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Two referendums were held in Liechtenstein in 1968.[1] The first was held on 4 July on the question of introducing women's suffrage. Separate votes were held for men and women, with the men voting against, and women split almost equally,[2] resulting in it being rejected by 54.5% of voters overall.[1] The second referendum was held on 6 October on abolishing the tax on alcoholic drinks. It was rejected by 56.3% of voters.[1] A second referendum on women's suffrage was held in 1971 in which only men were allowed to vote. It also resulted in a "no" vote. Results [ edit ] Women's suffrage [ edit ] Choice Men Women Total Votes % Votes % Votes % For 887 39.8 1,266 50.5 2,153 45.5 Against 1,341 60.2 1,241 49.5 2,582 54.5 Invalid/blank votes – – – – 31 – Total 2,228 100 2,507 100 4,766 100 Registered voters/turnout – – – – 8,203 58.1 Source: Nohlen & Stöver, Kohn[3] Removal of alcoholic drinks tax [ edit ] Choice Votes % For 1,214 43.7 Against 1,565 56.3 Invalid/blank votes 78 – Total 2,857 100 Registered voters/turnout 4,036 70.8 Source: Nohlen & Stöver |
Russian Christians Demand Apple Change 'Offensive' Logo to Cross Email Print Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Christians from Russia's Orthodox community are demanding that the country's Apple division remove the famous half-bitten apple logo from its products and replace it with a cross, because they find the apple image offensive to their beliefs. In popular culture, an apple is often used to represent the fruit that Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge when tempted by the devil, as found in Genesis 3 in the Bible – although the exact type of fruit is not mentioned in Scripture. Still, conservative Christians in Russia have insisted that the logo should be removed and replaced with a cross, Xbitlabs.com reported from a translated article from Interfax news agency. The Russian conservatives may get their way and force Apple to change its logo because of new laws being proposed in the country's parliament on blasphemy and insults targeting religious, spiritual, or national values. It is expected that President Vladimir Putin will back the laws, especially since the Russian Orthodox Church heavily supported him during his election campaign in 2012. Besides replacing the logo, conservatives may even stop Apple product sales in Russia if they manage to convict the company of committing anti-religious deeds. Apple's iconic symbol has been in use in one form or another for over 35 years. The first bitten apple silhouette was introduced in 1976, and has undergone a number of design changes to reach its current glass-themed logo, which was introduced in 2003. The Russian Orthodox Church has been quick to clamp down on any disrespect or rebellion against its authority. The church was a leading factor in having three members of the punk rock band Pussy Riot jailed for performing a song against President Vladimir Putin inside Moscow's main cathedral. Church officials have called on the all-female group to repent for its blasphemy and hooliganism. |
« Is Whale Oil a journalist (3)? | Main | Web hosts’ defamation liability restricted » By Steven | September 15, 2014 I’m struggling to find the provisions in NZ’s policy about the classification of documents that allow the PM to declassify documents for the purpose of protecting his reputation (his word, not mine, on Morning Report this morning). Perhaps the PM could help me out here. The PM has said he would declassify documents to prove he stopped a mass surveillance proposal, in response to criticisms by journalist Glenn Greenwald (and, it seems, whistleblower Edward Snowden). A few other questions spring to mind: Why were these documents classified in the first place, and who by? What was the security classification? If they were classified secret or top secret, what was the “serious” or “exceptionally grave” damage to our security operations that would have been caused if we’d known about them, say, at the time we were debating the proper content of our spy laws? (Or what other secrecy ground was relied on?). Who is directing the reclassification? Because it sounds like the PM is ordering it. But the decision should surely be made by the intelligence agencies themselves. Chapter 3, para 31 says: for authority to downgrade or declassify, refer material classified SECRET or TOP SECRET to the point of origin. So what’s the PM doing making this call? Hasn’t he always told us that operational decisions are the domain of the agencies themselves? (And isn’t his office under investigation for rapidly having SIS information declassified and released to Cameron Slater?) If the PM is making this decision, is protecting his own reputation a proper consideration? One might have thought that “overriding public interest” was the proper benchmark for working out whether to declassify a document. That has the beauty of being consistent with the Official Information Act, which still applies to these documents (see Chapter 3, para 6). And surely there is overriding public interest in the release of the documents now. Is the PM reluctant to make this point because of the obvious rejoinder: why were they not in the public interest back when we were debating the law, when similar allegations of mass surveillance by our spy agencies were being made, and when the country was debating what powers and limitations on those powers were appropriate? Is this declassification process being expedited? Again, on whose instructions? Or was it already in train? It was widely anticipated that Nicky Hager’s book would include similar allegations to these. Had the PM already begun or even finished the declassification process in order to have the documents lined up for rebuttal? Why are the only documents being declassified the ones necessary to protect the PM’s reputation by showing how he stopped this “business plan”? If those documents are no longer going to be harmful to release, or if there is sufficient public interest to override any relevant harm, then aren’t there a swag of other relevant documents that should be declassified too? Topics: General | 54 Comments » |
BEVO BEAT An Aggie comes to Austin, gives Tom Herman some love, predicts a game with Texas Posted June 16th, 2017 Advertisement Story highlights Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said he's worked with Tom Herman before Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said he's worked with Tom Herman before Both of them were head coaches of the Houston Cougars Both of them were head coaches of the Houston Cougars They're also going head-to-head for many recruits Coach Kevin Sumlin stepped behind the “orange curtain” Thursday night to tout his Texas A&M football team and help Aggie alums raise money for scholarships. Sumlin, in his sixth year as the Aggies’ head coach, was the featured draw at the annual Coaches Night sponsored by the Capital City A&M Club held at the H.E.B. Center. And although Sumlin is fighting mightily with Tom Herman for the top recruits in Texas, he’s expecting success for the new Longhorns coach. After all, former Houston Cougar head coaches stick together. Advertisement “Tom and I did satellite camps last year,” Sumlin said. “Obviously, we didn’t do them this year. We have a lot of things in common and we’ve known each other for a long time. RELATED: Coach turns in LSU’s Orgeron to NCAA for canceling summer camp involving Longhorns “He was at Rice and (Owls coach) David Bailiff is a really good friend. … Obviously being at the University of Houston, there’s some insight there. So I’ve known a Tom a long time. He’s very talented. He’s done a great job where ever he’s been. I don’t think that’s going to be any different.” Sumlin also was asked the obligatory questions about whether the Aggies and Longhorns ever will play again in football. The two rivals haven’t played a football game since 2011. Then A&M left for the SEC. “Me, personally? I think over the course of time that’s going to happen,” Sumlin said. “With our move to the SEC scheduling has become a real issue.” A&M finishes a home-and-home series with UCLA this season, then has Clemson, Colorado and Notre Dame as marquee non-conference opponents. The Aggies, like other SEC schools, play four non-conference games, including one in November. Texas, and other Big 12 teams, play three non-conference games. Kevin Sumlin is "behind orange curtain." It's coach's night in ATX. pic.twitter.com/0JeV9zmZYu — Suzanne Halliburton (@suzhalliburton) June 15, 2017 News on Bevo Beat is free and unlimited. Access to the rest of Hookem.com is included with an Austin American-Statesman subscription in addition to Statesman.com and the ePaper edition. Subscribe today at statesman.com/subscribe. |
New Belgium Brewing is getting in on the gluten-free beer game and plans to introduce a pair of “gluten-reduced” offerings in January. Using an enzyme to break down gluten proteins, New Belgium’s new products boast the familiar “crafted to remove gluten” language on their labels. In a press statement, the company said both of its new “Glütiny” beers meet the FDA standard for “gluten-free” of 20 parts per million. “When we started experimenting with the recipes, we wanted to create beers that our most adventurous craft beer drinkers would enjoy” spokesman Bryan Simpson said in a press statement. “We didn’t want to compromise on flavor, mouthfeel or body. These beers deliver the full flavored experience craft drinkers expect foremost with the added benefit of being gluten-reduced.” Six-packs of Glütiny Golden Ale and Glütiny Pale Ale will retail for $9.99, the company said. New Belgium joins Craft Brew Alliance, which makes the Omission line of gluten-reduced beers, as well as Stone Brewing, which rolled “Delicious IPA” earlier this year, as the major craft beer suppliers selling products in the gluten-free space. It should be noted, however, that all three companies are brewing with barley, a grain containing gluten, and using a special enzyme to treat their products. That means none of the above-mentioned beers are actually gluten-free, according to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), which monitors labeling. Sales of gluten-free food and beverages are expected to reach $6.6 billion in sales by 2017, according to a report from Packaged Facts. More details are included in New Belgium’s press release, below. Ft. Collins, Colo. — New Belgium Brewing joins the mutiny against gluten by hoisting pints of its new Glütiny ales. The brewery’s latest year-round offerings, Glütiny Pale Ale and Glütiny Golden Ale, give discerning craft beer drinkers uncompromised choices in the gluten-reduced category. The two beers will be available in New Belgium markets mid-January, 2016. Glütiny Golden Ale New Belgium dosed Glütiny Golden Ale with Nugget, Goldings and Cascade hops, and then dry-hopped it again with Cascade. These bright, floral hops lend grapefruit and subtle herb notes to the wash of bready-sweet malts. An addition of oats adds a layer of smoothness to the mouthfeel. At 5.2 percent ABV and 20 IBUs, Glütiny Golden Ale is a sessionable, flavorful ale that starts sweet and ends crisp. Glütiny Pale Ale Glütiny Pale Ale has a hefty dose of exotic Equinox hops, which bring out guava, papaya and stone fruits lending to a sweet, slightly toasty malt flavor. Additional hops include chinook, cascade and crystal. The beer starts with a light sweetness that slides into a balanced bitterness. The mouthfeel is juicy with a crisp finish. Glütiny Pale Ale comes in at 6 percent ABV and 30 IBUs. For both beers, New Belgium’s brewers used an enzyme to break down the proteins that trigger a reaction from gluten-sensitive consumers. The beers are technically gluten-removed rather than gluten free, but fall well within the FDA’s guidelines of less than 20ppm. All New Belgium gluten-reduced beers will come in under 10ppm. “When we started experimenting with the recipes, we wanted to create beers that our most adventurous craft beer drinkers would enjoy” said Bryan Simpson, spokesperson for New Belgium Brewing. “We didn’t want to compromise on flavor, mouthfeel or body. These beers deliver the full flavored experience craft drinkers expect foremost with the added benefit of being gluten-reduced.” New Belgium’s Glütiny ales retail for a suggested price $9.99 a six pack. For more information about New Belgium Brewing, visit NewBelgium.com. You can also follow New Belgium on Facebook at Facebook.com/NewBelgium and Twitter @NewBelgium. About New Belgium Brewing Company New Belgium Brewing, makers of Fat Tire Amber Ale and a host of Belgian-inspired beers, is recognized as one of Outside Magazine’s Best Places to Work and one of the Wall Street Journal’s Best Small Businesses. The 100% employee-owned brewery is a Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Business as designated by the League of American Bicyclists, one of World Blu’s Most Freedom-Centered Workplaces, and a Certified B Corp. In addition to Fat Tire, New Belgium brews ten year-round beers; Ranger IPA, Rampant Imperial IPA, Shift Pale Lager, Slow Ride Session IPA, Snapshot Wheat, Sunshine Wheat, 1554 Black Lager, Blue Paddle Pilsner, Abbey Belgian Ale and Trippel. Learn more at NewBelgium.com. |
No. But his policies might have some awesome unintended consequences. You may be aware that the Department of Justice has recently invaded the state of California. The state’s well established medical marijuana community is being destroyed by the DOJ’s enforcement of Federal drug laws. The Obama administration’s choice to prosecute these “crimes”, that are not crimes in the state of California, is a betrayal of his campaign promises, and a reversal of two years of policy. As awful as this is it might have some salutary effects. In November 2010, California voters rejected Proposition 19, which would have legalized Marijuana (ed- fully legalized and taxed like alcohol). This was a bit surprising. If any state would be pro-legalization, surely hippy-dippy California would be the one? Medical marijuana has been legal in California for years. Surprisingly, this hurt the legalization vote. Medical marijuana users already had access to marijuana. They were leery of a change in the system that might endanger their supply, or put it in the hands of larger corporations. Many farmers and owners of medical marijuana dispensaries were also reluctant to wholeheartedly support legalization efforts. They did not want the competition. Much of legalization’s natural constituency, users and producers, was at best ambivalent about Proposition 19. Eric Holder’s Department of Justice put the final nail in the coffin. The DOJ threatened to rigorously enforce the federal drug laws if Proposition 19 passed. This didn’t just mean legalization wouldn’t happen, it meant that California’s medical marijuana system would be crushed as well. Marijuana was already functionally legal in California, why risk what they had? The DOJ’s invasion of California this past fall shows the folly of that approach. Holder got what he wanted, and then invaded anyway. Small businesses have been destroyed, people are being arrested for providing a service to their community, and patients can no longer access the medicines they need. This is all horrible, but there is a silver lining. The pro-marijuana community in California will not be fooled again. The DOJ has already done its worst. The next time California decides a marijuana legalization proposition they will be much more likely to vote for it. Proposition 19 lost by a small margin, 46% to 54%. Obama’s heavy-handed approach is likely to have moved that 4% and more. Thanks to the DOJ, we may see individual states legalize marijuana as soon as this year. Rob has put together a series of videos to advocate legalization that can be found here |
Long ago, there was a small company called Charlton Comics with a strange assortment of characters. DC Comics bought them in the 1980s and superstar writer Alan Moore intended to write their swan song in a story called “Who Killed the Peacemaker?” DC told Moore they had plans for the characters, so Moore created new heroes based on the old and wrote the story he planned from the start -- a 12-issue series called "Watchmen" that broke a lot of rules and provided the source material for Zack Snyder's blockbuster adaptation. Previously, we introduced you to the characters who inspired "Watchmen" characters Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias, as well as the characters The Comedian and Silk Spectre were based upon. Now, to finish our three-part article, let’s talk about the last two members of the cast, Nite Owl and Rorschach. FROM “BLUE BEETLE” TO “NITE-OWL”: Introduced in 1939 by Fox Comics, the original Blue Beetle was a fairly generic hero: Dan Garrett, a cop who wore a bullet-proof costume, took a strength-enhancing vitamin and fought crime. Despite a comic and a radio series, he never got the popularity of Superman or Batman. Charlton bought the character and revamped him in 1964. Now, Dan Garrett was an archeologist who found a mystical blue scarab which granted him magic armor. When this didn’t interest fans, Garrett was killed in 1966 and his student and friend Ted Kord became the second Blue Beetle. Unable to use the scarab, Ted relied on wits, athletic prowess, gadgets and his aircraft, “The Bug.” Ted had an occasional partnership with the vigilante called "The Question" and later they joined with Nightshade and Captain Atom as "The Sentinels of Justice." When DC re-introduced Ted, they left him and his history mostly unchanged, but quickly said the scarab was an alien artifact, not magic. Ted then joined the Justice League for many years, working with heroes such as Batman and Superman. In 2005, Ted was killed and teenager Jaime Reyes has become the third Blue Beetle, thanks to the blue scarab. FROM “THE QUESTION” TO “RORSCHACH”: In 1967, readers met The Question. Vic Sage was a television journalist who went out at night to fight crime and expose corruption. Aside from his faceless mask, he had no costume and simply wore a suit and trench coat. The Question was a harsh man with genius-level detective skills who believed in moral absolutes and did not accept compromises. He had an occasional partnership with the second Blue Beetle and later the two of them joined with Captain Atom and Nightshade in the Sentinels of Justice. When he was integrated into DC Comics, the Question was given more backstory and it was said he’d grown up an orphan named Charles Victor Szasz before adopting a stage name. Though he began as a vigilante who saw things only in black and white, this changed after an encounter with Batman, a near-death experience, and the mentorship of martial artist Richard Dragon. The Question became a philosopher warrior, focused on stopping social corruption even as he wrestled with his own morality and darker impulses. A few years ago, when he learned he had cancer, Vic began mentoring Renee Montoya, an ally of Batman’s and a former Gotham City police detective. Following Vic’s death, Renee became the new Question. And that wraps it all up, folks. Now you know the secret history of "Watchmen" and the characters that inspired the groundbreaking series -- which should make for some interesting conversation while you're in line for the film! What do you think about this series of "Watchmen" origin stories? Want to see more of this type of posts? Sound off in the comment section! |
CLEVELAND—The first sign the army has been mobilized comes at a rest stop just outside Buffalo. A stealthy “Let’s Go Blue Jays’’ and a tentative fist bump from a blue-clad stranger signals we’re on our way. We travel beneath the radar on Interstate 90, but you can find us if you know where to look. The Ontario plates, the strategically placed Blue Jays cap on the back dashboard of the car, the silent thumbs up as one driver in a Jays jersey passes another, the Jays pennant on the aerials. Jays fans formed pockets of blue at Cleveland's Progressive Field during Game 1 of the ALCS on Friday. ( Carlos Osorio / Toronto Star ) Jays nation politely and quietly arrived in this Ohio city this weekend, then pounced. On the streets, Blue Jays blue was everywhere, in the bars and restaurants, pouring out of the downtown hotels, waving banners and flags with a few Edwing parrots along for the ride. But unlike previous Cleveland invasions, this one was different. For starters, it was pricier. The locals, believing they are riding some karmic wave to the World Series, seem pleased to see us, perhaps thinking if anyone would actually come to Cleveland for the weekend, they should be nurtured, not chirped at. Article Continued Below And, what’s that you say, there are actual Cleveland fans here? There was a time Toronto fans could take over Progressive Field for the simple reason that we came and the locals couldn’t be bothered. A few years back, with both teams wandering aimlessly through the 162-game season, the handful of locals who bothered to show up, tried to quiet the Blue Jays faithful with the ubiquitous chant of “USA, USA.” The well-lubricated Toronto throng countered with a full-throated, equally irrelevant chant of “We’ve Got Health Care, We’ve Got Health Care.” We still come in the thousands — but now we sit in blue pockets of the stadium because people who live in Ohio have rediscovered their team. Greg Hives and his buddy Ryan McNeil, both of Scarborough, scored standing-room tickets at cost by juggling 10 different tickets sites the moment they went on sale. Many, like Debra and Rob Good of Elmira, Ont., who traveled to Boston to see the Jays clinch a playoff spot, bought from a secondary ticket source, but the winners in ingenuity appeared to be the quartet of Jordan Glicksman, Nathan Stall, Lauren Rakowski and Melissa Lantsman. Three of them drove from Toronto, monitoring ticket prices for the five-hour journey, finally scoring four behind the Jays dugout just before game time — below cost — then flipping their existing tickets. We want to get the competitive juices boiling in this town, but Clevelanders are being a tad too, how should I put it, nice and polite? That’s supposed to be our shtick. Everywhere we went, we were asked if we were from Canada, with that kind of awe Americans can summon as if we had to abandon our dog team and trek through the night. The worst I heard on the street after game one was a derisive “thanks for coming.” Thanks for coming? While wearing Blue Jays garb, you could hear worse from a hotel desk in Boston, New York or Pittsburgh. Article Continued Below The hotel bar even serves a Toast to Toronto, a rather inexplicable concoction of rye, domaine de canton fernet branca (what?) orange and bitters. The bartender wouldn’t charge us for it, apologizing for his slow service. The Cleveland Plain Dealer served up a minor tweak to the visitors with a front page headline Saturday that read, “Pretty Good Start, Eh?” Maybe that passes for trash talk in Cleveland. Maybe they’re just having such a good time here, they’re just happy to see us in October. Hey Cleveland, we’re trying to take over your town. Stop being so nice about it. |
