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When Bandai Namco announced a PC port for Dark Souls there was much rejoicing. Then, when it was announced that it would release on the dreaded Games For Windows Live platform, there was much rage. Well here's good news: come November, those who own Dark Souls on GFWL will have the opportunity to transition over to Steam.
Next month users can redeem their GFWL tokens on Steam in order to access Dark Souls. While you'll be able to do this indefinitely, the transferal of save data and achievements will be possible for a limited time only. More specific dates will be provided soon, Bandai Namco posted today.
The publisher announced earlier this year that it had plans to accommodate those still playing Dark Souls, despite GFWL's imminent death. It's one of the last games with ties remaining to the service, with most studios and publishers making the jump to other platforms much earlier. |
Web Comics are gaining quite some popularity these days with hundreds of new comic publishers starting up every year. Among these comics are few that stand out but what better way than to read them on the desktop? As an avid comic fan, subscribing to multiple comic feeds and following them can be both hectic and tiresome.
Meet Comical. It is a straightforward desktop application for popular web comics that can download the daily comics for you without having to visit all the websites. Unlike ComicRack and Comic Books Reader, the app lists all the daily comics on the left sidebar making them easier to download and read in one click. Since it is based on open XML format, anyone can add support to additional comics.
There are a bunch of options, allowing users to import directory, images, copy to clipboard, launch the comics in full screen, and more. The text that accompanies the comic but is not included in the comic itself can also be read by hovering the mouse over the small text at the bottom of the comic.
Download Comical
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The Paris Agreement is seen as the most important global climate agreement ever signed, with nearly 200 world leaders agreeing to protect the planet. It is also seen as one of the biggest achievements of Barack Obama's reign as president. However, Donald Trump is now set to pull the USA out in a move which will see America join Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries who do not support the deal.
REUTERS Jean-Claude Juncker warned Mr Trump that quitting the Paris agreement will take years
REUTERS Mr Trump announced his opposition to the Paris Agreement at the G7 summit
A White House source confirmed on Wednesday Mr Trump intends to pull out of the agreement and the president later tweeted he will announce his decision at 3pm this afternoon. But European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned President Trump leaving will be much harder than he realises. Although President Trump could simply roll back US climate policy, he will still be tied into the commitment.
REUTERS The Paris Agreement is one of Barack Obama's biggest successes
REUTERS The Paris Agreement is seen as the most important global climate agreement ever signed
The climate deal says: It takes three, four years after the treaty took effect last November to exit the agreement. Jean-Claude Juncker
Mr Juncker said: “The climate deal says: It takes three, four years after the treaty took effect last November to exit the agreement. “That means the idea that you can simply disappear into thin air — that won’t happen. “The law is the law, and everyone has to stick to it. “Not everything which is law, and not everything which is written in international treaties, is fake news. You got to stick to that.”
Air pollution across the world Tue, May 22, 2018 Take a look through these stunning drone images, highlighting the effects of pollution on planet earth but also the opportunities to tackle this scary problem. Play slideshow Mark Baker 1 of 11 The tanks and stacks of Fawley Refinery in the New Forest
The deal came into force on November 4 last year, and the agreement stipulates that a withdrawal can legally only be filed after three years - meaning the very earliest date Mr Trump can quit is November 4, 2019. Then, following withdrawal, the exit will only legally become effective one year after that date - on November 4, 2020. But in a bizarre twist, if Mr Trump did decide to pull out of the deal then the exit will come the day after the next US Presidential election. The president had previously dismissed climate change as a hoax and a scam.
REUTERS The president had previously dismissed climate change as a hoax |
VICTORIA — NDP Leader Adrian Dix says if he’s elected premier, he’ll consider getting rid of British Columbia’s balanced-budget legislation.
Dix said Thursday he doesn’t like the Liberal government’s budget law, saying it’s better to have the goal of balancing the budget rather than having a law that has to be repealed every time the books are inconveniently in the red.
“We’ve seen over the past four years it’s kind of a Monty Python sketch,” he said. “You know, we have a balanced-budget law and we never balance the budget.
[np-related /]
“We haven’t had a balanced budget this term, so I’d rather have a balanced budget than balanced-budget laws.”
Dix made his balanced-budget comments to reporters following a speech to municipal politicians at the annual Union of B.C. Municipalities convention.
The Liberals brought in their balanced-budget legislation in 2001 and amended it in 2009 to permit two deficit budgets. The government delivered balanced budgets between the fiscal years 2004-2005 and 2008-2009.
Finance Minister Mike de Jong said he’s concerned one of Dix’s first political promises involves getting rid of a law that seeks to keep the province’s finances in line.
Most of the electorate would view responsible fiscal management as a desirable state of affairs
“It’s troubling,” said de Jong.
“Even before being in a position to potentially govern, Mr. Dix and the NDP are saying those rudimentary rules of not spending more than you take in shouldn’t apply to an NDP government.”
He said he was also concerned Dix never put forward any plans on how he would enable B.C.’s economy to grow.
Earlier this month, de Jong delivered a quarterly report that included an increased deficit forecast due to huge declines in natural gas revenues.
De Jong said his government is sticking to its amended budget law that calls for balanced books in 2013-14, but he added it wasn’t going to be easy.
The province has announced a government-wide hiring freeze and plans to curtail spending.
Dix said the goal of an NDP government under his leadership would be to balance the books, but governments need to consider revenues, which can fluctuate drastically, as is currently occurring with natural gas.
Economist Helmut Pastrick said balanced-budget laws serve as benchmarks for governments, but there are many other factors and variables involved in budget making that make rigid predictions difficult.
Pastrick, the chief economist at B.C.’s Central 1 Credit Union, said previous government’s have managed to table surplus budgets without balanced-budget laws. He said government’s don’t set out to table deficit budgets with or without balanced-budget laws in place.
“Most of the electorate would view responsible fiscal management as a desirable state of affairs,” he said. “A balanced budget [law], I suppose, imposes some discipline on that. But I still think it comes down to more fundamental questions that have to be asked as to the nature and the role of government in the economy and society.”
It’s great that MLAs can get together in the fall
The B.C. branch of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation pounced on Dix’s plans to repeal the balanced-budget law, suggesting it could signal the start of B.C.’s return to the deficit spending of the 1990s under former NDP governments.
“Any suggestion to make it easier for politicians to put us further into debt should send shivers up taxpayers’ spines,” said Jordan Bateman, the federation’s B.C. spokesman in a statement. “NDP MLAs have talked about tax hikes, spending sprees and borrowing money — three things B.C. just can’t afford.”
He said the current legislation docks cabinet ministers up to 20 per cent of their salaries for failing to balance the budget and meeting ministry goals.
The NDP leader told the UBCM delegates he wants to take name-calling and personality issues out of B.C. politics, but he started off his speech with a jab at the Liberals for not holding a fall session.
“It’s great that MLAs can get together in the fall,” said Dix as he pointed out the many NDP MLAs who were in the audience. “The legislature isn’t sitting in the fall, and I think that’s too bad.”
He drew applause from municipal leaders for saying they deserve more control over location and development of mountain resorts and over whether to accept public-private partnerships in their communities.
He also told the packed room that British Columbia should have more say on the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project but rapped what he called the government’s late interest in the mega-project. |
It will be coming soon!Summary: After hearing from Luna, Octavia decides to stop worrying about the dark future and focus on the thing that matters most, her friendship with Scratch. Meanwhile Scratch is worried about the thought of losing her best friend after misunderstanding Tavi's sarcasm. What will happen to Scratch and Tavi's friendship? Find out in the next exciting issue of Scratch N' Tavi!I found out some things on how to make the picture more shaded. I'll try to explain this the best I can. On other pictures that I've shaded in they are shaded but they're not clear enough. The picture doesn't exaggerate the shade enough so it makes the image look flat.The title still looks like crap but I really hate typography. I tried to keep to their theme with the names and tried to be creative. Design isn't really my strong suit but I think I can get better at it.Next silvathebrony.deviantart.com/a… |
The week before Inauguration Day, incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had the unpleasant task of trying to dismiss the seriousness of Donald Trump’s Russia scandal. In practice, that meant dismissing some of the figures from the Trump campaign who were implicated in the broader controversy.In the face of reports about Trump associates with controversial ties to Moscow, Spicer told reporters , for example, “Carter Page is an individual whom the president-elect does not know.”It was a curious response. During the campaign, Trump personally singled out Page as one of only a handful of people who were advising him on matters of foreign policy, but as the controversy surrounding the campaign’s ties to Russia intensified, Spicer nevertheless made it sound as if Trump couldn’t pick his own adviser out of a lineup.Today, as Politico reported , it happened again in an even more dramatic fashion.
This is amazing for a couple of reasons. The first is that the claims are plainly ridiculous. Manafort was hired last year to help oversee Team Trump’s delegate-count operation, and soon after, Trump promoted him to the role of campaign chairman, the perch from which he effectively ran the entire campaign. (Manafort also reportedly helped out with personnel decisions during the transition .) To say the campaign chairman “played a very limited role” on the campaign is laughable.The same is true of Flynn, who was obviously far more than just a campaign “volunteer.” The former general was a member of Trump’s inner circle; he played a prominent role at the Republican convention; and soon after the election, he was named White House National Security Advisor, which isn’t a role that goes to some random guy who had an unpaid gig on the campaign.The other reason to take this seriously is what it tells us about the White House’s perspective. Team Trump wouldn’t argue publicly that Trump’s campaign chairman is an irrelevant, peripheral figure unless it were afraid of where the scandal is headed.This is, in other words, a preemptive defense in the event Trump campaign officials are directly implicated in serious wrongdoing. Spicer is effectively declaring now, just in case, “Those guys aren’t our guys.”For months, Trump, Spicer, and other prominent White House officials have dismissed the entire Russia scandal as utterly meaningless. They put their credibility on the line, swearing up and down that no one in the operation did anything wrong with regards to Russia. Today was one of the first pieces of clear evidence that Team Trump is now more concerned than it’d like to admit. |
April 7, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – Sudanese army warplanes killed 14 civilians during an airstrike carried out in Central Darfur state a week ago, said the UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
“The Joint AU-UN Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) is able to confirm the dropping of 10 bombs which led to the killing of 14 civilians and the wounding of 18 others in Rowata, Central Darfur, on 1 April,” Dujarric said at a press conference at the UN Headquarters on Tuesday.
The Sudanese army conducts regular aerial raids on the positions of rebel groups in the region since the start of this year. However, the government recently intensified the airstrikes in Darfur ahead of general elections which will take within a week.
The rebel groups vowed to disrupt the electoral process in solidarity with a campaign launched by the opposition forces calling to boycott the elections.
Dujarric said the army continue the attacks adding bombs dropped in the area failed to kill peacekeepers who were present in the area on Monday.
“Yesterday, a verification patrol was dispatched to Rowata; while it was in the village, the team witnessed another aerial bombardment, consisting of five bombs dropped close to where they were standing,” he said.
The UN mission strongly condemns such aerial bombings, which cause widespread death, destruction and displacement of populations, he further said.
UN agencies say there are 31,800 new displaced persons affected by the military campaign “Decisive Summer” on the rebel position in some parts of Jebel Marra area in Central and North Darfur states.
(ST) |
From Richard Pryor to Martin Lawrence, comedians have been making us laugh about race and police brutality for years.
Tension between the African-American community and police officers is nothing new. In fact, some of our favorite comedians have been making jokes about police brutality and racial tensions for years. Here are a few of our favorite comedians sharing social commentary through humor.
Richard Pryor: “Police choke ni—s to death.” Late comedian Richard Pryor knew the deadly effects of a chokehold from a police officer way back in 1977. (Start at 00:40-1:07)
Dick Gregory: “Watts Riots/ Civil Rights” Though it wasn’t standup, comedian Dick Gregory spoke poignantly about the Watts Riots. Fast forward 49 years and he could be talking about Ferguson.
Paul Mooney: “Every Black male has a police story.” Comedic genius Paul Mooney shares how difficult it is to be #AliveWhileBlack before it became a trending hashtag (Start at 00:59-01:29)
Dave Chappelle: “Black people are very afraid of the police.” Dave Chappelle highlights the stark differences between #CrimingWhileWhite and being #AliveWhileBlack in a hilarious anecdote about driving with his white friend “Chip.”
Katt Williams: “Police can kill your ass today and come up with a story for the news tomorrow.” Katt Williams has some harsh truths about the role media coverage plays in directing the narrative about police actions. (00:52-3:05)
Chris Rock: “How to not get your ass kicked by the police.” Chris Rock reminds us in a hilarious way not to give police officers an excuse to arrest you and what usually happens when you argue with a cop.
Louis C.K.: “Every year, white people add a hundred years to how long ago slavery was.” (Start at 1:48) C.K. jokes about how racial historical context should always be taken into account.
Martin Lawrence: “White people get away with a lot of sh*t when it comes to the cops.” Lawrence reenacts why White people have a lot more freedom when it comes to encounters with the police.
Mike Epps: “Black people are afraid of the police.” Epps jokes about how Black people are hyper-aware of police presence.
Aries Spears “White people, y’all got a freedom we just don’t have.” Aries Spears shines a comedic light on white privilege. (Start at 00:50-01:22)
Aamer Rahman: “Fear of a Brown planet.” Is there really such a thing as reverse racism? |
At least until very recently, rappers performing at lavish Bar Mitzvahs—the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony—was one of those weirdly unspoken taboos of rap: An incredibly lucrative way to make quick, easy money, that nobody wanted to talk about, let alone have evidence of. Why?
Well, for one thing, to take money to perform for a bunch of barely pubescent children (literally: 13-year-old children) doesn't really do much to, say, firm up one's reputation in the streets. And when so many rappers' reps are so connected to how much they've caked up, when they're taking money to perform at children's birthday parties (no matter how much money they're taking), their bank accounts still pale in comparison to the people booking them.
But between Rick Ross' recent The Black Bar Mitzvah mixtape and Drake's Bar Mitzvah-themed video for "HYFR," the topic might be losing a little of the scandalous sheen it's previously held. But then again, after getting the full visual on some of the following pictures and videos—some of which have never publicly appeared, previously—it could require revisiting. Either way, one thing's certain: These kids and their parties became the stuff of legends...that need to be put on the Internet.
These are Great Moments in Rappers Performing at Bar Mitzvah Parties. Mazel tov, B.
RELATED: 20 Ridiculous Rapper Mansions |
A common theme in the debate on gun violence is that it is only liberals that are for controlling firearms and that it is President Obama leading the way as the only President to have ever considered gun control. History clearly suggests otherwise.
Gun Control…the catchall phrase which can mean everything from confiscation to requiring an ID to buy a firearm – depending upon who is trying to define the term is historically the result of an act of gun violence that makes the country stop and reevaluate its priorities regarding guns, gun violence and the role of government in affecting the safety of society.
St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Chicago, 1929
The National Firearms Act of 1934 was the result of gangster violence in the 1920s and early 1930s…punctuated by bootlegging wars in places like Chicago and Kansas City to the hundreds of bank robberies of John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelly and Bonnie and Clyde. The common denominators…extreme gun violence and machine guns.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 was the direct result of five events…the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr and the Supreme Court ruling on Haynes v United States which negated part of the 1934 Act. After the two very high-profile assassinations in 1968, passage of the bill was pushed by an outraged public and much of the 1968 bill was supported by the NRA.
Robert Kennedy Assassinated, 1968 – Ron Bennett Photography
In 1972 George Wallace, southern governor who was campaigning to be President was shot during a campaign rally and left wheelchair bound. President Richard Nixon, himself on the campaign trail was outraged that, yet again the political process was impacted by gun violence. The Washington Post reports that, post assassination attempt Nixon “proposed ridding the market of Saturday night specials, contemplated banning handguns altogether and refused to pander to gun owners by feigning interest in their weapons.”
The Oval Office tapes of Richard Nixon finds this quote from May 16, 1972…
“I don’t know why any individual should have a right to have a revolver in his house.” “The kids usually kill themselves with it and so forth.” He asked why “can’t we go after handguns, period?” – Richard Nixon
Nixon Attorney General John Mitchell spoke to the question of getting rid of the cheap, $20 Saturday Night Specials by saying “No, the gun lobby’s against any incursion into the elimination of firearms.”
Exactly one month later, June 17, 1972 burglars working for the Nixon “Committee to Re-elect the President” broke into the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee. Within a month President Nixon’s priorities had changed completely… fighting for his legacy, his presidency, and his freedom.
This was not, however Nixon’s first commentary on guns. In a 1969 conversation with his then staff speech writer William Safire Nixon said “Guns are an abomination.”
Long time outspoken Republican William Safire, in 1999 working as the libertarian-conservative voice of the New York Times wrote regarding the Second Amendment…
“[A] right that sometimes isn’t is no right at all. After a great job on the First Amendment, the amending Founders botched the Second. The intellectually lazy will say, ”Let the Supremes sort it out.” I say, let the people decide a political issue. Either we’re serious about our right to gun ownership or we’re serious about our need for gun control. Here’s how to fix a flawed amendment that is the source of so much confusion: Repeal its ambiguous preamble. Let some member of Congress introduce an amendment to strike the words before the comma in the Second Amendment.”
James Brady shot during Reagan assassination attempt, March 1981
In March 1981, outside the Washington Hilton Hotel, Ronald Reagan met an assassin’s bullet. It was not successful in killing Ronald Reagan, or his Press Secretary James Brady. It was, however the action that directly led to the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban…forwarded by Republicans James and Sarah Brady. The bill is commonly known as the Brady Bill in James Brady’s honor. Further, Ronald Reagan himself advocated for it, and said in a March 28th speech to George Washington University as well as a March 29th editorial in the New York Times…
“Every year, an average of 9,200 Americans are murdered by handguns, according to Department of Justice statistics. This does not include suicides or the tens of thousands of robberies, rapes and assaults committed with handguns. This level of violence must be stopped. Sarah and Jim Brady are working hard to do that, and I say more power to them. If the passage of the Brady bill were to result in a reduction of only 10 or 15 percent of those numbers (and it could be a good deal greater), it would be well worth making it the law of the land.” – Ronald Reagan
Reagan further addressed his philosophy on gun violence by saying.
“California, which has a 15-day waiting period that I supported and signed into law [Mulford Act] while Governor, stopped nearly 1,800 prohibited handgun sales in 1989.”
In 2002, post 9/11 William F. Buckley, Jr. framed his thoughts on gun control with this…
“The assertion of a right at ridiculous lengths — the absolutization of it, in the manner of the American Civil Liberties Union — is a way of undermining it. If the Constitution says you can say anything you want under any circumstances, then you can shout “fire” in a crowded movie theater. If you have the right to remain silent in all circumstances, then you can decline to give testimony vital to another citizen’s freedom and rights. If you insist that a citizen has the right to own a machine gun, you discredit his right to own a pistol or a rifle.” – William F. Buckley, Jr.
Buckley’s position is summarized that he is opposed to gun control, but cannot fathom the NRA’s opposition to banning military style assault rifles.
Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, James Brady, William Safire, William F. Buckley, Jr. These are not left-wing, liberal haters of guns. They are pillars of the Republican Party, of the conservative movement in the United States. They support the Second Amendment and they are pragmatic enough to understand that gun control – in one of its many fluid definitions is necessary to stop gun violence, necessary to strengthen the fabric of American society.
McAllister is a life long liberal, environmentalist, Eagle Scout, and even gun owner – born in Harlan, Kentucky and has lived in Southern California, New York City and now resided in Lexington, Kentucky as a Systems Analyst.
You can read more of McAllister’s observations and opinions at Shoot From the Left Hip. |
We’ll see in due course what difference Obama’s contribution to Britain’s debate over EU membership (and, in particular, “back of the queue”) will make to the way that voters see the issue. FWIW, I would guess that Obama has (1) annoyed those already inclined towards Brexit, (2) delighted those who want to stick with the EU and (3) slightly increased the nervousness about Brexit’s risks felt by many in the undecided camp.
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Nevertheless, it was striking to see the weakness of the response of those (nominally, at least) at the top of the ’official’ Brexit campaign to Obama’s arrival. Rather than take the president on over the issues, the preferred option seems to have been ad hominem attacks and grumbling over the whereabouts of a bust of Churchill, a tack hardly designed to win over the undecided (and it’s the undecided who will decide this vote), or convince them that Brexiteers have thought the reality of Brexit through.
In similar vein, it was depressing to read this in The Spectator by Charles Moore, distinguished journalist, euroskeptic and Thatcher biographer:
The ‘remain’ campaign is having some success with the line that the ‘leave’ camp cannot say what Britain outside the EU would look like. (Nor can the ‘remain’ campaign, of course, though it doesn’t stop it trying.) But it is crucial to the ‘leave’ cause that it resist the temptation to set out a plan.
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Eh?
Moore explains:
‘Remain’ wants it to fall into the SNP trap in the Scottish referendum of proposing something which can then be picked apart. There is a cast-iron reason why ‘leave’ cannot do this. Even if we vote to leave, the ‘leave’ campaign, unlike the SNP in the Scottish vote, will not form a government.
Yes and no.
It’s true that the ‘leave’ campaign is not in a position to determine how Britain’s departure from the EU would be negotiated. At the same time, it does need to show that there are Brexit routes and that they can be navigated in a safe and straightforward way. Many undecided voters, I suspect, have no great love for Brussels, but they are unwilling to take the risk (as they see it) of leaving the EU, a risk that the Bremainers are, naturally enough, playing up.
To that end, Brexiteers need to explain why those risks are far less than the undecideds now fear, and a pretty good way to do it is—smelling salts—a plan. Brexiteers need to demonstrate not only why Brexit, but how. As it happens, I think that the best way to go is some variant of the ‘Norway option’ via membership of the European Economic Area (EEA). That’s a step that initially would change little (and thus would not alarm the nervous) but over time would make all the difference. If you are interested, go here for a detailed and very well-researched explanation of how it could work (warning: lengthy PDF).
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The Norway option is not perfect, but note the use of the word variant: there can be, so to speak, Norways and Norways. To be sure, as Mr. Moore fears, a concrete plan can be attacked, but that’s fine, most of those attacks can be debunked pretty easily – and have been, again and again, if not by the ‘official’ Brexit campaign.
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That’s not to deny that there are other Brexit routes too, but they have to be explained in a way that shows they are workable. A wish, a prayer and talk of the Anglosphere is not enough.
Mario Cuomo famously said, “You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.” There’s a lot to that, but a campaign designed to reassure (as the Brexit campaign must be) will need to include quite a bit of prose too.
Last week Justice Minister Michael Gove, the most impressive member, in many respects, of Prime Minister Cameron’s government, made the case for Brexit, a cause he is supporting at considerable risk to his political career.
The speech was impressive, inspiring even, filled with the poetry, but a touch light on the prose.
Thus:
There is a free trade zone stretching from Iceland to Turkey that all European nations have access to, regardless of whether they are in or out of the euro or EU. After we vote to leave we will stay in this zone. The suggestion that Bosnia, Serbia, Albania and the Ukraine would stay part of this free trade area – and Britain would be on the outside with just Belarus – is as credible as Jean-Claude Juncker joining UKIP. Agreeing to maintain this continental free trade zone is the simple course and emphatically in everyone’s interests.
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I know what Gove means, but by putting it that way he left himself open to the smear (duly forthcoming) that in the post-Brexit world, Britain would, in trade terms, fare no better than Albania, or, maybe, would even become Albania…
Ludicrous, of course, but not the mood music of reassurance.
And, nor for that matter, was the appearance by one of the key members of Vote Leave (the official Brexit campaign) before a parliamentary committee last week. You can watch it for yourself here. It’s not what any Brexiteer wanting to win the campaign should want to see.
Recent polling evidence suggests that public opinion is moving towards Bremain and away from Brexit. As winning a vote for Brexit was always going to be an uphill struggle, that’s not good news.
Brexiteers need to raise their game. Soon. |
by
This report is dedicated to Serena Shim. Because both of us, had been covering an almost identical story. Because she is dead and I am still alive. Because she was brave. Because even as she was being threatened, and scared, she did not stop her dedicated quest for the truth, and as long as people like her live, work, struggle and die for our humanity, all is not lost, yet!
***
The weather is gloomy; it is drizzling and heavy fog is covering the entire countryside. After leaving Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq, large and small military as well as police checkpoints appear; like ghosts, on both sides and in the middle of an old, dilapidated motorway, which was built during Saddam Hussein’s years.
There are huge Kurdish flags waving above the checkpoints. Small ones are attached to the bumpers of cars.
“We cannot slow down, unless the guards order us to stop”, explains my driver, as we pass by the mountains of sandbags and the aggressive black muzzles of machine guns. “They have orders to shoot without warning.”
We don’t stop, but I photograph whenever it is possible, even through the windshield.
We are driving on the road that leads straight to Mosul, the city that was taken by ISIS, or as it is known here, in Arabic, Da’ish, in June 2014.
My driver is scared. The entire region is tense and this time even the city of Erbil (also known as Arbil) has not been spared. On the 19th of November, a car bomb exploded in front of the Governor’s office, killing at least 6 people, and injuring dozens. Almost immediately, ISIS took responsibility, declaring their aim to spread insecurity in the Kurdish, which is pro-Western, enclave of northern Iraq.
As our car literally flies over the bumps and potholes, on the right-hand side of the road, stand huge oil-drilling installations and refineries that are barely visible, belonging to KAR, the Kurdish oil company. The flames of the refineries burn confidently, and there are countless tanker trucks with Turkish license plates, parked or driving all along the main and secondary roads.
We soon pass Kalak Town, also known as Khabat. This used to be a major checkpoint; this is where refugees from Mosul used to stream through into the Kurdish region, by the thousands daily, after the ISIS surprise offensive. There used to be posts of several UN agencies here, as well as staff from all sorts of NGO’s, spies from countless countries, and armed forces wearing different uniforms.
Now – there is just the road and some desperate makeshift fruit stalls. The road has been destroyed, broken, much the same as almost the entire country of Iraq has: battered, bleeding, and hopeless.
Soon after, there is a huge checkpoint, which ends with a wall made of concrete blocks. Now that is the end of the motorway. All around are antennas and watchtowers, SUVs and military vehicles.
“We cannot go any further”, says my driver. “ISIS is just a few kilometers away from here. Nobody can go any further.”
But I have everything arranged. A few minutes of talking, a few hot cups of tea, and from the post I go in further, in a Toyota Land Cruiser, driven personally by a Kurdish battalion commander of the Zeravani militarized police force (part of the Peshmerga armed forces), Colonel Shaukat.
We drive towards the massive concrete wall, and as we get very close, I realize that there is a small tunnel wide enough for military vehicles. We pass through it, and then the countryside opens up, becomes open and wide, and we speed towards the city of Mosul.
The road is totally empty and eerie. There are a few machine guns scattered leisurely around the cabin of the 4WD. There is one under my feet; I actually have to rest my shoe on it. Mechanically, I make sure that it is secured.
A few kilometers from the post, and there is a huge sand wall, then, a little bit further along, another one. The walls cut across 4 lanes of the motorway, leaving only one narrow passage.
“These used to be border lines between us and ISIS”, explains the colonel. “You can see how we are gradually pushing them further and further back, towards Mosul.”
War mementos dot the highway:
“This car blew up; exploded by a suicide bomber”, the colonel continues. “ISIS also detonated the tanker truck over there, as we were forcing them towards Mosul and the hills.”
And suddenly, the road ends. There is a river and a totally wrecked bridge.
“Khazer River!” the colonel gets emotional. “They –ISIS – were all over this area. They blew up the bridge… They destroyed my checkpoint, see over there?”
It all looks desperate around here, totally ruined. But there is a new military bridge, a metal one, just one lane wide. A few fighters approach us.
“We pushed ISIS from here” I am told again.
“How far is Mosul?” I ask.
“7 kilometers”, they say. “At most 10.”
I don’t think so. I have a navigation system in my phone, and it appears that we are at least 15 kilometers from the doomed city.
“And where is the nearest position of ISIS, now?”
The Kurdish military men take me to the provisory military bridge, and wave their hands towards the hills, SSW from our present position.
“They are there, on those hills. And they are still shelling us, day and night?”
“Mortars?” I wonder.
“Not those. Mortars would not make it that far. They are shooting artillery rounds – 155 calibers. They get that stuff from Iran.”
“Are you sure it comes from Iran?” I wonder.
“We are told…” I don’t ask by whom.
Next to the bridge there is Sharkan Village, totally empty, and de-populated.
The colonel comes back to me: “I will drive you through the villages”, he says. “We will make a detour. The US bombed ISIS into the ground, here, on the 9th of September. Then we attacked, and recaptured this territory. We lost some people… We lost Captain Rashid… We lost a soldier whom I knew – his name was Ahmad. ISIS also killed many Peshmerga troops. Several soldiers died because everything around here was mined.”
We drive straight to that mess: Sharkan Village, then Hassan Shami.
“This is the village of the former Minister of Defense”, the colonel tells me. “This used to be his house.”
Almost everything has been flattened, but the mosque stands. The bombs penetrated countless houses and there is debris all over the place.
“How many civilians died?” I ask instinctively.
“Not one”, I am told. “I swear! We provided great intelligence, so the US forces knew what to bomb.”
I wonder… House after house: all destroyed.
Soldiers of the Kurdish army keep emerging from the fog, as we drive through this desolated land. There are many different uniforms being worn here, but everyone salutes the colonel. Some even come up and kiss him.
No one lives in the villages, anymore. The villages were ‘liberated’, but destroyed. People were killed, or they escaped. Or maybe something else happened to the survivors: I do not ask because I know that I would not be told.
“Do you also plan to liberate Mosul?” I ask.
“We are not going to take Mosul”, says the colonel at one of the stops and consequent military gatherings. Others nod in agreement. “We have nothing to do with that city… We just want to recapture what is ours.”
As we drive back to the Khazer base, I am told that the ISIS contingent, fighting around here, is truly ‘international’. Recently, the Kurdish forces killed 3 Chechen fighters, 4 Afghanis, 2 Germans and 2 or 3 Lebanese.
I suddenly realize that the colonel speaks perfect English, something very unusual in this part of the world. And he only identifies himself with a single name.
“Colonel Shaukat”, I ask. “Where did you learn to speak English so well?”
He gives me a big and bright smile: “In the United States and in the UK. I spent 2 years in the UK and 14 years in the US, where I was trained. I was also trained in Austria…”
“Where exactly were you trained in the US?”
“In North Carolina”, he replies.
At the base, we sit on some rugs: with about ten Kurdish officers and me. Again, we drink tea. I pass my name cards, but the colonel only gives me his phone number: “No time for the internet, but come back, anytime! We like real war correspondents, here.”
I interview two doctors in Mosul, a long-distance call, as we drive back to Erbil; the mobile phones are still working:
“ISIS do not kill anymore”, I am told. “Those who had to die are already dead. Now you smoke, and they cut off your finger. You work during the time for prayer, and they punish you. They have killed Shia Muslims, Kurds, and Christians… They had their list of the people to murder… Now Mosul is screaming from pain: we are out of medicine, milk formula, pampers for children, food…”
***
In the evening I have a cup of tea with an old scientist, a nuclear physicist, called Ishmael Khalil, originally from Tikrit University, now a refugee. We are in the ancient tea-room in the center of Erbil. He speaks:
“All that I had was destroyed… Americans are the main reason for this insanity – for the total destruction of Iraq. Not just me, ask any child, and you will hear the same thing… We all used to belong to a great and proud nation. Now everything is fragmented, and ruined. We have nothing – all of us have become beggars and refugees in our own land.”
Machko Chai Khana is a true institution: an old, traditional tea-room carved into the walls of the ancient Citadel of Erbil. This is where many local thinkers and writers gather; where they sip tea and play cards.
Now local intellectuals rub shoulders with refugees arriving from all over Iraq, and from as far away as Syria.
“I used to teach and to create, I used to contribute to the building my country. Then Iraq was invaded and destroyed. I can do nothing, now… I have nothing… Now I only sleep and eat. And that is exactly what the West wants – they want to destroy our minds!”
As he speaks, Professor Khalil browses through his smart phone, showing me photos of his university, of his office and his former students.
“I escaped five months ago, after my university was devastated by ISIS. And we all know who is behind them: the allies of the West: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others… I often dream about my country, as it used to be, during Saddam Hussein. The infrastructure was excellent and people were wealthy. There was plenty of electricity, water… There was education and culture for all…”
***
Now the Autonomous Kurdish Region of Iraq (with Erbil as its capital) is trying to promote itself as relatively stable and increasingly prosperous, ‘unlike the rest of Iraq’. It has some of the greatest oil reserves in the world, and therefore attracts huge investments from the West. While the rest of Iraq is bathing in blood, decomposing economically and socially, this part of the country is ‘not allowed to collapse’, due to the strategic importance it has to the United States and Europe.
There are foreigners everywhere. As I find myself detained at a checkpoint, for an hour, just before the city of Kirkuk, allegedly for routine questioning and ‘for my own safety’, I see a convoy of several white government Toyota Land Cruisers speeding towards Erbil, with a Western man wearing sunglasses, sitting behind an enormous machine gun mounted on the back of the leading vehicle.
In a luxury hotel, the Rotana, I share an elevator with a British bloke walking barefoot, his filthy boots carried by a butler.
“I ruined my boots in the desert!” The Westerner confesses, smiling at his servant. “I teach people how to shoot, you know? Do you like shooting?”
“Oh yes, sir!” The man carrying the pair of dirty boots replies. He is most likely from Syria, a refugee. He is very eager to please. “I love shooting so much, sir!”
Foreigners are in control of oil production, they are ‘dealing with the military issues’, they run hotels, and they even work here as masseuses, waiters and domestic servants. Westerners are in charge of business, and there are Turks, Lebanese, Egyptians, Syrians, Indonesians, and people from the sub-continent, doing all sorts of managerial, skilled as well as menial jobs.
Turkey is investing heavily, and it has been building everything here, from shiny glass and steel office towers, to the brand new international airport on the outskirts of Erbil. It is Iraqi Kurdistan’s most important trading partner, followed by Israel and the United States.
Turkey, a staunch ally of the West and of Israel, is also deeply involved ‘politically’. Some of my academician friends in Istanbul actually claim that it is running almost the entire Iraqi Kurdistan.
Despite all that positive propaganda and hype that is being spread about Iraqi Kurdistan by the Western mass media, the place feels chaotic, even depressing. As any country or region of the world, which is under the total control of Western business and geopolitical interests, Iraqi Kurdistan is mainly geared towards the exploitation of natural resources and the neglect of its own people. While the income disparities are growing, there is very little done to improve the living standards of the impoverished, uneducated and deeply frustrated majority.
As a top manager (he is from an Arab country, and is afraid to reveal his identity on the record) of one of Erbil’s luxury hotels explained:
“We were young and ready for any adventure; we wanted to experience the world. And we were told: ‘grab the opportunity and come to Erbil! It is soon going to be another Dubai! But look at it now, after all these years: the people are very poor, and there is no infrastructure. Basically, there is no drainage and the electricity is constantly collapsing: we have blackouts for long hours every day, and all the hotels have to use their own generators. Can you imagine, a country with so much oil, but with constant blackouts? They want to be independent from Iraq, but they have ended up in the deadly embrace of the foreigners: Westerners, Turks and Israelis are running their country. It is perfect for the rich, for the elites. Only the rich and corrupt are benefiting from the way this country is structured. There is not a single solid factory here… I am just wondering what they going to eat after they run out of oil.”
I drive to the Erbil Refinery, belonging to KAR (a local oil conglomerate), located in Khabat district, at Kawrkosek town (also known as Kawergosk), just 40 km west of Erbil city. The army, police and paramilitary are everywhere, protecting the installations. There are Turkish tanker trucks parked all along the road. But as I drive just a few minutes further, up to a hill, the misery screams out loudly in my face.
I speak to Mr. Harki, whose house faces the refinery. He is indignant, like most of the common citizens:
“All this is for the rich… All this is for the corporations and nothing for the people. This oil company has taken our land. It said that we would get compensation: money, fuel, jobs… But until now, we have got nothing! I am very angry. Now my family is sick: we have respiratory problems, the air is just terrible.”
A few kilometers further, away from the motorway, the entire area is contaminated with garbage and filthy scrap yards. All types of fences, some even high-voltage ones, partition the land, just as in the rest of ‘Iraqi Kurdistan’.
In the town of Kawergosk, I see several Muslim women picking up some roots, right off the road, obviously in order to fill the stomachs of their families.
