their concerns, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said that her government is committed to the safety and security of African nationals in India. She has asked the Delhi Lieutenant Governor to fast-track the case.
The government, however, said it was not a racial attack. |
Parasyte -the maxim- has become one of the top anime on Toonami, and what better way to celebrate its immense success than with an awesome release? We're very happy to reveal the Parasyte -the maxim- Limited Edition Premium Box Set! We've broken up the contents for you guys to view below. Let's take a look at the first collection box set, and everything that's in it!
Chipboard Box
The Parasyte -the maxim- chipboard box is made of sturdy cardboard, that can be used to deflect unwanted pokes, lingering stares and occasionally fleshy shaped knife like appendages. The front and back art is designed to scare away would be predators, should the situation turn from your favor.
DVD/Blu-ray Combo
The Parasyte Premium Box Set comes with both a Blu-ray and DVD version of the first 12 episodes of the series, detailing the beginning of the Parasyte invasion on Earth, Shinichi's transformation from unassuming background character to raving badass, and Migi's ascention from flubby bookworm to bonafide wrist rocket.
Extras Box
The Extras box contains all the goodies that come along with the premium box set. The artwork may be familiar to many of you, since it's the show's key art (the defining and identifying image that goes along with every title).
Goodies
Inside the Extras box you will find some awesome Migi inspired temporary tattoos so you can brew up your own parasyte in house, and a nifty lense wipe for your glasses in case you get any kind of foreign matter on them, bloody or otherwise. Finally we have one of the most interesting items in the set: the Green-eyed Migi Be@rbrick collectable figure from Medicom Toys. This bad boy is exclusive to the Parasyte Premium Box Set, so heads up all you Be@rbrick collectors out there!
There you have it, the Parasyte -the maxim- Limited Edition Premium Box Set! Preorders for the set will be up soon, make sure to follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook for additional info and to find out when it will be available! |
As I was going through the features of the new BlackBerry Z30 it hit me that the phone’s problem is that it doesn’t give us what Apple says we should want, it gives us what we actually should want. Somehow the years of brilliant Apple marketing have convinced us that, in a phone, what we want are things a phone really isn’t good for, or at best should be secondary to phone function. The rolling joke from day one, which I’m finding less funny at the moment because it’s a joke on me, was that the iPhone is great at everything but being a phone. But instead laughing it off the Island Samsung and others have emulated it which means we have a ton of Smartphones which do amazing things but kind of suck at, well, being a phone.
Granted the Z30 comes out at a time when BlackBerry is under a cloud. As I write this, it appears the firm’s ability to find a buyer or an investor who will take the company private has floundered, but with millions of customers it is still doubtful the firm will fail. But I think its success will be predicated based on its ability to get us to rethink what we want in a smartphone, switching to what really is important from where we are now. Let’s discuss this in the context of the Z30 and ask if Apple made us stupid.
Benchmarking
I spent years benchmarking products and there are two parts of a benchmarking exercise that is often forgotten. One is start with a set of requirements, not start with an existing product, and the second is to apply weightings to those requirements because each will have a different importance. For instance if you were benchmarking cars and you had kids, having adequate safety for your kids would generally rate higher than having a pretty blue display on the stereo system. You might want the latter but your requirement for the firmer would likely be absolute. This allows you to rank products based on your specific needs.
Image via Shutterstock
Why a Z30 is Better than an iPhone 5s
On a list of priorities for something with the name “phone” in it should include battery life, wireless range (fewer dropped calls), and for something that is in the Smartphone class, the screen size does matter. Let’s touch on each.
Battery Life: It doesn’t matter if a phone has a pretty screen, tons of apps, or can connect to iTunes if the fricken battery is dead. Seriously, a decade ago we measured phones on battery life and that was one of the most important aspects of the phone and that battery life was measured in days; and not single digit hours. The Z30 has a massive battery that should again give days of battery life.
Connectivity: The number of apps and how thin the device is pale against the need to be connected. Having an important call dropped or being unable to connect in the first place. The Z30 has two antennas, not one, and each can be dynamically adjusted to work together to significantly increase range. This slowed the phone to market because the FCC hadn’t seen this technology used in a phone before and thus increased the review time for the product.
Screen Size: While the BlackBerry Z30 is hardly unique with a 5-inch screen their use of more efficient AMOLED makes it one of the most power frugal contributing to battery life. But in a Smartphone smaller isn’t better, bigger is better because you get more screen real estate to work with. The market share shift from phones in the iPhones class to ones that have larger screens suggest this, the size of the screen, is a feature people value highly.
Industry Standard Plugs
In Europe they actually made this a requirement (one that Apple is currently choosing not to comply with) but when you use industry standard plugs you can borrow chargers, share chargers with other products from different vendors, and more easily connect to things like projectors (though, on this last, this is rarely done with Smartphones today. Having the combination of longer battery life and more power access should be a significant advantage.
Storage Expandability
Also not unique to the Z30 is an SD slot but you won’t find one in an iPhone. If you do want to put movies and music on the device you choice in a phone without an SD slot it to either scrap it for an newer more expensive phone or not do it in the first place. For the cost of an SD card you can add the storage you’ll need to a BlackBerry Z30.
Security
With word that the NSA limitations on spying now consist of dead people, animals, and insects (for now) the idea of a secure phone has suddenly become far more attractive. It is somewhat ironic that this is what the US President, who is a big Apple fan, uses a BlackBerry himself to keep other governments from spying on him. Security should be a top tier requirement but for most it just isn’t which is why I’ve ended with it.
Wrapping Up: BlackBerry’s Goal
To be successful with the Z30 BlackBerry has to get us to care about what we should be caring about in the first place. Battery life, connectivity, screen size, standard plugs, expandability, and security all of which the Z30 stands out as leading with. It lags on apps but are they really more important than all of this other stuff? Shouldn’t they be? I wonder if we should be pissed that Apple made us all stupid. Something to think about this week.
Edited by Alisen Downey |
POINTS OF EMPHASIS
NFL Senior Vice President of Officiating, Dean Blandino, goes over the rules changes and points of emphasis for 2016 with the Philadelphia Eagles' coaches.
Field Goal/Extra Point Rush Tactics
Game officials will monitor and strictly enforce the rules pertaining to illegal acts committed by the defensive team while trying to block field-goal and extra-point attempts during the 2016 season, including:
Making forcible contact below the waist of offensive blockers.
Grabbing an offensive blocker and pulling him to the side or toward the ground to create space or a gap for a teammate to rush through.
Using the hands or other parts of the body to push off an offensive blocker to gain leverage in an effort to block the kick.
Not only do these tactics create an unfair advantage for the defense, they also are potentially dangerous and could lead to player injuries.
Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford slides safely in a 2015 game against the Bears. NFL officials in 2016 will make sure that once a runner begins a feet-first slide before contact is imminent, defenders cannot make any forcible contact and must treat the sliding runner as they would any runner who is down by contact. (Paul Spinelli via AP)
Quarterback Slide
Once a runner begins a feet-first slide before contact is imminent, defenders cannot make any forcible contact and must treat a sliding runner as they would any runner who is down by contact. Once a runner begins a slide and becomes protected, he can no longer advance the football, regardless of contact by an opponent. Runners who slide sideways or headfirst will not have special protection.
Runners (especially quarterbacks) who want the protection afforded sliding players must make every effort to slide feet-first before contact is imminent. If a runner starts his slide when contact is imminent, a defender is not prohibited from making forcible contact, as long as it is below the head/neck area.
Low Hits on Passer
Quarterbacks in a passing posture within the pocket are protected from forcible contact to the knee area or below. A defender may still make contact low as long as he only uses his arm(s) to swipe, wrap or grab the passer in an attempt to tackle him.
Pre-Snap Movement
Game officials will pay particular attention to and enforce pre-snap movement by offensive linemen, particularly movement of the ball, which simulates a snap. A center dropping or turning his head, or a guard tapping the center, is legal provided the movement is not quick or abrupt.
Crown of Helmet
For safety reasons, the Committee believes that crown-of-the-helmet hits by defenders that were previously legal because the defender did not line up the runner should be illegal regardless of whether the defender lines up the runner prior to making contact. When the rule was first implemented, game officials were instructed to look for three elements for interpreting the rule for initiating forcible contact with the crown of the helmet:
The player must line up his opponent
He must lower his head
He must make forcible contact with the crown of the helmet.
Game officials will be instructed to call fouls when a defender lowers his head and makes forcible contact with the crown of his helmet on a runner outside the tackle box. The line-up requirement will still apply to a runner, since in many instances that player ducks his head to protect himself from impending contact by a defender, rather than to deliver a blow.
The NFL Competition Committee will direct game officials in 2016 to penalize coaches who do not comply with the rule. (Paul Spinelli via AP)
Coaches in Field of Play
Despite being a point of emphasis in previous seasons, the issue of coaches leaving the bench area to gain the attention of the game officials or entering the field of play for other reasons continues to be a widespread problem. The Committee sees no other recourse than to direct game officials to penalize coaches who do not comply with the rule.
A head coach can leave the bench area to get the attention of a game official when the snap takes place at a yard line not within the bench area and the coach is trying to call a team timeout or challenge an on-field ruling, and during an injury timeout to check the welfare of an injured player.
A coach cannot leave the bench area to question a game official, and at no time is a coach allowed onto the field of play. At no time can an assistant coach leave the bench area, even during breaks after scoring plays. These rules remain in effect during any timeout. Only incoming substitutes, team attendants or trainers seeing to the welfare of a player may enter the field. Violations will result in a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and the coach and/or the club may face additional discipline. |
Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian's editor-in-chief is a seasoned, responsible journalist. As he told the British parliament during a hearing this week over his newspaper's publication of Edward Snowden's leaks, the Guardian has cautiously published revelations about the NSA and its spy agency counterparts in Britain -- indeed, only about one percent of Snowden's cache has seen the light of day in the Guardian's pages. As an editor, Rusbridger has done a commendable job in helping bring to light the shadowy government work, which the U.N.'s top counterterror advisor Tuesday described as at "the very apex of public interest concerns." Rusbridger and his Guardian editors and writers have done their job with acumen.
It was thus wholly inappropriate that Britain's chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Keith Vaz, asked Rusbridger in this week's hearing, "Do you love this country?"
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Rusbridger, noting he was "slightly surprised" to be asked such a question, responded in defense of his and his staff's patriotism. "Most of the people working on this story are British people who have families in this country, who love this country... Yes, we are patriots and one of the things we are patriotic about is the nature of the democracy, and the nature of a free press, and the fact that one can, in this country, discuss and report these things,” he said.
A fine answer. And there is much to suggest that the Guardian's service to democracy and an informed citizenry reflects more patriotism than Britain's shady and far-reaching spy agency operations, in which vast dragnets consistently and unfoundedly treat ordinary Britons like potential terror threats.
But I would argue that a major newspaper editor needn't have to prove -- nor indeed even have -- fealty to his or her home nation to do a responsible, ethical job. Alan Rusbridger could well have no great love for his country, this would not mean he would wish or enable harm on the people living within it. Nor would failure to "love" Britain equate to a desire to jeopardize the country's national security -- that would be a grand leap of logic indeed.
It is not the Guardian editor's job to be patriotic. It is his job to ensure stories of public interest actually reach the public, while maintaining a responsible approach to national security (over which, as Rusbridger stressed, the Guardian has taken the utmost care with regards to the Snowden leaks). The Guardian editor needn't love his country to perform his duty. Vez's question was thus steeped in an inappropriate moral valance. Rusbridger and his staff on the Snowden stories may well be patriots -- but they needn't be, and certainly should not be asked about their love or lack thereof for Britain in a parliamentary hearing. |
Al Jazeera Arabic launched on the Freeview platform at noon Thursday, becoming both the first foreign language service to debut on UK DTT, and the first standard definition channel to use MPEG-4.
It means the Doha-based channel will only be available to audiences that have opted for HD reception equipment.
The channel is carried on the new digital terrestrial multiplexes awarded to Arqiva in 2013.
Estimates suggest that by June 2014 approximately 3.2 million Freeview HD households across the UK will have access to Al Jazeera Arabic bringing its total reach in the UK to more than 6 million households.
Dr Mostefa Souag, Acting Director General of Al Jazeera Media Network said: “As the major Arabic language outlet broadcasting various perspectives on current events from the Arab world, we are delighted to be able to reach more viewers in the UK through Freeview. We believe that there is a growing demand by audiences that understand Arabic in the UK for in-depth analysis and reporting, which we have bringing to our viewers for the past 17 years. The inclusion of Al Jazeera Arabic on Freeview has doubled its access to viewers in the UK market, which is a necessary step forward for our global presence.”
Guy North, Marketing Communications Director at Freeview commented: “The addition of Al Jazeera Arabic extends the global news perspective available on Freeview and brings viewers even more subscription-free news content.”
Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera English HD which were launched on Freeview in November 2013. |
May 26, 2012 18:12 IST
Google's just released fourth biannual Transparency Report says that between January and June 2011, the Indian government asked it to remove 358 different items from various Google-owned web services such as Orkut and YouTube.
Google complied in only 51 per cent of cases. The requests were made by various central and state government departments through 68 different requests. This is the fourth such report and it goes against Information and Broadcasting Minister Kapil Sibal's claims that internet companies are not willing to "self-regulate".
Worryingly, the report also confirms allegations that what bothers government officials the most about the internet is not defamation or hate speeches but online criticism of the government.
In a brief note accompanying the report, Google observed, "We received requests from state and local law enforcement agencies to remove YouTube videos that displayed protests against social leaders or used offensive language in reference to religious leaders. We declined the majority of these requests and only locally restricted videos that appeared to violate local laws prohibiting speech that could incite enmity between communities. In addition, we received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove 236 communities and profiles from Orkut that were critical of a local politician. We did not comply with this request, since the content did not violate community standards or local law."
Google's lawyers review each request to see if it would hold as per Indian laws, and if they think it does, they remove it. They also remove content regularly, whether or not requested by the government, if it violates their terms of service.
While defamation and hate speech are often cited as reasons for greater regulation and control over free speech on the internet, the report shows that requests on these counts were very few.
Thirty nine out of 358 were related to defamation, of which 24 related to Blogspot. Only eight requests were made on account of hate speeches -- six for YouTube and two for Orkut.
Only 20 items were sought to be removed on account of privacy and security, and only one on account of national security and three YouTube videos on account of pornography.
In yet another indication that such content removal requests from India are arbitrary and rarely go through a legal process, the report shows that only three blogger-related items were asked to be removed by court orders.
The report does not indicate any new trend about India as even the earlier report, for July-December 2010, had stated, "We received requests from different law enforcement agencies to remove a blog and YouTube videos that were critical of chief ministers and senior officials of different states. We did not comply with these requests."
Google does not reveal who made requests to remove what and neither does the government.
The four reports that cover the period between July 2009 and June 2011 show that Google has complied with 51 per cent requests by the Indian government in this two-year period. |
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A memorial is seen at the scene where Australian college student Christopher Lane, 23, of Melbourne, was found dead of a gunshot wound on Friday in Duncan, Oklahoma, August 21, 2013. (REUTERS/Bill Waugh) Ad Policy
As the nation takes stock of the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington, I’m listening to a news program playing a recording of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking of peace and reconciliation and mountaintops to be crested. I’m also online, watching my screen blink with discussions about current events like the dismissal of a racial harassment suit against Paula Deen and the debate over New York’s stop-and-frisk policies. The decades-long span of unsolved issues and endless crises fills me with sadness and unease.
According to a recent Pew poll, “Blacks were nearly three times as likely as whites to be living in poverty. And the median net worth of white households was 14 times the median net worth of black households.” But this disparate reality is felt very differently: nearly twice as many blacks as whites feel that blacks are treated less fairly by police and the courts; blacks are three times more likely than whites to feel that blacks are treated less fairly in employment, education, hospitals and stores. These findings are consistent with a trend documented by a 2011 article in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science: whites now see anti-white bias as a bigger problem than bias against blacks—or as the study’s title puts it: “Whites See Racism as a Zero-Sum Game That They Are Now Losing.”
It is one problem to have immense disparities. It is quite another when those inequalities are rendered invisible by those who stoke the fears and resentments that apparently feed the nonempirical perceptions of many Americans. Take the media treatment of the searingly tragic murder of Christopher Lane, a white Australian student attending a university in Oklahoma on a baseball scholarship. Three teens have been arrested for shooting him in the back while he was jogging, apparently because they were “bored.” But while that so-called boredom is being mined for all its shock value, it is far too cavalier a way to describe the well of such inhuman callousness. Indeed, together the three suspects had histories of assault, little to no schooling, imprisoned parents and untreated trauma from gun deaths in their own families.
Initial reports were that all three suspects were black. In fact, one of them was white, though one right-wing outlet blithely and wrongly substituted the image of an uninvolved, angry-looking black man in his place. But before this mistake was revealed, the pre-existing liturgy was pushing the rapture that only demagoguery can create. Lines were drawn so that “gun culture” referred to those white people ostensibly exercising their Second Amendment rights to stockpile weaponry for the apocalypse, while “gang culture” referred to those black people (rarely accorded the imagined grace of Second Amendment rights) who also stockpile weaponry for the apocalypse. In either case, some of these arms end up in the hands of the unstable or mentally ill, or children, or the outlandishly aggrieved, or the intentionally criminal. America is not only where Christopher Lane was killed, but also where—if we want to play the “reversals” game—the very next week, a black woman named Antoinette Tuff talked a disturbed young white man into putting down his AK-47 after he walked into an elementary school full of minority kids threatening a massacre. She did so by speaking to him in human, not bestial, terms. “I tried to commit suicide last year,” she said. “We all go through something in life.” America is also where there are more mass murders like Newtown and Aurora than anyplace on the planet other than war zones—and where, every day, more than 100 people of every stripe kill themselves, half by gunfire.
Eighty-four percent of white murder victims are killed by other whites; 93 percent of black victims are killed by other blacks. This violence is a national disgrace, a problem that knows no racial boundaries. We are a shoot-‘em-up nation. How, then, does the small fraction of interracial killings end up as the dominant narrative, cast in terms that play out fantasies of a race war?
Trayvon Martin is not the same person as the troubled teenagers who allegedly shot Christopher Lane, yet he is endlessly figured as though he were. Questions like “Why doesn’t Obama admit that these guys look like his son?” and “Where’s the outcry from the NAACP now?” ricochet around the media. But seriously, who on the planet would protest the arrest and prosecution of the young men who committed this crime? What exactly is being imagined here? That members of the civil rights movement would actually defend murder? Or write it off when committed by black people?
We can argue all day about what causes people to take potshots in Oklahoma or gang-rape women in India or slash schoolchildren in China or traffic sex slaves in Belgium. Yes, yes, personal responsibility—but not racialized responsibility. Perhaps it helps to put the question of violent crime in a global context, for then it becomes clearer that across humanity, the greater or lesser incidence of such crime is linked to factors like social upheaval and dislocation, poverty, population density, availability of weapons, untreated mental illness and lack of education.
In Australia, where homicides by gunfire have diminished dramatically since strict gun control laws were enacted in 1996, Lane’s death has prompted calls for tourists to stop coming to the United States. “This is the bitter harvest and legacy of the policies of the NRA that even blocked background checks for people buying guns at gun shows,” one politician observed. The Australian media have not only discussed the broken humanity of the young suspects, but also foregrounded the scandalous availability of firearms here. It might be interesting if, after spending too much of the last fifty years talking in circles, we in America could see ourselves as reluctant tourists in the land of our own psyches. It might be helpful to begin shifting our discussion to the way in which all our souls are broken when we dehumanize by general habit.
In the aftermath of the George Zimmerman verdict, the editors of The Nation examined race and law in the United States. |
Frustrated by her stagnant 12,000-peso monthly salary ($275) managing one of Manila's top record stores, Joepi Paloma quit her job and took a leap of faith on the Philippines' then-nascent call center industry.
Seven years and four promotions later, she earns a handsome six-figure (peso) monthly wage leading a team of more than 550 people in one of the archipelago's fastest-growing outsourced call centers. The sector is a rare spot of good news in an economy that has habitually underperformed, leaving around a third of the estimated 94 million population in poverty.
"It's exciting for the Philippines," she says. "I make good money, but my goal is also to make sure we keep creating jobs. If we keep our seats, [jobs] are filled. That's 550 families with at least one bread winner."
Lured by tax breaks, cheap labor, and an abundance of college-educated English speakers, global outsourcing firms have flocked to the Philippines.
Big names such as IBM, Shell, HSBC, Proctor & Gamble, and the Hershey Company all have Filipinos taking and making calls on their behalf.
So gilded is the industry that the southeast Asian nation last year stole India's perch as the world's leading location for call centers. Around 600,000 Filipinos are employed in outsourcing and the government forecasts the sector to generate $12 billion to $13 billion in 2012, rising to $100 billion by 2020.
After just a decade in existence, call centers account for 5 percent of gross domestic product, half the amount sent home by the estimated 9 million overseas Filipino workers, according to research by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP).
"India is the call center pioneer, but the neutral accent of Filipinos means clients and their customers now prefer us to answer their calls," argues BPAP's Martin Crisostomo. "Filipinos have a natural gift for customer service: we are polite, respectful of elders, patient, and good shock absorbers for angry customers."
Taking advantage of the industry growth
In recognition of the success in the call center industry, President Benigno Aquino has pledged 62 million pesos ($1.4 million) to drum up new information- and technology-outsourcing business.
But industry leaders want more. They are pressing for the retention of tax holidays for new entrants to the outsourcing market, income tax breaks for skilled expatriates, and state-funded training for aspiring call center workers.
The goal is to capture the specialized, and more lucrative, outsourcing markets such as accounting, medical transcription, animation, and gaming – for which India still holds most of the aces.
The 'magic' industry
For now, Philippine businesses are enjoying the cascade of new money.
Cab firms, bars, cafes, car showrooms, and retailers of luxuries such as iPads, laptops, and other gadgets have scooped up customers from young workers with cash to spend.
"You can call it a magic industry – it's created an entire night economy in the Philippines," says Jojo Uligan of the Contact Center Association of the Philippines, an industry lobby group.
Eighty percent of call centers are in Manila, the sprawling capital, but outsourcing hubs are also opening in the provinces, bringing roads, airports, and jobs to poor areas.
Despite unforgiving hours that compel agents to inhabit a twilight world to serve US working hours, the sector appeals to a swath of young, driven Filipinos.
Workers start at around 13,000 pesos a month, about a third more than most graduate jobs, but top earners can take home 10 times that.
The big hope is that call centers will eventually convince more young Filipinos to stay in the country in search of prosperity.
"The more decent-paying jobs we have here, the more of our people we can keep," says BPAP's Crisostomo. "That keeps Filipino families together." |
Editor’s Note: When activists in Switzerland dumped 8 million Swiss coins – one for each citizen – in front of the Parliament building in Bern last fall, the rest of the world took notice. Not just because it was a compelling publicity stunt, but because the activists secured enough signatures to get a referendum on an unconditional basic income on the ballot. If it’s adopted as part of the Swiss constitution, citizens, regardless of whether they work, would receive 30,000 Swiss Francs (about $34,000) a year.
The idea has intellectual legs, at least, in the United States with renewed support from the political left and right. Hear some of those voices, including libertarian economist Charles Murray, in our Making Sen$e report below.
The conservatives we spoke to would replace all other social welfare programs with a guaranteed basic income to make government aid more self-directed and efficient. Some on the right support a slightly different guaranteed minimum income as a means-tested form of public assistance. Many liberals see the guaranteed income as a tool to combat economic inequality, which, by most accounts, is far more extreme in America than in Europe.
But adopting a measure similar to the one in Switzerland – let alone putting it to a popular vote – in America is still widely considered a far-flung idea. Here to explain why this kind of wealth redistribution is much more palatable in more economically equal countries like Switzerland is someone familiar with both societies: Swiss native and Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee. He also appears in the Making Sen$e segment on Monday night.
Will a guaranteed income pass in Switzerland? He’d be surprised if it did — and even more surprised if the idea ever seriously took root in America.
— Simone Pathe, Making Sen$e Editor
In Western Europe, there is a lively debate about proposals to guarantee every citizen a basic income. The idea, which has a long history dating back to the 1920s (at least), is increasingly popular in policy circles and the broader population. The German and Spanish parliaments explored it. The Swiss will soon vote on an initiative that would guarantee everyone $2,800 each month — no questions asked, irrespective of whether a person works. Early polls indicate that more than 45 percent of Swiss voters will support the initiative.
The supporters of a guaranteed income are a varied lot. They range from unreconstructed communists to humanists with a strong sense of dignity and the wealthy. One concern that many of them share, however, is the global rise in income inequality. In the past few decades, economic growth lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. But, at the same time, the distribution of income became increasingly skewed in favor of wealthy individuals.
The current situation is exceptional from a historical point of view. For example, the top 10 percent of earners in the U.S. captured 35 percent of income through the 1950s and 1960s. Today, this share stands at 50 percent. Rising inequality reflects gains at the top in all sources of income: salaries and business income, as well as capital income and capital gains.
There are many reasons why income inequality has risen. One is technology, which tends to benefit the well-educated. Machines increasingly take over routine tasks, leaving low-paid service jobs for unskilled workers. As a result, U.S. employment and wages tend to grow at the very bottom and at the very top of the distribution in skills. The middle is hollowed out.
Import competition from poorer countries is a second reason. Chinese imports, for example, explain about one quarter of the decline in U.S. manufacturing from 1990 to 2007.
Third, globalization produces so-called superstar effects. In a flat world, top talent is handsomely rewarded for its broad appeal. The Brazilian soccer player Pelé, the best ever, earned $1.1 million in 1960 (adjusted for inflation). The Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo made $17 million this past year. Pelé played for 350,000 television sets in Brazil. At the most recent World Cup, 700 million people watched Ronaldo, as Eduardo Porter writes in “The Price of Everything.”
While rising income inequality is a global phenomenon, it is perhaps surprising to see that radical redistribution is more extensively debated in Europe than in the United States. After all, income inequality is greater in the U.S. than in Europe, and it is growing faster in America too. Comparing the incomes of the top 20 percent to the bottom 20 percent, this ratio stands at 4.0 in Sweden, 4.3 in Germany and 5.6 in France. With a ratio of 8.4, the U.S. is in a different league, more similar to Kenya (8.2), Ghana (8.4), and Nicaragua (8.8). So why is there far more demand for redistribution in Western Europe?
Beliefs about the reasons for inequality turn out to be important. According to the World Values Survey, 60 percent of Americans believe that the poor could become rich if they just tried hard enough. In Europe, however, the number of individuals who hold similar beliefs is only half as large. In Brazil, a mere 19 percent believe that poverty stems from laziness rather than circumstances, connections and luck.
Beliefs about the reasons for poverty are critical for the willingness to redistribute income. People like to be generous if they think the poor are deserving of their support. But they have a strong aversion to giving if they suspect the less fortunate do not try hard to escape their circumstances.
These differences in beliefs give rise to two policy regimes: one with little redistribution and low taxes, the United States, and one with a greater demand for redistribution, Europe.
There is evidence in both places for these dynamics. As U.S. tax rates fell, the top income share rose, not only because the affluent paid less, but also because it makes sense to bargain harder for improved remuneration in a lower-tax environment. Meanwhile, in Europe, people are justified in thinking that “luck” (in the form of being born to the right parents) is an increasingly important determinant of income. From 1820 to 1910, inheritances made up 20-25 percent of disposable income in France. This share fell to 5 percent in the early part of the 20th century. Today, France is back to where it was 100 years ago. This return of inherited wealth is a far weaker dynamic in the United States.
So, will Europe provide a guaranteed income to its citizens? My personal view is that this is unlikely. The Swiss in particular (most of whom are temperamentally risk averse) are too practical to turn into strong proponents of radical redistribution. Differences in beliefs about the reasons for income inequality, however, will continue to drive redistributive policies. |
Groovy geodesic dome in Lafayette listed for $889,000
Inspired by 20th century architect Buckminster Fuller, this unique Lafayette home with a geodesic dome design is on the market for $889,000. Inspired by 20th century architect Buckminster Fuller, this unique Lafayette home with a geodesic dome design is on the market for $889,000. Photo: Todd Taylor Photo: Todd Taylor Image 1 of / 24 Caption Close Groovy geodesic dome in Lafayette listed for $889,000 1 / 24 Back to Gallery
Back in 1969, a Bay Area couple purchased a property in the hills of Lafayette with one acre of scenic pastoral land and a rustic hunting lodge.
Sheila and David Williamson lived with their children, then ages 2 and 7, in the uninsulated shack, while they constructed their dream home with their own two hands.
"We were living in a cul-de-sac in Concord and everyone knew everything about everyone else and I just said, 'We need to get away,'" Williamson said. "We moved to this beautiful spot in the middle of nature. We had no money and so we had to do everything ourselves."
Six and a half years later they had erected a stunning geodesic dome made from rich, gorgeous recycled woods at the end of a private, one-lane country road neighboring Briones Regional Park.
That two-bedroom, two-bathroom property at 1750 Toyon Rd. is now on the market for the first time for $889,000, offering the opportunity to live in an unusual home tucked away in a quiet rural corner of the Bay Area's suburban sprawl.
"When you stand inside this home and realize it was all built by hand, it's remarkable," said listing agent Dina del Monica of Pacific Union. "You think it's going to be in bad shape, but it has beautiful hardwood floors, a Bosch dishwasher in the kitchen, and updated bathrooms."
The Williamsons followed the calculations used by architect and inventor Buckminster Fuller, who popularized the architectural design for the geodesic dome in the U.S. in the 1950s. They chose the design because is was energy-efficient and provided the maximum amount of space using the minimum amount of materials.
The Williamsons and their children, friends, and neighbors cut every piece of wood and hammered in every nail. Sheila made all the stained-glass windows by hand, and David eventually quit his job as a maintenance machinist at the Oakland Tribune to speed up work on the house, while Sheila became the main breadwinner, working in social services for Contra Costa County.
"He was very handy. He did everything. Nothing was already made. He cut all the pieces of wood. I did the staining and the painting," Williamson said. "It was a learning experience. Those were probably some of the best years of our lives."
The Williamsons remodeled their home in 1986, adding a family room and a bathroom, and del Monica says the home has been well-maintained. |
HOLYROOD is set to become one of the most powerful devolved parliaments in the world after a deal on Scotland's future finances was finally agreed.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Chancellor George Osborne brought months of wrangling over the so-called 'fiscal framework' - the complex financial arrangements behind the parliament's new powers - to an end in a five-minute phone call.
It means the Scotland Bill, which will devolve almost full control over income tax and a £2.5billion welfare budget to Holyrood, will be given the go-ahead.
The historic legislation is now almost certain to approved before the Holyrood election on May 5 and, from April 2017, Scots workers can expect to pay all their income tax to the Scottish Government.
Scottish Secretary David Mundell told Holyrood's Devolution Committee there would be "no impediment" to the early transfer of some powers subject to the passing of the Scotland Bill.
Mr Mundell, who will make a statement to the House of Commons on Wednesday on the final fiscal framework deal, said he expects control over income tax will pass to MSPs in time for the next budget of the new Scottish Parliament.
The time-scale for the transfer of new powers over welfare remains to be agreed by the two governments through the joint ministerial group on welfare, he said.
But he added: "My envisaged timetable is that, subject obviously to Parliament bringing forward its legislative consent motion and the Bill proceeding to Royal Assent ahead of the Scottish Parliament elections, a number of the powers will be in place almost immediately after the Scottish Parliament elections.
The deal, which represented a compromise by both governments, was hailed by ministers at Holyrood and Westminster.
Ms Sturgeon said Scotland had avoided a £7billion "cash grab" by the UK Government - a reference to the amount the Treasury's original proposals would have cost Holyrood over a 10 year period.
In her second of two statements to MSPs during a fast-moving day of negotiation, she added: "The more powers this parliament has, the better we can deliver for the people of Scotland."
Mr Osborne said the deal fulfilled the pro-UK parties' pre-independence referendum 'Vow' of further devolution.
He added: "The arrangements we've reached with the Scottish Government are fair to Scotland and fair to taxpayers in the rest of the UK.
"This clears the way for the debate in Scotland to move on to how these tax and spending powers should be used."
After 10 rounds of talks between Finance Secretary John Swinney and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Greg Hands, the two governments had remained deadlocked over how to reduce Scotland's 'block grant,' or budget allocation, from from Treasury to take account of the parliament's new tax powers.
Under the compromise, the Treasury's preferred mechanism for adjusting the grant will be used.
However, it will be tweaked to ensure that Scotland does not lose out if, as forecast, the country's population grows more slowly than England's.
The arrangement meets a key demand of the Scottish Government, which insisted anything less would breach the cross-party Smith Agreement on the new powers.
Crucially, in terms of securing agreement, the arrangements will be reviewed after five years but with the two governments still sharply at odds over a long term solution, the row is likely to resurface after the transition period.
A late concession by the Treasury will ensure both governments must agree a solution after 2022, rather than simply stick with the temporary mechanism.
Ms Sturgeon said that would protect Scotland's budget into the future, adding: "This deal will not allow a single pound or even a penny to be taken from Scotland's budget."
She said the agreement had required "compromise on both sides," while Mr Hands agreed it amounted to a "classic compromise".
Also as part of the deal, the Treasury will provide £200million towards the cost of setting up a Scottish welfare system, four times its initial offer.
The Scottish Government will be able to borrow £3billion in order to manage fluctuations in tax revenues and invest in infrastructure projects.
In a significant concession by the Scottish Government, Ms Sturgeon confirmed tax forecasts will be prepared independently by the new Scottish Fiscal Commission watchdog rather than by ministers themselves.
At Holyrood, opposition MSPs welcomed the deal and joined Ms Sturgeon in praising the efforts of Mr Swinney to make it possible.
But their focus switched quickly to coming election, when tax is expected to become a dominating issue.
Labour's Alex Rowley called on the First Minister to use the new powers to make a "break from austerity".
Scots Tory leader Ruth Davidson said: "This is a major challenge to the SNP because grudge and grievance will no longer wash." |
Baltimore County's top prosecutor says he will not pursue criminal charges against former Ravens cheerleader and fitness author Molly Shattuck after re-examining allegations of sexual abuse involving a teenage boy.
State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger said Friday that his office has spoken with a representative of the victim's family.
Shattuck, 48, admitted to performing oral sex on the boy last summer at a vacation house in Bethany Beach, Del. She pleaded guilty in a Delaware court to fourth-degree rape and was sentenced last month to 48 weekends in a community corrections center.
Shattuck was scheduled to report to a Delaware corrections facility this weekend to begin serving her sentence. Her attorneys didn't return calls seeking comment Friday.
When Shattuck was arrested last November, authorities said she would pick the boy up from class and take him to a parking garage at the T. Rowe Price building in Owings Mills, where they would "kiss or 'make out'" in the back of a car.
She admitted to raping her son¿s 15-year-old friend at a Delaware beach house. Now former Ravens cheerleader Molly Shattuck may face more charges ¿ this time, in Baltimore County. She admitted to raping her son¿s 15-year-old friend at a Delaware beach house. Now former Ravens cheerleader Molly Shattuck may face more charges ¿ this time, in Baltimore County. SEE MORE VIDEOS
The boy, who was 15, attended McDonogh School in Owings Mills with Shattuck's son.
Shellenberger said in a statement that he decided against pursuing additional charges against Shattuck "after careful consideration of all relevant facts and circumstances including the nature of the allegations of what occurred in Baltimore County, as well as the recently concluded prosecution in Delaware."
He declined to comment further.
The Baltimore Sun generally does not name victims of sexual crimes.
Some victims' advocates have said the Delaware sentence was too light. Prosecutors sought jail time, and sentencing guidelines called for up to 22 months for the fourth-degree rape charge.
Shattuck originally faced other charges — including providing alcohol to a minor — that were dropped as part of her plea agreement.
Shattuck was required to register as a sex offender in Delaware and in Maryland for 25 years.
alisonk@baltsun.com
twitter.com/aliknez |
Swedish physician and statistician Hans Rosling insisted that facts must be used to guide debates over public policy. This stance is surprisingly rare since most "serious" politicians and pundits make their livings by falsely peddling dystopia and by dispensing "alternative facts." In order to get the facts about population, living standards, food supplies, ecology, economic growth, life expectancy trends, and so forth to the public, Rosling established the fantastic Gapminder project. "Unveiling the beauty of statistics for a fact based world view" is Gapminder's motto. Gapminder makes brilliantly available in easily graspable graphics the best statistical information about the human and planetary prospect.
"We promote a new way of thinking about the world and the society which we call Factfulness. It is the relaxing habit of carrying opinions that are based on solid facts," states the website. Gapminder exists because...
...We humans are born with a craving for fat and sugar. But we are also born with a craving for drama. We pay attention to dramatic stories and we get bored if nothing happens. Journalists and lobbyists tell dramatic stories. That's their job. They tell stories about extraordinary events and unusual people. The piles of dramatic stories pile up in peoples minds into an overdramatic worldview and strong negative stress feelings: "The world is getting worse!", "It's we vs. them!" , "Other people are strange!", "The population just keeps growing!" and "Nobody cares!" For the first time in human history reliable statistics exist. There's data for almost every aspect of global development. The data shows a very different picture: a world where most things improve; a world that is not divided. People across cultures and religions make decisions based on universal human needs, which are easy to understand. The fast population growth will soon be over. The total number of children in the world has stopped growing. The remaining population growth is an inevitable consequence of large generations born decades back. We live in a globalized world, not only in terms of trade and migration. More people than ever care about global development! The world has never been less bad. Which doesn't mean it's perfect. The world is far from perfect. The dramatic worldview has to be dismantled, because it is stressful and wrong. It leads to bad focus and bad decisions. We know this because we have measured the global ignorance among the world's top decision makers in public and private sector. Their global ignorance is high, just like the ignorance of journalists, activists, teachers and the general public. This has nothing to do with intelligence. It's a problem of factual knowledge. Facts don't come naturally. Drama and opinions do. Factual knowledge has to be learned. We need to teach global facts in schools and in corporate training. This is an exciting problem to work on and we invite all our users to join the Gapminder movement for global factfulness. The problem can be solved, because the data exists.
Earlier I cited a Nature article about Rosling which offered a 8 item quiz (scroll down a bit) that promises to change your mind about the world.
Rosling died of pancreatic cancer on Tuesday morning. Rosling did great good for the world and he will be sorely missed. |
US schools are not yet ready for Linux. Yes sad to say, it is not because they can’t do Linux or don’t need a feasible, safe and renewable source for technology. US schools are not ready to accept Linux because they don’t feel the need.
1. Teachers Resistant to Change
You may be shocked to know that most teachers really look at technology as an evil requirement. Teachers feel overburdened with creating lesson plans, managing ever increasing problems with students, left with little energy or desire to learn new technology. Even proposing the idea of Linux will be met with heavy resistance just because it means change.
2. Teachers are Not Accountable for Technology
Teachers must be held accountable for their implementation of technology into the classroom curriculum. Just because you take kids to a computer lab it does not mean that they learned anything from that time. Teachers must have a clearly outlined requirement for what they are responsible to teach to students in technology. Many school districts have technology goals but the teachers are not really held accountable to achieve the goals. Goals need to be measured on a regular basis. You can argue their are Federal mandates for technology but all that is talk because on the local school system level…no one checks if teachers are doing anything worth while in technology. In reality, most teachers are not doing anything new in technology so how could you ever suggest Linux.
3. School Boards are Technology Clueless
In fact, if you look at schools systems closely you will find that many school boards have people on them that are completely unqualified, especially in technology. I have been to countless school board meetings trying to explain and demonstrate technology goals especially as they relate to Linux. I understand that school board positions are thankless and most people would not even consider it but if you want technology and Linux in schools you must get people on school boards who have an understanding of the technology needs and how Linux can meet those goals.
4. Change the Grant Process
Grants are the worst thing that could ever happen for a school district. First, almost all grants are directly tied to Microsoft software. Second, most school districts use grants to purchase technology they cannot sustain. So that, they have a surge of technology and in a few years they are back to total junk. If school districts see technology as important they need to budget for training and equipment. I have never seen a grant for Linux! Each time I have written a grant and suggested Linux it has been challenged, challenged by individuals who really have no idea about Linux or technology. If you want to see Linux in schools create some Linux grants.
5. Create a Technology Plan
Schools need 5 year technology plans that they are forced to implement and be accountable for. Sure, ERATE requires a technology plan for schools but most teachers have never seen the plan and no one implements the plan. And once again there is no accountability for the plan. The school slaps together a plan and submits it to the state and it is given a rubber stamp. Here in Montana the schools send the technology plans to the state and it was discovered that the state did not even read the plans…just approved them.
Conclusion:
Water runs down hill and sad to say that describes the US school system. Until we as Americans can individually and as a country demand more out of schools and educators, Linux is only a remote option.
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Representatives of Ansar al-Sharia — al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's (AQAP) political wing — would later visit the children, bringing candy and 100,000 Yemeni riyals each (then worth $465). The militants also swore to take revenge on the families' behalf, tapping into the Yemeni tradition of blood feud.
The targeted car as it continues to burn following the CIA drone attack in Azzan on March 30, 2012. (Photo by Ayman al-Bariki)
Though the number of people injured in covert US strikes is not officially recorded, they play a crucial role in the struggle for hearts and minds across Yemen's southern hinterland. Bystanders and family rushed the children to a local clinic, where Hamza awoke while shrapnel was extracted from his chest. All of the children survived.
Next to Amin, his friend Hamza Khaled Baziyad lay unconscious. In total, five children aged between 10 and 14 were injured as they gathered close to the local mosque.
Recovering from his shock, 13-year-old Amin realized he had been hit by shrapnel. "Blood was pouring from my leg."
"I was on my way to play football with my friends when the airstrike hit," Amin Ali al-Wisabi told VICE News, recounting the day when a CIA drone struck his hometown of Azzan in Yemen. "We had stopped to sit down and plan the match when all of a sudden an explosion hit a passing al-Qaeda car."
Read more
"I was on my way to play football with my friends when the airstrike hit," Amin Ali al-Wisabi told VICE News, recounting the day when a CIA drone struck his hometown of Azzan in Yemen. "We had stopped to sit down and plan the match when all of a sudden an explosion hit a passing al-Qaeda car."
Recovering from his shock, 13-year-old Amin realized he had been hit by shrapnel. "Blood was pouring from my leg."
Next to Amin, his friend Hamza Khaled Baziyad lay unconscious. In total, five children aged between 10 and 14 were injured as they gathered close to the local mosque.
Though the number of people injured in covert US strikes is not officially recorded, they play a crucial role in the struggle for hearts and minds across Yemen's southern hinterland. Bystanders and family rushed the children to a local clinic, where Hamza awoke while shrapnel was extracted from his chest. All of the children survived.
The targeted car as it continues to burn following the CIA drone attack in Azzan on March 30, 2012. (Photo by Ayman al-Bariki)
Representatives of Ansar al-Sharia — al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's (AQAP) political wing — would later visit the children, bringing candy and 100,000 Yemeni riyals each (then worth $465). The militants also swore to take revenge on the families' behalf, tapping into the Yemeni tradition of blood feud.
Saleh Muhammed al-Sunna, a 55-year-old pedestrian on his way to Azzan's vegetable market, was just 15 meters (50 feet) from the targeted vehicle. The intensity of the blast tore his body to pieces. Days later Ansar al-Sharia gave his family 200,000 riyals.
Related: Britain's Covert War in Yemen: A VICE News Investigation
"The deaths of innocent bystanders has a moral dimension but also a huge strategic dimension in cultures which have a very strong sense of honor," said British MP David Davis, chair of the UK's All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drones. "It will make the problem worse."
The Azzan strike, on March 30, 2012, is clear proof of the risk. "We were devastated by the news of Saleh's death," said Abdelhakim al-Hadad, al-Sunna's cousin. "We would have done anything to avenge his death. America and Britain are the ones who deprived our family of its breadwinner."
The ID card and portrait of Saleh Muhammed al-Sunna, who was killed by the drone strike while on his way to buy vegetables. Witnesses found his body in pieces. (Photo by Abdelhakim al-Hadad)
The target of the strike was Ahmed Said Saad, who five Azzan residents described to VICE News as a Syrian doctor and a member of Ansar al-Sharia. Documents from GCHQ, Britain's signals intelligence agency, leaked by Edward Snowden, described Saad using the codename "Khalid Usama," as part of a group of radical surgeons working for AQAP.
According to another account, Saad is believed to have worked with bomb maker Ibrahim al-Asiri to surgically implant undetectable explosives in would-be suicide bombers.
Al-Asiri had already experimented with inserting explosives into the anal cavity but found that the volume of explosives that could be held there struggled to project through the body. Instead he moved on to producing explosives to be placed in the potential suicide bomber's "love handles."
Earlier that day, Saad gave a talk seven miles down the road in the town of al-Houta in Shabwa governorate. As a VICE News investigation revealed, the doctor was found by an agent working for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also known as MI6) who tagged his vehicle, allowing it to be picked up by the Overhead program — a surveillance network run by the US, UK, and Australia integrating satellite imagery with digital and telephonic communications.
'They could've hit them on open road, away from a built-up area. Why didn't they do that?'
The Overhead program, of which GCHQ is a part, then informed the CIA, who sought corroboration of the target's location from officers at Yemen's National Security Bureau (NSB), who SIS agents were mentoring, before routing a drone to intercept the car. It is likely GCHQ was tracking Saad as part of the program, before passing on the information for the strike. As a former senior CIA official responsible for operations in Yemen explained: "The sharing there was very, very extensive... particularly with the Brits. There was very clear coordination and cooperation."
Although Saad's 4x4 was in open ground on its short journey, the Reaper drone tracking his vehicle did not fire until the car entered Azzan, a town of approximately 10,000 people. The CIA drone unleashed a Hellfire missile as the vehicle passed by a vegetable market near a mosque in the western district of Azzan's inner town. The two militants were killed instantly.
The proximity of al-Sunna, only 15 meters from the blast, and the shrapnel injuries to five children in a populated area raise questions about the CIA's rules of engagement. US military documents leaked to The Intercept in 2015 show that one condition required before a strike is that there is a "low" risk of collateral damage, as determined by a pre-strike Collateral Damage Environment (CDE) assessment.
"CDE-Low," according to US rules of engagement guidelines, means that no civilian should be within the "kill radius" of the strike, which for a Hellfire missile is 15-20 meters from the point of detonation. The strike is deemed to be CDE-Low if civilians are within the "casualty radius," the area within which there is a risk of shrapnel injury. While the five children were within the casualty radius of the strike, al-Sunna was within the kill radius, suggesting that the CIA did not conform to the US military's rules of engagement.
The attack also raises questions in Britain about the legality of SIS' intelligence sharing, which was critical to the find-and-fix phase of Saad's assassination. UK rules of engagement require that there is no risk of collateral damage according to the pre-strike CDE, either within the kill or casualty radius of the strike.
"Where the British state knows the intelligence will lead to an assassination, we ought to be confident that it meets our own rules and guidelines, by which I mean laws," Davis, the UK MP, told VICE News.
SIS shared the targeting information because Saad's name was added to a shared kill list by President Barack Obama. At the time, the addition sparked debates within the US intelligence community. According to Daniel Klaidman, author of Kill or Capture, several US intelligence officials were skeptical of Saad's involvement in al-Asiri's work. There were also concerns about the implications of targeting doctors.
But as one former senior CIA official, responsible for operations in Yemen, told VICE News, al-Asiri was undoubtedly "among the most dangerous threats to Western nations." By extension that included his acolytes and, once Obama had ruled on Saad's fate, the CIA and SIS were cleared to engage.
Related: Dead Civilians, Uneasy Alliances, and the Fog of Yemen's War
That they eventually did so inside a densely populated town alarmed many of Azzan's residents. Mohsen Hassan Salem, who took his injured nephew Amin for treatment in the provincial capital of al-Mukalla some 140 miles away, told VICE News that "the family really struggled" to meet the $1,500 cost of treatment. "They could've hit them on open road, away from a built-up area. Why didn't they do that?"
Nearly a year after the strike, the CIA arranged for $50,000 in freshly minted dollar bills to be paid to al-Sunna's family via the NSB, Yemen's principal intelligence agency. But they never compensated the children. This is only the second publicized case of secret CIA condolence payments.
A spokesman for the White House's National Security Council told VICE News: "Although we will not comment on specific cases, were non-combatants killed or injured in a US strike, condolence or other ex gratia payments, such as solatia, may be available for those injured and the families of those killed."