All photographs courtesy of Dana Distortion/ Amuse Inc. In his book The Undivided Past, David Cannadine argues that while historians have the habit of categorising people into broad, mutually-exclusive and adversarial groups by gender, religion, race, class, nationality and so on, in practice the world is far more fluid and collaborative than their Manichean models purport. Mankind, says Cannadine, is made up of individuals who share a common humanity and really just want to get along (man). And for the most part in fact, people have got along pretty damn well and actually still do, even in spite of our regular clashes and conflicts which inevitably draw attention away from the more humdrum, everyday instances of constructive and amicable social cohesion. The historian and the music writer are very similar beasts. Both hoard vast archives of largely useless material, neither party looks remotely dignified when wearing a leather jacket (naturally, corduroy is the way to go) and journos, too, are prone to lumping bands and fans together into categories, genres, subcultures and scenes. A lot of this is lazy fabrication and generalisation as well. One could argue that hippies and punks weren't so different after all (just look at Crass). Moments of unpleasant violence between mods and rockers, such as the Brighton bank holiday beach brawl of 1964, were neither as large-scale nor frequent as media exaggeration purported. Come the 1990s' mod revival that was Britpop, despite the attempts of the press to brainwash us into thinking that credible music could only be made by white Englishmen with guitars and bowl haircuts, back then I actually owned cassettes by Mariah Carey, TLC, David Holmes, Kenickie, Ben Folds 5 AND Creed. Just call me Mr Cosmopolitan. Since then the internet, playlist culture and globalisation have all contributed to the ongoing demise of music "tribes" so that people are now more likely than ever to listen to, say, terrifying speed metal one moment and shiny happy J-pop the next. So why on Earth wouldn't they want to listen to both at the same time? This is where Babymetal come in. Babymetal are three teenage girls, "Su-metal", "Yuimetal" and "Moametal", who have been blessed by The Fox God with the mission of saving heavy metal and uniting the world. Or, if you happen to be a Fox God sceptic, their manager and producer Key "Kobametal" Kobayashi has manufactured Babymetal, masterminding their radical fusion of heavy metal and Japanese idol pop. All this makes certain uptight metal purists very angry indeed, which I personally find incredibly funny. If you can bring yourself to award him an click, check out the anti-Babymetal rant by YouTuber Billy Kasper and marvel at how this big, whining cry-baby is practically brought to tears by the mere existence of these allegedly undeserving and talentless upstarts who haven't paid their dues and have the gall to sing in a foreign language he doesn't understand. Kasper represents the small but vocal, largely internet-based minority of metallers who harbour ridiculous "tru-kvlt" attitudes and whose killjoy seriousness makes them look like silly wazzocks. Metal might be the last remaining tribe in terms of uniform and dedication to the scene, and nowhere is that clearer than at Download Festival, but the tension between "mainstream" pop music and "outsider" metal is one that is becoming increasingly irrelevant and has long been ambiguous anyway. There are plenty of older instances of metal colliding with pop in an entertainingly incongruous fashion, such as Andrew WK's brand of self-help ABBAcore or Lordi's triumph at the 2006 Eurovision Song Contest. Some people got angry about those matters too but are there really many metallers who listen to heavy stuff exclusively and genuinely despise other genres, especially pop? Deftones love Sade so much they've covered her. Anthrax's Scott Ian digs Madonna. As tQ editor John Doran has assured me, "In real life you only ever meet metalheads who have got a lot of time for R&B and hip hop and pop and stuff like that - these whining true cult whoppers who hate pop culture only exist on the internet in my experience" and he must know what he's talking about because until fairly recently he resembled someone disinterred from a Bronze Age burial mound. Questions have been asked but the metal press has been generally accommodating of Babymetal (they've featured on the covers of Metal Hammer and Rock Sound) and established metal bands have also lent their support. Rob Zombie, for example, defended Babymetal against his own irate fans in hilarious fashion. Even Gene Simmons likes Babymetal (or has at least been pictured with them) and he is an antiquated dinosaur who usually can't fathom concepts as straightforward and graspable as rap music or clinical depression. You wouldn't want to be more narrow-minded than Simmons now would you? At Donington Park, I fail to find any metalheads who are especially upset or angry about the presence of Babymetal on the Download Festival bill. Such scoffers are probably busy at home on the internet posting abusive comments under articles by exceptional metal writers such as Kim Kelly. In their absence is a fieldful of joyous moshers who don't seem too bothered by the delayed start. Five minutes before Babymetal are due to perform the heavens open as God punishes us for worshipping the devil's music by unleashing a downpour of such rainforest proportions that each massive droplet falls heavier than a Tony Iommi drop-d tuned axe riff. The stage crew wrap amplifiers in sheets of protective plastic and do their best to sweep huge puddles of water off the stage. By the time Babymetal's 40-minute set is over, we'll all be wet through to our pants with no regrets whatsoever. The enthusiasm of the performers couldn't be more infectious. Grinning and gurning at the back of the stage, the face-painted players of the Kami band blast out sonic onslaughts of Slayer proportions. To give them their moment in the spotlight, the three singers occasionally depart the stage to allow the musicians to showcase their undeniable talents with virtuoso jams and solo spots that confirm exactly how gifted they all are without spiralling into the tiresome onanism that blemishes many a stadium metal act. Their expressions suggest that neither the Kami Band nor Babymetal's singers can believe their luck that this unique mash-up of thrash and J-pop is being lapped up with such fervour by metal crowds around the world. Su-, Yui- and Moa-metal look like they're having the absolute time of their lives, even under the physical stress of having to sing at pace while running through their intensely powerful dance routines. "Choreography?" I hear the internet pedants type, "There's no place in metal for choreography!" To which I reply, fiddlesticks sirs! Firstly, metal is chock-full of choreography anyway. Don't tell me Deftones' Chino Moreno has never practised his graceful hand movements and sultry hip wiggles in his bedroom mirror. If Rammstein didn't meticulously rehearse where to move when, they'd end up fried to ashes by one of their many displays of phallic pyrotechnics. Secondly, Babymetal's choreography makes a refreshing change from all the rockers on the bill whose signature clichéd body pose is to rest one foot on a stage monitor as if to say, "Worship my big and bulging trouser-baubles, you adoring slaves". (In addition, no member of Babymetal addresses their audience as "motherfuckers" which is something a number of the other acts on this bill would be advised to take on board.) Thirdly, there is a heavy American wrestling presence at this festival. There's a ring in a tent where conventionally attractive muscular superstars pretend to fight one another in prearranged routines, and Megadeth's Dave Mustaine presents a Spirit Of Lemmy Award to a frowning man with grapefruit-sized biceps called Triple H. And we all know that wrestling's just ballet for beefcakes. Despite the atrocious weather Babymetal draw a wide range of positive responses from the huge Download crowd. To my left, there is a bloke who looks like a cross between Lars Ulrich, Timmy Mallet and Iron Maiden's mascot Eddie who is giggling his way through the entire set from behind his oversized Wacaday shades as if being tickled by Durga herself. To my right, two lads are headbanging with deferential sincerity to the meaty music. Others whoop, pogo, raise their devil's (or Fox God's) horns or copy Babymetal's complicated dance moves as best they can. "I wanna see a circle pit!" shouts Su-Metal, "Circle! Bigger! Bigger!" Sure enough, the crowd opens up and the result is the jolliest blooming circle pit I have ever witnessed in my entire life. While many pits can be violent and aggressive affairs full of topless men shoving, barging and colliding around chaotically, this one features a bunch of people simply running around in a big circle, lifting their knees high into the air like they're cartoon characters and sporting wide grins more beamy than the ceiling of a 17th-century farmhouse. Everyone I speak to afterwards adored the Babymetal spectacle and agrees that the band can rock out like the best of them, even if some aren't won over completely. One attendee tells me that Babymetal "have riffs that Rammstein would be proud of" but their "Alvin & The Chipmunks vocals" are likely to prevent him from listening to them at home. I am inclined to agree until it dawns on me that I own several albums by the acclaimed Japanese noise-rock group Melt Banana, whose wildly yelping singer Yasuko Onuki isn't exactly the lowest-pitched vocalist in the world. Parenthetically, Babymetal's set isn't the only marvellous meeting of metal and pop at this year's Download Fest. The one and only Kim Wilde makes a surprise guest appearance during the set of none other than Ravenshead anarcho grindcore pranksters Lawnmower Deth. She receives nothing short of a hero's welcome from the crowd who sing rapturously along to every word of the frantic punk-rock rendition of 'Kids In America'. To Wilde's immense credit, she also knows all the lyrics to both 'Egg Sandwich' and 'Watch Out Grandma Here Comes A Lawnmower'. After three days of being blissfully, if muddily, isolated from news of the outside world, on the journey home the car radio informs me that some unhinged sad case has massacred 50 innocent people in a club in Orlando, hooligans have been beating seven shades of soccer shit out of each other in the streets and stadiums of France and the EU referendum debate has rolled into its umpteenth week of toxic anti-Other rhetoric. Maybe it's possible to find some solace in the bigger and longer picture, as Cannadine does. Muslims and Christians, Catholics and Protestants, Westerners and Easterners, men and women, metalheads and teeny-boppers... when it comes down to it are we really all that different? Can't we all chill out, stop taking our falsely-constructed differences and meaningless allegiances so seriously and just allow Babymetal to unite the world as The Fox God requests? At the rate their crowds have been expanding year upon year, perhaps Babymetal will soon succeed. I for one see little sense in resisting. |
[This article contains MASSIVE spoilers for the entire Dragon Age series] I’m one of the Dragon Age players that spent as much time in the Codex reading the well written lore around the in-game world as I did actually playing the game. I’m also a sociologist who studies settler colonialism and urban racial inequality so of course I decided to nerd out by applying my sociological training to studying the world of Thedas during the Dragon Age. So this post is the first in a series I’m calling “Thedas Studies”. So let’s get into it! For this first post I wanted to deal with the fundamental issue of whether Thedas is a settler colonized continent or not. I think this is an important question to ask because defining what the basic reality of this world is informs how we as people engage with everything else happening within it. For example when we define a society as a “democracy” vs a “dictatorship” we interact with social problems within them, such as police brutality, very differently. This difference in framing social problems can include ignoring them completely as onlookers and analysts. I will argue below that Thedas is a settler colonized continent and that our analyses of the game world, human/elven relations, needs to be understood within this context. So what is settler colonialism and how do we recognize it’s existence? Settler colonialism is a form of colonization where the invading regime/population seeks to build a civilization on conquered land vs simply extracting resources and/or ruling over the indigenous population. Settler colonialism is almost by definition always genocidal in nature, where the invaders seeks to eradicate the indigenous population physically, culturally, and genetically from the land so their own descendents can take up permanent residence. In the real world examples of settler colonies include the entirety of the western hemisphere including the US, New Zealand, Australia, and other nations. All of these nations engage in a pattern of eradication/slavery, asserting sovereignty over the land, and in most cases attempting to erase the act of conquest itself and trying to naturalize their presence upon indigenous land. Looking back to Thedas we clear evidence of at least the replacement of an indigenous population with a foreign one. Dalish oral histories, accounts gathered by the Inquisitor while he explored The Crossroads, and first hand accounts given to the Inquisitor by Solas/Fen’Harel all state that the original inhabitants of Thedas (at least above ground) was the Elves and their civilization of Elvhenan. After Solas attempted to free Elves from the rule of the Gods by creating the Veil, the whole civilization was thrown into chaos with massive losses of life. Some time after the creation of the Veil humans showed up in Thedas, perhaps from Par Vollen or some other unknown place. As elves and humans came into contact elves realized that their immortality beginning to disappear and thus withdrew from contact with humans. Over the next thousand or so years, human tribes grew and took land from elves, enslaving those they captured. Humanity’s rise in power and land base coalesced into the Tevinter Imperium. From that point Tevinter conquered the rest of elven held territory and enslaved the entire species. In this way it is clear that humans engaged in a protracted settler colonial campaign of extermination and enslavement. So on a basic level, Thedas at least under the Imperium was indeed settler colonized. Some complications come up tho. Abelas for example argues that elven civilization already ended before the humans took over, denying that they conquered anything/anybody really. But I suspect that like Solas, Abelas doesn’t really see modern elves without their Fade enhanced existence as ‘real’ elves and therefore “his people” already died off before Tevinter showed up. There’s also the issue of the Dales, which was given to Elves by Andraste for their assistance in overthrowing the Imperium. The Dales was a sovereign kingdom that was eventually conquered and annexed into Orlais. Does the existence of the Dales= decolonization? What about the rest of the continent that never went back into elven hands? I would argue that decolonization is never complete until the entire settler regime, and in the case of Thedas, its successor states (Ferelden or Antiva etc) are all dismantled. As far as ancient elves like Solas is concerned, none of Thedas rightfully belong to humans or Qunari for that fact. Not to mention that since the Dales got reconquered by Orlais, elves were again fully settler colonized having no sovereign territory of their own (alienages damn sure don’t count lol). Aside from the land grabs we also see cultural genocide with humans forcing the Chant onto elves, destruction of elven artifacts and structures, as well as a writing of history that denies the pre-contact elven presence on the land. Cultural genocide also includes cultural appropriation and theft. Archon Thalsian, first human blood mage and creator of the Old Gods religion, was argued to be taught blood magic by elves. He then used this power to destroy the elven civilization. He and other Tevinter magisters tried to pass this power off as being gifted to them by the Old Gods when it was the people they enslaved who taught it to them. It stands to speculate how many more spells, technology, and artifacts humans expropriated from elves while enslaving them and denying them access to that same knowledge/resource. Resistance to settler colonialism in Thedas abounds. There’s the Dalish who engaged in grand marronage, refusing to allow themselves to fall under human authority. They practice what aspects of their culture they could reimagine, recover, retain after over 1000 years of slavery. Although they are the most extreme/obvious example of elven resistance, there are other smaller forms of elven resistance within human society. For example there’s the Halamshiral uprising that occurred in 9:40 Dragon. Connected to that uprising is Briala’s, Empress Celene’s spymaster, group of elven spies who actively engage in subterfuge against human interests. There are also regular uprisings in alienages across Thedas because of poor starvation conditions human rulers keep them under. Lastly there’s Solas’s efforts to undo the Veil which will necessarily kill most of the people in Thedas and presumably lead to elves gaining back their powers/immortality. Things that I didn’t address above but will in subsequent pieces were elf-blooded folks (human-elven children) and how they fit into the settler regime, the layered relationship of Orlais colonizing their neighbors/ Ferelden nationalism in light of them all being on stolen elven land, the desire of the Qunari to settler colonized Thedas for themselves, as well as how claims to land are complicated by Dwarves and their presences under Thedas. I would also like to address the complications of even the claim to a place called Thedas considering that before the Veil the entire dimension and geometry of the world was radically different to the point where one could question whether “Thedas” was even a thing then (similar Abelas’ issue with calling modern elves “elves” even though they are missing their ingrain magic abilities). Overall the continent is in a state of unrest and depending on world state there have been elves named Hero of Ferelden and Inquisitor respectively upsetting the taken for granted social positioning of elves. With many elves moving to follow Solas, and the ongoing rebellions in places like Denerim, and the uncovering of large fragments of elven history over the course of the Dragon Age, I’m sure calls for elven sovereignty or more engagement in petite/grand marronnage will be seen in Thedas. |
ESET AV Remover tool The ESET AV Remover tool will remove almost any antivirus software previously installed on your system. Click the appropriate link below to download ESET AV Remover, we recommend that you save the file to your Desktop. If you don't know which version to use, click here for instructions to find your system specifications: Download 64-bit AV Remover Download 32-bit AV Remover If unsuccessful, or unable to identify the program installed, the tool will direct you back to the alphabetical list of uninstallers below. List of manual antivirus uninstallers Click the link associated with the antivirus software currently installed on your system and follow the prompts or instructions on the website. Once uninstallation is complete, you will need to restart your computer. You may then proceed with installing your ESET product. What if I can't find the program I want to remove? If you don't see the program that you need to uninstall in the list below, follow these steps to remove your program: Start your computer in Safe mode. Press the Windows Key + R on your keyboard, type appwiz.cpl and then click OK. Select the program you want to remove from the list and click Uninstall/Remove. *ESET does not take responsibility for any damages or loss of data caused by or during the uninstallation of any antivirus software. A - B - C - D - E - F - G - K - L - M - N - P - Q - S - T - V - W A B C D Dr. Web https://support.drweb.com/support_wizard/?lng=en (Only registered Dr. Web users can access support content) E F Forefront Client Security https://support.microsoft.com/en-in/help/2834133/the-removal-of-the-endpoint-protection-client-is-unsuccessful-for-fore Forefront Endpoint Protection https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg477040.aspx Forefront Server Security https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/929081/how-to-install-or-uninstall-fse-or-fpe-on-an-exchange-ccr-cluster FRISK F-PROT Antivirus for Windows http://www.f-prot.com/support/windows/fpwin_faq/25.html F-Secure ftp://ftp.f-secure.com/support/tools/uitool/UninstallationTool.zip http://community.f-secure.com/t5/Security-for-PC/How-do-I-uninstall-the-product/ta-p/15384 G G Data https://www.gdatasoftware.co.uk/?eID=PushFile&dl=f4b2f2fd23%3AAFEIBgU%3D K Kaspersky http://support.kaspersky.com/common/service.aspx?el=1464 K7 Total Security https://apps.k7computing.com/Tools/dl/free-tools/K7RT.exe L M Malwarebytes http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam-clean.exe McAfee http://download.mcafee.com/products/licensed/cust_support_patches/MCPR.exe Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT) https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-desktop-optimization-pack/dart-v10/how-to-change-repair-or-remove-dart-10 Microsoft Security Essentials http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2435760 N P Panda http://www.pandasecurity.com/resources/sop/UNINSTALLER_08.exe Panda Cloud Internet Protection http://www.pandasecurity.com/resources/sop/Cloud_AV_Uninstaller.exe Pareto Logic http://www.paretologic.com/resources/help/xoftspyse/195.htm Q Quick Heal http://www.quickheal.com/prod-rem S Sophos http://www.sophos.com/support/knowledgebase/article/11019.html Spybot Search & Destroy http://www.safer-networking.org/faq/how-to-uninstall-2/ System Center Configuration Manager https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb694276.aspx System Center Endpoint Protection https://opbuildstorageprod.blob.core.windows.net/output-pdf-files/en-us/Win.sccm/live/protect.pdf T Total Defense Anti-Virus (formerly CA Anti-Virus) https://support.totaldefense.com/hc/en-us/articles/228578648-How-To-Uninstall-Total-Defense-On-Windows- Trend Micro Trend Micro Titanium https://esupport.trendmicro.com/en-us/home/pages/technical-support/1105809.aspx Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security Agent https://success.trendmicro.com/solution/1056867-manually-uninstalling-the-security-agent-sa-in-worry-free-business-security-wfbs# V W Webroot http://www.webroot.com/prodCheck/?pc=64150&origrc=1&oc=221&mjv=7&mnv=0&rel=6&bld=38&lang=en&loc=AUS&kc=ppc%60lkik^^afhgpewgfa&opi=2&omj=6&omn=1&osl=en&errid Windows Defender /kb2390/ Windows Intune https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Uninstall-the-Intune-b42111d1 Windows Live OneCare http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/c/b/4cb845e7-1076-437b-852a-7842a8ab13c8/OneCareCleanUp.exe Windows Security Essentials http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2435760 If you are still unable to resolve your issue, please email ESET Technical Support. |