Not far from them, I spot a public elementary school. It is dilapidated, and extremely basic.
This Muslim community is obviously neglected, despite the nearby oil basins and refineries. No wonder: the pro-Western regime in Erbil is openly anti-Arab and pro-Western. President Barzani repeatedly speaks about the Eurasian character of his enclave, disputing that it has anything to do with an undesirable Middle-Eastern Arab character.
A school principal, erect, beautiful and proud, wears a headscarf. I dash into her office, and then slow down and apologize. I have only one question for her: ‘Do any of the proceeds from those oilfields and refineries outside, end up here, in her school, in the education sector’?
Her reply is as short and precise, as my question: “No, nothing! Our people and our schools get absolutely nothing!”
But the number of Kurdish millionaires is growing, as is the number of luxury limousines and SUVs, as are the flashy malls for the elites, as are the armies of arrogant security guards, local and imported.
Like in so many ‘client’ states of the West, in Iraqi Kurdistan it is uncertain whether all those men flashing their machine guns are actually protecting the country from terrorists, or whether they are guarding the elites from the impoverished masses.
***
Not far from the oilfields, there is a massive refugee camp; this one is for the Syrian exiles.
After negotiating entry, I manage to ask the director of the camp – Mr. Khawur Aref – how many refugees are sheltered here?
“14,000”, he replies. “And after it reaches 15,000, this place will become unmanageable.”
I wanted to know whether all the refugees housed here actually come from Syria?
“They are all from the northern part of Syria; from Kurdish Syria. Almost all of them are Kurds; we have very few Arabs.”
I am discouraged from interviewing people, but I manage to speak to several refugees anyway, including Mr. Ali and his family, who came from the Syrian city of Sham.
I want to know whether all new arrivals get interrogated? They do. Are they asked questions, about whether they are for or against the President Bashar al-Assad? Yes they are: everybody is asked these questions, and more… And if a person – a truly desperate, needy and hungry person – answers that he supports the government of Bashar al-Assad, and came here because his country was being destroyed by the West, then what would happen? His family would never be allowed to stay in the Iraqi Kurdistan.
***
Inside the magnificent Citadel, one of the longest inhabited places on Earth, and now a World Heritage Site, so designated by UNESCO, Mr. Sarhang, a curator at the impressive ‘Kurdish Textile Museum’, is as discontented with his country, as are almost all people in and around the city of Erbil:
“We are supposed to be safe, but just a few days ago, on the 19th of November, a bomb blast killed 6 people, just a few minutes walk from here. ISIS claimed responsibility. Now as you can see, nobody dares to walk around here, and the museum is empty. But that is not the only problem that we are facing. Look at the outskirts of Erbil: they are building brand new posh apartments for the local elites and for foreigners. A flat goes for around US$500,000! Who can pay that? Money that is made here is siphoned out, by foreigners and by our corrupt officials and businessmen. There is almost no public transportation here, and extremely bad infrastructure…”
Back in Machko Chai Khana, Professor Ishmaeal Khalil raises his voice, as the owner of tearoom blasts old tunes by the great Egyptian singer, Am Khalthom:
“Kurdish people are playing it both ways: they say one thing to the West, another to the Iraqi government. France, Germany, US – they are clearly betting on an ‘independent’ Kurdistan. The West wants to break Iraq, once and for all. They have already created a deep divide between the Shia and Sunnis, and they will go much further. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey – those are all close allies of the US and they are involved in the project. You speak against the plan – and you get killed.”
He suddenly stops talking and looks around. Then he changes the subject:
“Today, again, there is no electricity in Erbil.”
I recall some of the last words of the Kurdish Colonel Shaukat, uttered near the frontline with ISIS: “Our allies are the US, the UK, France, and other Western countries.”
As if to confirm his words, some 40 kilometers away, at the gates of Erbil International Airport, there are jets that have just come directly from Frankfurt, Vienna, Ankara, Istanbul and many other ‘friendly cities’: Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Turkish Airlines, also some unidentifiable 747s.
***
There is an increased nervousness in and around the city of Kirkuk, which sits on tremendous oil deposits, and which has been for several months now, governed by both the Kurds and the Iraqi government in Baghdad.
“Some anti-Western forces are operating there, right now”, I am told.
It appears that almost no one likes the government in Baghdad, and no one, except some Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan likes Westerners.
It is no secret that ISIS was welcomed in Mosul and other places, by desperate citizens. But many, or most of the educated Iraqi citizens, see them as some sort of routine nightmare – an offshoot of the US and European client-movements, created and armed in order to destroy President’s al-Assad’s Syria.
All of this is an extremely dangerous game. Millions have already died over the last few decades, in all parts of the Middle East; victims of the barbaric Western geopolitical games, victims of the West’s allies: in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and all over the Arab world.
People like Serena Shim, a Lebanese-American journalist who had been covering these horrendous events for Press TV, get intimidated. If they don’t stop working and telling the truth, they get liquidated, murdered – exactly as happened to her.
In the meantime, corrupt businessmen and local officials, but mainly foreigners, are stripping Iraqi Kurdistan naked, systematically.
And there is very little left in the rest of Iraq.
As has become extremely common, thieves and murderers are now calling themselves ‘liberators’ and good Samaritans.
Iraq is bleeding, but almost nothing of the truth has been allowed to penetrate the rest of the world, about the awful fate of this country once known as the cradle of our civilization.
Andre Vltchek is a novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. The result is his latest book: “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. ‘Pluto’ published his discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. His critically acclaimed political novel Point of No Return is re-edited and available. Oceania is his book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about post-Suharto Indonesia and the market-fundamentalist model is called “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. His feature documentary, “Rwanda Gambit” is about Rwandan history and the plunder of DR Congo. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and Africa. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter. |
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TV great Sir David Attenborough was tonight recovering from emergency heart surgery to have a pacemaker fitted.
The 87-year-old documentary maker was forced to cancel a tour of Australia at the last minute today after his cardiologist rushed him into hospital after telling him the procedure was needed as soon as possible.
A source close to the star said: “It was very serious and this heart operation could not wait.
"David was checked out and doctors found a heart defect.
“He was then quickly taken in for the operation after he was told he needed a pacemaker.
“Everything is on hold but now he just needs some rest and he should make a full recovery.”
A BBC spokesman revealed an Australian speaking tour, due to start next week had to be cancelled.
The spokesman said: “It’s a minor procedure but it meant that he cannot go on a 27-hour flight to Australia.
“He’s very disappointed that he can’t fulfil the tour but it’s nothing to be alarmed about. He’s seeing his doctor now but he’s still his lively self.”
Attenborough’s lawyer Michael Ridley suggested the veteran presenter was in his usual no nonsense frame of mind, despite the operation.
He said: “We are all hoping it is very straightforward, as pacemaker operations are these days.
“I was chatting to him yesterday and he was in perfectly good spirits, he was very disappointed to cancel the tour and let those people down, but in himself he was absolutely fine. He is frustrated he had to go into hospital.”
Tonight a BBC source confirmed the operation had been successful and Sir David was now recovering.
The source added: “Doctors are very happy with his progress.”
The news of the urgent surgery first broke in Australia when the star cancelled the sell-out tour called Sir David Attenborough - A Life on Earth.
It was due to start a week today in Brisbane before heading off to Canberra, Perth, Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne.
Promoters are hoping that once Attenborough recovers from the surgery the visit can be rescheduled.
Sir David, whose groundbreaking 60-year career has included Blue Planet and Frozen Planet, recently narrated and presented the BBC1 hit Africa.
Danny Cohen, BBC Director of Television said: “We all wish Sir David a full and strong recovery.”
Sir David also presented a new BBC Radio 4 series, Tweet Of The Day, devoted to birdsong.
The wildlife star said recently that he had no intention of doing less, saying: “I’ve been broadcasting for 60 years.
"I don’t want to slow down. Retirement would be so boring.”
Pacemaker operations: Analysis by Dr Doireann Maddock, sernior cardic nurse for British Heart Foundation
A pacemaker is a small battery-operated device that fits in your chest.
It is smaller than a matchbox, weighs less than 50g, sits under your collar bone and sends electrical impulses to produce a heartbeat.
This is one of the most common types of heart surgery – around 25,000 of us have it done each year.
It is usually carried out under local anaesthetic and takes around an hour. Most patients leave hospital the next day.
You may feel tired after, but most get back to normal fairly quickly.
It is normally advised you avoid strenuous activities for three to four weeks. But then you should be able to get back to doing sports.
It’s natural to feel worried before any type of procedure, but your doctor will be able to put your mind at ease about your pacemaker. |
Menachem Mendel Taub (born 1923) is the Rebbe of the Kaliv Hasidic dynasty. Born in Transylvania in 1923, he is seventh in a direct paternal line to the founder of the dynasty, Rabbi Yitzchak Izak of Kaliv, a disciple of the Rebbe Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk.
His second cousin, Rabbi Moshe Taub, is the Kalover Rebbe of Williamsburg, New York.[1]
Biography [ edit ]
Menachem Mendel Taub is the son of Rabbi Yehuda Yechiel Taub, the Rozler Rov, and son-in-law of Grand Rabbi Pinchos Shapiro, the Kechneyer Rebbe, scion of the Nadvorna dynasty. He had six brothers and sisters.[2] He married his first wife, Chana Sara Shapiro, before the start of World War II.[2]
In 1944, he was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, arriving there three days before Shavuot. While in Auschwitz, he was experimented upon by Josef Mengele. Because of "chemical burning experiments", he is unable to grow facial hair;[2] he is also unable to have children.[citation needed] He was transferred from Auschwitz to the Warsaw Ghetto and the Breslau concentration camp, and later to Bergen-Belsen. Six months after the war ended, he reunited with his wife in Sweden. In 1947 they immigrated to the United States and settled in Cleveland, Ohio.[2][3]
He and his wife immigrated to Israel in 1962.[2] The following year he founded Kiryas Kaliv in Rishon LeZion.[4] The foundation stone was laid on 7 Adar 5723 (3 March 1963), the day of the yahrtzeit of the founder of the dynasty, Grand Rabbi Yitzchak Isak Taub. Several years later he moved his headquarters to Bnei Brak.[2] In 2004, the rebbe's court moved to Jerusalem.[2]
Activities [ edit ]
Since World War II, the Rebbe has actively spoken about the Holocaust and frequently invokes the memory of the Jewish martyrs. He has encouraged the recital of "Shema Yisrael" to memorialize Holocaust victims at the conclusion of religious events in Israel.[5] He has also traveled to interact with millions of Jews by telling his story and encouraging the saying of "Shema Yisrael". He is also active in Jewish outreach and conducts regular lectures for groups of professionals, including doctors and police officers. In addition, a network of kollels, an encyclopedia project, and several other divisions of Kaliv have been founded.
In March 2014 he participated in the annual conference of the Rabbinical Congress of Europe, which met in Budapest to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the destruction of Hungarian Jewry.[6] He delivered an emotion-laden speech in Hebrew, and switched to English to direct remarks to US President Barack Obama and Russian president Vladimir Putin.[7]
Personal life [ edit ]
Taub's first wife, Chana Sara, died in 2010.[2] On Lag BaOmer 2012, he remarried to 55-year-old Sheindel Malnik of Bnei Brak.[2]
Lineage [ edit ]
Grand Rabbi Yitzchak Izak Taub of Kaliv (1751–1821) Grand Rabbi Moshe Chaim Taub of Kaliv-Zidichov (died 1831): son of Rabbi Yitzchak Izak, son-in-law of Rabbi Tzvi of Zidichov Grand Rabbi Shlomo Taub of Kaliv-Rozlo (1820–1879): son of rabbi Moshe Chaim, son-law of his uncle, Rabbi Yehuda Tzvi Eichenstein of Rozlo Grand Rabbi Yehuda Tzvi Taub of Kaliv-Rozlo (1849–1886) Rabbi Pinchas Chaim Taub Chief Rabbi of Rozlo (d. 1936): son of Rabbi Yehuda Tzvi and author of Toras Chesed , Ohel Moed , and Alufei Yehudo ; lived in Margareten during World War I Rabbi Yehuda Yechiel Taub, Chief Rabbi of Rozlo (d. 1938): son of Rabbi Pinchos Chaim and author of Lev Someach heChodosh Grand Rabbi Menachem Mendel Taub of Kaliv, present Kaliver Rebbe
Bibliography [ edit ]
Kol Menachem , a 13-volume work on the Torah and Jewish holidays
, a 13-volume work on the Torah and Jewish holidays Shema Yisrael , a 2-volume encyclopedia on the Holocaust (Hebrew) [8]
, a 2-volume encyclopedia on the Holocaust (Hebrew) Shema Yisrael: Testimonies of devotion, courage, and self-sacrifice, 1939–1945 (English)[9] |
AHMEDABAD, India — India’s most important election in a generation began in earnest this month the same way consequential elections nearly always start here — with a proclamation and a deadly riot.
In New Delhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party announced last week that it had chosen Narendra Modi, one of the most divisive politicians in India’s history, as its candidate for prime minister in next spring’s national elections. Mr. Modi, the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, is an unapologetic Hindu chauvinist who has been accused of mass murder.
Mr. Modi has tempered his anti-Muslim tirades and replaced them with a message of development based on a record in Gujarat that even critics acknowledge is impressive. But critics also say he and his Hindu nationalist party have benefited from past violence between Hindus and Muslims, using it to paper over Hindus’ historic differences over caste and get them to vote as a bloc along religious lines.
Not coincidentally, mass rioting broke out last week in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous and politically important state, after a legislator from Mr. Modi’s party circulated a fake video of two Hindus being lynched by a Muslim mob. Forty-four people were killed and 42,000 were displaced as villages were sacked. |
With the final preseason game on the horizon, it is the last chance saloon to impress for many Falcons. The team will have to trim the roster from 75 to 53 by 4 PM ET this upcoming Saturday. Thursday night is essentially the final audition for many of these hopefuls.
Likewise, the Jaguars will also have players eager to impress and make the 53. While the quality of the 4th preseason game is usually uninspiring, the effort is anything but. The Jags will field some impressive rookies, particularly on offense, including the heir to Jacksonville’s throne – Blake Bortles. They followed up that pick with talented ex-USC WR Marqise Lee but perhaps the best WR this preseason has been their undrafted rookie Allen Hurns who is 3rd in catches and 1st in yards. With an aggressive downfield passer in Bortles, the Falcons secondary should be in for a challenge.
There are plenty of positions for the Falcons which feature players still battling for roster spots and over the next few slides, I’ll be breaking down each group in contention. |
George McMahon and Patsy McMahon pose next to the park they have operated since 1970, that is now sold and locked on Thursday, June 1, 2017 on Brainard Street in Detroit. (Photo: Rachel Woolf, Special to the Free Press)
Memories ran through Patsy McMahon's mind as she gripped the fence of the padlocked Brainard Hills Park next door to her Cass Corridor home.
It’s where she married her husband, George McMahon, in 1968, a year or two before the land was officially designated as a small community pocket park by the now-shuttered St. Patrick Catholic Church in Midtown.
And for the past five decades, the couple has spent much of their lives tending to the park at 469 Brainard near Cass Avenue, hosting countless picnics and parties for generations of children who grew up in the neighborhood.
But now, the park's future is at risk, and the McMahons and other community members have pledged to do everything they can to save it — even if that means embarking upon a potential legal battle after the Detroit Archdiocese quietly sold the land in March to a couple who has expressed a desire to redevelop the half-acre plot.
[On Detroit's RiverWalk, plans are being made for a park that includes a 'huge sandbox designed to feel like a beach.' Tap to read more.]
The park is less than a mile north of the Little Caesars Arena that's under construction.
“We called (the Archdiocese) and a woman said she would call back in a few weeks but that call never came," Patsy McMahon, 82, said, adding she also sent a letter. "We were totally surprised when this guy came and said he bought the park. We couldn’t believe it. … If they turned it into something else I would cry. I feel like I will have lost part of my life. This feels like gentrification. It's heartbreaking.”
A mural in the park once owned by the Archdiocese of Detroit, that is now sold and locked, is seen on Thursday, June 1, 2017 on Brainard Street in Detroit. (Photo: Rachel Woolf, Special to the Free Press)
According to city assessor records, the land, which is valued at $221,000, was sold by the Archdiocese for $5,000 on March 15 to Simply Well Communities, a company registered to Detroit resident Kimberly Williamson.
But Williamson's attorney, Lawrence Walker, told the Free Press last week his client "exchanged real estate" with the Archdiocese. According to the community members, the Archdiocese traded the park for a parking lot near the Sacred Heart Major Seminary on the city's west side.
Also read:
Williamson owns the land with her husband, Lawrence Williamson, who is the associate director of housing for the City of Detroit.
And although Lawrence Williamson is a city employee, he hasn't broken any rules by purchasing the land, according to Detroit Corporation Counsel Melvin Butch Hollowell.
Hollowell said in a statement to the Free Press on Monday that the city charter requires certain employees and officials to disclose any ownership interest in real property if it is subject to city regulation.
"Also, if the city itself had any interest in property being sold or transferred, it would be subject to prior approval by the City Council," Hollowell said. "In this case, neither provision applies since neither a city official nor the city itself have any interest in the property.”
In an e-mail to the Free Press, Archdiocese of Detroit Director of Communications Ned McGrath said the park was previously "under the care" of the St. Patrick Parish, which the Archdiocese closed in May 2015.
“Its geographical territory was given to the care of three nearby parishes: Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, Most Holy Trinity and St. Aloysius,” McGrath wrote. “As is standard practice in such circumstances, the Archdiocese of Detroit took over care of St. Patrick’s property … until a determination was made on future use. Being no deed restriction or acquired interest by others in the Brainard property, it was sold March 14th of this year.”
But Patsy and George McMahon, who were parishioners at St Patrick's until its closure, said there was an original deed that restricted the use of the land, saying it had to be used as a park and if it wasn't it would go back to the church. She said the couple has searched tirelessly for the deed but has yet to find it.
“The Archdiocese has really just had to pay the insurance,” she said. “We never asked them to maintain it or take care of it. George and I have paid people to keep it clean. We replaced the roofs on the shelters when they were going bad. We repaired the fences in the back when they were starting to go bad. We, the community, did that. The contributions of the Archdiocese were minimum.”
From left, Elijah Dorn, 3, and his cousin Ella Wheeler, 5, both of Detroit, play on the sidewalk in front of the park once owned by the Archdiocese of Detroit on Thursday, June 1, 2017 on Brainard Street in Detroit. Dorn and Wheeler used to play in the park. (Photo: Rachel Woolf, Special to the Free Press)
Francine Dorn, another nearby resident, said the community was unaware that the land was even for sale. Dorn said many neighbors were upset when the park was recently padlocked and a newly purchased swing set removed.
"We had all been members forever," she said, clutching family photos taken at the park. "They didn’t contact people who had maintained the park or who had been parishioners to even let people know they had an option."
Rebecca Wheeler holds an old photo of, from left, herself (Rebecca Wheeler), her children, Maya Wheeler, then 1, Jacob Wheeler, then 3, and her husband Jamal Wheeler, all of Detroit, during Jacob's birthday held in the park once owned by the Archdiocese of Detroit, seen on Thursday, June 1, 2017 on Brainard Street in Detroit. (Photo: Rachel Woolf, Special to the Free Press)
McGrath declined to comment further on the matter.
Walker said his clients purchased the property fair and square in an arm's-length transaction, and pushed back against the notion that the community has rights to the park.
"There were no indications whatsoever that this was something to be dedicated as a park and a matter of fact, there is no such restriction on it," Walker said. "I know these good citizens allege that they have always used it as a park or they have maintained it as a park with the permission of the Archdiocese, but that's not a legal basis to take someone's property away from them."
It's not yet clear what the Williamsons plan to do with the land, but a Green Garage profile of the business states the couple designs "living spaces."
According to the page, the couple moved to Detroit from southern California three years ago. The profile goes on to say that the couple "noticed the excessive blight and barely livable neighborhoods Detroit offers" and decided to set out on a journey to pull Detroiters "from the snares of poverty, mental illness and obesity."
"I don't know what the intentions of the Williamsons are but these people just can't take someone else's land from them just because they've had the beneficial use of it," Walker said.
Clara Doutly, 95, has seen the community change in the near century that she has been alive, but for her, the park has been a mainstay. Doutly said she spends her time now relaxing at the Parsons Senior Center or at the park with the McMahons, whom she has known for more than 30 years.
"All the years that I've been coming here, when the children got here they were just happy," she said, standing outside of the locked park. "People come from all over. It was our place to go. It was just a lovely affair. It gives children a chance to know people care about them."
Nine-year-old Sebastian Dorn said he's worried that he will no longer have a place to play near his home. His mother, Rachel Dorn, said most of the children in the neighborhood live in apartments and don't have an actual backyard.
"You could just come here anytime," Sebastian Dorn said. "It was open to everybody. It makes me sad that it might not be a park anymore."
Walker said his clients, who declined to comment directly to the Free Press, hold no ill will against the community near the park but he's prepared to represent the Williamsons if the situation escalates to a lawsuit.
"If there is somebody who wants to bargain to buy it or exchange, I'm sure the Williamsons would listen," Walker said. "... But whatever they do is going to be a decision they make, not something the people in the neighborhood force them to. That's up to the community if they want to pay an attorney to proceed on a frivolous case."
The park once owned by the Archdiocese of Detroit is now sold and locked, seen on Thursday, June 1, 2017 on Brainard Street in Detroit. (Photo: Rachel Woolf, Special to the Free Press)
Patrick Dorn, executive director of the nonprofit Cass Corridor Neighborhood Development Corp., said his organization attempted to negotiate purchasing the property from the Williamsons but they weren't interested. The CCNDC owns several affordable housing apartment buildings in the Cass Corridor area.
"We have a lawyer and we’re thinking about suing because there’s something with squatters rights," Dorn said. "If you maintain a property for 50 years, you get some sort of claim to it. We’re going to fight this in whatever way we can.
"There's a tradition and a sacred ground here and once you build that, it takes years to build something like it. To lose that tradition overnight is devastating for our family. We worked all our lives to make this neighborhood a working great neighborhood and now we’re getting pushed out through gentrification."
Contact Katrease Stafford: kstafford@freepress.com or 313-223-4759.
Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/2soY3nm |
OTTAWA – Canada has no overall policy or legislation to govern the use of hired guns in war zones, much to the alarm of human-rights groups and opposition parties who say the country has been left dangerously exposed. The lack of a clear protocol has forced some federal departments, notably National Defence, to improvise as they attempt to manage security in unpredictable and volatile regions such as Afghanistan. "In the absence of an overarching policy on the use of private military contractors, (assistant deputy minister-policy) staff have taken the position that the (Canadian Forces) should at this stage strive for consistency," a Defence Department briefing note warned last year as officials debated whether to arm independent security guards hired by the army. The Canadian Press obtained the note under the Access to Information Act. The Canadian military employs four private security contractors in Afghanistan to guard bases and road construction projects. Foreign Affairs has also signed a host of hired guns to oversee embassies and diplomats in many of the world's trouble spots.
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"There definitely needs to be a human-rights policy in place to govern military security companies," said Fiona Koza, who manages Amnesty International Canada's business and human rights section. "Canada has a responsibility to ensure that humans rights are not being violated." A Canadian soldier – Master Cpl. Josh Roberts – was shot and killed in a confused firefight in Zhari district, west of Kandahar, an incident initially blamed on private security guards. A military police investigation concluded he died as a result of a Taliban bullet, a finding his family questions.
Private security contractors have become a common features in war zones over the last decade, taking over routine garrison jobs from stretched professional armies, which are in turn freed to take up offensive operations. A series of shootings, particularly the murders of 14 Iraqis in Baghdad by Blackwater guards in 2007, forced the United States to introduce strict legislation to regulate the use of hired guns. Among other things, the U.S. law passed in January 2008 requires private guards to report whenever they've fired their weapons, in much the same way police officers are held accountable. U.S. Rep. David Price introduced a bill in Congress last spring calling for even tougher measures, demanding among other things that Washington establish minimum training standards for guards and create a database to track shootings and human-rights violations.
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Both Canada and the U.S. administration are among nearly 30 signatories to the Montreaux Document, a non-binding international deal that asks nations to take responsibility for the actions of security contractors they hire and to ensure the guards adhere to international human rights law. The congressional legislation proposed by Price, which has not been approved, would require the U.S. Secretary of State to open talks with other countries to turn the accord into a full-fledged treaty. A Foreign Affairs spokeswoman, Laura Markle, said Ottawa "is not contemplating legislation" of its own. New Democrat defence critic Jack Harris said that's a mistake. "If we're at the point where the Canadian government doesn't have a policy that says when it's OK and not OK to use them, then it's time for a legislated framework," he said. The Conservative government has repeatedly ducked questions about the issue, preferring tightly scripted email responses to queries, where officials repeatedly emphasize Canada "respects its obligations under applicable international law." Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae said criticism of military contractors should be tempered with the knowledge that guards work in an extremely dangerous environment. But he said he's also in favour of looking at legislation. Instead of laws, Ottawa prefers to control its hired guns through individual service contracts, copies of which were obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act. Most of the agreements, running about 11 pages, that were signed up to January 2008 contain scant reference to international human-rights law. They demand private contractors agree to "obey, comply with and enforce all applicable Afghan laws and regulations" as well standing orders of the Canadian military. The onus is placed squarely on the company for its actions. The contract for protection around Kandahar's provincial reconstruction base, signed in mid-2007, required the security company to ensure its employees read the International Red Cross's code of conduct for combatants. Many of the Afghan employees of security contractors can't read. |
CLOSE A federal judge has ordered the Patent and Trademark Office to cancel registration of the Washington Redskins' trademark, ruling that the team name may be disparaging to Native Americans. The judge said the organization could keep its name. USA TODAY
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on Friday it has intervened in a lawsuit filed by the Washington Redskins football team, which argues that part of a federal statute regulating trademarks violates the First Amendment. The government is supporting the position of six Native Americans who successfully argued for the U.S. Patent Office to cancel six of the Washington football teams trademarks. An appeals panel found the trademarks were derogatory to a substantial composite of Native Americans at the time the marks were granted. (Photo: USA TODAY Sports)
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of the Washington Redskins' trademark registration, ruling that the team name may be disparaging to Native Americans.
The ruling by Judge Gerald Bruce Lee affirms an earlier finding by an administrative appeal board. Bruce ordered the federal Patent and Trademark Office to cancel the registration.
Lee emphasized in his 70-page ruling that the organization is still free to use the name if it wishes — the team would just lose some legal protections that go along with federal registration of a trademark.
The team had sued to overturn a ruling against it by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. The team argued that cancellation of its trademark infringed on its free-speech rights because it required the government to judge whether the name is offensive.
The organization can appeal. Calls to team spokesman Tony Wyllie and the lawyers who represented the team in court were not immediately returned.
Jeff Lopez, lawyer for the Native Americans who challenged the team's name, said he expects the Redskins to appeal the ruling to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. But he said that Lee's ruling was an across-the-board victory for his clients and that he is confident it will be upheld.
Lopez said his clients are hopeful that the team will take heed of the decision and change its name.
In rejecting the team's free-speech argument, Lee cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month allowing the state of Texas to bar depiction of the Confederate battle flag on specialty license plates sought by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Specifically, Lee said federal law allows the government to exercise editorial control over the content of the trademark registration program, and he equated trademark registration to government speech as opposed to private speech.
Lee said the legal standard for canceling the registration is whether the name "may disparage" a substantial composite of the Native American community. Though the team has maintained that the name honors Native Americans, Lee said there is ample evidence that the name may be perceived as disparaging. He cited the fact that Native American leaders have been objecting to the name for decades, along with dictionary citations that the word is typically considered offensive. |
Backers of the whistle-blowing organisation WikiLeaks recently launched Friends of WikiLeaks (FoWL), an encrypted social network for like-minded individuals. “Friends of WikiLeaks is a network of people from across the globe who defend WikiLeaks, its people, its alleged sources and its mission,” the website’s homepage says. “We publicly and privately promote WikiLeaks and individuals and organisations aligned with the mission of WikiLeaks. This site will help you to join with people like you in your area and across the world. You will make new friends and new allies, care for treasured values and fight in common cause.” Instead of having users find people to friend, as is the case with Facebook and Google+, Friends of WikiLeaks will assign users 12 friends each, six of which will be from a similar geographic location, and six others from other parts of the world who speak the same language. If a group is assigned an inactive user, the group can boot the user and the service will automatically assign a new “friend” to the group.
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TAIPEI (Reuters) - Strong iPhone 6 sales lifted annual net profit at Pegatron Corp, the Taiwanese assembler of Apple Inc, to a record high, as its chief executive questioned the company’s reliance on smartphones to generate revenue.
A picture illustration shows Apple Inc's logo reflected in a person's eye in Zenica, March 13, 2015. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
Pegatron on Monday said 2014 net profit rose 53.4 percent from the previous year to T$14.66 billion ($466.8 million).
Fourth-quarter net profit also surged 68 percent to a record T$5.68 billion, as revenue from its communication devices business grew to account for just under two-thirds of its overall revenue, up from 30 percent in the same year-ago period.
Asked about Pegatron’s reliance on smartphones, Chief Executive Jason Cheng told an earnings briefing Pegatron was taking advantage of a good business opportunity.
But he added: “It’s definitely not a good thing to be too concentrated on just a few clients. But you can’t avoid the fact that mobile phones have been fast sellers. When good business comes your way, how can you not take it?”
Apple sold more than expected iPhones over the year-end holiday season.
Last month, a labor rights group said low costs helped Pegatron win business from Apple, which allegedly moved some orders from rival Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd after an increase in labor costs aimed at addressing a spate of worker suicides in 2010.
Pegatron’s strong communication device revenue contrasts with weaker sales of most of the other tech products it assembles: computers’ contribution to revenue fell 38 percent, while consumer devices, which includes tablets and video game consoles, dropped 17 percent, it said.
“They should be careful about their reliance on Apple,” said Fubon Securities analyst Arthur Liao, who estimates Apple products contributed as much as 59 percent to Pegatron’s revenue last year.
Pegatron rival Hon Hai has struck several deals to diversify away from contract manufacturing, including buying a stake in a Taiwanese telecom provider. On Monday, it said it was teaming up with Chinese social networking firm Tencent Holdings Ltd to develop opportunities related to electric vehicles. |
Blackpool have been fined £25,000 by the Premier League following an investigation into the team selected by ‘Pool manager Ian Holloway for last November’s away game against Aston Villa.
Ollie made a raft of changes for the game which ‘Pool lost 3-2 to a last minute goal, prompting the Premier League’s investigation.
However, the manager vehemently defended his selection to both the media and the Premier League, famously stating that he would tender his resignation should he be found guilty of playing a weakened side.
It was believed that the issue had been swept under the carpet after Arsenal were not investigated for making eight changes against Wigan (a game that they drew), but the Premier League has found BFC guilty of breaching rules B.13 and E.20 after considering the team fielded by the Seasiders in other Premier League games this season as well as the side fielded against Southampton in the FA Cup earlier this month.
‘Pool have been given a fortnight to appeal the decision, but more interesting will be manager Ian Holloway’s reaction – will he stick to his guns and tender his resignation?
As always, we’ll have all the news as it happens on Vital. |
You know, like when the president had the nerve to wear a tan suit to an important press conference.
Since we all need some good news these days, some on the internet are celebrating the day President Obama made the boldest style choice of his presidency three years and one day ago on Aug. 28.
Three years ago today, everybody lost their minds because the president wore a tan suit. Those were the days... pic.twitter.com/kgUHzD9ac2 — Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) August 28, 2017
The “scandal” made for some pretty funny tweets back then:
The Audacity of Taupe pic.twitter.com/3EC7NN0By8 — Jared Keller (@jaredbkeller) August 28, 2014
Who gave President Obama that old church suit from my dad's closet? — Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) August 28, 2014
Obama vows to defeat whoever made him wear this suit. pic.twitter.com/zoqj7OVFRe — Josh Barro (@jbarro) August 28, 2014
I can’t hear what Obama is saying over his suit. — Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) August 28, 2014
BREAKING: President Obama wears tan suit to press conference, Internet expresses outrage while wearing pajamas on the couch — Rex Huppke (@RexHuppke) August 28, 2014
And at the time, it basically broke the internet and even spawned its very own Twitter account:
More than 4,000 tweets were posted about Obama's suit during that press conference pic.twitter.com/uyKoUrZlNy — Kia Makarechi (@Kia_Mak) August 28, 2014
Though his suit drew the ire of some politicians, many in the fashion industry praised Obama’s bold choice.
“I applaud him for wearing a tan suit,” Joseph Abboud, fashion designer and chief creative director of Men’s Wearhouse, told HuffPost at the time. Abboud previously made suits for the president when he worked at Hart Schaffner Marx. “You don’t want to look the same every day of your life. It’s boring as hell.”
Fotogramma / Splash News Helllooooo George Clooney! |
RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazardis used his keynote speech at the 2010 BlackBerry Developer Conference on Monday to show off the company's new BlackBerry PlayBook touchscreen tablet. Lazardis called the 7" widescreen device the "first professional tablet," touting its BlackBerry enterprise integration and full web experience with HTML5 and Flash 10.1 compatibility.
The tablet hardware is fairly impressive, sporting a 1GHz dual-core ARM Cortex A9-based processor, 1GB of RAM, and an undisclosed GPU capable of running OpenGL code. The device has a 3MP front-facing camera and a 5MP rear-facing camera, both of which record HD video at 1080p resolution. 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth, microUSB, and microHDMI round out the connectivity options, with 3G and 4G options planned for eventual release next year.
Probably the most divisive design decision may be the 7" 1024 x 600 pixel widescreen display. While this size is the same as the recently launched Samsung Galaxy Tab—and appears to be what many upcoming tablet products plan to use—it does make for a somewhat awkward aspect ratio for vertical orientation. However, Lazardis emphasized how the size makes the device extremely portable. At just 9.7mm thick, it could conceivably fit into a largish jacket pocket. Weighing in at less than one pound, it should be easy to carry, but RIM hasn't mentioned word one about battery life—it may not be as long as many users would like.
As rumored, the PlayBook will run a new QNX-based multitasking OS called BlackBerry Tablet OS. BlackBerry will offer a full POSIX-compatible native SDK for its tablet OS, as well as a JavaVM to run apps written for BlackBerry OS 6. Additionally, RIM announced WebWorks to build web-based applications. Full native API support is available via JavaScript, and leverages the same WebKit-based browser as BlackBerry OS 6 for HTML5 compatibility.
The PlayBook will also have a fully hardware-accelerated version of Flash 10.1, bringing users a "full web experience." And developers will be able to build Flash and AIR-based apps for the PlayBook, on top of the native, Java, and Web APIs.
The PlayBook will be able to pair with a BlackBerry smartphone for sharing data and its 3G data connection. It also is compatible with full device management solutions and BlackBerry Enterprise Server integration. Lazardis called it "BlackBerry amplified."
The PlayBook isn't expected to launch until the first quarter of 2011 in the US, with international rollout continuing through the second quarter. No pricing is yet available, and some specifications may be subject to change. Developers can sign up for access to cross-platform BlackBerry Tablet OS developer tools starting today. |
Blue Mountains' Hydro Majestic hotel rediscovers its former glamour after $35m restoration
Updated
It has been the venue for glamorous costume parties, a hospital for hurt soldiers and the site of the death of Australia's first prime minister.
Now, one of Australia's grandest 20th-century hotels is returning to its former glory.
The Hydro Majestic, at Medlow Bath in the Blue Mountains, will reopen on Friday after being closed for almost a decade.
Over the past six years, the Hydro Majestic has undergone a $35 million transformation to restore some of its renowned grandeur and elegance.
Built in 1904 by retailer Mark Foy, the Hydro Majestic was a hydropathic spa until 1909.
It then became a luxurious hotel which was described as Mr Foy's "private lodge".
The dome in the casino room was bought by Mr Foy and shipped from Chicago to Sydney, then transported by bullock train over the Blue Mountains.
Interior designer Peter Reeve, who has been working to restore the hotel's original look, said the hotel had an "incredibly glamorous" past.
"It was a time when the British empire world fell in love with everything oriental," Mr Reeve said.
"We want to take people back to a time of incredible decadence and somewhat fun, a bit like an opium den."
Mr Reeve said Mr Foy was very wealthy and philanthropic.
"He bought luxurious furnishings, fantastic sculptures, great artworks, and [brought] a lot of very wealthy friends to his private lodge," he said.