But the CIA's gesture was likely too little too late. By then AQAP had already twice visited the injured children to pay condolences, bringing 50,000 riyals on each occasion and promising revenge on their behalf. The CIA's cash delivery was not accompanied by any recognition of its mistake or apology. The NSB official who handed al-Sunna's family representative the money suggested but never conceded that the money had come from "the Americans."
'It was as if a sheep had been slaughtered, nothing more'
Al-Hadad, authorized to represent the family, said that in exchange for receiving the cash, the NSB official demanded he bring a signed declaration from the family stating that they would forfeit any legal recourse. The encounter with the NSB was cold, he said. "It was as if a sheep had been slaughtered, nothing more."
The Yemeni government has long struggled to maintain a strong presence outside of Sanaa, and such interactions engendered hostility among the local population, making them less willing to provide information about al-Qaeda, and even sympathize with the jihadist cause. Since 2011, Azzan has been regularly occupied by AQAP militants, who once again took the town last February.
Professor Jillian Schwedler, of City University of New York, recently wrote that historically Yemen's Islamists saw no place for jihadists in the country's politics. But the secret war in Yemen, now in its 15th year, helped change that. "For al-Qaeda, the drone program is a gift from the heavens. Its recruiting narrative exploits common misperceptions of American omnipotence, offering an alternative route to justice and empowerment," she noted.
Yemeni boys in front of their houses, damaged during a US drone-backed campaign against al-Qaeda in the southern town of Zinjibar in February 2013.(Photo by Yahya Arhab/EPA)
The British government has never publicly admitted involvement in the US' covert war in Yemen. Moreover, in 2013, UK Ambassador to Yemen Jane Marriot categorically stated: "We don't support any form of extrajudicial killing." But, as a VICE News investigation revealed, British SIS officers and seconded military personnel provided systematic and sustained support for the CIA strikes in Yemen. And in Saad's case, British intelligence was crucial to his assassination.
VICE News put its findings to the CIA, GCHQ, and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which represents SIS, but all declined to comment.
Letta Tayler, senior counterterrorism researcher at Human Rights Watch, commented: "When AQAP does a better job than the US government at providing redress for civilian deaths in US drone strikes, the Obama administration should realize it has a serious problem."
"These allegations raise serious questions about the role the UK is playing in Washington's legally dubious drone program, The UK should immediately make public any role it played in US drone strikes in Yemen, and explain the basis for these actions under international law."
Additional reporting by Mohyeddin al-Shawtari.
Follow Namir Shabibi on Twitter: @nshabibi
Follow Jack Watling on Twitter: @Jack_Watling
Watch the VICE News documentary, Inside War-Torn Yemen, Sanaa Under Attack: |
Another 90210 resident is heading for the hills.
Sources confirm to TVLine exclusively that Trevor Donovan — whose heretofore-closeted alter ego Teddy was at the center of a high profile coming out storyline last season — will not be returning to The CW soap as a series regular for Season 4.
Fans, however, have not seen the last of Teddy.
Although a spokesperson for the show declined to comment, a 90210 insider says Donovan will appear as a guest star in roughly five episodes this fall.
“I look back on getting this real-life story line as a blessing,” Donovan told TVLine in a statement. “To be able to simultaneously take on a challenging role and bring awareness to a relevant social issue was a win-win for me. I’m looking forward to what opportunities and adventures lie ahead.”
News of Donovan’s looming departure comes as 90210 undergoes a period of transition — both on screen and off. Season 4 will find much of the West Bev crew moving on to college — a rite of passage that triggered the exits of the show’s two remaining adult characters, Lori Loughlin and Ryan Eggold. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Life Unexpected scribes Patti Carr and Lara Olsen have taken over as co-showrunners, replacing Rebecca Sinclair.
Thoughts? Shocked? Saddened? Indifferent? Did you see the writing on the wall? Weigh in below. |
Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon refuses to name these politicians with 'unreasonable requests' to the Bureau of Customs, but tells them to stop their corrupt ways
Published 3:40 PM, August 02, 2017
MANILA, Philippines – Bureau of (BOC) Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon said getting out of his job "will be the happiest day of his life," but also vowed that he would not step down.
"They can kick me out anytime," Faeldon said in a press briefing on Wednesday, August 2. "But this is a mission for me and as a soldier, I will not quit."
Lawmakers have called for the BOC chief to resign after a shabu shipment from China worth P6.4 billion was smuggled into the Philippines. (READ: Faeldon asks Duterte to probe P6.4B shabu shipment from China)
But Faeldon lashed back at politicians, saying they help perpetuate corruption in the BOC with their "unreasonable requests."
Faeldon said he receives calls every day asking that certain people be promoted, requesting specific designations, and offering bribes for deductions on shipment fees.
Many of these politicians, he said, have people in the BOC "to protect the interests of their bosses."
"My God! Shame on you. Stop it," Faeldon said. "This is not your country, this is not your property. This is not mine. This is the Filipinos' Bureau of Customs."
While Faeldon refused to name names, he hinted that one who is most angry at him in Congress has sent him the most requests.
"Look at you. Ikaw 'yung madaming pinapadala sa aking requests, kaya galit na galit ka ngayon," he said. (Look at you. You're the one who sends me a lot of requests, and that's why you're angry now.)
When asked if he mentioned these "corrupt" politicians to President Rodrigo Duterte in their emergency meeting on Tuesday, August 1, Faeldon said it was not in his nature to do such a thing.
"I don't want to humiliate anybody... Hindi ako mahilig magsumbong. (I don't like to report people.) I appeal to them directly," he said. "Magalit na kayo sa akin (Get mad at me). Try your best to take me out of here everyday. But as long as I am here, I will continue to say no [to your requests]."
In the same meeting, the President "reiterated his trust and confidence" in the BOC chief and asked him to stay on.
Faeldon said he was given a general order "to cleanse the bureau of anything – corruption, drugs, everything."
The commissioner's job
Following the interrogation he received at the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Faeldon said lawmakers failed to ask him the right questions.
He said many of their questions related to the job of employees and not that of the commissioner.
"My job here is to chart the strategic directions of the bureau. Not to supervise. Not to micromanage. Not to do the job of an agent," Faeldon said.
"What are my plans to put in place permanent reforms to eradicate corruption here? To permanently end smuggling here? To make the bureau more efficient – at par with the practices all over the world? These are the questions I want to be asked."
Adding to the problem of corruption is the lack of training for the bureau's employees, according to Faeldon.
"For 115 years, this bureau has never had a training institution... Pagpasok mo (When you begin working here), you have one-hour orientation and you're in. That's why the bureau is so corrupt," he said.
"We are dealing with millions of pesos every day. The temptation is so high, so the character of the employee must be very strong. They have to refuse, they have to reject."
Faeldon also explained that with only 16% capacity for X-ray inspections in the BOC, there is a higher chance that contraband would get into the country.
Until this capacity for X-ray inspections reaches 100%, he said, corruption would continue in the bureau.
"The smugglers, they know our weaknesses." – Rappler.com |
Ramda
A practical functional library for JavaScript programmers.
Why Ramda?
There are already several excellent libraries with a functional flavor. Typically, they are meant to be general-purpose toolkits, suitable for working in multiple paradigms. Ramda has a more focused goal. We wanted a library designed specifically for a functional programming style, one that makes it easy to create functional pipelines, one that never mutates user data.
What's Different?
The primary distinguishing features of Ramda are:
Ramda emphasizes a purer functional style. Immutability and side-effect free functions are at the heart of its design philosophy. This can help you get the job done with simple, elegant code.
Ramda functions are automatically curried. This allows you to easily build up new functions from old ones simply by not supplying the final parameters.
The parameters to Ramda functions are arranged to make it convenient for currying. The data to be operated on is generally supplied last.
The last two points together make it very easy to build functions as sequences of simpler functions, each of which transforms the data and passes it along to the next. Ramda is designed to support this style of coding.
Introductions
Philosophy
Using Ramda should feel much like just using JavaScript. It is practical, functional JavaScript. We're not introducing lambda expressions in strings, we're not borrowing consed lists, we're not porting over all of the Clojure functions.
Our basic data structures are plain JavaScript objects, and our usual collections are JavaScript arrays. We also keep other native features of JavaScript, such as functions as objects with properties.
Functional programming is in good part about immutable objects and side-effect free functions. While Ramda does not enforce this, it enables such style to be as frictionless as possible.
We aim for an implementation both clean and elegant, but the API is king. We sacrifice a great deal of implementation elegance for even a slightly cleaner API.
Last but not least, Ramda strives for performance. A reliable and quick implementation wins over any notions of functional purity.
Installation
To use with node:
$ npm install ramda
Then in the console:
const R = require('ramda');
To use directly in the browser:
<script src="path/to/yourCopyOf/ramda.js"></script>
or the minified version:
<script src="path/to/yourCopyOf/ramda.min.js"></script>
or from a CDN, either cdnjs:
<script src="//cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/ramda/0.25.0/ramda.min.js"></script>
or one of the below links from jsDelivr:
<script src="//cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/ramda@0.25.0/dist/ramda.min.js"></script> <script src="//cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/ramda@0.25/dist/ramda.min.js"></script> <script src="//cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/ramda@latest/dist/ramda.min.js"></script>
(note that using latest is taking a significant risk that ramda API changes could break your code.)
These script tags add the variable R on the browser's global scope.
Or you can inject ramda into virtually any unsuspecting website using the bookmarklet.
Note for versions > 0.25 Ramda versions > 0.25 don't have a default export. So instead of import R from 'ramda'; , one has to use import * as R from 'ramda'; Or better yet, import only the required functions via import { functionName } from 'ramda';
Build
npm run build creates es , src directories and updates both dist/ramda.js and dist/ramda.min.js
Partial Builds
It is possible to build Ramda with a subset of the functionality to reduce its file size. Ramda's build system supports this with command line flags. For example if you're using R.compose , R.reduce , and R.filter you can create a partial build with:
npm run --silent partial-build compose reduce filter > dist/ramda.custom.js
This requires having Node/io.js installed and ramda's dependencies installed (just use npm install before running partial build).
Documentation
Please review the API documentation.
Also available is our Cookbook of functions built from Ramda that you may find useful.
The Name
Ok, so we like sheep. That's all. It's a short name, not already taken. It could as easily have been eweda , but then we would be forced to say eweda lamb!, and no one wants that. For non-English speakers, lambs are baby sheep, ewes are female sheep, and rams are male sheep. So perhaps ramda is a grown-up lambda... but probably not.
Running The Test Suite
Console:
To run the test suite from the console, you need to have mocha installed:
npm install -g mocha
Then from the root of the project, you can just call
mocha
Alternately, if you've installed the dependencies, via:
npm install
then you can run the tests (and get detailed output) by running:
npm test
Browser:
You can use testem to test across different browsers (or even headlessly), with livereloading of tests. Install testem ( npm install -g testem ) and run testem . Open the link provided in your browser and you will see the results in your terminal.
If you have PhantomJS installed, you can run testem -l phantomjs to run the tests completely headlessly.
Usage
For v0.25 and up, import the whole library or pick ES modules directly from the library:
import * as R from 'ramda' const {identity} = R R.map(identity, [1, 2, 3])
Destructuring imports from ramda does not necessarily prevent importing the entire library. You can manually cherry-pick methods like the following, which would only grab the parts necessary for identity to work:
import identity from 'ramda/src/identity' identity()
Manually cherry picking methods is cumbersome, however. Most bundlers like Webpack and Rollup offer tree-shaking as a way to drop unused Ramda code and reduce bundle size, but their performance varies, discussed here. Here is a summary of the optimal setup based on what technology you are using:
Webpack + Babel - use babel-plugin-ramda to automatically cherry pick methods. Discussion here, example here Webpack only - use UglifyJS plugin for treeshaking along with the ModuleConcatenationPlugin . Discussion here, with an example setup here Rollup - does a fine job properly treeshaking, no special work needed; example here
Typings
Translations
Acknowledgements
Thanks to J. C. Phillipps for the Ramda logo. Ramda logo artwork © 2014 J. C. Phillipps. Licensed Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. |
There are three brand new Disney Pixar "Cars Toons" Shorty Shorts now live on Disney.com and Cars.Disney.com. Dubbed "Shorty Shorts" because they're no longer than a minute and a half long, each video offers a quick and fun peek into the world of "Cars." Directed by Jeremy Lasky and produced by Mary Alice Drumm, Disney Pixar "Cars Toons" feature some of our favorite characters in new and surprising situations.
Head to Disney.com or Cars.Disney.com to check out all three videos, including:
· "Hiccups" - When Lightning McQueen gets the hiccups, everyone in Radiator Springs thinks they have the cure.
· "Bugged" - Red's peaceful morning routine is interrupted by a pesky visitor.
· "Spinning" - Guido discovers he has a hidden talent as a street corner sign spinner. |
There's a number that illustrates the brutal dynamics of the hyperinflation of 1923 better than anything else. It's the number four. In the fall of 1923, prices were doubling in Germany approximately every four days.
Grotesque price increases have occurred in other countries and at other times, such as in Greece in 1944, China in 1949 and Zimbabwe in 2008. But hyperinflation has left behind deeper scars in Germany than anywhere else. Three generations after the collapse of the German mark, the fear of hyperinflation is more alive today than ever before.
The global glut of money as a result of the financial crisis has evoked painful memories of the great inflation that began with the beginning of World War I in 1914 and ended in chaos in 1923. Each new report on the need for billions in Europe's crisis-ridden countries reignites concerns over the stability of money. According to a poll by the Allensbach opinion research firm, Germans fear inflation even more than life-threatening diseases like cancer.
'A Repeat Is Unthinkable'
Worried citizens are fleeing into tangible assets, buying gold and silver bars, houses and apartments -- or at least books with grim titles like "National Bankruptcy is Coming!" The paradoxical aspect of the inflation debate is that so far only the warnings have been inflationary. The euro has proven to be more stable than the deutsche mark ever was. Economists are more concerned that prices will decline on a broad scale, crippling the economy. It makes no sense to invoke terrible visions of 1923 today, says economic historian Hans-Joachim Voth. "A repeat is unthinkable," he notes. The Germans suffer from a sort of "collective psychosis," concludes Voth, who teaches in Barcelona.
Jens Weidmann, president of the German central bank, the Bundesbank, also views the inflation of the 1920, along with the 1948 currency reform, in which Reichsmark savings were converted to deutsche mark at a ratio of 100 to 6.50, as "historically unique events." Both, says Weidmann, were primarily a consequence of paying for the war by printing money. And, according to Weidmann, they also highlight the risks that occur "when a bank subordinates the goal of securing monetary value to securing the solvency of the state."
A later phase in economic history is of greater importance to the president of the Bundesbank. "For us today, the lessons of the 1970s and early 1980s are far more important, because the independent Bundesbank was more effective than other central banks in controlling the inflation triggered by the oil price shocks." So why do citizens still react so sensitively, if not hysterically, when it comes to 1923?
The 'Delirium of Billions'
Perhaps the most important reason is that the middle class suffered the most from the hyperinflation of 1923: white-collar workers, government employees and the self-employed, all diligent savers, who became completely impoverished and drifted into the "delirium of billions," as the later Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau described the state of emergency.
Families today still remember the horrifying reports of what once happened to grandparents and great-grandparents. The fate of someone like Berlin author Maximilian Bern illustrates the extent of despair.
In 1923, Bern withdrew his savings, more than 100,000 marks, from the bank. But 100,000 wasn't much compared with the 2.5 quintillion marks in circulation at the end of October. Years earlier, the money would have been enough to pay for Bern's retirement, but now it was worth no more than the price of his last subway ticket. Bern went home, locked his door and died of hunger.
Doctors, teachers and professors had not only lost everything they owned, but also their confidence in the state. In 1914, many had gone to war with enthusiasm, and they had bought bonds, which generally yielded a five-percent return. The government collected 98 billion marks, but not a pfennig of the money was repaid.
A Double Loss of Confidence
People felt cheated, both of victory in the war and their money in the bank. The same bitter experience was repeated a generation later, when the Third Reich came to an end.
This double loss of confidence shaped the civil society of the postwar period. Its members yearned for stability and order and were sharply opposed to experiments, especially with their money. This need for security -- in other words, their aversion to risk -- is practically proverbial to this day in Germany.
A pronounced emphasis on security in monetary matters also shapes behavior in the business community. Particularly companies in key industries, such as machine building and plant manufacturing, have a very strong interest in a stable currency, because of their need to estimate long-term costs. Years often pass between the receipt of an order and the delivery of products.
"We need patient capital for our type of production," says Werner Abelshauser, an economic historian from the western city of Bielefeld. For this reason, he explains, German business owners still harbor a deep fear of inflation. Southern European economies are more trade-oriented, says Abelshauser, and they have shorter turnaround times and are therefore less sensitive to inflation.
An Obsessive Pursuit of Stability
But probably the greatest impact of the experiences of 1923 is on German monetary policy, even if Bundesbank President Weidmann tends to downplay this today. The Bank of the German States, the precursor to the Bundesbank, also set clear priorities. The stability of the currency was paramount, while stimulating the economy and fighting unemployment were secondary. The first Bundesbank president, Wilhelm Vocke, was all but obsessive in pursuing this course.
Vocke became the director of the Reichsbank, Germany's central bank, in 1919 at the age of only 33 and would stay until 1945. He was appalled at how, in 1923, the central bank leadership focused its energy on the smooth operation of the printing presses, and at how spending policy in the Third Reich led "straight to inflation." Vocke was subsequently forced to leave the Reichsbank. After the war, he was in a perfect position to help launch the new currency.
In 1948, the Allies had decreed that the Bank of the German States was not to be "subject to the directives of any political entities or public agencies, with the exception of the courts." It was something then Chancellor Konrad Adenauer could never accept. He persistently tried to exert pressure on Vocke, such as in May 1956, when the Bundesbank tightened the reins as the economy threatened to become overheated. Vocke, as self-confident as the chancellor, remained unimpressed. The chancellor, he later joked, was "a complete novice in this difficult field. I let him talk." The Bundesbank's independence promoted so much confidence in the currency that the Germans, despite their fears of inflation, became a nation of savers.
The Irony of History
"Independence and the clear mandate to ensure price stability remain the conditions of success for a central bank," says Weidmann. "This also, and particularly, applies to the euro system." Of course, this makes him part of a minority on the executive board of the European Central Bank (ECB), because the ECB is literally flooding markets with cheap money, even to an "unlimited" extent if necessary, as ECB President Mario Draghi has stated.
This is the irony of history: Washington and Paris, the Western wartime allies, once decreed complete independence and strict budgetary discipline for the Bundesbank, but now the mentors are violating their own principles. |
Once the darlings of the UK startup scene, Dopplr has dwindled inexorably ever since it was bought by Nokia a year ago
Founded in Finland early in 2007, Dopplr was the great white, beautiful hope of the UK startup scene; a well-respected design and development team, and a service that imaginatively and stylishly captured the zeitgeist of business, travel and location services.
It published annual travel summaries for users and included their carbon output. It boosted the profile of money-spinning conferences. And – of most interest to potential investors – it attracted a wealthy, technophile and evangelical base of "upscale" business users. Backers included Esther Dyson, Tyler Brule, Joshua Schachter, Lars Hinrichs and Reid Hoffman. So what could go wrong?
In a word: Nokia.
The Finnish mobile manufacturer, which sells more phones than any other company, paid a rumoured $20m (give or take a few million) for the service almost exactly a year ago, with a deal that closed on 28 September, 2009.
Since then, Dopplr has fallen completely out of the web's view. Its blog has not been updated since two days after the acquisition. While Dopplr was too young to have grown a large user base, the Nokia acquisition could, with some imagination, have given it scale. Instead, comScore shows its monthly unique user numbers falling from 39,000 in September 2009 to 29,000 in July this year.
While the Guardian has been told that Dopplr's back-end system is still being maintained, its front-of-house appears woefully neglected, with no sign of the much-admired annual travel reports. Even if this was purely a talent acquisition, with the company bought for its staff, why allow the site to wither on the vine?
Dopplr's design chief Matt Jones had already left, joining Schulze & Webb (reincarnated as Berg) but still tied to Dopplr one day a month as a design advisor. Jones already had close to ties with Nokia as a former director of UX design there. Not only that, chief executive Marko Ahtisaari became senior vice president for design at Nokia, chief tech officer Matt Biddulph and developer Tom Insam both moved to Nokia's base in Berlin as strategist and developer respectively and are still there, working out lock-in periods.
At the time of the acquisition, people only saw possibility. "I'm guardedly optimistic that Nokia is smart enough to know not screw up a truly elegant service," wrote Dopplr user Chad in response to the news. Duncan Semple added: "I just hope the service won't get neglected or changed too much to fit with Nokia's other services." Trickles of comments this year have variously asked if anyone is still listening — and, echoing in an empty blog, talked of transferring to rival service TripIt.
Despite numerous requests over a number of weeks for comment about its plans for Dopplr, Nokia has not responded.
Since the launch of its Ovi internet services brand in August 2007 – soon after Apple's game-changing iPhone went on sale – Nokia has made a series of acquisitions to try and offer more social media and location features for its mobile phones. The results, however, are far from compelling.
In June 2008, Nokia acquired social activity service Plazes, saying the "visionary team" and "key assets" would allow it to extend its context-based services. The service is still operational — but has not been integrated with Ovi.
Nokia bought Canada's Oz Communications in November 2008 to improve social messaging services, German map technology firm bit-side GmbH in February 2009 and Hamburg-based Cellity in July 2009. Like many of the other deals, Cellity appeared to be a straightforward talent acquisition; Nokia said at the time the deal would "accelerate service development in some areas" and immediately closed the service. A month later it bought Plum, a 'private' social network from the US. And last week Nokia completed its acquisition of Motally, a US mobile metrics tool, saying it would continue to serve Motally's existing customer base.
However on the same day, to Motally users' dismay, it sent them a termination notice for the service.
All these firms, like Dopplr, have joined Nokia's services division. Fred Destin, a prominent venture capitalist, told the Guardian that the Dopplr deal was a straightforward talent acquisition, and that Dopplr was never that powerful. For Nokia and its vast, mainstream consumer base, there was little incentive in maintaining a niche service.
"My sense is that they were going to try and look at Dopplr as a horizontal piece of technology they could use on phones," he said. "Nokia doesn't have a great track record of maintaining innovation internally, and they are in soul-searching mode. It's a classic case of a large company acquiring a small company and not being entirely sure what to do with it."
He added: "There's a bunch of reasons it was a weird acquisition and it's difficult for a small company to flourish inside a company like that."
Comparable services Yapta and TripIt had 104,000 unique users in September 2009, according to comScore. Yapta shrank to 29,000 by July 2010 but TripIt grew to 190,000.
One UK startup told the Guardian how his startup pulled back from a partnership with Nokia. "The experience in the app store and Ovi Maps is just too poor. I don't think there's anything they could have done with Dopplr. They aren't used to a partnership world."
One other entrepreneur said that the deal could be valued in terms of its staff, and cited a common startup valuation formula of $500,000 per high-profile developer. At that rate, Biddulph, Jones and the team should be very pleased with the price put on their head. As for Dopplr – perhaps it was only ever a beautiful experiment, and one that ended in a modest but well-earned exit for its creators.
But Nokia needs something to start going right for it. Though it sells more smartphones than any other company, including Apple and BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM), in 2009 its revenues fell by 20% compared with 2008, from €50bn to €41bn, but its profits crashed from €3.7bn to just €270m – and its first-quarter figures for 2010 were more like 2009 than 2008.
Its efforts to launch the Ovi app store to compete with Apple's iPhone app store and the Android Marketplace run by Google have impressed few so far – and if the lesson of Dopplr is repeated, then it may be shunned by exactly the innovative people it needs to attract.
One source close to Dopplr said he wasn't surprised Dopplr was being allowed to deflate. "Nokia," he said. "Where good ideas go to die ..."
Companies bought by Nokia
A selected list of acquisitions the company has made over the past three years
Dopplr
What is it: travel-focused social network
When bought: September 2009
How much: $20m (est)
What happened next: nothing, apparently. "We have decided to bring it into a maintenance mode… but will not develop it further at this stage," Nokia said in a statement on Friday following the Guardian's story on its disappearance.
Symbian
What is it: mobile operating system company; Nokia already held shares
When bought: June 2008
How much: €264m
What happened next: it made Symbian open source and based its phones on it.
Navteq
What is it: American-based sat-nav data and products
When bought: October 2007
How much: $8.1bn
What happened next: Nokia phones now include free sat-nav.
Novarra
What is it: wireless internet system
When bought: March 2010
How much: n/a
What happened next: nothing visible.
Cellity
What is it: web and mobile address book
When bought: July 2009
How much: n/a
What happened next: nothing visible. The last mention of Cellity on Nokia's site is in 2009.
Plum
What is it: system for saving and sharing files in a social network
When bought: September 2009
How much: n/a
What happened next: visitors to plum.com have fallen to a tenth of those a year ago.
Motally
What is it: mobile analytics
When bought: August 2010
How much: n/a
What happened next: Motally customers were told accounts would be closed. |
A Tokoroa couple who savagely attacked two children over a number of years have each been jailed for 18 months.
Stanley Willard Hamon, 46, and Elizabeth Tanya Matangi, 33, were found guilty by a Rotorua District Court jury in February of wilful ill treatment, assaults with a weapon and assaults on a boy and girl at various places around the North Island, Matangi from 2001 to 2011 and Hamon from 2005 to 2011.
Sentencing them today Judge Chris McGuire compared them with Bonnie and Clyde without weapons. He said they had been on the run from authorities after Matangi had abducted the two youngsters who had been in CYF care.
She is presently serving two years four months behind bars for the abduction and today's sentence was added to that, taking her total jail time to 3 years 10 months.
One of the charges against Hamon stemmed from him holding a gun to the boy's head, threatening to shoot him then bury him in a forest.
The child had been hit over the head by Matangi with a hot pot and a bowl.
The jury heard Hamon had pushed both children's heads down a toilet and whipped the boy with a belt. Judge McGuire said despite the guilty verdicts against him Hamon continued to maintain his innocence.
Crown prosecutor, Chris Macklin, said since the trial the boy had attempted to take his life. During the trial Judge McGuire ruled the girl should not give evidence because of her "parlous psychological state". |
The devastation incurred by the landfall of Hurricane Sandy on the northeast coast of the United States just over one year ago exemplifies the need for further advances in accuracy and reliability in numerical weather prediction. High resolution numerical weather simulations carried out on hundreds of thousands of processors on the largest supercomputers are providing these very insights.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model has been employed on the largest yet storm prediction model using real data of over 4 billion points to simulate the landfall of Hurricane Sandy. Using an unprecedented 13,680 nodes (437,760 cores) of the Cray XE6 Blue Waters supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, the team of Peter Johnsen from Cray, Inc., Mark Straka from NCSA, and Mel Shapiro, Alan Norton, and Tom Galarneau from NCAR achieved an unprecedented level of performance for any weather model. The model used approximately 4 billion grid points at an extremely fine resolution of 500 meters. Forecast data was written and analyzed by the NCAR team members using the NCAR VAPOR visualization suite.
The landfall of Hurricane Sandy along the New Jersey shoreline late on October 30th, 2012 produced a catastrophic storm surge extending from New Jersey to Rhode Island. The research highlighted here demonstrates the capability of the NCSA/Cray Blue Waters supercomputer to conduct a cloud-resolving WRF-ARW simulation of an intense cyclone over a relatively large domain at a very-fine spatial resolution.
The Blue Waters system is a Cray XE/XK hybrid machine composed of 362,240 AMD 6276 “Interlagos” processors and 4224 NVIDIA GK110 Kepler accelerators all connected by the Cray Gemini 3-D (24^3) torus interconnect. It provides sustained performance of 1 petaflop on a range of real-world science and engineering applications. Our motivation was to reduce time to solution as much as was under our control without major source code restructuring. The WRF version 3.3.1 source code was modified from the public distribution chiefly with concerns for reducing the I/O burden per MPI task and limiting the necessary information to a single MPI rank.
Topology Considerations Are Vital
Domain configuration and process layout using MPI rank ordering features of the Cray XE6 job scheduler (ALPS) form a cornerstone in efficiently using the XE6 3D torus interconnect and allowing WRF to scale this successfully. We used the Cray grid_order utility to generate improved placement of the ranks for the primary communication pattern in the WRF solver, which is nearest neighbor halo exchanges. Reducing the number of neighbors communicating off-node is the primary goal. Using an alternate placement allows us to get 3 communication partners for most MPI ranks on the same node, instead of only 2, as would be with the default placement. At very high scales, this strategy improves overall WRF performance by 18% or more.
We found the most effective way to run WRF on the AMD Bulldozer core-modules was to exploit WRF’s “hybrid” MPI/OpenMP structure, utilizing 2 OpenMP threads per MPI rank. This puts 16 MPI ranks on each XE6 node.
The optimized placement we’ve employed also has the benefit of sending smaller east-west direction exchanges off-node and keeping as many larger north-south messages on-node as possible, resulting in 75% fewer bytes being sent over the network. We verified empirically the long-known tactic of decomposing WRF’s domain with many fewer MPI ranks in the X direction than the Y, as this leads to longer vectors on the inner compute loops.
Our simulations yielded an average Tflop count of 32.454 Tflops per second, per simulation time step. Parallel efficiency was still above 60% even on 13,680 XE6 nodes. Over 12 million off-node halo exchange messages totaling 280 GB were processed every WRF time step.
I/O Considerations at Scale
On the Blue Waters system, the Lustre file system was used for all file activity.
Two techniques were used to handle the large I/O requirements for the Sandy simulation –
Parallel NetCDF (PnetCDF), jointly developed by Northwestern University and Argonne National Laboratory, was used where practical. The MPICH library from Cray has a tuned MPI-IO implementation that aligns parallel I/O with the Lustre file system. This format is required when post-processing tools are used. WRF has a multi-file option where each subdomain, or MPI rank, reads and writes unique files. This was used for very large restart files and some of the pre-processing steps. The Blue Waters Lustre file system was able to open and read 145,920 restart files in 18 seconds for a 4560 node case.
Additionally, use of WRF’s auxiliary history output options to select only the output fields of greatest interest, thus reducing the volume of output considerably, was of great utility in our work.
Scalability of Hurricane Sandy run. Sustained performance in Tflops/second (y-axis, left) and parallel efficiency over base run on 8,192 cores (y-axis, right) are shown.
Forecast Analysis and Validation
The following figures show a comparison of the maximum radar reflectivity (a surrogate for precipitation) from the simulations at 3-km and 500-m horizontal resolution. In both simulations, a broad region of heavy precipitation is located on the west and southwest side of Sandy, and is organized in a region where warm moist northeasterly flow intersects a northwesterly surge of cold continental air (not shown).
Comparison of (a) 3-km and (b) 500-m horizontal resolution ARW simulations of maximum radar reflectivity (shaded according to the color bar in dBZ) verifying at 1500 UTC 29 October 2012.
The 500-m simulation is superior to that at 3-km because it shows the fine-scale linear structure of the convective precipitation bands, consistent with the available observations (not shown). The next images show a zoomed-in view of maximum radar reflectivity and 300-m wind speed within the inner-core of Sandy at 1800 UTC 29 October 2012. This zoomed perspective allows for examination of the full detail of the simulation, noting that the resolution of the simulation (7000×7000 grid points) exceeds the resolution of standard computer monitors by a factor of seven. Here we note the utility of ultra-advanced computational capability to represent the full range of scales spanning the storm-scale circulations down to fine-scale turbulent motions and individual cloud and precipitation systems.
500-m ARW simulation of (a) maximum radar reflectivity (shaded according to the color bar in dBZ) and (b) 300-m wind speed (shaded according to the color bar in m s−1) verifying at 1800 UTC 29 October 2012.
The model accuracy for predicting such key output fields as rainfall, pressures, wind speeds, and storm track was graphically validated against actual atmospheric measurements from the storm using NCAR’s VAPOR software suite. Given recent advances in accessing and displaying large volume geophysical datasets as exemplified by the VAPOR software, it is now possible to view the full temporal evolution of numerical simulations and predictions of atmospheric and other geophysical systems. Examples of the advanced visualizations of Hurricane Sandy with VAPOR can be found at:
https://www.vapor.ucar.edu/sites/default/files/movies/sandy_SC13_web_0.mp4
The results of this research will be presented at the Supercomputing conference this month in November. See the conference agenda here:
http://sc13.supercomputing.org/schedule/event_detail.php?evid=pap255
Cutting Edge Forecasting
NOAA has initiated the ten-year Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project (HFIP), which is evaluating a variety of modeling approaches, exploring the feasibility of real-time fine-scale hurricane projections. Its enhanced Hurricane WRF model (HWRF) is already being run in real time at a somewhat smaller scale. In a collaborative effort involving NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division and Environmental Modeling Center, Cray , NCSA, and NCAR, this code is already being run on Blue Waters to conduct performance studies at scale with grid nesting never before possible. Results are already promising that coming years’ hurricane seasons will be able to incorporate much finer detailed real-time forecasts generated by these simulations. The team is also exploring high resolution simulations with the Office of Naval Research ONR using the COAMPS model.
Research Team:
Peter Johnsen is a performance engineer and meteorologist with Cray, Inc. Peter’s expertise is optimizing environmental applications on HPC systems.
Mark Straka specializes in performance analysis of scientific applications on the Blue Waters system at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.
Melvyn Shapiro, Alan Norton, and Thomas Galarneau are research meteorologists with the National Center for Atmospheric Research and are studying many weather phenomena, including Hurricane Sandy’s unique nature. |
This morning, on the way to work, the employees of a few major United Kingdom-based ad agencies came across a message meant just for them.
Just in time for International Day of Action Against Advertising on Friday, artist network Brandalism's gone guerrilla again: It's erected posters in bus shelters just outside Ogilvy, JWT, AMV BBDO and TBWA Manchester, with the images referencing ad classics.
"Work for TBWA?" one reads. "You're shaping desire. You've got power and a moral responsibility. We'd love to talk to you." The ads drive people to Switch Sides, a Brandalism subsite.
"We speak with people who work in corporate advertising all the time," the site says. "Many are close friends, and express regular existential doubts about the work they do. Huge industries of artistic labour, and multi-million pound budgets—all in the pursuit of… what? Another leather sofa? The latest airline deal to Rome? Your creativity could mean so much more."
In addition to showing more photos from the execution, the manifesto continues:
Right now, the world faces multiple social and environmental crisis. Our rent is unaffordable, wealth inequality is growing, thousands are drowning in the Mediterranean sea and the climate is destabilising at a faster and faster rate. We cannot consume our way out of these problems. We need your skills and your passion. Not to sell us more Snickers bars or BP's latest sponsorship deal… but to change the world. We need more art directors, copywriters, strategic planners, graphic designers, 3D artists, developers and project managers. We need all of you. We have a battle to fight. But this not a battle against desire. We want more from life, not less. This Friday 25 March 2016 is an international day against advertising—called by our friends in France. It's a perfect day to consider what you do for a living and your role in the world. You might think, "It's easy for your to say, but I need to earn a living." And you're right, it's easy for us to write these words. Conversion, as all advertisers know, is not a simple process. We have mortgages to pay, children to support, parents to satisfy and status to uphold. We know these pressures. Many of us have worked in the industry. But we escaped the shackles of commercial marketing and fled to the worlds of community activism, environmental sustainability, refugee solidarity and artistic-political praxis. Although just a first step, confronting our responsibilities has allowed us to prioritise our personal beliefs over our corporate, career-driven selves. The sense of relief was astonishing. If you'd like to continue the conversation, then please get in touch with the email address at the bottom of this page. We promise to protect your anonymity. Where and how we take things from here, we're not quite sure. But we'll be waiting.
"The advertising industry has a profound impact on our values and what we consider important in life," said Brandalism's Robert Marcuse. "The skills of thousands of creative people are needed not to sell us more stuff, but to overcome the multiple social crisis of our times such as climate change, social inequality and child poverty. We want to start a conversation with those working in advertising about how we move beyond consumption and economic growth."
The organization also says that many of the ads were posted by former ad folk. On joining Brandalism, former creative Cynthia Philips adds, "I just didn't want to have to tell my grandchildren that I just stood at the sidelines when so many serious issues were going on around me."
The International Day Against Advertising is a call to arms to "free up the planet from ads," and expects participation from at least 20 cities in six countries, particularly in Europe, South America, and the US. These can include covering up, defacing or replacing ad panels, graffiti, or social media campaigns, among other things. (The website calls for action "individually, collectively, with direct and non-violent actions, by raising awareness about the ads which frustrate us.")
The first celebration of the day was last year during the World Social Forum in Tunisia. This year, French association Résistance à l'Agression Publicitaire is taking up the call to arms. The date commemorates a French court decision in 2013 that deemed a group of anti-ad activists as not guilty of "degredation" after they spray painted billboards in 2009.
They were acquitted in the name of freedom of speech and "reason of necessity" against ad oppression.
Late last year, Brandalism's team slathered the city of Paris with 600 fake ads ahead of the COP21, highlighting the environmental hypocrisy of brands vaunting their active involvement.
More creative variants appear below. |
I don’t know if Bruce Cassidy is the second coming of Scotty Bowman. I’m not even sure he is as good a head coach as Claude Julien was.
But what’s clear is that the Boston Bruins, who are 3-0-0 since changing coaches last week, are benefitting from having a new voice behind the bench. And they aren’t the only ones. From the St. Louis Blues to the New York Islanders, the best trades in the NHL this season have concerned a coach — not a player.
It’s called a bump, a boost or a boon. And while there is no guarantee that this short-term surge will continue for the long run, it quite possibly has saved Boston’s season. And a similar move could save Montreal’s season as well.
The Habs, who lost 4-0 to the Bruins on Sunday, still have a six-point lead atop the Atlantic Division. But after losing 10 of their last 14 games, they head into the bye week skidding toward the same proverbial cliff that the team fell off last year.
Maybe the five-day break will give the team a chance to clear its collective head and get back on track. Maybe acquiring a player like Matt Duchene at the upcoming March 1 trade deadline will make things right. But that’s nearly three weeks away.
By then, the Habs, who have played five more games than the second-place Senators and four more than the fourth-place Leafs in the Atlantic Division standings, could be out of a playoff spot.
Besides, the Habs don’t really need to make a trade. They just need a jolt in the same way that the Bruins, Blues and Islanders needed one.
In other words, they need to fire head coach Michel Therrien.
When the Blues fired Ken Hitchcock on Feb. 1, the team had lost five of its last six games and was clinging to the final wild card spot. Today, they are 5-1-0 under Mike Yeo and in third place in the Central Division. The Islanders are 8-2-2 since firing Jack Capuano, having climbed from last in the Eastern Conference to 10th place, just one point out of the wildcard spot.
Even the Florida Panthers, who fired Gerard Gallant in November, have shown a slight improvement since then.
It’s not about Xs and Os. A new coach might assign new roles to players and devise different power play schemes. But mostly it’s a wake-up call to the rest of the team. Trades are harder and harder to execute in today’s NHL, but firing the head coach is an easy way for a GM to get the message across that things need to change.
After that, it’s up to the players.
“It’s been pretty impressive,” St. Louis defenceman Colton Parayko told reporters after the Blues won their fourth straight game under Yeo. “We’ve just realized that if we want to do this, we’ve got to put together the effort and make sure that we work together as a team. We definitely have the team on paper to be one of the best in the league, so it’s just a matter of showing up and working together. It’s definitely an exciting time for us when we know what we can be like when we play our best.”
A year ago, the Pittsburgh Penguins found themselves at a similar crossroads when they fired Mike Johnston and replaced him with Mike Sullivan. At the time, the team was 15-10-3 and in fifth place in the crowded Metropolitan Division. The move ended up not only saving their season, but also resulted in the team winning the Stanley Cup. In the last eight years, two other coaches — Darryl Sutter and Dan Bylsma — have taken over a team in the middle of the season and won a championship.
There is no reason why the Canadiens could not pull a similar 180 with another voice behind the bench. They have the best goalie in the league in Carey Price, a defenceman in Shea Weber who is in the Norris Trophy conversation and a top scorer in Max Pacioretty who is two goals back of Sidney Crosby in the Rocket Richard Trophy race.
And yet, the Canadiens are a mess.
The team, which went 13-1-1 to start the season, is tied for fewest wins in the NHL since the beginning of February. Price hasn’t been nearly as sharp as he was at the beginning of the season, but it’s hard to blame the goaltending when Montreal has been shut out in three of its last five games and is averaging two goals per game in the last month.
With Alex Galchenyuk and Brendan Gallagher both healthy, there are no excuses. The Canadiens, who have another year after this one before Price becomes an unrestricted free agent, need to take advantage of this window before it starts closing and rebuilding teams like Toronto and Buffalo become even more competitive.
Montreal already made a culture-shifting move last summer, when GM Marc Bergevin traded P.K. Subban to Nashville for Shea Weber.
Now, another move is needed. |
ECHO PARK –– Thanks to Kelly Erickson for these photos of the new, nearly three-story high mural artist Shepard Fairey recently painted on the side of an apartment building on Sunset Boulevard near Portia Street. It’s the same spot where a French street artist had installed a mural of an old woman a few years back.
Fairey, whose studio is located a few blocks east on Sunset from the new mural, said on Instagram:
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“The crew and I just finished a mural on Sunset Blvd in #EchoPark and it is nice to have a big piece of art in our neighborhood. Echo Park is not as rough as it used to be, but some areas are still rough… specifically the brick wall we were painting on! The mural looks good in the end but it was very tough to get clean lines.”
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ST. LOUIS (KPLR) - In an act of kindness a St. Louis community came together to help save a dog desperate in need of a rescue. It all started with Megan Gleason, she had been watching 3-year-old Sammie a boxer mix survive in bad conditions in a Clifton Heights neighborhood for over a year. Gleason called St. Louis City law and code enforcement and discovered the owner was barely up to code and could not remove the dog. Last week Gleason reached out to people in 13 neighborhoods with the Next Door app. Then suddenly she was swamped with hundreds of supporters and suggestions.
"She was left in a pen and her water would be frozen in the winter she also had limited access to shelter and in the summer she was in the heat." said Gleason.
After a week of, texts, phone calls and teamwork the owner released Sammie to volunteers. Meanwhile, Needy Paws placed the dog with a foster family. Concerned citizens also started a Go Fund Me page to pay for vet bills. The group of neighbors may have all been complete strangers, but are now good friends with a special bond that started with a special dog.
Needy Paws
Sammies Go Fund Me Page |
(Wikimedia Commons)
Vanilla beans, oddly enough, are not the only potential source of vanilla aroma. It also comes from coniferous trees and beavers.
Rumors have been circulating on the Internet that beavers’ anal secretions have the scent and taste of vanilla. Earlier this week, the Swedish National Food Agency confirmed that, saying that anal secretions that beavers use to mark their territory, called castoreum, can be used for vanilla flavoring in baked goods, chewing gum, pudding, etc.
In the U.S., castoreum is sometimes just cited as “natural flavoring,” in ingredient lists. However, beavers aren’t bred with the goal of harvesting their butt mucus, so it’s not likely to be a very common source of vanilla flavoring, according to the Agency. According to Fenaroli's Handbook of Flavor Ingredients, published in 2005, total annual consumption of both castoreum extract and castoreum liquid was around 250 pounds.
If it’s rare, it must be a delicacy.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com. |
Looking at the two possible though divergent futures for Syria.
The talk of the towns; namely in Damascus, Homs, Hama, Aleppo and other Syrian cities and hamlets; is focused today on renewed speculation concerning the possible next step in the resolution of the civil war that has raged for over four years now in Syria.
There is a nagging suspicion hanging in the air that fragmentation of the country along ethnic and sectarian lines leaves no other option but to introduce a federal system of government and create three autonomous regions, which would remain part of a unified Syria.
How to keep Syria together
The day after news of the Russia-U.S. agreement on a ceasefire circulated, the Hawar News Agency, the main media outlet of the Syrian Kurds, published an interview with Ilham Ahmed. Ahmed is a member of the Executive Council of the Democratic Society Movement (TEV-DEM) in Syrian Kurdistan, which operates out of Rojava, a de facto autonomous region in northern Syria.
The key revelation amounted to an admission that there is an understanding among all stakeholders that the partitioning of Syria without actually breaking it apart is the only sensible solution. Apparently, it is more than simply an “understanding,” something more akin to a roadmap.
According to Ahmed, Syria would essentially consist of three entities. Northern regions would belong to the Kurds; southern regions with Damascus as its capital would accommodate Alawites, Druze, Christians and others; and the centre of the country would be allocated to the Sunnis. All three would have their own parliaments.
History of fragmentation in Syria
Weighing the likelihood of a regulated federalization of Syria as a sound alternative to its chaotic “balkanization,” Grigory Kosach, professor at the Russian State University for Humanities and an expert on politics of the Arab world, invoking historical precedents told RIR.
“In theory, the federalization of Syria is feasible. It has been a patchy formation from the very beginning. There is a precedent. France, granted a mandate to rule over Syria by the League of Nations, split territories along regional and ethnic lines.”
Kosach is referring to the situation in 1920 (after the Sykes-Picot agreement) when the French, pursuing an agenda of self-interest and out of fear for the rise of Arab nationalism, applied “political fragmentation” by creating separate proto-states in Syria. Apart from the states of Aleppo and Damascus, ethnic Druze were allowed to have their own political unit under the patronage of France. Under the French, the Alawites enjoyed a special administrative regime in the mountain district behind Latakia.
“It was a tale of two cities, or rather a contest for supremacy between Aleppo and Damascus, both claiming the right to be the capital of an amalgamated Syria. Actually, the political and business elites of the two cities looked to different foreign partners and patrons. Damascus was focused on Lebanon and Arab countries to the south, while Aleppo sought benefits from dealing with Kemalist Turkey. Under certain circumstances, they could have parted ways.”
The fundamentals today have changed drastically. For the moment, Syrian Kurds seem to accept the concept of autonomy within the Syrian state. Will President Bashar Al-Assad or his successor be happy with such an arrangement? Will it not provoke Turkey into some sort of “preventive strike” to suffocate even an embryonic statehood for the Kurds? Their fear could be the emergence of such a state on the regional political map and, even more worrisome for Ankara, is that it could be in the close vicinity of its own restive Kurdish regions in southeast Anatolia.
“The feasibility of a federal administrative alignment in Syria is conditional on the progress to be made at the inter-Syrian dialogue,” Kosach adds.
The recent inauguration of a representative bureau of Syrian Kurdistan in Moscow is a sign of a “constructive dialogue” between the two sides, said a Kurdish official in a private conversation. From a legal standpoint, there are no “two sides.” It is not a diplomatic mission but the office of a “public organization.” Yet, the ball has been set into motion.
Does Moscow stand to win or lose?
If the federalization scenario unravels in the long run, Russia has nothing to lose but can count certain gains, argues Vadim Kozyulin, a senior research fellow at the PIR Centre, a Moscow-based independent think tank, in a comment to RIR.
“Although Syrian Kurds have never publicly declared their intention to strive for a separate statehood, the situation might evolve along the same route as in Iraqi Kurdistan. Formally (it might be called) autonomy, having all the attributes of a state within a state: government, legislation, military formations (”peshmerga”), viable sources for the regional budget, etc. Syrian Kurdistan could follow this example.”
In the context of a Syria solidified as a unified state, just as proposed by world powers in November 2015, the relatively workable cooperation between the Alawites and Christian minorities with the Syrian Kurds can be ensured, provided their willingness to compromise. Yet, it depends on whether the Kurds in the northern regions limit their ambitions to the benefits brought about by a wide or wider autonomy.
Cooperation is not guaranteed
In this respect, the cooperation of Sunni tribes and their leaders, some of whom are referred to as the “moderate opposition” with the formally “central authorities” in Damascus is far from guaranteed.
The concept of a Sunni state-like formation after the partition relates to the proposal by John R. Bolton, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006. Bolton, in an article published in November 2016 in The New York Times suggests “the best alternative to the Islamic State in north eastern Syria and western Iraq is a new, independent Sunni state.”
Bolton views this scenario through the lens of “creating a credible alternative to Daesh,” (Ed.: Daesh is an acronym from the Arabic for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) which he defines as “Sunni-stan.” De facto it would mean a mono-religious entity with Shiites and Christians assigned to a subordinate status. It looks like a “Daesh-light” version, which, as Bolton phrases it, “could be a bulwark against both Mr. Assad and an Iran-allied Baghdad.”