The tomb dates to the time of the Samnites, an Italic people living in south-central Italy who fought against the Romans. It was found by surprise during a dig led by a French archaeological team from the Jean Bèrard centre in Naples. The team have already made several notable discoveries – including an exceptionally well preserved pottery workshop - but this latest could outdo them all. “It is an exceptional find for Pompeii because it throws light on the pre-Roman city about which we know so very little,” said Massimo Osanna, the archaeological superintendent of Pompeii. The tomb contains the remains of an adult woman, and has survived for more than two millennia without ever being disturbed or broken into. Perfectly preserved: the tomb was undisturbed for over 2,000 years. Photo: Archeological site of Pompeii press office Seemingly, the Romans knew of the tomb's presence and did not disturb the site or build on it before life in the city was wiped out – and frozen in time – in 79 AD. The contents of the tomb will provide useful clues for scholars about the history of the site under the Samnites. The woman was buried with a series of clay jars, or amphora, which come from other regions of Italy revealing the extent of trade between the Samnites at Pompeii and other groups living across the Italian peninsula. The contents of the jars will be analyzed in the weeks to come – but are thought to contain cosmetics, wine and food. “The burial objects will show us much about the role of women in Samnite society and can provide us with a useful social insight,” Osanna told reporters. The area around the grave will now be excavated to find out if there are more tombs nearby. As Osanna explains “Tombs are not normally found alone.” However, the existence of other tombs is uncertain. During the Second World War, the area of Pompeii in which the grave was found was heavily shelled. “It's a miracle that this has survived,”Osanna told reporters, “but I'm sure Pompeii has more gifts to give.” |
We've pulled together the key events and their backstories in one timeline, and tell the story of James Comey's firing in a six-minute video. Of all the events in our Trump-Russia Timeline, perhaps none has been more controversial than the president’s dismissal of James Comey as director of the FBI, a move many believe is an obstruction of justice. Our timeline of the Comey firing collects the entries from our main Trump-Russia Timeline that bear most directly on the axing of Comey and its continuing aftershocks. Our video (above) captures the story of the Comey firing through the summer. NOTE: The timeline below is no longer updated here as of April 2018. For the latest developments, go to our main Trump-Russia Timeline, which now appears at the Committee to Investigate Russia website and click on James Comey’s name. |
The federal government spends more than $20 billion a year on subsidies for farm businesses. About 39 percent of the nation's 2.1 million farms receive subsidies, with the lion's share of the handouts going to the largest producers of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice.1 The government protects farmers against fluctuations in prices, revenues, and yields. It subsidizes their conservation efforts, insurance coverage, marketing, export sales, research, and other activities. Federal aid for crop farmers is deep and comprehensive. However, agriculture is no riskier than many other industries, and it does not need an array of federal subsidies. Farm subsidies are costly to taxpayers, but they also harm the economy and the environment. Subsidies discourage farmers from innovating, cutting costs, diversifying their land use, and taking other actions needed to prosper in the competitive economy. President Donald Trump has proposed modest reforms to farm programs, but the longer-term goal should be to repeal all farm subsidies. A Brief History of Farm Policy Agriculture has long attracted federal support. The Morrill Act of 1862 established the land-grant colleges to teach agriculture and other subjects. The Hatch Act of 1887 funded agricultural research, and the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 funded agricultural education. The Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916 created cooperative banks to provide loans to farmers. That developed into today's Farm Credit System, which is a government-sponsored financial system with more than $280 billion in assets. The Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929 created the Federal Farm Board, which tried to raise crop prices by buying up and stockpiling production.2 That did not work, and after spending $500 million this early agricultural boondoggle was abolished in 1933. Congress enacted many farm programs during the 1930s, including commodity price supports, supply regulations, import barriers, and crop insurance. These programs have been expanded, modified, and added to over the decades, but the central planning philosophy behind farm programs has not changed. U.S. farm policies remain stuck in the past, despite the ongoing economic harm and taxpayer costs. Between the 1940s and the 1980s, Congress considered farm policy reforms occasionally, usually when commodity prices were high, but then reverted to subsidy expansions when prices were lower.3 In the 1980s the Reagan administration proposed cuts to farm subsidies, but farm finances took a bad turn, and that prompted Congress to increase farm aid, not reduce it. Farm subsidies have never made economic sense, but farm interests have held sway in Congress. While farmers are a small share of the U.S. population today, the farm lobby is still strong. One reason is that farm-state legislators have co-opted the support of urban legislators by including food-stamp subsidies in farm bills. Other legislators support farm bills because of the inclusion of conservation subsidies. In 1996 Congress enacted reforms under the "Freedom to Farm" law, which allowed farmers greater flexibility in planting and increased reliance on market supply and demand. But Congress reversed course in the late 1990s, and it passed a series of supplemental farm subsidy bills. As a result, subsidies over the seven years of the 1996 farm bill ended up costing more than double what had been promised.4 In 2002 Congress enacted a farm bill that further reversed the 1996 reforms. The law increased projected subsidy payments, added new crops to the subsidy rolls, and created a new price guarantee scheme called the countercyclical program. The 2002 law increased projected farm subsidy payments by 74 percent over 10 years.5 In 2008 Congress overrode a presidential veto to enact farm legislation that added further subsidies. The law created a permanent disaster aid program and added a revenue protection program for farmers to lock in profits from high commodity prices. It added a sugar-to-ethanol program to keep sugar prices artificially high, and it added new subsidies for "specialty crops" such as fruits and vegetables. In 2014 Congress passed another huge farm bill. The bill changed the structure of subsidies, but it did not cut the overall level of benefits. The law ended the direct payment program, the countercyclical program, and a couple of other smaller programs. But it expanded the largest farm subsidy program — crop insurance — and it added two new subsidy programs, the Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC) program and the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) program. When the 2014 farm bill was passed, supporters claimed that it would save money, but the opposite has happened. The ARC and PLC programs have cost almost double what the Congressional Budget Office originally estimated.6 Meanwhile, the cost of crop insurance has soared over the past 15 years. All of these subsidies ensure that farm incomes are much higher than the incomes of most Americans. Farm programs are welfare for the well-to-do, and they induce overproduction, inflate land prices, and harm the environment. They should be repealed, and farmers should support themselves in the marketplace. Eight Types of Farm Subsidy The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) runs more than 60 direct and indirect aid programs for farmers. This section summarizes the major ones. Most of the direct aid goes to producers of a handful of field crops, not to livestock producers or fruit and vegetable growers. In the three largest farm subsidy programs — insurance, ARC, and PLC — more than 70 percent of the handouts go to farmers of just three crops — corn, soybeans, and wheat.7 1. Insurance. The largest farm subsidy program is crop insurance run by the USDA's Risk Management Agency. Spending on the program has averaged more than $8 billion a year over the past five years, up from around $3 billion in the early 2000s.8 The program subsidizes both the insurance premiums of farmers and the administrative costs of the 16 private insurance companies that offer the policies. Over the past five years, spending has averaged $6.7 billion a year in premium subsidies, $1.5 billion for insurance company subsidies, $0.3 billion for underwriting losses, and $0.2 billion for federal administrative costs.9 Subsidized insurance is available for more than 100 crops, but corn, cotton, soybeans, and wheat are the main ones. About 80 percent of current policies in force protect against revenue shortfalls, while the other 20 percent protect against yield shortfalls.10 The insurance companies receive direct subsidies for administration, but they also earn inflated profits from the high premiums they charge. The Government Accountability Office has found that crop insurance firms earn high rates of return.11 Agricultural economist Bruce Babcock has found that commissions made by crop insurance agents have increased substantially over the years.12 As for farmers, the USDA pays 62 percent of their premiums, on average.13 Most farmers actually make money on this so-called insurance, receiving more in claims than they pay in premiums. The Congressional Budget Office found that farmers have received $65 billion more in claims than they have paid in premiums since 2000.14 As Babcock noted, this program is not "insurance" at all, but a lottery that is a sure bet.15 Congress has expanded crop insurance to become the largest farm program for a reason. For other farm programs, the identities of the wealthy subsidy recipients are public information, which can be politically embarrassing for farm program supporters. But with insurance subsidies, Congress essentially launders the cash through the insurance firms, which hides the identities of the recipients. Also, unlike other farm programs, there are no income limits on insurance, so millionaires and billionaires receive subsidies. There are about 20 farm businesses that receive more than $1 million a year from the program.16 2. Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC). This program pays subsidies to farmers if their revenue per acre, or alternately their county's revenue per acre, falls below a benchmark or guaranteed level. Generally, the lower the prices and revenues, the larger the subsidies. The program covers more than 20 crops, from wheat and corn to chickpeas and mustard seed. ARC subsidies fluctuate, but they were $3.7 billion in 2017.17 3. Price Loss Coverage (PLC). This program pays subsidies to farmers on the basis of the national average price of a crop compared to the crop's reference price set by Congress. The larger the fall in a crop's national price below its reference price, the larger the payout to farmers. Since reference prices are set high, payouts are likely. The program covers more than 20 crops, and payments were $3.2 billion in 2017.18 Farmers choose to participate in either ARC or PLC. At the same time, they can enroll in crop insurance, which has the same general function of keeping farm incomes high. So farmers can double dip from at least two subsidy programs should their crop revenues come up short.19 4. Conservation Programs. The USDA runs numerous farm conservation programs, which cost taxpayers more than $5 billion a year. Some of the programs pay farmers to improve lands that are in production, such as the Conservation Stewardship Program. Other programs pay farmers to take land out of production, such as the Conservation Reserve Program. Like other farm programs, these subsidies are tilted upward, providing the great bulk of benefits to the largest farms.20 Rather than handing out taxpayer cash to farmers, a better way to conserve marginal lands would be to repeal farm subsidies, which encourage excessive cultivation. 5. Marketing Loans. This is a price-guarantee program that began during the New Deal. The original idea was to give farmers a loan at harvest time so that they could hold their crops to sell at a higher price later. But today the program is just another unneeded subsidy that boosts farm incomes. The cost of this program dropped to near zero in 2017, but it was about $160 million in each of the previous two years.21 6. Disaster Aid. The government operates disaster aid programs for various types of farmers, from wheat growers, to livestock producers, to orchard operators. In addition to disaster programs already in law, Congress often distributes more aid after adverse events. Disaster aid amounts fluctuate, but such aid has averaged $1.9 billion a year since 2010.22 7. Marketing and Export Promotion. The Agricultural Marketing Service spends $1.2 billion a year on farm and food promotion activities. The Foreign Agricultural Service spends about $300 million a year on marketing activities for U.S. farm and food products, including operating more than 90 foreign offices. 8. Research and Other Support. Most American industries fund their own research and development, but the government employs thousands of scientists and other experts to aid the agriculture industry. The USDA spends about $3 billion a year on agriculture and food research at more than 100 locations. The department also provides an array of other support services to farmers, such as statistical data and economic studies. Reasons to Repeal Farm Subsidies The Trump administration's budget for 2019 proposes to cut farm subsidies by tightening limits on the maximum payments to each farmer and ending subsidies for farmers with incomes above $500,000 a year.23 The budget would also cut insurance subsidies and conservation subsidies. The reforms would save about $6 billion a year when phased in. Studies from various think tanks have also proposed reforms. Heritage Foundation experts propose repealing the ARC and PLC programs and trimming crop insurance.24 American Enterprise Institute (AEI) experts have found that modest limits on payments to large farms would produce major savings.25 For example, a cap on insurance subsidies of $40,000 per farm would affect only 5 percent of farmers but save $2 billion a year. Ultimately, Congress should end all farm subsidies. Businesses in other industries face many risks and market fluctuations, yet they prosper or fail depending on their own skill and planning without a federal subsidy cushion. Farm businesses face some unique risks, but so do other businesses. Consider, for example, the fast pace of change in technology industries, or the large price fluctuations in the mining and energy industries. The following sections discuss why farm subsidies make little sense. 1. Subsidies Redistribute Wealth Upward. Farm subsidies go mainly to high-earning households. The average income of all farm households was $117,918 in 2016, which was 42 percent higher than the $83,143 average of all U.S. households.26 The same year, the median income of farm households was $76,250, which was 29 percent higher than the U.S. median of $59,039. Farming incomes are down somewhat in recent years as crop prices have dipped from unusually high levels between 2011 and 2013. But the ratio of average farm household income to the average income of all U.S. households has been trending upward since at least 1960.27 Those income measures are for all farm households, but Congress delivers the bulk of subsidies to the largest and wealthiest farm households. A recent analysis by AEI scholars found that 60 percent of subsidies from the three largest programs (insurance, ARC, and PLC) go to the largest 10 percent (by sales) of farms.28 The AEI scholars found that the largest farms were more intensely subsidized than smaller farms. Looking at the crop insurance program, for example, they found that the top 10 percent of farms received subsidies of $29 per acre, compared to an average of $12 per acre for all crop farmers. The high-end concentration of farm payments has increased over time. A recent USDA study found that "in 1991, half of commodity program payments went to farms operated by households with incomes over $60,717 (in constant 2015 dollars); however, in 2015, half went to households with incomes over $146,126."29 The study found similar increases in the high-end concentration of crop insurance subsidies and conservation subsidies. Politicians often claim that farm aid helps alleviate rural poverty. But farm aid goes to farm owners, and they have relatively high incomes. Just 2 percent of farm households fall below the poverty line, compared to 14 percent of all U.S. households.30 Also, USDA data show that while less than one-third of farms with revenues of less than $100,000 received federal subsidies, three-quarters of farms above that threshold did.31 At the top end, many billionaires have received farm subsidies over the years. Looking at the period from 1995 to 2014, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that 50 people on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans received farm subsidies.32 Today, the largest pot of subsidies is channeled through insurance companies, which hides the identities of recipients, as noted.33 However, the Government Accountability Office found that at least four recipients of crop insurance subsidies have a net worth of more than $1.5 billion.34 2. Subsidies Harm the Economy. In most industries, market signals steer investment, businesses balance risks and rewards, and entrepreneurs innovate to reduce costs. Federal programs blunt those market mechanisms in agriculture, causing a range of economic harms, including overproduction, distorted land use, distorted choice of crops, and inadequate cost control. Subsidized crop insurance, for example, creates "moral hazard" for farmers, meaning it induces them to make decisions that maximize their subsidies, not market efficiencies. Subsidies induce farmers to take unwise risks since taxpayers pick up the tab upon failure.35 Agricultural economist Vincent Smith notes: "When farmers buy subsidized crop insurance coverage based on their farms' crop yields, they use fewer inputs that reduce the risk of crop losses. In plain language, farmers change their production practices — and on average produce less output — when they have crop insurance coverage."36 Thus, he says, "by subsidizing crop insurance, taxpayers are encouraging farmers to work less efficiently, produce fewer crops, and make smaller contributions to the overall productivity of the U.S. economy."37 Farm subsidies inflate land prices and land rental costs because — to an extent — the expected future stream of subsidies is capitalized. As a result, subsidies probably benefit landowners more than farmers, and those are often different people because more than half (54 percent) of U.S. cropland is rented.38 As subsidies have pushed up sales prices and rental costs for land, it has become harder for young farmers to break into the business. Farm program supporters claim that an economic benefit of aid is that it helps consumers. But crop subsidies do not reduce food prices much, if at all. One reason is that commodity costs make up just 10 percent of the retail prices of domestic food, on average.39 Also, some farm programs raise consumer prices. Dairy and sugar market restrictions raise prices for those products, for example, and the federal ethanol mandate raises corn prices.40 Some policymakers claim that subsidies support rural workers. But the vast majority of aid goes to the capital-intensive production of field crops such as corn, soybeans, and wheat.41 By contrast, the agricultural industries that are more dependent on low-skill labor — such as fruits and vegetables — receive virtually no federal subsidies. 