"[There were] lots of costume parties, there was a permanent band that played every night, there was a changing dinner menu every night, it was dress-for-dinner every night.
"There were costume parties on Friday nights where invariably every man would wear his wife's clothes and vice versa."
In 1920, the Hydro Majestic made headlines when Australia's first prime minister, Edmund Barton, had a heart attack and died there.
During World War II, it was used as a hospital for American soldiers.
The hotel's group general manager, Ralf Bruegger, said the Hydro Majestic was "quite run-down" when it was bought six years ago.
"But what you see now is a grand experience," he said.
"We wanted to bring it back to its glory days how it was when the Hydro Majestic was opened."
Topics: architecture, lifestyle-and-leisure
First posted |
Mexican Calendar Girls
The Golden Age of Calendar Art: 1930-1960
by Angela Villalba
forward by Carlos Monsiváis
A truly popular art form, the glamorous paintings of Mexican calendar girls have a long and fascinating history—as advertisements, promotional gifts, and emblems of Mexican cultural heritage and pride. The result of years of research, this exciting and informative book shares more than 150 vibrantly colorful calendar images, plus archival photographs and other materials that illuminate their creation. A fully bilingual text gives an overview of the calendars' social and cultural history, along with biographies of the unknown talented artists who painted them. Also including a foreword by the renowned Mexican cultural critic Carlos Monsiváis, Mexican Calendar Girls presents this popular and delightful art for the first time.
NEW Calendarios Mexicanos
If you love Mexican history, vintage Mexican photos and sexy calendar girls, you’ll love this new book published by the Museo Soumaya. It’s filled with hundreds of calendars from 1940 - 1960 and is a feast for the eyes.!
Not only do you have your sexy, long legged adelitas, 1940’s bombshells, cowgirls, shy village women but also Virgins, matadors, horsemen, Mexican dancers, mystical Aztecs and sultry coastal women in traditional trajes.
The book is written by 9 experts on varying aspects of calendar history, production, advertising and content. Angela wrote the chapter on Mexican Calendar Girls which condenses her own book on the subject, Mexican Calendar Girls. These books are very limited and are not sold in bookstores.
Learn more >>
Día Internacional de la Mujer article
Angela Villalba's contribution to hispanic LA's 2010 special series, Día Internacional de la Mujer
Women and the Golden Age of Calendar Art
Mexican calendar art was a unique, ephemeral art form, often dismissed by the cultural elite as mere advertising. But to the Mexican public, the images of the calendar girls were embraced as the nostalgic emblems of Mexican culture and pride. |
The T55E1 3-inch Gun Motor Carriage was a prototype vehicle developed by the Allied Machinery Manufacturing Company in 1943 for the US Army. An eight-wheel drive vehicle, the T55E1 was armed with one three-inch gun in a limited traverse mounting and a supporting .50 caliber machine gun.
Development [ edit ]
Cook Brothers had developed an unusual vehicle for desert conditions. This had two four-wheel-drive bogies each with its own engine. Steering was by pivoting the front bogie. They then developed their design into a tank destroyer with two engines at the rear. There was sufficient interest from the Army for a contract for development as the T55. Testing led to modifications to the pilot as the T55E1. Further testing confirmed that it was not suitable and the T55EI was cancelled.
Power was from two Cadillac eight-cylinder water-cooled engines. Production began in 1943, however by this time preference had shifted to anti-tank vehicles, and the T55E1 was cancelled.
References [ edit ]
WarWheels T55E1 3-Inch 8x8 Motor Carriage retrieved on March 13, 2007
retrieved on March 13, 2007 Duncan Crow and Robert J. Icks Encyclopedia of Armoured Cars
Haugh, David R. Searching for Perfection: An Encyclopaedia of U.S. Army T-Series Vehicle Development (1925-1958) |
TV Reviews All of our TV reviews in one convenient place.
The prime subject of chatter in “The Future,” mini banishments and self-exiles, taps into the dominant mood of the episode: flux. For all the talk of who’s moving where, nothing is quite settled until the end, and really, not even then. It’s hard to get too comfortable.
Amantha sets the stage with a joke. She’s on her way to work, and Melvin’s just sitting at her table. She tries to politely usher him out, then she almost forgets and leaves before her guest, and finally she just blurts out, “Why don’t you leave first? Then I’ll go.” This isn’t Daniel’s situation etched onto a grain of rice, but the scene does lay out some of the ideas of the episode, like the value of work, and it’s the scene that starts the chain reaction that flings Daniel and his mother to the edge of the continent.
Next, Miss Kathy offers Tawney a place to stay with a sort of ticking clock, hoping to motivate Tawney to make a decision. She’s impressing upon Tawney the idea that, while she’s playing musical houses, the situation at Miss Kathy’s is temporary. And she’s doing so with Tawney’s best interest at heart. Rectify is always exploring specific characters’ perspectives, but it especially sticks out in “The Future,” in the scenes with Miss Kathy and Rose sharing their own angles on Tawney and the world, the scene with Jared finally getting some acknowledgment, and the scene with Trey’s wife where Carl and Trey are the active characters but she’s the one doing all the talking.
Teddy, remarkably at peace after his solo visit with their counselor—and notice the rhythm, the way first Tawney went solo, then their schedules lined up, and now it’s only Teddy, like they’re just not in sync—has his own proposition for Tawney. “I want you to come back.” Then he takes an enormous pause, which Tawney breaks. “Teddy, I don’t—,” she begins, but then he’s all, “You didn’t let me finish.” It plays like a writing cheat, like in Arrested Development when Gob’s wife says, “I’m in love with your brother…” and takes a good half a scene to finish, “…-in-law.” But, another way to look at that is Teddy hoping she’d accept the first part, moving back home, without him having to sweeten the pot by moving out. Tawney turns down the full offer anyway. Again, a new housing plan is all for naught.
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During that scene, Teddy’s dressed in his construction clothes, because like Daniel, he’s trying to go to work. In his case, that means helping repair Janet’s torn-apart home, if you catch Rectify’s drift. Daniel’s adamant about fixing the pool on his own dime. He’s atoning. Melvin tells him that when he’s done, he’ll have accomplished something. And Daniel sticks with it, even after Amantha tells him the bad news about how the residents want him out of the complex. He’ll have something to be proud of. Contrast that with Tawney doing chores around the foster home. Miss Kathy preaches education as salvation, an avenue to self-sufficiency, and she ends her chat with Tawney by telling her to let the kids pick up their own toys. It’ll build discipline and maybe integrity. An honest day’s work is vital to “The Future.”
Carl’s day’s work is one of the most traditionally entertaining parts of the season, now more than ever. He lays out his suspicions about what happened to George (and Hanna) in a conspiratorial way with our man Daniel, and he grills Chris, Columbo-style (a little Andy Griffith, too), popping phone records and a DNA test on his mark like a pro. There are a couple of important things to keep in mind, though. The first is that Carl is wrong. He has an idea about what happened to George, but that idea is wrong, and pursuit of that wrong idea, as opposed to just the facts, might lead him to repeat history. The second is that, for all Rectify valorizes certain old-fashioned, Southern, or small-town values, Carl’s approach here might not help him much in the long run. That is, after Chris clams up, he tries to appeal to his conscience and his piety, but it doesn’t work. The conversation fizzles out until he gets back to the deceptive DNA test bit, which had me on the edge of my seat. The DNA convicted George, he says. Daniel was not convicted of rape. Surprisingly, he continues, Trey was cleared by the DNA, too. “I’d like to go ahead and clear you, too, Chris,” he says, peeling back a DNA test, “while I’m in the neighborhood.”
To that, Chris wisely hides behind a lawyer. Daniel probably ought to have, too, but even Jon agrees his one-on-one with the sheriff is a good thing. Really, though? Jon doesn’t have any misgivings about his unpredictable client meeting with the sheriff on his own and spilling all kinds of details about his whereabouts? It plays like the show valorizing old-fashioned directness, as if the justice system is bogged down in lawyers. But back to the subject of work, notice how Chris and Trey, the “bad guys,” are represented. Chris is at home in the middle of the day, and Trey’s sitting in his chair watching a cartoon that his kids hate. It’s Adult Swim’s Squidbillies, and it’s hard not to pick up on the characterization. Jared reads books. Daniel reads and listens to classical music. When he’s not sure what to do, he takes a nap instead of turning on the tube. Has anyone in the Holden-Talbot clan ever had time for such filth as television? But weaselly Trey gets his kicks watching a cartoon. That’s some serious ambivalence, Rectify.
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It’s during the workday that Daniel finds out he’s been evicted yet again and Janet agrees to take him back. Janet’s thinking about the past, just like Tawney and Teddy, when we first see her. Jared’s right: Janet’s so freaked out all the time. “The Future” is her coming to terms with everything. After she addresses Jared’s concerns and makes plans to talk with him once Daniel’s all squared away—but why wait?—she gets the big speech this week. Jared demands an explanation and gets none, but at least he inspires Janet to explain herself to the grown-ups. Finding the Teds in the kitchen, their backs to her, she takes a moment and begins, telling the boys what’s what. “You can stay at Teddy’s if you don’t wanna be here, but Daniel’s coming home.” Ted agrees, and I don’t think he considers moving out for one second, but it’s on the table. Then Janet takes a step toward Teddy and continues:
“I’m so sorry for what happened to you, Teddy. My heart breaks every time I think about it. For you. My heart breaks for you, Teddy. But my heart breaks for my other son, too. Because no matter what you or your dad or anybody else thinks, Daniel’s not a bad person. He’s a sick person. He’s a damaged person. But he’s not bad. And he’s had such a raw deal in his life. So I’m gonna help him. As much as I can. As much as he’ll let me. So he’ll have a chance. That’s all. Just like the rest of us. If we’re lucky.”
You can tell from the script she’s working it out as she goes, and J. Smith-Cameron plays it naturally, changing her strategy throughout, one moment basically apologizing to Teddy and the next justifying to herself. At her openly discussing the assault, the men react in silence. Ted turns to his son to give him a contrite look, and Teddy looks upset. From there, Janet’s speech gradually disarms Teddy. The composition prioritizes his reactions, he’s the subject of her primary appeal, and Clayne Crawford slowly opens his arms until they’re hanging by his sides, helpless. But there’s also a sense of Janet finding solid ground herself, like she didn’t exactly understand her behavior toward them all until she said it out loud. Daniel being a good but damaged person has always been there in the background of her mind, but now she’s given it shape. She doesn’t wait for any reply beyond tacit acceptance. When she leaves, Ted moves toward Teddy to do something, to say something, anything, but Teddy turns away and goes back to work, back in himself.
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It was an overcast morning, but the night sky is clear. Leaving the Teds behind, Janet and Jared show up at Amantha’s for prisoner exchange. They’re actually the last surprise guests at the party, after Jon shows up and after the camera reveals Amantha lying on a pool chair. It’s a funny episode, but this scene is a celebration, from the punchlines (Daniel calls watching paint dry a “big sport in Finland”) to humorous deliveries (Janet asking if they should toast to the sheriff for believing Daniel and Amantha ruling, “No”). Once the pool is done, Janet slumps onto a chair next to Daniel, staring up at the stars. “Could we leave in the morning, Mother?” he asks. Her instinct is to keep him close, so she asks if that’s even allowed with two weeks left on the clock. “Well, I’ve been banished, Mother, so I think it’s allowed.” And then the clincher: “It’s over, Mother.” She lies back and takes it in, her face a picture of acceptance. Daniel wants to take a road trip with Janet to Tennessee. “I wouldn’t mind seeing the ocean again, Mother.” He’s ready to get out of that empty pool and get a Don Draper rebirth. Everyone in “The Future” has a plan, but nothing comes to fruition until Daniel takes responsibility. At last, something is settled. Janet exhales, partly as sigh and partly as a turning of the page. It’s over.
Stray observations
“The Future” is written by Ray McKinnon and Kate Powers and directed by Nicole Kassell, who directed The Woodsman, about a child molester going home after a decade in prison.
Teddy tells the counselor his fears. “I’m afraid I’m never gonna kiss her again. Never gonna hold her. Sleep next to her.” His syntax gets more clipped as he goes on, like it gets more unbearable each time, and then he sums it up. “I’m afraid I’m gonna lose her for good.” “And what would happen if you did?” “I’ll die a long, slow death.” “I’m not sure about that.”
For Tawney, the country reminds her of the future, because it’s where she used to dream about the great life she was going to have. Rose, a foster girl, tells her, “I already know that’s bullshit.” Not with any hostility or aggression. She’s just being matter-of-fact. But then when Tawney tells her that’s probably smart, Rose reveals how shallow that cynicism is: She thinks she’s not gonna be there long, because her mom’s probably going to get her shit together and come back for her.
Miss Kathy tells Tawney, “You always did feel things hard. It’s your cross to bear.”
“So he goes outside, gets the duffle bag, and brings it inside?” “That’s leading, Sheriff.” “Well, you tell me, then.” “He goes outside, gets the duffle bag, and brings it inside.”
There’s a lot of attention paid to Daniel freely walking through halls of justice this season. In “The Future,” he’s not even on the passing cops’ radar. He’s just some civilian.
Amantha finds Daniel painting the pool when she comes to tell him the residents want him gone. “They don’t like the color?” “Guess not.”
Trey’s little girl: “I don’t like Squidbillies, Daddy.” “Hush your mouth, girl. That’s sacrilegious.” Okay, maybe Rectify’s perspective on television is more complicated than it seems, but would it kill them to let a Holden scroll through the guide? What would Daniel watch? You know Teddy never missed a Breaking Bad.
I don’t know or remember what any of this means, but while Trey’s awfully confident the sheriff won’t find anything incriminating at his place, some officers find a toolbox containing a couple rings of keys, a matchbox car, and a scrunchie.
Daniel: “I’m not sure I want to live in a state that’ll have me.” |
Share. War never changes, but its depiction does. War never changes, but its depiction does.
Thematically speaking, conflict is at the heart of pretty much every Final Fantasy. Yet for a franchise that regularly blends warfare with strong, narrative-focused gameplay, the militaristic backdrops can too-often feel shallow. They seem to be a simplistic case of good versus evil, where the human cost is glanced over thanks to the use of faceless enemies wearing extravagant armour. That’s not to say it’s a negative thing, as such, it’s just how the series has traditionally decided to depict war - as a backdrop against which a story can be set, rather than an actual theme to be explored.
Final Fantasy Type-0 changes all that. The first hour of the game makes it clear right from the introduction that war is brutal business. We open as a cowled man named Izana staggers down a street, sword hanging limply by his side as he clutches a wound in his lower abdomen. His magic-wielding land of Rubrum is under attack by the military nation of the Milites Empire, and things are not looking good.
Exit Theatre Mode
Over the eight or so minutes it takes for the game to get into the swing of things, a number of striking things happen. A female soldier, wounded but not dead, is hit by a mortar and spends moments rolling around in the street, screaming as flames engulf her until an invading soldier rushes forward and runs her through with a sword. A quick twist, and blood gushes out of her wound. You read that right. Actual claret in a Final Fantasy title. As if that isn’t enough, moments later a Chocobo is shot at close range, and we witness it writhing in pain, its usually yellow feathers streaked and matted with blood. For franchise veterans, it’s a powerful and unfamiliar sight, seeing one of the franchises’ most iconic mainstays pictured this way. It’s a taste of things to come.
Violence is a fact of these characters’ lives. It’s raw and visceral. It’s stark in its realism, the blood appearing in plausible rather than gratuitous quantities that somehow makes it all the more potent. Don’t get me wrong, the magical elements associated with the franchise are still there – Moogles, Chocobos, crystals and airships are all present and correct – but from the get go it’s the effect on humans that’s the focus, aided by a style of storytelling that mixes grainy documentary-style shots with the time and date stamps we’re so used to seeing in conventional war reporting.
Yes, Final Fantasy XI takes place in a war-torn land, and Final Fantasy VIII casts you as military recruits, but this is a depiction that runs deeper than mere setting. This doesn’t seem like a fantastical war, a battle between good and evil. It seems like a real one where everyone suffers. The violence has never been so vicious, so callous or so palpable. It’s hard-hitting, and I couldn’t help but wish I’d been able to speak to director Hajime Tabata about why this is so, especially with Japan’s fascinating military history. Even in my brief time with the game I spotted more than a few veiled references to serious weapons of mass destruction.
Exit Theatre Mode
There are moments of levity too, of course. The aforementioned Moogles return and are cuter than ever, serving to mark an even greater contrast with the drab decaying world that surrounds them. Towards the end of the demo at the Academy, where you’ll spend your time between missions, a typically Final Fantasy-esque cutscene played out, in which a girl and a Moogle had a funny exchange about what exactly his name should be. Upon her decision to call him Mogalin, he objects, citing his real name as something hilariously lengthy and noble. She decides that’s too long, and Mogalin it is. He doesn’t miss a beat, but responds by reminding her to check the graveyard before she goes to see if anyone she knows has been added. It’s macabre, and a stark reminder of the serious foundations this world is built on.
For years now it’s been clear the Final Fantasy series has been trying to move in a new direction, but without any sort of clear goal. From the decision to ditch the turn-based battles of old to a perceived lack of cohesion in terms of themes, Final Fantasy has been floundering. The decision to pick this former PSP title up, give it a lick of paint and stick it on the new generation of consoles, then, is telling. When it first released, Final Fantasy Type-0 may have been considered a spin-off title to entertain a few. Now, by establishing it as the first single-player next-gen title in the beloved franchise, Square clearly has enough faith to take it from proof of concept to potentially approved blueprint. The idea of making some extra cash undoubtedly proved a deal sweetener, but already the potential implications of what a darker, grittier approach could do the series is exciting after the lackluster Final Fantasy XIII series.
We’ve covered the gameplay in-depth before, but suffice to say I found exploring each character’s strengths and weaknesses to be refreshing after finding the Final Fantasy XIII saga somewhat repetitive, and I can already see how strategic depth will be added by choosing which three members you want to bring with you when you have all 14 members available in the late-game. The biggest drawback at the moment, however, remains the camera. It’s such a hindrance as to render everything the game does right almost moot. I was reassured that its over-sensitivity is a Vita hang-up that will be fixed before the game launches and I sincerely hope this is the case. In the brief span of time I got to go hands-on with Type-0 I was seriously intrigued by it, but this isn’t 1994 - there’s no excuse for a dodgy camera any more.
Exit Theatre Mode
With a new expansion for the staunchly-popular Final Fantasy XIV and the possible release of Final Fantasy XV, 2015 was always going to be an exciting year for the series. For those who’ve been worried about its direction for some time now, there may be light at the end of the tunnel.
Luke Karmali is IGN's UK News Editor. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on Twitter. |
Is the piracy of music a big deal? On the business side of things, sure. Music downloaded basically equals to album/single sales that have been potentially lost. After all if you can have it for free, why bother paying for it, right? Record labels, publishers, and some artists see it that way, but then again there are also those who don’t think of it as too big a deal, and legendary British metal band, Iron Maiden, is one of them. The band relied on data-mining company, Musicmetric, to monitor its growth on social media websites and found that there was a spike in popularity over in Latin America.
Ironically enough Latin America is also where a large amount of Iron Maiden’s materials get pirated, but instead of using those metrics to hunt the pirates down, Iron Maiden decided to fly down there and put on a show for them. Their efforts, instead of pursuing the legal option, have actually managed to net the band around $2.5 million in revenue from a single show that was recently held in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This move also managed to garner the band an additional 5 million followers on its social media pages from 2012 to 2013.
Artists typically make a huge bulk of their money from touring and selling merchandize. While album sales are important, they are typically used to help recoup expenses made by the record label in the production and marketing of the album, with cuts typically favoring the label (although this depends on the contract between the artist and the label). Iron Maiden is also well-established which means that this would be easier for them to pull off compared to an up and coming artist, but what do you guys think?
Filed in . Read more about Music and Piracy. |
A reporter was taken off the air Wednesday from Russian-based television network RT after interrupting a panel on Bradley Manning’s sentencing to speak for several minutes against the country’s recently passed anti-gay laws.
“Being here on a Kremlin-funded propaganda network, I’m going to wear my gay pride suspenders and speak out against the horrific, anti-gay legislation that Vladimir Putin has signed into law,” reporter James Kirchick said.
“RT has been Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden 24/7. I haven’t seen anything on your network about the anti-gay laws that have been passed in Russia,” he continued.
RT hosts frequently interjected to try to steer the discussion back to Bradley Manning, but were unsuccessful. One host pointed out to Kirchick that the network aired a panel discussion with members of the LGBT community the previous week to discuss the new laws.
“You have 24 hours a day to lie about the United States and to ignore what’s happening in Russia,” Kirchick said over the hosts. “I’m going to take my two minutes and tell people the truth.”
Shortly afterward, Kirchick disappeared from the panelists’ splitscreen, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
Watch the video below: |
First there was “Planking.” Then came “The Choking Game.” Suddenly the World Wide Web overflowed with outrageous youth trends, shared and traded on the social media like an outbreak of herpes. Today we are in a crisis of reckless teen antics celebrated on sites like Facebook, Itunes and Youtube. From “vodka eyeballing” to smoking Smarties, from “Brony Parties” to “butt chugging,” children are taking incredible risks with their lives and parents are none the wiser.
The sad fact is that young people are often unprepared to deal with the harsh reality of the internet. By logging online, they’re exposed to people outside their communities, their families and their faith. There may be an older boy with police record clicking on the other end of Facebook. Or a girl from an inner city with her own axe to grind. We may never know, but one thing is clear: children are dying all over the nation because of the peer pressure to be “cool” on the web.
Recently, a curious keyword popped up in my internet filters and I decided to take a closer look. The phrase was “fapping” and innocently enough I devoted one weekend to understanding the strange subculture behind this odd bit of secret slang. What I uncovered was both graphic and shocking. I should warn you, what follows is not for the faint of heart but it is a crucial message for parents today.
“Fapping” is a phrase that was coined on the illegal Chinese website 4-chan (meant to sound phonetically like an Asian pronouncing “Fortune”). Much as the name suggests, this website celebrates a combination of Oriental mysticism and an interest in moneymaking (through trading of illegal download content). On 4-chan, the subculture of “hipsterism” remains strong and as such, the users here are always looking to launch a new fad on the internet. You may have heard of this website as news analyst Bill O’Reilly recently dedicated an entire segment to the threat that it poses to American families.
With fapping, the 4-channers found the perfect way to express their pagan mysticism with an eye to profit. The word itself has an obscene meaning. Fapping, in essence, represents a type of personal gratification with a twist. To the outside observer, it appears to be masturbation, mainly male masturbation, of a most unrepentant and malicious nature. It is a non-procreative function, and thus celebrates nihilism over family values, socialism over Christianity. It is vocal and rapid, harsh and chafing. Done through the aid of streaming hardcore internet pornography, it has driven enormous profits to those who make x-rated content. The twist here is that it’s often done in collusion with others. A grand internet social protest, if you will. Linked up through nefarious underground websites like Omegle, Reddit and Foursquare, “fappers” use message boards and video link ups to push each other into competitions and illicit bodily displays. For the web businesses in question, this trend has reaped them millions upon millions of dollars.
Could this happen to your children? Sadly, the answer is an unequivocal yes. Teens are often lured into the obscure corners of the internet through unusual hyperlinks and racy photographs. Once inside a 4-chan or a Reddit, young people are confused and lost. They may take a wrong turn and end up cornered by bullies with menacing screen-names extolling rape and homosexuality. Overwhelmed by the fast-paced action of these message boards, they feel like there is no choice but to give in to the peer pressure. That’s when the masturbation begins. Taunts and tears keep the young man going at first. He will push himself to physical extremes, risking penile fracture, infertility, homosexuality and much worse.
Later, the fapper will return again and again to these fetid websites, chasing down the rush of a fap high. No, it will never be as thrilling as the first time. The threats are still there, but the promise of acceptance, of finally being in the “it crowd” is long past. He used to think he was breaking all the rules, but soon he realizes that on websites like 4-chan there are no more rules to be broken. You can’t be an outlaw in the underground fap community for they live entirely outside the rule of law. Whether it’s bestiality or sex dolls, dead infants or testicle electrodes, these people have seen it all.
Then comes the bitterness, the anguish. Alone and enraged, the fap addict turns to luring other teens into their sickening world. The prey becomes the predator. It’s a vicious cycle.
Studies have shown that masturbation addicts are disproportionately represented in the under- and unemployed. Close to 98% of marijuana smokers and those serving time in prison are masturbators. They tend to prioritize sleep and the internet over work and family. Ethnically, minorities show a greater disposition to erotic personal gratification over other groups, though these numbers level out once we look at educational backgrounds. Indeed, those who focus on math and the sciences in their academics tend to favor masturbation far more, while teens who devote themselves to athletics are lured into this trap significantly less.
One interesting facet of the masturbation trap is that it can perpetuate the inherent disadvantages of minorities and the socially inept. In public, the chronic masturbator is often an outcast, unwashed and unloved, as he moves from his parent’s basement to a dorm room to an inner city apartment. His chances for employment are severely limited. Hiring managers long ago read the data and realized that fappers have much shorter attention spans and never enough energy to complete even the most basic tasks. Shunned from the workplace, the masturbator takes refuge in his nasty habit, devoting increasing amounts of resources to locate the perfect bed, the most pliable pillow and the fastest internet connection. It’s not long before fapping becomes a gateway to marijuana, as the unemployed and disgraced addict seeks some way to escape the horror of his sour fate. Sadomasochism, welfare, crystal meth, a life of crime and even prison await the young man who has tumbled into this downward spiral.
The good news is that parents can do a great deal to prevent the fap fad from affecting their family. We should always be vigilant about what websites our teens are using and willing to confront them when we see objectionable content. Beyond that, casual monitoring is the key. When a child becomes unnecessarily dependent on solitude and uses closed doors to separate himself from the family, mothers and fathers need to take notice. If a teen’s masturbation habit takes a sudden turn for the worse, don’t be afraid to step in. Mothers, be aware if tissues and Vaseline are disappearing from the home. Dirty sheets, strong odors and unusually crusty stains are another warning sign you can look out for. If a boy is taking lengthy showers, you have a responsibility to check on him to make sure he’s not injured or gratifying. Fathers, once you’ve gathered the evidence, have a talk with your boy and let him know that this whole fap fad is dangerous and immoral and just a passing trend. Who knows, maybe next year the internet will be crazy for face shaving and Wrestlemania! |
In medicine, there is often the concern that a patient will not respond to a particular treatment, but in a turn for the books, physicians are now worried that a new cancer treatment might be so effective at eliminating tumors that it does more harm than good.
After receiving a single treatment of a novel combination therapy, a woman’s tumor seemingly “dissolved” from her chest in just three weeks, leaving her with a gaping hole in its place. The patient received the same cocktail of skin cancer drugs as almost 150 individuals enrolled in a clinical trial designed to test whether one of the therapies worked better on its own or when combined with another. While most patients did significantly better on the combination therapy, researchers were left gobsmacked by this woman’s rapid and dramatic response and have consequently described her case in the New England Journal of Medicine, alongside the trial results.
The therapies the scientists were investigating were the FDA-approved melanoma drugs Yervoy (ipilimumab) and Opdivo (nivolumab), which are both antibodies. The former works by interfering with a molecule that can switch off a type of cancer-fighting immune cell called a T-cell, whereas the latter blocks a pathway that can lead to the death of T-cells. Although they act in different ways, both drugs ultimately stimulate the immune system to fight cancer cells.
For the trial, 142 patients with melanoma that had spread to other parts of the body, or metastasized, were randomly assigned either Yervoy plus a placebo or Yervoy in combination with Opdivo. They found that, overall, patients in the combination group fared significantly better than those receiving Yervoy and the placebo. Fifty-three percent of these patients experienced at least 80% tumor shrinkage, and melanoma became undetectable in 22% by the end of the study—a remarkable response for stage IV cancer. None of the patients in the Yervoy monotherapy group achieved this outcome.
Although the trial is now over, it has been extended so that some advanced melanoma patients can still access the combination treatment, which is how the woman described earlier managed to receive the treatment, Live Science reports. According to the case report, the 49-year-old had undergone both surgery and chemotherapy to treat melanoma over a period of four years. Although she had several tumors removed, the disease was persistent and five months ago she developed a large mass under her left breast, which was presumed to have spread from the primary melanoma on her back.
She was given a single dose of the new combination therapy, but when she returned for her second just three weeks later, she reported that her tumor had “disappeared.” Alongside the obvious hole in her chest, CT scans confirmed that the large tumor had been completely eradicated. While such a rapid and dramatic response may sound desirable, the researchers have expressed concerns since if this were to happen to a tumor elsewhere in the body, such as the bowel or heart, it could have grave consequences.
“It is ironic that we are now concerned about the possibility of overly vigorous antimelanoma responses,” the researchers write.
[Via NEJM and Live Science] |
Swiss defender Philippe Senderos is training with Scottish Premiership leaders Rangers.
The 31-year-old centre-back is a free agent after his six-month contract at Grasshoppers expired in July.
Senderos has won 52 international caps for Switzerland but was not included in his country's squad for Euro 2016.
He started his career with Servette before moving to Arsenal in 2003, and following loan spells with AC Milan and Everton he departed the north London club seven years later having made more than 100 appearances.
Senderos then joined Fulham, and after spending half of a season in Spain with Valencia, he spent 18 months with Aston Villa.
Rangers manager Mark Warburton, who has spoken of the importance of finding value for money in his transfer dealings, has targeted two more players before the deadline at the end of August.
Preston boss Simon Grayson confirmed Rangers have made an enquiry about striker Joe Garner, who is valued at around £1m by the English Championship club. |
The boy’s monster is now in prison, and the 10-month, painful trial — anchored in a series of haunting cellphone videos of a former Mountie interrogating his naked, shackled 11-year-old son in a darkened Kanata basement — is finally over.
But for the boy, there will be a lifetime of healing, an Ottawa courtroom heard Wednesday.
The boy has scars from his time down in the basement, where at the hands of his own father — a former RCMP counter-terrorism investigator — he was handcuffed, shackled, beaten, tortured, burned and starved. The boy slept in chains on the basement floor, next to a slop bucket while the rest of his family went about their daily routines upstairs.
After sentencing the boy’s father to 15 years in prison for his crimes of assault, sexual assault, forcible confinement and failing to provide the necessities of life, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger said the “cruel captivity” the boy faced was “outrageous” and breached the highest form of trust between father and son.
The judge said the boy had been robbed of his childhood, and noted that the ex-Mountie did not express remorse. “In his father’s eyes, he was nothing,” the judge said.
“The extreme violence and psychological degradation was beyond comprehension,” said Maranger.
The former Mountie — who was convicted in November and fired by the RCMP weeks later — was also banned for life from ever being closer than two kilometres to his son.
Related
The abused boy, now 15, did not attend Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, but he wrote a note to his father. As it was read aloud, Courtroom No. 32 fell silent.
“You used to always tell me that two plus two equaled four. If you take all of the multiples of four, that still wouldn’t equal all of the people that now care for me and are in my life. If one day you stop thinking about yourself, you may realize how wrong what you did was.”
While the message was being read, the boy’s father kept his head down as he sat in the prisoner’s box.
The lead investigators on the case — Det. Johanne Marelic and now retired Sgt. Tracy Butler — were praised by the judge for their work. It was Sgt. Butler’s last case, and she thanked her family for understanding the long hours behind it. She also heaped praise on her partner Marelic, who built a solid relationship with the boy and his extended family.
“This is going to be a long road for him,” Marelic said.
On a positive note, the detective said she now has a “new little friend in my life, a remarkable boy.”
“I am very proud of this young child. He’s gone through the unimaginable and his strength and perseverance is indescribable,” the detective said.
The detective also said that the boy is today surrounded by love and support.
Assistant Crown Attorneys Marie Dufort and Michael Boyce, who successfully prosecuted the Mountie, said the case was a gruelling ordeal and they hope that the boy can now lead his life in peace.
Because for the boy, from what the lengthy trial revealed, peace was nowhere to be found in that dark Kanata basement.
The ex-Mountie videotaped his naked and shackled son while he inflicted disturbing, religious-themed interrogations, demanding the boy repent for his so-called sins.
In one of the videos shown at trial, the tiny, frightened boy begged: “I want my family back.”
The boy said his father homeschooled him because he had “impure thoughts.” When he got some answers wrong, his dad “would go crazy” and start hitting him, the boy said.
The boy said his father forced him to do continuous push-ups as a form of punishment but the boy was sometimes too weak. His failure to summon strength brought with it more violent punishment.
“He kicked my head on the floor. I was, my nose was bleeding, I fainted, then I woke up and my nose, I was bleeding on the floor,” the boy told a detective.
Another time, he said he almost drowned when his father dunked and held his head under water in the toilet bowl. “I was drowning … and he’d say ‘I hate you!’”
Other times, the boy said his father would lift him off the ground by the throat “and choke me.”
The boy spent the last month of his captivity trying to escape his basement horror. At the time, he only weighed 50 pounds. That he managed to escape in February of 2013 is what led to the child-abuse case against his father, 45, and stepmother, 37, who was also found guilty in November on lesser charges of assault with a weapon — wooden spoon — and failing to provide the necessities of life. (The names of all parties involved are protected by a publication ban.)
The father testified in his own defence, and presented himself as a victim, speaking for hours about his fragile state of mind. He detailed the troubles of his own childhood in war-torn Lebanon. He talked about dead bodies, bombs and the day he was raped by a teacher.
He spoke of “extreme nightmares” from his youth, his troubled career in the RCMP and how a so-called problem child was the last thing he needed. He tried to explain that he thought his boy was possessed and he feared he’d grow up to be a sexual predator.
“Me and my son were at war … I had an enemy in front of me.”
Dr. Helen Ward, a psychiatrist hired by the defence, testified that the man suffered from “chronic and severe” PTSD and narcissism. The expert witness who examined him told court he did not express remorse and she tried to explain, not excuse, his horrific acts.
The ex-Mountie saw his son as possessed and wild, though he wasn’t by everyone else’s accounts, from teachers to doctors to neighbours and family.
The judge-alone case against the ex-Mountie and his wife was anchored in their own statements — including the Mountie’s own cellphone video footage of the abuse. In his police interview back in 2013, he admitted to the crimes against the child but tried to justify it as discipline. The boy’s stepmom did not testify but court heard that she told police that she was guilty of not protecting the boy and expressed remorse early on.
The former Mountie was credited for pre-trial custody, reducing his prison term to 13 years.
gdimmock@postmedia.com
http://www.twitter.com/crimegarden |
AAP's mohalla sabhas throw spanner in development worksDevelopment projects to the tune of Rs 100 crore in one of the country's largest colonies have come to a standstill.Following the Aam Aadmi Party government's plan to allow local committees or mohalla sabhas to decide and approve projects, such as roads, drainage systems and hospitals, the two government boards that worked in the area have been scrapped. Considering the mohalla sabhas can only be constituted once the Swaraj Bill is passed, all the planned and under-construction projects have therefore come to a halt.East Delhi's Trans Yamuna area is a densely populated neighbourhood dominated by rural pockets and poor infrastructure. It is home to nearly 35 lakh people. To develop the area, the previous state government had constituted the Trans Yamuna Area Development Board (TYABD) and the Delhi Rural Development Board (DRDB). While the former was given Rs 80 crore to build roads and lay water and sewer pipelines, the latter had Rs 35 crore to convert the rural sector into planned colonies."These projects were approved by the board and the money was to be sanctioned. But everything has come to a standstill," said former TYABD chairman Narender Nath.Among other projects taken up by these boards were a working women's hostel, a multi-level parking-cum-shopping complex and a community centre. A 100-bed hospital had also been approved.Ever since the AAP government came to power, both the boards have ceased to exist partly because the chairmen of both the boards was an elected MLA. The other board members included the municipal commissioner, vice chairman of the Delhi Development Authority, the chief secretary of the state government and the area's MP.As such, all the work announced and awarded by these boards have been put on hold. The work of three under-construction hospitals in east Delhi too has come to a halt because the new government has refused to release fresh installments. The government will also withhold funds for the monorail project which was approved by the previous Congress cabinet.The AAP government is of the view that instead of these boards, the mohalla sabhas should decide whether or not a new road needs to be built or a new pipeline needs to be laid. The government plans to create 8 to 12 sabhas in all the 272 wards of Delhi. Three or four resident welfare associations will form one sabha. It is this sabha that will decide the requirement of the area. The government plans to introduce the Swaraj Bill in the Delhi Assembly on February 13. |
CTV Toronto
The grills are fired up for one of Toronto’s biggest food festivals, but major subway closures could make it difficult for partygoers to get around the city this weekend.