The odds are not good that major regional players, now part of the conflict resolution process, would accept it. Primarily the major players include Russia, Iran, Iraq, and lest we forget, the still formally sovereign state of Syria.
Sunnis, the third pillar to a settlement
The chances of implementing another blueprint – a sustainable Sunni autonomy as part of a unified Syria – will be meagre as long as ‘Daesh’ or ISIS stays undefeated, remains a robust military machine and an alternative for radicalized Muslims.
However, if moderate Sunni groups, that are opposed to Daesh and are fighting the jihadists on their soil, are offered a platform to set up a separate administrative unit within Syria, would it not contribute to forming a united front against the arch-enemy?
Russia would be wise to tacitly support the ambitions of moderate Sunni organizations, asserts Kozyulin while emphasizing the need for Russian diplomacy to be flexible.
“Taking into account the entrenched animosity of the Sunnis, who constitute the majority in Syria, towards Assad’s regime, Moscow would be wise not to alienate them but positively engage them.”
Most likely, a unified Syrian state is the fairest and most sustainable option. But given the accumulated wrath and the legacy of blood vendettas that are typical of every civil war, it could be too late. For the moment, the political and military pendulum in Syria is in motion. It can swing either way: either federalization or balkanization.
The opinion of the writer may not necessarily reflect the position of RIR or its staff.
All rights reserved by Rossiyskaya Gazeta. |
A chance discovery of 80-year-old photo plates in a Danish basement is providing new insight into how Greenland glaciers are melting today.
Researchers at the National Survey and Cadastre of Denmark -- that country's federal agency responsible for surveys and mapping -- had been storing the glass plates since explorer Knud Rasmussen's expedition to the southeast coast of Greenland in the early 1930s.
In this week's online edition of Nature Geoscience, Ohio State University researchers and colleagues in Denmark describe how they analyzed ice loss in the region by comparing the images on the plates to aerial photographs and satellite images taken from World War II to today.
Taken together, the imagery shows that glaciers in the region were melting even faster in the 1930s than they are today, said Jason Box, associate professor of geography and researcher at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State. A brief cooling period starting in the mid-20th century allowed new ice to form, and then the melting began to accelerate again in the 2000s.
"Because of this study, we now have a detailed historical analogue for more recent glacier loss," Box said. "And we've confirmed that glaciers are very sensitive indicators of climate."
Pre-satellite observations of Greenland glaciers are rare. Anders Anker Bjørk, doctoral fellow at the Natural History Museum of Denmark and lead author of the study, is trying to compile all such imagery. He found a clue in the archives of The Arctic Institute in Copenhagen in 2011.
"We found flight journals for some old planes, and in them was a reference to National Survey and Cadastre of Denmark," Bjørk said.
As it happens, researchers at the National Survey had already contacted Bjørk about a find of their own.
"They were cleaning up in the basement and had found some old glass plates with glaciers on them. The reason the plates were forgotten was that they were recorded for mapping, and once the map was produced they didn't have much value."
Those plates turned out to be documentation of Rasmussen's 7th Thule Expedition to Greenland. They contained aerial photographs of land, sea and glaciers in the southeast region of the country, along with travel photos of Rasmussen's team.
The researchers digitized all the old images and used software to look for differences in the shape of the southeast Greenland coastline where the ice meets the Atlantic Ocean. Then they calculated the distance the ice front moved in each time period.
Over the 80 years, two events stand out: glacial retreats from 1933-1934 and 2000-2010. In the 1930s, fewer glaciers were melting than are today, and most of those that were melting were land-terminating glaciers, meaning that they did not contact the sea.
Those that were melting retreated an average of 20 meters per year -- the fastest retreating at 374 meters per year. Fifty-five percent of the glaciers in the study had similar or higher retreat rates during the 1930s than they do today.
Still, more glaciers in southeast Greenland are retreating today, and the average ice loss is 50 meters per year. That's because a few glaciers with very fast melting rates -- including one retreating at 887 meters per year -- boost the overall average.
But to Box, the most interesting part of the study is what happened between the two melting events.
From 1943-1972, southeast Greenland cooled -- probably due to sulfur pollution, which reflects sunlight away from Earth.
Sulfur dioxide is a poisonous gas produced by volcanoes and industrial processes. It has been tied to serious health problems and death, and is also the main ingredient in acid rain. Its presence in the atmosphere peaked just after the Clean Air Act was established in 1963. As it was removed from the atmosphere, the earlier warming resumed.
The important point is not that deadly pollution caused the climate to cool, but rather that the brief cooling allowed researchers to see how Greenland ice responded to the changing climate.
The glaciers responded to the cooling more rapidly than researchers had seen in earlier studies. Sixty percent of the glaciers advanced during that time, while 12 percent were stationary. And now that the warming has resumed, the glacial retreat is dominated by marine-terminating outlet glaciers, the melting of which contributes to sea level rise.
"From these images, we see that the mid-century cooling stabilized the glaciers," Box said. "That suggests that if we want to stabilize today's accelerating ice loss, we need to see a little cooling of our own."
Southeast Greenland is a good place to study the effects of climate change, he explained, because the region is closely tied to air and water circulation patterns in the North Atlantic.
"By far, more storms pass through this region -- transporting heat into the Arctic -- than anywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere. Climate change brings changes in snowfall and air temperature that compete for influence on a glacier's net behavior," he said.
Co-authors on the study include Kurt H. Kjær, Niels J. Korsgaard, Kristian K. Kjeldsen, and Svend Funder at the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen; Shfaqat A. Khan of the National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark; Camilla S. Andresen of the Department of Marine Geology and Glaciology at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland; and Nicolaj K. Larsen of the Department of Geoscience at Aarhus University.
Photos, satellite images and other data for the study were provided by the National Survey and Cadastre; The Scott Polar Research Institute in the United Kingdom; the Arctic Institute in Denmark; researchers Bea Csatho and Sudhagar Nagarajan of the Geology Department at the University at Buffalo; and the NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center at the USGS/Earth Resources Observation and Science Center of Sioux Falls, S.D. Andreas Pedersen of the Danish company MapWork wrote the script for the software used in the study.
This work is a part of the RinkProject funded by the Danish Research Council and the Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland. |
– Colorado senior outside linebackeris one of 42 student-athletes named to the 2017 Lott IMPACT Trophy Watch List, the Pacific Club IMPACT Foundation has announced.Named after Pro Football Hall of Fame member, Ronnie Lott, The Lott IMPACT Trophy is awarded to college football's Defensive IMPACT Player of the Year. Founded in 2004 by The Pacific Club IMPACT Foundation, The Lott Trophy is the first and only college football award to equally recognize athletic performance and the personal character attributes of the player. The Lott Trophy is given to the player who exhibits the same characteristics Lott embodied during his distinguished career: Integrity, Maturity, Performance, Academics, Community and Tenacity.McCartney is one of 17 linebackers on the watch list. The Pac-12 Conference had the most players on the list with 10 and McCartney's is joined by fellow league members: Koron Crump, LB, Arizona State; Porter Gustin, DE, USC; Chase Hansen, S, Utah; Hercules Mata'afa, DE, Washington State; Harrison Phillips, DL, Stanford; Cameron Saffle, DE, Cal;, LB, USC; Azeem Victor, LB, Washigton; Kenny Young, LB, UCLA.On the field, McCartney ranks in the top 40 all-time at Colorado in career sacks with 9½ in 27 games played and 25 starts. He was selected as a team captain for the Buffs in 2017. He is coming off a junior season that was cut short due to a knee injury. Before his injury in week three at No. 4 Michigan, he returned a fumble 18 yards for a touchdown to give CU a 14-0 lead over the Wolverines at the time.Off the field, McCartney has received national recognition for his academic success and contributions to his community.McCartney was named to the 2016 AFCA Good Works Team, one of just 12 Division I players honored last season, which recognizes and celebrates those who dedicate their time to bettering the community and the lives of others. McCartney is the only one of the 12 from last season's Good Works Team who made the Lott IMPACT Trophy Watch List.In the spring of 2016 he participated in CU's "Be A Match" program that coachstarted after his first year in Boulder. McCartney was a match and went through the grueling process of donating, missing the bulk of CU's spring practices in the process. Eight months later, he was informed that his blood stem cells he donated went to a male in his 50s or 60s and that he helped save that man's life.He graduated in May 2016 after just three years with a degree in one of CU's most challenging majors – Integrative Physiology – with a Pre-Med course of study at Colorado. He is now enrolled in CU's graduate program for IPHY with plans to go to medical school after the conclusion of his football career.Voters for the award include selected members of the national media, previous finalists, the Board of Directors of the Pacific Club IMPACT Foundation and a distinguished group of former college football head coaches. To date, the Foundation has donated more than $1.1 million to various charities throughout the country. The 14th annual Lott IMPACT Trophy Awards will be held Dec. 10 at The Pacific Club in Newport Beach, Calif. For more information on The Lott Trophy visit: www.LottImpactTrophy.org |
ARCOLA, Texas - KPRC 2 News has obtained the 911 call of a witness to a deadly plane crash that killed an instructor and injured a student Monday in Fort Bend County.
Pilot Jimmy Johnson and student Nezabian Thomas caught a strong crosswind just after takeoff from the Southwest Regional Airport.
"Me and my instructor are trying to correct and after that we didn't have enough thrust to climb anymore, so the nose went down and next thing you know you've got three seconds, you hit the ground. It was at a pretty bad angle too," Thomas said.
He was able to save himself, crawling out of the flaming wreckage, but his 68-year-old instructor died.
In the 911 call, a man is heard describing the scene.
"There's a fire at Houston Southwest Airport. Right in the middle of the runway, a plane crashed and a guy came here and he's burned," the caller said. "We need fire, ambulance. We need fire trucks."
He can then be heard talking to someone else, asking him, "Was it just you in the airplane?"
The man then tells the 911 operator, "There's a guy in the airplane... it's burning right now. It's next to a building. It's next to another airplane that's going to blow up also."
From his home nearby, Francisco Roque saw the column of thick, black smoke and began driving toward it as he photographed it with his cellphone.
“I live right next door. I was headed out, and I saw the heavy smoke coming out of the hanger and grabbed my camera and started recording.” Roque said.
Thomas, 20, is in the Air National Guard and took up flying lessons in January as a hobby.
"It was a New Year's goal of mine to start flying," Thomas said in a phone interview with KPRC 2 News.
"He's a very safe pilot, so I never thought this could happen to him. How do you prepare for this?" said Johnson's wife, Benjie Sanderson.
Johnson, 68, worked for Houston Light Sport Aviation, a flight school based at the airport, and owner of the aircraft. Investigators said he had logged thousands of hours in the air. Thomas, they said, had flown five previous times with the school's instructors.
Sanderson said her husband loved to fly and loved to teach others.
"If he had to die unexpectedly, I really do believe this would have been his choice,” said Johnson’s stepdaughter, Mary Redwine. "I'm sure he regrets someone else was injured in the process."
2016 Click2Houston/KPRC2 |
Tesla
Tesla
Lee Hutchinson
Volvo
Volvo
Jonathan Gitlin
Ron Amadeo
Anyone who has driven a Tesla can't help but be impressed by what the company has achieved in just a few short years. OK, the Roadster was basically a Lotus Elise underneath, but the Model S and Model X are ground-up designs and feature a very impressive powertrain. But at the same time, anyone who has driven a Model S or Model X also can't help but notice the company's weakest point—the terrible interiors. Evidently Tesla has realized this—as Electrek first reported earlier this week, the company has poached Volvo's head of interiors, Anders Bell, in order to remedy the problem.
I'm sure writing this will enrage some of the company's more vociferous online supporters, but I make no apologies. It's clearly evident that all the R&D money has been spent on that powertrain and on software (particularly Autopilot); the cabins have been almost an afterthought. It's not just a lack of design flair—although that is certainly true. It's also the materials used, most of which would look out of place in an economy car in 2016, let alone a luxury SUV or sedan that starts out at more than $60,000. And this stuff is important. As a driver, the interior of a car is the bit that you'll look at and touch almost all the time.
Acres of flat, black shiny plastic abound. The Model X central storage bin has cheap removable inserts for cup holders. And the cubby that lives below the massive touchscreen in the Model S? No one thought to give it a lip at the forward edge, so anything you put in there is headed straight for the back seat the moment you hit the accelerator. And that's before we've touched on the Q&A problems—the last Model S the company let me drive had that cubby misaligned, so there was a half-inch gap at the upper left corner.
Volvo, on the other hand, is one of the industry's leaders when it comes to good interior design. For mass-production vehicles, no one other than Audi does them as well as Volvo, and I'm a particular fan of the sense of space and the use of materials in both the XC90 and S90.
It's not the first strategic bit of poaching that Tesla has conducted. In May of this year the company hired Audi's Peter Hochholdinger to head up Model 3 vehicle production.
Listing image by Tesla |
Did you know? Nothing whatsoever happened in British history between 3 and 13 September 1752. The British Calendar Act of 1751 proclaimed that in Britain (and Americn Colonies) Thursday 3 September 1752 should become Thursday 14 September 1752.
The Gregorian calendar The Gregorian calendar is the one most used nowadays. It is named after Pope Gregory Xlll who introduced it in 1582. There is a leap year every four years (or more precisely, 97 leap years every 400 years). This means that the year corresponds closely with the astronomical year (365.24219 days) so that it is just one day out every 3,300 years. The Julian Calendar Up until 1753, the calendar we used in Britain was the Julian Calendar. It was 365.25 days long, which was fractionally too long, and the calendar over time fell out of line with the seasons and thus was less accurate than the Gregorian Calendar. All change - "Give us back our 11 days!" In 1752 Britain decided to abandon the Julian calendar in favour of the Gregorian. By doing so, 3 September instantly became 14 September - and as a result, nothing whatsoever happened in British history between 3 and 13 September 1752. Many people believed their lives would be shortened. They protested in the streets, demanding "Give us back our 11 days!" Also on this day...... 3 September 1939 - WW2 declared
British ultimatum to Germany, demanding halt to invasion of Poland (which started on 1 September 1939), expired at 11am, GMT, 3 September 1939. At 11:15 AM, in a radio broadcast, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced the declaration of war against Germany.
3 September - Cromwell Day
Oliver Cromwell died on this day in 1658. The day is commemorated with an open air service in front of his statue outside the Houes of Parliament in London. Cromwell was an English military and political leader best known in England for his involvement in making England into a republican Commonwealth and for his later role as Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland. 3 September - Merchant Navy Day
The day remembers the 30,000 men of the British Merchant Navy who were lost between 1939-1945. For almost six years during WW2 barely a day went by without the loss of merchant ships and their crews. |
'Rotating leadership may be part of the secret sauce that allows organizations like Apple to release breakthrough products and achieve a competitive advantage.'
Earlier this year, Apple released a list of partners that supply the chips, parts, and technology that make its products. (You can view the report here) The list is comprised of 156 companies -- from big brands such as Intel, Panasonic, and Samsung Electronics to less well-known firms like Zeniya Aluminum Engineering and Taiyi Precision Tech Corporation.
What's striking about the list is its length. The 156 partners underscore the fact that iPads, iPhones, and MacBook Airs are not only the results of the genius of the late Steve Jobs and his A-team of engineers. Rather, they are the fruits of numerous collaborative partnerships. Of course some of Apple's alliances are simple procurement relationships -- Apple needs a certain part, so it finds a willing seller. But many of these partnerships are intense, behind-the-scenes collaborations -- sometimes lasting multiple years -- that involve Apple and another company jointly designing new products and technologies.
The computer industry is highly collaborative. Any given product -- be it a laptop, a desktop, a tablet, or even an operating system -- is the result of many alliances and collaborations. I've always been interested in how these collaborations happen, and what it is that makes one partnership yield a groundbreaking innovation, while another yield nothing all that exciting. (Full disclosure: I've advised, consulted, or worked at a number of high-tech companies including Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, and Google.) Over the course of my career and in my fieldwork, I've talked to a number of Chief Technology Officers or Engineering VPs at big companies. They often report that the majority of their time is spent on these collaborations, and that many of them are incredibly challenging. These partnerships are hard to make successful, especially when success is defined as a breakthrough technology or achieving a 'big' performance improvement like a dramatic increase in hard drive memory or microprocessor speed.
Why is it so hard to make these collaborations work? In principle they should be easy to execute. After all, these companies are market leaders in their fields and they are not direct competitors. Often, these same companies have collaborated before. So they're not plagued by the usual problems associated with new alliance relationships, such as lack of trust.
It's the subject of my latest research* with my colleague from Stanford, Kathleen Eisenhardt. Together we looked at case studies of eight technology collaborations between 10 organizations in the computing and communications industries between 2001 and 2006. We found that the key to successful collaborations lies in the way the two partners share leadership. In particular, collaborations that use rotating leadership -- a give-and-take management approach where partners alternate control of phases of innovative development -- are most successful.
The approach helps generate better products, greater incremental revenues, more trade secrets, and a bigger number of patents than other kinds of collaborations. Employees prefer them, too. Team members rate the innovations generated by these kinds of rotating leadership collaborations as 50 percent better than innovations produced by other kinds of partnerships.
Generally speaking, the corporate collaborations we looked at used three different approaches to leadership: domineering, consensus, and rotating. Domineering leadership is where one partner controls the entire process. Decisions are made fast, but they're not always the best. Consensus leadership is where representatives from both sides agree on every decision at every point in the process. Decisions are thoughtful, but the innovation process takes much, much longer and partners often agree to the lowest common dominator aspirations.
In rotating leadership, the partners take turns being in charge. One partner takes over during the software design phase, say, and the other takes over the testing phase. During the time in which one partner is leading, it has complete unilateral control. This is optimal because it makes decisions speedier and more efficient. (This is an advantage rotating leadership shares with domineering leadership.) The fact that the leadership rotates back and forth allows both partners to contribute their expertise at different points in time. The result is a broader more diverse network of minds working together to solve problems. In other words, rotating leadership provides unilateral control to both partners, just at different times.
Another big benefit of rotating leadership is that it widens the pursuit of potential innovations. Different companies naturally have different priorities. Since leadership is shared, each company has an opportunity to single-mindedly pursue its objective and influence the collaboration's trajectory. Different objectives in different phases mean a larger search for innovation. This larger search often yields groundbreaking products and technologies.
Rotating leadership may even explain a puzzle in the computer industry and other interdependent environments. It may explain why some companies like Intel and Microsoft are able to maintain symbiotic relationships over many years. Famously, these partners used their relationship to develop the technologies underlying the Wintel platform. The platform became the industry standard, and allowed them to seize technological leadership from the PC original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) like IBM and Compaq. Taking turns may be necessary to prevent a long-term symbiotic relationship like this from becoming stale or competitive.
Apple's recent announcement has exposed what industry participants have widely known: that while Apple's PR emphasizes the lone wolf genius of the company and its leaders, Apple is actually very collaborative with other companies. (The new relationship with Intel being the most important example.) Rotating leadership may be part of the secret sauce that allows organizations like Apple to release breakthrough products and achieve a competitive advantage.
Jason Davis is an Associate Professor of Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Management (TIES) group at the MIT Sloan School of Management. |
Death by Dust
The frightening link between the 9-11 toxic cloud and cancer
by Kristen Lombardi
November 28th, 2006 5:22 PM
To date, 75 recovery workers at ground zero have been diagnosed with blood cell cancers that a half-dozen top doctors and epidemiologists have confirmed as having been likely caused by that exposure. Ernie Vallabuona is one of them.
photo: Scott McDermott photo: Scott McDermott
See also:
Believe 9-11 is causing cancer?
An open thread in Power Plays It was October 6, 2004, three years after Ernie Vallebuona's three-month stint as a rescue and recovery worker at ground zero in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, and he was hunched over and trembling, racked by a pain like nothing he had experienced in his 40 years of sound health. He had just returned to his Rockland County home after finishing the midnight-to-8 a.m. shift in the NYPD vice unit, where he'd reported to work for the last six years. Vallebuona had bought some fish from a street vendor near his office, on the Lower East Side. And as he drove the 35 miles from Manhattan to New City, he chalked up a searing stomachache to food poisoning. Maybe the vendor had filleted that fish with a dirty machete? It was October 6, 2004, three years after Ernie Vallebuona's three-month stint as a rescue and recovery worker at ground zero in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, and he was hunched over and trembling, racked by a pain like nothing he had experienced in his 40 years of sound health. He had just returned to his Rockland County home after finishing the midnight-to-8 a.m. shift in the NYPD vice unit, where he'd reported to work for the last six years. Vallebuona had bought some fish from a street vendor near his office, on the Lower East Side. And as he drove the 35 miles from Manhattan to New City, he chalked up a searing stomachache to food poisoning. Maybe the vendor had filleted that fish with a dirty machete? By the time he pulled into his driveway, the pain had grown excruciating, too horrible for him to even lie in bed that day. The chills swept over his body; so did the shakes. He called his doctor, who suggested ulcer medication. His mother advised him to forget that diagnosis and consult a specialist instead, but like a lot of young, healthy men, he didn't listen right away. Vallebuona isn't much for complaining; what ailing cop is? But for six months, he had noticed his body betraying him. His toes had reddened; his joints had stiffened. They throbbed in prickly pangs, as if glass shards were wedged underneath his skin. When his own heartbeat began to hurt, he had visited the family doctor, who diagnosed him with gout. He was told to drink cherry juice and take anti-inflammatory medicine. Neither worked. Now as his stomach convulsed, Vallebuona listened to his mother at last. Later that day, he found himself at a gastroenterologist's office in Pomona, lying on a table, watching a nurse poke at his abdomen. She felt a lump and ordered tests. It would take a month to reach a definitive diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphoid tissue. Evidently, Vallebuona had developed a golf-ball-sized mass in his abdomen that had grown so fast and so quick that pieces of it were dying and depositing into his blood, causing gout-like symptoms. One week after that, he was at a Manhattan hospital, meeting his oncologist, hearing about the heavy-duty chemotherapy he would have to undergo over the next four months. At the visit, a nurse explained he had an aggressive cancer�a rare stage-three�and asked a battery of questions. Did he ever do modeling with glue?
Did he ever handle insecticides?
Did he ever work with chemicals like benzene? Vallebuona answered no to all the questions. He had led a clean life; before becoming a cop, he'd worked in a bank. Sitting in the examining room with him, Vallebuona's wife, Amy, finally spoke up. "What about 9-11?" she asked. "What about all that smoke and dust?" Only then did Ernie Vallebuona first consider the possibility that the events of September 11 could be the cause of his cancer. This is not the story of rescue and recovery workers at ground zero getting sick with respiratory illnesses from their exposure; you have read those stories, and you have heard those cases. This is the story of 9-11 and cancer. To date, 75 recovery workers on or around what is now known as "the Pile"�the rubble that remained after the World Trade Center towers collapsed on the morning of September 11, 2001�have been diagnosed with blood cell cancers that a half-dozen top doctors and epidemiologists have confirmed as having been likely caused by that exposure. Those 75 cases have come to light in joint-action lawsuits filed against New York City on behalf of at least 8,500 recovery workers who suffer from various forms of lung illnesses and respiratory diseases�and suggest a pattern too distinct to ignore. While some cancers take years, if not decades, to develop, the blood cancers in otherwise healthy and young individuals represent a pattern that experts believe will likely prove to be more than circumstantial. The suits seek to prove that these 8,500 workers�approximately 20 percent of the total estimated recovery force that cleared the rubble from ground zero�all suffer from the debilitating effects of those events. The basis for the suits stems from the plaintiffs' argument that the government�in a desperate attempt to revive downtown in the wake of the catastrophic events on 9-11�failed to protect workers from cancer-causing benzene, dioxin, and other hazardous chemicals that permeated the air for months. Officials made these failures worse by falsely reassuring New Yorkers that they faced no long-term dangers from exposure to the air lingering over ground zero. "We are very encouraged that the results from our monitoring of air-quality and drinking-water conditions in both New York and near the Pentagon show that the public in these areas is not being exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances," Christine Todd Whitman, the then administrator of the EPA, told the citizens of New York City in a press release on September 18�only seven days after the attacks. "Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York . . . that their air is safe to breathe and the water is safe to drink." Those statements were not only false and misleading, but may even play into the basis for the city's liability for millions of dollars in the recovery workers' lawsuits. Last February, U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts cited Whitman's false statements as the basis for allowing a different class-action lawsuit to proceed�this one, against the EPA and Whitman, is on behalf of residents, office workers, and students from Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, many of whom suffer from respiratory illnesses as a result of 9-11. "No reasonable person would have thought that telling thousands of people that it was safe to return to Lower Manhattan, while knowing that such return could pose long-term health risks and other dire consequences, was conduct sanctioned by our laws," Batts wrote in her February 2 ruling. "Whitman's deliberate and misleading statements made to the press, where she reassured the public that the air was safe to breathe around Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, and that there would be no health risk presented to those returning to the areas, shocks the conscience." And that was before anyone knew of the apparent cancer link, first reported in the New York news media in the spring of 2004. Even more shocking is the incidence of cancer and other life-threatening illnesses that have developed among those participating in the recovery workers' lawsuits. Given the fact that some cancers are slower to develop than others, it seems likely to several doctors and epidemiologists that many more reports of cancer and serious lung illnesses will surface in the months and years to come. The fact that 8,500 recovery workers have already banded together to sue, only five years later�with 400 total cancer patients among their number�leads many experts to predict that these figures are likely to grow, meaning a possible death toll in the thousands. In many ways, these illnesses suggest the slow but deteriorating health issues that faced the atomic-bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where thousands died in the years and decades that followed the United States' use of nuclear weapons. And that similarity has not been lost on David Worby, the 53-year-old attorney leading the joint-action suits on behalf of those workers who are already sick, and even dying. "In the end," Worby declares, "our officials might be responsible for more deaths than Osama bin Laden on 9-11." In the five years since the attacks, much of the focus on the 9-11 health crisis has missed a broader question, the one that every ground zero worker fears most and the one that Ernie Vallebuona has already had to ponder: What about cancer? What if all that pulverized concrete and ground glass and caustic mist that Vallebuona inhaled while on the Pile didn't attack his lungs but instead went straight for his lymph nodes? Could this noxious mix have caused his lymphoma? No one has done a comprehensive study of the health consequences on the estimated 40,000 rescue and recovery workers who raced to ground zero after the attacks. A study by Mount Sinai Medical Center�one that received widespread media attention two months ago�released statistics on the five-year anniversary of 9-11 that focused almost exclusively on respiratory problems and bypassed any mention of cancer today. But David Worby has tracked the cancer patients among his growing client base for the last two years. Here are the latest tallies: Of the 8,500 people now suing the city, 400, or about 5 percent, have cancer. The biggest group by far consists of people like Vallebuona, who have blood cell cancers. Seventy-five clients suffer from lymphoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma, and other blood cell cancers; most are men, aged 30 to 60, who appeared in perfect health just five years ago. The field of cancer research is not known for consensus. But six prominent specialists on cancer and the link to toxins�on the faculty of the nation's top medical schools and public health institutions�all come to the same conclusions when told these statistics. They are Richard Clapp and David Ozonoff, professors of environmental health at Boston University School of Public Health; Michael Thun, director of epidemiological research at the American Cancer Society; Francine Laden, assistant professor of environmental epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health; Jonathan Samet, chairman of the epidemiology department at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; and Charles Hesdorffer, associate professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. These doctors and epidemiologists agree that the incidence of cancer among this subset of workers sounds shockingly high, that they cannot and should not be dismissed as coincidence, and that the toxic dust cloud that hung over downtown Manhattan, and particularly the Pile, likely caused or promoted the diseases. Some even went so far as to say that the blood cancer cases, especially, indicate what could become a wave of cancer cases stemming from 9-11 over the next decades. "Those numbers seem quite outrageous," is how Hesdorffer puts it. Now at Johns Hopkins, Hesdorffer directed until last year the tumor immunotherapy program at Columbia University Medical Center, where he treated two recovery workers who got cancer post�9-11. He notes that the average healthy adult person has a 20 percent risk of having cancer over a lifetime. Calculate that risk over five years�the time frame from the events of 9-11 until today�and it drops to about 1 percent. Yet 5 percent of the suits' workers�1 percent of the overall worker population�have already been diagnosed with malignancies. And these patients don't include the thousands whose illnesses have yet to be recorded because they aren't participating in the lawsuits or in the World Trade Center medical-monitoring programs. What the experts find most telling are the types of cancer now emerging. They say the blood cancer cases seem too disproportionate to be random. Two percent of these workers have been diagnosed with what amounts to related diseases, none of which fall into the "high-frequency" category, which includes prostate cancer. One out of 9,000 people nationwide gets lymphoma a year; for myeloma, it's one out of 30,000. By contrast, the 75 blood cancer patients translate into several dozen new cases a year. "That's not just a fluke," says Ozonoff, who studies cancer clusters and toxic waste sites. Samet, a worldwide expert on smoking and cancer, notes that when so many cases of related cancers emerge, it can signal a forming cluster. "It sounds like an impressive cluster of cancer cases, and I would want to study it," he says. To be sure, the experts advise caution until more evidence is collected. They acknowledge that the data needed to draw a definite link between 9-11 and cancer don't exist. None of the cancers emerging now are the kinds that come only from toxic exposures�like, say, asbestosis, which is caused by asbestos and can take two decades to grow. This sentinel cancer would go a long way toward proving a 9-11 connection. Absent that, scientists would want to determine whether a higher proportion of cancer patients exists among the workers than in the general public. But because there are no independent data on the 40,000-strong group, they can't make this calculation yet. Meanwhile, the latency periods for most cancers from the time of a full-blown carcinogenic exposure to a full-blown malignancy can take years, if not decades. Says Thun, of the American Cancer Society: "It is the exception rather than the rule to have cancers develop this quickly." Despite the lack of definitive data, we may still be in the midst of a cancer epidemic. Indeed, according to these experts, traditional data don't help much here because 9-11 represents such a singular exposure. No one can deny that the workers were exposed to a blend of pulverized and aerosolized toxins that had never existed in any occupational setting before. And this mix of toxins alone is enough to cause more aggressive cancers. "It's also enough to throw out prescriptions on timing," Hesdorffer adds. Back in May 2004, before most doctors even contemplated a 9-11 link to cancer, Hesdorffer provided testimony to the federal government's September 11 Victim Compensation Fund on behalf of one police officer who had developed pancreatic cancer within a year after his recovery stint. Hesdorffer finds it odd that two of his patients had been diagnosed with the rare cancer after working on the Pile. "It's strange to have two people who were subjected to the same exposure," he says, "developing the same cancer in the same time frame." Now that he has learned of Worby's statistics, he is convinced that "there is definitely more than a likely link between the 9-11 exposures and cancer." Francine Laden, who specializes in air pollution and cancer, agrees. Because so many of Worby's clients have blood cancers�which have faster incubation periods than tumor cancers, forming in as little as five years�Laden confirms that it's not a stretch to attribute their diseases to the dust cloud. "Blood cancers are different," she says, noting the tie between benzene and leukemia, as well as dioxin and lymphoma. "It's not beyond the realm of feasibility that these chemicals caused these cancers." Ozonoff puts it more firmly: "For an acute episode like this, it's definitely possible these blood cancers were caused by 9-11." Ozonoff echoes all five of his colleagues when he draws parallels between the aftermath of 9-11 and that of another massive exposure: the atomic-bombs dropped on Japan. Bomb survivors experienced excessive spikes in leukemia rates within the first five years, a surprising discovery for epidemiologists in the mid 20th century. While this outbreak resulted from radiation, both it and 9-11 involved a sudden and intense blast of carcinogens. For bomb survivors, leukemia appeared first, followed by breast and lung cancer. "That could happen with 9-11," says Samet, the Johns Hopkins epidemiology department chair. "It might be what we're seeing today." It's also possible that the carcinogens in the Trade Center dust accelerated cancers already dormant or developing in the recovery workers, epidemiologists say. According to Richard Clapp, who directed the Massachusetts Cancer Registry from 1980 to 1989, toxins can not only instigate the genes that cause cancerous cells to divide, but also hasten their dividing. That means that a person with an undetected cancer will develop it faster and in a more virulent manner. He calls this the "promotional effect" and says some toxins associated with 9-11 have been known to speed up lymphomas and leukemias. "The promotional effect could have happened already," he says. Either way, Clapp adds, "It's hard not to attribute these cancers to 9-11." His gut, he says, is telling him one thing: "We'll be seeing a cancer explosion from 9-11, and we're starting to see it today."
A nurse would ask John Walcott about possible causes of his acute myelogenous leukemia. Like Vallebuona, Walcott answered no to all the questions. And like Vallebuona, he didn't connect the dots between his time at ground zero and the cancer growing in his body.
photo: Scott McDermott At 8:30 on the morning of the terrorist attacks, Ernie Vallebuona was driving with his three-year-old son, also named Ernie, to a nearby Home Depot in search of the perfect paint color for the family bathroom. Vallebuona always listens to 1010 WINS in the car, so he turned on the radio. He soon heard the incredible news that a plane had crashed into one of the twin towers. Instantly, he got the call to respond. "We're all mobilizing," his NYPD supervisor told him via cell phone. "Get to work as fast as you can." Over in Pomona, some 36 miles away from Manhattan, 37-year-old NYPD detective John Walcott was at his suburban home, killing time before a midnight tour on the narcotics unit, where he'd worked for a dozen years. He was relaxing on the couch when a friend from St. Louis called. "What the hell is going on in New York?" the friend asked, incredulously. Walcott had no idea what his friend meant. He flipped on the TV, only to see flames raging from the twin towers. Minutes later, he was behind the wheel of his minivan, speeding down the highway toward the World Trade Center. Some 200 miles southeast of the Trade Center site, 49-year-old Gary Acker was working in a bomb shelter dubbed the "earth station," an undisclosed location where AT&T; keeps its large satellite dishes. At the time, Acker was managing the company's disaster recovery team, which restores critical communications after catastrophes. He had long viewed the post as the crowning achievement in his 31-year career, one that suited his desire to make a difference. When the first plane hit the north tower, he was sitting in an equipment room, four floors below ground, running emergency drills. No one had turned on the TV, so he remained oblivious to the events unfolding in Manhattan. His wife, Alison, called him. "Look at the TV," she said, just as the second plane hit the south tower. Acker knew that New York City officials would be calling AT&T; for help. "Pack up your equipment," he heard his wife say, "and get ready to ride." Back in Manhattan, Jessy McCarthy was not about to roll anywhere. The Verizon field technician was sitting in his office on East 91st Street, listening to the news on the radio, when he heard about the planes hitting the towers. He froze in place, unable to pull himself away from the broadcast for hours that day. Only that afternoon did he manage to go to a nearby work site to repair phone lines. Sitting in his truck, he stared in disbelief at all the people doused in gray dust walking up Third Avenue from downtown. His eyes locked on the caravan of people who'd been caught in that cloud. By the time McCarthy was taking in this ghostly scene, Vallebuona and Walcott had joined thousands of first responders at the World Trade Center. Both arrived at the site shortly after the 110-story twin towers came crashing down, and they spent the next 15 hours sifting through the wreckage. Racing to the scene from the Seventh Precinct, on Pitt Street, Vallebuona encountered a giant cloud of dust and smoke so hazy and dense, he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. He circled the periphery of what he thought was the scene, following the blaring sirens and running past pumper trucks and police cruisers twisted up like discarded tin cans. The dust caked his eyes and coated his lips. It filled his nostrils with a horrible smell, like burned plastic and flesh. Vallebuona happened to have a bandanna in his pants pocket, which he wrapped across his face. It did little to ward off the rancid odor. Walcott was also experiencing the noxious effects of the chemical brew. While the massive cloud had dissipated, the crystalline particles hung in the air like speckles in a snow globe. He waded though mounds of pulverized dust, knee-deep, tasting it on his lips, spitting it out of his mouth. Without a mask, he was coughing immediately. First came the black mucus and ashen chunks, then the dry heaves and blood. For hours, he wiped away dark gunk dripping from his eyes. He couldn't help but think that something was wrong. But he focused on the mission at hand, on the faint hope of discovering survivors. That day, he stepped over the only human body that he would find intact�a female, burned beyond recognition, a charred bra over her face. Acker arrived on the scene 24 hours later, after driving with 11 team members up the East Coast in a company trailer equipped with satellite transmission consoles and multiplex cables. He would spend the next 33 days in and around ground zero�first setting up a satellite at 1 Police Plaza, then manning phone lines across the street from what came to be known as the Pile. The plume enveloped the area from the moment he set foot there until he left. Many nights, he'd oversee the satellite atop 1 Police Plaza, just east of ground zero, and watch as the prevailing winds subsided and the bright-blue smoke settled in. It hung so heavily on the city that he couldn't see the guards stationed across the street. In these early days, Acker, Vallebuona, and Walcott all struggled to protect themselves from the toxic dust. The foul odor clogged the air for the three months that Vallebuona ended up working at the site�first on the Pile, hauling rubble with buckets, then around the perimeter, providing security and escorting residents to their dust-laden homes. When he and Walcott searched the rubble as part of the initial bucket brigade, they wore nothing over their faces but surgical masks. Respirator masks came weeks into their months-long recovery work; sometimes they came with the wrong filters. Because Walcott was a detective, he ended up spending his five-month stint not just at ground zero, but also at Fresh Kills. As much as he choked on the Lower Manhattan air, he dreaded the Staten Island landfill. Walcott knew everything in the towers had fallen�desks, lights, computers. But apart from the occasional steel beam, the detritus that he sifted through there consisted of tiny grains of dust�no furniture pieces, no light fixtures, not even a computer mouse. At times, the detectives would take shelter in wooden sheds, in an attempt to get away from what Walcott likes to call "all that freaking bad air." One day, he was sitting in the shed with his colleagues, eating candy bars and drinking sodas, when some FBI agents entered. They were dressed in full haz-mat suits, complete with head masks, which they had sealed shut with duct tape to ward off the fumes. As Walcott took in the scene, contrasting the well-protected FBI agents with the New York cops wearing respirator masks, one thought entered his mind: What is wrong with this picture? The same thought would cross Acker's mind only fleetingly, and only after weeks of working near ground zero, while he was hacking so hard he vomited something akin to chewed-up licorice. During his first days at the site, he wore the painter's mask that an NYPD lieutenant had given him, but it soon became too filthy from debris. By October, he was spitting up so much gunk that he called his doctor for an antibiotics prescription. But he wouldn't leave the site; when the fumes got bad, he'd sit in the company trailer and flip on the air conditioner. That had a filter, at least. AT&T; had stocked its disaster trailers with almost everything�rubber boots, hard hats, rope, a first aid kit. Funny, Acker thought, staring at the shelves. All this stuff, yet no one had ever considered respirators. , Acker thought, staring at the shelves. Around this time, McCarthy was just beginning to report for recovery duty. When Verizon asked for volunteers to restore phone lines near ground zero, he didn't hesitate. He arrived for his first assignment in early October and wound up staying downtown for the next 13 months, going from basement to basement, moving from Wall Street skyscrapers to Chinatown walk-ups. The first thing he saw in the company terminals was the Trade Center dust, piled on top of consoles, crammed into corners. He had to wipe down the equipment with his bare hands to see the wires. The dust had an orange hue; at times, it twinkled. And it always stunk, an unforgettable smell he struggled to get past every time. Invariably, he'd find it in his hair, on his eyelashes, in his tool belt, even under his fingernails. Sometimes, he'd gaze at the ceiling and get the sense of standing in the middle of a meadow thick with pollen. He could see the soot and dust floating in the air. When it occurred to these responders that they might be sacrificing their health for the sake of the cleanup�as it did to anyone who came in contact with the foul-smelling smoke and dust�they took comfort in the official word at the time. In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, the EPA issued multiple statements on the air quality downtown. All were reassuring in nature. On September 18, the day after the New York Stock Exchange reopened for business, the EPA's Whitman said the air was safe to breathe. It has turned out those words were, in fact, false. In August 2003, the EPA inspector general issued a scathing 155-page report concluding that the agency hadn't had the data to make such blanket declarations at that time. By then, more than a quarter of EPA samples showed unsafe levels of asbestos, and the agency had yet to complete tests for mercury, cadmium, lead, dioxin, and PCBs. The inspector general's report went on to disclose another disconcerting fact�that the White House had pressured the EPA to sanitize its warnings about ground zero. The inspector general revealed that the White House Council on Environmental Quality had taken a red pen to the agency's press releases, adding reassuring statements and deleting cautionary ones, creating the overly rosy picture that the air was clean. In reality, the 9-11 fallout was like nothing anyone had been exposed to before. Everything in the towers had been ground into dust�concrete, steel, glass, insulation, plastic, and computers. Dust analyses would detect glass shards, cement particles, cellulose fibers, asbestos, and a mixture of harmful components, including lead, titanium, barium, and gypsum. In all, the dust contained more than 100 different compounds, some of which have never been identified. And then there were the fires that smoldered for three months. They gave off not only the putrid plume, but also a blast of carcinogens�asbestos, dioxin, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. They also emitted benzene. In one disturbing analysis done by the U.S. Geological Survey, the dust had such high alkalinity levels it rivaled liquid Drano. Thomas Cahill, a physicist who sent a team to analyze the plume from a rooftop a mile away from ground zero, says he got worried once he noticed the color of the smoke had turned a fluorescent blue. That's a sure sign that ultra-fine particles (which can go deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream) were coming off the Pile and permeating the air. When his team tested the plume, the scientists found higher levels of sulfuric acid, heavy metals, and other insoluble materials than anywhere else in the world, even in the Kuwaiti oil fields. "Not nice stuff," says Cahill, a professor emeritus of physics at the University of California at Davis, who has published three papers on the 9-11 plume, "and it was all being liberated by that smoldering pile, so those people got the full force of it." Today, Cahill is trying to identify what exactly the recovery workers were inhaling, but the data are incomplete. He does know one thing for certain: "You'd have to stand by a busy highway for eight years to get what these people on the site got in just four weeks." He then adds, "These poor people are part of an enormous experiment, I think." In May 2003, John Walcott was 39 years old. He had just become a first-time father�of his daughter, Colleen�and had proudly coached a Bedford high school hockey team to the state regionals. That spring, he had noticed his energy fade. But he figured his 16-hour days juggling the narcotics beat, hockey practice, and parenthood were finally catching up to him. Still, the fatigue would consume him for weeks. He'd fall asleep at his desk or behind the wheel. Often he'd nod off in the middle of a conversation. Then he got the diagnosis: acute myelogenous leukemia, a white-blood-cell cancer. He was ordered straight to the hospital, where he underwent chemotherapy for the next 28 days. Eventually, a nurse would ask Walcott questions similar to those put to Valle-buona, the ones meant to pinpoint the possible causes for his cancer. Like Vallebuona, Walcott answered no to all the questions. And like Vallebuona, he didn't connect the dots between his time at ground zero and the cancer growing in his body. Visiting him in the hospital later, his sister, Debbie, did. "John," she said, "what the hell do you think you were around at ground zero?" It was a question that Gary Acker would also have to confront that summer, in a visit to his own doctor's office. The AT&T; manager had never shaken that World Trade Center cough, struggling with sore throats and lung infections for 18 months after completing his recovery work, suffering through all kinds of inhalers and antibiotic regimens. At one point, his doctor diagnosed him with sleep apnea and ordered him to wear a pilot-like mask strapped over his face at night, so as to reduce his roaring snores. It didn't work. A perennial optimist, Acker ignored any hint that his health problems were 9-11 related. In September 2002, he got the first warning that his health was deteriorating from exposure to the dust cloud when he underwent a pulmonary test for the company. He was stunned by the doctor's response. "How many packs of cigarettes do you smoke a day?" the doctor asked Acker. "I don't smoke. I never have in my life." "Well, you have a real breathing problem," the doctor informed him. His second warning came in the summer of 2003, as Walcott was getting chemotherapy. In August, Acker was landscaping the backyard at his home, in Columbus, New Jersey, carrying two 50-pound buckets of stones, when his body buckled under a jolt of pain. It felt as if somebody had jabbed a fishhook into his rib cage and was slowly gutting him. He allowed for the possibility of a kidney stone and paid a trip to the doctor. Days later, he got a diagnosis that would stop his heart cold: multiple myeloma, a plasma cell cancer. Already, the super- advanced cancer had eaten its way through the bone marrow in his ribs, as well as many other bones in his body. For a fleeting moment, Acker thought about that thick and foul plume hanging over the Pile; could it have caused his cancer? But his optimism flooded back and he focused on his treatment instead�on the chemotherapy pills that he would take twice a day for the next 28 days. Only days later, after his oncologist confirmed that his myeloma likely formed in the last two years, did he finally make the tie-in to 9-11. By the spring of 2004, Acker and Walcott had endured not only months of chemotherapy, but also stem cell transplants. They experienced a series of life-threatening infections and trips in and out of the hospital before beating their cancers into remission.
For a fleeting moment, Gary Acker thought about that thick and foul plume hanging over the Pile; could it have caused his multiple myeloma?
photo: Scott McDermott Meanwhile, Vallebuona had just begun noticing gout-like symptoms. They started in his big toes, which doubled in size and became hot to the touch, and then moved to his knees, joints, and chest. For six months, he went back and forth to the doctor, getting more medicine, seeking more remedies. He wouldn't doubt that diagnosis until October 2004, when the searing stomachache tipped him off to what had really been causing pain in his abdomen. When he got the cancer diagnosis, Valle-buona was relieved about one thing. His doctor had been wrong about the gout. If nothing else, at least he wouldn't have to live with that excruciating pain for the rest of his life. As Vallebuona was coming to grips with his cancer in the fall of 2004, Jessy McCarthy was still feeling healthy. The Verizon technician had managed to evade the kinds of respiratory problems that have afflicted so many ground zero workers�the cough, the sinusitis, the asthma�in the two years since his recovery assignment had ended. He would experience nothing to suggest the grave disease that would sneak up on him. At least not until one day in October 2004, while taking a shower, when he saw a swelling around the glands under his arm, about the size of a marble. He thought: This is not right.