3. Subsidies Are Prone to Scandal. Like most federal subsidy programs, farm programs are subject to bureaucratic waste and recipient fraud. One problem is that the government distributes disaster payments in a careless manner, with payments often going to farmers who do not need them. Another problem is that some farmers claim excess benefits — for example, by creating business structures to get around legal subsidy limits. The inspector general of the USDA recently found that more than 30 percent of the applicants for the Conservation Stewardship Program were either ineligible or receiving excess payments.42 Another ongoing boondoggle is the "prevented planting" program, which covers farmers for losses if conditions during a season prevent them from planting some areas. EWG found that billions of dollars have been paid to farmers who probably would not have planted the areas they received subsidies for.43 AEI scholars concurred, noting that payments under the program "may significantly exceed the actual losses" experienced by farmers.44 The losses claimed by farmers under the program are difficult to verify, which has encouraged cheating. Perhaps the biggest scandal with regard to farm subsidies is that agricultural committees in Congress include members who are active farmers and farmland owners. Those members have an obvious conflict of interest whenever there is a vote on subsidies. There are 32 current members of Congress who have received federal farm subsidies.45 4. Subsidies Undermine U.S. Trade Relations. When countries subsidize farm production and doing so boosts commodity exports, it undermines foreign producers and distorts global trade patterns. Most high-income nations subsidize their farmers, yet those nations often complain about subsidies in other countries undermining their own farmers. The solution is for all nations to slash farm subsidies, which would save taxpayers money and allow the most efficient producers to supply global markets. One particular concern is that farm subsidies and trade protections in high-income countries — such as the United States — harm lower-income countries and undermine their efforts at economic reform. Global stability is enhanced when poor countries adopt markets and achieve growth through trading. But U.S. and European farm subsidies and agricultural import barriers undermine progress on free trade. U.S. sugar protections, for example, block freer trade within the Americas, while harming U.S. consumers and food companies. The Congressional Budget Office reviewed studies examining the repeal of U.S. and foreign farm subsidies and trade barriers.46 It concluded that all major studies found that the U.S. and the global economy would gain from such reforms. Trade liberalization would boost the exports of U.S. goods that are competitive on world markets, including many agricultural products, but U.S. farm subsidies and protections stand in the way of that goal. 5. Subsidies Harm the Environment. Federal farm policies damage the natural environment in a number of ways. Subsidies cause overproduction, which draws lower-quality farmlands into active production. Areas that might have been used for parks, forests, grasslands, and wetlands get locked into agricultural use. AEI scholars note that subsidizing crop insurance encourages farmers "to expand crop production on highly erodible land."47 Lands that would have been used for pasture or grazing have been shifted into crop production. Subsidies may induce excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides. Producers on marginal lands that have poorer soils and climates tend to use more fertilizers and pesticides, which can cause water contamination problems. Sugar cane production has expanded in Florida because of the federal sugar program, for example, and the phosphorous in fertilizers used by the growers causes damage to the Everglades. Finally, subsidies may discourage crop rotation in favor of planting only a subsidized crop, which in turn can lead to increased use of fertilizers. The boom in corn production driven by subsidies and the ethanol mandate is apparently generating pollution problems in the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico.48 6. Subsidies Are in Addition to Favorable Taxation. If farmers were large payers of federal income tax, they might argue that they were covering the costs of the spending subsidies they are receiving. But that is often not the case. Income tax data over recent decades show that, in general, farm businesses are lightly taxed. About 87 percent of farms are structured as sole proprietorships and file under the individual income tax with a Schedule F.49 These farms account for half of U.S. agricultural sales. Farms structured as partnerships and S corporations also pass through their business income to their individual returns. A small share of farms are structured as C corporations and pay the corporate income tax. Overall, farm entities taxed under the individual income tax account for 97 percent of farms and 85 percent of agricultural production.50 The USDA examined farm taxation in 2001 and found that "in general, income from farming is taxed more favorably than income from many other businesses."51 The USDA also noted: "This favorable tax treatment is reflected in the size of farm profits and losses reported for income tax purposes. Since 1980, aggregate farm losses have exceeded farm profits and are used to offset taxes on off-farm income."52 More recent USDA studies show that farm tax returns continue to show net losses overall.53 Only about one third of Schedule Fs report farm profits in a typical year. Losses on tax returns do not necessarily mean that farms are losing money, but rather that tax rules for farms are very favorable.54 Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data show that aggregate farm losses reported on Schedule Fs are often roughly twice the size of aggregate farm income.55 Those net losses can be used almost without limit to offset nonfarm income.56 Larger farms may have substantial capital gains and rental income from the farm, which can move their farm-related income into positive territory. But even including that income, about half of farms report an overall loss from farm activities on their tax returns.57 IRS data for 2015 show 1.26 million Schedule F farms with net losses of $26 billion, and 0.54 million farm returns with net income of $15 billion.58 Farm households use the net losses to reduce taxes on their nonfarm incomes. The USDA reports that "about half of all farm partnerships and small business corporations also report losses" on their tax returns in a typical year.59 Recent IRS data show that farm S corporations do report aggregate net income on their tax returns, but the ratio of net income to revenues for farms is a bit less than that for all S corporations.60 C corporations in agriculture have a similar burden of taxes to that of all C corporations.61 Larger farms are more likely to pay income taxes than smaller farms.62 The USDA found that "while many commercial-size farmers pay taxes on their farm income, farm sole proprietors in the aggregate pay little in federal income tax on farm income."63 Why is that? In testimony to the House Committee on Agriculture last year, accountant Christopher Hesse, who specializes in farm taxation, described more than a dozen tax provisions that provide favorable treatment to farms.64 Many provisions allow farmers flexibility over the timing of income and deductions, allowing them to push income forward and prepay expenses, which reduces taxable income. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provided a new tax benefit for farmers who sell their crops to cooperatives. The Wall Street Journal said it would allow "more farmers to lower their taxable income to zero and cost the U.S. government significant revenue."65 The inclusion of the break illustrated the power of the farm lobby, but in this case Congress realized it went too far and subsequently repealed the break in the omnibus spending bill passed in March 2018. In sum, farmers have done well for themselves in Washington, not just on the spending side of the federal budget but also on the tax side. It is true, however, that the largest farms that receive the bulk of subsidies are also more likely to be payers of income tax. 7. Farmers Can Provide Their Own Safety Nets. The Trump administration's 2019 budget proposes cuts to farm subsidies, but it also promises to "maintain a strong safety-net for farmers." But why can't farmers create their own safety nets? Farmers deal with fluctuations in crop prices and yields, which causes variations in their incomes. But those risks are well known, and farmers can plan for them. For one thing, they can save. When corn prices are high, the corn farmer can save the excess profits, and when corn prices fall he or she can withdraw from savings. Borrowing is another way to smooth finances over time. In good times, farmers can pay down debt so that they have more room to borrow during leaner times. Farm program supporters claim that farmers would not be able to access bank credit without the federal aid they currently receive. But Vincent Smith notes that banks routinely lend to unsubsidized farm businesses. Banks "are happy to make loans to ranchers who raise cattle (not crops) and hog and poultry producers, without a guaranteed government backstop. All those businesses manage farm operations with highly volatile incomes and costs."66 Saving and borrowing are basic financial tools available to all businesses. There are other market-based tools that farmers can use, including insurance and various price hedging products such as futures and options. The existence of farm subsidy programs has replaced, or crowded out, greater use of such market-based financial tools.67 Diversification is another strategy farmers can use to reduce risks. They can diversify their crop plantings to reduce risks from fluctuating yields and prices. They can diversify their planting locations to reduce risks from adverse weather. Farm households can diversify their sources of income to include both farm and off-farm income. Indeed, USDA data show that about three-quarters of farm household income today comes from off-farm sources.68 Back in 1960, farm households had roughly equal amounts of farm and off-farm income, but since then the latter has soared.69 Farm households have greater financial stability today than in the past. Farm debt levels have been low in recent decades.70 And the bankruptcy rate in agriculture has been consistently lower than that in other industries. With the exception of the mid-1980s, the annual rate has been 2 to 3 per 10,000 farms since the 1950s, and it was 2.4 in 2017.71 By contrast, the bankruptcy rate for all U.S. businesses has been about 8 per 10,000 in recent years.72 So the farm bankruptcy rate is one-third the rate of U.S. businesses overall. 8. Farmers Would Thrive Without Subsidies. If U.S. farm subsidies were ended and agricultural markets deregulated, farming would change. Different crops might be planted, land use might change, and some farm businesses might contract while others expanded. Farm businesses would rely on market-based risk-reduction methods, such as saving and diversification. A stronger and more innovative industry would emerge that had greater resilience to market fluctuations. An interesting example of farmers prospering without subsidies is New Zealand. In 1984 that nation ended its farm subsidies, which was a bold stroke because New Zealand is four times more dependent on farming than is the United States. The changes were initially met with resistance, but New Zealand farm productivity, earnings, and output rose in the years after reform. New Zealand farmers cut costs, diversified land use, sought nonfarm income, and developed niche markets such as kiwi fruit. The Federated Farmers of New Zealand argues that New Zealand's experience "thoroughly debunked the myth that the farming sector cannot prosper without government subsidies."73 That myth needs to be debunked in the United States as well. A number of major farm programs expire at the end of September 2018, which provides Congress a chance to rethink its costly farm policies. Policymakers should look to the Trump administration's 2019 budget, which includes a number of sensible reforms to farm programs. For Republicans in Congress, farm subsidy cuts would signal that the party is concerned about fiscal responsibility at a time of rising budget deficits. The GOP has sought cuts to low-income welfare programs, and it makes sense to combine those with cuts to farm subsidies, which are welfare for the well-to-do. As the Heritage Foundation has argued, Congress this year should at least repeal the crop subsidy programs added in the last farm bill, ARC and PLC.74 Over the longer term, all farm subsidies should be ended. American farmers should stand on their own two feet in the marketplace, as do businesses in nearly all other industries. 1 U.S. Department of Agriculture, "2012 Census Highlights: Farm Economics," ACH12-2, May 2014. See also Environmental Working Group, Farm Subsidy Database, https://farm.ewg.org. 2 James Bovard, "Hoover's Second Wrecking of American Agriculture," Future of Freedom Foundation, December 1, 2005. 3 David Orden, Robert Paarlberg, and Terry Roe, Policy Reform in American Agriculture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). 4 David Orden, Robert Paarlberg, and Terry Roe, Policy Reform in American Agriculture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), pp. 152, 164. 5 Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government: Fiscal Year 2006 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 2005), p. 61. 6 Vincent H. Smith, "The Farm Bill Remains a Case Study in Corporate Welfare," American Enterprise Institute, July 28, 2017. 7 Anton Bekkerman, Eric J. Belasco, and Vincent H. Smith, "Where the Money Goes: The Distribution of Crop Insurance and Other Farm Subsidy Payments," American Enterprise Institute, January 2018, p. 3. 8 Congressional Budget Office, "Options to Reduce the Budgetary Costs of the Federal Crop Insurance Program," December 2017, p. 6. 9 Congressional Budget Office, "Options to Reduce the Budgetary Costs of the Federal Crop Insurance Program," December 2017, p. 7. In 2016 constant dollars. 10 Congressional Budget Office, "Options to Reduce the Budgetary Costs of the Federal Crop Insurance Program," December 2017, p. 4. 11 U.S. Government Accountability Office, "Crop Insurance: Opportunities Exist to Improve Program Delivery and Reduce Costs," GAO-17-501, July 2017. 12 Bruce Babcock, "Cutting the Fat: It Won't Kill Crop Insurance," Environmental Working Group, December 2015. 13 Congressional Budget Office, "Options to Reduce the Budgetary Costs of the Federal Crop Insurance Program," December 2017, p. 5. 14 Congressional Budget Office, "Options to Reduce the Budgetary Costs of the Federal Crop Insurance Program," December 2017, p. 2. 15 Bruce A. Babcock, "Crop Insurance: A Lottery That's a Sure Bet," Environmental Working Group, February 2016. 16 Vincent H. Smith, "What the Proposed 20% Cut in Farm Subsidies Mean for Your Grocery Bill," MarketWatch.com, July 29, 2017. 17 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Farm Income and Wealth Statistics, Government Payments by Program," February 7, 2018, www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/farm-household-income-and-characteristics.aspx. 18 U.S. Department of Agriculture, "Farm Income and Wealth Statistics: Government Payments by Program," February 7, 2018, www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/farm-household-income-and-characteristics.aspx. 19 Anne Weir Schechinger and Craig Cox, "Double Dipping: How Taxpayers Subsidize Farmers Twice for Crop Losses," Environmental Working Group, November 14, 2017. 20 Vincent H. Smith, Joseph W. Glauber, Barry K. Goodwin, and Daniel A. Sumner, "Agricultural Policy in Disarray: Reforming the Farm Bill — An Overview," American Enterprise Institute, October 2017, p. 5. 21 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Farm Income and Wealth Statistics, "Government Payments by Program," February 7, 2018, www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/farm-household-income-and-characteristics.aspx. 22 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Farm Income and Wealth Statistics, "Government Payments by Program," February 7, 2018, www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/farm-household-income-and-characteristics.aspx. 23 Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2019, Major Savings and Reforms (Washington: Government Printing Office, 2018), p. 126. Income is measured as adjusted gross income. 24 Daren Bakst, ed., "Farms and Free Enterprise: A Blueprint for Agricultural Policy," Heritage Foundation, 2016. 25 Anton Bekkerman, Eric J. Belasco, and Vincent H. Smith, "Where the Money Goes: The Distribution of Crop Insurance and Other Farm Subsidy Payments," American Enterprise Institute, January 2018, p. 3. 26 U.S. Department of Agriculture, "Farm Household Income and Characteristics," www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/farm-household-income-and-characteristics.aspx. See spreadsheet for "Mean and Median Farm Operator Household Income and Ratio of Farm Household to U.S. Household Income, 1960–2016." 27 Vincent H. Smith, Joseph W. Glauber, Barry K. Goodwin, and Daniel A. Sumner, "Agricultural Policy in Disarray: Reforming the Farm Bill — An Overview," American Enterprise Institute, October 2017, p. 16. 28 Anton Bekkerman, Eric J. Belasco, and Vincent H. Smith, "Where the Money Goes: The Distribution of Crop Insurance and Other Farm Subsidy Payments," American Enterprise Institute, January 2018, p. 3. 29 Jonathan R. McFadden and Robert A. Hoppe, "The Evolving Distribution of Payments from Commodity, Conservation, and Federal Crop Insurance Programs," U.S. Department of Agriculture, November 2017, p. iv. 30 Vincent H. Smith, Joseph W. Glauber, Barry K. Goodwin, and Daniel A. Sumner, "Agricultural Policy in Disarray: Reforming the Farm Bill — An Overview," American Enterprise Institute, October 2017, p. 16. 31 U.S. Department of Agriculture, "2012 Census of Agriculture," AC-12-A-51, May 2014, Chapter 1, Table 3. The revenue measure is the sum of agricultural products sold and government payments received. 32 Robert Coleman, "The Rich Get Richer: 50 Billionaires Got Federal Farm Subsidies," Environmental Working Group, April 18, 2016. 33 Colin O'Neil, "Are Billionaires Getting Crop Insurance Subsidies? We Still Don't Know," Environmental Working Group, April 28, 2016. 34 U.S. Government Accountability Office, "Crop Insurance: Reducing Subsidies for Highest Income Participants Could Save Federal Dollars with Minimal Effect on the Program," GAO-15-356, March 2015, p. 12. 35 Vincent H. Smith, Joseph W. Glauber, Barry K. Goodwin, and Daniel A. Sumner, "Agricultural Policy in Disarray: Reforming the Farm Bill — An Overview," American Enterprise Institute, October 2017, p. 20. 36 Vincent H. Smith, "Trump's Budget Gets One Thing Right: Crop Insurance Reform," Real Clear Policy, May 24, 2017. 37 Vincent H. Smith, "Trump's Budget Gets One Thing Right: Crop Insurance Reform," Real Clear Policy, May 24, 2017. 38 U.S. Department of Agriculture, "Farmland Ownership and Tenure," April 10, 2017. 39 Congressional Budget Office, "Options to Reduce the Budgetary Costs of the Federal Crop Insurance Program," December 2017, p. 14. 40 Nicolas Loris, "Ethanol and Biofuel Policies," DownsizingGovernment.org, Cato Institute, February 9, 2017. 41 Vincent H. Smith and Ryan Nabil, "Agricultural Subsidies Aid the Wealthy, Not Those in Rural Poverty," American Enterprise Institute, November 11, 2017. And see Daniel A. Sumner, Joseph W. Glauber, and Parke E. Wilde, "Poverty, Hunger, and US Agricultural Policy: Do Farm Programs Affect the Nutrition of Poor Americans?," American Enterprise Institute, January 9, 2017. 42 Cited in Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2019, Major Savings and Reforms (Washington: Government Printing Office, 2018), p. 127. 43 Craig Cox, Soren Rundquist, and Anne Weir, "Boondoggle: Prevented Planting Insurance Plows Up Wetlands, Wastes $ Billions," Environmental Working Group, April 28, 2015. 44 Vincent H. Smith, Joseph W. Glauber, and Barry K. Goodwin, "Time to Reform the US Federal Agricultural Insurance Program," American Enterprise Institute, October 2017, p. 15. 45 Jared Hayes, "Federal Lawmakers Harvest $15 Million in Farm Subsidies," Environmental Working Group, December 7, 2017. 46 Congressional Budget Office, "Agricultural Trade Liberalization," November 20, 2006. 47 Vincent H. Smith, Joseph W. Glauber, Barry K. Goodwin, and Daniel A. Sumner, "Agricultural Policy in Disarray: Reforming the Farm Bill — An Overview," American Enterprise Institute, October 2017, p. 1. 48 Josh Sewell, "Subsidies to Address Risk Are Harmful," in "Farms and Free Enterprise: A Blueprint for Agricultural Policy," ed. Daren Bakst, Heritage Foundation, 2016. 49 James M. Williamson, Ron Durst, and Tracey Farrigan, "The Potential Impact of Tax Reform on Farm Businesses and Rural Households," U.S. Department of Agriculture, February 2013, p. 8. 50 James M. Williamson, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Testimony to the House Committee on Agriculture, April 5, 2017. 51 Ron Durst and James Monke, "Effects of Federal Tax Policy on Agriculture," U.S. Department of Agriculture, April 2001, p. 6. 52 Ron Durst and James Monke, "How Would Fundamental Tax Reform Affect Farmers?," U.S. Department of Agriculture, April 1999. 53 James M. Williamson, Ron Durst, and Tracey Farrigan, "The Potential Impact of Tax Reform on Farm Businesses and Rural Households," U.S. Department of Agriculture, February 2013, p. 9. And see Ron Durst, "Federal Tax Policies and Farm Households," U.S. Department of Agriculture, May 2009, p. 4. 54 Indeed, farms consistently earn income, on net, on the basis of a USDA measure of income, while reporting net losses overall on tax returns. Ron Durst and James Monke, "Effects of Federal Tax Policy on Agriculture," U.S. Department of Agriculture, April 2001, Figure 2. 55 Kevin Pierce and Mary E. Jezek, "Farm Proprietorship Returns, 1998–2004," Statistics of Income Bulletin, Internal Revenue Service, Spring 2007. 56 Ron Durst, "Federal Tax Policies and Farm Households," U.S. Department of Agriculture, May 2009, p. 5. 57 Ron Durst and James Monke, "Effects of Federal Tax Policy on Agriculture," U.S. Department of Agriculture, April 2001, Table 8. This was a consistent pattern over a nine-year period. 58 Michael Parisi, "Individual Income Tax Returns, Preliminary Data, Tax Year 2015," Statistics of Income Bulletin, Internal Revenue Service, Spring 2017. 59 James M. Williamson, Ron Durst, and Tracey Farrigan, "The Potential Impact of Tax Reform on Farm Businesses and Rural Households," U.S. Department of Agriculture, February 2013, p. 9. 60 Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income Division, "Corporate Income Tax Returns," 2013, Table 7. Data for 2012 are similar to 2013. 61 Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income Division, "Corporate Income Tax Returns," 2013, Table 16. Data for 2012 are similar to 2013. The ratio of taxes to revenues is similar for farm and nonfarm corporations. 62 Kevin Pierce and Mary E. Jezek, "Farm Proprietorship Returns, 1998–2004," Statistics of Income Bulletin, Internal Revenue Service, Spring 2007. 63 Ron Durst and James Monke, "Effects of Federal Tax Policy on Agriculture," U.S. Department of Agriculture, April 2001, p. 9. 64 Christopher W. Hesse, CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, Testimony to the House Committee on Agriculture, April 5, 2017. 65 Jacob Bunge and Richard Rubin, "Tax Law Puts Grain Companies on Defensive," Wall Street Journal, February 16, 2018. 66 Vincent H. Smith, "The Farm Bill Remains a Case Study in Corporate Welfare," American Enterprise Institute, July 28, 2017. 67 Agricultural economist Brian Wright discusses farm risks in Brian Wright, "The Ability of Agricultural Producers to Manage Risk" in "Farms and Free Enterprise: A Blueprint for Agricultural Policy," ed. Daren Bakst, Heritage Foundation, 2016. 68 U.S. Department of Agriculture, "Farm Household Income and Characteristics," https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/farm-household-income-and-charact.... See "Principal Farm Operator Household Finances, 2013–2018F." 69 Vincent H. Smith, Joseph W. Glauber, Barry K. Goodwin, and Daniel A. Sumner, "Agricultural Policy in Disarray: Reforming the Farm Bill — An Overview," American Enterprise Institute, October 2017, p. 11. 70 Brian Wright, "The Ability of Agricultural Producers to Manage Risk," in "Farms and Free Enterprise: A Blueprint for Agricultural Policy," ed. Daren Bakst, Heritage Foundation, 2016, p. 28. 71 Robert Dinterman and Ani Katchova, "Farm Bankruptcies in the United States," Ohio State University, Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics, April 2017. 72 Calculated on the basis of bankruptcy data in United States Courts, "Bankruptcy Filings Fall 0.7% — Smallest 12-Month Decline Since 2010," press release, January 24, 2018, www.uscourts.gov. Historical data are also available from the site. 73 Quoted in Chris Edwards and Tad DeHaven, "Save the Farms — End the Subsidies," op-ed, Washington Post, March 3, 2002. 74 Daren Bakst, ed., “Farms and Free Enterprise: A Blueprint for Agricultural Policy,” Heritage Foundation, 2016. |