With a forecast of sunny skies, more than one million people are expected to converge in the city’s east end for the 20th Taste of the Danforth festival.
Elsewhere in the city, Blue Jays and TFC fans will be flocking to home games at the Rogers Centre and BMO Field.
Regardless of where people are headed, many will have to find alternate routes.
Starting Saturday morning until early Monday morning, there will be no subway service south of Bloor-Yonge station or St. George station. The southern half of the Yonge-University-Spadina line is closed as crews repair the line’s 60-year-old signal system.
“When we do this kind of work at the track and upgrading the system, all new equipment needs to be brought in,” TTC spokesperson Brad Ross told CTV Toronto. “It’s a complicated process.”
Ross said while there’s no ideal weekend for the subway work, it is conducted in the summer months because that’s when ridership is at its lowest.
As a replacement for subway service, the TTC is operating shuttle buses every three minutes between Yonge-Bloor station and St. George station.
Full subway operation resumes Monday at 6 a.m.
Fans who will be taking in weekend Blue Jays games at Rogers Centre or the Toronto FC game at BMO Field Saturday are being encouraged to take the 511 Bathurst streetcar.
Taste of the Danforth kicks off
The two-day Pilaros Taste of the Danforth kicked off Friday evening with sunny skies as organizers anticipated a draw of 1.3 million people throughout the weekend.
Apart from the food, festivities celebrating Greek culture include musical performances, shows and games.
On Saturday at noon, festival organizers are attempting to set a world record, with 10,000 people performing the Zorba, a traditional greek dance.
Danforth Avenue from Broadview to Jones was closed to all vehicular traffic starting at 11 a.m. Friday and will remain closed until midnight on Sunday.
In addition, the “Wheels on the Danforth,” an event hosted by the Crossroads of the Danforth Business Improvement Area, will shut down part of Danforth Avenue on Saturday.
Roads closures from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.:
Danforth Ave., Byng Ave. to Warden Ave.
Danforth Rd., Landry Ave. to Danforth Ave.
TTC will be re-routing buses during this event.
With files from CTV Toronto's Natalie Johnson |
The New Black Panther Party put up a $10,000 reward for the capture of Trayvon Martin’s shooter, the Orlando Sentinel reported Saturday, following a demonstration by the group in Florida.
The party called for black men to mobilize and capture George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who said he shot the teen as an act of self-defense. He has not been charged with a crime and has not made any public statements since the Feb. 26 incident.
A report from the AFP describes a poster from the group seeking Zimmerman “ALIVE… not dead or harmed.”
From the Sentinel story:
When asked whether he was inciting violence, (New Black Panther Party leader Mikhail) Muhammad replied defiantly saying: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” The bounty announcement came moments after members of the group called for the mobilization of 5,000 black men to capture Zimmerman… Muhammad said members of his group would search for Zimmerman themselves in Maitland and Jacksonville — where the 28-year old worked before the shooting, employees there told the Orlando Sentinel. But he declined to say when they will begin their hunt…. “If the government won’t do the job, we’ll do it,” Muhammad said, leading his group of eight party members in chants like “freedom or death” and “justice for Trayvon” while making the iconic gesture of raising their fists into the air.
Muhammad told the paper the national organization has begun fundraising for their efforts and hopes to collect $1 million by next week. |
courtesy of the author
But after actually living with Amazon's Dash buttons, I realized that they are just the latest symptom of Amazon's slowly spreading disease. The company is no longer designing their products and services with a customer experience that will woo us to be loyal, but for profit maximization now that we're here. The Dash button is an unabashed attempt to disconnect customers from the amount of money we're spending. And frankly, even that would be fine, if only Dash buttons provided the instant product gratification they promise.
The Core UI Doesn't Actually Make Sense
Buttons are satisfying to press because they make things happen. Just watch two kids under the age of 12 fight for the privilege of pushing the elevator. Things light up! Doors swing open! Dings sometimes happen!
Dash buttons are just the latest symptom of Amazon's slowly spreading disease.
Yet as I laid suffering from a deathly cold on my bed, looking on at the Gatorade Dash button I'd placed within arm's reach on my nightstand—originally placed there as a joke, as if a marathon bout of lovemaking could leave me in such dire need of electrolytes that I'd slam the button for emergency hydration—I began to internalize the cognitive dissonance at the core of the Dash button's design. I could press this button when I desperately wanted some sugary fluid to fight my cold, and I'd conveniently receive it . . . 48 hours from now. Would I want Gatorade in 48 hours? Would I still be sick, or still be alive to drink it in two days time?
Amazon has same day shipping on many products, and maybe if the Gatorade applied, I'd have actually pressed the button on that mucusy day. But the core gesture of pressing a button to receive gratification days later fundamentally feels less like convenience than illusion.
The Products Are Limited, And Generally Expensive
Of course, we're not always ordering products on our potential deathbeds. The Dash button advertises products like razors, laundry pods, and diapers. These are things you might see that you're running low on with a bit of notice. And when that happens, the button is waiting there at the bathroom sink or by the changing table to let you order more in perfect domestic context.
But Amazon severely limits what you can actually order. Not only are Dash buttons currently limited to a few brands—you can, for instance, acquire a button to buy Huggies but not Pampers, or Glad trash bags but not Hefty—when you actually set up each button for the first time, you learn that the sub-selections are further limited to a preselected list.
Web interface, left. Dash interface, right.
The Dash button makes you pay for its supposed convenience by removing potential discounts.
Take razors. I buy Mach3 razors. (Now you know.) Gillette's button wants to sell me Fusions, or, at the very least, Mach3 Turbo razors. If I buy my Mach3s through Amazon's actual website, not only can I spend less money on more razors, I can choose from seven pages worth of other Gillette razor options, full of different sized packs, disposables, bundles, clippable coupons, and more. Plus, on other items, the website allows me to see price per oz or per sheet. Amazon's Dash button interface leaves these money-saving details behind along with Add-on Items and Subscribe & Save.
The Dash button narrows your options to what, at best, will be the stock Amazon price on what you wanted, and at worst, lack applicable discounts, optimally priced configurations, or even the option to buy the product that you loyally purchase through Amazon already. Why doesn't Dash just offer the option to program a button with any product you want, or at least any product you want under a certain brand? The Dash button makes you pay for its supposed convenience by removing potential discounts. It's not enough that you're hanging advertisements in the nooks and crannies of your home. You need to cough up extra cash to use the Dash, too.
Amazon No Longer Designs For Us
Unfortunately, this extra bit of penny pinching defines many of Amazon's worst designs. Consider that their Fire Phone had a dedicated button to scan and buy more Amazon goods. We're talking about a tiny piece of industrial design where every sub-millimeter matters—one skinned with the Amazon brand so you never forget who sold it to you—and they had to take just a bit more of the hardware for themselves.
Or consider the frustrations of shopping for goods on Amazon today. The Prime options are disappearing for bulk "Pantry" boxes with large minimum orders and "Add-on Items" that require other purchases. Through their entire item taxonomy, Amazon's store UX is no longer designed for your convenient shopping, it's designed for their profitable selling.
This extra bit of penny pinching defines many of Amazon's worst designs.
When Amazon puts the customer first, they've designed some of the best experiences of the modern era—and on a Walmart rather than Apple budget. The Kindle, through wireless, DRM-streamlined book buying and an e-ink screen that sips on battery power, brought e-reading the the masses in an era when smartphones were still nascent. Their Prime stick, a tiny dongle which sells for as little as $20, brings a decent streaming media UI to any TV. Even Prime memberships: For a flat, understandable rate, customers could buy expedited shipping on unlimited orders a year. Each of these moves wasn't just good for shoppers; they benefited Amazon by adding another tether of customer loyalty in an era when we could all google ourselves a better deal. How deep do these loyalties go? Just consider that Apple released their iPad, the way most iPad users bought and read books wasn't through iBooks, but through Amazon's Kindle app.
But the Dash button isn't a great product because it's not made for you or me. It's designed by balance sheet and wishful corporate thinking to make some middle managers very happy. Life with a home full of Dash buttons only served to remind me how unhappy I was with the modern Amazon.
[All Photos (unless otherwise noted): via Amazon] |
Adam Cole arrived alongside Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish at TakeOver: Brooklyn III and wasted no time making an impact, delivering a super kick to the jaw of newly crowned NXT Champion Drew McIntyre.
The NXT Universe inside the Barclays Center reacted with a fervor upon seeing the former World Champion inside an NXT ring for the first time. For those wondering why Brooklyn reacted with such passion or those who have not yet belted out a celebratory “Bay-Bay,” here five things that will help get you acquainted with Cole.
Friend and foe of numerous WWE Superstars
Adam Cole is no stranger to WWE. He’s never stepped foot inside a WWE or NXT ring until TakeOver: Brooklyn III, but he’s competed against some of WWE’s top Superstars before.
Among others, Cole has laced up his boots in classic showdowns against AJ Styles, Kevin Owens, Johnny Gargano and Kassius Ohno. The veteran grappler has made a lot of friends and even more enemies before his attack on McIntyre at TakeOver.
World-renowned independent wrestling star
To say Adam Cole has an impressive track record would be an understatement. Cole is the only three-time Ring of Honor Champion in history. He has also competed in Japan, the United Kingdom and around the world, winning titles in pretty much every organization he’s wrestled.
We could go further into his impressive resume, but you get the idea. Adam Cole is really, really good.
Inspired by two legendary butt-kickers
Growing up in Lancaster, Pa., Cole looked up to legendary martial artist Bruce Lee and WWE Hall of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin.
Cole was recently a guest on The Texas Rattlesnake’s podcast where the rising young grappler talked about a potential future in NXT, among other topics. “Stone Cold” gave props to his admirer-turned-Superstar, calling him “hellacious” inside the ring and on the microphone.
Moves like …
Well, Adam Cole, of course. The point being, there may not be another Superstar out there who possesses an expert handling of traditional old-school mat wrestling and the modern-day, high-impact style like Cole does.
Among Cole’s most noteworthy moves are the Figure-Four Leglock and the superkick, both reminiscent of the Hall of Famers who made them famous, Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels.
“Adam Cole, Bay-Bay!”
Every legendary Superstar has a catchphrase, and Cole’s is one you won’t forget. The charismatic Superstar has been shouting his name, followed by “Bay-Bay!” for years now on the independent scene, but it’s two WWE Superstars who helped Cole come up with the introduction.
As Cole explained on “Stone Cold” Steve Austin’s podcast, the popular saying came to fruition after he heard Chris Jericho’s always-exaggerated use of “baby” and former J&J Security member Joey Mercury’s fondness for repeatedly yelling out his own name while wrestling on the independent scene. “Adam Cole, Bay-Bay” was born.
Now that you know more about him, one question still remains: What will Adam Cole’s shocking appearance in Brooklyn mean for future of NXT? |
Audi announced Thursday that Filipe Albuquerque will be joining the factory squad’s LMP1 program for 2014.
The 28-year-old Portuguese driver, who won last year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona in an Audi R8, moves from the German manufacturer’s DTM program to a new focus in endurance racing.
His first race with the Audi R18 e-tron quattro will come at the FIA WEC Six Hours of Spa, followed by the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
“I’m getting to know many exciting technologies that are new to me,” said Albuquerque, who has already completed tests in the diesel-powered hybrid prototype. “It’s good that I’ll be able to draw on the know-how of experienced team-mates. That’ll accelerate my familiarization.”
While no official word has been given, it’s expected that Albuquerque will be at the wheel of the No. 3 Audi, likely replacing Lucas di Grassi, who has been rumored to take Allan McNish’s full-season seat in the No. 1 car with Tom Kristensen and Loic Duval.
Twenty-one-year old Swiss Nico Mueller, meanwhile, will take Albuquerque’s seat in DTM. |
They are the two major goals of every cancer drug, but almost none of the 'wonder' drugs approved by Europe's drug regulator are achieving either, even after three years of use.
Yet, they are heralded as the next major breakthrough in cancer treatment by the media and cancer support groups—many of which get funding from the pharmaceutical industry—and the forgotten once they win approval.
These failings cast doubt on the initial research that was carried out in order to get the drugs approved in the first place, say researchers from King's College London.
They took a look at the track record of 48 cancer drugs—heralded as 'wonder' and 'breakthrough' drugs before their approval—that were approved by the European Medicines Agency between 2009 to 2013.
In truth, almost none of them had much evidence that they could improve survivability or quality of life when they won approval, and there was still little evidence even more than three years after they had been on the market.
This is usually because they are achieving success with what is known as 'surrogate markers', which means they achieved the principle aim of reducing tumour size, for instance, usually in a laboratory, but the way a patient was affected wasn't tracked. Around 57 per cent of the drugs the researchers investigated had won approval on the basis of surrogate markers.
The practice is dangerous and expensive. It's dangerous because cancer patients are not being given older drugs with some evidence of success and instead being given one of the new 'wonder' drugs that aren't working; the new drugs are usually very expensive, and that means somebody is having to pay for them. |
In an administration embattled by harsh criticism from both sides of the political divide, Barack Obama today set off a new wave of hostility and derisive feeling by uttering a sentence containing the word the.
"I have never heard anything so blatantly socialist in my life," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. "Just blurting out the word the as if we are all supposed to foot the bill for that with our taxes."
And, from his own party, similar skepticism and unrest. "I want to back my president," declared House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, "But when a man makes promises to his constituency about creating policy to advance the middle class and then tries to dodge the issue by throwing the definite article out there....well, it's unconscionable."
Reaction from the general public has been equally troubling.
"It's great that Bernie Sanders is out there pushing the progressive agenda right now," observed one prominent Midwestern businessman. "Because the Barack Obama who uses the word the in a sentence is not the Barack Obama I voted for in 2008."
"This is the right time for the Republican party to strike at the heart of what's wrong with the country and take America back as well as reclaim America," intoned a Republican small business owner in Massachusetts. "When Obama opens his mouth and the first thing you hear is the, then you know the flagrant abuse of all this country stands for has gone full bore."
Washington analysts claim that this is the largest instance of Obama-sparked outrage since the President made the mistake of implementing the word and as a coordinating conjunction while giving a speech to tool and dye makers in Trenton.
"We haven't seen the end of this," predicts one beltway insider. "All we need is one but and he can pretty much forget about legacy building." |
A billboard featuring American presidential hopeful Donald Trump has been removed from a Dubai golf course and housing development after his controversial remarks calling for a ban on all Muslims travelling to the US.
Damac Properties reportedly took down the billboard at the Akoya development site, where Trump is licensing his name and image for a housing project and two golf courses worth $6bn (£3.9bn). It once showed Trump in mid-golf swing and his daughter Ivanka.
A picture taken on 11 December by UAE's The National news site depicted the empty board next to another billboard calling the development "The Beverly Hills of Dubai". The Trump International Golf Course sign that was displayed across the gate house in gold lettering on a stone wall was also pulled down and left lying on the sandy ground.
Damac Properties originally said it would stand by Trump amid the backlash from his anti-Muslim proposals.
"We would like to stress that our agreement is with the Trump Organisation as one of the premium golf course operators in the world, and as such we would not comment further on Mr Trump's personal or political agenda, nor comment on the internal American political debate scene," Niall McLoughlin, vice-president of Damac, told CNN.
However, Trump's comments and the fact the Damac shares fell 3.6% on 10 December might have changed their minds.
The International Golf Club conglomerate, due for completion in 2016, will feature a 30,000 sq ft, state-of-the-art clubhouse which will reportedly be the largest of its kind in Dubai.
The removal comes after Lifestyle, a Dubai-based home-decor chain, said on 9 December it was removing all Trump-branded products from its 195 stores across the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere in the region. It reportedly cited "recent statements in the US media" as the main reason behind the decision.
Trump's products were a "table lamp in antique brass with crystal drops" and a decorative box with a "brilliant plume of a peacock ... redecorated in gold finish for an exclusive look". |
It’s October, get spooky. Here are the noteworthy releases for this month!
Its the 35th anniversary of Otomo’s Akira, and to celebrate that, _ is releasing a box set with all six volumes of the manga in hardcover. It also features the art book, something incredibly hard to find now that it’s out of print, and a special patch. Akira’s a true classic, and if you have the spare change, investing in sturdy hardcovers is definitely a great way to commemorate the series. Also, a fun reminder that Tokyo 2020 is coming up, which Akira nearly predicted by having the Tokyo Olympics set in 2019.
Volume 3 of The Girl From The Other Side comes out at the end of the month. Both drawn and written by Nagabe, this series is lovely in all aspects. The soft lines in the art perfectly match the mood, and Nagabe’s balance of light and shadow emphasizes the quiet mystery. The last volume ended on a real cliffhanger, so it’s been far too long of a wait to find out what happens next!
Juni Taisen: Zodiac Wars isn’t a manga, but rather a light novel. It’s penned by NISIOISIN, who’s best known for writing the Monogatari series light novels, as well as the Zaregoto series. Juni Taisen is a standalone, that features the assassins styled after the Zodiac engaged in a battle royale, where the winner gets to claim a wish. The premise sounds similar to Fate, but knowing NISIOISIN’s writing, the story is bound to be absolutely wild.
The worldwide sensation Your Name blew away box office records for animated film when it debuted in the summer of 2016. The latest spinoff volume, Your Name Another Side: Earthbound features Mitsuha’s family and friends, and how they react to Taki inhabiting her body. Since the movie focused on Mitsuha and Taki’s perspectives and less of those surrounding them, this is an interesting insight.
Another Kuroko no Basket omnibus is also set to be released, this time compiling volumes 15 and 16. The match against Touou continues, and Seiren struggles against the combination of Aomine’s strength and Momoi’s strategies. Aomine is one of the major rivals in the series, so the harsh match against his team is incredibly satisfying. As usual, more physics-defying basketball feats continue, making this volume a wild ride.
Tokyo Ghoul is a routine fan-favorite, and the main series finished being translated in August. The second part, Tokyo Ghoul: re, debuts mid-month. The story begins with Haise Sasaki, and focuses on the CCG’s operations instead of the ghouls. What happened to Ken Kaneki after his fight with Arima will soon be revealed.
If you manage to pick up any of these, tell us what you think! |
A man has found a 30-gigabyte hard drive at a recycling depot in Halifax containing at least 10 GB Canadian military data.
According to the Canadian CBC, a man named Pete Stevens has found a 30-gigabyte hard drive at a recycling depot in Halifax. The media support contains personal information including the names and numbers of defence personnel, it seems to belong to the military.
Pete Stevens has found the hard drive about one year ago but only recently he launched a recovery software and recovered hundreds of files that appear to be from the years 1999 to 2005.
He recovered about 10 G of data, including 6,000 photos, spreadsheets with the names and numbers of military personnel and their families, and completed applications for security clearance.
The harddrive also included Power Point presentations, blueprints of ships and documents outlining “specified procedures for certain scenarios.”
The man decided to recover the content of the hard drive after hearing about security breaches at the military’s East Coast intelligence centre and Canadian Forces Base Halifax.
“If that was me, I wouldn’t want somebody like me having that information,” said Stevens in an interview with CBC. “I don’t think we want to see any of our people serving in uniform exposed like that.”
Military officials came to recover the precious hard drive and are investigating the incident. Military spokesman Maj. Martell Thompson expressed his astonishment defining the incident as “highly unusual” due to the adoption in military environment of strict policies for cyber security that include detailed instructions for the disposal of media storage.
“I’ve not heard of something like this happening before,” said Thompson on Saturday. “The Department of National Defence policy dictates that once hard drives are life-cycled out of operation, they are removed from Canadian Armed Forces networks and sorted prior to destruction.”
The situation is concerting considering the security breach suffered by military bases in Halifax, , the Admiral John Newton confirmed there were five “non-nefarious breaches” of a secure military computer network at Canadian Forces Base Halifax’s navy training school.
“Last week Rear Admiral John Newton confirmed there were five breaches of a secure military computer network at Canadian Forces Base Halifax. ” states the CBC.
“I have friends and family members in the Forces so I think I speak for most Canadians when I say we don’t want to see them exposed, especially their information and their addresses and their phone numbers and everything,” he said.
There are evident security issues to discuss after the disconcerting discovery, first of all, the necessity to encrypt data on the hard drives and the adoption of disposal procedure for every device used in high-sensitive environment.
Now imagine such kind of data in the hands of a nation-state actorts…
Pierluigi Paganini
(Security Affairs – hard drive disposal, military)
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The deadeye mission to bring the scourge of marijuana prohibition to a screeching halt in the state of Illinois is hoping to attract a legion of support from all of the “horrible people” that relish in party games for the offensive and savoir faire… or at least one in particular.
The Chicago-based company behind the popular game Cards Against Humanity has joined the battle to legalize the leaf in the Land of Lincoln, recently issuing a $5 Cards Against Humanity “Weed Pack,” which will assist in the funding of marijuana legalization efforts next year.
In fact, all of the proceeds from this version of the card game are being donated to the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), according to a report from NBC Chicago.
So far, the game, which is touted on its website to be “as despicable and awkward as you and your friends,” has generated more than $86,000. At least a portion of the money has already been turned over to the MPP.
“We’re proud to support the Marijuana Policy Project because our current marijuana laws are failing,” Jo Feldman, head writer for Cards Against Humanity, said in a statement.
“Nationally there are more arrests for marijuana possession each year than for all violent crimes combined,” she added. “The MPP has been at the forefront of changing marijuana laws for the better, in Illinois and nationwide.”
Although state lawmakers have failed to get a marijuana legalization bill through the tight and wrinkled sludge orifices of the state legislature over the past few years, there is some belief that the crusty walls of prohibition will come down in 2018, giving way to more progressive policies that allows recreational reefer to be sold all over the state in a manner similar to what is happening in Colorado and Washington.
Two lawmakers—State Senator Heather Steans and State Representative Kelly Cassidy—are leading the fight to establish this type of taxed and regulated pot market in Illinois. They are presently making some amendments to a previous bill, most of which they say should make it more palatable to the general assembly and Governor Bruce Rauner, in order to make an honest push to put a recreational pot law on the books sometime next year.
If the marijuana legalization bill goes the distance in the state legislature next year, Rauner has said that he would at least give it his consideration.
The special edition Weed Pack is available online through the Cards Against Humanity store. |
Visitors from the three Asean countries, and 46 other nations, now need to apply for a tourist visa if they make more than two trips to Thailand via land transport. However, tourists who arrive by air or boat can still enjoy the visa-free trips for up to 30 days at a time.
“This is a worrying inconvenience,” Songkhla Tourism Industry Council chairman Surapol Kampalanonwat said yesterday.
“In the past, these visitors could come whenever they liked, without having to worry about a visa. But now Thailand has restricted their visa-free trips to just two a year if they come by land.”
Songkhla welcomed almost three million tourists from Singapore, Indonesia and Brunei via its land-based checkpoint in 2015, bringing in more than Bt1.6 billion.
The Interior Ministry’s new visa regulations took effect on December 31.
“I should point out that more than 90 per cent of tourists from Singapore, Indonesia and Brunei travel to Songkhla by car and bus,” Surapol said.
He said there is just one daily flight between Songkhla’s Hat Yai and Singapore. There are no direct flights from Indonesia and Brunei to Songkhla.
The number of Indonesian visitors to Songkhla has risen over the past few years. Tourism-related businesses in the border province are urging the ministry to review the visa rule, having submitted an official request via Songakhla’s governor last month. |
NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — City cops booked the man who allegedly shot two people outside the Court Tavern last weekend—and he’s staring down an attempted murder charge.
Farrahd Williams, a 23-year-old New Brunswick resident who lives on Rutgers Street, was arrested on Thursday evening, March 2, according to the police department.
He’s facing a number of charges for his alleged role in a shooting that occurred at 1:17 a.m. Saturday outside the Court Tavern, at the intersection of Church and Spring streets. No one was killed in the incident.
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“The preliminary investigation suggests that Mr. Williams shot multiple times at two individuals,” New Brunswick Police Capt. J.T. Miller wrote in a press release, “stemming from an argument inside the Court Tavern earlier in the evening.”
The victims were leaving the music venue when they were shot, according to city cops.
Police identified the victims as Charlton Stevens, a 23-year-old Hackensack resident, and Emyle Duverger, a 25-year-old Brooklyn resident. Both men were shot in the legs and taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital for non-fatal injuries.
Police charged Williams with attempted murder, aggravated assault, unlawful possession of a handgun and possession of a handgun for an unlawful purpose.
People with information on the shooting should call New Brunswick Police Det. Erika DiMarcello at 732-735-5217. |
Alex Livesey/Getty Images
Inspiration and support comes in strange places, indeed.
Louis van Gaal's Manchester United's tenure got off to a rocky start in falling to Swansea City, 2-1, at Old Trafford. It was United's first opening day loss at home since 1972.
In the aftermath, Van Gaal found backing from an odd source: former Manchester United boss David Moyes. Moyes, of course, had a disastrous campaign with United and was sacked before the end of the season.
Moyes tipped Van Gaal for future success on beIN Sports (h/t ESPN):
Everybody knew it was going to take time. Taking over from Sir Alex Ferguson for anybody, it would take time. Louis van Gaal will need the time to do the job as well. He'll need to have that opportunity to change things and get a team he wants. What happened today happened to me against West Brom, Newcastle, and Everton last year. Every team in the Premier League is very organised now and quite often it's the special players that win you the games.
[ESPN] |
San Antonio FC defender Ben Newnam has been named to the USL Team of the Week, the league announced today. Newnam scored his first goal for the club and helped keep a clean sheet in the 1-0 win over Orange County SC last Wednesday that clinched a playoff berth for San Antonio.
Newnam was named the SWBC Man of the Match following the game at Orange County, and his goal was his first since June 5, 2016 when he was with Louisville City FC. The game-winner, which came from a set piece, earned three valuable road points for the club and cemented San Antonio’s spot in the 2017 USL playoffs. SAFC became just the second club at the time to have clinched a playoff berth so far this season. Newnam has now tallied one goal and one assist while adding a team-leading 64 tackles in 22 appearances (1,970 minutes) this season.
The honor marks the first Team of the Week inclusion for Newnam this season. Today’s announcement marks the first inclusion of a San Antonio FC player in the Team of the Week since midfielder Michael Reed earned the honors following the club’s 2-1 win over Real Monarchs SLC on September 2. San Antonio has had at least one representative in the USL Team of the Week 12 times this season.
The full USL Team of the Week:
GK – Brandon Miller, Harrisburg City Islanders
D – Ben Newnam, San Antonio FC
D – Justin Bilyeu, Rio Grande Valley FC
D – Ryan Howe, Saint Louis FC
M – Villyan Bijev, Sacramento Republic FC
M – Kenney Walker, FC Cincinnati
M – Jose Barril, OKC Energy FC
M – Florian Valot, New York Red Bulls II
F – Irvin Parra, Orange County SC
F – Ropapa Mensah, Harrisburg City Islanders
F – Nansel Selbol, Swope Park Rangers
Bench: Calle Brown (RGV), Joe Farrell (ROC), Sam Hamilton (PHX), Luis Espino (SAC), Corben Bone (CIN), Kharlton Belmar (SPR), Heviel Cordoves (CHS) |
About
Last year Josh hacked a game boy classic so he could play it on an old computer monitor. By tapping into the digital signal deep within the game boy, he could generate amazingly crisp graphics. After playing some Mario, Tetris and Zelda we decided we just had to share this and take it to the next step. So we spent the last 3 months building a prototype which supports full hd and makes it super easy for everyone to upgrade their game boys. Now it's time to do one large scale production run! This year it is Game Boys 25th birthday, so see this as our last minute gift to the best classic handheld console! The hdmyboy is an upgrade that you install into a game boy. It works just on the original Model DMG-01 (check on the back) that launched in 1989. The one that is in your box of your most prized childhood possessions, your kitchen draw, the attic, a car boot sale. If you have lost yours, select the pledge with a game boy, or find one quick online, there's loads of second hand ones around. hdmyboy gives you the sharpest and best picture you've ever seen come out of your gameboy. Rather than scale or stretch like other systems would do, we intelligently redraw every single pixel. This is because we tap into the digital data, not at just the picture coming out of the game boy. This results in amazing quality without blurs (or anti-aliasing)! We prefer 1080P FullHD, but support 720P. There are two modes: HD7, which redraws the game boy screen 7 times the size and HD712, which redraws every pixel slightly wider so the graphics fill your screen. So technically HD7 gives you 1120x1007 and HD712 gives you 1920x1007 pixels. hdmyboy also works with streamers like the elgato game capture hd 60 and twitch.tv so everyone can watch you play! Here's some of the 1080p quality captured by cam of the screen.
This video was captured by gaminguys.com using an elgato game capture fullhd.
The original gameboy had 4 shades of green but with HD we have almost 17 million colours to choose from. So will give you the option of selecting one of our 32 colour palettes.
hdmyboy comes with a replica controller with a really long cable so you can enjoy full hd without needing to sit to close to your TV. This makes your gameboy kind of a mobile console. Your can still play on your game boy controls if you prefer that feel, or want to take your game boy out on the road.
hdmyboy is a module which inserts between the front and back of the gameboy. It adds about 12mm/0.5inch thickness to your game boy and can be easily installed or removed in under 10 minutes.
Open your game boy with the special screwdriver supplied. Reconnect a cable into your hdmyboy and voila a full hd game boy sandwich! No gameboys will be harmed when installing the upgrade! If you have a game boy which is missing vertical screen lines, this upgrade mostly brings them back.
hdmyboy has a screensaver to protect your television and to thank all our backers for their contribution to gaming history. We will design it once we know how many names we are dealing with. But it will be awesome, plus special treatment for the Protobacker and Super Deluxe pledgers.
We have invested a full 3 months and a chunk of our savings to build a fully functional, feature complete prototype. Thereby considerably reducing the risk of this project for both our backers and ourselves as it is almost the final product.
To build a single hdmyboy: the off-the-shelf electrical components cost over €80, and the custom components like the circuit board, shell and ribbon cables add up to another €80. Then there are the extras like the controller, screwdriver, screws and packaging. And then we haven't spoken about things like logistics and shipping costs. So with man hours, it would add up to about €350. And timewise a 100 units would take a year to produce :)
But by ordering in bulk: we can cut down on the prices of components and get certain assembly processes automated. Our time would then focus more on quality control and the logistics. Timeless we would still be investing another 5 months each to manage the production of 500 units.
Plus, we would be able to put more money into a high quality precision product e.g. injection moulding for the shell of the hdmyboy. After that we will invest more in refining the software, higher quality materials, better packaging and outsourcing some of the work.
First we will complete testing by sending out the Protobacker pledges to get more people testing with even more games and televions in different countries. With their feedback and your requests we will improve the design.
We will go through a number of design cycles to improve the design of the circuit board. With the final dimensions we start producing the physical shell and the required packaging design. After which final assembly will happen in batches.
Once we are complete we will start sending the product out in batches to ensure that any difficulties that may have slipped through our Quality Assurance can be caught early on.
Josh, 24 and Zane, 35 are brothers who live in the South of The Netherlands. It has been great working together like this, it has given us the chance to get to know each other in a very different way. That could be one of the greatest reward of doing this project.
Joshua is the technical mastermind behind the hdmyboy, he was coding batch files before he could read or write. Nowadays he hacks everyday objects for fun, with a passion for video, sound and gaming. He chairs the local Hackspace (ackspace.nl) and has worked professionally as an electronics engineer for the last 3 years.
Why Kickstart? After hacking the first game boy, he wanted to see his design to the next level and build something that could be used by non-hacking individuals.
Zane has been an interaction designer for the last 10 years. He's designed interfaces for everything from iPad apps to Coffee machines. He loves cutting edge technology and has been dabbling in home 3d printing. After leaving his job for some time off last year he travelled from Europe to India by train and then spent 5 months there.
Why Kickstart? After working on a lot of (digital) products and interfaces for clients he wanted to see a product of his choice evolve from idea to market. |
Wednesday in Argentina, thousands of women walked out of work in an incredible display of direct action.
Wearing black and hoisting signs with phrases such as “If you touch one of us, we all react,” the protest came in response to the brutal drugging, rape, and murder of a 16 year-old girl in the town of Mar del Plata.
So far in 2016, 226 women have been murdered in Argentina, with 19 in killed in October alone.
This week’s murder of Lucia Perez served as the proverbial straw, perhaps due to the graphic particulars of the case. Maria Isabel Sanchez – who is spearheading the prosecution of the case, discussed its severity:
I know it’s not very professional to say this, but I’m a mother and a woman, and though I’ve seen thousands of cases in my career, I’ve never seen anything like this.
The Wednesday walkout – dubbed Black Wednesday – was in part sponsored by the feminist organization Ni Una Menos (Not One Less). Several hashtags began circulating on Twitter binding activists together, including #VivasNosQueremos and #NosotrasParamos.
IMPRESIONANTE BAJO LA LLUVIA ESTE SENTIMIENTO # NI UNA MENOS pic.twitter.com/My2a83T5iL — Aida Cortez (@aida12argentina) October 19, 2016
Mirroring components of Poland’s recent protests – which included tens of thousands of women staging a strike against a proposed total abortion ban – the events in Argentina are further evidence of a growing international movement that merges feminism, women’s equality, social justice, and direct action.
Indeed, the protests in Argentina – while directed against what protesters deem the “machismo” culture that enables the abuse of women – are broader in scope, emerging out of a growing anti-establishment sentiment that is generally opposed to inequality and social injustice.
If the success of Polish protesters who deployed similiar direct action techniques is any indication, then the large-scale demonstrations in Argentina have are predicated on an efficient for activists pressing for positive social change.
Impact Tap will continue bringing you updates on this new global movement, as well as further updates on the events unfolding in Argentina.
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Jonathan Cayol was not your average drug dealer. In his early 20s, he hustled to make money any way he could, and eventually started cooking and selling crack from his Greenway apartment. But that wasn’t the only type of cooking he did.
“We were also eating, and eating really good,” he says. The television was always tuned to the Food Network. In fact, Cayol says he and his brother would do drug deals at the front door while Rachael Ray’s 30 Minute Meals (his brother’s favorite show) aired in the background. “We loved to cook. We shopped at Whole Foods, and we ate aged cheese, fancy cheese, and weird things, like bison meat.”
Looking back, Cayol says his love for food helped move him beyond drug dealing—a life that put him in jail several times, including a one-year sentence for a weapons charge inside a medium-security federal prison in New Jersey.
As a drug dealer, Cayol says he earned about $1,000 a day selling crack. But by the time he was 25 years old, a prophecy from a church minister and a new job opportunity would lead him on a path back to the kitchen.
Cayol, now 33, is one of the many graduates to come out of D.C. Central Kitchen’s culinary job training program, which focuses on turning unemployed men and women (including former prisoners) into cooks. The program has a strong track record: In 2014, DCCK graduated 96 students with a 93 percent job placement rate and an average salary of $11.14 per hour. This month, the program will graduate its 100th class.
Cayol’s story isn’t that uncommon. If you go past the white tablecloths, you’ll hear plenty of stories about transformation and redemption in restaurant kitchens.
Today, about 7,500 D.C. residents convicted of a crime are being held in either a federal or D.C. Department of Correction facility. And, unlike the 50 states, the District’s prison population largely resides in federal prisons scattered throughout the country. The distance from home can make it challenging for returning citizens, says Deborah Golden, director of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee’s D.C. Prisoners’ Project.
“The big thing is that the D.C. prison population is so far away. Not just physically, but when it comes to reentry opportunities too. This city has changed in 10 years, and if you’ve been away, it’s a completely different place. It can be really hard to break into the local economy.”
In addition to the distance, Golden says the federal parole system is stricter than most states, making it easy for returning citizens to violate on a technical offense.
“If you forgot to take a urine test, don’t notify your parole officer of a new job, or work in an industry where the hours don’t accommodate things like drug therapy, you can easily violate.”
But for people exiting the prison system, the restaurant industry has a long history of giving second chances. In fact, at almost any point in the day, there might be an ex-con helping prepare your meal. Here are just a few.
8 a.m., DCity Smokehouse
Shawn McWhirter is coming off the overnight shift at one of the most popular barbecue restaurants in D.C. Since midnight, he’s been checking the smokers out back and prepping sides like greens and beans for the day’s service.