In March 2005, after a biopsy of one of his lymph nodes, Jessy McCarthy finally was given the definitive diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. By then, the recovery workers' lawsuits had been more than a year in the making.
photo: Scott McDermott But McCarthy didn't feel sick; there were no dizzy spells or nausea. A trip to the family doctor to ask about the lump yielded little information, just something questionable about his blood. So McCarthy plodded on with his life, holding down his full-time job, taking care of his teenage son. Suddenly, within weeks, he noticed the lump had grown, and more had developed. His lymph nodes swelled all over his body, underneath his arms, in his groin, around his neck and chest. The lumps just seemed to sprout; they grew so big that they looked like mini-baseballs. Suddenly, McCarthy found himself undergoing a battery of medical exams�CAT scans, PET scans, blood tests, and anything else that would help narrow down the possibilities. It took six months to rule out every type of lymphatic infection. In March 2005, after a biopsy of one of his lymph nodes, McCarthy finally was given the definitive diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. By then, the recovery workers' lawsuits had been more than a year in the making. Back in the winter of 2004, Walcott had just survived the worst of his hospital stays, a 17-day stretch of 106-degree fevers, and was confined to his home. Months had passed since he learned that his leukemia likely resulted from his exposure to benzene while on the Pile, but he went in search of legal advice. He started with a lawyer friend, who encouraged him to keep looking. One attorney offered to take Walcott's case, as long as he put up his modest house to cover the fees. "Forget it," he said. Eventually, parents of the kids on his high school hockey team heard about his plight. During a visit, Walcott told some parents about his fruitless search. They had an idea. They could contact a trial lawyer whose son went to the same high school; his name was David Worby. "I took the case as a favor," the lead attorney in the recovery workers' lawsuits says, sitting in his spacious penthouse office in White Plains. A trim man whose brown hair is graying at the temples, David Worby exudes confidence as he reclines in his chair and recalls the early days of what has become his greatest legal crusade. Long before the 9-11 suits, he had built a reputation as a gladiator lawyer on personal-injury cases; in 1989, he set a Westchester record by winning $18 million for a construction worker run down by a car. Fifteen years later, he was settling into early retirement when one of the Bedford parents told him about the ailing Walcott. "What was I supposed to do?" Worby asks. What started out as a case for one sick recovery worker quickly snowballed. Today, a team of 20 attorneys at his firm of Worby Groner Edelman Napoli & Bern is handling the suits, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, for the thousands of workers associated with the Trade Center cleanup�police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers, iron workers, and Latino day workers. Last month, Federal District Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected the city's claim for immunity in the Worby lawsuits and recently capped its liability at $1 billion. The judge is expected to appoint a special master to settle the workers' claims. Worby's client list continues to grow. It now includes Vallebuona, Acker, and McCarthy, all of whom came to him after he filed the first suits in September 2004. They found out about him as most of his clients do�by word of mouth, one sick recovery worker to another, one worried spouse to another. Others have called him after hearing about the cases on TV or the radio or in the papers. Most of the clients have grown ill from respiratory problems like asthma, sinusitis, and bronchitis. But some have kidney failure, and 400 people have developed cancer. So far, 83 clients have died. The number of cancer patients has multiplied at a rate that Worby says he never anticipated. Back in 2004, he represented only 20 workers who had cancer. But by last March, he had watched that number soar to 200, and within six months after that, it had doubled. Now he gets at least several calls a week from clients who have just been diagnosed with some cancer. Or from new clients who have had the cancer for weeks or months. Like many trial lawyers, Worby has a penchant for talking in fervent, breathless tones, as though his words were writ large, in bright, blinking letters. Convinced that the 9-11 fallout has made for a cancer explosion, he doesn't hesitate to say so. "There is going to be a cancer catastrophe the likes of which we've never seen in this country," he says. "The numbers are going to be staggering." Perhaps it'd be easy to dismiss him as another hot-aired plaintiffs' attorney were it not for his own command of numbers. He has become something of a gumshoe epidemiologist, compiling the data on his cancer patients that are lacking in the larger worker population, tracking their diseases, ages, diagnosis dates, and their 9-11 exposures. "Look at the cancers my clients have," he says, flipping through a dozen pages of a document entitled "Seriously Ill Clients." It's updated every month; this one is dated September 13, 2006. The document outlines what he calls his "cancer clusters" and lists rare cancers often associated with the 9-11 toxins, such as thyroid (30 people), tongue and throat (25), testicular (16), and brain (10). He keeps a separate document on the 75 people with blood cancers. Two dozen of them have various forms of leukemia; the remaining four dozen have various forms of lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and other blood cell cancers. "If I had two blood cancers, it'd be a strong coincidence," Worby argues. "But 70? That defies coincidence. The word coincidence should not be in anyone's vocabulary." Worby contends that it wasn't just the unprecedented amount of toxins in the air that caused his clients to develop cancer; it was that the toxins worked together. Worby calls it a "synergistic effect," and cancer specialists say there is such a thing as toxic synergy, which occurs when chemicals combine. They can enhance the damage that the other ones would cause. Think of it this way: The benzene at ground zero may have caused Walcott's acute leukemia; the dioxin probably sped up its development. "This amount of toxicological exposure is going to speed up normal latency periods," Worby argues. He makes this assertion with the same zeal that he exhibits in the courtroom, citing medical studies on animals, rattling off the findings as if they were second nature. Why would the doctors monitoring the effects of 9-11 on people's health not understand this connection, he wonders. "Why would people not make this link?" Five years after September 11, there's no doubt that the toxic dust cloud has devastated the lungs of those who participated in the Trade Center cleanup. In September, the Mount Sinai Medical Center released data from its WTC Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program, which has tested 17,500 recovery workers to date. In that analysis, doctors found that nearly 70 percent of the 9,500 subjects they surveyed experienced new or worsened respiratory symptoms at ground zero; close to 60 percent saw those symptoms persist for years. Doctors have seen chronic sinusitis, laryngitis, asthma, gastroesophageal reflux disorder, and disabling musculoskeletal conditions. Even the famous World Trade Center cough has lasted much longer than anticipated. "All of us have been badly surprised by the persistence and the chronicity of the World Trade Center diseases," says Robin Herbert, the director of the screening program. But at the Mount Sinai program (and at the WTC program of the FDNY, which declined to comment for this article), the link between the dust cloud and cancer is discussed more as a possibility than a reality. It's not that doctors aren't extremely concerned about the connection, Herbert says, given the cancer-causing agents and other toxins in the mix. While individual cancer cases may be attributed to 9-11 toxins, she says, the doctors, so far, lack full epidemiological proof linking the two. "We don't know if we're seeing a spike in cancer rates," Herbert says, as they have in the rates of respiratory illnesses. Herbert confirms that the Mount Sinai doctors have seen some workers with cancer, including unusual cancers, but says they'd expect some workers to develop malignancies over the last five years anyway. Is there more incidence of cancer among Pile workers than among those who didn't toil on the Pile? "That's the key question," she says. The Mount Sinai epidemiologists have just begun to try to answer that by launching an initiative to update medical records, document new diagnoses, and track less-com mon diseases like cancer. It's a slow process, with no timeline. Still, she says, "We are now aggressively investigating every case of cancer that has been reported to us." But the WTC programs�funded by the federal government�have their share of critics, who wonder how interested the doctors are in the 9-11 and cancer issue. Al O'Leary, the spokesperson for the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, says that many of its members feel as if the doctors are ignoring the signs of a growing cancer cluster. "It was our impression that no one in the medical-monitoring programs believed the cancers could be happening this early," he explains. Over the past year, the police union has fielded a steady increase in calls from members who have developed cancer since working at ground zero. Last July, the PBA started its own World Trade Center health registry for its members, listing seven cancer cases at the time. Today, there are 20 cases; they include the 35-year-old who worked on the Pile and at Fresh Kills and now has multiple myeloma, the 45-year-old who surveyed the Trade Center site for two years and now has leukemia, and the 41-year-old who manned the landfill morgue for three weeks and now has myeloma. "Now, don't you think this is all very suspicious?" O'Leary asks. "The medical community needs to be more open-minded about what diseases can be caused by 9-11." Some cancer specialists agree. Hesdorffer, of Johns Hopkins, still remembers the reaction to his testimony before the Victim Compensation Fund, back in 2004. He was called back about a half-dozen times to explain why he would attribute the pancreatic cancer in his two patients to the dust cloud so soon after 9-11. It was as if no one wanted to make the connection; one patient lost his claim despite the doctor's opinion. "We're in this period where no one wants to accept the link," Hesdorffer observes. Maybe the official denial stems from economics, from a desire to limit the amount of money owed to the thousands who have lost their health. Or maybe it has to do with politics. Admitting a link, as he points out, "would mean that the fallout from 9-11 was a lot bigger than we'd thought." What it would mean is that people got cancer from government decisions. From the decision of Whitman to lie about the air quality in Lower Manhattan, which gave the recovery workers and many other New Yorkers a false sense of security. From the decision of the White House to put Wall Street ahead of public health, which the EPA inspector general found had influenced all those rosy statements. And from the decision to let workers toil without proper respirators for weeks, or without any respirators at all. For Gary Acker, now 54 and still undergoing monthly chemical drips to heal his bones, gone are the annual trips hunting for caribou in Canada and fishing for trout in the Adirondacks. Those years in the late '90s when he threw the javelin and shot put in the New York version of the Olympics seem like an adolescent memory. No longer working at AT&T;, he devotes his time to trying to relax, watching mindless sitcoms on TV, anything to make himself laugh. "If I'm laughing, I'm not stressed," he says. His doctors tell him that no stress means less chance of a cancer relapse. Last year, Jessy McCarthy, now 48, had to work through his chemotherapy treatment, juggling the 72-hour drips with his job and his son for six months. He didn't have much choice; otherwise he'd lose his medical benefits. He could never afford the medical bills on his $65,000 salary; some of his medications cost $5,000 a dose. Now in remission, he continues to fix phone lines, though he knows the day will come when he can't anymore. Already, he has had to call for help on assignments he used to do alone. He also knows, in the back of his mind, that his cancer is the kind that will likely return, and possibly kill him. Walcott and Vallebuona, both retired from the force because of their cancer, continue to live with the side effects of their treatments�the lost feeling in their hands and feet and the extreme fatigue. While Vallebuona has undergone chemotherapy, radiation, and a stem cell transplant, he still hasn't been able to beat his lymphoma into remission. They also grapple with what they both like to call "chemo brain." The drugs left Walcott, now 42, too incoherent to witness or recall the first time his daughter learned to walk or talk. For Vallebuona, now 41, the littler things seem to escape him, like the weekend plans his wife mentioned earlier in the day. But even their foggy minds have not erased the memories of two planes hitting the World Trade Center on that sunny September morning, when they had woken up healthy and happy to be alive. send a letter to the editor go to next article in news ->
More by Kristen Lombardi The Squatter
Daniel Peckham won't leave his Chelsea apartment�not even for the $800 one-bedroom on West 69th Street his landlord offered to get him out. Is he crazy?
Some Kids Left Behind
Stuyvesant alums finally join the fight for 9-11 health benefits
Stump the Trump
The Donald crows about a big tower for Soho. Activists would like to shut him up.
Trouble in Store
Workers at a Brooklyn grocery say they're not paid fairly, if at all.
Silence of the Lam
Accused of sexually abusing young boys, a Brooklyn rabbi lit for Israel 22 years ago. Now one alleged victim wants him brought back for trial.
Daniel Peckham won't leave his Chelsea apartment�not even for the $800 one-bedroom on West 69th Street his landlord offered to get him out. Is he crazy?Stuyvesant alums finally join the fight for 9-11 health benefitsThe Donald crows about a big tower for Soho. Activists would like to shut him up.Workers at a Brooklyn grocery say they're not paid fairly, if at all.Accused of sexually abusing young boys, a Brooklyn rabbi lit for Israel 22 years ago. Now one alleged victim wants him brought back for trial. .. |
Press Release
Once upon a time, the Thunderbolts were the Masters of Evil, villains posing as heroes. Two decades later, their leader has returned…and Baron Zemo will reclaim the legacy of the Thunderbolts – with the infinite power of the cosmic cube! This February, Marvel celebrates the history of the Thunderbolts in THUNDERBOLTS #10 – a can’t-miss, oversized 20th anniversary issue! Kicking off the brand-new “Return of the Masters” story arc – creators Jim Zub and Jon Malin put Baron Zemo back on the board! And he’s coming to reclaim what’s his – the Thunderbolts themselves! What will the Winter Soldier have to say about that? As Zemo seeks to attain power over Kobik, the sentient Cosmic Cube, how does that factor into Captain America’s sinister plans?
But that’s not all! This oversized issue also features a special tale reuniting original Thunderbolts creative team Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley! Witness the return of fan-favorite character Jolt in their first Thunderbolts story together in over 15 years! “Return of the Masters” begins on February 22nd in THUNDERBOLTS #10!
THUNDERBOLTS #10
Written by JIM ZUB & KURT BUSIEK
Art by JON MALIN & MARK BAGLEY
Cover by JON MALIN
Variant Cover by MARK BAGLEY |
A day after being fired by President Trump, FBI Director James Comey wrote an email to the bureau explaining that he is "not going to spend time" thinking about the decision to fire him or how it was executed.
"I will be fine," Comey assured his former staffers.
CBS News obtained a copy of the email, which wasn't sent by Comey himself but was forwarded by someone within the bureau. The email's existence was first reported by CNN.
What does Comey's firing mean for the FBI?
Comey wrote that he has "long believed the president can fire an FBI Director for any reason or for no reason at all" and said he will not question that decision -- and he hopes no one else will.
"I have said to you before that, in times of turbulence, the American people should see the FBI as a rock of competence, honesty and independence," the email read. "What makes leaving the FBI hard is the nature and quality of its people, who together make it that rock for America."
Comey wrote that "working with you has been one of the great joys of my life."
Several FBI employees and agents told CBS News they were touched by what they took as the very personal nature of the farewell email, especially after the abrupt announcement of his dismissal on Tuesday.
After Comey's dramatic firing, current and former FBI agents and employees told CBS News they were shocked by the decision.
"I am not happy. I think this is bulls--," one current special agent told CBS News. "We are living in partisan times. Both sides criticized the director; that's why he should still be in the job. The vast majority of the bureau is in favor of director Comey."
White House: Comey "politicized' the role of FBI Director, leading to firing
Agents and employees told CBS News that they take issue with White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders' comments that Comey had lost the confidence of the bureau.
The White House said Wednesday that Comey had been fired because Mr. Trump had lost confidence in him. But many have questioned the timing, since the FBI is leading the investigation into ties between the Trump White House and Russia.
Sources tell CBS News that just last week, Comey asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for more resources for the FBI's Russia investigation, something the Justice Department denies.
CBS News' Andres Triay contributed to this report. |
The problem for the companies, it's worth emphasizing, is not that they were so unduly eager to cooperate with U.S. government surveillance. Many seem to have done what they could to resist. The problem is what the U.S. government -- first under Bush and Cheney, now under Obama and Biden -- asked them to do. As long as they operate in U.S. territory and under U.S. laws, companies like Google or Facebook had no choice but to comply. But people around the world who have a choice about where to store their data, may understandably choose to avoid leaving it with companies subject to the way America now defines its security interests.
Here's Naughton's version of the implications:
The first is that the days of the internet as a truly global network are numbered. It was always a possibility that the system would eventually be Balkanised, ie divided into a number of geographical or jurisdiction-determined subnets as societies such as China, Russia, Iran and other Islamic states decided that they needed to control how their citizens communicated. Now, Balkanisation is a certainty....
Second, the issue of internet governance is about to become very contentious. Given what we now know about how the US and its satraps have been abusing their privileged position in the global infrastructure, the idea that the western powers can be allowed to continue to control it has become untenable.... Nothing, but nothing, that is stored in their [ie, US-based companies] "cloud" services can be guaranteed to be safe from surveillance or from illicit downloading by employees of the consultancies employed by the NSA.
The real threat from terrorism has never been the damage it does directly, even through attacks as horrific as those on 9/11. The more serious threat comes from the over-reaction, the collective insanity or the simple loss of perspective, that an attack evokes. Our government's ambition to do everything possible to keep us "safe" has put us at jeopardy in other ways.
One more note: it is also worth emphasizing that this damage was not done by Edward Snowden, except in an incidental and instrumental sense. The damage comes from the policies themselves, just as the lasting damage from Abu Ghraib came not from the leaked photos but from the abuse they portrayed.
What governments do eventually becomes known. Eventual disclosure is likely when a program involves even a handful of people. (Latest case in point: Seal Team Six.) It is certain when an effort stretches over many years, entails contracts worth billions of dollars, and requires the efforts of tens of thousands of people -- any one of whom, as we've seen from Snowden, may at any point decide to tell what he knows.
In launching such an effort, a government must assume as a given that what it is doing will become known, and then calculate whether it will still seem "worthwhile" when it does. Based on what we've seen so far, Prism would have failed that test.
____
* Of course the "trust" comes with the caveat that the companies have been piling up this data for their own commercial, ad-targeting, data-mining purposes. But that's a known risk, more or less. The demands placed on the companies by the U.S. government are, for the public at large, the main news of the Snowden revelations. |
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Feb. 9, 2015, 11:55 PM GMT / Updated Feb. 10, 2015, 3:29 AM GMT
Delaying vaccines is not only a waste of time, it could be dangerous to your kids. And no, foreigners aren’t bringing most measles cases into the U.S.
Experts on measles vaccines say they’re frustrated by the wide array of rumors being fed by websites, organized anti-vaccine groups, and the media. They debunked many of the myths at a seminar Monday organized by the Johns Hopkins school of public health.
Here are seven misconceptions they took on:
It’s OK to delay vaccines and it lets your kid’s immune system mature
No, it’s not, says Dr. Neal Halsey, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that babies get their first combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine at 12 months and a second dose at age 4 to 6, before starting pre-school or kindergarten. Not only is your child vulnerable to measles if you delay this, but older kids might be more likely to have frightening complications from the vaccine.
“People are delaying immunization for their children because they are concerned about this very small, precious 12-month-old,” Halsey said. But about 5 percent of children develop what’s known as febrile seizures when they get a fever for any reason. These seizures are almost always harmless, but they are scary.
And about one in 6 kids gets a fever after getting the first dose of MMR vaccine. This risk actually goes up in children older than 1, Halsey said. “So it is not safer to delay. It is safer to give the vaccine on schedule,” he said.
"It is safer to give the vaccine on schedule”
And the immune system responds less effectively to vaccines as kids reach the teen years and beyond, so early vaccination is better, Halsey says.
It’s also been shown that people who live in clusters with other vaccine-delaying parents or vaccine exempters have higher rates of vaccine-preventable disease such as pertussis or whooping cough, says Daniel Salmon, deputy director of the vaccine safety institute at Johns Hopkins.
“States that offer personal belief exemptions … have about 50 percent more pertussis than other states,” Salmon said. “If you live in an exemption cluster, you are twice as likely to live in pertussis cluster.”
Foreigners, especially illegal immigrants, are bringing measles to the US
It’s true that measles was eliminated in the United States in 2000 and all outbreaks now begin with an imported case.
But last year, the worst year for measles in the U.S. since 1994, 635 out of 644 cases of measles were in U.S. citizens, says Dr. Diane Griffin of Johns Hopkins.
And out of these cases, 77 percent were unvaccinated people. What is mostly happening is that Americans who are not vaccinated are going to a country where measles is more common and bringing the virus back. Unless they live in a community where many people are not vaccinated, usually they don’t infect very many other people, Griffin said.
“When measles happens anywhere in the world it can come here on a plane pretty quick,” she said. And they aren’t coming over land borders — measles has been eliminated in all of the Americas by very high vaccination rates. They’re coming from Europe and Asia, as well as the Philippines.
“2011 that was the year that we were just bombarded from Europe, mostly from France,” Griffin said.
More people die from the vaccine than from measles
Actually, measles kills more than 140,000 people a year globally, according to the World Health Organization. And WHO estimates that measles vaccines save 1 million lives a year.
In contrast, just 57 claims of deaths due to measles vaccines have been filed through the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a no-fault system set up to compensate people injured by vaccines. The program doesn’t say how many of those claims were actually allowed.
“Here is one single vaccine that prevents more than a million deaths every year,” Salmon said.
Existence of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program proves vaccines are harmful
No one ever said vaccines are 100 percent safe. People can be allergic to a vaccine. Former California Rep. Henry Waxman helped write the legislation that led to the program's 1986 launch. He told the seminar it was set up because vaccine makers were dropping out of the business because of fear of pricey lawsuits, and public health officials feared the U.S. would suffer a shortage of vaccines.
“Here is one single vaccine that prevents more than a million deaths every year."
“We looked at the problem and said what we needed to do was assure vaccine manufacturers that these rare, rare cases where they might be held to liability could be dealt with another way,” Waxman told the seminar. The result was a no-fault system: If people could prove they suffered an injury that has been known to be caused by vaccine, they could be compensated without having to prove the vaccine caused the problem. It’s paid for by a tax on vaccines. People who have been vaccinated can spread measles
This erroneous idea may be perpetuated by people who get measles mixed up with polio. Some polio vaccines are made using “live” viruses. These can revert to “wild” type and cause outbreaks, and now WHO recommends using a “killed” polio vaccine first to provide immunity and then boosting with the live one to prevent this spread.
Even though MMR vaccines are made using live viruses, they are weakened much more than the polio vaccine viruses.
“Measles live vaccine doesn’t transmit easily at all,” said Dr. Jane Seward of the CDC’s Division of Viral Diseases. “I don’t think there has ever been a secondary transmission,” she added. “There is no evidence of any transmission of measles virus from a child to household contacts.”
Vaccination is a political debate
It may look that way, with Republicans like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul making comments about vaccination being a matter of liberty. But Waxman has seen vaccine questions raised from the left, also.
“This is not a partisan matter,” he said. “There has been broad bipartisan support for immunizations. I think we have to recognize there are science deniers on the left as well as the right,” he said.
Vaccines cause autism
This one’s been debunked over and over but Halsey says it still comes up.
“The evidence is overwhelming,” he said. The Institute of Medicine has investigated and repeatedly said it’s not true. A special federal court, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, ruled against three families in 2009 who claimed vaccines caused their children's autism, saying they had been "misled by physicians who are guilty … of gross medical misjudgment." |
Twenty Reconstructionist Rabbis at the center of a debate over whether spiritual leaders should be allowed to marry outside the Jewish faith have formed a new association to “affirm a serious commitment to traditional Jewish thought and practice.”
It’s caled Beit Kaplan: The Rabbinic Partnership for Jewish Peoplehood, and news of its formation was announced Thursday evening in an email to The Forward.
The group’s founding rabbis said in a statement that they will be an “educational consortium and resource for rabbis, congregations, and lay people wishing to continue the work and vision of Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan (1881-1983).”
Several of the 20 rabbis have been outspoken critics of a seismic shift in Reconsructionism that, in September, decided it was okay to ordain students in its rabbinical seminary, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, who were in interfaith relationships.
Darkaynu.org Rabbi Reba Carmel. Share
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“Many younger progressive Jews, including many rabbis and rabbinical students, now perceive restrictions placed on those who are intermarried as reinforcing a tribalism that feels personally alienating and morally troubling in the 21st century,” an RRC document explained last fall.
In January, as debate over the policy change intensified, seven rabbis said they would quit the movement.
Rabbi Reba Carmel, a founding member of Beit Kaplan told The Forward then that letting rabbis marry outside Judaism, is “detrimental to the Jewish people in America …(who)ultimately we will be assimilated out of existence.”
“It goes to the heart of what it means to be a Jewish leader,” said Carmel, a 2009 RRC graduate.
Thursday night, Beit Kaplan’s acting spokesperson Shoshana Hantman (also one of the 20 founders), had this to say about the group:
“We have formed a new association in order to represent rabbis, congregations and laypeople who adhere to a more traditional Kaplanian reading of Reconstructionist Judaism.”
“The decision to form the association was sparked, in part, by the recent RRC policy shift that muddled the definition of what it means for a rabbi to have a Jewish family. Other contributing factors include a desire to return the focus of liberal Judaism to Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan’s vision of Jewish peoplehood and a desire to affirm connections to the Jewish people globally, including in Israel.”
Kaplan and his son-in-law Ira Eisenstein were the founders of the Reconstructionist Movement, which shook up American Judaism in the 20th Century.
One of the most revolutionary things? Kaplan in 1922 was the first to hold a public celebration of a bat mitzvah in America.
It was for his daughter Judith, and celebrated at his New York shul, the Society for the Advancement of Judaism.
wikimedia commons Rabbi Mordecai Kaplam. Share
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Something else revolutionary that day: Judith Kaplan read from the Torah.
“The Rabbinic Partnership hopes to offer rabbis a place to continue the work Kaplan described decades ago: not to react to the circumstances that change Jewish life, but to actively shape those circumstances, and to do so in partnership with supportive and caring colleagues,” said a third founding member, Rabbi Lester Bronstein.
The other 17 founding rabbis are: Emanuel S. Goldsmith, Carol Harris-Shapiro, David Osachy, Fred Schwalb, Jerry Seidler, Joan Pitzele Sacks, Karen Sussan, and Kevin Hale/
Also: Larry Pinsker, Marna Sapsowitz, Rebecca Lillian, Rick Libowitz, Yaacov Kravitz, Yocheved Heiligman, Daniel Brenner, Andrew Jacobs, and Howard A. Cohen.
The controversy over over-assimilation of Jews has presented itself in different ways in recent years: most recently in the fight to designate an egalitarian prayer space at Israel’s Western Wall.
Several Orthodox and right-wing leaders condemned Reform Jews. One even cited Christian Chelsea Clinton’s marriage to a Jew.
Yariv Levin of the Likud party said: “Reform Jews in the United States are a dying world. Assimilation is taking place on a vast scale. They are not even tracking this properly in their communities. It is evidenced by the fact that a man who calls himself a Reform rabbi stands there with a priest and officiates at the wedding of the daughter of Hillary Clinton and no one condemns it, thereby legitimizing it.”
While the breakaway Reconstructionists have not sought to ban interfaith nuptials among their congregants, last fall’s decision to okay it among the Rabbinate was too much for the Beit Kaplan founding members and their supporters.
“It was the last straw,” said Arlo Binderman, a member of Congregation Kol Haneshama in Sarasota, Fla.
“The (Reconstructionist) movement used to be a little left of Conservative and now it has become way left of Reform Judaism.”
This story "Reconstructionist Rebels Form Splinter Group After Schism Over Intermarried Rabbis" was written by John A. Oswald. |
How do you market the Affordable Care Act to Millennials? If you’ve got a good answer, tell the White House right away. It’s tried everything to get us to sign up for health insurance on the federal exchanges — and most of its attempts have been off-tune, off-putting, or just downright dumb.
The latest effort involves former NBA star Magic Johnson. Sorry: While Johnson commands respect for his athletic and personal achievements, he’s the not the best candidate to market anything to Millennials. He retired in 1991. Anyone under 23 never even saw him pick up a basketball.
So here’s marketing lesson No. 1: You’ve lost us when we have to Google your spokesman.
The Magic mishap isn’t the ObamaCare marketing team’s first mistake. There’s also the “Brosurance” debacle, a Web and print campaign that started in Colorado but went “national” for all the wrong reasons.
The ads depict Millennials as idiots and floozies. One ad shows college kids doing keg stands; another shows a couple about to hook up, with the tag: “Let’s hope he’s as easy to get as this birth control.”
That leads us to lesson No. 2: You’re doing it wrong when you validate adults’ perception that Millennials are moronic.
Other campaigns have been weird, sad or both. One print ad urged us to go to healthcare.gov by telling us that “Mom loves her comfy jeans.” So did that kid in college who played World of Warcraft, but he never made me want to buy health insurance. Then there’s the “pajama boy” campaign, which convinced anyone over 30 that Millennials are insufferable. And another ad targets women with a not-so-catchy tune sung by cats and dogs.
That’s marketing lesson No. 3: Cat songs aren’t the same as cat gifs. #icanhazrelevance?
To be fair, Millennials aren’t always laughing at the administration’s ads. Sometimes we’re laughing with them — when they feature celebrities and comedians who we’ve actually heard of, like Amy Poehler, Sarah Silverman or Will Ferrell.
But the real joke is on us. ObamaCare just isn’t a good deal for my generation.
The problems start with how much plans cost. Insurance rates have skyrocketed for Millennials since the exchanges opened in October. According to the Manhattan Institute, the average 27-year-old man is facing a 97 percent premium hike and the average 27-year old woman a 55 percent increase.
Sure, subsidies may make up part of the difference between what we’re paying now and what we paid before ObamaCare. But many of us would prefer the freedom to choose options outside the exchange system. It’s no coincidence that the latest Harvard poll shows that only 13 percent of Millennials “definitely” plan on buying an ObamaCare plan.
Millennials are also the least able to afford these increased costs. We’re already struggling with stratospheric levels of college debt that grow every year (with averages of $26,600 in 2011, $29,400 in 2012, and $35,200 in 2013). Nearly 16 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds can’t find meaningful employment. Clearly we need every penny we can get.
The administration has tried to downplay these costs with more lame marketing. Late last year, the Department of Health and Human Services launched an interactive campaign where Millennials could submit videos praising ObamaCare. The winning entry? The song “Forget about the Price Tag.”
That’s not something we can do. Saturday may be “National Youth Enrollment Day,” but the simple fact is that ObamaCare gives us little incentive to join its ranks.
That’s especially true for an event that’s held on a Saturday. If the Brosurance ads are accurate, we’re too busy dealing with the consequences of our poor decisions from Friday night. And it doesn’t help that healthcare.gov will be down for maintenance Saturday. Talk about a planning fail.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish reading Magic Johnson’s Wikipedia page.
David Pasch, 25, is the communications director at Generation Opportunity. |
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Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune Oil wells along the Nine Mile Canyon National Backcountry Byway in Duchesne County, Tuesday Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune Horses in Nine Mile Canyon, Tuesday January 19, 2016. Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune Soldier Creek Road, leading into Nine Mile Canyon in the northern Book Cliffs, Tuesday Janu Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune Petroglyphs at First Site in Nine Mile Canyon, Tuesday January 19, 2016. Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune A BLM sign competes with oil wells for attention along the Nine Mile Canyon National Backco Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune A BLM sign competes with oil wells for attention along the Nine Mile Canyon National Backco |
The government is likely to promulgate the land ordinance for an unprecedented fourth time after conclusion of Parliament's Monsoon Session, with no consensus still in sight on the contentious bill.
The Joint Committee of Parliament headed by MP S S Ahluwalia, which is looking into the contentious legislation, meanwhile plans to seek a two-week extension till August 3 to finalize its report.
Indications are that the panel is unlikely to come out with its report during the Monsoon Session and could seek further extension, making it necessary for the government to re-promulgate the ordinance once again. The ordinance was promulgated for the third time on May 31.
Sources in the government see nothing unusual in the re-promulgation of the land ordinance. They said at least 15 ordinances have been promulgated twice or more.
An ordinance, which has a life span of six months otherwise, has to be re-promulgated if it does not get the endorsement of Parliament within six weeks of the start of a session. Monsoon Session starts on July 21 and ends on August 3.
The government has so far maintained that re-promulgation was necessary for maintaining its continuity and providing a framework to compensate people whose land is acquired. Congress, which has been opposing the new brought by the government, had fiercely attacked it when the ordinance was re-promulgated on May 31.
Sources in the government, however, say that at least six ordinances have been promulgated thrice during various governments including UPA-II.
UPA II had promulgated two ordinances thrice---the 'Re-adjustment of Representation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies Ordinance, 2013' between January 30, 2013 and Septmeber 27, 2013, and 'The Securities Laws (Amendment) Ordinance, 2013' between July 18, 2013 and March 28, 2014 in the 15th Lok Sabha.
'The Buidling and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Condition of Service), 1996' was promulgated twice by the Congress government led by P V Narsimha Rao and repromulgated again by United Front Government headed by H D Deve Gowda.
The same happened with the Industrial Disputes (Amendment) Ordinance, 1996, the Arbitration and Conciliation Ordinance, 1996 and The Depository Ordinance, 1996 which were promulgated twice by the Rao government and once more by the Deve Gowda dispensation, which succeeded him.
Sources in the government indicate there is little possibility of the government, which has just completed the first year of its five-year term, opting for the joint session route to pass the bill and invite further criticism for pushing the law 'through force'.
The Joint Committee of Parliament, which is struggling to arrive at some sort of consensus on the vexed land issue, had earlier decided to seek one week's extension till July 28. However, as it was not found sufficient, it decided to have its tenure extended further till August 3.
Originally the panel had to submit its report on the first day of the Monsoon session beginning July 21.
The panel will have to take the nod of Parliament for the extension when the session begins. The panel has decided to seek a two-week extension in one go now, the sources said.
Out of 672 representations that the committee received, 670 have opposed the amendments being brought by the NDA government in the land bill, particularly dropping the consent clause and social impact survey. So far, 52 representatives have also appeared before the committee. |
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonSanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' Former Sanders campaign spokesman: Clinton staff are 'biggest a--holes in American politics' MORE’s lead over Republican nominee Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE is narrowing in Minnesota, according to a new poll.
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Clinton leads Trump by 6 points, 44 percent to 38 percent, among likely voters in a Star Tribune Minnesota Poll released Sunday morning.
Her lead was 13 points, 48 percent to 35 percent, in the spring.
Pollsters found overwhelming support, 58 percent to 28 percent, for Clinton in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Trump, however, has the edge in the suburbs, 41 percent to 37 percent, and the rural areas of the state, 44 percent to 28 percent.
Women favor Clinton and men back Trump, according to the poll, but both candidates are distrusted by voters.
The poll of 625 registered Minnesota voters, conducted Sept. 12 to 14, has a margin of error of 4 percentage points. |
Following a brief spike overnight (as China intervened in its equity market), crude prices slipped lower, testing towards a $51 handle after Saudi Arabia says OPEC is on track to wrap up its production curbs by the middle of the year, potentially leaving its aim of clearing a global oil glut unfinished.
As Bloomberg reports, OPEC and Russia won’t need to prolong output cuts beyond June because the agreed reductions will have already ended the oversupply in world crude markets, Saudi Minister of Energy and Industry Khalid Al-Falih said in Abu Dhabi on Monday. However, ending the deal by mid-year and restoring production would mean the surplus just starts building again, thwarting OPEC’s ambition of whittling down bloated oil inventories.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said that draining off a stockpile “overhang” of more than 300 million barrels -- enough to supply China for almost a month -- was the main aim of supply curbs agreed with Russia and other producers. Twenty-four nations signed up to a joint cutback of 1.8 million barrels a day on Dec. 10. If they extend the deal for six months beyond its scheduled expiry in June, that surplus will be entirely eliminated by the end of the year, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data from the International Energy Agency. If they don’t extend the deal, and restore output to previous levels, about two-thirds of that glut will remain in place.
“If the reduction is of such short duration, this will hardly be sufficient to balance the oil market,” said analysts at Commerzbank AG led by Eugen Weinberg in Frankfurt. “In this case the market participants who bet on rising prices will probably withdraw from the market, putting corresponding pressure on prices.”
And that is what we are seeing begin to occur on this illiquid US holiday trading day...
When OPEC announced its original deal in Vienna, the group said it could be extended for another six months to “take into account prevailing market conditions and prospects.” Al-Falih said OPEC will reassess the situation when it meets again and the group’s members have said they’re will to extend the pact if necessary. |
Verily all praise is due to Allaah, and may peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Mu h ammad, and upon his family and his Companions, one and all .
To proceed...
No Muslim would ever agree with the mocking, ridicule, and blasphemous lies directed at our Deen and at our beloved Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ). Rather the Imaams of Ahlus-Sunnah, the likes of Maalik, al-Layth, A h mad, Is h aaq, and ash-Shaafi’ee, have agreed unanimously that the one who mocks, ridicules, and defames the Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) has disbelieved, and that the prescribed punishment for the one who lives in the lands of the Muslims and does that is death, a punishment that falls under the authority of the Muslim ruler.
There is no doubt that these types of attacks on our Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) will cause anger and make the stomach of every Muslim turn due to his love for Allaah, His Messenger, and His Deen. But the Muslim who is truthful, sincere, and just, he doesn’t allow himself to be overcome by emotion and respond to these attacks with a knee-jerk reaction that entails actions which Allaah and His Messenger have prohibited. Rather, like in all matters, he is first and foremost patient, and then he takes those matters back to the Qur’aan and Sunnah and the understanding of the Companions, and those ‘Ulamaa’ who are firmly-grounded in knowledge. So he is patient and he plants his feet squarely upon knowledge, and he submits to what Allaah and His Messenger ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) have decreed.
ﯵ ﯶ ﯷ ﯸ ﯹ ﯺ ﯻ ﯼ ﯽ ﯾﯿ
ﰀ ﰁ ﰂ ﰃ ﰄ ﰅ ﰆ ﰇ ﰈ ﰉ ﰊ ﰋ
ﰌ ﰍﰎ ﰏ ﰐ ﰑ ﰒ
“O you who believe! Obey Allaah and obey the Messenger, and
those of you who have been placed in authority (over you). (And) if
you differ in anything amongst yourselves, refer it back to Allaah
and His Messenger, if you truly believe in Allaah and in the Last Day.
That is better and more suitable for final determination.”
And al- H aafi th Ibn Katheer mentions that “those of you who have been placed in authority (over you)”, according to Ibn ‘Abbaas, Mujaahid, ‘A t aa’ and others from the Salaf refers to the ‘Ulamaa’. And Ibn Katheer mentions that it is general to both the rulers and the ‘Ulamaa’. And of course this means the ‘Ulamaa’ of Ahlus-Sunnah, not those who ahlul-bid’ah call scholars, the likes of al-Qara d aawee, al-‘Awdah, ‘Abdur-Ra h maan ‘Abdul- Kh aaliq, and other than them from the callers to misguidance.
What has transpired over the past few days in the lands of the Muslims and other than them as a reaction to the film attacking Islaam and insulting our beloved Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) - contradicts the guidance and Sunnah of Allaah’s Messenger ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ). One should remember that these types of attacks are not something new. Indeed Allaah mentions throughout the Qur’aan that His messengers ( عليهم الصلاة و السلام ) were constantly mocked and defamed, that their people called them crazy, mad, and even labeled them as sorcerers, etc. Allaah تعالى said:
ﭑ ﭒ ﭓ ﭔ ﭕ ﭖ ﭗ ﭘ ﭙ ﭚ ﭛ ﭜ ﭝ
“Likewise, no Messenger came to those before them except that they said: "A sorcerer or a madman!"
And this happened with the Prophets and Messengers from Noo h ( عليه السلام ) up to His final Messenger, Mu h ammad ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ).
In the lifetime of Allaah’s Messenger ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) there were those who cursed and insulted him openly. Ka’b bin al-Ashraf al-Yahoodee, in al-Madeenah, used to recite defamatory poetry about him and made explicit poetry about the women of the Muslims. And there was ‘Abdullaah bin Kh a t al in Makkah, who had two female singers who he had sing songs making fun of Prophet Mu h ammad ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ).
As for Ka’b bin al-Ashraf, when he returned from Makkah to al-Madeenah and began reciting his poetry insulting him, the Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) asked his Companions, “Who will deal with Ka’b bin al-Ashraf? For indeed he has harmed Allaah and His Messenger.” And this was when the Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) was in his dawlah in al-Madeenah and he was the ruler, and Ka’b bin al-Ashraf was living under his authority in al-Madeenah. But the Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) didn’t ask his Companions to punish his neighbors, companions, or even his family members for what Ka’b bin al-Ashraf did. Nor did he punish the representatives of his tribe, Banu an-Na d eer, or randomly target the Jews of al-Madeenah nor did he boycott their businesses. Any person of sound intellect would agree that this would be unjust and defies logic, not to mention the texts of the Book and the Sunnah. Instead he ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) -as the ruler - dealt with Ka’b bin al-Ashraf, the one who caused that harm specifically.
‘Abdullaah bin Kh a t al was in Makkah, and he had two female singers who he taught to sing songs making fun of the Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ). And at that time, the Prophet was in al-Madeenah, and was the ruler ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ), and never did he attack anyone from the kuffaar in al-Madeenah or any other town or village as retribution for the defamation and insults of ‘Abdullaah bin Kh a t al towards him. Nor did he command his Companions to attack Makkah or its people because of him. Rather he was patient ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) and did not oppress, and did not transgress. He was patient and he was just ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ). So when the Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) conquered Makkah, and he entered Makkah with his armies, he ordered them not to harm anyone who did not fight them, except for a small group of people who he named by name ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ). From them – and here the Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) had conquered Makkah, and had might and capability (qudrah) – from them was ‘Abdullaah bin Kh a t al and his two songstresses. He didn’t tell them to kill Ibn Kh a t al’s neighbors or his family members. He didn’t destroy the property of the members of his tribe. Rather he ordered them to kill ‘Abdullaah bin Kh a t al and his two songstresses.
These are just two examples of how the Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) dealt with those who abused him in his lifetime. He was aadil (just), and was s aabir (patient) - ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ). He did not oppress and was not unjust, and these people cursed him, abused him, mocked him, and insulted him during his lifetime - ( صلى الله عليه وسلم )!! So where are the actions of the jamaa’aat (political groups and parties) and the ignorant folk who’ve been affected by them from the actions and example of Allaah’s Messenger ( صلى الله عليه وسلم )?!
Where do you find that the Messenger of Allaah ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) and his Companions went to another town and protested, or that they murdered the innocent, or destroyed or burnt their property to the ground because of what the likes of Ibn al-Ashraf and Ibn Kh a t al did in Makkah and al-Madeenah?!
Rather he was patient and just ( صلى الله عليه وسلم )!! And ‘adl (justice) is to put everything in it’s proper place. And what we see from these people in Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and other places in the Middle East, is oppression, injustice, and deviation from his Sunnah. And Allaah said:
ﮍ ﮎ ﮏ ﮐ ﮑ ﮒ ﮓ ﮔ ﮕ ﮖ ﮗ ﮘ
“So warn those who oppose his command, lest some fitnah befall him or they afflicted with a painful punishment.”
And what further elucidates the distinction between the guidance of Mu h ammad ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) and those Muslims who have been overtaken by emotion and misguidance, is the narration of ‘Aa’ishah ( رضى الله عنها ), collected by al-Bu kh aaree, Muslim, A h mad and others, when a group of Jews entered upon the Messenger of Allaah ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) and said “as-saamu ‘alaykum” (death be upon you). So ‘Aa’ishah ( رضى الله عنها ) understood what they said, so she responded: “wa ‘alaykum as-saam wal-la’nah” (and death and curses be upon you). So the Messenger of Allaah ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) said: “Take it easy, O ‘Aa’ishah! Verily Allaah loves rifq (gentleness and leniency) in all matters.” So ‘Aa’ishah said: “O Messenger of Allaah! Didn’t you hear what they said?” So he ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) said: “I already responded to them (by saying) ‘wa ‘alaykum’ (and upon you, too).”
Our Deen is not based on emotion. Rather the Muslim who truly and sincerely loves Allaah and His Messenger ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) will stick to his guidance and his Sunnah:
ﭮ ﭯ ﭰ ﭱ ﭲ ﭳ ﭴ ﭵ ﭶ ﭷ ﭸﭹ ﭺ ﭻ ﭼ ﭽ
if you truly love Allaah, then follow me. (If you do) Allaah will love you and forgive you for your sins. And Allaah is all-forgiving, most merciful.” “Say:if you truly love Allaah, then follow me. (If you do) Allaah will love you and forgive you for your sins.And Allaah is all-forgiving, most merciful.”
Here are some points to consider and reflect upon:
- bid’ah, as the ‘Ulamaa’ of Ahlus-Sunnah like Shay kh Ibn Baaz, Shay kh al-Albaanee, and Shay kh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen have clarified. Kh awaarij. Of course the jamaa’aat as-siyaasiyyah allow them and promote them as they are means for them to contend with the Muslim rulers and reach rulership itself. These protests which have spread throughout the Muslim lands, even to our beloved Kuwait, are a, as theof Ahlus-Sunnah likeIbn Baaz,al-Albaanee, andIbn ‘Uthaymeen have clarified. They are an act of opposing and contending with the Muslim ruler and are from the way of theawaarij.Of course theallow them and promote them as they are means for them to contend with the Muslim rulers and reach rulership itself.
- We’ve seen how the emotionally charged youth have taken to the streets in these protests and clashed with the police, and caused damage to property - not just the property of the American Embassies - which is in itself an act of oppression - but the property of the Muslims as well! And this is supposed to be defense of the Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم )??! It cannot be that the Muslims defend the Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) with oppression when Allaah has commanded us with justice (‘adl):
ﮨ ﮩ ﮪ ﮫ ﮬ ﮭ ﮮ
ﮯﮰ ﮱ ﯓ ﯔ ﯕ ﯖ
ﯗ ﯘﯙ ﯚ ﯛ ﯜ ﯝﯞ ﯟ ﯠﯡ
ﯢ ﯣ ﯤ ﯥ ﯦ
“O you who believe! Stand out firmly for Allaah and
be just witnesses and don’t let the enmity and hatred
of a people keep you from being just. Be just! That is
closer to Taqwaa.”
al- H aafi th Ibn Katheer said: “Don’t let hatred for a people cause you to abandon justice towards them. Rather exercise justice with everyone, whether it be a close friend or an enemy.”
Shay kh ul-Islaam Ibn Taymiyyah: “for indeed the people did not dispute in the fact that the end result of th ulm (oppression and injustice) is evil and harmful, and the end result of ‘adl (justice) is good and noble. And for this it has been said: Allaah will aid the nation that is just, even if it is a disbelieving nation, and He will not aid the nation that is unjust and oppressive, even if it is a believing nation .” [Majmoo’ al-Fataawaa (28/63)]
Then know that punishing others for the crimes and offenses of another is not justice! Allaah says:
ﯱ ﯲ ﯳ ﯴ ﯵ ﯶﯷ ﯸ ﯹ ﯺ ﯻ ﯼ
“No person earns any (sin) except against himself (only), and no bearer of burdens shall bear the burden of another.”
- The jamaa’aat as-siyaasiyyah use these protests and these types of events as a forum and a podium to spread their doubts and their conspiracy theories amongst the people and to turn them against their rulers. They spout out anti-American, anti-western, and anti-Israeli rhetoric and place the blame for the destruction we’ve seen over the past few days on everyone but themselves. ‘Ali al-Deqbas, head of the Arab Parliament, actually blamed “international Zionism of being behind the unrest and inciting sedition and hatred of Islam and Muslims in the Middle East in favor of the Zionist entity ”. And the misguided statements like this are many.
- These protests – which as the ‘Ulamaa’ have said is a bid’ah – were used as a cover for those upon the manhaj of the Kh awaarij to murder a U.S. ambassador and three other members of his staff, the murder of non-Muslims who were given amn (an assurance of safety and protection) and were from a country that has treaties and agreements with the government of Libya.
The Messenger ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) said: “Whoever – from the Muslims - kills a person who is under an agreement or treaty (with the Muslims), he will not smell the Fragrance of Jannah, even though it’s fragrance can be smelled from the distance of 40 years away.” [al-Bu kh aaree]
And in another narration he said: "The assurance of protection of the Muslims is one, so whoever betrays the assurance of protection and safety of another Muslim, then upon him is the curse of Allaah, and (the curse) of the Angels, and (the curse) of all the people."
al- H aafi dh Ibn H ajr ( رحمه الله ) explained: "His saying 'The assurance of protection of the Muslims is one', means that their giving an assurance of safety and security is correct (and binding). So if one of them gives amn to a kaafir, then it is h araam upon anyone else to harm him…"
Those non-Muslims who live and work in the Muslim countries have been given amn (an assurance of safety and protection), so by attacking them is contending with and opposing the Muslim ruler, and is an act of treachery and oppression.
Shay kh T aariq as-Subay’ee explained that if even one of the Muslims gives amn to a non-Muslim, even if that Muslim is a man or a woman, a free man or a slave, and even if that is by a gesture, or if a person is given amn by the authorities of a Muslim land through diplomatic agreements or by giving him a visa to enter that land – that person has an assurance of safety and protection from every Muslim . It is totally h araam for any Muslim to harm him. And the person, - the Muslim -, who does, falls under the curse of Allaah, the Angels, and all of the people.
- Look to those at the head of these protests and you’ll see that all of them are from the heads and supporters of the jamaa’aat as-siyaasiyyah. And the fact that none of the ‘Ulamaa’ of Ahlus-Sunnah have anything to do with this should be another sign for the person of intellect, just as Ibn ‘Abbaas ( رضى الله تعالى عنهما ) brought as a proof against the Kh awaarij the fact that none of the Companions were with them, when he said ( رضى الله عنهما ): Indeed I’ve come to you from the Companions of Allaah’s Messenger ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) and there is not a single one of them with you!
- We see the Muslims protesting, fighting with the police, destroying property and other than that, all in the name of defending the Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) from this film produced by a man living in America. What is amazing is that no one is upset over the masaajid that have graves in them where other than Allaah are worshipped besides Allaah, like the masjid of al-Badawee, Zaynab, or al- H ussayn?! The greatest sin that one can commit is committed in the lands of the Muslims, and the people are tearing down the American embassy over something they don’t have the authority or ability to do anything about?!
Allaah said:
ﮢ ﮣ ﮤ ﮥ ﮦ ﮧ ﮨ ﮩ ﮪ ﮫ ﮬ ﮭ ﮮﮯ ﮰ ﮱ ﯓ ﯔ ﯕ ﯖ ﯗ
“Verily, Allaah does not forgive that partners should be set up with him in worship (shirk), but He forgives what is less than that (from sins) for whomever He wills, and whoever sets up partners with Allaah in worship, he has indeed invented a tremendous sin.”
So these Muslims and these jamaa’aat want to defend Prophet Mu h ammad ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) – by committing oppression and injustice – but where is the defense of Allaah and His Tawheed from the shirk committed by muslims in the lands of the muslims themselves?!
So know that Allaah ( تبارك و تعالى ) has commanded us with patience and justice, and forbidden us from injustice and oppression. And there is no justice in the actions we see from our brothers and sisters in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan, and the other countries that this is happening in. Rather what we see is ignorance, oppression, misguidance, and deviation from the Sunnah of Allaah’s Messenger ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ).
And what benefit have they brought about?
The producer of this shoddy film lives in America, and America is a country that has it’s own laws that it governs it’s citizens by. And America also has treaties and agreements with almost all of these lands that their embassies are being attacked in, proven by the fact that they have embassies there to begin with. So then this affair is not in the hands of us common folk, and we don’t have the capability to do anything about it. What is upon us then is to be patient and cling to the Sunnah of the Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ). And this is a better defense of the Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) than what we see from the jamaa’aat and those infected by them!