Fox News host Harris Faulkner (screen grab) Hosts and pundits on Fox News took less than a minute after President Barack Obama addressed the murders of nine members of a historically black church in South Carolina to complain that he had politicized the incident by calling for less gun violence. “I’ve had to make statements like this too many times,” the president said following the shootings at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. “We don’t have all the facts, but we do know, once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun.” “Now is the time for mourning and healing,” Obama added. “But let’s be clear, at some point we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency. And it is in our power to do something about it.” Fox News host Harris Faulkner recapped Obama’s comments by noting that he had offered prayers to the community, and that he had quoted the pastor who was killed in the shooting. But less than a minute into her recap, Faulkner turned to Obama’s remarks about gun violence. “He talked in detail about gun violence,” Faulkner explained, turning to frequent guest Judge Alex Ferrer. “That’s when I heard you saying, ‘Where are we going here?’ One of the things the president said was that mass violence like this doesn’t happen in other countries. Well, we know that it does.” “And we also know that this suspect reportedly got a gun for his birthday in April that was a gift,” she said. “You’ll have to explain to me where the president was going.” “The president has been very much in favor of and has never hid the fact and has certainly promoted gun legislation to restrict access to firearms,” Ferrer replied. “The argument can be made both ways.” “Honestly, I didn’t think the argument would be made this quickly,” the judge opined. “I don’t think when people are still, like, really in the midst of grieving it’s time to throw something political out there like gun control. But people will argue the other side too.” While Ferrer thought it was too early to argue in favor of gun control, he apparently did not think it was too early to make the case for more guns. “Arguments will be made by other people about, ‘Hey, you know what, if other people in the church were actually carrying…’ — the report I heard is he reloaded five times. I don’t know how accurate that is.” “But if he reloaded even once and somebody had a gun, the argument would be made, they could have taken him out before he killed all these people,” Ferrer insisted. “So, that’s a battle that I just don’t think we should be fighting at this moment.” Watch the video below from Fox News’ Out Numbered, broadcast June 18, 2015. |
The Italian government has turned to its armed forces to help it grow medicinal marijuana, after street dealers failed to provide weed of a high enough quality. Appointed to oversee the operation is the rather aptly named Colonel Antonio Medica, who told the Times that “the police offered us cannabis they had seized but it is not up to the standards we want.” Medical marijuana is currently available in more than 20 US states, as well as several other countries around the world. In Italy, it is offered to people suffering from multiple sclerosis, those recovering from chemotherapy, and others with chronic pain who have not responded to traditional painkillers. The main active ingredient in cannabis is a molecule called tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which binds to the cannabinoid receptors in the central nervous system in order to get people stoned. This usually includes a numbing of certain physical sensations, leading to a reduction in pain, as well as an increase in appetite – otherwise known as the munchies – and occasionally, hysterical giggling fits. For its medical grade weed, the Italian government wants to use cannabis with a THC concentration of 20 percent, and made the decision to call in the army back in 2014 to help achieve this. Having been involved in the pharmaceutical industry for over a century, producing medicines for injured soldiers, the military boasts a wealth of medical expertise, and can also offer a level of security that other producers can’t. The rank and file are therefore swapping their Valentino-designed uniforms for lab coats in order to operate a special weed-producing facility in Florence. “My mission is to produce the best-quality cannabis on an industrial scale at a low price,” explains Medica, who hopes to produce 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of the drug per year for just €8 ($8.87) a gram. Previously, Italy has been importing its medical marijuana from the Netherlands, paying almost double that price. As well as allowing medical marijuana, Italy is considering joining the few countries currently leading the way in drug policy reform by legalizing recreational cannabis. Politicians are set to vote on whether or not to pass a new bill that would decriminalize the possession of up to 15 grams (0.53 ounces) of weed for personal use later this year. |
During my trips to various beaches around the world, I’ve seen my fair share of beautiful women in bikinis to and unfortunate to see ones where the bikini gets vacuumed in by their body. And when it comes to dudes, I was unfortunate to witness a “walking rug” in a tiny speedo. Good on him though because most people giggled while he did his thing and walked with confidence. I thought to myself that this guy must stay super warm in the winter with that natural fur coat of his and I guess some designers out there were thinking the same thing and brought the idea to life. Yep, you can now own your own “fur” coat made entirely from male chest hair! The coat was actually commissioned by Wing Co, a popular milk drink for men, as a way to protest against “manning-down” of men (the trend of metro sexuality, clean-shaven chests, and feminine-inspired fashion). The Male Chest Hair Fur Coat was quite the project as it took approximately 200 hours to create and consists of over a million single strands of chest hair. The price of this chest hair fur coat is around $3,900. I once worked in the wholesale bead working industry and I thought it was pretty creepy that one of the customers would wear a coat which consisted of her dog’s hair. I tried to keep my distance when she walked into the building drenched from the rain. Wet dog hair smell? No thanks! Can you imagine how gross the male chest hair fur coat would feel to the touch if it was raining out? It would be interesting to know if the chest hair was plucked out (OUCH!) or trimmed off? And how many men sacrificed their manliness for this project? And I really hope their next project has nothing to do with pubic hair because that would be amazing and disgusting at the same time. Would you ever wear this fur coat? Manliness or not, I still prefer to have the few rat hairs on my chest trimmed off. |
Why did Romney not want to publicly disclose his tax returns? What was he hiding? A BBC reporter has discovered and traced the behind-the-scenes, blind trust in Ann Romney’s name that made with others billion dollars from the GM bankruptcy bail-out, through its buyout, discounted purchase of Delphi, GM’s spun-off parts-making unit. Romney accuses GM bailout and federal bridge loan as payoffs to cronies. But the forced leverage exerted by a owners group that included his wife’s blind trust and other Delphi investor-owners, some of whom were close, long term friends of Mitt Romney, shows how the implosion of the US economy and a major US industry paid off billions in return. How did it happen? After buying GM parts supplier, Delphi, a purchasing group that included Ann Romney, unidentified as a limited partner, threaten to shut down the US auto industry–unless they were paid $6 billion. Then they closed and moved 28 parts plants to China, after taking the pensions and benefits of the former US workers. Listen here to a credible interview with the journalist that explains and outlines the facts behind this massive Romney cash grab from the Treasury. Here is a link to the cover story at the Nation, an established, highly regarded intellectual journal, which features the story on its November 5th issue, now out. Click here to read the complete article on Romney’s bailout bonanza. (If the video is unavailable, click here: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Yyc8-XNPQ&feature=youtu.be&a].) A report and interview with the BBC journalist also appears on Democracy Now, at:[http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/18/greg_palast_mitt_romneys_bailout_bonanza] |
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- How much are history and tradition worth? It's a question Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour will soon answer about the school's football stadium. University officials are seeking options to renovate or replace Beaver Stadium in the next 10 years. Penn State has hired an architecture firm to recommend improvements and funding plans for its 18 athletic facilities, including the world's third-largest stadium. "Nobody's trying to either renovate Beaver or build a new stadium just to be doing it," Barbour told the Associated Press. "There's a recognized need. I've not run into anybody that doesn't recognize that need." The 106,572-seat complex has undergone seven expansions since moving from the other side of campus in 1960. But it remains antiquated, despite additions of luxury boxes and high-definition scoreboards. Outdated plumbing requires complete winterization each November. Elevators are small and sluggish while concourses are narrow. The stadium lacks concession options and still uses bleachers. The limitations prevent wider use of the venue. Barbour said she'd like to see concerts and other sports such as hockey in the facility. "Seven days a year is not probably the best use of the full utilization of that investment," Barbour said. But the venerable stadium still has its charm, a reputation built on a game-day atmosphere touted by alumni, players and even opposing fans and recruits. Players often share vivid memories of entering the stadium and running out of its Pennsylvania limestone-lined tunnel for the first time. "That atmosphere is unreal," sophomore linebacker Jason Cabinda said. "There's nothing that really compares to it in my opinion." That's why Barbour is hoping Penn State will be able to work with what it currently has rather than build a new stadium. "That would absolutely be my preference, no doubt about it, for a variety of reasons," Barbour said. "Not the least of which is history and tradition." Barbour is asking Kansas City, Missouri-based architecture firm Populous to survey athletes, coaches, alumni and fans and present its findings in July. Penn State will then aggressively implement suggested upgrades, said Phil Esten, deputy athletic director. "They're going to give us a gap analysis," Esten said. "This is where we are today, these are the tantamount needs and maybe wants and how we compare in the marketplace, so this is where we need to go in the future and this is road map for how to close that gap." Esten said the costs of renovations or a new stadium are hard to project. And the university will need "creative" fundraising to pay for sweeping upgrades, he said. Penn State's athletic department reported a slight profit in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2014, up from a $6 million loss in 2013, according to a financial report submitted to the NCAA. It had $117.6 million in operating revenue in fiscal 2014. "Not only do we want to know what facilities would be best for our student athletes, these need to be economically viable," Esten said. "Don't show us a Cadillac if we can only afford a Chevy." Both Esten and Barbour have led major builds and renovations on other campuses. Barbour oversaw a $321 million renovation of California's Memorial Stadium when she was athletic director there, while Esten was in charge of fundraising at Minnesota during the planning and construction of $303 million TCF Bank Stadium. |
In exchange for its repeated destruction on the big screen, the City by the Bay deserves recognition during awards season, Mayor Ed Lee tells THR. A version of this story first appeared in the July 31 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe. On the big screen, 2015 has been the year for Hollywood to take on San Francisco. Not only does the Golden Gate bridge get pummeled in San Andreas, the same iconic structure hosts a school bus-centered fight sequence in Terminator: Genisys and provides the backdrop for posters and billboards for Pixels, opening July 24, with an oversized Pac-Man character swallowing the city whole. These films aren’t the first to validate the longtime feud between Los Angeles and the city by the Bay, as shown in scenes from films like Star Trek Into Darkness, Pacific Rim and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. But what does San Francisco think? Reached by THR, Mayor Ed Lee seems fine with the recent wave of destruction as long as the northern metropolis is recognized again during awards season. “San Francisco’s starring role in recent Hollywood movies should earn our city an Oscar nomination,” Lee says. A spokesperson in the mayor’s office adds that the city is a desirable location for Hollywood productions, pointing interested parties to its Film SF website. Pixels director Chris Columbus lives in San Francisco and tells THR it was his choice to feature the city on the poster, though it isn't actually destroyed in the film. "We wanted to show that the movie has a global feeling. San Francisco is untouched in the movie. I’ll never get a chance to destroy the Golden Gate Bridge or shoot an action scene because there’s been too many of them," he said. "[San Francisco] is one of the most — if not the most — beautiful places on the planet. It inspires filmmakers. It inspired me when I did [Mrs.Doubtfire]. ... It was a love letter to San Francisco. But now it’s like, let’s see how we can destroy San Francisco." |
On December 10, 1968, a sleek new locomotive glided out from the sooty train shed at Toronto’s Union Station. Streamlined and silver with a bright red nosecone, the $2-million CN Turbo train looked like a bullet on wheels. With a top speed of 193 km/h, it promised to slash rail travel times between Toronto and Montreal and deliver train travel into the jet age. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out. Designed by a subsidiary of United Aircraft in the U.S. and built partly in Montreal, the fleet of five Turbo trains were Canada’s first real foray into high-speed, luxury rail travel. Taking the Turbo would be just like flying. Each train set was powered by four Pratt & Whitney PT6 gas turbine engines—power units commonly used in turboprop planes. A lightweight aluminium body and advanced suspension system allowed the Turbo to corner 30 percent faster than regular trains by banking like an aircraft. “Passengers will find some similarities with aircraft accommodation even if there are no seat belts and no smoking signs,” the Globe and Mail reported in 1967. “There will be individual wide reclining seats, carpeting and draperies, soft indirect lighting, and individually controlled reading lights at each seat.” Folding tables in the seat backs, overhead luggage bins, and a meal service would further add to the aviation aesthetic. Like the Boeing 747, which was also in development during the mid-1960s, the locomotive cars at either end of the Turbo had domed roofs. A glass partition allowed passengers to watch the train engineers at work and look over their shoulders down the track ahead. CN said the Turbo represented the greatest advance in railway technology in the last 100 years. Though CN hoped to have the train on the tracks in time for Expo 67, a shortage of parts caused by the Vietnam war and a strike at the United Aircraft of Canada plant in Montreal delayed the launch by almost a year. Still, the ridership projections more than justified the new service. About 6,000 people traveled daily between Toronto and Montreal by car, train, plane, or bus in 1967, and the railway expected those numbers to double over the next decade. The first CN Turbo train ran on a test track in October, 1967. In December, a U.S.-owned Turbo hit 274 km/h during a test in central New Jersey. The Associated Press reported the ride was so smooth Rhode Island Democratic senator Claiborne Pell, an advocate of high-speed rail, was able to read the fine print of the Congressional Record. The Turbo made its Canadian service debut in December, 1968. Two trains, one in Montreal and another in Toronto, departed at the same time packed with reporters. “It’s a world of soft lights, soft music, soft carpeting, and pretty hostesses,” the Globe and Mail reported. The noise from the engines was minimal and there was Rock Cornish Hen on the menu. The 539-kilometre run to Montreal would take a exactly a 3 hours and 59 minutes—a full hour better than the next fastest CN express—the press was told. The trains could get there quicker, but the high speeds achieved in testing were outlawed due to the roughly 300 level crossings on the route. All Turbos would be capped at 153 km/h—100 km/h slower than the top speed. The trip progressed normally until Kingston. At a level crossing on Division St., the the Turbo sliced through a meat transport truck, blasting debris high into the air. The crossing was not equipped with barriers and the driver had failed to notice the wagging warning poles. Shaken but uninjured, the truck driver sipped coffee in a police cruiser while the reporters and train engineers assessed the damage. The big red aluminium and fibreglass nose of the train, which was designed to deflect obstacles, was dented but largely intact. “Well, that proves the throw-aside collision system works,” said a CN employee. Only an employee manning the crossing required medical attention after he was struck by flying debris. Most reporters watched the accident unfold via a closed-circuit camera mounted to the front of the train. One lucky CP wire photographer managed to snap a picture from the dome of the engine car at the exact moment of impact. The damaged Turbo was emptied and the reporters loaded on the Toronto-bound train when it arrived on the scene. “The bar hadn’t even opened when the accident happened,” a Globe and Mail writer noted glumly. Despite the embarrassing setback, the CN Turbo service commenced as expected. The train proved far from perfect, however. The brakes seized in winter and the exhaust from the engines in the forward locomotive spat soot over the windows. A Turbo caught fire in Toronto in 1970 and frequent technical glitches triggered several prolonged hiatuses, the longest of which took the trains out of service for several years. When service resumed in 1973, the Turbo trains were longer—nine cars instead of seven—and much more reliable. But still the dream of uninterrupted high-speed service between eastern Canada’s biggest cities proved elusive. Turbos were frequently forced to yield to freight trains, erasing the gains achieved by the high-speed locomotives. Amid declining passenger numbers and rising fuel costs, CN spun off its rail passenger service in 1978, creating Via Rail. The Turbos were painted a bright yellow and continued to make the Toronto-Montreal run until 1982, when the trains were replaced by the angular, diesel-powered LRCs. Only two of the four pioneering Turbo train sets made it to retirement. One caught fire near Morrisburg, Ont. in May, 1979, and was written off, and another was used taken out of service early and used as a source of spare parts. Now, almost 50 years after the debut of the Turbo train, it actually takes longer to get between Toronto and Montreal. Via Rail allows 4:45 for a one way trip. |