McWhirter is the sous chef at DCity Smokehouse, and the mastermind behind the pork belly and turkey sandwich known as the Meaty Palmer (named the best sandwich of 2014 by Washington City Paper). McWhirter also has a criminal record that’s put him in jail six times. His crimes ranged from possession of marijuana to breaking and entering, and he says without family and a job, it would have been tough to turn his life around.
Inside the DCity Smokehouse kitchen, the work can sometimes be lonely. McWhirter is the only one working the overnight shift, but cooking is his passion, he says, along with music. He plays a mix of hip-hop and R&B that greets pitmaster and co-owner Rob Sonderman at the start of the morning shift.
Sonderman met McWhirter more than five years ago while working at Hill Country Barbecue in Penn Quarter. At the time, McWhirter was still on parole for an aggravated assault charge. Texas barbecue and country music was new territory for McWhirter, but his kitchen team—the “brisket squad”—kept him focused on cooking. Then, a year ago, he followed Sonderman to DCity Smokehouse.
When he was younger, McWhirter’s grandmother and aunt largely kept watch over him. They taught him how to cook, and he worked for his mother when she managed a local McDonald’s. “Cooking was always an outlet for me. That’s the reason I can get out of bed in the morning,” he says.
Now, after seven years of cooking barbecue, the 38-year-old says he’s off parole, raising four children, and balancing the demands of the restaurant. “One thing that I’ve learned both as a parent and a chef, it’s to be nosy about what others are doing,” he says with a laugh.
3 p.m., Central
The lunch rush is dying down at Michel Richard’s American bistro Central, and William Shorter is finishing up at the fry station. Three months ago, he was a culinary student, learning how to julienne onions and create a basic roux. Now, he works on the line serving fried softshell crab and calamari.
“I never cooked a day in my life before I got to D.C. Central Kitchen,” Shorter says. “But somehow I figured it out really quick. [Central] Chef David [Deshaies] can be tough, but already he has taught me a lot.”
“Frustrating” is how Shorter describes life after prison. His second-degree assault charge prevented him from getting a $19 per hour managerial position at Safeway. Then, there were the job applications that went unanswered. “In my mind, I had the kitchen training and knew what I wanted to do,” he says. “So to hear a ‘yes, you’re hired’ was just amazing. Central took a chance on me.”
According to Alex Moore, chief development officer at DCCK and author of the book The Food Fighters, it takes about three years to ensure that a returning citizen will not recidivate. First, you have to deal with the underlying drivers of the problem, he says: behavior, housing, work, and family relationships. For someone like Shorter, who has a full-time job with stable hours and the support of his family, his chances for success are far greater. He says, without hesitation, that he wants to be an executive chef with his own restaurant soon.
Shorter also has a few friends in high places. As part of the 99th graduating class at DCCK, he worked at chef Tim Ma’s Water & Wall for a few weeks this spring. In the small kitchen of about eight, he did prep work and manned the dessert station. When Ma was down a line cook earlier this year, he went searching for Shorter, only to find that he was at Central.
Still, what resonates with Ma is a simple thank you note that Shorter wrote. Part of it reads, “I understand you’re a very busy man chef, but I just wanted to take the time to say thank you.”
Ma keeps the card in his office.
10 p.m., Union Kitchen
Will Avila’s day is just starting at Union Kitchen. He calls his upstart kitchen cleaning company, Clean Decisions, a “brotherhood,” and his team of six will work until 2 a.m. scrubbing, scraping, and mopping a mess that comes from dozens of food entrepreneurs using the kitchen incubator space during the day. At just about midnight, there’s only one pastry chef left in the kitchen, dipping pretzel sticks into a pot of melted chocolate.
“Brotherhood” is also how Avila used to look at gang life. He grew up in Brightwood, the D.C. neighborhood just south of the Maryland border, and was surrounded by drugs, alcohol, and gang violence. At home, Avila’s family didn’t offer much protection from the outside world.
“My real family that I had at the time was the gang,” he says “The homies were the ones who were there for you.”
Avila entered the prison system as a 15-year-old and was in and out of jail four times. Two years ago, he says he locked himself up in a “personal prison”—a small one-bedroom apartment that rented for $650 per month in Petworth. He took a job as a dishwasher at the Chipotle in Tenleytown, earning about $9.50 an hour.
“Once I changed my environment, it started to change me,” he says. “But the kitchen wasn’t always easy. I’ve worked in construction. I’ve worked with my hands, but in this job, you have to deal with people. It was hard for me, because I can come off as distant.”
While at Chipotle, Avila rose quickly from dishwasher to kitchen manager in six months. Then, he went on to become a service manager at a busier downtown location. He was succeeding but not fulfilled.
“I kept juggling jobs, but I wanted to start something on my own,” he says. That’s when he met Graham McLaughlin, who he says was his first white friend. The pair got to know each other through a book club and writing workshop called Free Minds. McLaughlin, who works as a consultant for the Advisory Board Company, is a minority owner in Clean Decisions and helped Avila start the business in October. They’re also Capitol Hill roommates and run the company from their house with two-full time employees and a handful of apprentices. Their client roster includes food industry partners like One Eight Distilling, The Argonaut, and Blind Dog Cafe.
His employees have a bond that goes beyond a typical eight-hour workday. They share meals, workout routines, and even group therapy and meditation sessions.
“What we’re really trying to teach here is that in life you don’t have to be perfect, and we don’t expect you to be perfect,” Avila says. “This is dirty work, and we’re trying to show these guys how to put their best self forward.”
Photo of Jonathan Cayol by Darrow Montgomery |
Some NBC29 viewers have reached out about an incident at Charlottesville's City Council meeting that took place on the evening of Tuesday, September 5.
At issue is Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy's actions during a public comment period when one commenter gave his thoughts on compromise when it comes to the Robert E. Lee statue. The commenter was walking away when Bellamy addressed him.
"Hey, you left your hat and when you take that hat, take your compromise with you,” Bellamy said to the commenter. “See you later."
Over applause from some attending the meeting, Councilor Kristin Szakos replied, "Mr. Bellamy...Mr. Bellamy...Mr. Bellamy...Mr. Bellamy and everyone here, we are here to hear all voices, whether we agree with them or not."
Bellamy would not directly comment to NBC29 on Thursday, but he did post on Facebook saying "I'm tired of 'compromising,' I'm tired of 'meeting in the middle...'" See Bellamy's full Facebook post below.
Watch the full council meeting here. The commenter's remarks begin at 1:10:13, and Bellamy's remarks are at 1:12:06. |
Is polyamory a social justice issue? August 21, 2012
Posted by shaunphilly in Polyamory Tags: atheist
In reading about this new Atheist+ issue generated by Jen and others around her (especially Greta), I have seen various social issues included in the list of causes that people want to support. Women’s issues, POC issues, trans issues, LGBT issues, neuro-atypicality issues, etc have been enumerated, for good reason, but I have seen no mention of issues related to polyamory.
So here is my question; am I being irrational in thinking that polyamory should be included in such lists, or are many people behind in not including this as a social justice issue?
As a quick note for those that don’t know; I live in a house with 4 other polyamorous people. One is my wife, another my girlfriend, and the other two are my girlfriend’s husband and his girlfriend. So these questions are not merely academic for me; they are real questions with potential serious significance.
There are real-world fears around being polyamorous. Coming out at poly has consequences similar to coming out as gay, for example. Parental rights can get complicated with polyamorous families. Visitation and end-of-life rights, afforded to legal spouses, becomes problematic when you have more than one serious long-term partner. In short, all of the rights that one gets as a spouse cannot easily be extended to other partners, which can create problems.
The foundation of this problem is the cultural lack of familiarity with what polyamory is about. We are not the same as swingers (although there are often overlaps). We do experience some forms of social discrimination, stereotyping, etc. I have been told that I have chosen this lifestyle, but I cannot choose how many people I love any more than I can choose what genders I love. I have discussed my view on the issue of choice, or orientation, in terms of polyamory here, but I will briefly sum it up in saying that I do not choose my desires and my feelings, but I can choose to act on them or not.
And why would I repress my actual desires? Would I do so for the sake of cultural norms which make no sense? No.
I am not aware of large scale cultural campaigns to react against polyamory comparable to reactions against ‘the gay agenda’. There are not common stories of poly people being beaten, fired, or killed. There is a persistent social stigma against it, and it is presented as the conclusion of the slippery-slope for things like gay marriage (” if you allow anyone to marry, the next thing that will happen is 3 people getting married!” The horror!), and there are the many legal issues briefly mentioned above.
And I will briefly mention that advocating for polyamorous rights and protected status in society is made more complicated in context with polygamy and its relationship to fundamentalist Mormons, Islam, and the patterns of abuse against women, and young girls, in those communities. So it is a complicated issue, but I do think it is a social justice issue.
I think that we need to keep that in mind during these discussions about adding social justice issues to our atheist activism.
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American Horror Story title screen. title screen.
American Horror Story is an American horror television series created and produced by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. An anthology series,[1][2] each season is conceived as a self-contained miniseries, following a disparate set of characters, settings, and a storyline with its own beginning, middle, and end. However, Murphy has stated that all of the seasons are and will be connected by the end of the series.[citation needed]
The first season, subtitled Murder House, takes place during 2011 in Los Angeles, California and centers on a family that moves into a house haunted by its deceased former occupants. The second season, subtitled Asylum, takes place during 1964 in Massachusetts and follows the stories of the inmates and staff of an institution for the criminally insane. The third season, subtitled Coven, takes place during 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana and follows a coven of witches who face off against those who wish to destroy them. The fourth season, subtitled Freak Show, takes place during 1952 in Jupiter, Florida and focuses on one of the last remaining freak shows in America and its struggle to survive. The fifth season, subtitled Hotel, takes place during 2015 in Los Angeles, California and centers on the unusual occurrences and people of a mysterious and outdated hotel. The sixth, subtitled Roanoke, takes place in 2014 in North Carolina, and follows a documentary of experiences endured by a couple and one of their relatives while living on Roanoke Island followed by reenactments, and, in 2016, follows the real experiences on the Island of the couple and the reenactors of the documentary. The seventh season, subtitled Cult, takes place between 2016 and 2018 in the fictional city of Brookfield Heights, Michigan, and centers around a clown cult terrorizing a neighborhood suburb in the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. election. The eighth season, subtitled Apocalypse, takes place in the near future and centers on a group of survivors in a radiation shelter, after ICBMs destroy the world's major cities.
Although each season is set in a different time period, there have been characters who have appeared in multiple seasons. Pepper, played by Naomi Grossman, was the first character to appear in multiple seasons, having appeared Freak Show after appearing in Asylum.[3] In the next three seasons, more characters from previous seasons made appearances.[4] As Apocalypse was described as a crossover between Murder House and Coven, several characters from these two seasons reappeared in Apocalypse.[5] Murphy has stated that as the series progresses, more and more characters will be making a return to the show.[citation needed]
Cast members [ edit ]
List indicator(s) A green cell indicates the actor as a main cast member.
A light blue cell indicates the actor as a special guest cast member.
A red cell indicates the actor as a recurring or a guest cast member.
A light gray cell indicates the actor as a co-starring cast member.
A dark gray cell indicates the actor has not participated in the respective season.
Notes [ edit ]
See also [ edit ] |
This post will walk through the main differences of Schema and Spec from the viewpoint of a Clojure(Script) web developer. There is also some thinking aloud how we could achieve best of both worlds and peek into some evolving libraries. This is a first part of a blog series.
Clojure Spec
Clojure Spec is a new Clojure(Script) core library for specifying Clojure applications & data for communication, validation, parsing and generative testing. It is similar to Plumatic Schema but also has some cool new features like spec destructuring, multispecs and a inbuilt serialization format. Spec is still in alpha, and will ship with Clojure 1.9.0. There is a great introduction talk by Arne Brasseur from ClojuTRE 2016. Carin Meier's talk Genetic programming with clojure.spec on EuroClojure 2016 was a mind-blower, sadly the video is not on Internet .
Schema
We at Metosin are big fans of Schema. For the last three years, it has enabled us to build robust and beautifully documented apps both for both Clojure & ClojureScript. Many of our open source libs have been built on top of Schema. These include ring-swagger, compojure-api and kekkonen. There is also others like pedestal-api and yada using Schema currently.
Differences
This post is not a complete comparison of the two, but instead highlights some of the key differences that a normal Clojure Web Developer (like me!) would see in the daily work: how to define and transform models (both at design- and runtime), validating/transforming values from external sources, api-docs and getting human-readable error messages for the end users. Things like function specs/schemas and generative testing are left out.
Defining the models
Schema
With Schema, models are defined as Clojure data structures and Schema predicates or Java Classes. Schema maps are closed by default, allowing no extra keys. Schemas are easy to reason about as they are defined in the same form as the values it represents. Errors are presented in a hybrid of human/machine -readable format.
(ns user.schema) (require '[schema.core :as s]) (def age (s/constrained s/Int #(> % 18) 'over-18)) (s/defschema Address {:street s/Str :zip s/Str}) (s/defschema Person {::id s/Int :age age :name s/Str :likes {s/Str s/Bool} (s/optional-key :languages) #{s/Keyword} :address Address}) (def liisa {::id 1 :age 63 :name "Liisa" :likes {"coffee" true "maksapihvi" false} :languages #{:clj :cljs} :address {:street "Amurinkatu 2" :zip "33210"}}) (s/check Person liisa) ; => nil (s/check Person {:age "17", :bogus "kikka"}) ; {:user.schema/id missing-required-key, ; :age (not (integer? "17")), ; :name missing-required-key, ; :likes missing-required-key, ; :address missing-required-key, ; :bogus disallowed-key}
Reusing schemas is done either by predefining common parts of it (like the age and address above) or by transforming existing schemas. As the schemas as just data, transformations can also be done at runtime. For more complex transformations, there are external libraries like Schema Tools and Schema-bijections.
;; reuse at compile-time (s/defschema PersonView (select-keys Person [::id :likes :address])) (s/check PersonView (select-keys liisa [::id :likes :address])) ; => nil ;; reuse at runtime! (let [keys [::id :likes :address]] (s/check (select-keys Person keys) (select-keys liisa keys))) ; => nil
Above Schemas visualized with schema-viz:
Spec
With Spec, models are defined using clojure.spec macros and function predicates. Maps are defined using keysets instead of key-value pairs. All map keys need to be globally registered. Calling s/form on any given spec returns the original source code for it, and should later enable spec serialization. Errors are reported in machine-readable format.
(ns user.spec) (require '[clojure.spec :as s]) (s/def ::id integer?) (s/def ::age (s/and integer? #(> % 18))) (s/def ::name string?) (s/def ::likes (s/map-of string? boolean?)) (s/def :user.address/street string?) (s/def :user.address/zip string?) (s/def ::languages (s/coll-of keyword? :into #{})) (s/def ::address (s/keys :req-un [:user.address/street :user.address/zip])) (s/def ::person (s/keys :req [::id] :req-un [::age ::name ::likes ::address] :opt-un [::languages])) (def liisa {::id 1 :age 63 :name "Liisa" :likes {"coffee" true "maksapihvi" false} :languages #{:clj :cljs} :address {:street "Amurinkatu 2" :zip "33210"}}) (s/valid? ::person liisa) ; => true (s/explain-data ::person {:age "17", :bogus "kikka"}) ; {:clojure.spec/problems ; ({:in [], :path [], ; :pred (contains? % :user.spec/id), ; :val {:age "17", ; :bogus "kikka"}, ; :via [:user.spec/person]} ; {:in [], :path [], ; :pred (contains? % :name), ; :val {:age "17", ; :bogus "kikka"}, ; :via [:user.spec/person]} ; {:in [], :path [], ; :pred (contains? % :likes), ; :val {:age "17", ; :bogus "kikka"}, ; :via [:user.spec/person]} ; {:in [], :path [], ; :pred (contains? % :address), ; :val {:age "17", ; :bogus "kikka"}, ; :via [:user.spec/person]} ; {:in [:age], :path [:age], ; :pred integer?, :val "17", ; :via [:user.spec/person ; :user.spec/age]})}
Spec promotes application level reuse as all the specs are found in the registry . New specs can be composed with the clojure.spec macros like and , or and merge . Due to use of macros, creating specs at runtime is not easy - and would pollute the global spec registry. Spec is still young but there is already many evolving utility libs for it. We are doing the Spec Tools and there is at least Schpec and Spectrum out there.
;; reuse specs at compile-time (s/def ::person-view (s/keys :req [::id] :req-un [::likes :address])) (s/valid? ::person-view (select-keys liisa [::id :likes :address])) ; => true ;; runtime (bad idea but works) (let [req-keys [::id] req-un-keys [::likes ::address] value-keys [::id :likes :address]] (s/valid? (eval `(s/keys :req ~req-keys :req-un ~req-un-keys)) (select-keys liisa value-keys))) ; => true
Transforming values
For web app runtime, it's important to be able to both validate/conform values from external sources. Different wire-formats have different capabilities for presenting types. In string-based formats (like ring :query-params & :path-params ) all values have to be represented and parsed from Strings. JSON supports maps, vectors, numbers, strings, booleans and null, but not for example Date s or Keyword s. Both EDN and Transit can be extended to support any kind of values.
Schema
In Schema, there is coercion . Given a Schema and a separate matcher at runtime, one can validate and transform values from different formats into Clojure data. Schema ships with matchers for both string and json formats. Matchers can be easily extended.
(require '[schema.coerce :as sc]) ;; define a transformation function (def json->Person (sc/coercer Person sc/json-coercion-matcher)) ;; :languages from [s/Str] => #{s/Keyword} (json->Person {::id 1 :age 63 :name "Liisa" :likes {"coffee" true "maksapihvi" false} :languages ["clj" "cljs"] :address {:street "Amurinkatu 2" :zip "33210"}}) ; {:user.schema/id 1, ; :age 63, ; :name "Liisa", ; :likes {"coffee" true, ; "maksapihvi" false}, ; :languages #{:clj :cljs}, ; :address {:street "Amurinkatu 2" ; :zip "33210"}}
Spec
Spec has a conform , which works like coercion but the transforming function is directly attached to the Spec instead of passed in at runtime. Because of this, it's not suitable for runtime-driven transformations.
(s/def ::str-keyword (s/and (s/conformer (fn [x] (if (string? x) (keyword x) x))) keyword?)) (s/conform ::str-keyword "clj") ; => :clj (s/conform ::str-keyword :clj) ; => :clj
To support more Schema-like runtime conformations, we have the following options:
1. Better clojure.spec/conform
Current conform takes only the spec and a value as arguments (s/conform spec x) . It could have a 3-arity version where we could pass in a runtime provided callback function to selectively conform based on the spec value (s/conform spec x spec->conformer-fn) . I have been mumbling about this in the Clojure Slack & in Google Groups. Would be simple, but not likely going to happen.
2. Dynamic conforming
Clojure has the Dynamic Scope, which could be used to pass conforming callback to the conformer function at runtime. The Conformer could read this value and conform accordingly. This requires a special "dynamic conformer" to be attached to all specs. Default operation would be no-op. There could also be set of predefined "Type Predicates" which would have a dynamic conformer attached. There could be a special dynamic-conform to set set the variable and call vanilla conform .
There is an implementation of this in Spec-tools, more about that in the next part of this blog.
3. Generate differently conforming Specs
Specs could be walked with clojure.spec/form generating (and registering) differently conforming specs for all conforming modes. All the new specs would have to have new generated names, e.g. :user/id => :user$JSON/id . Seems easy and elegant, but there are few challenges on the way:
Due to the current implementation of s/keys , fully qualified spec keys can't be exposed this way. In Spec, by design, the keys and the values are not separate and thus a qualified spec key can't be mapped to multiple, differently conforming versions. I tried to create a modified version of s/keys for this but ended up copying most of the clojure.spec to properly support it. Maybe later.
the s/form has a nasty bug in alpha-14, some specs still emit non-qualified forms. This should be fixed soon.
4. Create an extra layer of "Easy Data Specs"
One could invent a new and more data-driven format having it's own mechanisms for runtime conforming. But - adding a "easy" abstraction layer comes with a cost and most likely will backfire eventually. For now at least, it's good to work with Specs directly, as we are all still learning.
5. Generating Schemas from Specs
Tried this too, was a bad idea: there would be two sets of errors messages depending on where it was raised. It's better to have Specs (or Schema) all the way down.
This is important. With Schema, we have tools like ring-swagger, which transforms nested Schemas into Swagger JSON Schema enabling beautiful api-docs.
;; [metosin/ring-swagger "0.22.12"] (require '[ring.swagger.swagger2 :as rs]) (rs/swagger-json {:paths {"/echo-person" {:post {:summary "Echoes a person" :parameters {:body Person} :responses {200 {:schema Person}}}}}}) ; ... valid swagger spec returned
For Spec, there aren't any finalized solution for this yet. Andrew Mcveigh is working on something and we have a Spec -> JSON Schema transformer in Spec-tools, but it's not complete yet and has some hacks while waiting for the core s/form - bug to be fixed. The Swagger transformations can be used separately and plan is for it to be eventually merged into ring-swagger for easy transition. Something like (but with qualified keys?):
(require '[spec-tools.swagger :as swagger]) (swagger/swagger-object {:paths {"/echo-person" {:post {:summary "Echoes a person" :parameters {:body ::person} :responses {200 {:schema ::person}}}}}})
Human-readable error messages
Neither of the two libraries has solved this one for good. There are some promising experiments out there, looking forward to seeing them mature and get integrated into tooling.
Conclusion
As per today, Schema is a proven solution for building robust runtime-validating web apps and is not going away. There is good set of existing web libs using it already providing both runtime coercion & api-docs. Schema can be used in the ClojureScript for things like dynamic form and server request validation. We have been using Schema in most of our projects and will continue to use and support it in our libs.
Spec is awesome and without a doubt will be de facto data description library for Clojure. For now, the runtime conforming & api-docs story is not on par with Schema but it will be, eventually. Not all web apps need currently the runtime conforming feature, end2end Clojure(Script) apps can transfer data in Transit using just runtime validation instead of conforming. Also, for Spec, we have to remember that it's still in Alpha, so things might change.
Road ahead
Spec is still under development and there are lot of community libs evolving around it. We too are building tools to help adopting Spec for web & api development, more on spec-tools & friends on Part2. Our web-libs will support spec as soon as.
Exciting times to be a Clojure(Script) web developer :)
Tommi (@ikitommi) |
By DANNY PENMAN
Last updated at 20:57 05 January 2008
The smiling children
giggled as they patted the young
goat on its head and tickled it
behind the ears.
Some of the
more boisterous ones tried to
clamber onto the animal's
back but were soon shaken off with a
quick wiggle of its bottom.
It could
have been a happy scene from a family
zoo anywhere in the world but for what
happened next.
Scroll down for more
A man hoisted up the goat and nonchalantly
threw it over a wall into a pit full of hungry lions.
The poor goat tried to run for its life, but it
didn't stand a chance. The lions quickly surrounded
it and started tearing at its flesh.
"Oohs" and "aahs" filled the air as the children
watched the goat being ripped limb from limb.
Some started to clap silently with a look of
wonder in their eyes.
The scenes witnessed at Badaltearing Safari Park in China are rapidly becoming a
normal day out for many Chinese families.
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Baying crowds now gather in zoos across the
country to watch animals being torn to pieces
by lions and tigers.
Just an hour's drive from the main Olympic
attractions in Beijing, Badaling is in many ways
a typical Chinese zoo.
Next to the main
slaughter arena is a restaurant where families can dine
on braised dog while watching cows and goats
being disembowelled by lions.
The zoo also encourages visitors to "fish" for
lions using live chickens as bait. For just £2,
giggling visitors tie terrified chickens onto bamboo
rods and dangle them in front of the lions, just as
a cat owner might tease their pet with a toy.
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During one visit, a woman managed to taunt
the big cats with a petrified chicken for five
minutes before a lion managed to grab the bird in
its jaws.
The crowd then applauded as the bird
flapped its wings pathetically in a futile bid to
escape. The lion eventually grew bored and
crushed the terrified creature to death.
The tourists were then herded onto buses and
driven through the lions' compound to watch an
equally cruel spectacle. The buses have specially
designed chutes down which you can push live
chickens and watch as they are torn to shreds.
Once again, children are encouraged to take
part in the slaughter.
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"It's almost a form of child abuse," says Carol
McKenna of the OneVoice animal welfare group.
"The cruelty of Chinese zoos is disgusting, but
think of the impact on the children watching it.
What kind of future is there for China if its
children think this kind of cruelty is normal?
"In China, if you love animals you want to kill
yourself every day out of despair."
But the cruelty of Badaling doesn't stop with animals apart. For those who
can still stomach it, the zoo has
numerous traumatised animals to gawp at.
A pair of endangered moon bears
with rusting steel nose rings are
chained up in cages so small that they
cannot even turn around.
One has
clearly gone mad and spends most of
its time shaking its head and bashing
into the walls of its prison.
There are numerous other creatures,
including tigers, which also appear to
have been driven insane by captivity.
Predictably, they are kept in cramped,
filthy conditions.
!Zoos like this make me want to
boycott everything Chinese," says
Emma Milne, star of the BBC's Vets In
Practice.
"I'd like to rip out everything
in my house that's made in China. I
have big problems with their culture.
"If you enjoy watching an animal die
then that's a sad and disgusting
reflection on you.
"Perhaps we shouldn't be
surprised by their behaviour towards
animals, as the value of human life is
so low in China."
East of Badaling lies the equally
horrific Qingdao zoo. Here, visitors can
take part in China's latest craze —
tortoise baiting.
Simply put, Chinese families now
gather in zoos to hurl coins at
tortoises.
Legend has it that if you hit
a tortoise on the head with a coin and
make a wish, then your heart's desire
will come true. It's the Chinese
equivalent of a village wishing well.
To feed this craze, tortoises are kept
in barbaric conditions inside small
bare rooms.
When giggling tourists
begin hurling coins at them, they
desperately try to protect themselves by
withdrawing into their shells.
But Chinese zoo keepers have discovered a
way round this: they wrap elastic
bands around the animals' necks to
stop them retracting their heads.
"Tortoises aren't exactly fleet of foot
and can't run away," says Carol
McKenna.
"It's monstrous that people
hurl coins at the tortoises, but
strapping their heads down with elastic
bands so they can't hide is even more
disgusting.
"Because tortoises can't scream,
people assume they don't suffer. But
they do. I can't bear to think what it
must be like to live in a tiny cell and have
people hurl coins at you all day long."
Even worse is in store for the animals
of Xiongsen Bear and Tiger Mountain
Village near Guilin in south-east China.
Here, live cows are fed to tigers to
amuse cheering crowds. During a
recent visit, I watched in horror as a
young cow was stalked and caught. Its
screams and cries filled the air as it
struggled to escape.
A wild tiger would dispatch its prey
within moments, but these beasts'
natural killing skills have been blunted by
years of living in tiny cages.
The tiger tried to kill — tearing and
biting at the cow's body in a
pathetic looking frenzy — but it simply didn't
know how.
Eventually, the keepers
broke up the contest and slaughtered
the cow themselves, much to
the disappointment of the crowd.
Although the live killing exhibition was undoubtedly depressing, an
equally disturbing sight lay around the
corner: the "animal parade".
Judging by the rest of the operation,
the unseen training methods are
unlikely to be humane, but what
visitors view is bad enough.
Tigers, bears
and monkeys perform in a degrading
"entertainment". Bears wear dresses,
balance on balls and not only ride
bicycles but mount horses too.
The showpiece is a bear riding a bike
on a high wire above a parade of tigers,
monkeys and trumpet-playing bears.
Astonishingly, the zoo also sells tiger
meat and wine produced from big cats
kept in battery-style cages.
Tiger meat
is eaten widely in China and the wine,
made from the crushed bones of the
animals, is a popular drink.
Although it is illegal, the zoo is quite
open about its activities. In fact, it
boasts of having 140 dead tigers in
freezers ready for the plate.
In the restaurant, visitors can dine on
strips of stir-fried tiger with ginger and
Chinese vegetables. Also on the menu
are tiger soup and a spicy red curry
made with tenderised strips of big cat.
And if all that isn't enough, you can
dine on lion steaks, bear's paw,
crocodile and several different species of
snake.
"Discerning" visitors can wash it all
down with a glass or two of vintage
wine made from the bones of Siberian
tigers.
The wine is made from the 1,300
or so tigers reared on the premises.
The restaurant is a favourite with
Chinese Communist Party officials who
often pop down from Beijing for the
weekend.
China's zoos claim to be centres for
education and conservation. Without
them, they say, many species would
become extinct.
This is clearly a fig leaf and some
would call it a simple lie. Many are no
better than "freak shows" from the
middle ages and some are no different to
the bloody tournaments of ancient
Rome.
"It's farcical to claim that these zoos
are educational," says Emma Milne.
"How can you learn anything about wild
animals by watching them pace up and
down inside a cage? You could learn far
more from a David Attenborough
documentary."
However pitiful the conditions might
be in China's zoos, there are a few
glimmers of hope.
It is now becoming
fashionable to own pets in China. The hope
is that a love for pets will translate into a
desire to help animals in general. This
does appear to be happening, albeit
slowly.
One recent MORI opinion poll
discovered that 90 per cent of Chinese
people thought they had "a moral
duty to minimise animal suffering".
Around 75 per cent felt that the law
should be changed to minimise
animal suffering as much as possible.
In 2004, Beijing proposed animal
welfare legislation which stipulated that
"no one should harass, mistreat or hurt
animals". It would also have banned
animal fights and live feeding shows.
The laws would have been a huge
step forward. But the proposals were
scrapped following stiff opposition
from vested interests and those who
felt China had more pressing concerns.
And this is the central problem for
animal welfare in China: its ruling elite
is brutally repressive and cares little
for animals.
Centuries of rule by
tyrannical emperors and bloody dictators
have all but eradicated the Buddhist
and Confucian respect for life and
nature.
As a result, welfare groups are urging
people not to go to Chinese zoos if they
should visit the Olympics, as virtually
every single one inflicts terrible
suffering on its animals
"They should tell the Chinese
Embassy why they are refusing to visit
these zoos,' says Carol McKenna of
OneVoice.
"If a nation is great enough
to host the Olympic Games then it is
great enough to be able to protect its
animals." |
Chris Henry, the Cincinnati Bengals receiver who died during a domestic dispute last December, has been identified by experts as the first player to have died with trauma-induced brain damage while still active in the N.F.L.
Dr. Julian Bailes and Dr. Bennet Omalu of the Brain Injury Research Institute at West Virginia University announced on Monday that Henry, 26, had developed chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the progressive brain disease whose recent discovery in some retired N.F.L. players has raised questions of football’s long-term safety risks.
The 22nd professional football player to be given a diagnosis of C.T.E., Henry is the first to have died with the disease while active after 2007, when prior C.T.E. findings prompted the N.F.L. to begin strengthening rules regarding concussion management. The fact that he developed the condition by his mid-20s — the youngest previous C.T.E. case was the lineman Justin Strzelczyk, 36, who had been retired from the Pittsburgh Steelers for five years before his death in 2004 — raises questions of how many current N.F.L. players might have the condition without knowing it.
“As we got the results, my emotion was sad — it’s so profound,” said Bailes, the chairman of the department of neurosurgery at West Virginia and a former team physician for the Steelers. “I was surprised in a way because of his age and because he was not known as a concussion sufferer or a big hitter. Is there some lower threshold when you become at risk for this disease? I’m struggling to see if something can come out positive out of this.”
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In a statement, a co-chairman of the league’s head, neck and spine medical committee, Dr. Hunt Batjer, said, “Our committee has and will continue to address all issues relative to head injuries in current players.”
Photo
A message for the union spokesman George Atallah was not returned.
Caused exclusively by brain trauma, C.T.E. cannot be diagnosed in a living person; only microscopic examinations of brain tissue can identify the protein deposits and other abnormalities that mark the disease. So active players who might react to the Henry finding by seeking a test before continuing their careers must make do with unknowns. |
Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET
Using Twitter, Change.org and her own site, internet personality Akilah Hughes pitched an assault against popular website BuzzFeed. Using the hashtag #StopBuzzThieves (which was trending on at least one CNET editor's Twitter page), Hughes and her supporters allege that BuzzFeed, specifically its video vertical, steal ideas from others without compensation or credit to their work.
Hughes' examples range from BuzzFeed Video series Ask an Asian to a video that explores what happens when you smash certain foods in the waffle iron. Hughes cites herself among those whom BuzzFeed has wronged. So far, Hughes' outcry was retweeted 137 times on Twitter.
Over a private Twitter conversation, Hughes said she had contacted BuzzFeed over Twitter to ask where they got an idea for a video she says they plagiarized, but had not emailed the company directly to lodge a complaint.
Hughes hopes that BuzzFeed will take down the videos whose originality is called into question, and create an internal policy that would better safeguard the work of independent creatives online. Hughes would welcome a monetary settlement as part of a public change in BuzzFeed's corporate policy, she said, so long as others' complaints were also financially settled.
BuzzFeed did not respond to a request for comment.
Update, 2:25 p.m. PT: Adds comments from Akilah Hughes. |
The Bills are going to keep saying this until someone listens: All of their quarterbacks have a chance to win the starting job.
That means Tyrod Taylor, the veteran backup who left Baltimore after four seasons, is on an equal plane with EJ Manuel and Matt Cassel.
General manager Doug Whaley said as much again this week in a conversation with the Bills' website.
"The way they're structuring practices everyone is getting a run with the ones," Whaley said. "So it's a fair shake. In this system that we're trying to figure out who is going to be the number one it's all about competition. That's why everybody involved is excited about it."
Here's a question to ponder on this Memorial Day weekend: Would it honestly be a surprise if Taylor beat out Cassel and Manuel?
He was hand-recruited here by new head coach Rex Ryan, who was obviously not thrilled with the current options at quarterback. He admires the Ravens' talent evaluation team greatly, and has always wanted a true dual-threat quarterback to run his ground-first offense.
Taylor could also be a good quarterback who just happened to be sitting behind a better one in Joe Flacco. In his only extended action back in 2012, he appeared in seven games and completed nearly 60 percent of his passes.
Maybe the Bills aren't just saying this to motivate Manuel. Imagine that.
We're not saying Taylor is a Tom Brady hiding in the shadows. We're not even saying he's an undiscovered Matt Moore. But why not take the time to figure it out?
The latest Around The NFL Podcast discusses Geno Smith and the Jets' QB position and much, much more with special co-host Colleen Wolfe. Find more Around The NFL content on NFL NOW. |
Niko "naSu" Kovanen will be standing in for Tom "stonde" Glad at DreamHack Tours, the Finnish organization revealed on their website.
Just two days before the start of the EU Minor at DreamHack Tours 2016, ENCE revealed that Tom "stonde" Glad will not be able to travel with the team because of health issues. When examined by the doctor, the Finnish player was advised not to travel in order to prevent infection.
The replacement player, Niko "naSu" Kovanen, is a familiar face in the Finnish scene as he had a 1.6 career and played for ENCE back in 2014. naSu, who is Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen's brother, will make his comeback to international LANs as ENCE will be trying to qualify for the Major qualifier.
Will naSu be up to the challenge?
Starred by Aleksi "allu" Jalli, ENCE will use the following lineup at DreamHack Regional Minor Championship Europe at DH Tours 2016:
The Finns will play their first match in DreamHack Tours against GODSENT at 16:00 on May 14 and you can catch them live over at DreamHack's twitch channel.
Follow HLTV.org writer BenjaCS on twitter. |
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump held a Christmas themed rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Saturday afternoon, even coming on stage to “Deck The Halls” instead of his usual “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and opening his speech lamenting that no one says Merry Christmas anymore.
Then, turning to his Democratic rivals, he never specifically mentioned the data breach, but he did ask the audience about Sen. Bernie Sanders, saying "did you see what Hillary did to him? I told you, she's like a snake."
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He also claimed hat Hillary Clinton is "being totally protected by a Democrat government," and predicted that Saturday night’s Democratic debate will get a very small audience compared to Tuesday’s GOP debate.
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump points at a supporter as he leaves the building after speaking at a campaign event at the Veterans Memorial Building in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, December 19, 2015. SCOTT MORGAN / Reuters
And he stuck with his position that it was good that Russian President Vladimir Putin praised him, arguing that Russia and the United States need to work together and that Putin is correct that Trump is "brilliant." He said the other candidates are “jealous as hell” that Putin will never mention them.
Trump also spent a large portion of the speech talking about the “failing New York Times” and then going after the Des Moines Register for having the only poll he’s not leading in, saying that he doesn’t believe their number and that he thinks the paper is going out of business.