And it is important to note that our patience and our clinging to the Sunnah during situations like this, when we don’t have the ability to change them, is not a sign of weakness or deficiency. Rather it is the people of misguidance from the jamaa’aat as-siyaasiyyah that have duped our youth into thinking that not having the ability to act is the same as not acting, and this is misguidance and deception.
Ibn Mas’ood narrated that the Prophet ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) was praying by the Ka’bah, and when he went into sajdah, one of the companions of Aboo Jahl put the entrails of a camel on the Prophet’s back ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) while Ibn Mas’ood looked on. And Ibn Mas’ood said: “I was watching but couldn’t do anything about it. If only I had the strength and ability (to stop them).” [al-Bu kh aaree]
This shows us that in situations when we don’t have the capability to act, due to physical weakness, lack of strength or capability, or there being something else that prevents us from doing that, there is no shame or deficiency in that, just as the Messenger of Allaah ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) himself could not aid Yaasir, ‘Ammaar, and Umm ‘Ammaar ( رضى الله تعالى عنهم ) when he saw them being tortured for their Eemaan in Allaah. So he said to them ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ): “Patience, O Aal-Yaasir (O family of Yaasir)! For indeed you’ve been promised Jannah.” ):
What we’ve written here is not a defense of this film. We find it just as offensive, appalling, and insulting as everyone else. Nor is it a defense of America, Israel, or any other country. Rather it is meant to be a defense of the Messenger of Allaah ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) and our Deen from those who go beyond the bounds, and those who play on the emotions of the Muslims and the emotional, disenfranchised youth, and call them to deviation and misguidance. It is a call to patience, justice, and sticking to the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allaah ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ). And this what was needed to be said and clarified. And Allaah knows best.
‘Ubaadah bin a s - S aami t narrated: “The Messenger of Allaah ( صلى الله عليه وسلم ) took an oath of allegiance from us to listen and obey (the ruler) in adversity and prosperity, in pleasure and displeasure (and even) when somebody is given preference over us, and to not dispute or contend the authority of those it belongs to, and that we speak the truth wherever we may be without fearing in the matter of Allaah the blame of the blamer .” ) took an oath of allegiance from us to listen and obey (the ruler) in adversity and prosperity, in pleasure and displeasure (and even) when somebody is given preference over us, and to not dispute or contend the authority of those it belongs to,.”
May peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Mu h ammad, and upon his family and his Companions, one and all. And All praise and thanks are due to Allaah, Lord of al-'Aalameen.
Aboo Sufyaan |
The Lexington Legends unveiled their new uniforms Thursday evening, and in the process achieved several Minor League firsts.
The South Atlantic League franchise -- the new Class A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals -- became the first Minor League club to boast a royal blue, kelly green and cream color scheme. They also became the first team to unveil a uniform by having their mascot rappel down a downtown building while sporting the new duds. But these two unprecedented events may pale in comparison to the following: The Legends became the first team to prominently feature a mustache logo.
Yes, a mustache. While on the road, the team's players will sport a kelly green cap with only a well-maintained curlicue 'stache adorning it. This prominent bit of upper lip hair pays tribute to the team's longstanding mascot Big L, who has always sported this type of facial hair.
"Minor League Baseball is all about the 'wow' factor, and we wanted to go beyond the normal stuff you'd see at the ballpark," said Hall of Fame namesake Ty Cobb, the Legends director of creative services and graphic designer. "And we wanted to be the team to do this first, to have a mustache on a hat. Our mascot, he actually has a mustache, so we're not just hopping on a fad. ... We're going to be easily recognizable when on the road. Fans can just look at the mustache."
It's appropriate then that Big L figured prominently in the team's unveiling of its new look (designed by San Diego-based Brandiose). As part of a two-day fundraiser for the Boy Scouts of America, the mustachioed mascot rappelled down the 410-foot Lexington Financial Center while wearing the Legends' new uniforms. Upon hitting the ground and getting unharnessed, he showed off the new style amidst a large crowd that had gathered for downtown Lexington's recurring "Thursday Night Live" outdoor party.
"Big L's like Superman," Cobb said. "He was walking around in the old [uniforms] beforehand, and then came down as a new person."
As attention-grabbing as certain aspects of the Legends' new look are, general manager Seth Poteat is quick to point out that it is more of an update than a total rebranding.
"We're not recreating the wheel here," he said. "We're tweaking the blue a little bit, from the traditional navy to royal blue. Coincidentally that works well with our new affiliate, but it also ties into the University of Kentucky, which is the strongest brand in the state. ... We're paying tribute to the area we're coming from, keeping it traditional yet new and fresh and modern."
The primary logo, as before, features Big L. He is depicted with a scowl, holding two bats crossed behind his head. Beneath "Legends" in script lettering, there is an illustration that depicts the white fences that are common amidst the region's many horse farms. Horses are referenced, again indirectly, on the team's alternate cap. The chiseled "Lex" font is meant to recall the chiseled drystone walls that line historic horse farms. The home cap, meanwhile, features "Lex" in descending diagonal letters.
"A lot of times people here refer to Lexington as 'Lex,' and we're the first to use that abbreviation as part of a sports logo," said Cobb. "We're excited about that."
But when all is said and done, the Legends are aware that the most -- ahem, Legendary -- aspect of their new logo will be the mustache.
"It started as kind of a joke," said Poteat. "But the more we talked about it, the more we said 'Why not?'" |
sharing and caring The sharing economy is bullsh!t. Here’s how we can take it back
The sharing economy is bullshit. Airbnb is a rental broker. Uber and Lyft are unregulated cab services. Taskrabbit and similar “servant economy” enterprises let well-off people pay less well-off people to do their chores — without providing anyone the benefits and security of traditional employment.
“Sharing” has been appropriated and stripped of all meaning by people trying to sell you things, much like sustainability was. Once “green” became hip and important about a decade ago, corporate bigwigs started preaching about sustainable profits and misleading eco-labels got slapped on single-use disposable plastic water bottles. These days, share-washing is the new greenwashing.
A recent piece in The Nation indicted the so-called sharing economy on multiple counts:
Of course, platforms like Airbnb and Spinlister, an app for sharing bicycles, do demonstrate something positive: People are willing to share, even with strangers.
And sharing, real sharing, is important. Sharing more could allow humanity as a whole to consume less, hopefully shrinking our economy’s voracious appetite for materials and energy. Thus far, resource use has accelerated in tandem with economic growth.
Sharing can help us achieve economic degrowth in consumption and production — and the wastes that come with them, like carbon emissions — while maintaining quality of life, or even improving it with more social interactions and stronger community relationships. (Watch degrowth explained with orange juice.) One reason I like the term “degrowth” is that it isn’t likely to be co-opted by profit-oriented companies anytime soon, since enterprises are mostly forced to grow or die in our fiercely competitive economy.
Let’s reclaim “sharing” by contrasting the real sharing economy with the bullshit sharing economy. A real sharing entity enables a group of people to collectively create a good or service and then share the results equitably. A real sharing enterprise isn’t driven by profits for shareholders; it’s driven by sharing resources, knowledge, and decision-making responsibilities. This post introduces a series of stories about real communities creating the real sharing economy.
On a bigger scale, sharing wealth more even-handedly is the only way to decrease the world’s enormous economic inequality. We’ve made huge gains in establishing civil rights for women, people of color, and LGBTQ communities, but we won’t achieve true social justice until the economic pie is divided up more fairly.
And sharing power more democratically is the only way to fix our broken political system. As is, money moves resources and buys political outcomes — and it’s mostly in the hands of a few filthy-rich plutocrats.
In fact, an organization called Share the World’s Resources recently released a report arguing that sharing can be the idea that brings together social, economic, and ecological movements in a grand alliance. Imagine Black Lives Matter, the fossil fuel divestment crusade, and the smoldering embers of Occupy joining forces to fight for a real sharing economy.
“If you take a look at any of the serious problems we face as a society, from global climate change to pandemics to developing new energy sources, I would argue that they have to be solved cooperatively,” says Josh Farley, professor of ecological economics at the University of Vermont. “There is no competitive solution.”
Troublingly, a grow-grow-grow economy makes us all more reliant on money. Real sharing economy projects make money less important, like the Buy Nothing groups on Facebook and tool-lending libraries that Grist already writes about.
“What we need to do is develop models of a cooperative economy that can be scaled up to address these global problems, but we’ve got to start locally,” says Farley. “I really think we’ve got to start developing those new approaches very soon, and figure out what scales up.”
Hence this series. These “degrowth in action” stories will explore a bike cooperative, an urban food forest, and a community solar program — all in Grist’s backyard of Seattle.
Most people in the climate movement aren’t yet on board with the degrowth concept — that is, if they’ve even heard of degrowth — despite agreeing with many of its objections to our economic system and ideas about how to transform the world economy. Somehow, many still believe the myth that endless, exponential economic expansion is compatible with saving the climate. But if climate hawks can see real-life examples of degrowth, they might come to see its potential for creating a fairer society and cleaner environment.
Barbara Muraca, a degrowth activist and environmental philosophy professor at Oregon State University, calls these sharing projects “laboratories of social innovation.” They test out new ways of living together and prove that sharing works. “People learn to live differently because they do it, not just because they think about doing it,” she says.
Planting the seeds of a real sharing economy is no easy task. But it’s easier to share the work than go it alone. |
A crocodile rests inside its open enclosure at a zoological park in New Delhi December 7, 2006. REUTERS/Desmond Boylan
LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) - As many as 26 endangered crocodiles have been found dead over the last three days in northern India and experts attribute the rare mass deaths to cirrhosis of the liver, authorities said on Friday.
The reptiles died in the waters of the Chambal river, which runs along the borders of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and the central state of Madhya Pradesh, baffling experts as it is considered their natural habitat.
“Autopsies confirm liver cirrhosis as the cause of death,” D.N.S. Suman, Uttar Pradesh’s top wildlife official, told Reuters from Etawah town on the banks of the Chambal where experts have camped to investigate the deaths.
Poisoning was not suspected as fish in the river had not died, Suman said, adding that scientists would test the water for the presence of any liver-damaging toxins.
Cirrhosis is marked by the loss of liver tissue, leading to the loss of function of the vital organ. |
IloveBaldEagles Junior Member
Join Date: Oct 2012 Drives: Gray. Location: VA.gina Posts: 1,937 Thanks: 3,620 Thanked 2,086 Times in 995 Posts Mentioned: 67 Post(s) Tagged: 1 Thread(s)
Bi-weekly Fairfax Meet Hello! And welcome to the Bi-Weekly Fairfax Meet! Your host will be doge and I hope you enjoy having a good time!
Meet dates are posted in the big red numbers below!
07/08/2016
07/20/2016
08/03/2016
08/17/2016
The location for the next is posted in a semi-professional way below!*
Meet location: Revolution Bar and Restuarant. (Formerly known as Fast Eddies)
Address: 9687 Fairfax Boulevard, Fairfax, VA 22030.
Time: 7:00PM
We usually get there a little before 7 traffic dependent and walk in weather dependent.
*The location of the meet might change suddenly due to circumstances. Location will be updated either in first post of this thread or in the last post of this thread. If you can not find it, send me a PM! I will be able to assist you almost about instantly
*Please be respectful of the parking lot and the people around you. No soliciting or unwanted hooning. Overall, be nice. Last edited by IloveBaldEagles; 07-12-2016 at 10:48 AM . |
As we count the days until the next episode of Sherlock airs this Sunday, pictures have emerged that offer new details about Toby Jones’ mysterious villain Culverton Smith – and exactly what his relationship with Benedict Cumberbatch’s super-sleuth could be.
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Yes, a lot of the pictures just show Smith showing off his evil laugh again, but one or two also suggest that he has a bit of a media profile.
One image (above) shows him on what could be a chat show, another (below) shows him interviewed by the press at a fancy black tie event, and a third shows him sitting in what appears to be a dressing room.
Heck, even the shots of him and Benedict Cumberbatch walking together look like he’s accompanied by an entourage, and overall the pictures have us thinking that Smith might be some sort of TV personality or actor. After all, the poster we saw of him in the first episode (below) seemed to suggest something similar…
Anyway, have a look for yourselves and see what you think – the full selection of pictures are below, also including shots of Sherlock’s grief beard, John Watson (Martin Freeman) looking a bit annoyed and Molly (Louise Brealey) giving herself a little hug. How nice.
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Sherlock continues on BBC1 this Sunday 8th January at 9pm |
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We move now to the Summit of the Americas. President Obama has arrived in Panama to attend the Summit of the Americas along with other leaders from Canada, Central America, South America, the Caribbean—and for the first time, Cuba. Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro are reportedly due to meet informally at the summit, making this the first time presidents from the two countries have sat down since President Eisenhower met with Cuban President [Batista].
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Obama announced the State Department has finished its review of whether Cuba should be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, but said he would wait to act until receiving final recommendations from White House advisers. He could make that announcement at the summit. Congress would then have 45 days to decide whether to override it. The move allows the two countries to reopen their embassies and move forward on historic efforts to normalize relations that were announced in December.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, the U.S. faces other tensions at the summit over its recent sanctions against Cuba’s close ally, Venezuela. An executive order signed by President Obama last month used the designation to sanction top Venezuelan officials over alleged human rights abuses and corruption. This week, the U.S. announced it’s backing off its move deeming the country a national security threat. In an interview with EFE News, Obama sought to tone down the confrontation, saying, quote, “We do not believe that Venezuela poses a threat to the United States, nor does the United States threaten the Venezuelan government,” he said. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro responded on Thursday.
PRESIDENT NICOLÁS MADURO: [translated] We may be able to say that the statements given today by President Barack Hussein Obama could open a door to start a new era of relations among Venezuela and a free and sovereign Latin America and the empire of the United States. It could happen.
AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, fights broke out ahead of the summit Wednesday when anti-Castro Cuban demonstrators tried to lay flowers at a bust of Cuban patriarch José Martí near the Cuban Embassy in Panama City and were confronted by a group of pro-Castro activists. Cuban delegates also protested over reports that former CIA-backed paramilitary officer Félix Rodríguez, who was sent to kill Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1967, was meeting with opposition groups in Panama City. The last picture taken of Che Guevara still alive in October 1967 shows Rodríguez standing on his left. Elsewhere, pro-Venezuela protesters rallied.
PRO-VENEZUELA PROTESTER: [translated] What we are also defending is the right of free determination for the people. To us, it seems a big disrespect for a citizen of one country to come to mine to conspire against another delegation in the middle of a summit. I wouldn’t do it.
AMY GOODMAN: We are going to go to break, and when we come back, we’ll be joined by two people talking about the significance of this Summit of the Americas.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And yeah, and, Amy, I just wanted to correct, on that lede in, when I mentioned the last meeting of an American president was with Fulgencio Batista, of Eisenhower with Fulgencio Batista, not with Fidel Castro.
AMY GOODMAN: We’ll be back on the story of the OAS summit in a moment.
[break]
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Topics expected to be on the agenda at the Summit of the Americas, as it gets underway, include trade, security and migration. Panama’s president, Juan Carlos Varela, called on the heads of state to put aside their differences.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we’re joined by two guests. In Claremont, California, Miguel Tinker Salas is with us, professor of Latin American history at Pomona College. His new book is Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know. You can read the introduction on our website at democracynow.org. And in Washington, D.C., we’re joined by Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and president of Just Foreign Policy. His article in The Hill is headlined “Obama Could Face Disastrous Summit Due to Venezuela Sanctions.”
We welcome you both back to Democracy Now! But let us begin with Miguel Tinker Salas. On this eve of the summit, the kerfuffle around whether—the possibility of Venezuela being put on the terrorist list, and President Obama pulling back from that, saying they don’t consider, while they had originally said they do consider, Venezuela a threat to national security—what’s behind all of this?
MIGUEL TINKER SALAS: Well, I think, fundamentally, it’s the changes in Latin America. The reality is that the summit is really at a crossroads. It begins in 1994, presided by Bill Clinton, as a proposal to implement the free trade for the Americas and take NAFTA into the entire region. The reality is that by 2001 in Quebec, you have Hugo Chávez at the summit criticizing free trade for the Americas and the imposition of an asymmetrical order. And by 2005, that entire process is derailed when you have the fundamental changes in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador. So the summit is really at a crossroads in terms of what it seeks to accomplish.
The U.S. is trying to regain ground by establishing better relations with Cuba and coming into the 20th century—in fact, the 21st century—but the reality is that the arrogance of the U.S. on the question of Venezuela threatened to derail the entire process again. So I think that what is behind all this is really what is the role of the Summit of the Americas, what is the role of the OAS, at a time in which you have other institutions in Latin America, like the Union of South American Nations and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations, that do not include the U.S. So I think it’s really at a crossroads in terms of what its future will be.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Mark Weisbrot, what about this? The Americas is no longer the backyard of the United States, as it was historically known as, an area that was exploited and dominated by Washington.
MARK WEISBROT: No, that’s right. And the Obama administration hasn’t really recognized that. I think that’s the big thing. You know, Rafael Correa, president of Ecuador, responded to the March 9th sanctions executive order, saying, you know, “This reminds us of the darkest hours of our America, when we received dictatorships from imperialism. And don’t they understand that Latin America has changed?” he said. And they don’t. And that’s been the problem all along, and that’s the problem with these summits.
You know, in 2012—and Miguel gave a very nice history—in 2012, everybody said, including the President Santos of Colombia, that there wasn’t going to be another summit without Cuba. So, Obama comes along in December and says, “Well, you know, we’re going to give them a Christmas present. We’re going to, you know, begin the process of normalization, normalizing relations with Cuba.” And then he comes with these sanctions on March 9th. And everybody realized, well, he’s not really changed anything at all.
And you get these statements from CELAC, which includes every country in the hemisphere except for the U.S. and Canada, saying, you know, he’s got to rescind this executive order, and then from UNASUR, as well. So now you see the White House backing off, and you see the White House saying, “Well, no, we didn’t really”—you know, we not only said that Venezuela was an extraordinary threat to national security, but we actually declared a national emergency because of this threat. That was written in the executive order. And now the White House says, “No, you know, it’s not a threat at all.”
Well, first of all, what does that say about the rule of law in the United States? I mean, this was an executive order. They had to put that in there for—because that law is there for a reason. You’re not supposed to impose unilateral sanctions. Actually, it violates that OAS charter, among other things, unless there is a real security threat. So this was a real admission—this was a real defeat for them. And they’re backing off, just like the, you know, coming into the 21st century on Cuba is backing off. But they still don’t really recognize that there’s a new reality in the region. And that’s why I think it doesn’t look that good yet going forward.
AMY GOODMAN: Among those attending the summit is U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson. Last week, she said she was surprised few countries had defended U.S. sanctions against Venezuela.
ROBERTA JACOBSON: I was a bit, I will confess, disappointed that there weren’t more who defended the fact that, clearly, this was not intended to hurt the Venezuelan people or the Venezuelan government, even, as a whole, and did not more clearly explain or elucidate, as we did for them, in advance, because we did talk to governments in advance on the sanctions, that this was really very, very narrowly targeted.
AMY GOODMAN: In March, all 33 members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, known as CELAC, expressed opposition to the U.S. sanctions against Venezuela. Miguel Tinker Salas, your response to one of the representatives, the U.S. representative? Of course, President Obama will be there, too, in Panama.
MIGUEL TINKER SALAS: Well, I think it merely mirrors what happened in the 2012 summit in Colombia. There’s a certain arrogance behind a statement that you’re disappointed about the fact that Latin American leaders did not support the U.S. on sanctions. Did they really think that Latin American leaders were going to ally with the U.S. and support sanctions against Venezuela? They may criticize Venezuela privately. They may—Colombia, Mexico, which are the clearest allies the U.S. has in Latin America, no doubt, may criticize Venezuela, but they’re not going to publicly express that criticism. So if the U.S. is disappointed, it really reflects an arrogance concerning Latin America and their inability to comprehend how in fact the region has changed.
This is not just about Venezuela. This is about Latin America. This is about a region declaring its independence, declaring its autonomy, its respect for the rule of law, its respect for sovereignty, its respect for democratically elected governments. And I think that when Roberta Jacobson and others in the administration or the Washington think tanks criticize other leaders in Latin America, it’s a refusal to recognize the extent to which Latin America has changed, to which it’s not willing to be the backyard, to which there are other players in the region. China is an important economic actor in the region. So are European countries. And I think it really does reflect that sense that Latin America is still our backyard, and then, therefore, they’re really trying to backpedal, because they really want to avoid a repeat of what happened in Cartagena, where Obama was isolated on Cuba, isolated on immigration, isolated on the question of the drug war, criticized by friends and foes alike, and he came back and fired his national security adviser on Latin America. So I think that there really should be some heads to roll here as a result of what has happened, the debacle the U.S. has got itself into. And I think that really does reflect the arrogance that still exists on the part of the U.S.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Mark Weisbrot, on this issue of damage control that’s been occurring in the last week or two, we reported yesterday here on the decision of the United States government to extradite—to deport General Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, who was linked to the—not only to torture, but then to the killings of the churchwomen, the four churchwomen in El Salvador, and also the decision to initiate extradition proceedings against Colonel Inocente Orlando Montano Morales, who was implicated in the killing of Jesuit priests, Spanish Jesuit priests, and who is now facing a judicial—a potential trial in Spain. So you have these two actions just in the days before Obama heads to the summit, and also the reports that Secretary of State Kerry sent an emissary to Venezuela to try to patch things up privately. Can you talk about that?
MARK WEISBROT: Yeah, I think they really realized they made a big, big mistake. And, you know, Miguel is right. I mean, they live in some kind of bubble. I don’t know who they’re talking to in these governments. You know, I remember talking to a foreign minister a couple years ago. I won’t mention his name or country because it was a private conversation. But he said, you know, “When the U.S. is going to do something in Africa, they at least talk to the governments in the region and ask them what they think about it. And they don’t even do that in Latin America.” And, you know, this is how everybody sees it. There’s a huge gap between what any government knows in the region about U.S. policy and what you have in the media—and therefore what most people know. It’s enormous.
And, you know, in 2009, of course—and I’m thinking about this because you might get a handshake and a picture between Raúl Castro and President Obama in this summit, and you had that with Obama and Chávez in 2009, and it went all over the place and actually upset some of, you know, the administration’s right-wing allies. And so, the very next day, they poured cold water all over it and made sure—made it, you know, with some insults, and made sure that this wasn’t going to lead to any thawing of relations. Then, of course, there was a military coup in Honduras in 2009 in June. And after that, after the U.S. did everything it could to support, to make sure that coup succeeded and to legitimize the elections that nobody else in the hemisphere would recognize, for that dictatorship, that was really it. You know, then everybody realized, well, this wasn’t going to change; this was really as bad, and possibly even worse, as the Bush policies in Latin America. Now, you know, Obama is concerned about his legacy—
AMY GOODMAN: Mark, I want to interrupt for one minute, before we really get into the significance of Cuba being there. You wrote about Hillary Clinton’s involvement in the coup, or at least in support of the coup, in Honduras. Now, this weekend, she’s going to be announcing that she will be a candidate for president of the United States. Can you just briefly summarize, as secretary of state, what was her position at the time?
MARK WEISBROT: Well, it was interesting. I mean, she wouldn’t say. You know, like a couple days after the coup, she was asked by the media if restoring democracy in Honduras, which she said she supported, meant restoring the democratically elected president, and she wouldn’t answer that question. And, of course, the White House had put out a statement on the day of the coup, which didn’t even oppose the coup. That told every diplomat in Washington, of course, that, you know, that was the strongest statement you can make in the 21st century in favor of the coup. And, you know, President—
AMY GOODMAN: The ousting of Zelaya.
MARK WEISBROT: Yeah, the ousting of Zelaya. You know, Zelaya was on your show, you remember. He said the U.S. was actually involved in the coup, and there’s every reason to believe that, given what they did in those six months following it. And then, in her book, she very much admits that she acted with others, you know, her few allies in the OAS, to—I think she used the word—render the question of Zelaya’s return moot—in other words, to make sure that that wasn’t going to happen. And they used the OAS, and that’s why you have—I think that’s the main reason why you have the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations without the U.S. and Canada, specifically, formed, because of her manipulation of the OAS to stop them from taking stronger action, which everyone else—just about everyone else in the hemisphere—supported, to restore Zelaya to office.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Miguel Tinker Salas, I’d like to ask you about the issue of Cuba. But this is President Obama speaking Thursday about whether the U.S. will remove Cuba from its terrorist watch list.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: As you know, there is a process involved in reviewing whether or not a country should be on the State Sponsor of Terrorism list. That review has been completed at the State Department; it is now forwarded to the White House. Our inter-agency team will go through the entire thing and then present it to me with a recommendation. That hasn’t happened yet.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Miguel Tinker Salas, what about this removal of Cuba from the list of nations sponsoring terrorism?
MIGUEL TINKER SALAS: Well, a list that the U.S. created, and the U.S. put Cuba on it. I think it’s really a political fig leaf on the part of Obama. He wants to be able to hide behind something, come to the summit, deliver something. The reality is that the U.S., for—Cuba, for the U.S., really became an impediment. It creates its isolation in the region. The U.S. has other interests in the region. They would really like to have a discussion about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. They would like to have an alliance about the free trade for the Americas. They would like to promote what are really their economic interests, so that the issue of Cuba is really a vestige of the past. It is part of a Cold War legacy. It has both national implications in the U.S., but it has, more importantly, international implications. The U.S. is isolated on Cuba in the U.N. Only two countries vote for its support of an embargo. It’s isolated in Latin America. It’s isolated in Europe, Africa, Asia. So, really, the Cuba issue has become really an impediment, a block for the U.S. in the region.
So the U.S. has increased its military presence in the region. It would like to really have a discussion about the FTA and economic interests. So I think that it essentially jettisoned the old Cuba policy, while trying to maintain sanctions, while trying to keep Cuba on a terror list, really put it in a contradiction. Latin Americans reject the idea of the U.S. putting Latin American countries on a terror list. They also reject the U.S. putting Latin American countries on a list of which ones are allies on the drug war, when the U.S. is the largest consumer of illegal drugs in the world, a sort of a hypocrisy there. So I think that there is a rejection to that. That’s why you’ve had the Union of South American Nations; the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Nations; the ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance. And that’s why you’ve had such a rejection to the Obama policy of sanctions on Venezuela, because the real effort was to make Venezuela the new Cuba, to relieve sanctions against Cuba, to open relations with Cuba, to normalize relations, while at the same time keeping some aspect of sanctions against Venezuela, placating the right in the U.S., placating the right within the Democratic Party. And the whole issue has backfired and threatened to derail the entire summit.
AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you both for being with us. Of course, we’ll continue to cover this historic summit that’s taking place in Panama. Miguel Tinker Salas, professor of Latin American history at Pomona College, his new book is called Venezuela: What Everyone Needs to Know. And you can read the introduction at democracynow.org, and we will link to his article in The Progressive headlined “U.S. Alone Once Again at Americas Summit.” And thanks so much to Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, president of Just Foreign Policy. We’ll link to your piece in The Hill, “Obama Could Face Disastrous Summit Due to Venezuela Sanctions,” though clearly the U.S. has pulled back on those.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, a Democracy Now! exclusive. A father of one of the Mexican young men who disappeared in the state of Guerrero last September. Stay with us. |
In reality, measles never went away.
At the petri-dish level, the virus—one of the most stable, unchanging strains there is—looks just the way it did in the pre-vaccination era. Measles remains one of the most infectious illnesses on the planet. The virus stays active and contagious in the air for up to two hours, and can be transmitted from an infected person for up to four days before and after a rash appears.
The stability of the measles virus is also what makes its vaccine so effective. "Oftentimes viruses mutate a lot, like the influenza virus, but this virus is very stable," said Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine. "There's really only one strain of the measles virus."
And although the United States successfully eradicated it—meaning that despite occasional outbreaks, measles doesn't move through the population continuously—there's no guarantee it will stay that way. That's what happened in the United Kingdom, where measles was wiped out but is now endemic again.
"It can definitely come back," Meissner told me. "And then because this is probably the most infectious of all the known viruses or illnesses—we say that about 90 percent of people who are not immune and who are exposed to measles will get it—that's a higher number than for any illness, even influenza. It's one of the most infectious or transmissible viruses that we're aware of."
Measles is already one of the leading causes of death among young children worldwide. About 400 people die from the virus each day—that's about 16 deaths every hour, according to the WHO. "It's a very severe disease," Meissner told me. "It's not a mild illness like mumps or even chickenpox. This is a much more severe sort of illness." Even those who survive the virus can suffer brain swelling, pneumonia, deafness, and other permanent complications. And in the United States, measles seems to be making a comeback. Today there are 67 confirmed measles cases in the United States, most of them linked to Disneyland in California. This puts the United States on pace to eclipse incidences of measles in 2014, which was already the worst year for measles since 1994, when there were 958 cases reported to the CDC. Last year there were 644 cases of measles reported in 27 states.
"It is very easy for entire communities to be exposed when an unvaccinated individual is infected and brings it into that group," said Roberta DeBiasi, the chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Children's National Medical Center.
U.S. Measles Cases by Year
CDC
"The problem is people not getting vaccinated," said Jane Seward, deputy director of the Division of Viral Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "The vast majority of our cases every single year are unvaccinated people who choose not to be vaccinated. They are living in a family who are unvaccinated and they have friends who are unvaccinated. They might go to a school with a high proportion of people who are unvaccinated." |
People can get a bit emotional about putters whenever the question is asked online; “What is the best putter?” But it is a meaningless question, unless two short words are added; “for me”. This week, Vortica’s in-depth look into putting putters lays it all out for you, so you can answer the question yourself.
For myself, the perfect putting putter is an NZ-made, heavy RPM Cosmic Ruru, a stiff one, in a light colour, with a matt black stamp on it. That is unless it’s a long way with a low ceiling. Or it’s a tailwind. Or it’s a really long way up hill. In these cases I have a 155 gram bright red Opto Ruby. Or it’s a headwind, or there’s OB right behind the basket, when I’ll go with my max-weight, Zero Medium Sinus.
The two key words in both preceding paragraphs are “for me”.
So let’s turn our attention to you – and the reason you are here.
Putting Putters are the single most personal choice you can make in disc golf, because you can literally use any putter as your main putter. You are never wrong to use a putter, no matter the weight, maker, plastic, mold or condition – because it’s YOUR putter. The only question is, is it the best putter for you?
So, let’s take a look at…
Putters in General
Will not show any kind of flight shape for the first 7 metres of flight, unless the disc is extremely understable or overstable, in which case it might start to show a flight shape after 6 metres.
So this means it literally does not matter what putter you choose to putt with. Because the only time your putter will differ from any other, is when you are so far from the basket that you are more likely to miss, than make it.
I think it’s safe to assume that if you are reading this, then you are not a professional player, and thus I can make some assumptions about you!
What do you mean “show a flight shape"?
Every disc has a Flight Shape it will make in the air, for any given airspeed, rotation rate, hyzer angle and nose angle. But no disc will show any of that shape until they have flown 7 metres when putting, and then the disc will begin to exhibit its inherent flight path.
However, several factors come into play.
What Affects The Flight Shape of a Putter?
Primarily the spinning speed of the disc. More spin means more gyroscopic stability which means a more consistent hyzer angle will be maintained during the flight. A lot of spin will result in the disc not showing its potential flight shape until much later in the flight. This is why spin putters, um, spin putt.
Thus, it is true that pitch putting, with a very slowly rotating disc is much less accurate as distance increases; the disc acts less and less like a dirt clod, and more and more like an unstabilised disc.
Airspeed and hence, wind, is the other primary flight shape changer. Headwinds tend to lift discs, often disastrously, while tailwinds tend to slap discs to ground early.
So, a player is best advised throwing a heavy overstable low-glide disc like a Sinus into a strong headwind, while a lightweight Ruby would be the very worst option. I have even seen players putt a disc upside down into a headwind with good effect. The lift generated by the disc will tend to pull the disc down, rather than up. Experiment at your own risk!
Wind direction is the other main factor in flight shape - and this applies to all discs. When wind can’t “see” the flight plate of a disc then it can’t do much to affect it, provided the wind flow is parallel with the fligth plate, and your disc is not nose-down, or nose-up. (see below)
Wind which can “see” the top surface of the flight plate will push the disc down rapidly, while wind which “sees” the bottom of the flight plate lifts the disc “rather energetically”, shall we say!
Figure 1. The small cross-sectional area of a common fairway driver flying with zero nose angle.
A disc which is aligned with the wind (as above) has the least affected flight.
Thus we can easily see a tailwind putt should be thrown nose down, so that any wind will lift it and push it, whereas a nose up putt could actually get pushed down – depending on the relative wind speed and ground speed.
Putting nose down into a headwind will cause the disc to crash to the ground, while nose up will cause it to lift and hyzer a long way from the basket. This is why you would always prefer a tailwind putt, and you will always do everything you possibly can to land your approach or drive to give you a tailwind putt, all other things being equal. (The position of OB or steep slopes will also inform your decision.)
From these facts we can deduce that the least affected putt in most conditions is one thrown with no nose angle at all, and no hyzer angle at all, with sufficient speed and height to make the basket successfully. Sadly, the flat-nosed, straight throw, which is always online, and mostly descending into the basket is very difficult to perform with clockwork precision as you move further away from the basket. Well, it is for me, anyway!
The Hyzer Putt
Is probably what most people want to throw once they reach 7 or 8 metres, because the straight putt is so tricky from this distance and out. And unless it is windy, it probably is what you should throw, to have the best chance of making it.
But the Hyzer putt has its problems. From more than 8 metres, you aren’t throwing it at the chains, but rather some nebulous point in space that will result in the putt going in - even if you mentally hang Barry Schultz’s “rings” in the air to indicate your intended flight path.
It is also much more affected by wind, so if you always putt with hyzer, you will really struggle on the windy days – and on windy courses.
Plus, a disc landing with hyzer can skip, or bounce and then roll, leaving you with a long come-backer, to avoid the dreaded triple-putt.
It should be abundantly clear by now, that in order to become a good putter, you need a flat pitched putt, a hyzer spin putt, an anhyzer spin putt, a forehand hyzer and forehand anhyzer putt, a hammer, and at least one upside down shot. Plus a host more, besides.
How to Choose Your Putting Putter
Go to a place where there are lots of putters. Grab one in your putting grip. Feel the plastic. Feel the shape. Feel the size. Feel how firm it is. How does it FEEL, to you? Spend more than just a few moments on this, inspecting it – getting up close and personal with it. This is after all, going to be the most-used disc in your bag.
If the disc does not feel good in your hands, put it in a pile you have mentally marked as “NOT MY NEW PUTTER”. Every other putter you will put in a “MAYBE MY NEW PUTTER” pile.
Work your way through every mold, and every plastic, repeating this process.
Then, take all the “NOs” and put them all back where they came from. Don’t put any disc back in a place it wasn’t! That is a nasty thing a customer can do to a disc seller. DON'T DO IT! If you aren’t going to put it back in exactly the right place, please leave it out to be put away by the seller!
Now, take the pile of MAYBEs and repeat the whole process above until you only have one disc left. THAT is your new Putting Putter! Simple as that!
It doesn’t matter who makes it, or what plastic it is, because you have selected it by the only criteria which mean anything for putting. It is very unlikely you have chosen a very understable, or very overstable putter – and even if you did SO WHAT? Just use it, and get used TO it!
“But, Chris”, I hear you ask…
“IT CAN’T BE THAT EASY – CAN IT?”
You’re 100% right! Finding a place with a lot of putters might prove challenging. But that’s the one and only hurdle you need overcome.
The above method might at first sound simplistic (which means “overly simple” and “ignores important complexities”, and is usually an insult to an idea or a concept), but when you consider the information I’ve presented here, what else do you really need to do, or know, to find your new putting putter?
If there are no disc sellers you can easily visit, you need to start grabbing every possible putter you can lay your hands on, from every person you see playing the game. Like some sort of deranged putter-stalker; dive into the bags of every new player you meet, and yank that putter out, give it the old Feely-Feely and, if you really like it, start running. ;)
But, But, But, I Don’t Like The Way This New Putter Flies For Me!
Sorry about that! It can happen from time to time. So go and buy the disc which was your second choice based on hand feel.
Or stick with it. You chose it for good reason! I played with a Dagger for almost 2 years, but the whole time it was not my ideal putter, but it was closer than anything else I could find.
Prior to this, I was putting full-time with a Medium Sinus, but after getting Feldberg to sign about 10 of them for me when I caddied for him (Which is a funny story, for a later article), he convinced me to try a Dagger. Which I did, a month or so later. The Dagger instantly felt great in my hand. I loved it.
What I did not love was the way it turned into a headwind, or on longer putts. I also did not like the way the Zero plastic beat up so quickly or so much. They did feel awesome though.
Even Zero Hard, despite feeling amazing – and very firm, still beat up too quickly for my liking – and the only ones we had in stock had foil stamps. ACK!
But I persevered, because even I had to admit, I was sinking more putts than I ever had before, and my range was increasing with the extra loft the deep-dish Dagger offers.
Then I went off to the 2016 NZ Matchplay Champs, to fight for my 9th&1/2th final position – another funny story we don’t have time for now – and RPM buddy Simon who I was staying with at Bella Rakha, had a box full of Ruru prototypes, which looked very similar to a Dagger...
The Ruru turned out to be my almost perfect putter – even in the First Run, and I still have hopes of finding the absolute perfect Cosmic Ruru, which would be just a little stiffer than the 5 examples I have now. You can check out my full comparison of the Dagger vs. Ruru over here.
Putter Selection For Experts
If you are an expert, you don’t need this! An expert understands their putting putter intimately, and knows how it will behave in pretty much all circumstances, and failure to sink a putt will nearly always be a failure in execution, rather than shot selection, and they won’t miss by much. You know an expert is going to get up and down from 50-metres, pretty much every time.
An expert also knows exactly what they’re looking for in their new putter. I knew I wanted a more stable Dagger in a Premium plastic – and serendipitously, Simon created the deep-dish Ruru as if by some weird magic – the putter I had waited my whole career for.
Some Other Things To Be Aware Of
Grip
has a tremendous impact on putting. For decades I used a throwing grip for putting, with the distal joint of the index engaged with the bottom of the rim of the disc. This as opposed to a grip where the index finger is always above the bottom rim, and usually aligned with the parting line.
The index on the leading edge was, as far as I was concerned, a non-grip, that felt very wishy-washy to me.
But, after a lot of conversation with 3x World Putting Champion, Jay Reading, I decided to try it his way. And you know what? It works better for me than my old throwing grip. *SHOCK HORROR*
Every person has a unique human hand. And so it is literally impossible to say what will work best for a person. You simply have to try a lot of different grips, and accept that an initial weird-feeling is sometimes not a bad sign!
Putter Colour
You have experienced this yourself. A dark coloured disc lies on the fairway, or the green for a couple of minutes baking in the sun, and when you pick it up it is hot as hell, very soft and floppy, and feels awful in your hand.
Light coloured, and translucent discs absorb far less solar energy, and stay far cooler on the ground. A translucent putter lying on grass in hot sun can be damp underneath when you pick it up, because there’s enough light going through it to allow the grass to keep transpiring.
Foil Stamps
Look very cool indeed! But if you hold your putter in a certain way, and swing it up high, close to your line of sight, then inevitably you will get extreme sun-flashes from the stamp. This might sound like a minor thing, but when you have been temporarily blinded by an ultra-bright flash from your own putter, and your shot clock is ticking, you are in trouble.
Getting a nasty flash from your own disc is NOT a valid reason for claiming a distraction, and resetting your shot clock.
Additionally in extreme climates like Perth, in Oz, a foil stamp can get so hot you can actually burn yourself picking up a disc. That is just nasty!
Bead or No Bead?
Some people claim the bead on discs is designed to engage with the distal index finger joint, or that it is to make the disc more stable, but that is not correct. Dave Dunnipace has clearly stated the reason they put a bead on the bottom was to add material at the place where the disc slid along the ground. This meant that the disc stayed stable for longer. Not longer in flight, but longer in the lifetime of the disc.
Check the video below, where the Grand-Daddy of Innova explains it.
It is entirely up to your personal preference. I have used (and continue to use) both beaded and non-beaded putters, and I do not have a preference.
Bottom Rim Shape
Many putters have smooth rounded rim bottoms, which promote a smooth release. This applies mostly to index-under-the-rim throwers, as the index finger has to disengage from the disc at the release point.
My personal feeling is that index-under-the-rim can sometimes result in spastic releases, where the disc goes nowhere near your intended line. No matter what shape the bottom rim is.
Index-along-the-rim means there is nothing that can hook the rim, and cause it to deviate from the line you are pushing along. Plus, the index can be used as a guide in the release, to prevent the disc moving to the right, for a right-handed player. Thanks Yeti!
The Latitude64 Sinus is a classic case in point here. It has a very sharp bottom rim, and this very occasionally causes problems for me when I am spin putting with it. It can get out of control if my finger does not get out from under the rim perfectly. Same when I am driving with it, a spastic release can see it fly 20 degrees or more away from its intended flight path. Fortunately, this happens to me less as I improve.
You might ask “Then why throw a Sinus?” and I would reply that the sinus is an amazing disc that fades hard, is very easy to range, resists the wind just like the ancient Latin on it says it does, and grabs the ground very aggressively with its sharp bottom rim. The Sinus will not skip, or slide, and tends to die where it lands, a very desirable trait in a disc. Plus it handles huge power, doesn’t flip over into a headwind, and has four different textures on the top surface for you to grip!
For me, it’s the perfect pitch putt disc when there is OB behind the basket, as it won’t slide or skip into the OB if I miss.
Soft or Hard
There is a common myth out there in disc golf land. It goes like this; “Soft putters grab chains better than hard ones”.
There is no evidence of any kind to suggest soft discs catch chains better. If there were, all pros would be using soft putters. End of story.
The “evidence” claimed by people is purely anecdotal, and as we well know, anecdotal evidence is not evidence of any kind. So, don't be suckered into buying a super-soft disc simply because your best mate (!!) told you a bunch of baffling bullshit.
Not that I have anything against soft putters. I used an Omega SuperSoft for many years.
Soft or hard is up to your personal preference, albeit with one consideration which should inform your decision. The release of the putter IS the putt, and getting a consistent release is vital for accuracy.
A soft disc will always flex somewhat in your grip: and due to temperature it will bend more or less. Now – how will you get a consistent release from a bendy disc, which has more or less flex depending on the day or even the hole?
This is a question I was never able to answer for myself, and despite liking soft putters a LOT, I switched to hard ones, and my putting consistency is much improved.
BUT – in saying this – I hasten to point out that I am not a great talent, and I do not have Simon Lizotte’s, or Eagle McMahon’s hands, and so it may be that I simply lack the ability to use a soft putter effectively and consistently. Your mileage may vary!
Even so, when people ask my advice about putters, I tend to steer them away from things which have high flex. I think that is the right thing to do for beginners and intermediates; one less thing to affect the release.
Domed or Flat Top? Or even Concave?
Probably makes little difference in the big scheme of things, but a domed disc needs to be gripped in a slightly different way, because the top of the flight plate is so far above the height of a flat-top, the nose angle changes dramatically. Domed putters will often fly nose up for people, because they haven’t adjusted their grip to take into account the flight plate height differential.
Jay Reading’s “Yeti Pro” Aviar is a specially molded disc which has a concave flight plate – effectively an inverse dome.
Many people find this to be very comfortable, and I do like the feel of it myself. It promotes a nose-down, or flat putt.
Shallow or Deep-Dish?
This is also personal preference, and is entirely down to hand feel. Personally I do not like a shallow putter like the Deputy, and I love the deep, hand-filling feeling of the Dagger and the Ruru.
It’s worth noting that Feldberg was partially induced to join Latitude64 because they allowed him to get in on the design of the Dagger, and so it has all the qualities he wanted in a putter; a deep dish to capture more air under, and hence the Dagger has a slightly lower sink-rate – and hence more “loft”, allowing the disc to fly further for any given amount of effort.
He wanted a putter with a big bead, like his old Big Bead Aviars. He also wanted a firm putter that did not flex in his grip.
But a big, deep, hand-filling putter has a larger cross-sectional area, and hence is affected slightly more by the wind, even if thrown perfectly flat. There is no free lunch!
Premium or Base Plastic?
Once again, this is pure personal preference. I despise beaten up discs, believing “worn in” is synonymous with “worn out”. I prefer premium plastics because they look better, and do not beat up easily or quickly, and their flight shape remains reliable for a long period of time, and is never altered by a single tree or basket hit.
I once fell in love with the Banger-GT – a fantastic-flying disc, made from one of the worst plastics disc golf has ever seen. I got 5 of them immediately. However, less than 3 weeks of putting practice ruined them, in my view. On the flip side, some players will swear 7 blood oaths to a beaten-up Banger-GT, and fight to the death to keep theirs. Such is the sport we play!
I find the grip level of RPM's Cosmic and Atomic is excellent, and a damp putter does not concern me, because I carry at least two chamois at all times, and Cosmic grip for putting when damp is just fine. I can throw a Cosmic Ruru with driving power, directly into a concrete block wall, and all that happens is the disc gets some paint on it, from the wall. :)
How Many Putters Should I Get?
No more than 5. Get them all the same weight, same plastic, and if you are a bit OCD, even the same colour. One is for your bag, and the other four are for practice. Using more than 4 putters to practice will cause you to devalue individual putts, and is likely to damage your putting rather than improve it. Read my article here, for a massive amount of detail.
Do I Need More Than One Putting Putter?
That depends! How good are you? Are you able to make the adjustments needed to successfully employ a second putter when switching between them? What will they be used for?
In my case, as I explained in the first paragraph, I carry two extra putting putters, but they are for specific situations only: massive tailwind, strong headwind, low ceiling, and far uphill. And even then, only if I strongly doubt my ability to bend the Ruru to my will.
Should I Throw My Putting Putter?
Many will give a categorical answer of “NO!” here, but I’m going to be much more pragmatic, and a little wishy-washy and say, “It depends...” :P
If your putting putter is a premium plastic, and there is no danger of losing the disc, then I would say, go for it.
But, if you have a base plastic putter, then I would advise you never to throw it with anything except a putting motion. Not even for relatively short approach shots. A single bad hit may change the flight shape.
I certainly have no qualms about throwing my Ruru, and hard, as a concrete block wall only leaves a smear of paint on the glossy disc surface.
What About A Driving Putter?
A totally different, and very large subject!
What about Weight?
In general, you will want heavy putters. Unless you are a child, or a lightly built female. Or you want a tailwind putter.
Heavy putters are less affected by wind than light ones, and while you can overcome some wind with a spin putt, that shot will fly a long way by the basket if it fails to connect. Hello Birdogie! That’s when your easy birdie putt misses and flies long, and you go from birdie to bogie … BOOM - just like that.
For tailwinds, kids, and the ladies, often the magic little Latitude64 Ruby is a perfect option; letting them throw nice long, straight putts. Not so hot into a raging headwind, though!
Speaking of Headwinds, How Do I Tackle Extreme Winds?
This is the 64,000 dollar question isn't it? But first, a short story!
I have stood on the teepad of Hole 1, leaning into the wind at a 30 degree angle, shouting to the guy next to me, “Where do you think a good shot ends up here?” He yelled, “30 metres closer to the basket!”
I asked him what the hell he was going to throw, and he shrugged and yelled, “I was gonna ask you the same thing!”
On this same hole, I was not foolish enough to attempt to make my 6-metre (outrageous) headwind putt for a miraculous par, but rather knelt down, turned my disc upside down, and slid it underneath the basket so I could drop in for bogie. Sadly, the disc hit the teepee-shaped grass surrounding the pole, and the disc stood up and rolled straight downwind and downhill for over 20 metres.
This left me in a real dilemma – what the hell do I do now? After a minute of careful consideration, I decided to flat spin putt at the basket, trying to sink it, using a max-weight Champion Ape in 10/10 condition. It flew perfectly straight, hit and fell under the basket for a drop-in double bogie. Ouch. But a lot better than many people scored on the hole that day.
Big headwinds can really mess up your day - especially on the putting green, and here's where you can easily take strokes off other players, by being smart: Make damned sure your disc lands upwind of the basket, even if it is 20-metres out - because you will nearly always get up and down from there.
But you may not get up and down from 20 metres downwind, especially if you go for it.
If you are facing a massive headwind, and you are beyond safe putting range - which very literally can be any distance where you can't actually place the disc in the basket - then you are best not to even try to make the putt. Take your medicine: turn the disc upside down, and slide it to the basket to avoid all the effects of the evil wind raging around you.