President Trump gave a major foreign policy speech in Saudi Arabia a week ago. The good news is that Trump’s remarks were not a direct attack on Islam. The bad news is everything else. The speech was the first that Trump has given abroad, and it was also the first addressed to the Muslim world. It had an odd collection of themes. It was somehow conciliatory and preachy at the same time. Trump even managed to channel the always popular George W. Bush by declaring, “This is a battle between Good and Evil.” It wasn’t all biblical oversimplifications though. If you know some of the recent history with respect to the Saudi Arabia and terrorism, it also offered some very dark comedy. Here are a few of the highlights. One of These Things Is Not Like the Other In an early effort to highlight the cooperation that is already happening between the US and the allied dictatorships of the Middle East, Trump attempted to list out the contributions being made. Here’s what he said [emphasis added]: Many are already making significant contributions to regional security: Jordanian pilots are crucial partners against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Saudi Arabia and a regional coalition have taken strong action against Houthi militants in Yemen. The Lebanese Army is hunting ISIS operatives who try to infiltrate their territory. Emirati troops are supporting our Afghan partners. In Mosul, American troops are supporting Kurds, Sunnis and Shias fighting together for their homeland. Qatar, which hosts the U.S. Central Command, is a crucial strategic partner. Our longstanding partnership with Kuwait and Bahrain continue to enhance security in the region. And courageous Afghan soldiers are making tremendous sacrifices in the fight against the Taliban, and others, in the fight for their country. The structure of this paragraph is designed to highlight all the useful actions being undertaken against terrorist groups in the region. And earlier in the speech, Trump characterized terrorism in a pretty standard way as actions that target and kill innocent people. As he put it, “This is a battle between barbaric criminals who wish to obliterate life, and decent people of all religions who seek to protect it.” The problem is that the paragraph above casually lumps in the Houthis with ISIS, as if their motivations and actions are more or less the same. This is not at all true. ISIS ultimately grew out of the Al Qaeda in Iraq insurgent group. They espouse an extreme, fundamentalist form of Sunni Islam, often called Salafism or Wahhabism. They openly advocate a civilizational war between Sunni Muslims and the rest of the world, and they use terrorist attacks as a strategy to try to provoke this outcome. ISIS has claimed responsibility for almost all of the high profile terrorist attacks that have struck Western targets in the past couple of years. Notably, ISIS and Al Qaeda share much of the same ideology. The groups are at war with each other in Syria, but the dispute is largely a question of strategy. In contrast with ISIS’s global ambitions, the Houthis are a distinctly national movement inside of Yemen. The Houthis follow a version of Shia Islam that is not at all similar to ISIS, and they have not carried out any terrorist attacks against Western targets. The group took power at the beginning of 2015, overthrowing an unpopular Saudi-allied dictator in the process. (Technically, this dictator was elected, but he was the only one on the ballot.) In response, the Saudis–with US backing–launched a war against the Houthis to try to put the dictator back in charge, or in the Saudi’s parlance, to restore the legitimate government of Yemen. Clearly, ISIS and the Houthis are not similar movements. They emerged from very different contexts, have totally different ambitions, attack different targets, and have an entirely different religion. Another inconvenient fact, the Houthis are actually at war with Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate. So to recap, according to Trump’s speech, Jordanian pilots are helping combat terrorism by bombing ISIS. And the Saudi’s are helping combat terrorism by fighting a group that doesn’t attack the West but does fight against Al Qaeda. In other words, he nailed it. Let’s move on. Making Orwell Proud Again The unintentionally humorous parts of the speech came when Trump praised the creation of two new collaborative programs to fight terrorism. Here’s Trump: Later today, we will make history again with the opening of a new Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology — located right here, in this central part of the Islamic World. … I am proud to announce that the nations here today will be signing an agreement to prevent the financing of terrorism, called the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center — co-chaired by the United States and Saudi Arabia, and joined by every member of the Gulf Cooperation Council. It’s strange to have Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States take a leading role in combating extremism and terrorist ideologies. After all, there is strong evidence to believe that these same countries have promoted the terrorist groups in question. One compelling piece of evidence for this comes from the Saudis themselves. In a report originally written up at The Financial Times (FT has a firm paywall, but it’s cited here), the Saudi foreign minister told Secretary of State John Kerry the following: Daesh [ISIS] is our [Sunni] response to your support for the Da’wa. The Da’wa refers to the dominant Shia political faction in Iraq, which is friendly with Iran. Essentially, the Saudis were angry that Iraq War 2 had the effect of putting Shia and Iranian-friendly factions in power in Baghdad. In context, they were also upset by the Iran Nuclear Deal because the sanctions relief promised in that deal would allow the Iranian economy to expand rapidly and give Iran more prominence and influence in the region. The Saudis see Iran as a major regional rival, and they view any increase in Iran’s power as reducing their own. Anyways, in response to these negative trendlines, the foreign minister said the Saudis helped back ISIS as a strategic response. The other strong evidence comes from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the government released a DIA memo from the fall of 2012 that provided an analysis of the situation in Syria and Iraq. Note that this was before the formal rise of ISIS. This was the relevant quote: THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION… THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME… This extraordinary quote notes that the West and the Gulf States–the countries Trump is addressing in the speech–armed the opposition, knowing that it risked creating a “salafist principality”, that is, an Islamic state. And instead of being a serious calamity, this was actually an interim goal, because it would weaken Assad. In practice, this didn’t turn out so well. Blame Iran Early in Trump’s speech, he offered a line that was apparently designed to preemptively address concerns about the fact that Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy with an abysmal human rights record: We must seek partners, not perfection—and to make allies of all who share our goals. It was the old “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” argument, just with slightly new verbiage. So what if Saudi Arabia executes a lot of people and is starving millions of helpless people in Yemen; we’re not seeking perfection, after all. Whatever the merits of this strategy may be, it’s clear that the standard is not applied evenly. It seems that certain countries are permanently affixed to Trump’s enemy list no matter what shared interests exist. Near the end of the speech, Trump made this abundantly clear: But no discussion of stamping out this threat would be complete without mentioning the government that gives terrorists all three—safe harbor, financial backing, and the social standing needed for recruitment. It is a regime that is responsible for so much instability in the region. I am speaking of course of [drum roll?] Iran. (In the actual speech, there was no apparent pause before the country was named. It had to be a suspenseful moment for the audience though–I can think of quite a few countries that would have been better suited to fill in the blank.) That’s right. In Trump’s version of reality, Iran is the greatest promoter of terrorism. And this is so, even though it’s clear from the rest of the speech that terrorism is mostly referring to the indiscriminate actions of groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda–groups that Iran is literally fighting a war against in Iraq and Syria (on the US’s side). Iran is also alleged to be primarily responsible for the region’s instability, but in fact, this honor probably belongs to the US. After all, Iran didn’t launch Iraq War 2. Iran clearly had no interest in promoting an uprising against its ally in Syria. And Iran didn’t embark on a war of choice to overthrow the government of Libya and throw that country into chaos. But in Trump’s foreign policy speech, none of this history made an appearance. Bottom Line Instead of bringing a radical change to the US’s failed foreign policy, President Trump seems content to stick with the usual false narratives offered by US leaders. So Iran remains enemy number 1, and Saudi Arabia is a vital partner in combating extremism. |
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A data breach has turned scores of Northwest Florida State College (NWFSC) employees into victims of identity theft in the aftermath of a massive data breach affecting nearly 300,000 people, including current and former students. The employee data was breached between May 21 and Sept. 24 after one or more hackers accessed a folder on the school's main server. According to school officials, an internal review between Oct. 1 and Oct. 5 revealed that 76,000 current and former students of Northwest Florida State College (NWFSC) had their personal information exposed in the breach, as did approximately 200,000 students from Florida who were eligible for the Bright Futures scholarships for the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 school years. In addition, more than 3,000 current and retired employees had their information exposed as well, making the breach one of the more extensive security incidents affecting a college in recent memory. ThreatMetrix, an IT security vendor focused on fraud-prevention tools, recently ranked the highest-risk universities in the country based on the number of risky online transactions either held for manual review or rejected by university networks. Among the leaders on the list were New York University (NYU), George Mason University and Harvard University. According to the firm, NYU is ranked No. 1 because when the transactions collected by ThreatMetrix were reviewed, they originated from 14 different time zones. Since these transactions are all either from servers on the university's networks or students connecting to the networks, uncompromised transactions should all originate from one time zone. This means the transactions from other time zones indicate the use of either a proxy or VPN provider or a compromised network, the company explained. "Many of the top 50 were some of the leading universities in the U.S. which reflects the fact that their students, staff and administration services such as payroll are going to be high value targets for international criminals," said Alisdair Faulkner, chief products officer at ThreatMetrix. "In addition 14 of the top 50 universities were recently breached by GhostShell which suggests that a large number will be shown to have compromised servers over the coming weeks. Once one criminal finds a hole, a river of crime quickly flows through." In the case of the NWFSC, the exposed information includes names, social security numbers and birthdays. According to the college, the personal information exposed also includes the direct deposit bank routing and account number information of employees. As of Oct. 8, 50 employees had reported issues with identity theft, including the college president. “We provided information to employees as soon as we had an indication that there was an issue–when we initially had reports from five employees that their direct deposit accounts had been unlawfully accessed,” said Dr. Ty Handy, college president, in a statement. “We needed employees to take immediate steps to individually review and protect their personal data. As they did, more employees began to report issues once they reviewed their information." “We know that from May 21, 2012 until Sept. 24, 2012 one or more hackers accessed one folder on our main server," Handy said. "This folder had multiple files on it. No one file had a complete set of personal information regarding individuals. However, by working between files, the hacker(s) have been able to piece together enough information to be able to engage in identity theft for at least 50 employees." Police have been contacted about the NWFSC incident. "The vast majority of attacks against universities are opportunistic in nature (rather than highly targeted against a particular school or system), and exploit simple vulnerabilities," explained Josh Shaul, CTO of Application Security. "Most commonly, we see SQL injection as the attack vector, which is a technique that attackers have been using with great success for at least a decade now. Universities are clearly under attack, but rarely have the budget to spend to completely defend themselves." |
In the year 1820, John Dickerson was a man of the field. He rose cattle and herded sheep. Greg Gregerson and the penis boys were known about town to herd cattle to their branding post and would brand penises onto unsuspecting heffers . Soon after they would return the missing cattle to their appropriate owners with their newfound phallic brandishing. John Dickerson was very upset by these cockamamie antics. His cattles' fresh dick decorations extremely decreased the face value of his bovines. John Dickerson sought out Greg Gregerson and the penis boys in sordid places and soon found these four gargantuan men in a local brothel with appropriately large women. He knew immediately that his average size and pisspoor fighting techniques would be no match for Greg Gregerson and the penis boys. Greg being the largest and the leader, he instantly knew he must take him out if he had any hope of leaving unscathed and his heffers avenged. He balled his fist and struck Greg Gregerson in a 3" space between the chin and the neck of Greg's shirt. Greg Gregerson dropped to the floor in agony and the penis boys trembled in fear. After witnessing their fearless leader taken out with one punch, one brace penis boy asked John Dickerson to lead their gang and brand dick decorations all over the cattle of the Midwest. John Dickerson replied,"Do you want a throat punch too, bitch?" |
Are you ready to meet baby and get to know mama Winchester? The CW’s “Supernatural” saw Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) successfully defeat Amara. What Sam didn’t know was that Dean didn’t die and that his mother was resurrected as a gift from The Darkness. “Supernatural” Season 12 has a lot of fun characters, harrowing demons and Lucifer-filled action in store for fans this year. Here’s everything you need to know about the upcoming season: 1. Episode 1 Synopsis The Season 12 premiere kicks off right where the season finale left off with Dean coming face-to-face with his mother, Mary Winchester (Samantha Smith), after 30 long years. Meanwhile, Sam, who was most certainly shot last season, is very much alive. However, he has been kidnapped by Lady Toni (Elizabeth Blackmore), a member of the British Men of Letters. After Dean finally realizes Sam is missing, he, Castiel/Cas (Misha Collins) and hunter Mary team up to find him. Of course, rescuing Sam and fighting against members of the British Men of Letters won’t be an easy feat. Fortunately, we learn quickly that Mary is an excellent supernatural hunter. 2. Episode Titles The names of the first couple of episodes of “Supernatural” Season 12 are: Episode 1 – “Keep Calm And Carry On” Episode 2 – “Mamma Mia” Episode 3 – “The Foundry” 3. Lucifer Has Taken On A New Vessel Amara zapped Lucifer out of Castiel’s body which means he’s without a vessel when Season 12 premieres. He jumps from vessel to vessel before eventually settling on an aging rock star named Vince Vincente (Rick Springfield). Now that God is gone, what does Lucifer really want? “What he [Lucifer] discovers is that, in some ways, God had the right idea. Worship is fun. Having people worship you, it’s a good time,” “Supernatural” executive producer Andrew Dabb explained to TVLine, “So for him, popping into someone like the rock star Vince Vincente, it allows him experience that almost God-like worship.” 4. Crowley And Cas Join Forces To Take Down Lucifer Crowley (Mark Sheppard) and Cas on a road trip? Who would’ve thought? But when “Supernatural” returns this Thursday, Crowley will join forces with Cas to take down Lucifer. After all, the fallen angel humiliated Crowley and dethroned him. With Cas, God’s once most favorite son used him as a vessel. Cas is angry and so is Crowley. 5. Mary And Cas Understand Each Other Speaking of Cas, several personal storylines are in store for the angel. He understands Mary Winchester in a way that Sam and Dean don’t. Both Mary and Cas see each other as outsiders and being in a place they don’t belong. Also, Cas knows what it’s like to come to Earth after years of being in heaven. “She and Castiel form a really interesting friendship and we think she’s a nice pivot point around which we can spin our characters,” Dabb told Entertainment Weekly. Moreover, Dean and Sam are certainly happy to have their mother back but they still have to get to know Mary. “At first, they’re really excited to have her back, but also aren’t quite sure how she’s going to respond to them because they know the last thing she wanted was for her kids to be hunters and now she’s walking into a world where her kids are hunters,” Dabb added. 6. Sam And Dean Fight Hitler Aaron Bass reprises his role as Adam Rose in “Supernatural” Season 12. He was last seen helping the hunters fight a group of necromancers who happen to be Nazis in Season 8. This year, however, Rose is going to help them fight Hitler. While the German dictator won’t be seen till episode 5, this will certainly be a storyline worth watching. 7. The Hunters Learn More About Mary Dean and Sam will not only discover that Mary is a kickass hunter, but also that it was her family that was in the business of hunting things and not John’s. The boys will learn more about their mother during the course of Season 12. “Supernatural” Season 12 premieres on Thursday, Oct. 13 at 9 p.m. EDT on The CW. |
Officials announced the charges on Thursday in the southwestern city of Freiburg, opening a new move in last fall's crime that shocked the city of around 226,000 inhabitants and garnered national media attention. The prosecution team accused suspect Hussein K. of having "attacked, strangled and raped" Maria L., a 19-year-old medical student who was on her way home from a party on October 16, 2016. He then left the victim in the Dreisam River where she drowned, they alleged. Her body was found in the river and her bicycle discovered nearby. Maria died by drowning in the Dreisam Authorities used a strand of hair found in the bushes near Maria's body to identify and arrest the suspect. The prosecution's charge described K. as having killed Maria "insidiously and for sexual satisfaction." Unknown age means juvenile court At the time of his arrest, Hussein told police he was 17 years old. However, medical age experts commissioned by the prosecution team believe the suspect was at least 22 at the time of the crime. Due to the uncertainty, the case will be heard by the juvenile chamber of the Freiburg district court. Under German law, an adolescent individual between the ages of 18 and 21 years of age can be tried according to juvenile law when the crime committed was affected by psychological conditions of youth (under 18) development. A murder conviction would result in up to 10 years jail time. The young student victim had herself been involved in providing refugee aid. In the notice of her death last October, Maria L.'s family asked for donations towards a student initiative that supports refugees. A crime in the spotlight K.'s arrest in December 2016 made national headlines when it was revealed that he had been on parole in Greece, where he had been detained on charges of murdering a woman on the isle of Corfu in 2013. The Afghan national arrived in Germany in 2015 as an unaccompanied asylum-seeker and had been living with a German foster family. The discovery of his background unleashed a debate in German media about refugee policy, with Chancellor Angela Merkel stating the crime should not be utilized to target "an entire group" of people such as asylum-seekers. The case also lead to questions about why European police had failed to pick up the trail of Hussein after he disappeared. Afghan nationals in Freiburg call for an end to violence against women at a memorial gathering cmb/kl (AFP, dpa) |
Residents of the Chinese town of Liucunbu recently unearthed an unknown rubbery "fungus" deep underground while drilling a well. Perplexed by this mycological mystery, the workers consulted the investigative journalism program Xi'an Up Close, who sent reporter Ye Yunfeng on the scene. Once there, she soon identified the find as a mushroom of the region. The only problem? The villagers had actually dug up a lost sex toy depicting a grotesquely disembodied vagina and anus. This led to a hearty amount of on-air, accidental innuendo. From the show's transcript (via Shanghaiist): "On this side, you can see what looks like a pair of lips," [Ye] adds. "And on that side, there is a tiny hole which extends all the way back to this side. The object looks very shiny, and it feels really fleshy and meaty too." "I've done my own research on the internet," says the afore-mentioned villager. "It's a type of lingzhi mushroom, called the taisui." [...] Without skipping a beat, reporter Ye chimes in with her own research, saying this type of lingzhi is generally found in the Shaanxi region deep underground and is hence rarely seen. "When the Emperor Qin Shi Huang was on the hunt for the secret to longevity," she elucidates, "it is said he discovered this lingzhi was the answer." Advertisement In response to the ensuing internet mockery, Xi'an Up Close offered up a damning apology. Said the show in an online statement, "As our reporter was still very young and unwise to the ways of the world, this report has brought great inconvenience to everyone." On the contrary, I bet there's some lucky soul out there clapping gleefully, itching to be reunited with his dual-orificed paramour. [Via Arbroath] |