He also said it was “sad” to watch former Gov. Jeb Bush, and noted that Sen. Ted Cruz is now following in his footsteps by suggesting that we build a wall, and criticized other candidates for not being able to function without their pollsters.
Trump spent some time talking about foreign policy as well, saying that anyone who joins ISIS can’t come back to the U.S. and that he’d like to infiltrate their Internet so we can “blow the hell out of them.” He also said he’d like to drop Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl back where he came from.
Later, in a cute moment, his granddaughter Kai, the 8-year-old daughter of Donald Trump Jr., came on stage and wished the audience a Merry Christmas. |
DHAKA (Reuters) - At least nine people, including two children, were burned alive in Bangladesh when opposition activists hurled petrol bombs at a packed bus and a truck in the latest spasm of worsening political violence, police said on Saturday.
The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) refused to take part in a general election a year ago, saying it would be rigged, and intensified protests last month in a bid to force Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to step down and hold a new poll.
At least 70 people have been killed and hundreds injured in violence over the past month, including the latest deaths in arson attacks overnight.
Six people, including two children, died after opposition activists hurled petrol bombs at a packed bus to Dhaka on Friday night in the northern district of Gaibandha, police official Raziur Rahman said. At least 30 people were injured, several critically, he said.
Three people died in a similar arson attack on a truck in the southern district of Barisal early on Saturday, police said.
The BNP has been blockading roads, railways and waterways and says it will continue until the government quits. It called for another 72-hour countrywide general strike from Sunday morning.
Bangladeshi politics has been mired for years in bitter rivalry between Hasina and BNP leader Begum Khaleda Zia. Both women are related to former national leaders, and they have alternated as prime minister for most of the past two decades.
In a statement issued before news of the latest bus attack, the United States voiced grave concern over the violence and said “there is simply no justification for such actions in a democratic Bangladesh”.
“We deplore the unconscionable attacks including bus burnings, throwing incendiary devices, and train derailments that have killed and wounded innocent victims,” U.S. Deputy State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement.
Rights group Human Rights Watch also said in a statement released on Saturday that all parties should cooperate to end the cycle of violence.
Analysts say the renewed political turmoil could threaten Bangladesh’s $24-billion garment export industry, a mainstay of the economy, which is already under pressure after a string of fatal accidents. |
Craft and experience won’t trump youth and power when the junior man employs his gifts smartly. In 2014’s most anticipated fight, Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev easily outfought Bernard “The Alien” Hopkins at Boardwalk Hall, earning a unanimous decision victory as he snatched three of the four major light heavyweight belts. It was an unambiguous, dominant win, as Kovalev was the busier and more effective puncher in every round. The belief, held by many of us, that Hopkins would frustrate “Krusher” and force the Russian to deviate from his fight plan never transpired. What we received was a clinical performance from a man whose identity had previously been drawn from his aggression, not his guile.
People have often been wrong about Bernard Hopkins. They’ve underestimated his talent and will, and he’s made them look foolish. This is the scaffolding upon which the Hopkins legend is built: defying expectations to earn difficult and dramatic victories over more highly regarded opponents. Prognosticators try to learn from their mistakes, and this, more than any other reason, is why so many people, including myself, picked Hopkins to beat a younger man with frightening physical ability. In other words, the fear of being embarrassed by Hopkins’s unconquerable spirit is what convinced us to defy logic.
Prior to the fight, Kovalev’s startling power was a constant talking point. He had knocked out his previous nine opponents, and in one horrible and non-apocryphal instance, Kovalev had inflicted such damage on a European opponent, Roman Simakov, that Simakov later passed away from his injuries. “Krusher” was also respected for being a finely schooled boxer. His footwork and technique were more advanced than the opponent many had used to gauge this fight, Kelly Pavlik, a similarly hard-punching, younger boxer whom Hopkins humiliated in 2008. But in spite of Kovalev’s advantages and his status as the betting favorite, the “Alien’s” mystique persisted.
Unfortunately, Hopkins’s physical reserves are no longer sufficient to suffocate a fighter like Sergey Kovalev. It was obvious he would try to slow the fight to his preferred, measured pace, and counter when one of Kovalev’s flurries left him susceptible to being countershot. This sort of fight plan—the only one Hopkins could have used against a man both faster and more powerful—is impossible if his opponent gets in and out quickly, as Kovalev did all night. In the first round, the “Alien” received a dose of brutal reality when, with one minute left, Kovalev backed him into the corner where his counter right found the left side of Hopkins’s head. The blow dropped Hopkins, who had been fighting with exceeding caution as Kovalev stalked him across the ring, turning away from most of the Russian’s shots. The immediacy with which he fell confirmed Kovalev’s power and disabused those of us in the pro-Hopkins camp of the notion that cunning alone can offset the violent truth of punching power.
From the first round onward, Kovalev vs Hopkins adhered to the same pattern, in which “Krusher” walked the older man down and carefully placed his shots, and “The Alien” did little in return. For perhaps the first time, Hopkins looked truly old and showed none of Kovalev’s bounce or sharp reflexes. His punch output was minimal and only sporadically was he able to land clean scoring shots on the inside, none of which hurt the patient Russian who dominated not by attacking head on, but by using intelligent, deliberate aggression that never left him vulnerable. Kovalev employed his fight plan beautifully and showed he can substantiate his natural gifts with restraint.
As impressively as he fought, credit must also be passed to his trainer, John David Jackson, who once served in the Hopkins camp and fought the then-Executioner as a middleweight. Hopkins scoffed at the notion that Jackson might have the insight required to expose his weaknesses, but Jackson’s strategies worked beautifully. By refusing to fight ugly, Kovalev neutralized any chance Hopkins had of mounting offense. In this sense, he neutered a fighter whose modus operandi in boxing has been to strip his opponents of their assets. It didn’t make for an exciting fight, for after the first knockdown it settled into a mostly sedate pace, but Kovalev shut Hopkins out, and continued to do so late in the fight when it was believed the “Alien” would exercise greater influence.
The bout’s most exciting round was doubtlessly the final one when Kovalev, though he clearly didn’t need a knockout to win, attempted to force a stoppage and Hopkins refused to go down. Despite his age, he’s still in superb cardiovascular shape and was not betrayed by his legs or his chin, which remains capable of withstanding a sledgehammer shot. He was beaten up badly in the twelfth though, and I felt a mixture of sadness and reverence for Hopkins as he struggled to weather Kovalev’s attack. His sheer toughness and refusal to succumb was extraordinary. Hopkins might have got his ass kicked but he still finished on his feet.
Sergey Kovalev is the world’s best light heavyweight, but where he goes now is uncertain. The boxing world wants him to fight Montreal’s Adonis “Superman” Stevenson, who it’s believed had a deal in place to fight Kovalev before backing out, which created a void that Hopkins filled. Stevenson-Kovalev would feature two explosive punchers and “Superman” might be the only man at 175 lbs capable of challenging Kovalev. Bernard Hopkins, meanwhile, refused to divulge his future plans. He can still be competitive if he chooses to fight again, but not at the division’s peak anymore. Regardless, in taking on Kovalev, Hopkins made a gamble that many younger, fresher men wouldn’t attempt. He lost, and lost badly, but wasn’t diminished in defeat so much as he was forced to confront a physical reality he’s spent so long defying.
— Eliott McCormick |
Demonstrators in New York protest the recent U.S. missile strike in Syria. (Andres Kudacki / AP)
In Official Washington, words rarely mean what they say. For instance, if a U.S. government official voices “high confidence” in a supposed “intelligence assessment,” that usually means “we don’t have any real evidence, but we figure that if we say ‘high confidence’ enough that no one will dare challenge us.”
It’s also true that after a U.S. president or another senior official jumps to a conclusion that is not supported by evidence, the ranks of government careerists will close around him or her, making any serious or objective investigation almost impossible. Plus, if the dubious allegations are directed at some “enemy” state, then the mainstream media also will suppress skepticism. Prestigious “news” outlets will run “fact checks” filled with words in capital letters: “MISLEADING”; “FALSE”; or maybe “FAKE NEWS.”
Which is where things stand regarding President Trump’s rush to judgment within hours about an apparent chemical weapons incident in Syria’s Idlib province on April 4. Despite the fact that much of the information was coming from Al Qaeda and its propaganda-savvy allies, the mainstream U.S. media rushed emotional images onto what Trump calls “the shows” — upon which he says he bases his foreign policy judgments — and he blamed Syrian President Bashar Assad for the scores of deaths, including “beautiful little babies,” as Trump declared.
Given the neocon/liberal-interventionist domination of Official Washington’s foreign policy — and the professional Western propaganda shops working for Assad’s overthrow — there was virtually no pushback against the quick formulation of this new groupthink. All the predictable players played their predictable parts, from The New York Times to CNN to the Atlantic Council-related Bellingcat and its “citizen journalists.”
All the Important People who appeared on the TV shows or who were quoted in the mainstream media trusted the images provided by Al Qaeda-related propagandists and ignored documented prior cases in which the Syrian rebels staged chemical weapons incidents to implicate the Assad government.
‘We All Know’
One smug CNN commentator pontificated, “we all know what happened in 2013,” a reference to the enduring conventional wisdom that an Aug. 21, 2013, sarin attack outside Damascus was carried out by the Assad government and that President Obama then failed to enforce his “red line” against chemical weapons use. This beloved groupthink survives even though evidence later showed the operation was carried out by rebels, most likely by Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front with help from Turkish intelligence, as investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported and brave Turkish officials later confirmed.
But Official Washington’s resistance to reality was perhaps best demonstrated one year ago when The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg published a detailed article about Obama’s foreign policy that repeated the groupthink about Obama shrinking from his “red line” but included the disclosure that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had informed the president that U.S. intelligence lacked any “slam dunk” evidence that Assad’s military was guilty.
One might normally think that such a warning from DNI Clapper would have spared Obama from the media’s judgment that he had chickened out, especially given the later evidence pointing the finger of blame at the rebels. After all, why should Obama have attacked the Syrian military and killed large numbers of soldiers and possibly civilians in retaliation for a crime that they had nothing to do with — and indeed an offense for which the Assad government was being framed? But Official Washington’s propaganda bubble is impervious to inconvenient reality.
Nor does anyone seem to know that a United Nations report disclosed testimonies from eyewitnesses about how rebels and their allied “rescue workers” had staged one “chlorine attack” so it would be blamed on the Assad government. Besides these Syrians coming forward to expose the fraud, the evidence that had been advanced to “prove” Assad’s guilt included bizarre claims from the rebels and their friends that they could tell that chlorine was inside a “barrel bomb” because of the special sound that it made while it was descending.
Despite the exposure of that one frame-up, the U.N. investigators — under intense pressure from Western governments to give them something to pin on the Assad regime — accepted rebel claims about two other alleged chlorine attacks, an implausible finding that is now repeatedly cited by the Western media even as it ignores the case of the debunked “chlorine attack.” Again, one might think that proof of two staged chemical weapons attacks — one involving sarin and the other chlorine — would inject some skepticism about the April 4 case, but apparently not.
All that was left was for President Trump to “act presidential” and fire off 59 Tomahawk missiles at some Syrian airbase on April 6, reportedly killing several Syrian soldiers and nine civilians, including four children, collateral damage that the mainstream U.S. media knows not to mention in its hosannas of praise for Trump’s decisiveness.
Home-Free Groupthink
There might be some pockets of resistance to the groupthink among professional analysts at the CIA, but their findings –if they contradict what the President has already done — will be locked away probably for generations if not forever.
In other words, the new Assad-did-it groupthink appeared to be home free, a certainty that The New York Times could now publish without having to add annoying words like “alleged” or “possibly,” simply stating Assad’s guilt as flat-fact.
Thomas L. Friedman, the Times’ star foreign policy columnist, did that and then extrapolated from his certainty to propose that the U.S. should ally itself with the jihadists fighting to overthrow Assad, a position long favored by U.S. “allies,” Saudi Arabia and Israel.a
“Why should our goal right now be to defeat the Islamic State in Syria?” Friedman asked before proposing outright support for the jihadists: “We could dramatically increase our military aid to anti-Assad rebels, giving them sufficient anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to threaten Russian, Iranian, Hezbollah and Syrian helicopters and fighter jets and make them bleed, maybe enough to want to open negotiations. Fine with me.”
So, not only have the mainstream U.S. media stars decided that they know what happen on April 4 in a remote Al Qaeda-controlled section of Idlib province (without seeing any real evidence), but they are now building off their groupthink to propose that the Trump administration hand out antiaircraft missiles to the “anti-Assad rebels” who, in reality, are under the command of Al Qaeda and/or the Islamic State.
In other words, Friedman and other deep thinkers are advocating material support for terrorists who would get sophisticated American ground-to-air missiles that could shoot down Russian planes thus exacerbating already dangerous U.S.-Russian tensions or take down some civilian airliner as Al Qaeda has done in the past. If someone named Abdul had made such a suggestion, he could expect a knock on his door from the FBI.
Expert Skepticism
Yet, before President Trump takes Friedman’s advice – arming up Al Qaeda and entering into a de facto alliance with Islamic State – we might want to make sure that we aren’t being taken in again by a clever Al Qaeda psychological operation, another staged chemical weapons attack.
With the U.S. intelligence community effectively silenced by the fact that the president has already acted, Theodore Postol, a technology and national security expert at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, undertook his own review of the supposed evidence cited by Trump’s White House to issue a four-page “intelligence assessment” on April 11 asserting with “high confidence” that Assad’s military delivered a bomb filled with sarin on the town of Khan Sheikdoun on the morning of April 4. |
(for Kevin Coogan)
Is conspiracy theory a delusion of the Right which has infected the Left as well? Leftist Conspiracy Theorists sometimes make uncritical use of the texts of Rightest Conspiracy Theorists — delving into the work of the Liberty Lobby for JFK Assassination tidbits, picking up Birchist notions about the CFR/Bilderberg/Rockefeller “liberal” internationalists, etc., etc. Since anti-semitism can be found on the Left as well as the Right, echoes of the Protocols may be heard from both directions. Even some anarchists are attracted to “Historical Revisionism”. Anticapitalism or economic populism on the Right has its counterpoint on the Left in “Red Fascism”, which broke the surface of History in the Hitler/Stalin Pact, and has come back to haunt us in the bizarre European “Third Wave” amalgamation of Right and Left extremism, a phenomenon which emerges in the USA in the libertine nihilism and “satanism” of anarcho-fascist groups like Amok Press and Radio Werewolf — and conspiracy theory plays a big role in all these ideologies.
If conspiracy theory is essentially right wing, it can only be so because it posits a view of History as the work of individuals rather than groups. According to this argument, a Mae Brussel-type theory (she believed that Nazis had penetrated American Intelligence and Government at policy level) may appear Leftist but in fact provides no sustenance for genuine dialectical analysis, since it ignores economics and class struggle as causal forces, and instead traces all events to the machinations of “hidden” individuals. Even the anti-authoritarian Left may sometimes adopt this low opinion of conspiracy theory, despite the fact that it is not bound by any dogmatic belief in economic determinism. Such anarchists would agree that to believe in conspiracy theory is to believe that elites can influence History. Anarchism posits that elites are simply carried by the flow of History and that their belief in their own power or agency is pure illusion. If one were to believe otherwise, such anarchists argue, then Marx and Lenin would be correct, and conspiratorial vanguardism would be the best strategy for the “movement of the social”. (The existence of vanguardism proves that the Left — or at least the authoritarian Left — has not merely been tainted accidentally with conspiracy theory: vanguardism IS conspiracy!) The Leninists say the state is a conspiracy, either of Right or Left-take your choice. The anarchists argue that the state does not “have” power in any absolute or essential sense, but that it merely usurps the power which, in essence, “belongs” to each individual, or to society en masse. The state’s apparently conspiratorial aspect is therefore illusory — mere ideological wanking on the part of politicians, spies, bankers and other scum, blindly serving the interests of their class. Conspiracy Theory is therefore of interest only as a kind of sociology of culture, a tracking of the delusory fantasies of certain in-groups and out-groups — but conspiracy theory itself has no ontological status.
This is an interesting theory with a great deal of merit, especially as a critical tool. However, as an ideology, it suffers from the same flaw as any other ideology. It constructs an absolute Idea, then explains reality in terms of absolutes. The authoritarian Right and Left share a view of the ontological status of elites or vanguards in History; the anti-authoritarian response is to shift the ontological-Historical weight to individuals or groups; but neither theory has bothered to question the ontological status of History, or for that matter of ontology itself.
In order either to confirm or deny conspiracy theory categorically one must believe in the category of “History”. But since the 19th century “History” has fragmented into dozens of conceptual shards — ethno-history, psycho-history, social history, history of things and ideas and mentalities, cliometrics, micro-history — these are not competing ideologies of History, but simply a multiplicity of histories. The notion that History is made by “great men”, or that History is the outcome of blind struggle between economic interests, or that History “is” anything specific at all, cannot really survive this fragmentation into an infinity of narratives. The productive approach to such a complex is not ontological but epistemological; i.e., we now ask not what “History” “is”, but rather what and how we can know of and from the many many stories, erasures, appearances and disappearances, palimpsests and fragments of the multiple discourses and multiple histories of the inextricably tangled complexities of human becoming.
Thus we might posit (as an epistemological exercise if nothing else) the notion that although human beings are carried along or moved by class interests, economic forces, etc., we can also accept the possibility of a feedback mechanism, whereby the ideologies and actions of both individuals and groups can modify the very “forces” which produce them.
In fact it seems to me that as anarchists of one sort or another we must adopt some such view of matters, or else accept that our agitation, education, propaganda, forms of organization, uprisings, etc., are essentially futile, and that only “evolution” can or will bring about any significant change in the fabric of society and life. This may or may not be true of the long duree of human becoming, but it is manifestly not true on the level of individual experience of everyday life. Here a kind of rough existentialism prevails, such that we must act as if our actions could be effective, or else suffer in ourselves a poverty of becoming. Without the will to self-expression in action, we are reduced to precisely nothing. This is unacceptable. Therefore, even if one could prove that all action is illusion (and I do not believe that any such proof is available), we would still face the problem of desire. Paradoxically we are forced (on pain of utter negation) to act as if we freely choose to act, and as if action can bring about change.
On this basis it seems possible to construct a non-authoritarian theory of conspiracy theory which neither denies it altogether nor elevates it to the status of an ideology. In its literal sense of “breathing together”, conspiracy may even be thought of as a natural principle of anarchist organization. Face to face, unmediated by any control, together we construct our social reality for ourselves. If we must do so clandestinely, in order to avoid the mechanisms of mediation and control, then we have perpetrated a kind of conspiracy. But more: we can also see that other groups may organize clandestinely not to avoid control but to attempt to impose it. It’s pointless to pretend that such attempts are always futile, because even if they fail to influence “History” (whatever that is), they can certainly intersect with and impact upon our everyday lives. To take one example, anyone who denies the reality of conspiracy must face a difficult task indeed when attempting to explain away the activities of certain elements within Intelligence and the Republican Party in the USA over the last few decades. Never mind the Kennedy Assassination, that spectacular boondoggle; forget the remnants of the Gehlen Org who were lurking around Dallas; but how can one even begin to discuss Nixon’s plumbers, Iran/Contra, the S&L “crisis”, the show-wars against Libya, Grenada, Panama, and Iraq, without some recourse to the concept of “conspiracy”? And even if we believe that the conspirators were acting as agents of blind forces, etc., etc., can we deny that their actions have actually produced ramifications on the level of our own everyday lives? The Republicans launched an open “War on Drugs”, for example, while secretly using cocaine money to finance right wing insurgency in Latin America. Did anyone you know die in Nicaragua? Did anyone you know get caught up in the hypocritical “war” on marijuana? Did anyone you know fall into the misery of crack addiction? (Let’s not even mention the CIA’s heroin dealing in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan.)
As Carl Oglesby points out, sophisticated conspiracy theory posits no single, all-powerful, over-riding cabal in charge of “History”. That would indeed be a form of stupid paranoia, whether of the Left or the Right. Conspiracies rise and fall, spring up and decay, migrate from one group to another, compete, collude, collide, implode, explode, fail, succeed, erase, forge, forget, vanish. Conspiracies are symptoms of the great “blind forces” (and hence useful as metaphors if nothing else), but they also feed back into those forces and sometimes even affect or effect or infect them. Conspiracies, in effect, are not the way history is made, but are rather parts of the vast complex of myriads of ways in which our multiple stories are constructed. Conspiracy Theory cannot explain everything but it can explain something. If it has no ontological status, nevertheless it does have its epistemological uses.
Here’s a hypothesis:
History (small “h”) is a kind of chaos. Within history are embedded other chaoses, if one can use such a term. Late “democratic” Capitalism is one such chaos, in which power and control have become exceedingly subtle, almost alchemical, hard to locate, perhaps impossible to define. The writings of Debord, Foucault, and Baudrillard, have broached the possibility that “power itself” is empty, “disappeared”, and been replaced by the mere violence of the spectacle. But if history is a chaos the spectacle can only be seen as a “strange attractor” rather than as some sort of causative force. The idea of “force” belongs to classical physics and has little role to play in chaos theory. And if capitalism is a chaos and the spectacle is a strange attractor, then the metaphor can be extended: — we can say that the “Republican” conspiracies are like the actual patterns generated by the strange attractor. The conspiracies are not causal — but, then, nothing is really “causal” in the old classical sense of the term.
One useful way in which we can, so to speak, see into the chaos that is history, is to look through the lens provided by the conspiracies. We may or may not believe that conspiracies are mere simulations of power, mere symptoms of the spectacle — but we cannot dismiss them as empty of all significance.
Rather than speak of conspiracy theory we might instead try to construct a poetics of conspiracy. A conspiracy would be treated like an aesthetic construct, or a language-construct, and could be analyzed like a text. Robert Anton Wilson has done this with his vast and playful “Illuminati” fantasy. We can also use conspiracy theory as a weapon of agit-prop. Conspiracies of “power” make use of sheer disinformation; the least we can do in retaliation is to trace it to its source. Indeed we should avoid the mystique of conspiracy theory, the fantasy that conspiracy is all-powerful. Conspiracies can be blown. They can even be defeated. But I fear they cannot simply be ignored. The refusal to admit any validity to conspiracy theory is itself a form of spectacular delusion-blind belief in the liberal, rational, daylight world in which we all have “rights”, in which “the system works”, in which “democratic values will prevail in the long run” because Nature has so decreed it.
History is a big mess. Maybe conspiracies don’t work. But we have to act as if they do work. In fact the non-authoritarian movement not only needs its own conspiracy theory, it needs its own conspiracies. Whether they “work” or not. Either we all breath together or we each suffocate on our own. “They” are conspiring, never doubt it, those sinister clowns. Not only should we arm ourselves with conspiracy theory, we should have our own conspiracies — our TAZ’s — our ontological guerilla commando hit-squads — our Poetic Terrorists — our chaos cabals — our secret societies. Proudhon said so. Bakunin said so. Malatesta said so. It’s anarchist tradition. |
Taiwanese panel display maker Innolux Corp is looking at investing in India to expand into the subcontinent with its biggest shareholder and key supply chain client Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd, a senior executive said.
"Currently Hon Hai is talking with India about a bunch of things and we have participated in some of the talks," Innolux chairman H.C. Tuan told reporters on the sidelines of the company's annual shareholders meeting on Monday.
"We are very willing to go with Hon Hai."
He didn't detail with whom or where the talks were going on.
"If we go, it will not just be one location in India," Tuan said, tipping India's west, particularly its northwestern region. This area is more developed in terms of high technology and it is where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is from, he said.
Tuan said there would be issues of finding local partners and clients if Innolux were to enter India by itself. Hon Hai, which goes by the trade name Foxconn, owns about 8 percent of Innolux through direct and indirect holdings.
In late May, Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou told Reuters that his company, the world's biggest contract manufacturer of electronic products and the key assembler of Apple Inc's iPhones, aims to develop 10-12 facilities in India, including factories and data centres, by 2020.
Foxconn is the latest tech powerhouse to set its sights on the world's second most populous nation. Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi in March announced plans to begin manufacturing in India.
Xiaomi sources a lot of its components for its mobile phones from Taiwanese companies, including those in the Foxconn group of companies.
"From our perspective, we won't set up our own manufacturing. We will do it in contract with our partners. We are talking to Foxconn and others," Manu Jain, head of Xiaomi India told Reuters. "The factory here will be like a captive. The partner will have some sort of agreement that they recover their costs."
Gou said at that time that in addition to Chinese brands, Foxconn was aiming to cooperate with Indian companies such as Micromax Informatics.
© Thomson Reuters 2015 |
Intel today released a new update for its HD Graphics driver for the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4. The latest update for the driver includes some improvements to improve the overall experience. According to Intel, the latest update fixes “many hangs, crashes, and graphics corruptions across a wide spectrum of games and applications.” More specifically, the company has fixed issues related to Forza Apex, Just Cause 3, The Witness, XCOM 2, and Ark Survival: Evolved. The update also comes with a fix which will fix the system hang issue while resuming from Sleep mode if you are using WiDi. Here are the full release notes:
Whether you’re a casual gamer, power user, or gamer, this driver is aimed to improve your overall experience. We’ve fixed many hangs, crashes, and graphics corruptions across a wide spectrum of games and applications. We’re especially pleased to report that this driver also fixes some long-standing and frequently reported graphics issues on Intel’s Support Community, including a scaling issue with Windows 10, and an error found when playing a particular game title. Please see below for additional details on fixed issues System may hang while resuming from Sleep/Hibernation while using WiDi
Graphics corruptions may be seen in Just Cause 3*, Forza Apex*, The Witness*, XCOM 2*, Ark Survival: Evolved
Scaling issue, Black Borders problem in Windows 10® – Stuck at ‘Constrain proportions’
Screen may not rotate in full-screen mode and other miscellaneous issues with screen rotation.
System may crash when playing back videos over WiDi or Miracast
The latest update for Intel HD is version 20.19.15.4463 and it is available to devices with Intel HD 515, 520, and 540, which are apparently found on the Surface Book, Surface Pro 4 Core i5 and i7, as well as the Surface Pro 4 with Core M variant. |
Boston Globe via Getty Images Hundreds of people rallied against sexual harassment at the Berklee College of Music this month. Now the college is trying to repair its culture and emerge as a model for other higher-education institutions and the music industry, where its graduates work.
As the #MeToo movement has gathered steam, women have gone public with accusations of sexual misconduct by professors at dozens of colleges. But one institution in particular has faced reproach as a hotbed of abusive behavior. The Berklee College of Music was described in a recent Boston Globe article as having a "a culture of blatant sexual harassment."
The Globe’s characterization did not surprise students or faculty members at the college, many of whom said they knew or had heard about people being harassed. But it spurred them to action. Worried that the issue would not be taken seriously by the college, students quickly organized a walkout, march, and forum this month that drew more than a thousand participants.
"People just got to a point where we were like, OK, we can’t ignore this any longer," said Michela McDonagh, a professional music major who organized the protest. "People were so ready to move forward."
At the event, Roger H. Brown, the college’s president, laid out numbers that revealed the extent of the problem: Eleven professors, he said, had been fired for sexual misconduct over the past 13 years.
The walkout — and the forum that followed — launched the college into public soul-searching. Students, faculty, and administrators now say they are determined to fix a culture that has allowed sexual misconduct to persist. At a moment of dramatic change in how the issue is addressed across many fields, Berklee is trying to emerge as a model for other higher-education institutions and the music industry that the college helps populate.
Berklee’s students aren’t the only ones pushing for change. A small group of professors that formed after the publication of the Globe article has issued a list of demands. Among them: diversity among the faculty and student body.
"It’s our belief that if women and femmes are more adequately represented, that this is going to be less likely to take place," said Carlee Travis, an instructor of liberal arts. Women make up 36 percent of Berklee’s student body and 37 percent of its faculty. A group of faculty members is calling for gender parity among both populations by 2025. They’re also demanding that at least 30 percent of the faculty be people of color by that time.
"That was met with a lot of resistance from my male colleagues," Ms. Travis said. Some faculty members responded to the demands with emails arguing that "a gender quota would negatively impact what male colleagues believe to be a meritocracy," she said. But Mr. Brown, the president, said that diversifying the student body and faculty is one of several big changes the institution is trying to make. He said the faculty members’ demands are "probably doable," though he did not want to commit to specific numbers without first making a plan.
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Reporting and Support
Since the November rally, Mr. Brown said, he has met with hundreds of students. Every one of them has told him that either they or someone close to them has a story about being subjected to sexual misconduct.
Berklee College of Music Posters around campus tell students how to report an incident.
"The insight I came to is that I think there’s a tendency for us to look at these cases as isolated incidents of a bad person doing bad things, particularly when it’s sexual in nature," he said. "After hearing the #MeToo stories and reading about this, I’m not sure these are isolated incidents, and I think they have less to do with sex and more to do with power and the abuse of power."
With that in mind, he said, the college plans to bolster the structures that provide support to students who say they have been sexually harassed or assaulted. Mr. Brown said the university will hire more counselors, and Berklee officials have already placed posters around campus that tell students how to report an incident.
The president plans to give faculty members more instruction about boundaries and to make sure everyone knows how to report an incident. Like all colleges that receive federal funds, Berklee already reports on the number of crimes committed on campus under the Clery Act, but he also wants to improve their method for reporting incidents of sexual assault so that students and the public have "some way of comparing us to the past and to other institutions so we’re as transparent as we can be without naming individuals."
The president is creating a working group of students, faculty, and staff to evaluate broader changes to prevent sexual assault.
‘Pass the Harasser’?
The working group may examine a policy that the college will not change in the short term: the common practice of keeping private the names of people investigated or fired for sexual misconduct. That policy, critics say, effectively gives faculty members who have been fired for sexual harassment a better chance of finding work elsewhere. Colleges have debated this practice for decades. It has been referred to as "pass the harasser," because bad actors were allowed to jump from job to job.
Berklee has been on both ends of that dynamic, according to The Boston Globe. In one case, an anonymous woman told the newspaper she woke up naked to find her mentor, Jeff Galindo, a jazz musician and instructor, groping her. She reported the case and Mr. Galindo was fired. She later found out that he went on to teach at three other institutions, though she said she had been assured by Berklee that he wouldn’t be able to. Berklee told the Globe that it had provided one of the institutions with Mr. Galindo’s termination letter, "which included an explicit statement that explained the reasons for his departure from the college." Mr. Brown said that "if another institution calls for a reference on some one we will tell them that they were terminated for sexual misconduct."
In another case, Berklee recently hired a professor, Steve Kirby, who had retired from the University of Manitoba. The Winnipeg Free Press reported that, as he stepped down, the university was meeting with students reporting concerns about the professor that were "sexual in nature." At the November rally, according to the Globe, Mr. Brown said that Berklee did not know about the students’ allegations until hearing from reporters in Manitoba. After an investigation, Mr. Kirby was fired from Berklee. (Another Steve Kirby who works at Berklee has not been accused of sexual misconduct.)
If no one feels good about those stories, no one is entirely sure what to do about them. Sky Stahlmann, a first-year student and professional-music major, acknowledged that balancing an accused person’s right to privacy with students’ need for more transparency is tricky.
"A lot of people want to see sexual offenders strung up," she said. While she sees the benefits of that approach, she said she plans to focus on making sure victims have support and educating people on campus about sexual harassment. Ms. Stahlmann is president of a newly formed group, Berklee and BoCo Against Sexual Assault, that will work independently of the administration to teach people about the issue and give students a voice as the college mulls changes.
Many victims of sexual misconduct have taken it upon themselves to name abusers. Since the Globe article and the rally, said Jaclyn Chylinski, a senior musical-theater major, more students have been speaking out about their experiences on campus. "I do not think this will be the last of the allegations," she said.
More revelations would bring more soul-searching. But Ms. Chylinski and other student activists say they have been encouraged by their administration’s willingness to listen. That alone won’t change the culture, but they say it’s a start.
Nell Gluckman writes about faculty issues and other topics in higher education. You can follow her on Twitter @nellgluckman, or email her at nell.gluckman@chronicle.com.
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Correction (11/30/2017, 2:47 p.m.): This article originally stated that more than 1,000 people participated in the walkout and march at Berklee. In fact, the walkout and march participants numbered only in the hundreds. The subsequent forum drew more than 1,000 people. |
At around 1 p.m. this afternoon 150 years ago (November 2, 1863), President Jefferson Davis arrived by train at the Saint Andrews Parish depot across the Ashley River from Charleston. Davis had visited with the Army of Tennessee in October and was returning to Richmond by way of Savannah, Charleston, and, Wilmington. According to newspaper accounts General P.G.T. Beauregard, Judge A.G. Magrath, and other dignitaries met Davis at the depot and escorted him into Charleston:
One of the most pleasing incidents of the day, was the display which met the President and his cortege as the passed down Rutledge street. At the corner of Bee and Rutledge streets, Maj. Trezevant, commanding the Confederate States Arsenal here, had arranged a pyramid of ten-inch shell manufactured at the Arsenal. This was topped off with a beautiful “Harding” shell, called so after its inventor, Capt. Harding, also an accomplished officer connected with the arsenal. In this was the staff of an elegant battle flag, and the whole surrounded with Yankee trophies of all sizes. On each side of this striking pyramid were the sturdy artisans of the arsenal, with their aprons on, their hats off, their tools in their hands just as they had left their shops but a few moments before….
The streets along the line of procession were thronged with people anxious to get a look at the President. The men cheered and the ladies waved their handkerchiefs in token of recognition.
Arriving at City Hall, Mayor Charles Macbeth offered a greeting the President. Then Davis gave an address to the “large crowd present”:
He commenced by making a graceful allusion to his former visit to Charleston, when he accompanied the remains of the lamented and illustrious statesman, John C. Calhoun, back to his beloved state. If it be that the departed spirit can look down upon the events of life, with what interest can we not believe he views our present struggle, and in our trial watches over us with all a guardian angel’s care. [Davis] came because his feelings drew him here in this trying time. He desired also to confer with our commanding general, and by personal observation acquire some of that knowledge which would enable him to understand more clearly the reports which would be submitted to him….
Charleston was now singled out as a particular point of hatred to the Yankees, as the nest of the rebellion; but just in proportion to that hatred so is the love of every true son of the Confederacy gathered around us. There is no where a generous spirit in the land that does not watch our progress with the most anxious solicitude….
While they had felt this anxiety, they had not been wanting in confidence. They remembered how the Palmetto logs of Moultrie, in former times, resisted the then dreaded British fleet, and we can point to the defense now against the still more formidable attack on Sumter as but the renewal of the deeds of the past. Though crumbling in her ruins, she yet stands, and every one looks with the anxious hope that the Yankee flag will never float over it. Nobly has the little heroic garrison that now holds it responded to every expectation. The commanding officer there is worthy to be the descendant of that heroic band that defended the pass of Thermopylae, and future records will record his name as glorious, for the defense of the approach to your harbor. Whatever may be in the future, which is in the hands of the Supreme Being, we have written a proud page in our country’s history.
He hoped it would not be, as our enemies desire, that they should ever set foot upon the soil of Charleston. But should it ever be otherwise, he trusted ours would be the glory he had desired for his native country-town, Vicksburg, and the whole be left one mass of rubbish…. It is only a question whether you will leave it a heap of ruins or a prey for Yankee spoils. [Cries of “ruins, ruins.”] Such he believed to be the spirit of the land.
But he did not believe Charleston would ever be taken. It was not his expectation. Just in proportion as the enemy advanced upon us, they increase their difficulties – difficulties which they have not yet overcome. They are yet brought under a concentrated fire, and as they approach the inner lines of circumvallation their difficulties will be still further increased as they progress….
When they attempt to attack us upon every side, and beleaguer us at different points, other arms will be released, and other arms will come to your assistance. In any event, therefore, he looked forward to a glorious record of the close of the struggle for Charleston. In any probability he looked forward for her honor to be preserved. On other fields South Carolinians have already added luster to the brilliant victories of the present day and to their glories of the past….
South Carolinians, like the plume of Henry the Fourth, have been a rallying point wherever their banners were borne. We will have more glorious names to record and proud incidents for our descendants. The new has overshadowed the old. Every man has now an opportunity to carve out his own name and fame, and to be the author of his own history. We all like to trace back to the fame of our fathers and to leave some glorious record for our descendants….