Read my article covering Wind Gradient to understand how this works.
A Sinus is a definite must-have for heavy wind putting, with it’s super sharp bottom rim halting it almost the instant it touches down. A Sinus is also my "do or die trying" headwind putter. And when I use it in this way, I am putting with anhyzer on the disc.
Anhyzer flight prevents the disc from hyzering, and climbing and flying outside the circle - usually! But it can all go horribly wrong, too!
Using a very overstable driver to putt with may also a viable option, because wind can get so strong that using any kind of putter is simply suicidal - while a high speed driver might actually work.
It's worthwhile practicing these extreme wind putts, because one day, you're going to have to make one of them to take the win, or to force a playoff.
The Legendary Wizard and 2008 World Champion, Dave Fledberg, takes a lap of the basket.
Can I use a Midrange to Putt with?
Sure you can. They have amazing glide – especially if you are using a larger midrange, one which is legal up to 180 grams. However, that same glide is going to fly a long way past the basket when you miss, causing you to triple putt more often than it saves you a stroke.
How about putting with a Driver?
So yeah, you can do that, too! And in fact I have hilariously dark memories of being beaten in a tournament round by a Scotsman who had just one disc, a speed-13 driver, and 15 beers. And he complained bitterly and unceasingly that he’d run out of beer on hole 16. Just how a person could consume that much alcohol in less than 100 minutes blew me away. How he managed to throw 10-under par is still one of the greatest mysteries I have ever known. I threw 9-under.
But he was the exception to the rule, and you should only putt with a driver in extreme circumstances, as I outlined above. Sometimes there IS a case for going for it, with a spin putt, using the most overstable driver you have in your bag.
There is one other time when putting with a driver is not just acceptable, but almost mandatory. That is when you park it under the basket. When doing so, I always say “I love putting with my driver” as I drop in for birdie.
And there you have it, pretty much everything I have ever learned about putters. If you enjoyed this article, please feel free to click the little heart button down below, share the link with someone, or buy one of the discs linked in the piece.
Martin has been kept pretty busy with orders recently, and we apologise for both of us being out of action at the Matchplay Champs until December 12th, which is when any new emails, queries and orders will be actioned. We're making a big Innova and Trilogy order then too - so get your weird-ass requests for discs in to Martin, pronto!
Cheers all, Chris & Martin |
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spent yesterday talking. On Saturday, the authorities relented and withdrew the police from Taksim Square, when it became clear that serious clashes would be unavoidable. Crowds were approaching from four different directions and the police were trying to stop them before they reached the square, but they kept coming; at around 4 p.m. news came that the police were pulling back. Many thought that this might be tactical. In the end, however, the demonstrators had Taksim to themselves. On Sunday morning, under a drizzle, they peacefully cleaned up the square while Erdoğan made the rounds, denouncing the extremists, justifying his actions and defiantly repeating his commitment to overhaul the social and physical space of the meydan.
Taksim Square has been symbolic of Turkey’s Western aspirations: it is the centre of the European section of the city, adorned with a monument to the founders of the Republic where official ceremonies are held and officials lay wreaths. Trade unions and leftist organisations want to celebrate May Day there but the authorities have denied them the privilege more often than not. In truth, the symbolic value of Taksim far exceeds its aesthetic rewards: it is the busiest square in the city, but the buildings around it are an eclectic mix with no historical or architectural distinction; the park that the crowds are defending is not heavily used.
But this is not the point: the worry is that the Islamist neoliberal party that Erdoğan leads, the AKP, is rapidly becoming more Islamist and posing a real threat to secular urban middle-class lifestyles. Erdoğan’s increasingly imperious inclination aggravates the anxiety. His insistence on involving Turkey in Syria’s civil war was thought to be motivated by his Sunnism, and there was widespread fear that the country would get too involved in the Middle East – a fear vindicated in the explosions and loss of life on the border. The new legislation regulating the sale of alcohol was interpreted as a first step towards more serious restrictions, with some columnists speculating about the emergence of a regime, as in the Gulf, under which alcohol could be consumed only in tourist hotels. A young couple in Ankara’s metro were admonished for kissing over the PA system; people who protested against this policing of behaviour were physically attacked by conservative militants. Then the PM announced that the third bridge over the Bosphorus will be named after Yavuz Sultan Selim, the Ottoman sultan who ordered the massacre of 40,000 Alevis in the 16th century. Alevis, whom Sunnis have always regarded as unbelievers, make up between 10 and 15 per cent of Turkey’s population and it would be safe to guess that Erdoğan receives a negligible percentage of their votes. His supporters in the media tried to reassure the public that there was no nasty intention in the naming of the bridge, but Erdoğan did not bother to explain his supposed oversight. All this added to the sense of a growing Islamic authoritarianism bound to trample the secular ‘way of life’.
The ‘removal’ of trees in Gezi Park at first attracted a relatively small group of protesters, who saw it as a first step in Erdoğan’s plan to redesign Taksim. The police brutally gassed and beat up the few hundred people there, and the frustrations and fears of the much larger group worried about the increasingly authoritarian agenda of the PM found a channel of expression. Over the course of less than a week the crowd swelled to a million. On Saturday the crowds pouring in to the centre were mostly young and middle-class. University students dominated. In a city whose population has doubled in the last 25 years because of rural migration, they looked to be at least second-generation urban. I would be surprised if there were more than a handful of AKP voters among them.
Erdoğan always talks in the first person singular: they are his government, his project, his ministers and his people. In Taksim he wants to reconstruct a 19th- century army barracks, occupying roughly the same space as Gezi Park, which was demolished in the 1930s. He announced yesterday that the reconstructed building should be a hotel, because Istanbul’s success as a world city has led to a huge increase in the number of tourists and business travellers and there is a shortage of luxury hotels. There will also be some shops to cater to visitors. In other words, an appropriation of public space for business ends.
The Ottoman state was the ‘owner’ of all land that was not recognised as private; but this meant trusteeship, not alienable property. The neoliberal AKP, however, is all too happy to privatise public assets: displacing the inhabitants of shantytowns to make land available to developers; selling public land in Istanbul to construction firms to build middle-class housing; and now dispossessing the public of their trees and parks to build a private space for the global rich. Erdoğan thinks of public land as his property to alienate, develop and sell. Thus the two agendas intersect: on the one hand, Taksim Square will be transformed, bearing the stamp no longer of the westernising Republic but of an Islamic government harking back to Ottoman times. On the other, public space will be privatised in the true neoliberal manner. All this was justified yesterday within a retro developmentalist discourse: these doings were imperatives of economic growth, not the result of political decisions. After all, the PM said, wasn’t the economy doing well. This kind of thinking leaves no room for public discussion.
In his speeches yesterday and in a two-hour interview with a sympathetic anchorman, Erdoğan blamed ‘ideological’ agendas and the main opposition party for the demonstrations, said that ‘extremists’ and ‘a few marauders’ had radicalised the public, and threatened that if he had to, he could easily call his supporters onto the streets in greater numbers. Besides, he was the better environmentalist: he would be planting more trees than were removed (counting those that would be sequestered in the courtyard of the reconstructed barracks). The leitmotif was that he had the numbers. He defined his understanding of democracy as going to the polls every four years: everyone had to accept the verdict. Since his people had voted him in, he would serve them. Everyone had to respect the results and not object to the decisions of his legitimate government. Besides, how could anyone accuse him of not working for the good of his people. This principle held for public morality as well: people should respect the way of life of the majority and behave accordingly.
It is an almost perfect set-up. AKP has the numbers, and the owners of the media have to do business with the government. Newspapers and TV stations ignored the demonstrations until yesterday. There are a few critical columnists left; many have lost their jobs. There is no independent bourgeoisie: business cannot be conducted without the good will of the government. And, it has to be admitted, Erdoğan is a consummate politician. He does not delegate, he has full control of his party and all that the government does. There is no opposition politician who comes close to his monstrous appetite for politicking. The so-called social media and the brand of politics that characterises the younger generation, however, are a novel presence in the Turkish arena. This week will tell us more about their potential. |
Story highlights Fossil of mule-sized dinosaur with wings and feathers found in China
It's a close relative of the velociraptor
China has become a treasure trove for dinosaur hunters in recent decades
Beijing (CNN) Around 125 million years ago, a mule-sized dinosaur with a long tail and short, resplendently-feathered wings roamed a corner of what is now northeastern China.
Researchers revealed the discovery of Zhenyuanlong suni, a close relative of its far more famous cousin -- the velociraptor, after publishing a photo of a remarkably preserved fossil.
The relic shows the complete skeleton of the animal, as well as its skull displayed in profile. Clearly visible around the creature's short arms are a pattern of long feathers, which also appear to have decorated the dinosaur's tail.
"The cool thing here is that it is a dinosaur that looks a lot like a bird," says Stephen Brusatte, a Scotland-based paleontologist who is one of the co-authors of the report.
The discovery has left scientists with a question.
Read More |
Saginaw High School.JPG
Saginaw High School, 3100 Webber in Saginaw
(Lindsay Knake | MLive.com)
UPDATE:
SAGINAW, MI — Saginaw School District officials are considering a consolidation plan that would close Saginaw High School.
Superintendent Carlton Jenkins is giving a presentation to the Board of Education at 6 p.m. Monday, Feb. 3, regarding the future of Saginaw schools at the district's instructional center, 1505 Ottawa in Saginaw.
More than 70 people are in attendance, including State Sen. Roger Kahn, R-Saginaw Township.
In order to deal with a loss of students and a decline in funding, the district will look at a redesign process that includes closing Saginaw High School and Daniels Middle School and sending students to Arthur Hill High School and Thompson Middle School, respectively.
The plan includes changes throughout the district, including at the elementary school level.
The meeting is a planning session and the board will not take action tonight, said Board President Beverly Yanca.
On Wednesday, the board will have a special meeting. The venue is yet unknown, she said.
—
Lindsay Knake covers education for MLive/The Saginaw News. Follow her on twitter or contact her at 989-372-2498 or lknake@mlive.com. |
In AD&D, where your treasure haul is limited by encumbrance, you need a way to increase encumbrance limits along with treasure hauls. Therefore there are 4 types of bags of holding in the AD&D DMG, with capacities of 250, 500, 1000, and 1500 pounds. In 4e, there is no assumption that weight limits for treasure will be a regular part of gameplay. Therefore, bags of holding need some other, more 4e-friendly ways to level up.
My old houserules for leveling magic items mean that every piece of magical treasure has the potential to gain power in ways that the players can’t predict. Furthermore, WOTC recently invented the concept of the “rare magic item,” but haven’t given us lots of examples. While some items may get mechanically better (for instance, a +1 sword becomes a +2 sword), it’s more challenging to improve items that don’t have numeric bonuses. I thought I’d go through the Wondrous Items in the 4e Player’s Handbook and give examples of how each could gain powers that reflect their history.
Pockets of Holding This bag of holding can be cut according to a specific eldritch pattern and sewn as pockets into six garments. Each pocket allows access to the same shared bag of holding.
The Pockets of Holding pattern was invented by an honorable adventuring party who wanted to share their healing potions, but later misused by a band of dwarven thieves who discovered their shoplifting applications.
Self-Holding Bag: The bag of holding-boosting ritual from Dragon 385 could as easily be a leveled magic item. This bag can be hidden in or removed from an extradimensional space as a minor action.
Seleris the Magician’s Bag of Holding
If you put one hand in the bag of holding (a minor action) you can transfer items from your other hand to the bag and vice versa as a free action.
Seleris the Magician used to put one hand in his pocket while doing conjuring tricks with his other hand. Due to his Bag of Holding and other magical trinkets, he developed a great reputation as a wizard without ever learning a single spell.
Tags: equipment |
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“I don’t want to be melodramatic but I do want to be truthful. I believe without a shadow of a doubt this is the last election,” the former House Republican from Minnesota told the Christian Broadcasting Network this week.
Bachmann argued that Clinton as president would alter the demographics of the country to favor Democrats.
“It's a math problem of demographics and a changing United States,” she said.
She said Clinton will be able achieve her objective by giving "amnesty" to everyone living in the country illegally "so that Republicans will never again have the chance at winning Florida or Texas."
“It’s not going to happen," she claimed. "Hillary Clinton will ensure it won’t happen because she’s going to change the demographics of the United States so that no Republican will ever win again.” |
Nearly two years after a video of U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of suspected Taliban fighters in Afghanistan became an Internet sensation, the case has triggered a rare and escalating fight over the way the military sought to punish the service members who were implicated.
Maj. James Weirick, a Marine lawyer assigned to the case, is taking on the chief of the Marine Corps, Gen. James F. Amos, alleging that the criminal investigation was compromised after the commandant demanded harsh punishment for the suspects before they had their day in court.
In response, Weirick says, the Marine Corps has retaliated by removing him from his job, seizing his personal weapons and ordering him to get a mental health evaluation — steps he and his supporters call character assassination.
This week, Weirick took the fight a step further, charging in a complaint filed with the agency that oversees classification of secrets that senior Marine Corps officials improperly classified material that could have assisted defense attorneys for the Marines under investigation.
The case could hardly come at a worse time for the military justice system, which has come under searing criticism from activists and lawmakers who contend that commanders often exert undue influence in criminal investigations, particularly those involving sexual assault.
The urination scandal was among the embarrassing episodes for the Marine Corps during the last decade of war, calling into question the military’s ability to adequately investigate war crimes. Its muddled handling comes as Afghan officials are debating whether to support keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan after 2014, which would require Kabul to extend immunity from prosecution by the Afghan authorities to U.S. forces that remain behind.
The military dropped its case against Capt. James V. Clement, the sole officer charged in the urination case in September, shortly before Weirick was to testify about his concerns. Three enlisted Marines who appear in the video have pleaded guilty to a range of charges that include wrongful possession of unauthorized photos of casualties and failure to report mistreatment of human casualties. Five other Marines received nonjudicial punishments.
With the criminal cases over, Weirick says he is now in a struggle for his career and livelihood.
“There won’t be a Weirick and an Amos in the Marine Corps at the end of this,” he said in an interview Friday night. “I’m not sure which one will remain, but it’s not clear we can both coexist.”
As the Defense Department inspector general reviews Weirick’s allegations, several retired Marine lawyers and a few members of Congress are rallying around the embattled officer.
“This has a foul odor at the highest level,” Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.), who has met with Weirick personally, said in an interview Friday. “This is an effort at the highest level to discredit a man of integrity.”
The Marine Corps says Weirick was not removed from his job in retaliation for being a whistleblower. The step was taken after Weirick sent an e-mail to a colleague he believed was under pressure to cover up lapses by senior officers, asking him to “come clean” about his actions in the probe.
Col. Sean Gibson, a Marine Corps spokesman, said in an e-mail that the message showed “poor judgment.” There was some question as to whether the language in the e-mail could be construed as threatening, according to military officials.
“The command is well aware of obligations to service members who have made protected communication to the Inspector General,” Gibson said. “The command has and will continue to meet these obligations.”
A spokesman for Amos said the commandant would not discuss the case.
“He respects the process by which the disputed issues will be sorted out, and he has full faith and confidence in his commanders to handle those matters within their purview,” said Lt. Col. David Nevers, the spokesman.
The saga began on January 2012, when a video of four Marines laughing as they urinated on the corpses of suspected insurgents was posted on YouTube. The video alarmed U.S. military officials in Afghanistan because it came shortly after deadly riots in the country sparked by the revelation that U.S. military personnel had burned Korans.
Weeks after the incident, Amos met with Lt. Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, who had been assigned to oversee the prosecution. In their conversation, Amos told Waldhauser that he wanted those responsible “crushed” and separated from the service, Waldhauser wrote in a court filing in July.
Waldhauser told Amos that he was considering a lesser form of punishment for some of the Marines. Amos soon replaced Waldhauser with another three-star general, saying he worried that their conversation could have been construed as undue command influence.
As the case moved forward, Weirick and other Marine officials protested when senior officers argued that the video and an investigative report ought to be classified in order to prevent leaks that could stoke further controversy in Afghanistan about the case.
“Tensions were running high in Afghanistan in the wake of the Koran burning and civilian casualties, posing serious operational and strategic threats,” Nevers said. “The decision to classify the materials was made in that crucial context.”
A Marine expert on classification expressed alarm at the time, writing in a March 14, 2012, e-mail to Weirick that the Marine Corps stood to look “like a box of buffoons” if the decisions to classify the video and report were litigated.
After Weirick started raising alarms about the way the case was being handled in the spring, he was reassigned. But he kept pushing the issue, he said, believing that the Marines under investigation deserved a fair proceeding. Beyond launching an inspector general’s probe, he said, the military has taken no action in response to his concerns, the major said.
This week, Weirick filed a complaint to the Information Security Oversight Office, which oversees classification procedures across the federal government. The former head of that office, J. William Leonard, endorsed his complaint.
“I am extremely concerned that the integrity of the classification system continues to be severely undermined by the complete absence of accountability in instances such as this clear abuse of classification authority,” he wrote in a letter to the agency’s directory, John P. Fitzpatrick. |
As members of Congress edge away from the Stop Online Piracy Act, leaders of the opposition can count among their most frequently used rhetorical tools a metaphor that has come to define this debate: SOPA = China.
The legislation would impose a “chilling internet censorship regime here in the U.S. comparable in some ways to China’s ‘Great Firewall,’” Wired wrote. Sergey Brin—who led G-Day, Google’s withdrawal from mainland China—said that the bills would “put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world.” Rebecca MacKinnon, an Internet-freedom expert who used to be journalist in Beijing, says they would impose a “censorship mechanism that is almost identical, technically, to the mechanism the Chinese use to censor their Internet.”
So, how does it all look to the people who actually live with it? In China, the reaction to American protests has ranged from sympathy to gentle Schadenfreude, as Chinese Web users try to sort out whether they are being held up as victims or patsies or pirates. After several years in which American diplomats have inveighed against Internet censorship in China, the proposals have inspired a bit of snickering. “The Great Firewall turns out to be a visionary product; the American government is trying to copy us,” one commentator wrote. A Chinese message making the rounds on Thursday said: “At last, the planet is becoming unified: We are ahead of the whole world, and the ‘American imperialists’ are racing to catch up.”
Fittingly, perhaps, the discussion has unfolded on Weibo, the Twitter-like micro-blogging site that has a team of censors on staff to trim posts with sensitive political content. That is the arrangement that opponents of the bill have suggested would be required of American sites if they are compelled to police their users’ content for copyright violations. On Weibo, joking about SOPA’s similarities to Chinese censorship was sensitive enough that some posts on the subject were almost certainly deleted (though it can be hard to know). But among those that survived, a commentator known as Dr. Zhang wrote: “I’ve come up with a perfect solution: You can come to China to download all your pirated media, and we’ll go to America to discuss politically sensitive subjects.”
There are, needless to say, differences of degree. While Chinese sites censor references to Tiananmen Square, Falun Gong, the Dalai Lama and other third-rail political issues, the force comes not in the act of censorship, but in the instances when prosecutions follow: the Chinese woman sentenced to a year of reform through labor for retweeting a joke, or the student detained for forwarding what authorities called a “rumor” about the murder of eight village officials. (h/t Isaac Stone Fish at Foreign Policy.)
After Chinese Web users got over the strangeness of hearing Americans debate the merits of screening the Web for objectionable content, they marvelled at the American response. Commentator Liu Qingyan wrote:
We should learn something from the way these American Internet companies protested against SOPA and PIPA. A free and democratic society depends on every one of us caring about politics and fighting for our rights. We will not achieve it by avoiding talk about politics.
There was little expectation that Chinese Web sites would ever band together to express their opposition to censorship: “Baidu, would you dare do something like this?” one asked.
The most eloquent response to the controversy, perhaps, was one that nobody saw at all. Commentator Shi Han wrote about trying to post a comment to Tencent, the giant Chinese portal. “I’ve written a short article about SOPA. But when I tried to put it up, Tencent replied with a message: ‘Your content has not passed review.’”
Photograph by Nelson Ching/Bloomberg via Getty Images. |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf -- a key U.S. ally -- is less popular in his own country than al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to a poll of Pakistanis conducted last month by an anti-terrorism organization.
A hardline Islamic activist burns an American flag during anti-U.S. protests in Karachi, Pakistan, last month.
Additionally, nearly three-fourths of poll respondents said they oppose U.S. military action against al Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan, according to results from the poll conducted by the independent polling organization Terror Free Tomorrow.
"We have conducted 23 polls all over the Muslim world, and this is the most disturbing one we have conducted," said Ken Ballen, the group's head. "Pakistan is the one Muslim nation that has nuclear weapons, and the people who want to use them against us -- like the Taliban and al Qaeda -- are more popular there than our allies like Musharraf."
The poll was conducted for Terror Free Tomorrow by D3 Systems of Vienna, Virginia., and the Pakistan Institute for Public Opinion. Interviews were conducted August 18-29, face-to-face with 1,044 Pakistanis across 105 urban and rural sampling points in all four provinces across the nation. Households were randomly selected.
According to poll results, bin Laden has a 46 percent approval rating. Musharraf's support is 38 percent. U.S. President George W. Bush's approval: 9 percent.
Asked their opinion on the real purpose of the U.S.-led war on terror, 66 percent of poll respondents said they believe the United States is acting against Islam or has anti-Muslim motivation. Others refused to answer the question or said they did not know.
"We failed in winning hearts and minds in Pakistan," Ballen told CNN. "In fact, only 4 percent said we had a good motivation in the war on terrorism."
Seventy-four percent said they oppose U.S. military action against al Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan.
After American relief efforts following the October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan's Kashmir region, 46 percent of Pakistanis had a positive opinion of the United States, according to the poll. But as of last month, only 19 percent reported a favorable opinion.
Meanwhile, al Qaeda has a 43 percent approval rate; the Taliban has a 38 percent approval rate; and local radical extremist groups had an approval rating between 37 percent to 49 percent.
Views of U.S. could improve, responses indicate
There were a few bright spots in the poll results, however. Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto -- a relatively moderate and progressive figure, as well as a woman -- had a 63 percent approval rating.
Seventy-five percent of poll respondents said suicide bombings are rarely or never justified.
And a majority of Pakistanis said their opinion of the United States would improve if, among other things, there were increases in American aid to Pakistan, American business investments and the number of visas issued for Pakistanis to work in the United States.
Terror Free Tomorrow is a non-partisan, nonprofit group in Washington, D.C., and according to its Web site is "the only organization dedicated to a new strategic vision: Leading the fight against terror by winning the popular support that empowers global terrorists." E-mail to a friend
CNN Analyst Peter Bergen contributed to this report.
All About Osama bin Laden |
“Tánaiste, over the lifetime of this Government, there have been a number of serious concerns, regarding probity and accountability and today I want to discuss another one that I believe merits scrutiny and that is the awarding of the call centre work for Irish Water to the Cork-based company Abtran. I know you’ll recall that Abtran was the company that got the contract for the SUSI grant system and it came under serious criticism, and rightly so, for its failing and it cost an additional almost €6million. And despite that, it went on to get, it was awarded the property tax contract. And then Revenue had to step in because it failed to cope initially.”
“Yet, after both of those high-profile failings, it was awarded the call centre work for Irish Water. We also know that Abtran has at least 10 other Government and public contracts. Now one of the criteria for the tendering process for the Irish Water contract was that the company had to have a turnover of €20million for the preceding three years. And given that it had a number of lucrative State contracts, prior to the Irish Water contract, the State certainly improved Abtran’s ability to meet the criteria laid down in the process. What’s interesting here is the way it was awarded, the way the contract was awarded and the obvious questions it raises about probity and the awarding of the contract.”
“Now Tánaiste, through Freedom of Information, I’ve established that on the 15th of February, 2012, the then minister [for the Environment] Phil Hogan’s private secretary received a fairly informal email seeking a meeting with Phil in order to lobby on behalf of Abtran. On the same day, at 5pm, an email was sent saying that the minister had agreed to meet the company. On the 27th of February, on the same year, we know that, through the work from Gavin Sheridan’s minister’s diary, that they met, that the minister met both the person who sent the original lobbying email, Mr O’Byrne – the co-owner of Abtran. In March, 2013, that company was then awarded the metering [sic] contract.”
“The Irish Water call centre contract, Tanaiste, as you know, is a very lucrative contract. It’s worth in the region of €50million over four years. And we know through the Freedom of Information that one of the key criteria was that the awarding of the contract, the firm that the contract was awarded to, had to have a proven track record. Now I presume that means a good track record – so the questions I want to ask you are: Are you satisfied that despite a very public failings of Abtran in relation to the SUSI scheme and the property tax scheme that they were still awarded an extremely lucrative contract by the State? Given the criteria? Are you aware that in 2015, late 2015, a State investment vehicle, also invested an undisclosed sum of money into Abtran? Do you know what that money is for? Do you know how much that was? And are you concerned about what appears to be the favouring of Abtran for Government funds?”
Social Democrat TD Catherine Murphy for Kildare North speaking in the Dáil during Leaders’ Questions in the last few minutes.
More to follow.
Previously: Contains Impurities |
Collection UmphreysMcGee
01 Intro
02 Sonatina No. 1 Op 32 - Dmitry Kabalevsky]
03 Pour Le Piano Suite: Piano Prelude - Claude Debussy
04 In Memory Of My Father - Bill Evans
05 Doctor Gradus Ad Parnassum - Claude Debussy
06 Linus And Lucy - Vince Guaraldi
07 Improv >
08 Orfeo - Umphrey's McGee
09 More Intros
10 Burn Them - Greensky Bluegrass *
11 In The Kitchen - Umphrey's McGee *@
12 Feelin' Alright - Joe Cocker *@
* w/ Paul Hoffman - Mandolin & Anders Beck - Dobro
@ w/ Jason Hann - Percussion
Notes
Joel Cummins
Tuesday January 06, 2015
Jam Cruise 13
Miami, FL
Source: AKG 391b (PAS) > Zoom H6 (24/96)
Location: DFC, 20' from stage @ 7'
Lineage: Wavelab 6 > r8brain PRO > CD Wave Editor (FLAC6)
Set:
01 Intro
02 Sonatina No. 1 Op 32 - Dmitry Kabalevsky]
03 Pour Le Piano Suite: Piano Prelude - Claude Debussy
04 In Memory Of My Father - Bill Evans
05 Doctor Gradus Ad Parnassum - Claude Debussy
06 Linus And Lucy - Vince Guaraldi
07 Improv >
08 Orfeo - Umphrey's McGee
09 More Intros
10 Burn Them - Greensky Bluegrass *
11 In The Kitchen - Umphrey's McGee *@
12 Feelin' Alright - Joe Cocker *@
* w/ Paul Hoffman - Mandolin & Anders Beck - Dobro
@ w/ Jason Hann - Percussion
FFP:
joelcummins2015-01-06t01.flac:ba23f56cdcd56d8725275c4bc8c04a6d
joelcummins2015-01-06t02.flac:bc1f90d855bfa14c40e45265b3ee0970
joelcummins2015-01-06t03.flac:6137ac2a42c267c31b2e554e5c3181dd
joelcummins2015-01-06t04.flac:344b225a1e4d110b125f958d368ecc04
joelcummins2015-01-06t05.flac:e59ac9bade13ff7291e5ab94ad21d873
joelcummins2015-01-06t06.flac:245e60388a702dc0d14c79f0941a5b70
joelcummins2015-01-06t07.flac:bc8d09e37812b1057548bebd6fc315e6
joelcummins2015-01-06t08.flac:bc92dc8b3110a2f456844761b96345ac
joelcummins2015-01-06t09.flac:fd1b4f754dac58b809d4bed620696ef8
joelcummins2015-01-06t10.flac:11d6b63219e86ca35452620ada56f350
joelcummins2015-01-06t11.flac:24657ce07e2b8ff9e54ecb4870e9144a
joelcummins2015-01-06t12.flac:1ca3c1d7ea5fdabba66292ab45775bea
Identifier joelcummins2015-01-06.akg391b.flac16 Lineage Wavelab 6 > r8brain PRO > CD Wave Editor (FLAC6) Location Miami, FL Source AKG 391b (PAS) > Zoom H6 (24/96) Taped by James E Transferred by BlingFree Type sound Venue Jam Cruise 13 Year 2015 |
by Michael Keller
Korean trams and buses are moving away from overhead power wires and high-voltage third rails–literally.
Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have made major advances in wireless power transfer for mass transit systems. The fruits of their labor, systems called On-line Electric Vehicles (OLEV), are already being road tested around Korea.
At it’s heart, the technology uses inductive coupling to wirelessly transmit electricity from power cables embedded in roadways to pick-up coils installed under the floor of electric vehicles.
The work was hailed as one of the year’s top 10 emerging technologies by the World Economic Forum this week.
Engineers say the transmitting technology supplies 180 kW of stable, constant power at 60 kHz to passing vehicles that are equipped with receivers. The initial OLEV models above received 100 kW of power at 20 kHz through an almost eight-inch air gap. They have recorded 85 percent transmission efficiency through testing so far.
(A concept drawing for an OLEV tram. Courtesy KAIST.)
The wireless electricity that powers the vehicle’s motors and systems is also used to charge an on-board battery that supplies energy to the vehicle when it is away from the power line.
KAIST plans to start deploying the OLEV technology to tramlines in May and high-speed trains in September.
“We have greatly improved the OLEV technology from the early development stage by increasing its power transmission density by more than three times,” said Dong-Ho Cho, the director of KAIST’s Center for Wireless Power Transfer Technology Business Development, in a release. “The size and weight of the power pickup modules have been reduced as well. We were able to cut down the production costs for major OLEV components, the power supply, and the pickup system, and in turn, OLEV is one step closer to being commercialized.”
The institute announced that buses equipped with the wireless power transfer technology are already used daily by students on the KAIST campus in Daejeon, while others are undergoing road tests in Seoul. Two more OLEV buses will begin trial operations in the city of Gumi in July.
Proponents say that the technology banishes overhead power lines and rails for electric trams and buses, dramatically lowers the costs of railway wear and tear and allows smaller tunnels to be built for electric vehicle infrastructure, lowering construction costs.
(An OLEV shuttle bus that provides rides to students and faculty on the KAIST campus in Daejeon. Courtesy Hyung-Joon Jeon/KAIST.)
Top Image: KAIST and Korea Railroad Research Institute displayed wireless power transfer technology to the public on Feb. 13 by testing it on railroad tracks at Osong Station in Korea. Photo courtesy Hyung-Joon Juen/KAIST. |
Fuel Shortages And The North Korean Economy, Explained
Enlarge this image toggle caption Wong Maye-E/AP Wong Maye-E/AP
In his latest tweet about North Korea, President Trump gave leader Kim Jong Un a new nickname — "Rocket Man" — and seems to indicate he thinks sanctions on the country are working: "Long gas lines forming in North Korea. Too bad!" Trump wrote.
But are they, really? And what, if anything, could that tell us about the North Korean economy right now?
Here's what we know: North Korea gets most of its oil from China. "It's a clear fact that North Korea is being managed by China, up to the point that it can survive on it," Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, told the Hankook Ilbo newspaper.
A week ago, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 2375, which sanctions North Korea for its nuclear and missile programs. The U.S. claims the latest "toughest yet" sanctions, after implementation, could cut down by 30 percent the oil products going to North Korea and by extension, dampen the North Korean economy.
Are gas lines forming in Pyongyang?
Not right now, according to the North Korea monitoring website NK News, whose staff and sources include many current and former North Koreans. It reported Monday that "long lines of vehicles waiting to refuel have not been recently observed" in Pyongyang, with this photo. The Washington Post's sources inside the capital city echoed the sentiment: "We are not aware of any long queues at the gas stations," a resident said.
But, it seems gas prices have been going up since April, according to the Associated Press, which runs a bureau in Pyongyang. That was following a previous U.N. sanctions package that was also dubbed the "toughest yet." In late April, the AP reported a shortage began when "signs went up ... informing customers that sales restrictions would be in place until further notice. At least one station was charging more than $5 a gallon, about double the typical price of a week ago."
Last week, ahead of the new sanctions, NK News' sources in Pyongyang said they faced new restrictions on filling up jerrycans for extra supplies and a number of gas stations closed across the city.
As we learned in high school economics, price has an inverse relationship to supply. But that's in a market economy. North Korea's economy is technically state-run and supposed to be "collectivized," but prices could matter here because the black market economy is increasingly market-driven.
"It is illegal; it is informal; it corresponds to basic human needs; and it is 100 percent capitalist," authors Daniel Tudor and James Pearson write, in their book, North Korea Confidential.
What might explain a shortage, if there is one?
North Korea could be deliberately storing up its fuel supplies for lean times later, and/or China could actually be tightening up its supplies of fuel to North Korea, as it supplies most of it to the energy-poor country. In the same April report, the AP reported from Pyongyang that "rumors are rife that Beijing is behind the shortage."
Kent Boydston, who analyzes the North Korean economy for the Peterson Institute for International Economics, suspects that's the case: "Supposedly China has been cutting off refined oil for the last few months, whether for market reasons, or political reasons, so this could be why gasoline prices have shot up since I think about April. I would suspect that given the uncertainty now, the DPRK [North Korean] government may be hoarding gasoline even more, which could make prices go up even higher. So given the trajectory of where things are going, I would expect high gas prices and long lines."
How reliable an indicator are gas lines, anyway?
Since the standard economic metrics aren't accessible or available for North Korea, the price of gas is just one of many indicators to take into account to get a sense of the big picture.
While Pyongyang has fewer gas stations than other major cities because only the elite class of North Koreans owns private vehicles, "there is ample evidence suggesting there are more cars on the road than in years past," Boydston says. "It's worth noting, too, that even if private cars are still not that common, there are an increasing number of taxis on the road." So if lines were indeed forming, that's one thing to watch.
And the gas used to power cars is just one kind of fuel. The type the U.S. and its allies may really want to limit isn't diesel or petroleum, reports The New York Times. It's a potent rocket fuel called UDMH, short for unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine. Halting or sabotaging North Korea's UDMH could "slow the North's program," William Broad and David Sanger write.
What other indicators can tell us about how the North Korean economy is faring under sanctions?
North Korea observers are watching the country's currency, the won. In theory, if sanctions were applied effectively, prices would go up and lead to currency devaluation. That could result in a currency crisis, as North Korea has faced before.
But despite rounds of sanctions meant to hit North Korea where it hurts, the North Korean economy maintains stable.
"Quite honestly, I'm not sure how the North Koreans are doing it," Boydston says, about the currency staying stable for the past four years. "Part of it could be that the markets in North Korea are confident that sanctions won't be enforced in a way that will disrupt them, reflecting a belief that China is not really going to clamp down on them. Typically countries can just buy and sell foreign exchange and you can see what they are doing to maintain a stable currency, but in North Korea they don't have access to these kind of international foreign exchange markets so if they are waging a massive monetary policy intervention to keep it stable, I have no idea how they are doing it."
Jihye Lee contributed to this post. |
YOUR ADVENTURE STARTS HERE
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I love avocados and think they—like all fruits and vegetables—are just fine to eat.
But avocado trade associations want us to eat more avocados.
A reporter sent me correspondence from an executive from a public relations firm that must represent some such trade association. Over a period of about a month, the PR person sent the reporter four emails. Here is message #4:
Subject: New avocado research just in time for American Heart Month Sorry for the nudge – I just wanted to check in one more time to see if you’re working on any heart health related stories in which avocados could be a fit. If so, I thought your readers may find this research helpful. Either way, please let me know and I will stop bugging you 😊
The previous three messages extolled the heart-healthy benefits of eating avocados and offered to connect the reporter to a dietitian (identified by name) “for a phone or email interview to discuss this further and answer any questions.”
None of the messages stated who the PR firm or dietitian were working for.
But take a look at the research article.
The study’s conclusion: “Incorporating fresh Hass avocados in meals can help people achieve dietary recommendations to eat more fruits and vegetables and simple substitution strategies with avocados for carbohydrates can add to the nutrient diversity of the diet and potentially have important cardio-metabolic benefits worthy of investigating further.”
No surprise: “This research was supported by the Hass Avocado Board, Irvine, CA, USA.” One of the authors “is a member of Avocado Nutrition Science Advisory.”
The reporter’s response to all this, and I quote: “AAAAHGGHGHGH.”
Mine too. |
Although Tehran would prefer a totally different political establishment in the United States, it prefers one American presidential candidate to the others: Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders. It bases its preference on candidates’ view of the nuclear deal, and their policies toward the Middle East, particularly Syria, Israel, Iraq and the Gulf.
Tehran would rather see a Democrat than a Republican as the next U.S. president. At one time there were minimal differences between the parties’ views on Iran, but in the last few years the gap has widened.
Democrats are more likely to honor the nuclear deal, which Iran needs to push the U.N. Security Council to lift crippling economic sanctions. This will enhance its legitimacy globally, which will facilitate its trade and military activities in other nations.
Since the odds appear to favor a Democratic victory in the 2016 election, bilateral ties are more likely to improve or at least not worsen. Dr. Majid Rafizadeh
Republicans view Iran’s increasing influence in the Middle East as a national security threat. They tend to criticize Tehran more harshly than Democrats for its increasing military activities in Iraq and Syria. Democratic candidates prefer to reduce American boots on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, and turn a blind eye to what will fill the resulting vacuum.
Democrats believe in further rapprochement with Tehran. With a Democratic president, Tehran will feel empowered to leverage its legitimacy and ratchet up its global position. Democrats view positively Iran’s fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). This is a short-term vision, ignoring the long-term consequences of Tehran’s military involvements and support for Shiite proxies across the region.
The candidates’ views on Iran’s rival Israel is critical. While both parties publicly support Israel, Democrats have recently had strained ties with it due to their leanings toward the nuclear deal and further rapprochement with Tehran.
Engagement
Democrats tend to prefer isolationism to more engagement in the region. From Tehran’s perspective, a U.S. withdrawal creates a vacuum that can be filled by it or its Shiite proxies. Also, due to ISIS and the latest regional developments, Democrats lean more toward the idea of Iranian leadership in the region than Arab leadership. For Tehran, a Democratic president will tip the regional balance of power in its favor.
Sanders subscribes to these views, and is much more left-leaning than the other Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Martin O’Malley. Sanders is isolationist and in favor of negotiating with Tehran. In the last Democratic debate, he emphasized the role of Iran. He is the only candidate who has frequently and strongly stressed the idea of cooperating with Tehran to deal with regional issues.
Clinton prefers more U.S. regional engagement. For example, she favors a no-fly zone in Syria, which would threaten Tehran’s interests there. Sanders focuses on domestic issues, and seeks to emulate European countries’ domestic and foreign policies. It follows then that if he becomes president, there would be improved U.S.-Iranian ties since European nations enjoy better ties with Tehran than Washington.
Since the odds appear to favor a Democratic victory in the 2016 election, bilateral ties are more likely to improve or at least not worsen.
__________
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is an Iranian-American scholar, author and U.S. foreign policy specialist. Rafizadeh is the president of the International American Council. He serves on the board of Harvard International Review at Harvard University and Harvard International Relations Council. He is a member of the Gulf 2000 Project at Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs. Previously he served as ambassador to the National Iranian-American Council based in Washington DC. He can be contacted at: Dr.Rafizadeh@post.harvard.edu, or on Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh
Last Update: Friday, 25 December 2015 KSA 11:30 - GMT 08:30 |
About three years ago, South Los Angeles resident Ron Finley got fed up with having to drive more than half an hour to find a ripe, pesticide-free tomato. So he decided to plant a vegetable garden in the space between the sidewalk and street outside of his home, located in the working-class neighborhood where he grew up, surrounded by fast food restaurants, liquor stores and other not-so-healthy options.
When the City of Los Angeles told him to stop, based on the old laws that said just trees and lawn could be planted on those skinny strips of urban land, Finley, who is a fashion designer and Blaxploitation memorabilia collector by day, quickly rose to fame as southern California's “guerilla gardener.” By founding a nonprofit called L.A. Green Grounds, whose monthly “dig-ins” feature hundreds of volunteers turning overlooked pieces of urban land into forests of food, Finley became the face of a public campaign against the city, which owns roughly 26 square miles of vacant lots that he believes could fit nearly one billion tomato plants. The city listened, and is now in the final stages of changing the rules to allow fruits and veggies to be planted along sidewalks.
“I'm pretty proud of that,” said Finley, who recently answered a few more questions for Smithsonian.com.
You've called South Los Angeles a “food desert,” a term I've started hearing all over the place. Can you tell me more about what that means?
I call them food prisons, because you're basically captured with your food system. There is no healthy food to be found. Food, if you want to call it that, is literally killing us very slowly. It's all sprayed and genetically modified and pressed and formed and processed. These areas are devoid of any kind of organic, healthy, nutritious food. There's not even a sit-down restaurant where you can have a nice meal prepared. That's what a food desert is. You can go for miles without having anything healthy to eat.
Is this a new phenomenon?
It's nothing new. It's been going on for years. It's just that now we have this proliferation of cancers and asthma and chronic illness. And then you have all these other people who can attest to food being their salvation. We have never heard of half these cancers, and a lot of it has to do with what we put into our bodies. It's like soil to a plant—if you don't have nutrients in that soil, the plant is going to get sick and die.
Why did you confront this issue by planting gardens along sidewalks?
My thing is like, “Flip the script.” Let's start something new. Let's create a new model. Why are we growing grass? What's the purpose of that, when you need to eat? When you have water shortages, why would you water grass? It's more labor intensive, you mow it, and you throw it away. You could be using less energy and growing food and developing an ecosystem that attracts beneficial butterflies, and bees, and hummingbirds. You're creating an ecosystem where everything is linked. Why do I do this? Because we are nature. Everyone tries to separate us from nature. People think nature is over there, that you go drive to nature. Nah, we're organic matter too, just like leaves.
Did your background as a fashion designer give you any special talents to tackle this issue?
I'm a human being. That's my background! I need to eat healthy food. If it's not there, you put it there, you build it. It was an inconvenience for me to get healthy food, so what better way to make it convenient than to grow it myself? In that, there is a multitude of learning possibilities, from meditation to learning systems to understanding that you can't just go from A to M. There's a system you have to follow, and gardening teaches that. Gardening is a metaphor for everything that happens in life. We're all gardeners. Some of us just forgot about it. It was the first job ever.
Why was the City of Los Angeles initially opposed to the sidewalk gardens?
Because of archaic laws. It happened because the system was not able to adapt fast enough to the current situations. But how long have these neighborhoods gone without triage? The neighborhood must do triage on itself. You don't wait for the saviors to come in. You are the guys and gals on the white horse. You've got to fix it yourself.
Have they come around?
The law in L.A. has been amended, due in large part to some people who championed what I'm doing, and the city seeing that this needs to happen. The ordinance is basically done; they're just fine-tuning what edibles you can plant.
Do the neighbors respect the sidewalk gardens? I would worry about people stealing food or trashing them.
The bottom line is that if it's on the street, like if you leave something on the curb, you are basically giving it away. So that's what happens. But you can't eat all the food you grow. It's impossible. You'd be eating all day and all night.
As far as people respecting them, most do. You have some haters, but haters make you famous. That's why you're talking to me.
Usually when people see one of my gardens, it engages them. They say that they don't see hummingbirds in their neighborhood, that they don't see butterflies. If you build it, they will come. It turns out to be a sanctuary.
I'd imagine some folks don't even recognize vegetables, because we are so removed from food farming.
They don't, especially the way I plant. I don't plant in rows. My gardens are more for aesthetics as far as look and appeal. I want beauty. I want color pops. I want different kinds of flowers, different smells and textures. A lot of people don't see it as a vegetable garden, but I think vegetable gardens are for the most part not attractive. Nothing in nature is straight.
You are also working on a new project?
It's a container café concept, with a café [called The Ron Finley Project] attached to a garden. I am putting the first one up on property that I have in South L.A., and then will scale them out for global domination. I am bringing healthy food to the community and showing people how to grow it and cook it. It will be a cafe where people can come to have lessons, to eat, to rent garden plots.
And people seem to be into your message too.
It's needed, and it's happening around the world, from North Africa to Newfoundland to Australia to England to South Florida. It's happening everywhere, in every place, and in between. People want their food system back. People want to touch the soil. They want to get back to nature. This society, with computers and cell phones and LinkedIn and Facebook, it's gotten us so far away from the food system that the system was hijacked. But food shouldn't kill you, it should heal.
See RonFinley.com and LAGreenGrounds.org. |
Melissa Click and the University of Missouri are taking their cases to the court of public opinion.
On the same day the ex-MU assistant communications professor penned a Washington Post defense of her actions – which included assaulting a student journalist and yelling profanities at a police officer – the governing board that fired her pushed back, telling the Association of American University Professors on Thursday that Click’s ouster was demanded because “existing university procedures failed to address the seriousness of [her] conduct.”
Click claims she didn’t get due process before The University of Missouri System’s governing board fired her last month. Her appeal of that decision was rejected Tuesday.
In the Post piece, Click takes responsibility for her actions – which occurred during campus protests over perceived racial inequality at MU – however, she also excuses them as the deeds of someone who had “inexperience with public protests.”
She added, “But I do not understand the widespread impulse to shame those whose best intentions unfortunately result in imperfect actions. What would our world be like if no one ever took a chance? What if everyone played it safe?”
Click said her situation raised “broader cultural, ethical and legal questions about how surveillance and social media significantly impact the terrain of public engagement.”
Her confrontation with a student journalist attempting to cover campus protests in November was caught on the journalist’s camera. Her incident with police in October, at the university’s homecoming parade, was caught on an officer’s bodycam, and the footage was obtained by The Missourian. Both videos quickly made the rounds on social media.
“Whose interests are served when our drive to combat societal imperfections is defeated by fears of having our individual imperfections exposed?” she wrote in The Post.
The AAUP is investigating the circumstances surrounding Click’s firing. The UM board replied to the group’s concerns in a letter, instead of meeting with the association’s three-person investigative committee, The Missourian reported.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
New Westminster is the host of Canada’s largest one-day food truck street festival, with over 70 trucks lining Columbia Street. The coveted food event happened this past Saturday, August 22 and the crowds came in droves to check out the Lower Mainland’s best food trucks.
Below are 25 photos of the Columbia StrEAT Food Truck Festival in New Westminster:
Love this view of #ColumbiaStrEAT from @the_royal_city!!!!! Killer capture A photo posted by Downtown New West (@downtownnewwest) on Aug 22, 2015 at 8:51pm PDT
@fliptoptruck had a live r&b singer while you wait for your order. Enjoyed the fliptop rice bowl #ColumbiaStrEAT #NewWest A photo posted by TheNetworkHub.ca (@thenetworkhub) on Aug 22, 2015 at 9:37pm PDT
#Repost @maplejax58 with @repostapp. ・・・ Food trucks #columbiastreat A photo posted by Neille Food Truck (@neillechubbymama) on Aug 23, 2015 at 1:19pm PDT
Columbia StrEAT #columbiastrEAT #columbiastreatfoodtruckfestival A photo posted by Julia Marquez (@juliagraymarquez) on Aug 23, 2015 at 12:09pm PDT
Some of the other food we ate last night, including what we took home for a late-night snack. #columbiastrEAT #foodtruckfest #newwest #stillfull #yum A photo posted by @whitney.chand on Aug 23, 2015 at 9:09am PDT
Freshly made #crepe with home made #nutella & #banana @cestsibontruck A photo posted by Chee Yong (@nu350) on Aug 23, 2015 at 8:46am PDT
Chicken tacos @ the pepper pot A photo posted by Chee Yong (@nu350) on Aug 23, 2015 at 12:41am PDT
Heaven in a sandwich. Food ventures with the ultimate foodie @vonhammershark . #ColumbiaStrEAT A photo posted by Eleia A (@alwayseleia) on Aug 22, 2015 at 9:11pm PDT
#ColumbiaStrEAT #FoodTruck #Fest #TatersPotatoes #TennesseeChilli A photo posted by Ricky D (@_rickydeeeee) on Aug 22, 2015 at 8:47pm PDT
Not just for hopscotchers! A photo posted by Mayette (@missmayette) on Aug 22, 2015 at 7:19pm PDT
@dragonTruck #roamingdragon # veggie rice balls #ColumbiaStrEAT #columbiastreatfoodtruckfestival A photo posted by Tara Cristofoli (@cowichan_contessa) on Aug 22, 2015 at 7:43pm PDT
@eatmogu #ColumbiaStrEAT # sweet & spicy # chicken karaage # mogu # first course #columbiastreatfoodtruckfestival A photo posted by Tara Cristofoli (@cowichan_contessa) on Aug 22, 2015 at 7:36pm PDT
Blackberry Sage ice cream and a beautiful view to end the day @vonhammershark #ColumbiaStrEAT A photo posted by Eleia A (@alwayseleia) on Aug 22, 2015 at 9:22pm PDT
Poutine from a food truck??… Heck yes!! Had an awesome time at the #ColumbiaStrEAT #foodtruckfestival last night. The crowds were insane, but the food was amazing ! #newwest A photo posted by Tara Haarhoff (@thaarhoff) on Aug 23, 2015 at 9:01am PDT
Cést si bon at Colombia StrEAT food truck fest in downtown New Westminster #newwest #foodtruck #frenchfood #columbiastreat A photo posted by gdr (@geoffreyrawlinson) on Aug 22, 2015 at 9:14pm PDT
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EDIT: You may prefer to install the entire haskell platform in one go, which includes cabal. Detailed instructions can be found here.