TAMPA, Fla. -- ESPN National NFL Insider Josina Anderson reported Tuesday that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers could be a possible destination for free agent wide receiver DeSean Jackson due to his rapport with quarterback Jameis Winston. I'm told #Bucs could be a posb destination for impending FA WR Desean Jackson. Understanding is Jameis Winston has an existing rapport w/ DJ — Josina Anderson (@JosinaAnderson) February 21, 2017 The Bucs are searching for a big-play threat to line up opposite Mike Evans, who was targeted a whopping 171 times in 2016. They also need a replacement for Vincent Jackson, who was placed on injured reserve after Week 5 and whose contract with the Bucs expires in March. At 34 and with a noticeable decline in play last season, the team is best-served moving forward without him. DeSean Jackson has a different skill set than Vincent Jackson. At 5-foot-10 and 175 pounds, he doesn't have the massive catch radius or a big body that you want catching passes across the middle. But this actually works in the Bucs' favor because they've long needed a receiver with top-level speed who can complement Evans rather than match him, and DeSean Jackson fits the bill. When the NFL released its "Next Gen Stats" for 2016, Jackson registered the third-fastest overall speed and fastest reception time -- 22.6 mph on a 59-yard pass from Kirk Cousins. The only player faster than Jackson last season was Tyreek Hill, and those times came on a pair of special teams plays. Jackson recently joined ESPN's Adam Schefter on his "Know them from Adam" podcast and when discussing his speed, he said, "I really feel like I could still run 4.3 or 4.29 like I came out of the combine." DeSean Jackson caught 56 passes for 1,005 yards and four touchdowns in 2016. Icon SMI Jackson saw action in 15 games last season and caught 56 passes for 1,005 yards and four touchdowns. It was the fifth 1,000-yard season in his career. He told Schefter he thinks he could play another four-to-six years and that he would have no qualms about playing in the slot if his speed dropped off. "I still think I could play on the outside at least another three or four years and still play at a high level," Jackson said. "I'm not losing speed. I just turned 30. I played last year at 29 the whole season and turned 30 at the end of the year." When discussing criteria for a possible destination he said, "I want to win. Obviously, I haven't won a Super Bowl, so the team that can win, a team that has a great quarterback. And that's definitely what stands out to me." Winston, like Cousins, is a quarterback on the rise. His growth and chemistry with Evans blossomed last season, culminating into a Pro Bowl invite for Evans. However, one area Winston could stand to improve on is the deep ball accuracy. Who better than Jackson to help? With a solid offensive line and ground game like they had in 2015 combined with a defense that made a quantum leap last year, the Bucs look poised to become a playoff contender. A tougher schedule next year, which includes facing the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots and the Green Bay Packers, will pose a huge challenge, however. That could certainly entice someone like Jackson. The Bucs finished 9-7 in 2016 but didn't reach the playoffs. They did, however, win three out of four games against the Super Bowl LI participant Atlanta Falcons over the past three years. The NFC South is a division with no clear-cut favorite, as the Carolina Panthers reaching the Super Bowl in 2015 and finishing dead last this past year, while the Bucs finished second in 2016 and last in 2015. How much would it cost to land Jackson's services? His last contract with the Redskins was for three years and $24 million. The fact that he might not be asking for a five-year deal and would be okay with three years is a plus, given his age and the Bucs' recent track record with free agent mega-deals. This has made them far more responsible spenders. They'll look to re-sign their own as well, but none of those deals should break the bank, making room for a couple splash signings. The Bucs will have about $65-67 million in cap space this year, while the Redskins will have about $61 million, although the Redskins still have to make a decision on whether to re-sign Cousins or play him under the franchise tag. They will also have to figure out their options with Pierre Garcon, who will become a free agent. The "legal tampering period" for the NFL in 2017 begins March 7, which is when the Bucs can official contact Jackson's representatives. Players cannot begin signing contracts until the new league year begins at 4 p.m. ET on March 9. |
As “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” approaches $900 million at the domestic box office, Disney is looking to add significantly to its haul with the sale of free TV rights to a nine-movie “Star Wars” package. Execs with Disney/ABC Home Entertainment and Television Distribution began a blitz of pitching prospective buyers last week that will extend into this week. Industry sources say Disney is hoping to nab some $30 million apiece for “Force Awakens” and the following two titles, “Episode VIII,” slated for 2017, and “Episode IX,” expected in 2019. The asking prices for the six older titles in the series — which started in 1977 with “Star Wars” — is unclear but sources characterized it as it high, especially for vintage titles. It’s expected that the package will also include other non-“Star Wars” titles, yet there’s no question that the Force is the driving force in this package. Among the cable outlets that are believed to have been pitched or scheduled to meet with Disney execs are Turner, FX Networks, Viacom, NBCUniversal (focusing on USA and Syfy), A+E Networks and AMC Networks. Related Bob Iger on Hostless Oscars: 'It's Been a Rollercoaster' Last Hostless Oscars Were Memorable — for the Wrong Reasons A rep for Disney/ABC Home Entertainment declined to comment. The “Star Wars” collection is the first movie package to stir up significant industry chatter among cable buyers in some time. Movies in general have become less of a hot commodity for broadcasters because they’re so widely available in the home via premium VOD, SVOD and online rental services. Those availabilities precede the home video and pay TV windows that kick in six- to 12 months after theatrical release. But as the most enduring titles remain a reliable source of ratings the demand for top-tier titles remains strong among the largest cablers. The appetite for content among SVOD players has also boosted the market for marquee studio titles. Starz has the traditional pay TV rights to “Force Awakens” starting at the end of this year through its prior movie output deal with Disney. The title probably won’t hit free TV until 2018 at the earliest. One wrinkle in the price considerations for “Episode VIII” and “Episode IX” is the Netflix factor. The next two “Star Wars” movies and other Disney theatrical releases will shift to Netflix for the traditional pay TV window, under the blockbuster output deal that Disney struck with Netflix in late 2012. That deal, valued at $300 million a year for Disney, covers the Mouse’s theatrical releases starting in 2016. One industry veteran said there is sure to be some concern about how the Netflix’s 24/7 streaming availability will affect the exposure level of “Episode VIII” and “Episode IX” by the time they land in the free TV window. The six older “Star Wars” pics will likely become available much earlier to free-TV buyers through the package now on the auction block. Those movies were most recently licensed by Viacom’s Spike TV in a six-year deal valued at $65-$70 million. The titles have been out of circulation on commercial TV since the Spike TV license expired in 2014. In 2008, Paramount made the four “Indiana Jones” films available to free-TV as a package three months before the May 2008 release of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Those titles were said to have nabbed about $25 million apiece in a sale to USA Network. But with the weaker numbers for most theatricals on commercial-TV, industry observers said $30 million apiece for multiple runs of the new “Star Wars” titles would be on the high end of market value. Among seasoned movie buyers, there’s speculation that Disney/ABC’s aggressive pitch strategy may be a process of determining what the market will bear before setting a licensing pact with one or more of its internal networks such as ABC or Freeform (formerly ABC Family). If the new movies go to Disney-owned outlets, the Mouse would be vulnerable to self-dealing claims from profit participants without clear documentation of the value placed on the titles by outside networks. |
The Gold Coast Titans have been docked four NRL competition points and fined $300,000 for salary cap breaches, with the loss of points and a quarter of the fine suspended. The NRL said it had elected to suspend the loss of points and $75,000 of the fine because the club had self-reported the breach and co-operated fully with the investigation. Four other clubs – the Sydney Roosters, Newcastle Knights, Manly Sea Eagles and Wests Tigers – have been issued with fines totalling more than $90,000 for less serious salary cap breaches. An investigation into the Brisbane Broncos did not uncover evidence of a breach of the salary cap rules, although the investigation was hindered by the fact some people at the club have left the game, the NRL stated. NRL General Manager of Integrity, Nick Weeks, said all clubs are on notice that they risk losing competition points and face heavy fines if they attempt to cheat the salary cap rules in future. He said the Titans penalty was issued following an investigation by the NRL Integrity Unity which was instigated by the new management of the club. It found that former Titans player Scott Prince was paid substantially more than the contract lodged with the NRL by a previous Titans administration. This difference in remuneration was never disclosed by the previous Titans administration or Prince and was only unearthed by the new management. The investigation found no evidence of systemic rorting of the salary cap at the club. The suspended fine and points will be applied if there are any further salary cap breaches by the Titans over the next two years. Read more at NRL.com |
Google is famous for its Easter Eggs, including web pages that do barrel rolls or blink or hide video games—but rarely do Google's bits of fun take a political tone. Showing just unhappy the company or at least its engineers are with the National Security Agency's surveillance activities Google included a jab at America's spooks in a new Chrome browser extension. End-to-end's code includes a jab at the NSA. The code for Google's upcoming email encryption extension for Chrome called End-to-End includes the words, "--SSL-added-and-removed-here-;-)." That line's a quote from an October 2013 report detailing the NSA's efforts to tap into the internal network links of major companies such as Google and Yahoo. Known as the MUSCULAR program, the report in the Washington Post said the NSA in cooperation with Britain's GCHQ spy agency was collecting massive amounts of data pulled directly from Google and Yahoo servers located outside the U.S. The NSA was happily nabbing data from Google's servers. Image source: The Washington Post. In a slide published by the Post the NSA created a quick overview sketch of how it obtains data from Google's servers. At the bottom the drawing, the NSA wrote "SSL added and removed here! :-)." The NSA was capitalizing on the fact that Google, at the time, was stripping encryption from data as it flowed from the public Internet into Google's internal network. When two Google engineers first saw the drawing they "exploded in profanity," according to the Post. Nearly eight months later, Google is taking its revenge or at least the company hopes it is. Google's End-to-End extension promises to make it easier to use OpenPGP email encryption in the browser. Currently, the easiest option for email encryption is to use a mail client like Mozilla Thunderbird with the Enigmail add-on. A number of other non-Google tools aiming to make email encryption easier are also in development such as Mailvelope, Dark Mail, and Mailpile. End-to-End is currently in an early Alpha phase. The extension is effectively open only to developers and power users, since you must first compile the code into a working extension before using it. During the testing period Google is inviting comments from the public to make sure the extension is as secure as possible before going mainstream. That's a key point since the biggest problem with encryption tools typically isn't the type of encryption they use, but mistakes in how the encryption is implemented. A fact about software development that was made all too clear recently with the OpenSSL Heartbleed bug. After the testing period, Google plans to make End-to-End available in the Chrome Web Store. [via TechCrunch and @ZenAlbatross] |
Canada Revenue Agency workers continue to snoop on the confidential tax files of businesses, acquaintances and others, despite at least $10.5 million spent so far to try to stop them. CBC News has uncovered nine significant cases reported since Jan. 1 in which tax workers improperly poked around the government's electronic records to extract sensitive private information about income, deductions, benefits, payments and employment. It's a long-term, chronic problem at the agency, exposed in 2009 and again in 2013 by Canada's privacy commissioner, who was assured that managers were taking tough action to prevent the breaches. But more than three years later, confidential tax files are still susceptible to nosy workers armed with passwords and CRA-supplied computers. On Feb. 18, for example, the agency reported that a "CRA employee made unauthorized access to the accounts of 90 acquaintances and family members, 1 business and his/her own account." In another breach reported on Feb. 22, an employee improperly accessed the accounts of 227 businesses and individuals. CBC News obtained records detailing the latest crop of privacy breaches, altogether affecting about 500 Canadians, under the Access to Information Act. Deliberate snooping Federal government departments are responsible for hundreds of significant privacy breaches each year, but most are inadvertent, such as mail sent with the wrong address or misplaced memory sticks. Most cases at CRA, on the other hand, are the result of deliberate snooping by employees. The agency has spent $10.5 million since 2013 to make its computers more secure against its own workers, and more money is earmarked for next year to comply with recommendations from the federal privacy office, including enhancing system controls so employees can only access information they need to do their jobs. The agency reports that it has made several important improvements to its management of personal information. - Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien's 2016 report Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien's latest annual report, delivered in September, said his office was assured that CRA has implemented almost all the safeguards recommended in the 2013 audit. "The agency reports that it has made several important improvements to its management of personal information including introducing new policies, increasing corporate oversight and ensuring more timely assessment of privacy and security risks," he wrote. CRA has been voluntarily reporting breaches since at least 2011. Since May 2014, federal government policy has required all departments and agencies to report material breaches to both the privacy commissioner and to the Treasury Board Secretariat. The government defines "material" breaches as "those that involve sensitive personal information and could reasonably be expected to cause injury or harm to the individual." Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien was told CRA has taken action to stop workers from improperly snooping on Canadians' confidential tax files, but new documents show the breaches have continued. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press) The number of breaches rose from seven in 2011 to 30 in 2015, but experts say that's likely the result of greater vigilance in spotting rogue employees rather than more snooping. The total for 2016 is not yet available, but CRA says it's down from last year. CRA manages one of the biggest confidential databases in Canada, and about two-thirds of some 40,000 workers have electronic access. The agency is the fourth worst offender for material privacy breaches among some 240 federal institutions that are subject to the Privacy Act, behind only Veterans Affairs Canada, Immigration, and Corrections Canada. The agency typically notifies taxpayers whenever their information has been compromised, though this year's victims included several deceased Canadians. CRA says it has fired eight of the nine workers caught so far this year. "CRA systems are strong, tight controls are in place, and we continue to assess and improve our controls on an ongoing basis," spokeswoman Lisa Damien said in an email. High-profile cases CRA has seen at least three other high-profile privacy controversies in the past three years. In April 2014, a hacker managed to exploit the so-called Heartbleed computer vulnerability to access about 900 social insurance numbers. The so-called Heartbleed vulnerability in CRA's computers allowed a hacker to extract the social insurance numbers of some 900 Canadians in 2014. A mailroom mix-up at CRA later that year sent a CD full of confidential taxpayer information to CBC News. And earlier this year, a federal oversight body reported CRA had been turning over confidential taxpayer information to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, even though the spy agency had not first secured the necessary court warrant. Follow @DeanBeeby on Twitter |
The killing of an Indian man named Srinivas Kuchibhotla in Olathe, Kan., on Feb. 22 has heightened concerns over hate crimes against people of color in Donald Trump’s America. Kuchibhotla was a tech worker at the GPS manufacturer Garmin. He was out for drinks with his friend and fellow Indian techie, Alok Madasani, when a 51-year-old white Navy veteran named Adam Purinton allegedly gunned him down after yelling, “Get out of my country.” Purinton had confronted the two men earlier in the evening, demanding to know if they were in the U.S. illegally. Kuchibhotla and Madasani, like many Indian nationals in the U.S., were filling a great demand for high-tech workers and were in the country on work visas. While the Trump White House initially dismissed any links between Kuchibhotla’s killing and the president’s divisive rhetoric about Muslims and immigrants as “absurd,” Madasani’s father, Jaganmohan Reddy, attributed the incident to a new wave of hate. He told The Washington Post, “The situation seems to be pretty bad after Trump took over as the U.S. president. I appeal to all the parents in India not to send their children to the United States in the present circumstances.” On Tuesday, the same day the FBI announced it would investigate the incident as a hate crime, Trump finally mentioned the killing in his address to a joint session of Congress, saying that it reminds us “that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms.” But the condemnation rang hollow, even though he began his speech claiming to bring a “message of unity and strength.” Trump’s minimal acknowledgement of the Kansas shooting is no surprise, given that the incident does not fit within his narrative of immigrants as dangerous and American citizens as innocent. Had the roles been reversed and a brown-skinned foreign national fatally shot a U.S. citizen, the victim’s family would have been on display at Trump’s address Tuesday. But the Kuchibhotla family was not invited, nor was their son’s name even mentioned. Instead, Trump trotted out four relatives of people killed by undocumented immigrants as props for his speech. Trump’s words are unlikely to have much effect on the safety of Americans (studies have found that immigrants commit fewer crimes per capita than native-born U.S. citizens and that sanctuary cities are safer). In fact, they are likely to fuel the exact opposite: violence by U.S. citizens against immigrants and those perceived to be foreigners. Unless Trump offers proof that fomenting violence against brown-skinned people is not his intention, we can only judge him by his words and assume that he condones and encourages hate crimes. [block:block=30] In Trump’s upside-down world, the dominant group is the most victimized: straight white men like him. The rest of us are all potential criminals. To Trump, those who are truly the most vulnerable people in American society—undocumented immigrants, people of color, Muslims and transgender children and adults—are the predators, not the victims. His White House has no plans to protect them and has instead unleashed forces, both official and unofficial, to attack them. Refugees are barred, immigrants are deported, Muslims are demonized, transgender children are left without protection to use the restroom of their gender identity, and so on. Even George W. Bush, once the least popular president in modern history, is embarrassed by Trump. Bush, who rarely speaks to the press anymore, said, “I don’t like the racism, and I don’t like the name-calling, and I don’t like the people feeling alienated.” Just weeks after Trump’s inauguration, many of his own supporters are aghast at his policies. A Syrian-American family in Pennsylvania that supported Trump was shocked when their relatives, who were emigrating to the U.S. with valid green cards, were deported after landing in the country. Residents of a small town in Illinois that overwhelmingly voted for Trump are upset that their friend and neighbor, Juan Carlos Hernandez-Pacheco, is facing deportation. “I knew he was Mexican, but he’s been here so long, he’s just one of us,” said one resident. Farm owners in central California who voted for Trump are now worried that his policies will affect the cheap labor force of undocumented farm workers their businesses rely on. There are many other examples of buyer’s remorse among Trump voters, including those who are worried about their president taking away the health insurance they’ve come to rely on, and Caitlyn Jenner, who is upset over Trump’s revocation of federal guidelines on transgender student rights. Indeed, there is a Twitter account dedicated entirely to retweeting the regrets of Trump voters. SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT Help Keep Common Dreams Alive Our progressive news model only survives if those informed and inspired by this work support our efforts I have no sympathy for Americans who voted for Trump. He was very clear throughout his campaign about his agenda and how aggressively he would work to achieve it. It is telling that many Trump voters do not want to publicly identify themselves. A self-described “Silicon Valley liberal” named Sam Altman, who traveled around the country interviewing Trump voters, relayed that “almost everyone I asked was willing to talk to me, but almost none of them wanted me to use their names.” The desire for secrecy suggests that these Americans are ashamed over having picked a president who has unleashed so much racism and hate in the nation. But they should publicly own their actions and face the responsibility they bear in helping to bring Trump into the White House. The blood of Srinivas Kuchibhotla is on their hands, as well as Trump’s. Trump and his supporters are also responsible for the less publicized examples of how the U.S. has suddenly become a much more unwelcoming nation in the past few weeks. These include: A U.S.-born NASA scientist named Sidd Bikkannavar who was detained at a U.S. airport and asked to turn over his phone and the code to unlock it. An elderly couple from Calgary, Canada, were stunned to have to undergo fingerprinting and have mug shots taken simply for crossing through the U.S. from Mexico to their home. Beloved Australian children’s author Mem Fox was aggressively interrogated at a U.S. airport and wondered if she would ever return to the U.S. Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, who won his second Academy Award for best foreign film—this time for “The Salesman”—refused to attend the ceremony in protest of Trump’s “Muslim ban,” which includes his home country. Farhadi chose not to apply for an artistic waiver to the ban. Syrian cinematographer Khaled Khatib was barred from entering the U.S. to attend the Academy Awards for his film “White Helmets,” which also won an Oscar for best documentary. Khatib has a valid U.S. visa. Juan Garcia Mosqueda, an Argentinian citizen who was a legal resident in the U.S. for the past 10 years while he ran an architecture and design studio in New York, was deported to Buenos Aires for no apparent reason. Henry Rousso, a French Holocaust historian, was detained at a Houston airport for nearly half a day, with no reason given for his detention. Members of a women’s soccer team from Tibet were denied visas to travel to Dallas for a tournament because, apparently, they had “no good reason to visit the U.S.” The result of Trump’s vision is that America will rapidly become a pariah nation for visitors who do not want to risk being humiliated or targeted. If this is what Trump’s voters desired when they cast their ballots for an openly bigoted candidate, their wish is quickly coming true. Travel publications already are reporting a “Trump Slump,” a significant drop in visitors to the U.S. since this president took office. Kuchibhotla’s mother has vowed not to let her younger son, who was also working in the U.S., return to this nation, and who can blame her? At this rate, the U.S., already an international laughingstock because of the election, will be seen as an undesirable destination around the globe. Not only will the travel and tourism industry suffer, but so will the economy as a whole, given the extent to which immigrants—legal and undocumented, high-tech and low-wage—contribute. In attacking nonwhite Americans and tacitly encouraging his followers to do the same, Trump is attacking America itself. |