He who would now seek to drag down him who is struggling, if not a traitor, is first cousin to it. For he is striking the most deadly blows that can be made in our limits. He who would attempt to promote his own personal ends; he who is not willing to take a musket and fight in the ranks, is not worthy of the Confederate liberty for which we are fighting…. |
Screen shot/New York Times
Update, April 8, 11:00 a.m.: Slager was charged with murder Tuesday and is being held without bail, though he may be able to have a bail hearing before a judge at some point in the future.
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Update, April 7, 8:05 p.m.: The headline of this post originally stated that the video appears to show the officer planting a Taser on the victim. It's unclear whether he's planting it or if he dropped it and picked it up afterward. The headline has been changed to account for this uncertainty. This is a developing story, and we'll continue to update it to reflect the latest.
Original post, April 7, 6:22 p.m.: A white police officer from North Charleston, South Carolina is in custody and will face murder charges after firing upon and killing a 50-year-old black man named Walter Scott as Scott ran away from him after a Saturday traffic stop, the Charleston Post and Courier reports. Video taken by a bystander and obtained by more than one outlet shows the officer, Michael Slager, firing at a retreating Scott.
A previous statement issued by an attorney representing Slager said that Scott took Slager’s stun gun before the officer fired at him; the video may or may not show this taking place, but it also appears to show Slager dropping the stun gun next to Scott's body after the shooting.
The video begins in the vacant lot, apparently moments after Officer Slager fired his Taser. Wires, which carry the electrical current from the stun gun, appear to be extending from Mr. Scott’s body as the two men tussle and Mr. Scott turns to run.
Something — it is not clear whether it is the stun gun — is either tossed or knocked to the ground behind the two men and Officer Slager draws his gun, the video shows. When the officer fires, Mr. Scott appears to be 15 to 20 feet away and fleeing. He falls after the last of eight shots.
Scott was wanted on "a Family Court warrant" at the time of his death, the Post and Courier says. |
Blackmagic Design announces new Blackmagic MultiView 16
IBC 2014, Amsterdam, Netherlands – September 12, 2014 –Blackmagic Design today announced Blackmagic MultiView 16, the world’s first native Ultra HD multi viewer that allows customers to use the new large screen Ultra HD televisions and Ultra HD monitors for displaying images at twice the resolution of an HD multi view. With full frame re-sync in each input Blackmagic MultiView 16 supports the display of up to 16 mixed SD, HD and Ultra HD video sources all at the same time. MultiView 16 will be priced at only US$1,495.
Blackmagic MultiView 16 will be demonstrated on the Blackmagic Design IBC 2014 booth in Hall 7, Stand H20.
Blackmagic MultiView 16 outputs both 1080p HD and native Ultra HD over SDI and HDMI monitors, making it possible to use professional broadcast monitors or the new massive Ultra HD consumer televisions for incredibly sharp, high resolution multi view monitoring that is twice the resolution of traditional HD multi viewers. Customers can choose layouts from 2×2 for 4 sources, 3×3 for 9 sources and 4×4 for 16 sources.
Blackmagic MultiView 16 includes sixteen multi rate 6G-SDI inputs with separate loop thru that are compatible with existing SD, HD and Ultra HD equipment. All 16 inputs feature automatic frame re-synchronization, so each view is like an independent video monitor, regardless of the input standard. That means customers can mix and match up to 16 different video standards all at the same time!
Blackmagic MultiView 16 is the perfect solution when there are lots of video feeds to monitor and limited space. Customers no longer have to connect multiple monitors, dozens of cables or run extra power. Simply plug in cameras, decks, switchers, routers and feeds into the SDI connections on Blackmagic MultiView 16 and they can see everything with amazing clarity and detail on a single Ultra HD display.
Because it works natively in Ultra HD, customers get four times the number of pixels in each view so the video looks sharper and clearer than ever before. Blackmagic MultiView 16 delivers an incredible 4 full resolution 1920 x 1080 HD video sources when running in 2×2 layout, or 16 half resolution 1080 HD videos sources at an amazing 960 x 540 resolution when running in 4×4 layout!
Blackmagic MultiView 16 is easy to use and includes an elegant machined metal front panel with dedicated buttons for quickly selecting any source. Video can be routed to any position on the grid at the push of a button or with the spin knob control, so it works just like a video router. MultiView 16 can also be controlled remotely over a network using the included Mac and Windows software, as well as from Videohub hardware control panels installed throughout a facility. There is also an SDK for custom broadcast integrations.
“Using MultiView 16 is like having 16 independent broadcast monitors on a single display,” said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. “Facilities that don’t even care about working in Ultra HD can still get a huge benefit as when using an Ultra HD monitor connected to it, they get twice the resolution of regular 1080 HD inputs for twice the image clarity. That’s really critical when monitoring camera feeds where you want to check focus. Being able to view up to 16 mixed format sources on a single screen all at the same time, in such amazing quality and with incredible detail is mind blowing!”
Blackmagic MultiView 16 Key Features
Worlds first multi view to allow the use of Ultra HD television for twice the image sharpness.
Display up to 16 SDI sources on a single HD or Ultra HD display via SDI or HDMI.
16 multi rate 6G-SDI inputs with loop thru, compatible with all SD, HD and Ultra HD equipment.
Automatic frame re-synchronization allows simultaneous display of mixed SD, HD and Ultra HD formats.
Choose from solo, 2×2, 3×3 or 4×4 grid views.
Supported output resolutions: 1920 x 1080 and 3840 x 2160.
Easy to use front panel controls with dedicated source buttons, LCD screen and spin knob control.
Durable elegant machined metal portable 1RU design with professional connections for 24/7 reliability.
Built in 90V – 240V AC international power supply for use anywhere in the world.
Remote control via Ethernet using the included Mac and Windows software.
Remote control via Ethernet using Blackmagic Videohub hardware control panels.
SDK available for custom integrations.
Availability and Price
MultiView 16 will be available in November 2014 for US$1,495 from Blackmagic Design resellers worldwide.
Press Photography
Product photos of the Blackmagic MultiView 16, and all other Blackmagic Design products, are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com.
About Blackmagic Design
Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com |
Changes were announced to a trio of upcoming UFC cards on Friday, with two newcomers making their first trip to the Octagon while a South African favorite makes his return to fight in Brazil.
On next Saturday’s card in Denver, Wales’ John Phillips has been forced to withdraw from his first UFC bout against Marcos Rogerio de Lima, opening the door for Colorado’s Jeremy “Grizzly” Kimball to make his debut against the veteran Brazilian bomber.
The return of light heavyweight contender Ovince Saint Preux hit a snag when Jan Blachowicz suffered an injury that prompted his removal from the UFC Fight Night card in Houston on Feb. 4. But highly-touted Volkan Oezdemir stepped up to the plate immediately, and when he faces OSP, he will become the first Switzerland native to compete in the UFC.
Finally, the UFC Fight Night event in Fortaleza, Brazil on Mar. 11 got a change to the card in the middleweight division, as South Africa’s Garreth McLellan replaces Alex Nicholson against unbeaten prospect Paulo Henrique Costa. |
Description
StockBank is a networked piggy bank that displays the current price of ONE share of top tech stocks such as Apple, Facebook, Google, and counts down the current price of one share of the stock depending on the amount of coins inside the bank. As someone drops a coin in the bank, the display shows the amount of the stock share price decreasing until it levels off at zero which means that there is enough coinage inside the bank to buy one share of the stock in the display.When the amount in the bank equals that of the stock, the bank automatically buys a share of the stock from an online broker and the pig blinks on and off to show that it was purchased. When the bank is emptied, the counter resets back to another share price for a top tech stock and starts the process over until the amount matches the price.
Credits
Jonah Brucker-Cohen
Justin Blinder
Press
This Piggy Bank is Our Stock Broker, Hackaday, April 20, 2013.
Reddit: StockBank, an Arduino piggy bank that buys stocks when it has enough coins. How to build inside., April 11, 2013.
Adafruit Blog: StockBank – A Networked Piggy Bank , April 11, 2013.
BuzzFeed: StockBank: A Piggy Bank That’s Networked To The Stock Market, April 16, 2013.
Exhibitions / Awards
2nd Prize in the Build A Better Piggy Bank Contest, Future Advisor, 2013
Video documentation:
Image of the construction
Shot of LCD Display |
In a business-driven culture obsessed with success, Christians are often tempted to apply secular business models to their spiritual faith. With around 40 hours of our week spent working, our minds are trained to think about productivity, consumerism and prosperity. Bestselling books on management techniques, inspirational TED talks, growth models, leadership seminars and self-help guides can quickly become our main source of knowledge and informationbecoming secondary to the words of Christ.
Not all secular business advice is bad; just realize that it comes from an entirely different paradigm
Business vs. Faith:
Hierarchy vs. Equality
Industry Standards vs. Theological Beliefs
Efficiency vs. Holiness
Board of Directors vs. Spiritual Leaders
Risk Management vs. Missions
Loss Prevention vs. Freely Giving
Marketing vs. Evangelism
Publicity vs. Outreach
Customers vs. Communities
Managers vs. Mentors
Graphs, Data and Research vs. Prayer, Meditation and Revelation
Professionalism vs. Love
Networking vs. Relationships
Physical Growth vs. Spiritual Maturity
Salaried Employees vs. Unpaid Volunteers
Profits vs. Tithing
Fine Print vs. Grace
Sales Growth vs. Spiritual Growth
Success vs. Sacrifice
Money vs. Christ
When Christians have a business mindset about their faith, they often mistake efficiency with effectiveness, but not everything is meant to be fast, quick and streamlined. Take prayer for example:
Almost every church and Christian organization has a website, prayer chain or bulletin page dedicated to peoples prayer requests. The idea is to have as many people praying for you as fast as possiblethis is not a bad thing.
But fewer and fewer Christian ministries are offering a platform that offers the very personal and meaningful opportunity to actually pray with another human beingwithin an intimate and one-on-one context. This model is considered too inefficient. Matthew 18:20 (NIV) states that For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.
Public prayer chains and websites do serve a valuable purpose, and they are a great way to help those in need, but the next time you attend a church or ministry that has a public prayer request list, carefully look it over and analyze what you seemost likely a long list of physical ailments.
Broken legs, sore throats, allergies, aging grandparents, a disease, sickness, a cold and a litany of other physical problems probably make up about 95% of all public prayer lists. Why? Because nobody wants to publicly admit what their real problems are.
If we werent afraid of being judged or what others thought about us, our prayer lists would look more like this:
Im addicted to porn
I physically abuse my wife
Im being molested
Im being bullied
I struggle with pride
I want to kill myself
I suffer from depression
My spouse and I fight constantly
Im not sure if I still believe in God
Im addicted to drugs
I hate my coworkers
I have anger issues
I want a divorce
Im having an affair
The problem is that nobody wants to put these types of requests within a public venue. Issues like this are best addressed through interpersonal relationshipswhich require time, energy, vulnerability, conflict and love. As Christians, we need to provide environments and foster communities where individuals can pray within a safe environment without feeling judged or looked down upon, a place where people can receive real help. Unfortunately, our effort to efficiently streamline everythingincluding prayeris making it hard for us to be honest and open about our most urgent needs.
Its easy for us to obtain efficiency at the expense of effectiveness. But sometimes there are no quick fixes, and redemption often requires messy work. When in doubt, just look at Jesuss example. He wasnt efficient, but nobody can doubt his effectiveness.
Also by Stephen: Am I a Christian Bigot?
Jesus talks about the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine sheep to look for the one that was lostinefficient. Jesus picks twelve bumbling disciples, one who ultimately betrays himinefficient. Jesus flees from the crowdsinefficient. Instead of forgiving the worlds sins through a simple act or word, He dies on the cross through excruciating pain and tortureinefficient. Most importantly, He commands us to go out into the world and make disciples by helping the poor, forgiving our enemies, feeding the hungry, sacrificially serve and love everyone around usinefficient.
By todays standards, Jesus had a horrible business model. So instead of quickly trying to succeed, maybe we should all try to be a little more inefficient.
Stephen Mattson has written for Relevant, Sojourners, and The Burnside Writers Collective. He graduated from the Moody Bible Institute and is currently on staff at in St. Paul, MN. Follow him on Twitter @mikta.
Photo Credit: Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/AFP/Getty Images |
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Jose Mourinho has warned Romelu Lukaku that Chelsea will decide where the striker plays next season - and not the player himself.
The Blues manager and Lukaku have traded barbs in recent weeks about the background to the forward's season-long loan switch to Everton.
And Mourinho today moved to slap down the Belgium international after Lukaku had suggested last weekend he could extend his stay at Goodison Park.
The Portuguese said: "Maybe there is a new rule in football where, when the season finishes, every player is free to decide his future. Maybe it's a new rule."
Mourinho's side face Sunderland on Wednesday night before a trip to Stoke on Saturday.
The manager admitted out of favour left back Ashley Cole remain on the bench with Cesar Azpilicueta continuing as first choice.
And he said: "I think any player that normally starts matches, and Ashley has started matches through all his career, when they don't start, naturally they're not the happiest guy in the camp.
"But professionally he is always. A team player? Yes. Friend of his friend? Yes.
"He deserves to play, but Azpilicueta is doing really well, so it's a question of Ashley working and waiting for his opportunity. But he's more than ready to play."
Mourinho added: "He could play in one of these two matches, I think he will. Or, if I decide not to, next week against Steaua Bucharest.
"It's a position where Azpilicueta has played a group of consecutive matches so sooner or later I'll have to change, so Ashley will play soon." |
Watch all of Starc's 24 wickets v Sri Lanka
5) Ryan Harris v England, 2013 (England won 3-0) M: 4 | Wkts: 24 | Ave: 19.58 | BBI: 7-117 | 5wi: 2 | 10w: 0
That Ryan Harris took 24 wickets in the 2013 Ashes series, the second-best haul of any touring Australian quick in England this century, was an admirable return in a series that did not yield a single Test victory for his side.
That he did so having missed the first Test due to injury only enhances his performance.
Recalled for the second Test at Lord's after a narrow loss at Trent Bridge, Harris prised out three of England's top four on the opening day and finished with 5-72, a performance that was overshadowed by two significant Australian batting collapses.
He had to be satisfied with bags of two wickets in six of the seven innings that followed, the exception being a career-best seven-wicket haul in Durham that briefly gave rise to hope of an Australian win.
4) Michael Clarke v South Africa, 2012 (South Africa won 1-0) M: 3 | Runs: 576 | Ave: 144.00 | HS: 259* | 100s: 2 | 50s: 0
During a Test career that spanned 11 mostly successful years, Michael Clarke reached his batting zenith during a golden 12-month period in 2011-12 when he was rightfully regarded as the best batsman in the world.
Starting with a gutsy 151 in Cape Town in late 2011, one of the best performances of his career, Clarke then peeled off an historic 329no against India two months later and another double-century three weeks after that.
But the pinnacle of this golden patch came against the Proteas in November 2012 when he became just the sixth man in history to score a double-century in consecutive Test innings.
That his sublime 259no at the Gabba was surpassed by his 257-ball innings of 230 in Adelaide less than a fortnight later said it all about the aura of invincibility that surrounded the Australian captain during this time.
Even if he couldn't lead his side to a series win.
3) Mitchell Starc v Sri Lanka, 2016 (Sri Lanka won 3-0) M: 3 | Wkts: 24 | Ave: 15.16 | BBI: 6-50 | 5wi: 3 | 10w: 1
Given their carefully-planned preparation and the internal ructions of their opponents heading into the series, Australia's defeat in Sri Lanka must rank as one of their most disappointing campaigns on Asian soil in recent memory.
And if not for their strike bowler Mitchell Starc, playing his first Test series in eight months, the margin of their three defeats would have been considerably greater.
On surfaces designed to assist the home side's spinners, and by extension limit Starc's effectiveness, the left-armer bowled with express pace in draining conditions, and regularly found significant movement with the new ball and reverse swing with the old.
His match-haul off 11 wickets in Galle has already been rated one of the best ever by a paceman in Asia, and his series tally of 24 is the most ever in a three-match series by a visiting paceman to the subcontinent.
In another dark subcontinental tour for the Australians, Starc was a shining light.
2) Matthew Hayden v India, 2001 (India won 2-1) M: 3 | Runs: 549 | Ave: 109.80 | HS: 203 | 100s: 2 | 50s: 2
A performance that grows in stature with every lamentable Australian batting effort on the subcontinent, Hayden's 2001 tour of India was a triumphant transformation.
Brought up on the grass and bounce of the Gabba, and boasting a Test average of just 24 heading into the series, Hayden famously dusted up practice pitches in Brisbane to prepare for the Indian spin assault.
He then swept his way to a brilliant century in a 10-wicket thumping in the first Test in Mumbai, sharing a memorable partnership with Adam Gilchrist after the tourists slumped to 5-99, and added scores of 97 and 67 in a famous loss in Kolkata.
Then came one of the best innings ever by an Australian batsman in Asia, a supreme 203 in Chennai that, while not enough to help Australia avoid a series defeat, is still regarded as a high-water mark for Australians in the subcontinent.
1) Shane Warne v England, 2005 (England won 2-1) M: 5 | Wkts: 40 | Ave: 19.92 | BBI: 6-46 | 5wi: 3 | 10w: 2
What is regarded as the greatest Test series of modern times produced some extraordinary individual performances, arguably none better than Warne's one-man show that almost saved Australia from relinquishing the Ashes for the first time in 16 years.
Having taken a back seat to the Glenn McGrath show in a thumping win at Lord's, Warne stepped up in the final four Tests of the series as nearly all of his teammates flailed against an inspired England side.
Ten wickets at Edgbaston, and a nail-biting innings of 42 that almost stole an unlikely victory, was followed by four more wickets at Old Trafford, including the 600th of his career, as well as scores of 90 and 34 with the bat as the tourists escaped with a draw.
Eight more wickets at Trent Bridge and then another 12 at The Oval capped off a record-breaking series, and even a vital dropped catch on the final day of the final Test couldn't take the gloss of one of the greatest individual displays of all time. |
KUCHLAK, Pakistan (Reuters) - For 15 years until his sudden disappearance in May, the new leader of the Afghan Taliban insurgency openly taught and preached at the Al Haaj mosque in a dusty town in southwestern Pakistan, associates and students told Reuters.
Hafiz Abdul Majid, administrator of the Al Haaj mosque, gestures to a lectern where Taliban chief Habibullah Akhundzada taught as another cleric sleeps on the ground in Kuchlak outside Quetta, Pakistan September 23, 2016. REUTERS/Naseer Ahmed
Details of Haibatullah Akhundzada’s life in Kuchlak, near the city of Quetta, have not previously been reported, and could put further pressure on Pakistan to do more to crack down on militants openly living there.
The row over how far Islamabad will go to get rid of jihadi fighters and leaders has hurt relations between Pakistan and Washington, in part because nearly 10,000 American soldiers are in Afghanistan supporting the war against insurgents.
A spokesman for the U.S. State Department’s South Asia bureau said it was not “not in a position to confirm Haibatullah Akhundzada’s whereabouts, past or present.”
Akhundzada is now believed to be in hiding after crossing the long and porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but not before going untouched in Kuchlak, located in Baluchistan province, as he rose up the ranks of the Afghan Taliban.
He was promoted to “emir” in May after a U.S. drone killed his predecessor, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, in another part of Pakistan, a strike that infuriated Islamabad but reflected growing impatience over what Washington sees as ambivalence toward its enemies.
Five years earlier, U.S. forces stormed a compound near the Pakistani capital and killed al Qaeda’s leader Osama bin Laden.
“Once he became Emir, he left with his whole family,” said Hafiz Abdul Majeed, who runs the Al Haaj mosque, adding that he himself studied for several years under Akhundzada.
“You can’t teach religion and run (the Taliban’s) government at the same time. And it would of course have been dangerous for us and the students and the mosque if he remained here.”
Pakistan says it does all it can to go after militants. The Interior Ministry did not reply to written questions about Akhundzada’s time in Kuchlak.
A military spokesman said the army would not comment.
Analysts say Pakistan has historically backed the Afghan Taliban as a hedge against the influence of arch-rival India, with whom Pakistan has fought three wars, in its backyard. Pakistan denies this.
“I strongly reject any organized presence of Taliban in Baluchistan,” Sarfaraz Bugti, home minister for the province, told Reuters.
“MAN OF FAITH”
At the Al Haaj mosque, scores of teenaged boys wearing turbans and traditional “shalwar kameez” robes attended classes at a religious school, typical of remote parts of Pakistan, where they provide education for millions of boys.
On a recent visit, the metal door of the room where Akhundzada is said to have rested between lessons was padlocked and the curtains on the windows almost fully drawn.
But Akhundzada’s name could be seen painted on a wall inside in large calligraphic text.
Colleagues and students described Akhundzada, thought to be in his mid-50s and originally from Kandahar in Afghanistan, as a studious disciplinarian who slipped out of Kuchlak two days before being named Taliban chief.
Majeed, the mosque administrator, said Akhundzada taught students from 8 a.m. to noon every morning at the mosque, and was paid a monthly salary of 10,000 Pakistani rupees ($100).
“We are sad that he is gone because he was a great teacher and a great asset for this mosque,” he said.
Several other people at the mosque confirmed his account, although they did not want to be quoted.
Asked how someone closely associated with the Taliban could live so openly, Majeed replied: “He was just a man of faith. He was a ‘Sheikh-ul-Hadith’ (scholar of Islam’s Hadith texts). And when he became Emir, he left here. That’s all we know.”
Several associates said Akhundzada lost family members in the Afghan war following U.S.-led military intervention to drive the Taliban from power in 2001.
One former pupil at Al Haaj, Pai Khan, says he heard Akhundzada speak at a public rally in Quetta in 2014 commemorating the death of an Afghan Taliban commander.
“He spoke with a lot of force about the U.S. and the war and that we would not give up our jihad, that we would never negotiate with the puppet government in Afghanistan or talk to the U.S.,” said Khan, now an activist for a pro-Taliban party, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, in Quetta.
Reuters was unable to confirm this account.
Khan said Akhundzada taught him at the mosque for several years nearly a decade ago.
“If you met him in the street you would never think he would be one of the world’s greatest leaders one day,” Khan told Reuters in a bustling Quetta bazaar.
“DEFENDERS OF ISLAM”
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that, after fleeing Afghanistan, Akhundzada lived for years in the Kuchlak mosque and religious school while he was the movement’s shadow chief justice.
However, he disputed the timeline given by Akhundzada’s associates, saying he left Kuchlak soon after being named deputy leader in 2015.
“Do you believe a most wanted figure like ... Akhundzada would live in a prominent place like Kuchlak and run a madrassah there when U.S. and Afghan forces and their security agencies are desperately trying to either kill him or capture him?”
There are no known photographs or written records of Akhundzada’s tenure in Kuchlak. Reuters could not independently verify the accounts given of his time there.
Elsewhere in Baluchistan province, supporters of the Afghan Taliban said Akhundzada was well known.
“Akhundzada lived for many years in Kuchlak. I met him many times. He used to come to Quetta often,” said Syed Abdul Sattar Shah Chishti, spokesman for the hardline Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Nazriati political party in Quetta, another pro-Taliban group.
Western diplomats believe some seminaries in the Quetta area have long been fertile ground for Islamist militancy.
In Quetta itself, pro-Taliban jihadi ideology is openly embraced, and Taliban sources say the group’s “Quetta shura”, or council, has met sporadically in recent years to make important decisions including choosing new leaders.
Pakistan, however, denies the Taliban leadership operates openly.
Slideshow (2 Images)
Bugti, Baluchistan home minister, said Pakistan had taken measures to stop militants criss-crossing the frontier, including tougher checks that would stop Taliban fighters using fake Pakistani documents to travel, as Mansour did before he was killed.
He said authorities cannot keep track of up to 4 million Afghan refugees who have lived in Pakistan, some for decades.
“It is not possible for us to predict who among the refugees will become the president of Afghanistan or the leader of the Taliban,” Bugti said. |
Flowers and a note reading "One doesn't beat women, not even with flowers" were laid down in front of the Cologne Cathedral, near the main railway station Thursday in Germany. (Roberto Pfeil/AFP/Getty)
Police in Cologne, Germany, were overwhelmed by groups of men attacking women in the city center on New Year's Eve, according to a leaked report.
An unidentified senior official who wrote the report for Germany's national police described a "chaotic and shameful" evening in which a lack of officers at the scene meant those there "reached the limits of their abilities pretty quickly," according to Der Spiegel, which obtained a copy of the report.
"Women, accompanied or not, literally ran a 'gauntlet' through masses of heavily intoxicated men that words cannot describe," the official wrote.
The report contradicts the Cologne police department's initial depiction of the night as "relaxed," a description that has since been recanted. Authorities now say that more than 100 women have filed criminal complaints of sexual assault — including two reported rapes — or thefts during the festivities that evening, according to the Associated Press.
[Germany springs to action over hate speech against migrants]
Roughly 1,000 men described by officials as being largely of "Arab or North African origin" had congregated in the square outside Cologne station that night, with groups reportedly breaking off to assault women. Victims described a sense of lawlessness that evening as criminals flouted the law even with police present.
"They grabbed our arms... pushed our clothes away, and tried to get between our legs or I don't know where," one victim told the BBC News.
Protesters marched through the central train station in Cologne, Germany, to call for an end to violence against women after dozens of attacks shook the city on New Year's Eve. (Facebook/Rote Antifa [Essen])
Another said attackers put a firecracker in her hood as they stole her phone.
"I heard a sizzling sound in my hood and I somehow tried to get it out of the hood," she said. "Then it fell into my jacket and burned everything. The scars will stay. I was lucky that it didn't explode."
After the New Year's Eve assaults, there is an increased police presence at the main station in Cologne. (Maja Hitij/EPA)
The report obtained by Der Spiegel seemed to corroborate the sense that the attackers, repeatedly described as groups of male migrants, felt that they had the run of areas in front of and inside the train station.
The report describes officers encountering crying, frightened pedestrians, many of them women and girls. Officers reported that their orders were ignored, that they were "bombarded with fireworks and pelted with glass bottles," and that witnesses were threatened when they named the perpetrators, according to Der Spiegel.
The author of the report noted a level of disrespect for police "like I have never experienced in my 29 years of public service."
Cologne was not the only European city to see trouble on New Year's Eve.
Police in Helsinki, Finland said that 15 Iraqi asylum seekers were taken into custody amid allegations of groping and harassing women near the city's central railway station on New Year's Eve. Ilkka Koskimäki, Deputy Police Chief of the Helsinki Police Department, said three women had filed complaints, alleging they had been kissed and touched against their will.
The situation, he said, might have been worse had police not received a tip that groups of Iraqi asylum seekers were planning disturbances that night, leading the Helsinki police to deploy far more officers than usual.
Attacks were reported elsewhere in Germany, too, including in Hamburg and Stuttgart, according to the BBC.
[Sexual assaults challenge Germany’s welcoming attitude toward refugees]
Cologne, however, saw the largest wave of assaults. Due to the overwhelming number of attacks, officials have few leads on the attackers, according to the report. "Security forces were unable to get all of the incidents, assaults, crimes, etc. under control. There were simply too many happening at the same time," its author writes.
Authorities have, however, described the men as being largely of "Arab or North African origin." According to the report, at least one officer quoted a man as saying: "I'm a Syrian! You have to treat me kindly! Mrs. Merkel invited me."
Germany took in a record 1.1 million asylum-seekers last year, driven largely by migrants from Syria. Officials have warned against blaming all refugees for the New Year's Eve incidents, but added that deportation is on the table for any asylum-seekers found to be involved.
"We must examine again and again whether we have already done what is necessary in terms of ... deportations from Germany in order to send clear signals to those who are not prepared to abide by our legal order,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday, according to the Associated Press.
She also described the assaults as "repugnant."
“The feeling women had in this case of being at people’s mercy, without any protection, is intolerable for me personally as well,” she said. “And so it is important for everything that happened there to be put on the table.”
[Germans outraged by mayor’s advice for women after raft of harassment]
Women in Germany have protested the lackluster official response to the attacks, including the suggestion by Cologne's female mayor that women follow a "code of conduct" and approach strangers with caution.
Protesters marched through the central train station in Cologne, Germany, to call for an end to violence against women after dozens of attacks shook the city on New Year's Eve. (Facebook/Rote Antifa [Essen])
Anthony Faiola and Stephanie Kirchner contributed.
Related stories:
Sexual assaults blamed on ‘Arab’ men in Germany may inflame refugee debate
Cologne divided over who to blame for New Year’s assaults |
Does exam stress help boost students’ performance or cause more harm than good? Psychologist Dave Putwain of Edge Hill University considers the evidence.
The extent to which students find tests and examinations anxiety-provoking events differs widely between individuals. Some students may find them intensely stressful, others not at all, and the majority fall somewhere between these two extremes.
Estimating the number of students who find examinations and tests an intensely anxiety provoking experience is not an exact science, however on the basis of the research conducted in the past six years, I would estimate that approximately 10 per cent of the cohort in an average secondary school will report levels of test anxiety that identify them highly ‘test anxious’ candidates. Some of this 10 per cent will be better at coping with anxiety than others, or be more resilient or buoyant in the face of stress, some less so.
Stress as stimulator?
A consistent finding reported in the research literature is that test anxious students, especially those who are not able to cope with stress well, perform worse on exam-based assessments than non test anxious students of equal ability (as judged on non exam-based assessments). This finding seems contradictory to the widely held notion that a bit of stress can be a good thing, or the widely cited inverted U-shaped relationship between arousal and performance (that performance is best at moderate levels of arousal and worst at low/high levels of arousal).
In order to make sense of the contradictory positions, we need to clarify what exactly test anxiety is. Test anxiety is primarily a worry driven experience; worries about failure, achieving one’s aspirations, being judged negatively by others and so forth. Although this may be accompanied by the physiological experience of anxiety (such as increased heart rate), it is the worry experience which is responsible for the decline in exam performance, by occupying the information-processing resources required to respond to the demands of an exam or test.
Many test anxious students typically report an experience of ‘going blank’ in exams, of not being able to recall material that they have learnt and of experience a return of ‘lost’ memories after the exam. It may well be the case that physiological anxiety (or stress) can be motivating or arousing for students when accompanied by a sense of challenge, not worry.
Scare tactics
Recent research my colleagues and I have conducted has focused on whether scare tactics used by teachers prior to examinations (such as highlighting the consequences of failure – we call these ‘fear appeals’) does motivate students as intended, or inadvertently contributes to an increased worry and anxiety about forthcoming exams.
Research is still at an early stage, however our preliminary findings suggest that such techniques have mixed effects. Fear appeals are associated with increased anxiety and reduced test performance in primary school pupils. In secondary school students, fear appeals seem to have both competing effects by increasing motivation, leading to improved exam performance, and increasing anxiety, leading to a worsened exam performance. We now need to investigate those factors which determine why some students find fear appeals more threatening than others and if some students are more likely to find them motivating while others find them anxiety-provoking.
For the time being, our advice would be that fear appeals should be used with caution. It may be the case that they are a successful tactic with some students, helping to provide the impetus or that ‘bit’ of stress required to motivate. However, for those students who interpret such messages as threatening and go on to develop worry, they could be a highly damaging tactic that could backfire and actually reduce rather than improve performance.
Dr Dave Putwain is a senior lecturer in Psychology at Edge Hill University |
Wanderers have been dealt another cruel injury blow with the news that David Wheater will be missing for the next nine months.
Scans have today confirmed that the big centre half ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament during Sunday's 2-2 draw with West Brom at the Reebok.
It also means he is unlikely to return to action before the end of next season.
Zat Knight is likely to come into the back four for this weekend's survival showdown at Stoke City.
Knight, whose last start came against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on March 3, replaced Wheater at the break and would be in pole position to do so again.
Gretar Steinsson also looks set to miss the final game after sitting out the last three with a thigh injury.
Owen Coyle also has worries over Martin Petrov - another player who was withdrawn on Sunday - and Nigel Reo-Coker, who didn’t train at all last week because of a hamstring problem but who did come through 90 minutes unscathed against the Baggies.
“Nigel has played through an injury but I thought he did well,” said the Wanderers boss, speaking before news of Wheater's long-term injury. “We’ll have to take stock at the start of the week and see where we go from there.
“Injuries we have picked up this year have been beyond belief.
“We have got to take the slap in the teeth - which it undoubtedly is - and try and get a team out on the pitch.
“We can make it right but it will need a big performance at Stoke.” |
Slum dwellers in Mumbai can now construct toilets in their homes, thanks to the recent orders issued by BMC. Constructing toilets in these slums was considered illegal until now.
Sanitation is a right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. But up until now, it was considered illegal for slum dwellers in Mumbai to construct toilets in their homes.
However, with the aim of curtailing open defecation practices, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has issued an order allowing residents of the 740 slums in the city to construct toilets in their hutments.
Photo Credit: Meena Kadri/Flickr
Over 60 lakh people living in the slums of the city will thus have access to sanitation facilities, and they will be linked with the city’s sewerage network. A month ago, the solid waste department of BMC had started issuing permits for slum dwellers to construct toilets.
According to a timeline drawn by the department, most of these people can have a toilet in the next few years, if everything goes as planned.
As people need water connection to construct a toilet, BMC’s administration has also created a proposal to ease norms that need to be followed while laying pipelines. This scheme will be presented to the standing committee on Wednesday. According to the scheme, slum dwellers will be provided with water connections at the rate of Rs 4.32 per 1,000 litres of water supplied.
The residents will have two options. They can link up the plumbing lines of their toilets to the sewage pipes that will be installed in the slums, or can share a septic tank which will be periodically emptied by the BMC. Septic tanks will be constructed in case several households are constructed very close to each other, and laying pipelines is not easy.
When all different ways of trying to curb open defecation by imposing fines failed, the BMC’s senior management, led by municipal commissioner Ajoy Mehta, decided that they should come up with solutions rather than just imposing penalties. They have also linked this scheme to the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in order to incentivise the project.
“If we link it to the PM’s Swacch Bharat scheme, we can give each family that wishes to build a toilet Rs 5,000 to help things along,” said a senior corporation official to the Time of India.
This will also bring a great deal of relief to the conservancy workers who have to clear human waste, a practice which in itself is deemed illegal in India.
“The job of cleaning human waste on roads is really difficult. By allowing construction of toilets within slums, it will not only benefit the slum dwellers, but will come as great relief to conservancy workers,” said Ramesh Haralkar, a retired BMC employee who worked in the conservancy department to Times of India.
While discussing the issue of Right to Life, guaranteed under Article 21 of our Constitution, the Supreme Court had delivered a famous verdict in 1995, saying – “Right to shelter, therefore, includes adequate living space, safe and decent structure, clean and decent surroundings, sufficient light, pure air and water, electricity, sanitation and other civil amenities like roads etc. so as to have easy access to his daily avocation.”
Sanitation in this statement includes toilets. Hence, the Bombay High court had relied upon this judgement last year while asking BMC to supply water in “illegal slums” as well; that is, slums which have come up after the Jan. 1, 2000, the cut-off year which divides slums which have structural protection by the BMC, and those that don’t have the protection.
Like this story? Or have something to share? Write to us: contact@thebetterindia.com, or connect with us on Facebook and Twitter (@thebetterindia). |
Finance minister Arun Jaitley in last year's Budget expressed the government's commitment to progressively lower taxes and bring in better tax administration in line with the government's theme of bringing in 'acche din'.
However, despite fall in global oil prices, one sees an increase in cost of living as well as food prices. This situation could worsen in the coming months due to the financial impact of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations as well as the countrywide below-par monsoon.
In this backdrop, the finance minister is unlikely to grant any significant income-tax concessions. Yet, seeking additional taxes from the salaried class could be counterproductive and also have severe political ramifications. Hence, it is likely that the FM will play it safe by continuing to rationalise the personal tax regime and at the same time targeting black money.
To begin with, consistent with the government's intention of keeping the tax base broad, the basic exemption is likely to be retained at Rs 2,50,000. Similarly, the existing surcharge of 12% on income over Rs 1 crore is likely to continue given that wealth tax has been abolished.
On the other hand, with a view to encourage savings, the income-tax deduction of Rs 150,000 for specified investments under Section 80C could be increased to Rs 200,000 and also expanded to cover investments that promote the government's pro-business initiatives including the 'Make in India', 'Digital India' and 'Start up India' movements. Similarly, with a view to encourage participation in NPS, some concessions in tax at withdrawal stage cannot be ruled out.
As a part of the tax rationalisation, it is possible that the standard deduction from salary income in force till financial year 2004-05 is re-introduced with new limits. Further, with significant increase in costs, the archaic limit on medical expenditure of Rs 15,000 could be increased to Rs 40,000. Similarly, limits on children education allowance and hostel expenditure allowance and meals could be overhauled.