Recently I’ve begun to learn Haskell, the lazy functional language. Haskell is backed by a large library of packages, called Hackage. On Hackage, libraries and programs in a wide variety of genres are available for download. In order to simplify the download and install process for these packages a tool was born to allow command line grab/install maneuver. Think apt-get for Haskell.
The tool in question is called cabal, and it’s quite useful during Haskell development. Unfortunately, I’ve run into some issues while using it, mainly to do with resolving dependencies. I’ll get to that later.
Installing Cabal
Installing cabal was not as straight-forward as I had hoped. I first went to the offical cabal download page, to see what my options were. The only option on that page was to download a tarball and install it by hand. Of course, having been pampered by the power of apt-get, I figured there had to be a better way. Unfortunately, it seems as there is not. No cabal package exists in the Ubuntu repositories. I downloaded the tarball and prepared to install. The install from the tarball was painless as manual installs go, but unfortunately I had to resolve multiple dependencies to get the build to succeed. Here were the steps I took:
#get our dependant libraries (this assumes we already have ghc6 installed) sudo apt-get install libghc6-network-dev libghc6-parsec-dev libghc6-mtl-dev libghc6-zlib-dev #grab the source wget http://haskell.org/cabal/release/cabal-install-0.6.2/cabal-install-0.6.2.tar.gz #untar it tar -xvvf cabal-install-0.6.2.tar.gz #install it sh cabal-install-0.6.2/bootstrap.sh #link the executable into our path sudo ln -s $HOME/.cabal/bin/cabal /usr/local/bin/cabal
Using Cabal
Cabal is not limited to simply downloading libraries. It can also allow you to easily create libraries of your own and upload them to Hackage, and also build projects (similar to make).
cabal --help will bring up your main options, which is always a good starting place. Let’s look at installing a package using cabal.
cabal install [package-name] installs the given package name. This should be very familiar to anyone who has used a package manager such as apt-get.
cabal list [string] is like apt-cache; it searches Hackage for packages pertaining to the string you entered.
Explore! Have fun! there’s plenty more features of cabal that I won’t be covering now, yet are plenty awesome.
Problems
I’ve had some strange dependency issues; for example, installing bloxorz –
cabal install bloxorz
gives me an error while trying to build a dependency that in turn depends on a C library which is not auto-resolved. Fun. Fortunately, such errors seem to be few and far between.
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Ricky Hatton: Now a respected trainer, manager and promoter
Sky Sports has been told there is 'no story' behind the rumours that Ricky Hatton is about to make a return to the ring.
Speculation has been building for some time that Hatton's new training regime has led him to rethink his retirement from the sport.
The Daily Star on Wednesday reported Hatton would make his comeback in November against Paul Malignaggi as part of a two-fight deal.
But Hatton's agent Paul Speak effectively ruled out a comeback, saying the former world champion was merely enjoying a cleaner lifestyle.
"People are speculating but he is just keeping fit and has not made any decision on a comeback. There's no story," he said.
The 'Hitman' has not fought since he was knocked out in the second round by Manny Pacquiao more than three years ago.
And while Hatton, now 33, was loathe to end his stellar career on such a low note, he admitted last year that retirement was the only option.
However, with drink and drug problems firmly behind him, the former light-welterweight and welterweight champion has got himself in fighting shape.
Hatton is forging a successful promotions business while also acting as trainer and manager to several upcoming fighters in Manchester.
But it was thought he might be lured into a big-money clash with former victim Malignaggi, the current WBA welterweight title holder who has been calling out the Hitman, seeking revenge for his lop-sided defeat in 2008. |
Loitering outside the Dakota apartment building on West 72 Street, New York City, on the night of December 7, 1980 - thirty years ago next week - Mark Chapman couldn’t have selected a more famous victim through whom to demonstrate his insanity. Within hours of his five bullets pumping into the back of John Lennon, as he returned home from a recording studio at just before eleven o’clock, Chapman’s name had gone around a world convulsed with shock and grief.
The Beatles had connected with hundreds of millions though their music, but Lennon, largely by dint of his confrontational individuality, had been the one mostly admired, the one who seemed to reflect the attitude of his generation.
Yet as he lay dying, and his killer hung around waiting for the police to arrest him and thereby anoint him with the celebrity he craved, something new was beginning.
It was the notion of John Lennon the myth, Lennon the martyr, Lennon the super genius, Lennon the real talent behind the Beatles, Lennon the man who saw through everything, Lennon the avant garde artist and Lennon the gentle, peace loving guy who prayed for the world.
Well, I knew John Lennon, and I liked him a lot. He was very kind and generous to me. I was about to fly out to New York and interview him when I got the call in the middle of the night, UK time, to tell me he’d been shot, so I wept many a tear that day.
But for the past three decades the man I’ve been reading about has grown less and less like the John Lennon I knew and, generally, more and more like some character out of Butler’s Lives Of The Saints.
As an art student John used to draw little cartoons of characters covered in warts. And it sometimes seems that the image of him that has mainly prevailed is one in which his own warts, have been largely air-brushed from public memory by misty-eyed fans, and the efforts of his widow Yoko Ono.
This is not to criticise Yoko. It’s perfectly understandable that a woman who sees her husband murdered alongside her should remember him with devotion and speak of him in idealised tones.
But John Lennon was a complex, often contradictory character, who, while capable of great idealism, was pretty mean to his first wife and their son, Julian, and sometimes did some very foolish things when he let a naïve, well-meaning heart rule a hasty, agitprop head.
That he had many good points, there is no doubting. He was witty and funny and the “attitude” that he gave the Beatles chimed perfectly with the baby boomer aspirations of the Sixties. He was clever with words and brilliant at writing songs around slogans he made up, such as Give Peace a Chance and All You Need Is Love, instinctively knowing how to catch the moment and generate a million headlines. And, in association with Paul McCartney, he left the world an unequalled canon of popular songs.
But he was also easily led. It was not clever of him, for instance, to give financial help in 1971 to a self-proclaimed black power leader called Michael Abdul Malik, aka Michael X, who then jumped bail in Britain and fled to Trinidad.
A couple of years later Malik murdered two people on a commune he was running there and was later hanged for his crimes. Lennon couldn’t have known that it would end like that, but he should have been aware, as were many others, that Malik was bad news. Then there was financial help to an Irish Republican movement in the US at the height of the violence in Northern Ireland; not a good idea for a man of peace.
That was John, though, perspicacious in lyric, but, in a life immured by fame, surprisingly easily gulled by those who knew how to flatter him and scratch an ever open guilt wound.
I suspect the song he’s probably best remembered for is Imagine, the lyrics of which many found uplifting, even if the writer of them didn’t exactly practise what he preached. When an old Liverpool friend saw the wealth he’d accumulated in New York and teased him with the lyrics “remember 'no possessions’, John, 'it’s easy if you try’”, the former Beatle’s reply was characteristically, jokingly self-mocking: “It was only a bloody song.”
For years after Lennon’s death Paul McCartney’s reputation suffered in comparison with that of his dead former colleague, due, partly, to some outspokenly barbed Lennon jabs about him in song and interviews. But, actually, those digs told us more about John than Paul.
My impression, when we were talking about music, was that Lennon admired McCartney’s melodic brilliance, and was possibly even a little jealous of it, which was silly, because they complemented each other perfectly. Neither was consistently as good after they separated. And they both knew it.
After a brilliant start to a solo career after the Beatles broke up, Lennon seemed to lose his way artistically, becoming less certain of himself. To those who knew him that was no surprise, because although publically he was viewed as a man of great self confidence, he had deep insecurities, not least about his own singing voice which he did his very best to disguise - something that increasingly irritated his Beatles record producer George Martin.
That his death should have made him such a famous icon was doubly ironic. Not only did he not believe in the worship of dead idols, he was, at the time of his shooting, worried about his career, unsure that his first album in five years would sell. In fact, its great sales only took off after he was killed.
Quite what he would have done if he hadn’t been murdered and if the album hadn’t been the success his death made it, is difficult to say. My guess is that he would have turned to writing, because he wrote very funny, playful letters and had previously published two books of cartoons and nonsense short stories. He had a truly original mind and with time on his hands may very well have filled it at the typewriter he’d bought and taught himself to use.
The romantic in me also says that he might even have teamed up with Paul McCartney again for the odd song now and again, because, although his great fertile song writing period was behind him, fragments of that gift still lingered.
Certainly when he died he left behind him one major song. Called Grow Old With Me, it was based on a poem by Robert Browning. He only recorded it as a demo on a cassette machine at home, so it was never a Lennon hit, but over the decades since his death it’s become a wedding favourite in America, with hundreds of versions now on YouTube. That’s something we would never have expected, the tough, outspoken John Lennon combining with Robert Browning to write a wedding anthem.
The date of his death next Wednesday is certain to be marked with his songs on the radio, but I can’t help feeling that this might be the last big Beatles anniversary. Three weeks ago all the Beatles’ music was issued on iTunes for digital downloading to MP3s.
Before the release expectations suggested that it was possible that the Beatles would dominate the entire Top Ten. So far, this hasn’t happened: at the time of writing there aren’t any Beatle songs in the top fifty despite a TV commercial and poster campaign.
And why not? My guess is that most people who want Beatles records already have them, probably several times over, on vinyl, cassette and CD. They don’t need them again. Besides, no-one under thirty was alive when John Lennon was murdered; and no-one under forty when the Beatles broke up.
It’s taken longer than any of us could ever have expected for the Beatles to become history, but I think the world is moving on.
As for Mark Chapman, he’s still in jail. Famous for a brief, pointless moment: he’s now forgotten.
Ray Connolly’s latest novel, The Sandman, is now available as an eBook from Kindle on amazon.co.uk. |
April 25: The All India Muslim Personal Law Board has decided to oppose the government on a host of proposed laws, including the right to education, saying the UPA regime had overlooked minority concerns in key social, economic and legal policies.
Some of the other areas where the board, a representative body of various Muslim sects in the country, has decided to take on the Centre are taxes, Waqf property, adoption and what it called tacit acceptance of homosexuality.
The decision came at a two-day general body meeting of the board that concluded in Hyderabad last night. Over 200 community leaders took part in the session.
AIMPLB chief Maulana Rabey Nadvi opposed the introduction of the Right to Education Bill, 2009, saying it would make the functioning of madrasas difficult and infringe on the rights of minorities to run educational institutions.
The bill proposes to make schooling compulsory for every child between six and 14. Nadvi, rector of the noted Islamic seminary Dar-ul Uloom, Nadwa, Lucknow, said the bill recognised only one type of school and education and voiced apprehension that it could be used to outlaw madrasas imparting religious education.
The law board unanimously opposed the UPA’s Waqf Amendment Bill, 2010, saying many provisions of the proposed law were “against the interests” of the community.
The Muslim law board insiders said they were particularly exercised by Section 87, which makes registration of Waqf land mandatory. The fear is once such a plot is registered, the board will have no right to seek redress if a dispute arises.
The law board is also against some provisions of the Direct Tax Code Bill, which seeks to tax religious trusts, places of worship and donations received. The code is scheduled to come into effect from the next financial year.
On adoption, the board said it was prohibited in Islam. Therefore, a common law on adoption applicable to all citizens would amount to “alluring”, say, a childless Muslim couple to adopt, violating their religious tenets.
The law board also appealed to the Chief Justice of India to review the Delhi High Court judgment legalising consensual homosexual relationships. |
Generations have been brought up being taught that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was a real neural disorder that often affects children. However, the shock comes as the “father” of ADHD, Leon Eisenberg, had admitted on his deathbed that ADHD was a fictitious disease.”
This revelation means that many young minds out there would not have their minds warped by constant consumption of mind-altering drugs. The drug use since childhood could mean a life of drug abuse and a stunted mind during later years due to addiction.
Living A Life Of Lies
Bradlee Dean, who is The Sons of Liberty host, and a writer for The D.C. Clothesline, explains that ADHD was nothing more than a theoretical hoax developed by Eisenberg. It was never proven to be a real quantifiable disease. However, the lies have a penetrated deep into the social fabric of the world and Eisenberg along with many others had reaped a fortune from the invention of the disease.
Modern medicine, specifically in the psychiatric industry, continues to profit from this fake disease, with pockets of both doctors and the bosses of the pharmaceutical industry filled deep with ill-gotten gains, all the while getting children addicted to dangerous psychostimulant drugs like Ritalin (methylphenidate) and Adderall (amphetamine, dextroamphetamine mixed salts).
Dr. Edward C. Hamlyn, a founding member of the Royal College of General Practitioners had once stated back in 1998 that ADHD is a "fraud intended to justify starting children on a life of drug addiction." Other notable psychiatrists like Peter Breggin and Sami Timimi have added additional statements that ADHD is a social construct and not a disorder.
Dirty Profits
The pharmaceutical industry is often very profit driven, and the psychiatric industry is no different. Drug companies can earn money from either inventing new drugs or new diseases. ADHD is a combination of both - inventing a new disease and providing a new set of drugs for it.
The plan is simple yet nefarious. Children are misdiagnosed with the disease since young, and they get hooked on to a routine of drug use to "contain" or "treat" the disease. The more cases that are reported, the more people accept that this is a commonplace disease that occurs with every generation. This acceptance and the addiction of children to the drugs ensures a constant supply of profits through constant growing demand.
Jacob Barnett, a 14-year-old whom doctors had diagnosed with ADHD that would prohibit him to ever read or write, and probably requiring drugs for life. However, his mom never gave up on him and put in the effort to educate and bring him up. Today, Jacob is pursuing his Master's Degree in quantum physics while many others of his age still remain in junior high. Furthermore, Fromthetrenchesworldreport. Com states that Jacob is currently developing theories on astrophysics. This is a positive case of a child who surpassed the lies. The sad reality is that many other children do not reach full potential due to both social stigma and constant drug use.
According to CCHRI, the medical industry spends upwards of billions of dollars per year to "educate" and brainwash the public about psychiatric disorders like Bi-Polar Disorder, Depression, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. These conditions have no real scientific test results to verify their authenticity. However, the industries have put their severity on par with conditions like cancer and heart disease, allowing enough panic to generate billions or even trillions of dollars of profits per year. |
A few weeks ago, Oberlin College, with an endowment of nearly $700 million, adopted what is likely the largest impact-investing platform to date by a college or university in the United States.
The Responsible Endowments Coalition (REC) reported that Oberlin College Board of Trustees has approved an Impact Investment Platform that “will combine socially responsible investing with student-trustee-administration collaboration.” This resolution is the result of pressure from the Oberlin Responsible Investing Organization (RIO), a student organization that is part of a broader national movement to encourage colleges and universities to invest their endowment dollars in a manner consistent with social and economic justice, sustainability, and their educational mission.
This is a very welcome development from Oberlin—an institution that has long been associated with progressive causes. It was the first college in the United States to adopt race-blind admissions and the first to permit coeducation in the late 1830s. Recently, in the summer of 2009, the college embarked on another ambitious initiative, aligning institutional resources to form the Oberlin Project. David Orr, a professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and Senior Adviser to the President at Oberlin, who also heads the projects, summarized the undertaking: “In affiliation with the city, we aim to revitalize the local economy, eliminate carbon emissions, restore local agriculture and forestry, and use the entire effort as an educational laboratory relevant to virtually every discipline.” Impact investing, which will hopefully include a local community investing component, is another significant step in the direction of full alignment.
Although Oberlin is just one institution, the decision provides a hopeful sign of an accelerating institutional shift toward greater socially responsible investment practices. A recent report by The Democracy Collaborative and REC, Raising Student Voices: Student Action for University Community Investment, hopes to both catalyze student involvement in these efforts and capture existing institutional involvement. The work profiles three administration-led initiatives and three student-led initiatives, as well as five potential future partnerships, whereby institutional investments are directed into local communities in a way that empowers low-income residents, develops small businesses, and generates sustainable economic development.
A tremendous opportunity exists. Higher education as a sector controls more than $400 billion in endowment assets, while also employing a workforce of nearly 4 million, enrolling 21 million students, and contributing $460 billion of annual activity to the US economy. Universities, whether spurred by enlightened self-interest or student agitation, can leverage this underutilized economic power to complement their academic missions with wider social missions that include local community and economic development.
Such an approach would be very much in line with the historic role of land grant universities that were intended to be engines of economic development for a different era, as well as providing access to higher education for those excluded previously because of their socioeconomic class. More recently, university students have won remarkable victories in pushing their institutions to engage in more ethical practices — including divestment from apartheid South Africa and the cancellation of contracts with retailers engaged in sweatshop production. Today, there are opportunities to work with groups like 350.org and REC in the effort to push for fossil fuel divestment on campuses across the country.
As institutions divest, it is important that they positively reinvest their resources, not merely avoiding environmental and social harm, but proactively seeking to help build healthy local economies. One way is by investing in community development financial institutions (CDFIs), which allows institutions to direct financial resources into the local community in a way that empowers low-income residents, small businesses, and sustainable economic development. With defined missions to provide financial services to underserved populations in a fair manner, investing in CDFIs seeks to ensure bottom-up sustainable community development by placing greater power and control in the hands of community actors themselves.
Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, for instance, has supported Durham’s Latino Community Credit Union and Self-Help Credit Union with a total investment of $12 million, aiding the credit unions in their efforts around affordable housing and neighborhood revitalization. Thus far, only a handful of higher education institutions have moved to directly invest their financial resources into communities to positively impact economic outcomes. Let’s hope that Oberlin’s new platform does just that, while also setting an example for other colleges and universities across the country.
If you would like to learn more about community reinvestment options, join REC for a call this coming Wednesday, November 20 at 8:30 pm. You can join the call online the day-of by clicking here, or you can call directly by dialing 213-416-1560 (passcode: 996 0839). |
Countries like Egypt may benefit from research and investment in reusable energy fields, such as solar power [EPA]
Scientific enquiry and politics have always been bound together. The birth of a recognisably modern scientific establishment in Britain coincided with the end of absolute monarchy. An oligarchy of landed and learned gentlemen oversaw the creation of the Royal Society in 1660.
The origins of this institution lay in the secretive world of magical research and court politics. But its founders now aspired to work for the good of all mankind in a spirit of fellowship, and they used the open surveillance of peer review to enforce honesty. These men identified with the state - indeed they saw it as their ally in the great work of human progress, but they no longer risked torture or exile if their work offended an all-powerful monarch.
'Silting up'
Over time, the system created in the seventeenth century opened its ranks to talent from all over the world. Women and men without property can now become scientists, a development that would have astonished many of the first members of the Royal Society. But in important respects science still belongs to a pre-democratic age. Scientific experts collaborate with their patrons in the state and other powerful institutions to determine what is researched. Once the objectives have been set, the institutions of science are left to get on with it. This is the autonomy permitted to science. The public is kept at a distance by the mystique of technical complexity. Science in the West has not yet escaped its origins as successful magic, even if the white coat has replaced the wizard's robes.
Since the Second World War, the US state and its corporate sector have been vastly generous patrons of science. As I noted in my last piece, science has been shaped by their desire for new weapons and marketable goods. Science has been subordinated to organised violence and the orchestration of human desire. The results are all around us, in the technology of satellite surveillance and drone attacks as much as in the proliferation of entertainment online. As Harvey Brooks, one of the architects of the US system of science once remarked, the two per cent of GDP the US government spends on science has a "disproportionate social leverage, since the whole thrust of the economy is determined by scientific and technical research". If you are wondering why US companies dominate the internet, the answer is to be found in patterns of state investment.
There are signs that the West's system of science is silting up. The focus on military and commercial applications for science has drawn highly trained experts into fields that generate private profits but do nothing to enhance the public good. Brilliant medical researchers become engrossed in the search for patentable treatments for the diseases of affluence. Drugs that are scarcely more effective than placebos generate billion dollar revenues.
The sales promotions for these drugs infiltrate plausible myths into scientific discourse. The best mathematicians in the world design software that gives banks a minute speculative edge over their rivals. Or worse, they concoct risk models that give reckless fantasy the appearance of sober calculation. Engineers spend their careers trying to develop must-have gadgets. Decades of investment culminate in a frenzy of manufactured excitement for the latest smart phone or mp3 player.
I would like to believe that science in Europe and the United States can reform itself and open up decisions about its objectives to a wider public. Money that comes from taxpayers is currently being used to subsidise research that only occasionally and accidentally delivers public benefits. There is no longer any justification for denying the population at large a say in the objectives of science.
Setting energy free
But the political changes in the Middle East hold out more hope of radical change - and rapid progress - in the conduct of science. The region has been held back from achieving its full scientific and technical potential in recent times by a number of factors - political tyranny above all. And while there are some that now want to integrate science in Egypt and elsewhere with the demands of the globalised economy, the opportunity now exists to do far more. Open debate about the objectives of publicly funded science can establish programs of research that contribute to the general welfare more surely and more swiftly than the West's preoccupation with gadgets and gunnery.
Any attempt to chart a new course for the Middle East will have to take account of science's power to determine 'the whole thrust of the economy'. Research doesn't have to serve the interests of global corporations. It can be used instead to generate public goods, on the basis of democratic debate. It isn't for me to decide what a democratic science would concentrate on. But we have clear and pressing needs. We need plentiful and healthy food. We need secure and affordable houses. We need medicines that work, and schools and hospitals that serve the needs of their communities.
Above all, we need abundant and safe energy - energy that is effectively free and collectively owned. At the moment we have the opposite - energy that is expensive and controlled by a relative handful of people. By subjecting scientific research to democratic control we could change that, and quickly. Indeed, only a democratically directed science can achieve the rapid breakthroughs that are necessary if we are to feed, shelter and employ a growing global population.
We might want to start by considering the potential of the sun. Why not make Egypt the world centre of research into solar technology? We know that renewables - above all, solar - can meet the bulk of the world's energy needs. If a free people resolved to make energy free, by harnessing the sun, then that would be an Enlightenment worthy of the name.
Dan Hind has worked in publishing since 1998 and is the author of two acclaimed books: The Return of the Public and The Threat to Reason. He is this year's winner of the Bristol Festival of Ideas Prize.
Follow him on Twitter: @danhind
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy. |
In simple terms graphene is a sheet of a single layer (monolayer) of carbon atoms, tightly bound in a hexagonal honeycomb lattice. In more complex terms, graphene is an allotrope of carbon in the form of a plane of sp2-bonded atoms with a molecular bond length of 0.142 nanometres. Layers of graphene stacked on top of each other form graphite, with an interplanar spacing of 0.335 nanometres. The separate layers of graphene in graphite are held together by van der Waals forces.
Graphene is the thinnest compound known to man at one atom thick, the lightest material known (with 1 square meter weighing around 0.77 milligrams), the strongest compound discovered (between 100-300 times stronger than steel and with a tensile stiffness of 150,000,000 psi), the best conductor of heat at room temperature (at (4.84±0.44) × 10^3 to (5.30±0.48) × 10^3 W·m−1·K−1) and also the best conductor of electricity known (studies have shown electron mobility at values of more than 200,000 cm2·V−1·s−1). Other notable properties of graphene are its uniform absorption of light across the visible and near-infrared parts of the spectrum (πα ≈ 2.3%), and its potential suitability for use in spin transport.
Bearing this in mind, one might be surprised to know that carbon is the second most abundant mass within the human body and the fourth most abundant element in the universe (by mass), after hydrogen, helium and oxygen. This makes carbon the chemical basis for all known life on earth, so therefore graphene could well be an ecologically friendly, sustainable solution for an almost limitless number of applications. Since the discovery (or more accurately, the mechanical obtainment) of graphene, applications within different scientific disciplines have exploded, with huge gains being made particularly in high-frequency electronics, bio, chemical and magnetic sensors, ultra-wide bandwidth photodetectors, and energy storage and generation.
Graphene productions challenges
The problem that prevented graphene from initially being available for developmental research in commercial uses was that the creation of high quality graphene was a very expensive and complex process (of chemical vapour disposition) that involved the use of toxic chemicals to grow graphene as a monolayer by exposing Platinum, Nickel or Titanium Carbide to ethylene or benzene at high temperatures. Also, it was previously impossible to grow graphene layers on a large scale using crystalline epitaxy on anything other than a metallic substrate. This severely limited its use in electronics as it was difficult, at that time, to separate graphene layers from its metallic substrate without damaging the graphene.
However, studies in 2012 found that by analysing graphene’s interfacial adhesive energy, it is possible to effectually separate graphene from the metallic board on which it is grown, whilst also being able to reuse the board for future applications theoretically an infinite number of times, therefore reducing the toxic waste previously created by this process. Furthermore, the quality of the graphene that was separated by using this method was sufficiently high enough to create molecular electronic devices successfully.
While this research is very highly regarded, the quality of the graphene produced will still be the limiting factor in technological applications. Once graphene can be produced on very thin pieces of metal or other arbitrary surfaces (of tens of nanometres thick) using chemical vapour disposition at low temperatures and then separated in a way that can control such impurities as ripples, doping levels and domain size whilst also controlling the number and relative crystallographic orientation of the graphene layers, then we will start to see graphene become more widely utilized as production techniques become more simplified and cost-effective.
Potential applications
Being able to create supercapacitors out of graphene will possibly be the largest step in electronic engineering in a very long time. While the development of electronic components has been progressing at a very high rate over the last 20 years, power storage solutions such as batteries and capacitors have been the primary limiting factor due to size, power capacity and efficiency (most types of batteries are very inefficient, and capacitors are even less so). For example, with the development of currently available lithium-ion batteries, it is difficult to create a balance between energy density and power density; in this situation, it is essentially about compromising one for the other.
In initial tests carried out, laser-scribed graphene (LSG) supercapacitors (with graphene being the most electronically conductive material known, at 1738 siemens per meter (compared to 100 SI/m for activated carbon)), were shown to offer power density comparable to that of high-power lithium-ion batteries that are in use today. Not only that, but also LSG supercapacitors are highly flexible, light, quick to charge, thin and as previously mentioned, comparably very inexpensive to produce.
"The possibilities of what we can archive with the materials and knowledge we have, have been blown wide open"
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Graphene is also being used to boost not only the capacity and charge rate of batteries but also the longevity. Currently, while such materials as silicone are able to store large amounts of energy, that potential amount diminishes drastically on every charge or recharge. With graphene tin oxide being used as an anode in lithium ion batteries for example, batteries can be made to last much longer between charges (potential capacity has increased by a factor of 10), and with almost no reduction in storage capacity between charges, effectively making technology such as electronically powered vehicles a much more viable transport solution in the future. This means that batteries (or capacitors) can be developed to last much longer and at higher capacities than previously realised. Also, it means that electronic devices may be able to be charged within seconds, rather than minute or hours and have hugely improved longevity.
Consumers can already purchase graphene-enhanced products to use at home. One company already produces and offers on the market conductive ink (first developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge in 2011). This is made by effectively mixing tiny graphene flakes with ink, enabling you to print electrodes directly onto paper. While this was previously possible by using organic semiconductive ink, the use of graphene flakes makes the printed material vastly more conductive and therefore more efficient.
Another use for graphene along similar lines to those mentioned previously is that in paint. Graphene is highly inert and so can act as a corrosion barrier between oxygen and water diffusion. This could mean that future vehicles could be made to be corrosion resistant as graphene can be made to be grown onto any metal surface (given the right conditions). Due to its strength, graphene is also currently being developed as a potential replacement for Kevlar in protective clothing, and will eventually be seen in vehicle manufacture and possibly even used as a building material.
As graphene has been proven to be much more efficient at conducting electrons than silicon, and is also able to transfer electrons at much faster speeds (relatively speaking, 1000 kilometres per second, 30 times faster than silicon), in the next few years you will begin to see products from consumer electronics companies, such as Samsung (who have been pouring money into researching the uses of graphene in telecommunications and electronics and have already taken out a huge number of patents concerned with the uses and manufacture of graphene in electronic devices) based on flexible, robust, touchscreen devices such as mobile smartphones and wrist watches.
This could mean foldable televisions and telephones and eventually electronic flexible newspapers containing all of the publications you are interested in that can be updated via wireless data transfer. Being extremely translucent, in the coming years you can also expect to be able to fit intelligent (and extremely robust) windows to your home, with (potentially) virtual curtains or displaying projected images of your choice.
Combining a few of these aforementioned potential uses, can you imagine car security systems that are connected to the paint on your vehicle? Not only would your car alarm be able to tell you if someone is touching your vehicle, it would be able to record that information and send it to you via your smartphone in real-time. It could also be used to analyse vehicle accidents to determine initial contact patches and resultant consequential energy dispersion.
Soon we will begin to see clothing containing graphene-enhanced photovoltaic cells and supercapacitors, meaning that we will be able to charge our mobile telephones and tablet computers in a matter of minutes (potentially even seconds) whilst walking to school or work. We may possibly even see security-orientated clothing offering protection against unwanted contact with the use of electrical discharge.
Game Changer
What all this means is that this discovery, made by a physics professor and his PhD student in a laboratory in Manchester, using a piece of graphite and some Scotch tape has completely revolutionised the way we look at potential limits of our abilities as scientists, engineers and inventors. The possibilities of what we can achieve with the materials and knowledge we have, have been blown wide open, and it is now conceivable to imagine such amazing prospective situations as lightning fast, yet super-small computers, invisibility cloaks, smart phones that last weeks between charges, and computers that we can fold up and carry in our pockets wherever we go. |
Mini-ITX systems are becoming extremely popular. Especially with with popularity of cases like the BitFenix Prodigy and Fractal Design’s Node 304. This issue with many of these mini-ITX cases is that you are not able to fit a full-sized performance video card inside. This is about to change as ASUS is working on their own GTX 670 DirectCU Mini. Most GTX 670’s do have a smaller 6.75″ (~17cm) PCB, but they have larger coolers that exceed that size.
ASUS has gone ahead and developed a cooling system, which they are dubbing DirectCU Mini, which fits the GTX 670 perfect at the 6.75″ (~17cm) size. The is the exact same length as a mini-ITX board. The DirectCU Mini cooling system has a patent-pending fan design and vapor chamber, which ASUS says enables the full DirectCU cooling potential in a smaller space.
The dual slot card will also feature ASUS’s Super Alloy Power components, which last up to 2.5x longer than reference parts. If this is not just a design off of a reference card then I would expect possibly a slight frequency bump on the card. We will have to see when the card officially launches. Np word on when that will be yet.
Source: ROG Forums | News Archive |
A sailor is suing the Department of Defence for the cost of bringing up her child after navy medical staff failed to detect her pregnancy.
Emily Hetherington, now aged 26 from Queanbeyan, NSW, is seeking damages for pain and suffering and loss of earnings, claiming if her pregnancy had been confirmed she would not have kept the child.
Victorian Supreme Court Justice Bernard Bongiorno was told on Thursday that Ms Hetherington did not find out about her condition until she was 22 weeks pregnant and by then it was too late for an abortion.
Ms Hetherington underwent a series of medical examinations on January 14, 2008, in Hobart after enlisting with the Royal Australian Navy when she had no idea she was already pregnant.
A urinary pregnancy test was conducted and found to be negative. |
Those that do not produce schemes to speed up housing provision by 2017 could lose control of planning process
Local councils must produce plans to speed up the provision of housing by 2017 or risk losing control of their planning process, David Cameron will say as the government prepares to publish its much awaited housing bill.
The legislation will contain measures requiring councils to sell off their most expensive properties and to allow housing association tenants to buy their property. So far 82% of English councils have published local plans, which should set out how many homes they plan to deliver over a set period, but only 65% have fully adopted them and almost 20% of councils do not have an up-to-date plan at all.
The bill also contains measures previously set out in the government productivity plan for automatic planning permission in principle on brownfield sites.
On Monday, Cameron will make it clear that he regards publication and adoption of such plans as critical to his aim of achieving an extra 1m homes in this parliament, and if they are not produced by 2017 the communities secretary will be empowered to require them to do so.
Policies to tackle the housing crisis and help the homeless | Letters Read more
The government has already said it will publish league tables, setting out local authorities’ progress on providing a plan for the jobs and homes needed locally. It has also set up a panel of experts to speed the process of producing them, but it has not yet been specific over how plans will be drawn up in the absence of local council co-operation.
Councils are required, under legislation passed in 2012, to produce an annual trajectory of how many homes they plan to build in their area – usually over a period of about 15 years. These must also be reviewed regularly – usually every five years – and in theory give local people more of a say on where new developments go and what they look like.
Downing Street claims such plans appear to work, as before March 2012 the average number of homes planned by local authorities stood at 573 a year, which has now risen to 717 .
Ministers also plan to put a stronger duty on councils to cooperate where one council cannot build sufficient houses within its own local authority boundary. New development corporations will also be empowered to deliver higher-density development in designated areas close to commuter hubs.
It has become clear that housing is increasingly one of Cameron’s key priorities, but is also raises familiar tensions between central and local government.
Cameron made a commitment to new starter homes a central pillar of his social reforming speech to his party conference, and ministers have struck a voluntary agreement with local housing associations giving 1.3 million tenants the right to buy at discounted prices.
Lib Dems call for more council-built homes | Letter from Lib Dem council leaders Read more
Cameron will also confirm that a temporary rule introduced in May 2013 allowing people to convert disused offices into homes without applying for planning permission will become permanent. Almost 4,000 conversions were given the go ahead between April 2014 to last June, Downing Street said.
Cameron said: “A greater Britain must mean more families having the security and stability of owning a home of their own. My government will do everything it can to help people buy a place of their own – at the heart of this is our ambition to build one million new homes by 2020.
“Many areas are doing this already – and this is great – but we need a national crusade to get homes built and everyone must play their part.
“Councils have a key role to play in this by drawing up their own local plans for new homes by 2017. But if they fail to act, we’ll work with local people to produce a plan for them.” |
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Hello there, This is a special issue of the AngularJS and Web Dev newsletter. In this issue I’ll be talking only AngularJS, only ng-conf 2015, and specifically about the things we now know about Angular 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, and 2.0 now that ng-conf 2015 is over.
Quick disclaimer: This is an extraction from the time I spent watching the referenced videos. There’s a good chance I misunderstood some parts or so.
Now, to the meat of it:
What’s happening in Angular 2.0
RIP AtScript .. Long live TypeScript
If you thought creating an entire new language to add an optional feature like annotations (attributes in C#), is, well, not the best idea, Google agrees!
So, they got Microsoft to sort TypeScript out, and are just going to use / recommend it.
Of course you’ll still be able to use plain ES6 or even ES5. But if you do, you’ll be writing some code that is redundant and the tooling / compilers can write for you. This is similar to how you can write reactJS without putting HTML in your JS (JSX syntax), except you write what the JSX-to-JS compiler writes, which is quite odd code to have to write yourself.
(for more about ES6, refer back to Issue8 of the newsletter)
Actually, mark my prediction, from a comment I made on an AngularJS facebook group yesterday:
TypeScript is “optionally” typed JavnaScript. They created it to be C# users friendly and 100% JavaScript compatible (any JS code is valid TS code). With Google cooperating, I can easily expect much of TS features to come in EcmaScript 8 or 9 (if too late for ES7).
New Website & Interoperability
There is a new Angular website dedicated to Angular 2.0, which is angular.io.
The site shows sample codes in JavaScript and Dart, but generally speaking, it’s still very early work in progress (there are references to AtScript in the docs still). I find it funny that the resources page happens to list only Savkin’s posts and the ToDo app video, which were all mentioned in the last issue of the newsletter, Issue9 :)
Having an entire new site reinforces how distinct Angular 2.0 will be. The team has an answer to your reasonable worry of this distinction:
The team will allow using Angular 1.x and 2.0 in the same application. You can have a parent Angular 1.x application with only parts of it using Angular 2.0, or you can convert your parent application to use Angular 2.0, and have each child application (not sure what this means, maybe child routes, given the new router supports both versions) still be 1.x and upgrade your child apps one by one.
The source code for Angular 2.0 is also available at github.com/angular. Don’t get this confused with github.com/angular.js (note the .js suffix), which is where Angular 1.x lives now.
What To Expect
The general themes that the team is focusing on in Angular 2 are:
Simplicity They are hoping the new component classes (directive replacements) and HTML templating syntax will be easier and make much more sense than existing ones.
Speed One way data binding (instead of 2-way data binding, which has implications on forms directives changing a bit) and changing the way scopes work -now called zones, and don’t requite $digest or $apply pain or having a special name- among other internal changes are reducing memory and DOM writes, causing possible 10x speed increases.
Consistency The new syntax Angular introduced for using directives in templates in Angular 2 aims at solving consistency problems we have in Angular 1. Examples from my understanding: Currently in Angular 1.x, with attribute directives, the directive author decides whether to use JavaScript expressions as the value of the attribute/property, or just a plain string property. I for one know that I always forget that to use ng-include I must put the template name inside quotes like 'template.html' because it takes a JS expression not a literal string (which is good). As a directive author as well, I also hated that I need to do extra work to support {{...}} syntax in attribute value. As both creator and consumer, I hated that each event I need to capture needs to have a directive ( ng-click ng-blur , custom directive, etc, and yes there are workarounds). It’s even hard to tell whether a directive is meant to be a template that replaces the element completely or just adds an event handler or some properties. Some of you probably had problems when they accidentally tried to use two directives when both use the transclude feature. Solving these problems is at the heart of Angular 2, by giving a unified syntax for choosing whether to pass a literal string or JS expression when using a directive, and providing unified syntax for handling events without even needing to write a directive for that, also providing different syntax for template directives than component directives (which don’t rewrite the element). This bit can be quite confusing to explain in words. Check Day 2 keynote (linked below) for more about what the new syntax looks now, and why – Highly recommended.
Web Components To explain this without assuming knowledge of what Web Components are, I’ll use some over-simplified definitions (so, don’t make that offend you if know about Web Components). For a more proper introduction, check my video [Introducing Web Components & Polymer Projectpolymer-video, or the resources I used to learn about it, mostly listed in Issue7. Angular 2 embraces Web Components in two ways: first, it uses the Shadow DOM for template components (think: template/transclude directives). Shadow DOM is like inner HTML that is not affected by any CSS styles (even browser styles), cannot be matched by normal CSS selectors, and has its own child DOM document. Think of the many elements that browser renders when you add a <video tag to the page. This is the usual Shadow DOM example, except here we are talking about Shadow DOM that you create, style and control, not the browser. Shadow DOM is great for building reusable components that are guaranteed to not conflict with anything else on the whatever page they get used in, although can be a nightmare to style using today’s common CSS techniques that rely heavily on CSS inheritance / cascading. I hope that Shadow DOM will be optional, but I’m not sure. The other way Angular 2 embraces Web Components ensuing that Angular components (directives) can be used with / within Web Components transparently. You should be able to use custom HTML elements that have their own templates and Shadow DOM with Angular just like you’d with native HTML. This is the reason for all the weird [] and () characters used in directive attributes in Angular 2, so that they can be passed through the new HTML <template> element, often used in custom HTML elements (~ AKA Web Components) without being processed by the <template> itself. One thing to mention here: Google has another framework for building applications using custom elements / Web Components, Polymer Project. It enhances the new built in HTML <template> element and APIs to create custom elements and shadow DOM. In the Q & A session the Angular team explicitly said Angular 2 & Polymer are meant to work together very well, but are NOT likely to be merged in the future.
The first migration to Angular 2.0 will happen internally at Google around May 2015 (sounds too early to me, we’ll see).
This is all coming from the Day 1 keynote session (video – slides).
Whether you check Day 1 keynote or not, I highly recommend that you check Day 2 keynote.
It covers a lot about what the new Angular 2 syntax looks like (for both HTML and JS), and the reasoning behind it. It’s a true crash course (video – slides – demo code).
From Q & A
In addition to above, here are the bits relevant to Angular 2.0 from the Q & A session:
The current plan is to make Angular 1.x and 2.0 work together and work side by side, even with either of them in the module / app containing the other. By embracing this direction, this seems to leave out providing a proper compatibility layer in place (although it might happen, as I’ll show below).
Angular 2 will support evergreen (auto-updating) browsers on the desktop. This means IE 11+ (this can obviously be a deal breaker). Mobile support matrix is not decided yet.
The template language in Angular 2 will probably be a MUCH better experience for directive / component creators. You think it’s crazy to create your own ng-repeat -like directive in Angular 1 (maybe you don’t even know what interpolation means)? Even this sort of stuff should be easy in Angular 2.
Serverside rendering in Angular 2.0 is not a no-no as we used to hear before. It’s not promised as well. The team think that the changes they are implementing in Angular 2 will have positive side-effects on server-rendering story, but it’s obviously not something they are actively working on enabling. To me this sounds like it might be easy for a 3rd party to build it, or may come in future 2.x releases past 2.0.
There was no mention of Angular 2 filter feature in previous sessions as in pipe filters, but that will still be supported, probably renamed to pipes (as in stream passing I guess, like gulp, etc. in node). The team promised this will be such a lovable improvement.
As Angular 2.0 will be written in TypeScript, Angular will use the Traceur compiler to translate TypeScript output to EcmaScript 6, EcmaScript 5, and Dart. This allowed Angular to merge the AngularJS and AngularDart teams into one.
This one is crazy and hard to explain if you don’t know C#, TypeScript is on road to have something like async / await syntax, coming from C#, this syntax allows you to write asynchronous code without any big changes to your existing code. And guess what? The team suggested that this feature is already used in the codebase for the new Angular router – somehow (haven’t checked code yet). My poor attempt to explain the feature: imagine you can add the word await before any method call that returns a promise, and after that, instead of having to call .then() and pass a function, the compiler assumes the rest of your code (within the current function) IS the then function.
What’s happening in Angular 1.x (Angular 1.3, Angular 1.4, and Angular 1.5+)
It looked like Angular team felt that they needed to show proof that they have good reasons to not screw Angular 1.x users, so here’s what they said:
There are 2,000 apps using various versions of Angular 1.x at Google, and ~ 1,000,000 users (1 million!) visiting the current angularjs.org website (fully dedicated to 1.x). There are also 400,000 monthly visitors to the actual Angular 1.x github repository. The team showed that they get how big and dead serious Angular 1.x user base is.
By the way, it was also mentioned that Twitter uses Angular 1.x for several internal systems, and PayPal has a new checkout experiment using AngularJS 1.x as well. That’s an app that generates REAL MONEY!
What To Expect
The themes that the team suggest they’ll spend effort on with Angular 1.x are:
The new router
Internationalization / localization
Material Design (directives that implement Google’s Material Design)
Changes that can make it easier to migrate to Angular 2.0
General support for any issues / bugs etc.
This shows currently in the following efforts:
Weekly batch (1.x.x) releases (bug fixes, backwards compatible features) There are fourteen 1.3.x releases at the moment. Turns out the target is weekly releases! This is exhausting to keep up with. You might consider a 2 or 4 weeks update in your apps. But the idea is that breaking changes are minimal in these releases, and the bigger breaking changes are saved for 1.x releases, like 1.4, 1.5 etc.
1.4 RC0 is coming out this week If you followed the previous issues of the newsletter, many expected a final version of 1.4 in ng-conf. This didn’t happen, which is OK. The scope for Angular 1.4 as planned in January was a bit small IMHO. They added a few more things (so, it’s still not a big ball of mud update), and pushed the date slightly. I’m happier this way, because I thought we’d hold our breathe for for things like the router till 1.5, which would take even longer to come (it’s still likely major improvements will happen by the time of Angular 1.5).
Angular Router is coming to Angular 1.4 The initial release of the new official router, which combines features that used to exist in ui-router (like nested routes) will come as part of Angular 1.4 announcement. It’s still going to be a separate library though. It’s supposed to work with Angular 1.x and 2.0. And it will have its own release cycles independent from Angular 1.x/2.x releases. This is also great. I’m hoping the initial release will be good enough to recommend it instead of ui-router, because the new router is eventually what most apps will end up using in the future anyway.
Localization / Internationalization in Angular 1.4 I don’t know much about what is improving, but I know that the internationalization library for AngularJS is Angular-Translate, which is a very good looking one from its site or the ng-conf session about it (video – slides).
Performance Improvements The team always manages to find areas to improve internally on $scope digest cycling, ng-repeat etc., that quite often getting a new Angular release will give you a performance improvement with no code changes.
Continuing to plan in public That probably refers to publishing their weekly meeting notes on Google Drive (and sometimes recording them, although this is less often), as well as the usual OSS openness, that is: planning via public Github issues, accepting pull requests and responding to comments on Github issues and commits.
Shared components between Angular 1.x and Angular 2 The components announced to be shared are: the router (of course) Internationalization support Animation support (this is a bit of a surprise to me) Note that Material Design is not in the list, which makes sense because it’s quite more involved (it’s all about writing directives that apply the Material Design). Maybe that’d be a good migration / compatibility test subject, Google -if anyone is reading this :) A lot of this will be in proper shape by the time of Angular 1.5 (with some bits coming in Angular 1.4). Angular 1.5 could be happening around Summer-Fall (U.S. calendar not Aussie calendar of course).
Most of this came from Day 1 keynote linked to before, and from the Angular 1.x session (video – slides).
Getting your Angular 1.3/1.4 App Ready for Angular 2
Here’s what the team says about preparing code for less migration effort when we get Angular 2.0, which is luckily in-line with the guesses that several others came up with so far.
Write code as ES6 classes, everything (directives, services, etc.)
Use the new Angular router (luckily it’s just around the corner)
Use directives more than controllers
Use the controllerAs syntax in your directives instead of using $scope
There already is a proposal for a compatibility layer to be introduced. You can see some actual code by watching the “Angular 1.3 meets Angular 2 0” session (video – slides).
From Q & A
Here are a few bits from the Q&A, that are supposed to happen as part of Angular 1.x development story / ecosystem:
It seems the Angular router team, at least those present at ng-conf, don’t know much about what ui-router provides. This is weird, but maybe because the Ember router is where they are getting most of their inspiration from.
The ng-inspector Chrome extension might be merged with the Angular Batarang extension going forward, if the conversations start soon and go smoothly
Angular Material Design animation support will come to Angular 1.x, but beyond 1.5. Google Material Design (a lame yet easy way to think of it is like Twitter Bootstrap & Windows Metro design mixed into one) defines UI look & feel, and some standard animation effects even on things like pressing a button. Angular Material Design 1.0 will come around Angular 1.5. It’ll have all UI styles builtin so that just adding ng-button or something like that will get you a Material button. However, the animation part of things will follow later with a new feature coming to Angular Animation library called “timeline”. This is required as Material Design animations are sometimes series of animations not a single animation effect.
And of course, the Q & A session is also available to watch (watch).
These notes do not cover entire ng-conf
You can watch all the sessions from ng-conf on the ng-conf 2015 video playlist.
There are sessions about the new router, TypeScript, reactJS, a performance benchmarking tool called benchpress (used to measure performance improvements in Angular 2), John Papa’s AngularJS styleguide, and much much more…
Slides
As you watch the videos, you’ll find most presents link to their slides near the end or so. I have linked to all the slides I could find whenever I linked to a video.
If you didn’t find a slides link in the video, here’s what I did to get the “Angular 1.3 meets 2.0” slides: I went to ng-conf schedule page, found the talk details, clicked through to the speaker’s twitter account, and asked for the slides gently :)
I’m sure there’ll be some list of slides (official or not) at some point. I’ll keep you updated via this newsletter when I find about it.
Update
Here’s a big list of all ng-conf videos, slides, and speaker twitter links.
Finally
If you liked this special issue of my AngularJS And Web Dev Goodies newsletter, please let your friends know about it and sign up as well.
Thank you!
—
Meligy
Eng.Meligy@Gmail.com | twitter.com/meligy | gurustop.net/newsletter
Update I showed this blog post to Brad Green from the Angular team, and he had some comments and explanations that are very valuable. You can read them here: Brad Green from Angular Team Comments On My AngularJS 2.0 / 1.x Post
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The Maya death gods, (also Ah Puch, Ah Cimih, Ah Cizin, Hun Ahau or Yum Kimil) known by various names, are two basic types of death gods who are respectively represented by the 16th-century Yucatec deities Hunhau and Uacmitun Ahau mentioned by Spanish Bishop Landa. Hunhau is the lord of the Underworld. Iconographically, Hunhau and Uacmitun Ahau correspond to the Gods A and B'.
In recent narratives, particularly in the oral tradition of the Lacandon people, there is only one death god (called "Kisin" in Lacandon), who acts as the antipode of the Upper God in the creation of the world and of the human body and soul. This death god inhabits an Underworld that is also the world of the dead. As a ruler over the world of the dead (Metnal or Xibalba), the principal death god corresponds to the Aztec deity Mictlantecuhtli. The Popol Vuh has two leading death gods, but these two are really one: Both are called "Death," but while one is known as "One Death," the other is called "Seven Death." They were vanquished by the Hero Twins.
The two principal death gods count among the many were-animals and spooks (wayob) inhabiting the Underworld, with the God A way in particular manifesting himself as a head hunter and a deer hunter.
Post-Classic names [ edit ]
Kisin is the name of the death god among the Lacandons as well as the early colonial Choles,[1] kis being a root with meanings like "flatulence" and "stench." Landa uses another name and calls the lord of the Underworld and "prince of the devils" Hunhau,[2] a name that, recurring in early Yucatec dictionaries as Humhau and Cumhau, is not to be confused with Hun-Ahau; hau, or haw, means 'to end' and 'to lay on its back (mouth up)'.[3] Other names include Yum Kimil, "Lord of Death" in Yucatán and (Ah) Pukuh in Chiapas. The name Hun Ahau ("One Lord") appears frequently in the Ritual of the Bacabs, but is never specified as a death god. Ah Puch, though often mentioned in books about the Mayas, does not appear to be an authentic Maya name for the death god. (An Ah Puch is mentioned in the opening of the Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel in passing as a ruler of the North, and one of the Xibalba attendants in the Popol Vuh is called Ahal Puh.)[4]
Mythology [ edit ]
God A way as a hunter, Classic period
In the Popol Vuh, the Hero Twins descend to the "Place of Fright" (Xibalba), where a pair of Death Gods, Hun-Came ("One-Death") and Vucub-Came ("Seven-Death"), rule over a series of disease-bringing deities. They defeat the Death Gods and put restrictions on their cult.
Yucatec [ edit ]
According to one of the earliest sources on Maya religion (Francisco Hernández 1545), Eopuco (i.e., Ah Pukuh) mistreated and killed the Bacab, who was resurrected three days later.[5]
Lacandon [ edit ]
The skeletal death god Kisin plays a prominent role in Lacandon mythology, chiefly in the following tales:[6]
(i) The creation of the underworld by the upper god, involving the upper god's death at the hands of Kisin, his resurrection, and Kisin's confinement to the underworld; in his anger, Kisin sometimes kicks the pillars of the earth, thus causing earthquakes;
(ii) A failed attempt at the creation of human beings in emulation of the upper god, leading to the creation of the "totemic" animals of certain kin groups ( onen );
); (iii) The descent of the ancestor Nuxi' into the underworld to woo Kisin's daughter;
(iv) The description of the destiny of the souls in the underworld, where Kisin (a) burns the souls of evildoers, (b) transforms the souls of certain evildoers into his "domestic animals," (c) hunts for the spider monkey doubles of men destined to die.
Ritual [ edit ]
Both God A and God A' figure prominently in the New Year rites depicted in the Dresden Codex. God A' probably corresponds to the death god Uacmitun Ahau in Landa's description of the New year rites. He presides over a year of great mortality. To ward off evil during this year, men would walk over a bed of glowing embers that possibly represented the fires of the Underworld.[7]
God A in the lunar eclipse tables of the Dresden Codex
Classic Period: God A [ edit ]
The death god classified as God A always has a fleshless skull, usually with a skeletal body. He often occurs in the following contexts.
Man Hunt and Deer hunt [ edit ]
With varying hieroglyphic names and attributes, God A figures in processions and random arrays of were-animals and spooks (wayob).[8] In connection with these apparitions, he tends to be depicted either as a headhunter or as deer hunter (see figure). On the grandiose Tonina stucco wall, the severed head is that of an enemy king. The death god's deer hunt has two sides. On the one hand, this deer hunt may metaphorically refer to a hunt for human victims. On the other hand, there also seems to be a connection with certain wayob shaped like deer but with the tail of a spider monkey. On the famous peccary skull from Copan, for example, such a deer way appears to be welcoming the death god returning from a hunt.
Jaguar baby transformation [ edit ]
Together with the Rain Deity Chaac, God A is present at the jaguar transformation of a man (possibly a hero) who is usually shown as a baby, and who seems to disappear into the underworld.--
Apart from these contexts, on a Copan bench, the earth-carrying Bacabs are paired off with death gods A. This may relate to the fact that in Yucatán, one of the four Bacabs was called "White Death" (Zaccimi).
Classic Period: God A' [ edit ]
The other codical death god is God A', corresponding to Landa's Uac Mitun Ahau, and characterized by a black stripe over the eyes and a "darkness" infix in the forehead. Just like death god A, he figures among the Classic wayob.[9] Instead of being a head hunter, however, God A' is a demonic apparition repeatedly shown in the illusionistic act of self-decapitation. His iconography shows considerable overlap with that of an anthropomorphic way (labeled Mokochih) and of a demonic flying insect sometimes carrying a torch (possibly a blowfly, firefly, or wasp). In spite of the above, it has been suggested that the hieroglyphic name of God A' should be read as Akan, a name otherwise only known as that of a 16th-century deity of alcoholic beverages.[10]
Calendrical and astrological functions [ edit ]
A text from the early colonial songbook of Dzitbalche states the Underworld (Miitnal) to be opened and Kisin (Cizin) to be liberated during the concluding twenty days of the year (Uayah-yaab).[11] In the Classic period, the head of the skeletal God A serves as (i) the hieroglyph for the day Kimi, "Death," corresponding to Kame' in Quiché, also the name of the paired rulers of Xibalba in the Popol Vuh; (ii) the hieroglyph for the number ten (lajun), perhaps because the verbal stem laj- means "to end;" (iii) a variable element in glyph C of the Lunar Series, registering one to six completed lunations, probably for the prediction of lunar eclipses. Apparently connected to this, God A can be depicted with the attribute of a crescent that seems to mark him as a lunar patron deity.[12] A vignette of God A (or perhaps his female counterpart) illustrates the lunar eclipse tables of the Dresden Codex (see figure).
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
^ Tozzer 1941: 132 note 617 ^ Tozzer 1941: 132 ^ Cordemex Dictionary ^ Thompson 1970: 303 ^ Tozzer 1941: 207 note 1154 ^ Boremanse 1986: (i)39-44; (ii)30-38; (iii)78-96; (iv)73-77 ^ Tozzer 1941: 147-149 ^ Grube and Nahm 1994: 705-707 ^ Grube and Nahm 1994: 707–709 ^ Grube 2004: 59-63; cf. Stone and Zender 2011: 38–39 ^ Barrera Vazquez 1965: 34 ^ e.g., research.mayavase.com: Kerr 5166
Bibliography [ edit ] |
More than $1 million worth of trees will be planted in and around Fort McMurray this spring to help restore urban forests damaged by the last year's massive wildfire.
Tens of thousands of trees are scheduled to be planted as part of Tree Canada's Operation ReLeaf.
The program is largely focusing on replacing trees in residential areas.
CN donated $1 million for the project, though Tree Canada has received donations from other companies and individuals.
"We are deeply grateful to Tree Canada and all of its partners for this generous donation," Melissa Blake, mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, said in a news release.
"This support will undoubtedly lift the spirits of the entire community and help us restore so much of the natural beauty that was impacted by the wildfire."
The Fort McMurray wildfire in last May forced more than 80,000 people from their homes. More than 2,400 homes and buildings were damaged or destroyed.
The neighbourhoods of Abasand, Waterways and Beacon Hill were hit hardest. In some places, whole streets of houses burned to the ground.
Operation ReLeaf is specifically focused on replacing the tree canopy in Beacon Hill.
Surrounding First Nations affected by the fire may also receive some planted trees.
The project is expected to continue into 2018, and perhaps 2019 as well. |
Howard the Duck makes his big return to comics with March's new ongoing series, and in April Marvel is looking to keep that ball rolling as they've announced 20 Howard-themed variant covers across their comics line. Previously teased as "WTD Certified," These "What the Duck?!" variant covers features Howard as drawn by an array of artists associated with Marvel.
On Monday Marvel revealed six new covers to go with the previously revealed four, giving half of the anticipated 20. The six new ones are Ant-Man #4 - WTD Variant Cover by Dave Rapoza, Daredevil #15 - WTD Variant Cover by Marguerite Sauvage, Deadpool #45 (a.k.a. #250) - WTD Variant Cover by Sanford Greene, Hulk #14 - WTD Variant Cover by Rafael Albuquerque, Legendary Star-Lord #11 by James Stokoe and Spider-Gwen #3 - WTD Variant Cover by Sergio Aragones. All-New Hawkeye #2 - WTD Variant Cover by Francesco Francavilla, Amazing Spider-Man #17 - WTD Variant Cover by W. Scott Forbes, Rocket Raccoon #10 - WTD Variant Cover by Rob Guillory and Uncanny Inhumans #0 - WTD Variant Cover by Christian Ward.
Newsarama will have more of these "What The Duck?!" covers as they're released. |
Morse code mnemonics are systems to represent the sound of Morse characters in a way intended to be easy to remember. Since every one of these mnemonics requires a two-step mental translation between sound and character, none of these systems are useful for using manual Morse at practical speeds. Amateur radio clubs can provide resources to learn Morse code.
Visual Mnemonic [ edit ]
Baden-Powell's mnemonic chart from 1918
Visual mnemonic charts have been devised over the ages. Baden-Powell included one in the Girl Guides handbook[1] in 1918.
A contemporary Morse code chart
Here is a more up-to-date version, ca. 1988:
Other visual mnemonic systems have been created for Morse code, mapping the elements of the Morse code characters onto pictures for easy memorization. For instance, "R" (▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄) might be represented as a "racecar" seen in a profile view, with the two wheels of the racecar being the dits and the body being the dah.
English [ edit ]
Syllabic mnemonics [ edit ]
Syllabic mnemonics are based on the principle of associating a word or phrase to each Morse code letter, with stressed syllables standing for a dah and unstressed ones for a dit. There is no well-known complete set of syllabic mnemonics for English, but various mnemonics do exist for individual letters.
Character Morse Code Syllabic Mnemonic . ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ a STOP a STOP a STOP Periods are also known as "full stops". , ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ COM-MA, it's a COM-MA Self-explanatory. ? ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ it's a QUES-TION, is it? Self-explanatory. : ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ HA-WA-II stan-dard time The clocks in Hawaii are always on standard time, and don't turn an hour ahead in the summer. / ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ SHAVE and a HAIR-cut The rhythm from the musical routine. see Shave and a Haircut.
(NOTE: also Fraction Bar and Division Sign) " ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ six-TY-six nine-TY-nine Quotation marks resemble a 66 at the beginning of a quote, and a 99 at the end of a quote. ' ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ and THIS STUFF GOES TO me! An apostrophe may be used to denote ownership of property. ; ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ A-list, B-list, C-list A semicolon may be used to group ordered lists in the same sentence.
Slavic languages [ edit ]
In the Czech language, the mnemonic device to remember Morse codes lies in remembering words that begin with each appropriate letter and has so called long vowel (i.e. á é í ó ú ý) for every dash and short vowel (a e i o u y) for every dot. Additionally, some other theme-related sets of words have been thought out as Czech folklore.
Letter Morse Code Czech word Translation Alternative (folklore) Translation A ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ akát acacia absťák abstinence symptoms B ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ blýskavice lightning storm blít až doma vomit until at home C ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ cílovníci aiming sights cíl je výčep the target is the taproom D ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ dálnice highway dám jedno I'll have one (beer) E ▄▄ ▄ ▄ erb coat of arms ex one-sip-drinking F ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ Filipíny Philippines Fernet píše the Fernet's pungent G ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ Grónská zem the land of Greenland grónský rum rum of Greenland H ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ holubice dove (female) hruškovice Pear brandy Ch ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ chléb nám dává (he) gives us bread chvátám k pípám I rush to the faucets I ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ibis Ibis Iron Iron (window cleaning agent with alcohol content) J ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ jasmín bílý white Jasmine Jabčák bílý White Apple brandy K ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ království kingdom kýbl vín pot of wines L ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ lední hokej ice hockey likéreček little liquor M ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ mává waving mží z píp it's sprinkling out of faucets N ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ národ nation návyk habit O ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ó náš pán oh, our lord ó můj líh oh, my alcohol P ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ papírníci paper-makers pivní tácek beer underpad Q ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ kvílí orkán wailing hurricane kvílím ožrán I wail drunked R ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ rarášek imp rumíček little rum S ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ sekera axe sud je tu the barrel's here T ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ tón tone té tea U ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ učený erudite uchlastán fully loaded V ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ vyvolený the chosen one vodka finská Finnish vodka W ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ waltrův vůz Walter's carriage whiskou plout to float through Whiskey X ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ Xénokratés Xenocrates k sýru burčák new half-fermented wine with cheese Y ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ Ýgar mává Ygar is waving ý, jsem zlámán ee, I'm a mess Z ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ Zrádná žena perfidious woman zlískám se hned I get stoned quickly
Indonesia [ edit ]
In Indonesia, one mnemonics commonly taught in scouting method to remember Morse codes lies in remembering words that begin with each appropriate letter and substituting the o vowel for every dash and other vowels (a, i, u, and e) for every dot.
Letter Morse Code Word A ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ano B ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ bonaparte C ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ coba-coba- D ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ dominan E ▄▄ ▄ ▄ egg F ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ father joe G ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ golongan H ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ himalaya I ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ islam J ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ jago loro K ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ komando L ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ lemonade M ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ motor N ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ notes O ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ omono P ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ pertolongan Q ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ qomokaro R ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ rasome S ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ sahara T ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ tom U ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ unesco V ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ versikaro W ▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ wahono X ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ xosendero Y ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ yosimono Z ▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ zoro-aster
References [ edit ] |
Vasiliy Lomachenko opens up on his unconventional training methods. Tune in to watch Lomachenko take on Jose Pedraza at 9 p.m. ET Saturday on ESPN. (3:18)
Editor's note: This was originally published in December, 2017.
OXNARD, Calif. -- The training of Ukrainian Vasyl Lomachenko -- conceived, orchestrated and monitored by his father, with an assist from a psychologist trained in cognitive behaviorism -- is famously idiosyncratic. It includes street skating and juggling, handstands and tennis, which Lomachenko often plays solo, sprinting around the net to return his own lobs. There are marathons and 10K swims in open water. Sparring sessions are comprised of 15 four-minute rounds with 30 seconds of rest in between. Fresh sparring partners rotate in every three rounds, unless, as occasionally happens, they're prematurely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of punches -- every single one recorded and calibrated through the computer chips in his hand wraps -- or beaten into submission.
Lomachenko is trained by his father, Anatoly, right, in a very "old-school Russian" style. Sports psychologist Kolosov records Lomachenko's sparring workout on his phone. Gail Fisher
Once the wraps are removed, the psychological workout commences: a battery of tests and exercises using a reaction timer, small blocks or numerical charts that gained popularity as a diagnostic tool for cosmonauts and Soviet-era pilots.
But my favorite of these exercises might be the simplest: Lomachenko holds his breath.
He trains in an Olympic-sized pool. He'll sprint a lap, then return underwater in a single breath. This goes on for a while. Finally, Lomachenko submerges himself. During this camp, while preparing for fellow two-time Olympic gold medalist, Guillermo Rigondeaux, he stayed under for 3 minutes, 30 seconds.
"What's the longest he's ever gone?" I ask. Andriy Kolosov, the psychologist, relays my question to Anatoly Lomachenko, the father, who's studying the day's data, downloaded and displayed as a bar graph on his laptop. Vasyl threw 2,949 punches over 15 rounds -- average velocity 160.2 km/hour -- with little fatigue. The last round, on a double-end bag, saw him throw 324 punches. It's a good workout. I get the feeling that's why Anatoly -- "Papachenko," as he's called in the camp -- is even indulging my inquiry.
"Four-twenty," he says, in English.
"He held his breath for 4 minutes and 20 seconds?" I respond.
"Yes," says Kolosov, "during training for the Olympics."
But duration, he explains, is less important than the moment.
The moment?
"No one will train me but my father. No one will get credit for what he has already done." Vasiliy Lomachenko
"You have to meet the point of this moment," he says. "When your body tells you there is not enough oxygen, that you have to breathe, that it's important to live, that this is very dangerous to your life situation."
Ah, he means the moment: Where everything melds into one -- the physical and psychological training, the father and the son, genetics and ambition.
"This time," says Kolosov, "you answer for your body -- 'Not now!' You control your instincts. You move the limitation of your instincts."
Maybe you last another second. Or another 10. Or, in the case of Vasyl Lomachenko, 29, you last somewhere between 3:30 and 4:20.
I think I get it now. The left side of his belly bears a tattoo of his father's visage, a little more benevolent than Anatoly appears in person. Above, the legend: "Victory."
If you're Lomachenko, you want to win more than you want to breathe.
Anatoly Lomachenko gets his son ready for another sparring session in Oxnard, California. Gail Fisher
Russ Anber, Lomachenko's cutman, has been working with fighters -- tending to their wounds, their psyches and their hands -- since 1979. The history of fathers and sons in boxing, he readily admits, is "semi-f---ing disastrous."
Semi?
His present employers excluded, I ask him for a happy father-son boxing story. "Off the top of my head?" he responds, "I can't think of one."
There's no boxing equivalent of Little League or Pop Warner. There are no metaphors for violence. As artful as the sport can be, it is violence. Not every parent can put his child in harm's way. The father who works his kid's corner, I tend to find, cares most about himself: his legacy, the balancing of some imagined existential score, an affirmation of the blessings, genetic and otherwise, bestowed upon his progeny.
Fans of a certain age will recall a glowering Joe Frazier trying to stare down Mike Tyson. Seconds later, his son Marvis lay crumpled in the corner. It was the most concise cautionary tale ever seen on network television.
Danny Garcia once told me about losing in an amateur tournament, not long after his father had been released from prison.
"When we got back to the room, he threw me against the wall, and he put his hands around my neck and he said, 'From now on, I'm training you, and if you ever lose again, I'm going to hurt you.'"
Then his father grabbed an iron, putting it to his face. "I'll burn you," he said.
Danny was 11. He didn't lose again until he was 28.
Freddie Roach recalls his father waiting for him in the dressing room after his last pro fight, a lackluster loss in the Lowell Auditorium.
"How could you have been so good," asked Paul Roach, former featherweight champ of New England, "and end up like this?"
That was the last he saw of his father. Now a seven-time trainer of the year, Roach was among the chief seconds that manager Egis Klimas had in mind for Lomachenko when he turned pro in 2012. But Vasyl refused. Nothing against Freddie. Or Garcia. Or any of them. Vasyl understood it was a different game than the amateurs. He understood too the manager's grave reservations about father-son boxing teams. He didn't care.
"No one will train me but my father," he told Klimas. "No one will get credit for what he has already done."
Every day of training for Vasiliy Lomachenko includes a unique set of physical and mental exercises. Gail Fisher
Anatoly wasn't raising a mere fighter, but a prodigy, that most Faustian of bargains, an attempt at perfection. Hence, there might be more apt comparisons for the Lomachenkos.
Pete Maravich, for example, was raised by a coach to be the perfect basketball player. As Pete came of age, his sadness bordered on suicidal. Marv Marinovich tried to create the perfect quarterback, but son Todd wound up a drug addict, instead. Even the great Tiger Woods experiment seems diminished by the knowledge that he fell apart after his father died.
Of course, no story like this would feel relevant without a reference to LaVar Ball and his sons. Their goal, it appears, is to make a lot of noise and sell a lot of sneakers. If Ball seeks perfection, it's in the branding. In other words, not only does LaVar Ball explain the American condition, he's a perfect counterpoint for the Lomachenkos.
Their concern is less commerce than posterity. But their egos are bigger too. All fighters are vain. They spend their working lives rehearsing in front of a mirror, after all. Still, I've never heard an athlete like Vasyl express such outrageous ambition with such sincere shamelessness. His aspiration isn't a title, or several, or even a pound-for-pound designation.
"History," he says. "If, in 10 years, or 20 or 30 years, you sit down with your friends and talk about boxing, you need to remember my name."
By you, he means the grandmothers chewing sunflower seeds as they gossip back in his hometown of Akkerman (the name he calls it, dating to the Ottoman Empire). But he's also referring to guys who'd gather at a barber shop in Queens. Or a gym in L.A. Or a pub in Sheffield. The truth is, Vasyl Lomachenko considers his style, as aggressive as it is aesthetic, superior to Floyd Mayweather's. It's not internet rankings that concern him so much as a kind of immortality, consideration alongside Ray Robinson, Jack Dempsey and, yes, Muhammad Ali. The goal isn't mercantile, but mythic. A famous American sentence, rewritten: There goes Vasyi Lomachenko, the best there ever was. ...
Now that's ego.
But what of its origin?
Vasyl was just three days old when his father, a physical education teacher and boxing coach, put his hands in a pair of gloves. It's not that Vasyl can't remember the first time he went to a gym. He doesn't remember not being in a gym.
"Then whose dream is this," I ask. "Yours or your father's?"
And for the first time in the two weeks I've spent at his camp, I see his ice blue eyes narrow. "It is my dream. Mine."
I inquire, then, as to the nature of his talent. A prodigy -- a John Coltrane or Michael Jordan, for example -- is predisposed to practice longer and harder than the merely gifted. During my time in the Lomachenko camp, I've seen him do everything but take a break.
"My talent is I understand what I want," he says. "I know the price. I understand I need to answer for my words."
Lomachenko doesn't brag. He makes oaths, and keeps them. It runs in the blood. His son, also named Anatoly, was 5 last year when he asked for an iPhone. "You must work for it," Vasyl said. The boy gave his word, and after five months of training, little Anatoly ran from their home in Akkerman to Zatoka, a resort town on the Black Sea. It's about 15 miles, and it took him 2 hours, 15 minutes, according to Vasyl. He got more than an iPhone, though. He learned what his father had, at about the same age. The real joy is in the work, the training.
Danny Garcia wept after he told me of that night in the hotel. Truth is, he wasn't angry at his father. In his own way, twisted or not, he was grateful that it made him a fighter. I think of Maravich, the pathos in his eyes. And this debate about Lonzo Ball, and his oft-discussed, much-alleged passivity. But Vasyl -- even as his father stands over him, counting, calibrating, critiquing every punch -- seems their antithesis.
"Watch him when he smiles," says the cutman, Russ Anber. "It's from the heart."
There's an unmistakable delight with which he trains. He's that rare and most dangerous of fighters: the happy one. And as it pertains to perils of collaboration between fathers and sons, especially those in the anguished history of combat sports, these Lomachenkos might yet prove the glorious exception.
According to Lomachenko, when he wants to stop, he looks to his father -- it gives him the power to go on and work harder. Gail Fisher
Akkerman, better known as Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, is a town of 50,000 with a famous "White Castle" on an estuary leading to the Black Sea. Anatoly once told colleagues he'd like to produce a champion from their hometown, but he didn't want to say more than that.
Anatoly had been, no surprise, an amateur fighter. How good? Or what he might have been? His hopes and aspirations?
"I never asked my father about his dream," Vasyl says. He knew only that his father turned him southpaw before he began sparring. He was 4 the first time. He beat a 6-year-old.
When Vasyl himself was 6, he asked his father if it were better to win an amateur world title or an Olympic gold medal. The gold, said his father. Then gold it would be. It's unclear what his father thought. But the child took it as a vow. "I need to prove it," he says. "To my father and me."
The more he worked, the more apparent were his gifts -- not just ambition, but genetic, as well. While his father had been a boxer, his mother, Tetiana, began as a gymnast. They met while students at the State Pedagogical Institute in Odessa. It was Anatoly who suggested she try judo. After only a year, Tetiana placed fourth in the Soviet judo championships.
Anatoly thought deeply about athletic performance, ideas eventually crystalizing into convictions. It was important for Vasyl to maintain good grades, as an educated body was governed by an educated mind, intellectually stimulated and capable of decision-making under stress. Anatoly never believed in the kind of early specialization so prevalent today. Even as he boxed, Vasyl also played soccer and hockey and wrestled. At 10, he began traditional Ukrainian folk dance.
It wasn't Vasyl's idea, prancing about in a sash, bright boots and billowy satin pantaloons, but it's too much to say his father forced him.
"He explain me," Vasyl says. Such reasoning was typically delivered with an economy of expression, just a deep stare as Anatoly explained cause and effect as inexorably linked facts.
"You want to be a great boxer? he asked.
"Yes."
"Then you must learn to dance."
Vasyl danced two hours every day after school. Then he'd go home for a bite and head to the gym. That was his routine, almost four years in pantaloons. But it endowed him with what he has today, the finest footwork in boxing. Unlike most fighters, Vasyl's was a balanced, harmonious youth. He read a Russian translation of "Tom Sawyer" in grade school. He learned to hunt for pheasant and duck and to fish for carp. "The Fast and the Furious" franchise seems to have contributed to his passion for drifting in supercharged cars (he has a hollowed-out Nissan 240 SX and a Mercedes-AMG C63). His favorite movie, for a time, was "300" -- which accounts for the Spartan warrior tattooed to his back. ("A young mistake," he says sheepishly). His musical taste runs to deep house music. But nothing in his background suggests the depth or the well-mannered ferocity of his desire.
Ready for anything, even at 12 As a 12-year-old soccer goalie, Vasiliy fell on a branch making a save. He continued to play, not knowing he'd been hurt until he looked down to see his jersey and shorts turned crimson. Then he ran home, looked in the mirror and saw that his lower lip was now two lower lips. He burst into tears. "Why are you hysterical?" asked his father. It wasn't the lip. Or the pain. Or the blood. There was boxing tournament in Akkerman the following weekend. "I cannot box in the competition," said Vasiliy. "Calm down," said his father, who took him to the hospital, where Vasiliy recalls a doctor asking if he wanted to watch cartoons on the DVR. "Do you have Mike Tyson-Evander Holyfield?" A general anesthetic was administered intravenously, and Vasiliy's recollection ends there. But the hospital staff told Lomachenko that they recalled a fitful child speaking in tongues. "Give me Tyson," the staff said he called out. "I want to fight Tyson." A week later, wearing amateur headgear, Vasiliy won the local tournament, a zipper of stitches on his lip exposed but untouched.
Vasyl's amateur record was 396-1. His single loss to Albert Selimov in 2007 was twice avenged. With his father by then coaching the national team, he won gold in 2008 and again in 2012, one of five medals the Ukraine took home from the London Olympics. Oleksandr Gvozdyk, a bronze medalist now 14-0 as a light heavyweight, says of the elder Lomachenko: "He built a special spirit on that team. He never yells or intimidates, just explain."
Gvozdyk's indoctrination into the Lomachenko method included crossword puzzles as training aids. Learning to walk on his hands. Volleyball. Basketball. Tennis. Marathons and distance swims.
"I have not enough balls to tell him that these things don't work," Gvozdyk says. "People think we're crazy. But these things give you mental supremacy."
Toward that end -- mental supremacy -- Anatoly had hired Kolosov in anticipation of the 2012 Olympics. He was a young Ph.D., a former tumbler, but the bulk of his experience had been working with air force pilots, not fighters.
"I don't need a psychologist," protested Vasyl. For once, Anatoly didn't explain. "You need to believe me," Vasyl said. "My character is strong."
"It's not what you think," said his father. "You don't need to talk to anyone about your feelings."
Eventually, Kolosov became the most prominent voice in the Lomachenko camp, outside of Anatoly. Kolosov was there when Vasyl won the second gold. Kolosov was there when he turned pro, a negotiation with one overriding concern -- not the signing bonus, but whether Vasyl could make history by fighting for the featherweight title in his pro debut.
As it happened, he had to settle for a title shot in his second fight. Orlando Salido's strategy was to come in over the weight limit and foul often. It cost Lomachenko a split decision, but it was also an education and proof that an undefeated record remains the most overrated commodity in boxing.
Lomachenko has held the WBO super featherweight title since 2016 and previously the WBO featherweight title from 2014-2016. Gail Fisher
Now, at 9-1, a champion at both featherweight and super featherweight, a victory over Cuban Guillermo Rigondeaux on Saturday night would grant what the House of Lomachenko has long coveted: not just a claim as the best in the world, but everlasting consideration as an historic fighter.
"I've been in the business over 20 years," says Cicilio Flores, the strength and conditioning coach. "He's the most dedicated fighter I've ever worked with."
If the work is hard, it's never predictable. Flores might begin a day by requiring Vasyl to sink 50 3-pointers. His father might have him kick a hacky sack 75 times before it hits the floor. It's not just physical dexterity they're after, but something cognitive. "Mental flexibility," Kolosov calls it.
It's not merely the quantification of every move he makes or the 15 four-minute rounds. In the past weeks, he has gone against champions and sent them home prematurely. He has been wrestled and low-blowed. He'll return a foul quickly, with clinical precision -- a right hook to the cup, followed by a right uppercut -- that leaves his opponent gasping and calling for time. But I never saw him angry or tense.
One night, his father dons a body shield and moves around the ring to imitate Rigondeaux on his imaginary bicycle. After sparring and bag work, it's an exercise in exhausted pursuit, designed to exasperate Vasyl.
"Enough with your bicycle," he tells his father. "I am Rigo!" the father says fiercely.
"No," he says, grinning. "You are Lance f---ing Armstrong."
It's another manifestation of both talent and training -- to remain unprovoked, to resist the tremors and spasms that affect lesser fighters.
Lomachenko works the heavy bag, practicing an assortment of angles and the techniques he learned from his father. Gail Fisher
In the fourth round of his most recent bout, against Miguel Marriaga, Lomachenko suffered the first serious cut of his career -- a forked gash that would require eight stitches. Vasyl could see the wound dripping on the monitor between rounds.
"You always wonder about a guy," Anber says. "How he'll react the first time."
In Lomachenko's case, though, he didn't react. Marriaga's corner stopped it after two more rounds.
The cut was another version of The Moment. If this is Anatoly's masterpiece, Kolosov has been called to apply the finishing touches.
"All the pressure in training, it opens you to situational possibility," Kolosov says. "You can't adapt in the ring unless you have the psychic resources. You cannot be tense, or angry or scared. His best ability is to recognize possibility in the ring."
What the shrink is really talking about is creativity.
"For Vasyl, it is art," he says. Vasyl moves like a dancer, never an awkward moment. The punches vary in angle, cadence and power. But there's a rhythm throughout. Kolosov calls it "flow," citing the work of the Hungarian-born psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
In the flow state, individuals are fully engaged in a difficult task, intrinsically motivated, and very happy. Improvisational brilliance is born of repetition. It explains, in some measure, the art of jazz, and it justifies a comparison with Lomachenko's style. But unlike Vasyl, musicians don't create amid violent circumstance.
That said, Lomachenko might have found the perfect opponent. If he represents rhythm and flow, Rigondeaux signifies the opposite: harmony vs. entropy. There's a reason no one wants to fight Rigondeaux, who is also a southpaw. He'll not only make you look bad, he'll brutalize you too. Whatever your tempo, Rigondeaux seeks to disrupt it.
Perhaps that's why he has been trying to provoke Lomachenko -- poking fun at his training regimen and predicting "a massacre."
"We understand why this is happening," Kolosov says. "We teach to understand our opponent, his nuances. Every opening we study. We train to make our activity more cognitive than emotional. Rigo is just a task to us."
Flores is less circumspect:
"Vasyl doesn't play that. I think he feels disrespected."
Prediction?
"Vasyl's going to mess him up. Bad."
Flores has been with the Lomachenkos since their third pro fight, when they beat an undefeated Gary Russell Jr. for the title. He has been there every round since.
During the sparring, Flores takes a seat a few steps from Anatoly. The father counts each punch with a hand-held clicker. Kolosov films the rounds. Flores just watches.
One time, Flores asked the old man, "Did you know what he was going to be?"
"It was all designed," Anatoly says. "It was written down."
But when? When was The Moment?
"Before he was conceived." |
Friday Night Lights will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the show’s premiere later this year, but a large portion of its cast is reuniting early at the the ATX Television Festival in Austin this weekend. With that in mind, this week seemed like as good a time as any to take a deep dive into remembering the show, which became somewhat of a cult classic during its five season run on NBC and, later, The 101 Network.
That’s where the Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Pod Cast series comes in. The five-part podcast series puts four FNL superfans in a room to discuss the show’s characters and plot points in season-by-season roundtable format. From its beautiful, triumphant moments to the hilarious and infuriating imperfections, it’s all broken down by myself, DJ Bean (WEEI), John Feitelberg (Barstool Sports) and Jeff Israel (Funny Internet Man.)
Some season one topics:
The Tim Riggins/Lyla Garrity relationship and who’s more to blame
Matt Saracen’s unlikely rise to stardom
Coach Taylor drawing inspiration from Bill Belichick
Is dating a coach’s daughter acceptable?
Why Voodoo missed the mark as a villain
Drawing lines between being pro and anti-Lorraine Saracen
The magic of Jesse Plemons as Landry Clarke
Each episode also features an interview with a cast member from the show. For Part 1, we talked to Zach Gilford, who played the role of young Dillon Panthers quarterback Matt Saracen. (Interview starts at 1:07:00.) The awkward and unassuming Saracen is a central character of the show right from season one, when he’s thrown into the fire after Dillon’s star quarterback Jason Street left paralyzed during a game.
We talked to Gilford about his experience playing Saracen, his thoughts on certain storylines, and much more. We discussed how awkward it was to be a 23-year-old actor paired with a 16-year-old love interest on set, and he shared his feelings on the Saracen-Julie Taylor relationship as a whole.
Gilford will be one of the cast members heading to Austin for the reunion this weekend, and he’ll also be teaming up with Taylor Kitsch (Tim Riggins), Minka Kelly (Lyla Garrity), and Aimee Teegarden (Julie) to run a Spartan Race together later this month as a part of a promotion with Marriott. He discusses his training for the race and looks ahead to the big reunion.
Season two will be discussed on Tuesday with another special guest. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes as well, and feedback is always appreciated. |
Once written off, Todd Akin has a chance in Missouri thanks to conservative support Photo by Whitney Curtis/Getty Images.
MT. VERNON, Mo.—“I can understand ‘legitimate’ [rape]” says Dee Eukel. “I understand it, because I was a victim. And our local prosecutor told me: We best accept a plea bargain because we can’t get a prosecution on rape.”
It’s Monday evening at the rec center in this small town, halfway between Joplin and Springfield on I-44. Drive up that highway, which connects the southwest counties to St. Louis, and you see the smallish towns and largish chapels where Republican margins are built. The McCain-Palin ticket won Mt. Vernon’s county by 37 points. When the Republicans held their U.S. Senate primary, Todd Akin won this county by 8 points. Akin’s political base is the conservative suburbs of St. Louis, but 30 percent of the state’s GOP vote comes from this region, and it’s behind him now. “We’re going to over-perform here in order to win,” says Akin strategist Rick Tyler.
Dee Eukel’s husband, a rabbi, manages the Leaders Leading Locally Institute, a conservative group that brings activists together to talk politics and charity. That is why we’re in this recreation center, talking about a U.S. Senate race.
If Akin can beat Sen. Claire McCaskill, if the polls that have him down by only 1 point are accurate, it will be because he does well in places like this—well with voters like Eukel. She’s 69, and her assault happened more than a decade ago. She remembers her attacker’s threat, word for word: “I can kill you anytime I want.” Her voice still cracks with resentment of how the state put him in jail for only seven years. This is why she defends Todd Akin, why she’s even posted her story on Facebook.
“When a prosecutor tells a woman he can’t get a conviction, why is that?” asks Eukel. “It’s because of illegitimate accusations. You look at it from a little bit different point of view when you’ve been in a situation. I understood. If the prosecutor can’t get a conviction, it’s because the system has been abused. There’s no excuse for a rape of any kind, but there are too many who’ll say, well, she asked for it.” All Akin did was misspeak. “What he said may have been bad, but look at some of the things our vice president has said—that would be unacceptable to anyone!”
Southwest Missouri made the Todd Akin candidacy, and southwest Missouri could save it. During the primary, McCaskill threw money into chaos-making “anti-Akin” ads that reminded voters here just how frightfully conservative the guy was. After Akin made his “legitimate rape” comment, and national Republicans demanded that he quit to make room for a candidate who didn’t talk like that on live TV, Republican organizations here stuck by him. Walk into the Jasper County Republican office, just east of Joplin, and you see a sign declaring proudly that it receives NO Republican National Committee or Missouri Republican Party Funding. Its two ranch-style offices and bushels of Akin signs and literature are funded by the faithful, not the fretful.
John Putnam, 65, is chairman of this local party. When I stop by, he’s helping deliver some chairs to an Americans for Prosperity rally—not affiliated with any party—that’s happening across the street. Putnam’s family arrived in America in the 1640s, and he wears a baseball cap decorated with one of George Washington’s flags, pausing occasionally to check an iPhone protected by a stars-and-stripes case.
“If you take the national or state money you have to do what the party tells you,” says Putnam. “People don’t think [Akin]should’ve been hung out to dry.” They’re offended, actually, that the media so mangled what Akin was saying. “A lot of women today still tell me that Akin said women can’t get pregnant from rape. You just had to look at the tape to see what he was trying to say, but said poorly: Stress reduces the likelihood of somebody getting pregnant.”
Over two long travel days, and a few hundred miles of road, I fail to find any Republican voters who substantively disagreed with Akin. The big media rap on Akin this week is that he found McCaskill more “ladylike” in her 2006 race. Akin’s team sees a clear separation between the national media’s focus and the worries of Missouri. “It’s like night and day,” says Tyler. “I’m sure the Washington and New York media can find ways to be offended. But it’s pathetic, it’s stupid, it’s sophomoric, it’s ridiculous.”
Outside Akinworld (the campaign) and Akinland (hardcore conservative Missouri), you can find plenty of panicky Republicans. Tom Davis, a former Virginia congressman who ran the GOP’s congressional campaign in 2000, remembers how Akin eked out a win in a five-way primary, seemingly putting a swing seat at risk. Akin predicted that “my base will come out in earthquakes.” It did, and he won by 14 points. You beat the “smart kids” enough times and you start to think you can’t lose. That’s what made Akin intractable when Republicans were on bended knee asking him to quit. But he wasn’t the only Republican who believed it.
Shortly before I leave Joplin’s AFP rally I talk to Jane Obert, the city of Neosho’s finance director. Off duty for the day, she’s wearing the red-and-blue colors of the Southwest Missouri Conservative Network, another one of the umbrella groups down here that’s weathered the decline of the Tea Party.
“What he actually said, that riled people up, was not said eloquently for a politician,” says Obert. “But it was actually true. Any time women are in a highly stressful situation, they’re not likely to get pregnant.” She points me to the Department of Health and Human Services website, which says this much in a HealthTip. “It’s a clear choice.
Do you stand for life, or do you stand for murdering unborn babies for any time and any reason. Claire McCaskill wants to make it legal to suck an unborn baby’s brains out. How barbaric is that?”
At the Leaders Leading Locally event, this is taken for granted. The evening begins when Rabbi Eukel warns about the “false barriers” set up by politicos and the media. Among them: “That the secular and the sacred are not together. That legislation and God’s love don’t mix.” We pray, we recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and then we listen to Ed Martin, the Republican candidate for attorney general. He has the build and voice of the old professional wrestler Jerry Lawler, and travels to some campaign events in a rehabbed ambulance to remind voters of the faults of Obamacare. He rat-a-tats through a list of ways that the Democratic incumbent, Chris Koster, has become “Obama’s lawyer”—signs with this message are available at the door. “If Obama wins I’ll probably sue him every day,” says Martin. “If Romney wins, I’ll sue him every other day.”
It’s one of those town halls where open-ended questions lead to all-encompassing answers. A voter asks Martin what he’ll do to defend small businesses. The candidate answers, then gets into a monologue about Akin—how his fatal TV clip was engineered by a “bottom-feeding leftist,” and why conservatives should get his back.
“One of the terrible things about the Todd situation, about how it all happened, was the lack of charity that people had towards him,” says Martin. “He said something that was really not well said, yeah. And he apologized. And he should have. But in that period of time, there were a lot of people from far-off lands that were just pounding away on a man and who he was. I thought he made a mistake that might be fatal. It might still be, in terms of his political career. But he’s a man.”
Watch: Political Kombat, the 2012 campaign told through video game fights. |
By
21st Century Wire says…
This latest revelation really changes the whole cold war paradigm – as we learn how one country is willing and able to deploy ‘guerrilla nuclear war’…
The US military lists these devices as “Special Atomic Demolition Munition” (SAMD), and it’s more than likely that these programs have advanced in their scope and sophistication since the 1980’s. Do not believe for a minute that this program was “halted” in 1989 as the official line goes.
It’s also important to note here that this “New Look” strategy is designed as a nuclear first strike against a Soviet ‘conventional’ attack, and not as retaliation for an opposing nuclear attack on the US. This throws the whole orthodoxy of “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD) into disarray now, as we get a real insight beyond the comfortable assurances given to the public by US politicians and academics.
Even today in 2014, there are still many Americans who are in denial that their own country has already developed – and deployed, smaller tactical ‘battlefield nukes’.
This is only the tip of a much larger iceberg…
RT.com
Skiing down a mountain and into a battlefield with a nuclear bomb strapped to your back seems like something you’d see only in a James Bond movie, but that’s just one of the things the US elite military personnel were trained to do during the Cold War.
In a detailed report by Foreign Policy, the publication chronicles the creation of the Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SAMD), a portable nuclear weapon that could be carried into battlefield by a single solider. During the Cold War’s final 25 years, Navy SEALs and Army Special Forces were trained to carry these “backpack nukes” beyond enemy lines where, if necessary, they’d be used to destroy valuable infrastructure and keep opposing forces at bay.
Concerned with the Soviet Union’s military advantage over the United States and its allies in terms of manpower and traditional weaponry, President Dwight Eisenhower looked to enhancing the country’s nuclear capabilities as a way to level the playing field. His “New Look” strategy, however, promised “massive retaliation” to any form of aggression by the Soviet Union – a bold strategy that in reality left the US with little room to maneuver.
“In the event that communist forces launched a limited, non-nuclear attack, the president would have to choose between defeat at the hands of a superior conventional force or a staggeringly disproportionate (and potentially suicidal) strategic nuclear exchange that would kill hundreds of millions of people,” the report stated.
In an attempt to develop targeted nuclear weapons that wouldn’t cause as many casualties, the SAMD was born. Often strapped to a soldier’s back, the 58-pound bomb made it difficult for soldiers to maneuver through a war zone, and those chosen to carry the device – known as the “Green Light” teams – underwent extensive training to ensure they could deliver the bomb, even at the expense of their own lives.
“I think that my first reaction was that I didn’t believe it,” former Green Light member Ken Richter told Foreign Policy. “Because everything that I’d seen prior to that, World War II, showed this huge weapon. And we were going to put it on our backs and carry it? I thought they were joking.”
More powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, though, the SAMD was no laughing matter. US forces would be subjected to eight to 12 hours of training a day when it came to using the device, and in some cases troops would parachute out of planes with the SAMD dangling below them in a protective case, dive underwater with it in a pressurized case, or, yes, ski down a mountain with bomb attached to them.
“I had a lot of people that I interviewed for our team,” Richter recalled. “Once they found out what the mission was, they said, ‘No, thanks. I’d rather go back to Vietnam.’ “
Fortunately, these weapons were never actually used. US allies were not particularly fond of the idea of detonating numerous nuclear devices across their countries, while others within the American military questioned the whole enterprise.
“In our hearts, we knew nobody was going to give control of these to a bunch of big old boys running around the countryside,” Tom Davis, another Green Light member, told Foreign Policy. “We just didn’t believe it was ever going to happen.”
The SADM program was officially halted in 1989, after the Defense and Energy departments found it to be “obsolete.”
This, however, wasn’t the only controversial idea the United States tested during the Cold War. A lawsuit is currently unfolding in federal court concerning a military program that subjected servicemen to various secret drug and chemical experiments. The US hoped to discover new ways to control human behavior, pinpoint weaknesses, hypnotize, and increase an individual’s resistance to torture.
As a result, many former soldiers have come forward claiming that their long-term health problems are a direct product of the experiments conducted on them. The Department of Veterans Affairs has generally declined to cover the health costs of these individuals, though just recently a federal judge ruled the US must notify all veterans of any potential health problems stemming from the experiments.
READ MORE WMD NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire WMD Files |
Wednesday night on “The Colbert Report,” host Stephen Colbert discussed the sorry low point that some Republicans have come to in the wake of the 2012 elections and the paranoid conspiracy theories that many of them are still clinging to.
Colbert began by saying that he likes to take a moment each holiday season to contemplate the fate of those less fortunate, “and not just because it makes me feel better by comparison.”
“The Congo,” he said thoughtfully before waiting a beat, then changing the subject.
The people who most deserve our pity this season, he said, are pollsters.
“Just one month ago, everyone was glued to their projections about the race between Barack Obama aaaaaaaand, shoot, what’s his name?” he said. “I’m want to say ‘Cake Bunty!’ No, that’s the name of my pet cake.”
And while most polling firms have been putting their feet up in the wake of the elections, Colbert said, and “in spite of having nothing to ask,” the firm Public Policy Polling (PPP) has continued to poll people about their thought regarding the election.
PPP found, startlingly, that 49 percent of Republicans believe that the now now-defunct group ACORN stole the election for the president. Colbert said, however, that this is just proof that the conspiracy runs deep, “so deep that it doesn’t exist.”
“And you know what else doesn’t exist?” he said, “ACORN!”
PPP found that 39 percent of Americans say they have a strong opinion about the Simpson-Bowles Act, the deficit reduction package put together by a committee chaired by retired Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) and Erskine Bowles, former Clinton Chief of Staff. The polling firm also found that 25 percent of Americans say they have a strong opinion about the Panetta-Burns Act, a non-existent policy proposal that PPP made up to see if respondents would openly lie.
“So, personally I salute PPP for turning public interest statistical analysis into an episode of ‘Jaywalking,'” he concluded.
Watch the clip, embedded via Comedy Central, below: |
The SC3 Gera Baja is an off-road Baja 1000 race bike from two motorcyclists at the top of their careers. The motorcycle is a Harley-Davidson based off-road bike conceptualized by designer / builder Jim Carducci with race ready input from pro Ironman racer Tony Gera.
Tony Gera is the 2016 Baja 1000 Ironman champion and he’ll be riding this bike in the 2019 Baja 1000. A Pro Ironman rider competes for the entire 1000 km of the race by himself on one bike with no rest or break. Tony rebuilt the motor to be over 100 hp. “100+ mph lights” are for Tony to race at night. The front and rear travel are each 10″. The race bike weighs 23 lbs less than our SC3 Adventure and is much lighter than the original H-D.
See detail photos here and follow us on social media (links above and below). We’ll keep posting up to the race in Nov 2019.
Tony will be riding the motorcycle from the San Francisco Bay Area of California down to the Baja 1000 race, pre-running and racing on the same bike, and riding it back home.
Mike Accorsi of Accorsi Studios has been filming the whole process from the day when Jim and Tony met, through the build, and beyond. Visit Accorsi Studios’ website for more details on the upcoming film, the project, how you can get involved, and the potential reach of this project.
Send us an email to discuss ways to support Tony Gera and the SC3 Gera Baja Project in 2019. Or contact us now by giving Mike Accorsi a call at 408-337-2468 or sending him an email via accorsistudios@gmail.com.
Jim Carducci Co-owner and Chief Designer Tony Gera Pro Ironman Motorcycle Racer Michael Accorsi Filmmaker
PRODUCT SPONSORSHIP AND OTHER DONATIONS |
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