The deduction for interest on housing loan of a maximum of Rs 2,00,000 for one self-occupied house property could be increased to Rs 3,00,000. Further, to avail the deduction, the requirement of completion of house acquisition or construction within three years of taking the loan could be done away with or relaxed further which will also boost the real estate sector which is experiencing a slump.
With the recently concluded Black Money amnesty scheme being only moderately successful, do not be surprised if further (and unintentionally harsh) procedural measures are introduced to identify 'unaccounted' wealth and boost tax collections.
On the tax administration side, the tax returns forms, tax return filing and validation process and grant of tax refunds are likely to be further simplified.
Finally on the indirect tax side, while the government continues to push for the introduction of the GST law, this Budget could see some changes, especially in the excise laws as a precursor to the introduction of GST, which should ideally impact the prices positively.
To sum up, due to the tight fiscal situation, it is unlikely that Mr Jaitley would act as the Good Samaritan for the 'aam aadmi' and let's wait and watch what unfolds on 29 February 2016.
(Views expressed are personal)
The writer is a tax partner, EY India |
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After the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) announced it will deny the easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) to be drilled under Lake Oahe – the drinking water source for the Standing Rock Sioux – the oil company was quick with its response.
Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) openly stated it would ignore COE’s decision and plan to continue installing the pipeline in the original route, calling the decision a political move by the Obama administration.
“As stated all along, ETP and SXL are fully committed to ensuring that this vital project is brought to completion and fully expect to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting in and around Lake Oahe. Nothing this Administration has done today changes that in any way.”
Contrary to this statement, DAPL is not “vital” to the already overbuilt transport capacity of the Bakken oil fields (more on that later). But political posturing is not enough to explain ETP’s frantic push to complete its high-risk investment project.
After delays caused by months of protest at Standing Rock and direct action elsewhere, another delay in the form of having to reroute the pipeline could spell financial doom for the entire $3.8 billion DAPL project.
According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, DAPL is on the verge of becoming a “stranded asset” due to several factors, including the high-risk financing behind the project and the potential for shipping contracts to be cancelled or renegotiated.
“DAPL faces a looming financial deadline. The pipeline’s principal backer, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), has conceded in court proceedings that it has a contractual obligation to complete the project by January 1, 2017. If it misses this deadline, companies that have committed long-term to ship oil through the pipeline at 2014 prices have the right to rescind those commitments—and may well exercise that right.”
The report describes financial weaknesses in the project and the fact that the oil-transport infrastructure for the Bakken region is already overbuilt, with 60 percent of existing infrastructure underutilized. Also, low oil prices have contributed to a drop in Bakken production (20% from its 2014 peak) and declining interest in drilling new wells – further negating the need of DAPL.
All of these factors make for a greater likelihood that oil shippers will choose to use existing transport methods, rather than wait on a pipeline that isn’t even necessary, or will renegotiate terms which would sink ETP’s profits.
“The broader economic context for the project has changed radically since ETP first proposed it, in 2014. Global oil prices began to collapse just a few months after shippers committed to using DAPL, and market forecasters do not expect prices to regain 2014 levels for at least a decade. As a result, production in the Bakken Shale oil field has fallen for nearly two consecutive years, creating major financial hardships for drillers. Because the economic prospects for Bakken oil producers have dimmed dramatically since early 2014, oil shippers—in the interest of protecting their investors and shareholders—may attempt to renegotiate terms when ETP misses its Jan. 1 deadline, seeking concessions on contracted volumes, prices, or contract duration. Moreover, if oil prices remain low, as projected, Bakken oil production will continue to decline, and existing pipeline and refinery capacity in the Bakken will be more than adequate to handle the region’s oil production. If production continues to fall, DAPL could well become a stranded asset—one that was rushed to completion largely to protect favorable contract terms negotiated in 2014.”
Clark Williams-Derry, co-author of the report, said DAPL “stands to fall victim to global oil markets” and its capacity will become “superfluous.” Co-author Cathy Kunkel described how DAPL is being “rushed to completion largely to protect favorable contract terms negotiated in 2014.”
Adding to the pressure is that ETP planned to sell 49 percent of its 75 percent stake in DAPL (the other 25 percent stake is Phillips 66), but that sale cannot be finalized until COE grants its final easement for pipeline installation. An ominous sign came in June 2016 when Moody’s placed ETP on a “negative outlook.”
“The rush to build the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline stems largely from the financial motivations of Energy Transfer Partners, motivations that do not necessarily coincide with the interests of Bakken oil drillers or with any economic rationale for increased regional pipeline capacity.”
The entire fiasco of DAPL underscores the futility of clinging to fossil fuels, and the absurdity of massive investments in oil with its notoriously volatile prices. The reality is that market forces are propelling renewable energy to eclipse dirty fuels. In pushing destructive, unnecessary projects like DAPL, Native American rights and the rights of landowners are systematically ignored and dismantled.
Fortunately, the incredible efforts of water protectors and those joining the Standing Rock Sioux in solidarity have had a profound effect. The tribe’s water source might actually be protected if ETP does not violate the law.
The protests have also exposed the wanton disregard for Native American rights by corporations and government, the willingness of police to become militarized protection services for corporations, and the destructive way in which fossil fuel companies go about their high-risk business. |
The Rosette Nebula (also known as Caldwell 49) is a large spherical H II region (circular in appearance) located near one end of a giant molecular cloud in the Monoceros region of the Milky Way Galaxy. The open cluster NGC 2244 (Caldwell 50) is closely associated with the nebulosity, the stars of the cluster having been formed from the nebula's matter.
The complex has the following NGC designations:
NGC 2237 – Part of the nebulous region (Also used to denote whole nebula)
NGC 2238 – Part of the nebulous region
NGC 2239 – Part of the nebulous region (Discovered by John Herschel)
NGC 2244 – The open cluster within the nebula (Discovered by John Flamsteed in 1690)
NGC 2246 – Part of the nebulous region
The cluster and nebula lie at a distance of some 5,000 light-years from Earth[3]) and measure roughly 130 light years in diameter. The radiation from the young stars excites the atoms in the nebula, causing them to emit radiation themselves producing the emission nebula we see. The mass of the nebula is estimated to be around 10,000 solar masses.
A survey of the nebula with the Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed the presence of numerous new-born stars inside optical Rosette Nebula and studded within a dense molecular cloud. Altogether, approximately 2500 young stars lie in this star-forming complex, including the massive O-type stars HD 46223 and HD 46150, which are primarily responsible for blowing the ionized bubble.[4][5] Most of the ongoing star-formation activity is occurring in the dense molecular cloud to the south east of the bubble.[6]
A diffuse X-ray glow is also seen between the stars in the bubble, which has been attributed to a super-hot plasma with temperatures ranging from 1 to 10 million K.[7] This is significantly hotter than the 10,000 K plasmas seen in HII regions, and is likely attributed to the shock-heated winds from the massive O-type stars.
Observing the Rosette Nebula [ edit ]
The cluster of stars is visible in binoculars and quite well seen in small telescopes while the nebula itself is more difficult to spot visually and requires a telescope with a low magnification. A dark site is a must to see it. Photographically the Rosette Nebula is easier to record and it is the only way to record the red color which is not seen visually.
Image gallery [ edit ]
Rosette Nebula image obtained with the FORS 2 instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope. [8]
Optical and X-ray (red) view of the Rosette Nebula
Rosette Nebula in narrowband Sulfur-Hydrogen Alpha-Oxygen modified Hubble palette with a 384mm scope
A close up view of the Rosette Nebula
The Rosette Nebula captured with an H-alpha filter
In the classic Hubble Palette (Ha/OIII/SII)
See also [ edit ] |
The Microsoft entertainment teams have been pushing some updates lately, fixing some sync issues in the Groove Xbox app and adding some new functionality to the Windows 10 Movies & TV app. Today, Groove engineer Ellen Kilbourne lets us know via Twitter that the Groove app on Windows 10 Mobile is next.
An update for #MicrosoftGroove on #Windows10Mobile is headed to the Store. Watch for version 3.6.1724.0! — Ellen Kilbourne (@ellenment) March 5, 2016
This update for #MicrosoftGroove includes bug fixes, no major changes. Our focus was playlist playback and crashes. Enjoy! — Ellen Kilbourne (@ellenment) March 5, 2016
Looks like a pretty minor update, but that shouldn’t stop you from hitting the update button in the Windows Store. Let us know in the comments in you see anything else that’s new.
Groove Music Developer: Microsoft Corporation Price: Free
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Further reading: Apps |
Newcastle United have completed the signing of striker Ivan Toney from Northampton Town
Newcastle United have completed the signing of striker Ivan Toney from Northampton Town.
The 19-year-old moves to St. James' Park for an undisclosed fee and has signed a long-term deal with the Magpies.
Northampton-born Toney made his senior debut for his hometown club in 2012 aged just 16 - becoming the youngest first-team player in the Cobblers' history.
Last season, he made 44 appearances in all competitions, scoring ten goals.
"I'm happy to be here and very excited," said Toney.
"The players here are a great standard and I can't wait to get going and show what I'm all about.
"Being a young lad who is scoring goals in the Football League was a great thing. Now I want to progress here and eventually do it in the Premier League."
Peter Beardsley, football development manager at Newcastle United, added: "We have been very impressed with Ivan already.
"He is a very good player, with great enthusiasm and a first-class attitude, and has all the attributes to have a bright future at the Club." |
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We can’t imagine there’s been too many tank races – either organized or impromptu – since 1945, but if we were to be blessed with such a racing series, this 1943 Buick M18 Hellcat for sale on Hemmings.com could be a serious contender, what with its 400hp nine-cylinder radial engine, its lighter armor plating, and its chassis developed by Detroit engineers. Too bad the gun has been made inop – firing at competitors would make the races all that much more interesting. From the seller’s description:
This vehicle was restored from an empty hull in 2012-2013. It has the more powerful R-975 C4 motor which makes it the fastest most powerful WWII tank you will drive. The motor was rebuilt in 2013 as well and runs perfectly. The tank has a little joe generator which is fully functional as well as a functional turret motor. Gun is not live, and the breech has been demilled. A full set of canvas comes with the M18.
Price Inquire
Location
Availability No Longer Available
See more Buicks for sale on Hemmings.com. |
OPT Professional Services is the world leader in educational and scientific telescopes and cameras for observatory use and advanced astrophotography. We serve government, commercial, and university customers across the USA and around the globe. Our Professional Services team has decades of combined experience in helping your institution find the perfect equipment.
CAGE: 7T8F3 | DUNS: 080428218 | We’re on FedBid!
OPT Professional Services is the world leader in educational and scientific telescopes and cameras for observatory use and advanced astrophotography. We serve government, commercial, and university customers across the USA and around the globe. Our Professional Services team has decades of combined experience in helping your institution find the perfect equipment.
From concept to completion, the OPT Pro Services team is your partner in bringing your astronomy goals to fruition. This team is dedicated to helping institutions of higher learning, government agencies, and commercial entities achieve success with both imaging and visual telescope systems as well as observatories. For more information about Pro Services, please email or call Chris Hendren, Larry Weatherly, or Jason Farmer.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES FEATURED BRANDS
PlaneWave:
Made right here in the USA, PlaneWave Instruments is committed to providing the highest quality observatory-class products for astronomers. PlaneWave Instruments was founded in 2006 by Richard Hedrick and Joseph Haberman, two former telescope engineers at Celestron. Getting a product like the CDK into the hands of serious imagers and amateur astronomers has been a shared vision of Hedrick and Haberman for many years.
Officina Stellare:
Officina Stellare is the only manufacturer in the world to offer a complete catalog of "standard" telescopes and astrographs, to meet any need for professional astronomers, institutions, universities, astronomy clubs and of course the most advanced amateurs. With the choice of three different optical schemes for telescopes, all available in the 400 to 800 mm aperture range, and the extraordinary family of "RH Veloce" astrographs (200 to 350 mm aperture) it is really unlikely we don't have the instrument that fits your need. All telescopes have a carbon/aluminum structure and offer the choice between standard optical glass and near-zero expansion ceramic glass for the mirrors.
Astro Physics:
Astro-Physics is fully committed to the production and development of amateur telescopes and accessories. Their goal is to produce the highest possible quality components and keep them affordable to the average amateur. Amateur telescopes are the only product that they produce; they do not get sidetracked into commercial or military projects. Many of their technical and production staff are amateur astronomers themselves, so they understand the unique needs of our customers. They strive to build almost every part from scratch at their facility in Rockford, Illinois. This includes not only the individual optics, but also the critical gears, circuit boards and components right down to the knobs and fittings.
SBIG:
SBIG has been in the camera business for 25 years. This innovative brand developed the first commercial autoguider and continues to produce robust cameras for astronomy, industry, and laboratory purposes. SBIG was also the first company to produce a commercial adaptive optics system and self-guiding filter wheels. The parent company, Diffraction Limited, writes all of the current drivers for these cameras which seamlessly integrates into Maxim DL and other software.
Software Bisque:
Software Bisque, Inc. is based in Golden, Colorado USA that develops robotics telescope mounts and accessories, and publishes world class software used in astronomy. They manufacture Telescope Mounts used by amateurs and Pros alike in both portable and permanent scenarios. Their larger telescope mounts are found in Professional, Educational,Governmental and Amateur Observatories all over the world. The “Sky X” software was developed by the Bisque Brothers and controls the “Paramount’s” they produce along with countless other Telescope Mounts. The company was founded in 1984 by current president and CEO, Stephen M. Bisque. OPT’s expert Staff includes a Software Bisque Expert who has assisted countless customers before, during and after their Software Bisque purchase. Feel free to contact Larry, Chris, or Jason from the OPT Professional Services team with any questions you may have concerning Software Bisque’s products.
TPO:
All TPO products have an incredible value which sets them apart from their competing product lines. TPO telescopes, eyepieces, filters, adapters, and other accessories are found in Personal, Governmental, Professional, and Educational Observatories all over the United States and many countries around the world, providing a level of performance that outshines anything in the same price class. This high value makes TPO products an excellent choice for overcoming cost barriers and budget restraints. Feel free to call one of our “Pro Services Consultants” to help decide which product may work for you. |
In this piece, renowned cardiologist Dr. Joel Kahn shares the benefits of a plant-based diet and explains how to present them to your own health care provider. If you're interested in learning more, check out his mindbodygreen course, Everyday Hacks for Long-Lasting Health: How to Eat, Move & Live for Longevity.
I've followed a plant-based diet since 1977, when the salad bar at my freshman dormitory at the University of Michigan was the only choice that looked edible. Today, I'm now an academic cardiologist as well as the owner of an award-winning plant-based restaurant in Ferndale, Michigan. That means I receive many questions about plant-based nutrition. One of the most common questions I get: "My doctor isn't supportive of a plant-based diet. What information can I share?”
Fortunately, the Kaiser-Permanente Medical Group, one of the nation's largest health plans, produced an excellent document, “Nutritional Update for Physicians: Plant-Based Diets,” that's a great resource to share with your health care provider. It appeared in a peer-reviewed journal and includes many scientific references your provider should respect. The paper presents a balanced view of plant-based nutrition—including five main benefits of the diet and five concerns—and can help your doctor understand your health journey. Here's a summary: |
Relax lazy bones. It might be time to embrace your inner underachiever.
In a world where work-related stress has rocketed could the most intelligent option be simply to find the least-taxing, most lucrative job on offer? Could the smartest choice for a future career be the path that requires the least amount of effort?
And what’s so wrong with applying yourself to seeking out a low stress option anyway? We looked to question-and-answer site Quora for some suggestions for the best jobs for smart but lazy people. Here’s what the masses had to say:
English, anyone?
Computer game designer, Andy Lee Chaisiri wrote: “Perhaps one out of every three English teachers I've met in Beijing describe themselves as intelligent, but very lazy.”
He wrote that teaching roles in China are often lucrative and high demand means ” entry standards are not restrictive”. In some cases, the only requirement is that an applicant was born in an English-speaking country.
Chaisiri explained that because English teaching has flexible hours “lots of people are English teachers only part time ― they are there to supplement [their education], or a brief vacation, or find another job ― which means that if you do decided to turn English teaching into your career, you will be steadily moving up.”
He added: “Your income levels will match the middle class college graduates that work 50 hours a week and do overtime until they die.” And Chaisiri wrote: “So go forth and teach English, you lazy guy!”
Keyboards and pyjamas
If you’re disinclined to venture far from your home office, Paul Denlinger suggested: “Computer programmer: It is a continuous learning process, but you really don't have to work that hard , and gradually you learn that many of the challenges are repetitive.”
Even the nature of the work itself lends itself to doing less, he indicated. “Good programmers write as few lines of code as possible, and it is one of those professions which pays well, while at the same time, encouraging laziness, Denlinger wrote. “At the same time, you get to work with other reasonably intelligent, technical people, while the investors throw money at you for their next great idea.”
However, Chris Leong a programmer in Sydney suggested “working for the government — most roles have 35-hour weeks in Australia — unless you become senior. “
Ask me, I’m an expert
Matthew Kuzma wrote: “My personal opinion is that the best possible job for someone who is intelligent but lazy would be to be a professional ‘expert’ at something, to get paid to just share your thoughts and opinions about things with people who will do the heavy lifting.”
He advises the idle to “identify the activities you don't consider work and find a career that will pay you for those. Chances are, the things you consider fun and easy are things someone else finds so hard that they're willing to pay you to do them.”
There's always Windows
As it happens, taking a laid-back approach to tackling a project is not always a negative either. Arvind Krishnan quotes billionaire Bill Gates as saying "’I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job, because he will find an easy way to do it’."
So lazy-but-intelligent people of the world:“Looks like you have a shot at Microsoft,” wrote Krishnan.
To comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Capital, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. |
As part of my “Will you be my bridesmaid?” box for Jared the Galleria of Jewelry, I made pretty paper flowers to cover the wooden box the bridesmaid’s gift was given in. These are completely inexpensive to make, they only require a few sheets of cardstock!
Paper Flower Tutorial
Our beautiful “Will you be my bridesmaid” box is decorated with pretty pale pink paper flowers. While they look immensely complicated and involved, I promise they’re not. It took a pair of scissors, a tiny bit of glue and about the length of a TV show to create about 4 of these beauties. This particular paper flower tutorial has a lot of pieces, but with a hot glue gun putting them together is pretty speedy.
This first block of steps is to make the petals and put them into the groupings that will make up the overall flowers when they are finished.
Materials:
Pale pink cardstock
Black cardstock
Hot glue
Printable petal templates
Step 1: Print and cut .
There are three sizes of flower petals (small, medium and large) in the free printable file; you’ll need all three to make all the flowers you see in this paper flower tutorial! We’ll be making two sizes of flower; the larger flower needs 6 large petals and 9 medium petals. The smaller flower needs 6 medium petals and 6 small petals.
The templates are designed to fill the page with as many petal shapes as they’ll hold, so count the number of flowers you’re going to make and print the files to your pale pink cardstock accordingly and cut them out.
After you’ve gotten the shapes cut, you’ll need to made a snip from the bottom of the petals up the center to about the middle of the petal.
Step 2 and 3: Shaping the petal.
In picture 2, you can see where that slit that was cut up the middle of the petal is important! You’ll need to slide the right flap of the petal’s bottom over the left flap and glue it down. This gives the petal a curved shape.
Since I’m an impatient crafter, I used hot glue; if you use hot glue, be sure to use the tiniest amount possible when assembling your petals so it doesn’t add bulk to your final product. To make the petals look even a bit more natural, roll the top of the petal over a pen. I liked the way the flowers looked after I gave the rolled edge a little pinch with three fingers to place a divot in the petal edge. |
Recently, MoviePass dropped the price of its movie ticket subscription plan from $50 per month to $10 per moth, officially making the deal too good to survive very long. Basically, for less than the price of a single movie ticket, you could see one movie every day at any participating theater for free, and those participating theaters weren’t too crazy about it. AMC was so unhappy about the change that it began investigating a legal way to opt-out of the program, and now MoviePass itself seems to be setting the stage for the service to become a bit less good.
As reported by Cinema Blend, MoviePass has updated a crucial portion of its terms of service with some new language that suggests it could someday change how many movies a subscriber can see in a given month. Here’s the text in full:
MoviePass reserves the right to change the rules of movie-going attendance and ticket availability to members in connection with the Service at anytime. MoviePass reserves the right to change from time to time the number of eligible movies a member can see per month. MoviePass reserves the right to offer members a new price option if they exceed watching a certain amount of movies per month.
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Basically, if you take full advantage of MoviePass and actually spend a significant period of time seeing a movie every day, the service could cut you off or ask you to pay more money. That implies there could be some kind of invisible limit on how many movies you can see, but you won’t know what it is until MoviePass yells at you for seeing too many movies. |
This deck had a record of 4 -1
If you have never seen this absurd Gwen Stefani VIDEO I highly recommend you watch it.
Temujin is such a well designed criminal card because it rewards them for running but telegraphs so the corp can armor up. Regardless, it gave criminals back the slots they needed for more tricks.
I have learned that basic criminal netrunner has gotten a power boost, the medium and turning wheel was good but it didn't set the lock up fast enough. The increased return on RD runs from temujin makes you able to set up a shaper like lock while still threatening any remote.
Solid breakers such as clippy and gordian and mongoose, play careful and stay stone faced when Gordian gets trashed so you can win before they install more enigmas lol.
This is old school criminal engine dialed up to eleven. We may not be running data sucker but the money added to successful runs is nuts.
TIP: if they have open servers don't temujin a central you want to run. Instead security test and temujin something they will never trash and get 7 credits at the start of every turn. Its amazing and if they dedicate ice to it, that's good for you.
Derived from @Jackmade and thank you @Seamus for the testing help! |
OTTAWA — The silence from the Liberal side was noticeable. So were the raised eyebrows afterward.
Liberal MPs broke from longstanding tradition for a second straight day on Thursday by not clapping or otherwise showing their support whenever a government minister or parliamentary secretary responded during question period.
There were a few exceptions, as some fell victim to old habits and heated emotions. But for the most part, the lack of applause or cheering from the government side during the 45-minute session was complete.
Liberals say the proposal was adopted by consensus during their weekly caucus meeting Wednesday, It was not ordered by Government House Leader Dominic LeBlanc or Chief Government Whip Andrew Leslie and no particular incident sparked the change.
“It actually came from the caucus members themselves,” said backbencher Robert-Falcon Ouellette. “We’ve been talking about it for a long time. A lot of the new members were not very satisfied with the way the House of Commons functions.”
Several Liberals cited the desire to improve decorum in the House as their main hope for deciding to sit on their hands rather than engaging in the type of unrelenting applause associated with question period.
“It’s about restoring civility and that sort of raucous applause for whatever anybody says at anytime was disingenuous, and we feel it was really important to calm things down in the Chamber, and it’s working,” said Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett.
Liberals said they didn’t know how long the new approach would last, but felt it was worth a try. Opposition MPs had mixed reactions to the change. Most agreed, however, there is a place for applause in the House of Commons, and there are better ways to improve decorum.
NDP MP Nathan Cullen said there is a place for shows of support in the House. “Like I would at a speech or a hockey game,” he said. “I show my enthusiasm by applauding.”
He added applause and clapping aren’t the source of problems with decorum.
“Parliament hasn’t become disruptive because of clapping,” he said. “Parliament gets disrupted because people are offensive and insulting, and won’t work together.”
Conservative MP Ed Fast described the no-clap policy as “artificial and contrived,” and said his party has no plans to follow suit.
“We will continue to support our colleagues when we feel they’ve asked fair but assertive questions,” he said. “And we would expect our colleagues across the aisle to do the same thing when there’s a response that deserves applause.”
• Email: lberthiaume@postmedia.com | Twitter: leeberthiaume |
LEXINGTON COUNTY, SC (WACH) - A man attempting to leave the scene of a burglary has been arrested after the getaway vehicle got stuck in the mud.
Sheriff James R. Metts says deputies arrested Richard Walter Murray, Jr., 42, of Lexington on a charge of second-degree burglary.
Murray is accused of breaking into a home on Amicks Ferry Road around 5 a.m. Monday by kicking in the door, according to Metts.
Authorities say Murray had to call a tow truck after his 2009 Saturn Vue became stuck in the mud. The homeowner's son lives across the street and noticed the commotion when the tow truck arrived. He contacted the sheriff's department.
Items missing from the home, including an iron stove and electronics were found inside Murray's vehicle, Metts said.
Anyone with additional information on this incident is asked to contact CrimeStoppers at 1-888-CRIME-SC. |
People take part in a demonstration in Madrid Tuesday, May 17. (Arturo Rodriguez/AP)
Read our continuing coverage of the protests here.
Some 10,000 protesters gathered in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square Wednesday to demand jobs, economic equality, and “real democracy” in the fourth day of protests that mimic the Middle East uprisings.
“La Puerta del Sol in Madrid is now the country’s Tahrir Square, and the Arab Spring has been joined by what is now bracing to become a long European Summer,” writes Pablo Ouziel in Political Affairs.
Spaniards are protesting ahead of the upcoming elections, when they will vote for new municipal councils and regional governments across the country in hopes of replacing policies they’ve largely been unhappy with.
Much of the movement has been coordinated by the youth organization Democracia Real Ya online, which has used the rallying cry: “We're not merchandise in the hands of bankers and politicians!”
Protesters gathered not only in Madrid but also in the cities of Sevilla, Granada and Valencia. Although a large segment of the population did not participate, many demonstrators referred to the protests as a “Spanish Revolution.”
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's ruling Socialist Party said they were “alarmed” by the protesters, fearing them to be disaffected left-wing supporters who would abandon the party on election day.
Mariano Rajoy, leader of the conservative Popular Party, which is expected to make huge gains in the elections, said he understood the protesters' motives.
Watch a video shot of the of thousands of protesters in Madrid today by “eloyente” for periodismohumano.com:
This post has been updated. |
If you haven’t heard of the Terraria Drow Elf Challenge, you really are missing out. The basic premise is to live your entire pre-hardmode existence underground. I hear you asking, “but how is that possible?” There are some rules to getting started, and what all is considered “underground” when playing this challenge. I will do my best to explain the challenge, and then provide you with what I would consider to be the essentials early on in the campaign.
IN THE UNDERGROUND LIES DARKNESS:
When you dig down deep enough, the lights go out, and you will soon find yourself surrounded by darkness. While most living creatures that live exclusively underground have had eons of evolution to adapt to living in complete darkness, you do not have that kind of time. Your first and most important task is to decide how to light the road that lies ahead.
Here are the first rules of the Terraria Drow Elf Challenge. The options for your initial light source are as follows:
1 – Bring a miner’s helmet from another world with you (easy).
2 – Cut down tree, kill a slime, craft torches (limit 10), discard remaining wood (moderate).
3 – Bring 3 torches with you from another world (hard).
4 – Bring or make 1 single torch with you, nothing more (difficult).
I, myself chose to play on the moderate level, and started out by crafting my own torches, and discarding the remaining wood. Since I chose to bring torches instead of a mining helmet, the remainder of this article will be for those choosing to play the moderate to difficult level. How you choose to utilize your torches is up to you, but I recommend that you recycle them, and bring them with you.
START DIGGING:
When you first spawn in to your new world, and have your light source ready, the next task is to mine down into the underground, the place that you will call home for the remainder of the challenge. Let’s go ahead and define UNDERGROUND at this point to make sure you will continue to abide by the rules of the challenge. Officially the underground constitutes all areas that lie below the LEVEL SURFACE layer. You will see the background change from solid dirt to a mix of rock and dirt. That change in background symbolizes the boundary between the evils of the surface world, and the safety of your underground kingdom. You’ve arrived….
WATCH YOUR STEP:
As you progress deeper in to the ground you will begin to encounter larger caverns, and large blind drops. Make sure you build a means to escape or back track, should you need to. Large drops can also kill you, so use caution when you are exploring and mining. Recycling the mass amount of dirt you will undoubtedly have at this point will allow you to build makeshift staircases or platforms to help navigate some of the larger caverns and drop offs in relative safety. Rule of thumb – Look before you leap.
NOW WHAT?
Now that you are in the underground layer, you can begin to spread out horizontally, and explore any the caverns that you should begin to encounter. These large caverns are going to be the first area you will begin to find the critical resources you will need next. The rules of this challenge state that you should strive to craft a bed as quickly as possible to set your spawn point in the underground. This will require resources, and of course a home to put it in.
COLLECTING RESOURCES:
Pots will contain money, ropes, torches, arrows, glow sticks, healing potions, and a few other rare items. Gather everything you can for now, and continue mining/exploring. I would recommend collecting any ore you encounter, as it will eventually come in handy. The other thing you will want to collect are cobwebs. These will be used to craft silk later, and will be required for your bed. The caverns will also contain the life crystals needed to increase your life meter. Since they are rarer, do not waste too much time seeking them out. There will be plenty of time for that later. First we must find a suitable place to build a house. You may also stumble upon random underground chests. Loot them and take them with you. You will want to take the time to kill any jellyfish you encounter, as they will drop glow-sticks, an alternative, but expendable light source. These will help you to navigate further in to the darkened caverns.
ONE MANS TRASH…
If you are lucky, you will find the remains of an underground building fairly quickly. If not, continue to explore until you find one. This is a good place to set up operations, as it usually contains a chest with a few goodies inside. Since you will need wood, you can harvest the walls of the structure and replace them with stone. If there is a workbench present, then I would recommend crafting brick to replace the wooden walls. This is mostly for aesthetics, but you can also just utilize any plain stone or dirt if you so choose. Now that you have secured a base camp, it’s time to expand and explore for what I would consider to be one of the more important items early in this challenge, glowing mushrooms.
TRIPPIN’ BALLS:
Your next goal should be to locate a glowing mushroom biome as quickly as possible. They can sometimes be a little tricky to locate, but can usually be found fairly quickly. Listen for the music associated with their presence, and watch for illuminated areas on your screen and mini-map. Once you have located them, begin harvesting the glowing mushrooms. Harvest as many as you can reach, and hopefully you should pick up some glowing mushroom seeds in the process. If the biome is close enough to your base camp, you can terraform the existing biome to be used as a glowing mushroom farm for future use, otherwise, make sure you gather mud, and build a nice large farm closer to your home.
WHY GLOWING MUSHROOMS?
Why am I making such a big deal about glowing mushrooms? Simple. These things are used for a variety of things, and can really help you make some progress in getting yourself set up for success early on. Here are some of the things that make them important to me:
They are a renewable resource that regenerates rather quickly.
They can be used to craft many things that can also be made out of wood (workbenches, planks, furniture, including a bed, etc)
They GLOW! You now have a new light source. You no longer have to worry about conserving your torches as much.
LAY YOUR WEARY HEAD TO REST:
Now that you have a home, you will need to make a bed, and set it as your new spawn point. If you have been collecting ore along the way, you should now have a large collection of either iron or lead on hand. Craft a heavy workbench, and then use that to craft a loom to spin those cobwebs in to silk. Once you have enough silk and glowing mushrooms, you should be able to craft a bed, and set your spawn point. Congratulations, your first checkpoint has been achieved.
KEEP ON KEEPIN’ ON:
With a home base established, it is now time to venture out and explore. You are ultimately looking for life crystals, and other goodies to help you out, but you also want to take the time to build housing rooms for NPCs to eventually move in to. Building large rooms for crafting stations is also advised, even if you don’t have them yet.
WHAT SHOULD I BE LOOKING FOR?
Some of the basic items you will want to secure early on are:
MINING HELMET – The need to have a permanent light source is obvious. This item can be found as an item drop or purchased from the merchant for a small fee.
ORE – You should be collecting the various types of ore already, but it should still be said, as it will be used to craft better armor, weapons, tools, and items later on.
EXTRACTINATOR – This may take some time to find, but once you locate one, you can use it to turn slush, silt, and desert fossils into ores, coins, gems, and other rare items.
ACCESSORIES – Any accessory you can find should be picked up. These include but are not limited to: shackles, boots, charms, grapples, etc. One of the more important items is a depth meter. This will help you stay below the vile surface layer.
ARMOR – With all that ore you are collecting, you should strive to craft complete sets of armor, so you can get their associated bonuses.
RESTRICTIONS AND OBSTACLES:
Due to the nature of this challenge, there are some obstacles that are now present in the game. So far here are the ones I have encountered, or figured out. If there is a work-a-round I will do my best to present it.
METEORITE ORE – Since the impact will more than likely not reach the depth of the underground layer, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to harvest any of it from below. One possible work-a-round might be to mine out sand in the desert biome from below, so that the level surface of the sand drops down to sea level. This would require some tricky mining techniques, and would also require the meteorite to hit in the exact spot you lowered, and spread its impact crater below the level surface for you to be able to harvest. Possible, yes; probable, no. Good luck if you try this. In one of my attempts I was able to get enough through some other method to craft some meteorite shot and some armor. I can’t recall how I got it now, but I think it was an item drop from silt/slush or it was found in a fishing crate? I honestly cannot remember now.
FALLEN STARS/MANA – At first thought, this would seem impossible right? Well, that’s not true. Yes, shooting star’s only fall on the surface at night. You might get lucky and get deep enough chasm to spawn in the surface world that would allow for that one lucky star to find its way deep enough to be reached from below while staying in the underground layer. The odds however, are so slim, that I would say that it’s impossible to actually happen. So now what? What I have done is work my way to the edge of the map, where the ocean is, and literally bring the ocean floor to the underground. This required that I
do some very tricky, and time consuming mining, but I now have the ocean floor well below the transition layer. I know it works, as I have already harvested enough stars to boost my Mana level to 4. You may be able to do the same thing in the desert biome, but I haven’t tried it.
THE DUNGEON – Simply put, this place if off-limits, and you will not be fighting Skeletron in this play through, since he can only be summoned at the surface entrance. Trying to enter the dungeon before killing him results in your immediate death, thanks to the Dungeon Guardian. This also means you cannot free the mechanic, so no wired objects can be acquired/used. Guess we will have to go old school on this one.
FISHERMAN – Since this NPC is only found on the surface, you will not be able to acquire him, and participate in his ongoing quest for fish. Who has time anyway? Your objective in this play through is to defeat the wall of flesh as quickly as possible using only what you can scrounge for underground. While you are more than welcome to fish in the underground, and the crates you catch while doing so can contain helpful items, you might be better served to spend your time looking for life crystals, and treasure chests for a lot of the same types of items. You may want to catch a few of the consumable fish and craft them in to the cooked fish item to use during the showdown with the Wall of Flesh. It may not be much of a boost to your stats, but every little bit helps.
GOBLIN ARMY – The Goblin Army is a random Terrarian even that happens primarily on the surface of your world. Even with you being hidden underground, you can still fight off an army of the invading goblins by traveling in tunnels located near ground zero, and waiting for them to appear. The goblins will spawn in the very upper levels of the underground layers, and you will be able to eliminate them. Why am I mentioning this event? Because defeating the Goblin Army unlocks the Goblin Tinkerer NPC who can strengthen your weaponry, and sell you a pretty cool crafting station (Tinkerer’s Workshop).
WHAT ELSE?
Fighting any of the additional BOSSES are optional for this challenge, but it is recommended that you do. They drop some pretty important and useful items, that will only assist you in defeating the Wall of Flesh later on. Some bosses, like the Eye of Cthulhu will show up weather or not you want them to, so you may want to build a smallish arena-like area near your spawn point just in case he does show up unannounced.
IN SUMMARY:
At this point I think I have yammered on long enough. I am now ready to shut up, and turn you lose to start on your own underground adventure. So I will try to summarize everything I covered above as quickly as possible. For convenience, here is a basic list of what you should look for, and what is important in this challenge.
Manage your starting torches wisely, and watch out for drop-offs.
Jellyfish are friends.
Locate a glowing mushroom farm as quickly as possible.
Explore and collect everything you can get.
Build a home base and bed
Make NPC housing.
Continue exploring and upgrading.
Fight a goblin army.
Reforge your weaponry.
Craft complete armor sets.
Catch and cook a few fish.
Locate the Extractinator and some slush/silt for it.
Fight and eliminate as many BOSSES as you can (except Skeletron).
Arm yourself to the teeth.
Take on and Defeat the Wall of Flesh.
Win the challenge.
If you are interested in learning more about this, and other Terraria-based challenges, you should be able to find more information about them on the various online forums dedicated to this wonderful game. |
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