The video will start in 8 Cancel Get the biggest Liverpool FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email RB Leipzig have warned Liverpool off a move for midfielder Naby Keita. Keita has been a long-term target for Reds boss Jurgen Klopp ahead of this summer's transfer window. Klopp has identified the 22-year-old as a key component of his recruitment drive with Liverpool preparing for the additional demands of Champions League football next season. Leipzig qualified for the competition for the first time in their history having finished runners-up in the Bundesliga behind Bayern Munich. And director of football Ralf Rangnick has said the club are keen to keep the core of their squad together ahead of the new campaign. “We're not thinking about selling our best players this summer,” said Rangnick in Bild. “There's no red line for us. We will keep our team and improve it in several positions.” A number of Leipzig players are being tracked by rival clubs, with Swedish midfielder Emil Forsberg having also been linked with Liverpool along with AC Milan, Bayern Munich and Arsenal. |
15,000 attend Southern California tax revolt rally, national media silent We hate the media in general, but we love afternoon talk show hosts John & Ken of KFI radio in L.A. And if the media ignores their popular tax revolt, we’ll give them a hand. The talk team drew 15,000 people last week to their “Revolt, Recall, Repeal Rally” to protest California’s $50 billion tax increase and to begin recall efforts aimed at the governor and several state legislators. it was covered locally, but did you see any national coverage? Ten NOW protestors on the on the White House steps makes news, but not 15,000 in a tax revolt? Of course, we’re not surprised. During the rally, DVDs and VHS tapes of Schwarzenegger’s movies were enthusiastically trashed by the crowd. John & Ken provided “The Shredinator” to shred other Schwarzenegger memorabilia. The KFI hosts also played recordings of Schwartzenegger promising he would never raise taxes, which elicited a loud, angry response from the crowd. “This has been a complete disaster and it’s time to do something about it,” they said. “He should be apologizing to you and he should be resigning!” John & Ken are the best talk show hosts in America. If you’ve never heard them rant and rave, check them out at KFI640.com. |
Last year, Ellen Pao sued her former employer, venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, for allegations of gender-based discrimination. Though she ultimately lost her case, Pao inspired much-needed conversations about Silicon Valley’s diversity problem. Her fight against discrimination in the tech world also blew up at Reddit, where she resigned from her job as the interim C.E.O. after factions of the online community revolted against her decision to shut down subreddits that encouraged harassment. “Ultimately, the board asked me to demonstrate higher user growth in the next six months than I believe I can deliver while maintaining Reddit’s core principles,” Pao said at the time. Now, Pao is making her writing debut with a memoir called Reset, which will, according to a press release from Random House, be a "fearless first-person account exposing the toxic culture that pervades the tech industry." Pao’s memoir has been acquired by Random House imprint Spiegel & Grau. There’s no release date for the book yet, but Random House says the book will delve into Pao’s time at both Kleiner Perkins and Reddit. After leaving her post at Reddit, Pao remained quiet, but she’d spent a considerable amount of time thinking about the inequality that continues to pervade Silicon Valley’s tech ecosystem. Last month, she debuted her new venture: Project Include, a nonprofit that will track the diversity numbers of different tech companies and report on the data over time, with the goal of making companies hold firm to their diversity commitments. “The standard mantra for every company on diversity statistics is, ‘We’re not doing well, but we’re working on it,’” Pao told The New York Times. “People don’t learn anything from that. Can you tell us what are you actually doing?” |
hat time away from football proved extremely valuable to Spence's maturation. For one, he had to attend group rehab sessions as part of his penalty. One of the most vivid memories he had from that experience involved a young woman with a heroin addiction arriving high to a meeting. Spence had witnessed many troubling things before that point -- "I saw people who were a little older than me who looked like they were 70," he said -- but the image of that stoned lady sitting down to get help haunted him.What was more reassuring was the way his parents reacted to his problem. Instead of bashing him, they took the approach that helped them deal with the troubled youths they encountered in their own jobs: They created a plan that included finding a new school, committing to graduating early and regaining a focus that would make Noah what Greg terms "a mature, humble adult."Said Greg: "We had a three-hour meeting with Coach Meyer and [defensive line coach] Larry Johnson, and it was upsetting to hear. But I also didn't want to kill [Noah] while he was down. I didn't want to lose him. And I didn't want him to get reckless. He was 20 years old. He still had his whole life ahead of him."Spence appealed the suspension in an effort to stay eligible at Ohio State. When that failed, Meyer asked Spence to meet with an old friend, Dean Hood, who was coaching at Eastern Kentucky at the time and had driven to Columbus to visit in early January. Meyer -- who declined to speak for this story, as did Larry Johnson -- thought EKU could be a good fit for Spence. After meeting with Hood for 45 minutes, Spence liked the idea so much that he enrolled at EKU two weeks later.It wasn't just that Hood talked about building the defense around Spence's disruptive talents, or the fact that Hood told him that "we have the same drug counseling program that you had at Ohio State and we’re going to beat this thing." Spence simply wanted to make everything right as soon as possible."It was hard for me to even be around my family during those first few months," Spence said. "We would talk on the phone, but I felt like I didn't want to see anybody until I did something right. As I started playing football again and getting good grades, I became more comfortable with them coming around."Spence needed only to compete in one game at EKU to realize the difference in competition. After lining up for a few plays in a 52-10 win over Valparaiso in the 2015 season opener, he thought he had set his on-field goals too low. Spence went on to post at least one sack in nine of the 11 games he played -- while also earning Ohio Valley Conference Co-Defensive Player of the Year honors -- but his major challenge was not losing his intensity against lesser competition. As Spence said, "There was still somebody out there who was trying to beat me, and I wasn't going to let any man do that." "I had several pro scouts say they were really impressed with how hard Noah practiced,” Hood said. "It shocked me at first. But then they said they had seen players drop down [in competition] and those players would be riding bikes at practice or doing a few reps of team drills. That wasn't Noah. He hated coming out. My biggest challenge was getting him to let up so our quarterbacks could throw the ball."Spence was equally diligent off the field. Once he decided to go to EKU, he demanded that Hood test him as many times as possible, which, Spence said, led to him taking 10 school-administered tests and two others handled by the NCAA. Spence also took 30 credit hours during the year, which enabled him to graduate last December in just three-and-a-half years. "Watching him walk across that stage was important, because no matter what happened, he had that education to fall back on," Helen Spence said. "That meant more than a million dollars to me."Spence understood that degree would be just the first step in rehabilitating his image for pro scouts. Graduating early allowed him to earn an invitation to the Senior Bowl, where he was so determined to compete that he practiced and played through a strained hamstring. That same injury hindered him at the NFL Scouting Combine (he ran the 40-yard dash in 4.80 seconds) and his pro day a week later (he ran in 4.75 and 4.79 there), but Spence didn't fret. His best shot at improving his draft stock would come from how he answered questions about his past.When asked how much scrutiny he's faced during the pre-draft evaluation process, Spence said the grilling began at the Senior Bowl and never ended. "It felt like I had two combines," he said of the inquiries. "But I also couldn't do anything but be truthful. They already know everything, so it's best to just be honest." |
More than 700 living languages are spoken in Indonesia.[1] A major part of them belong to the Austronesian language family, while over 270 Papuan (non-Austronesian) languages are spoken in eastern Indonesia.[1]. The official language is Indonesian (locally known as bahasa Indonesia), a standardized form of Malay,[2] which serves as the lingua franca of the archipelago. The vocabulary of Indonesian borrows heavily from regional languages of Indonesia, such as Javanese, Sundanese and Minangkabau, as well as from Dutch, Sanskrit and Arabic. The Indonesian language is primarily used in commerce, administration, education and the media. Most Indonesians speak other languages, such as Javanese, as their first language.[1] Most books printed in Indonesia are written in the Indonesian language.[citation needed] Since Indonesia recognises only a single official language, other languages are not recognised either at the national level or the regional level, thus making Javanese the most widely spoken language without official status, with Sundanese the second in the list (excluding Chinese varieties). Languages by speakers [ edit ] The major ethno-linguistic groups within Indonesia. Comparison chart [ edit ] Indonesian languages [ edit ] Below is a chart of several Indonesian languages. Most of them belong to Austronesian languages family. While there have been misunderstandings on which ones should be classified as languages and which ones should be classified as dialects, the chart confirms that most have similarities, yet are not mutually comprehensible. These languages are arranged according to the numbers of native speakers. English one two three four water person house dog cat coconut day new we (inclusive) what and Indonesian/Malay satu dua tiga empat air orang rumah anjing kucing kelapa hari baru kita apa dan Kutainese satu due tige empat ranam urang rumah koyok nyiur hari beru etam apa dengan Javanese siji loro têlu[5] papat banyu uwòng[5] omah asu kucing kambìl[5] dinå[5] anyar/énggal[5] adhéwé[5] åpå[5]/anu lan Sundanese hiji dua tilu opat cai/ci jalma imah anjing ucing kalapa poé anyar urang naon jeung Madurese settong dhuwa' tello' empa' âên oreng roma pate' nyior are anyar sengko apa ban Minangkabau cie' duo tigo ampe' aie urang rumah anjiang kuciang karambia hari baru awak apo jo Palembang Malay sikok duo tigo empat banyu wong rumah anjing kucing kelapo siang baru kito apo dan Buginese seqdi dua tellu eppa je'ne' tau bola asu coki kaluku esso ma-baru idiq aga na Banjarese asa dua talu ampat banyu urang rumah hadupan batingas nyiur hari hanyar kita apa wan Acehnese sa dua lhèë peuët ië ureuëng rumoh asèë miong / miei u uroë ban geutanyoë peuë ngon Balinese sa dadua telu patpat yèh anak umah cicing nyuh dina mara iraga apa muah Betawi atu' dué tigé empat aér orang ruméh anjing kucing kelapé ari baru kité apé amé Sasak sa/seke' due telu mpat aik dengan bale acong/basong kenyamen/nyioh jelo baru ite ape dait Batak Toba sada dua tolu opat aek halak jabu biang huting harambiri ari ibbaru hita aha dohot Ambonese Malay satu dua tiga ampa air orang ruma anjing kucing kalapa hari baru katong apa dan Makassarese se're rua tallu appa' je'ne' tau balla' kongkong ngeong kaluku allo beru ikatte apa na Batak Mandailing sada dua tolu opat aek halak bagas asu arambir ari baru hita aha dohot Mongondow inta' dua tolu opat tubig intau baloi ungku' cekut singgai mo-bagu kita onda bo Manado Malay satu dua tiga ampa aer orang ruma anjing kucing kalapa hari baru torang apa deng Dayak Ngaju ije' due' telu' epat danum uluh huma' asu enyuh andau taheta itah narai en Lampung say ʁuwa telu ampat way jelema nuwa asu kucing nyiwi ʁani ampai ʁam api jama Tolaki o'aso o'ruo o'tolu o'omba iwoi toono laika odahu sanggore oleo wuohu inggito ohawo ronga Nias sara dua tölu öfa idanö niha omo asu banio luo bohou ya'ita hadia ba Challenges [ edit ] There are 726 languages spoken across the Indonesian archipelago in 2009 (dropped from 742 languages in 2007), the largest multilingual population in the world only after Papua New Guinea. Indonesian Papua, which is adjacent to Papua New Guinea, has the most languages in Indonesia.[6] Based on the EGIDS classification used by Ethnologue (formerly the Summer Institute of Linguistics), 63 languages are dying (shown in red on the bar chart, subdivided into Moribund and Nearly Extinct, or Dormant), which is defined as "The only fluent users (if any) are older than child-bearing age, so it is too late to restore natural intergenerational transmission through the home."[7] Language education policy [ edit ] Indonesia's Minister of Education and Culture Muhammad Nuh affirmed in January 2013 that the teaching of local languages as school subjects will be part of the national education curriculum. Nuh stated that much of the public worry about the teaching of local languages being left out of the curriculum is misplaced and that the new curriculum will be conveyed to them.[8] Dutch language [ edit ] Despite the Dutch presence in Indonesia for almost 350 years (parts of Indonesia were ruled by the Dutch East India Company and subsequently the whole of what is now Indonesia was in the Dutch East Indies), the Dutch language has no official status there[9] and the small minority that can speak the language fluently are either educated members of the oldest generation, or employed in the legal profession,[10] as certain law codes are still only available in Dutch.[11] Languages by family [ edit ] Several prominent languages spoken in Indonesia sorted by language family are: There are many additional small families and isolates among the Papuan languages. Sign languages [ edit ] Writing system [ edit ] Indonesian languages are generally not rendered in native-invented systems, but in scripts devised by speakers of other languages, that is, Tamil, Arabic, and Latin. Malay, for example, has a long history as a written language and has been rendered in Brahmic, Arabic, and Latin scripts. Javanese has been written in the Pallava script of South India, as well as their derivative (known as Kawi and Javanese), in an Arabic alphabet called pegon that incorporates Javanese sounds, and in the Latin script. Chinese characters have never been used to write Indonesian languages, although Indonesian place-names, personal names, and names of trade goods appear in reports and histories written for China's imperial courts.[12] List of writing systems [ edit ] Latin – The official writing system of Indonesian; most Indonesian vernacular languages now adopt Latin script. Kaganga – Historically used to write Rejang, an Austronesian language from Bengkulu. Rencong – A Brahmic-based script, formerly used by Malays before the arrival of Islam, which introduced the Jawi script. Sundanese – A Brahmic-based script, used by Sundanese to write Sundanese language, although Sundanese also have a standard Latin orthography. Jawi and Pegon – An Arabic-based script, once widely used throughout Indonesia, now in decline but still use by Malays, Minangkabau, Banjarese, Acehnese, Javanese, Osing, Sundanese, and Madurese (which has its own form of Arabic known as Pegon.) Javanese – A Brahmic-based script used by the Javanese and related peoples. Today the script is in rapid decline and largely supplanted by Latin. Kawi script – The oldest known Brahmic writing system in Indonesia and the ancestor to all Brahmic based writing systems in Insular Southeast Asia. Balinese – A Brahmic-based script used by the Balinese people to write Balinese. It is closely related to Javanese script. Rejang – A Brahmic-based script used by the Rejang people of Bengkulu, Sumatra. It is closely related to Kerinci, Lampung and Rencong script. Kerinci (Kaganga) – A Brahmic-based script used by the Kerincis to write their language. Batak – A Brahmic-based script, used by the Batak people of North Sumatra. Lontara – A Brahmic-based script, used by the Buginese and Makassarese in Sulawesi. Lampung – A Brahmic-based script, still used by Lampung people to write Lampung language, although they are in rapid decline. Lampung script is closely related to Rencong, Kerinci and Rejang script. Hangeul Cia-Cia – The Hangeul script used to write the Cia-Cia language in Buton Island, Southeast Sulawesi. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 1) in Languages of Indonesia [ edit ] English translation: (All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, they are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.) Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) “ Semua orang dilahirkan merdeka dan mempunyai martabat dan hak-hak yang sama. Mereka dikaruniai akal dan hati nurani dan hendaknya bergaul satu sama lain dalam semangat persaudaraan. ” Javanese (Basa Jawa) “ Sabên manungsa kalairake mardika lan darbe martabat lan hak-hak kang pada. Kabeh pinaringan akal lan kalbu sarta kaajab anggone pasrawungan mêmitran siji lan liyane tansah ngugemi jiwa paseduluran. ” Malay (Bahasa Melayu) “ Semua manusia dilahirkan bebas dan samarata dari segi kemuliaan dan hak-hak. Mereka mempunyai pemikiran dan perasaan hati dan hendaklah bertindak di antara satu sama lain dengan semangat persaudaraan. ” Minangkabau (Baso Minangkabau) “ Sadonyo manusia dilahiakan mardeka dan punyo martabat sarato hak-hak nan samo. Mareka dikaruniai aka jo hati nurani, supayo satu samo lain bagaul sarupo urang badunsanak. ” Buginese (Basa Ugi) “ Sininna rupa tau ri jajiangngi rilinoe nappunnai manengngi riasengnge alebbireng . Nappunai riasengnge akkaleng, nappunai riasengnge ati marennni na sibole bolena pada sipakatau pada massalasureng. ” Balinese (Basa Bali) “ Sami manusane sane nyruwadi wantah merdeka tur maduwe kautamaan lan hak-hak sane pateh. Sami kalugrain papineh lan idep tur mangdane pada masawitra melarapan semangat pakulawargaan. ” Sundanese (Basa Sunda) “ Sakumna jalma gubrag ka alam dunya téh sipatna merdika jeung boga martabat katut hak-hak anu sarua. Maranéhna dibéré akal jeung haté nurani, campur-gaul jeung sasamana aya dina sumanget duduluran. ” Madurese (Basa Madura) “ Sadajana oreng lahir mardika e sarenge drajat klaban hak-hak se dha-padha. Sadajana eparenge akal sareng nurani ban kodu areng-sareng akanca kadi taretan. ” Musi (Baso Pelembang) “ Galo-galo uwong dari lahirnyo bebas, samorato martabat jugo hak-haknyo. Wong dienjuk utak samo raso ati, kendaknyo tu begaul sesamo manusio pecak wong sedulur. ” Acehnese (Bahsa Acèh) “ Bandum ureuëng lahé deungon meurdéhka, dan deungon martabat dan hak njang saban. Ngon akai geuseumiké, ngon haté geumeurasa, bandum geutanjoë lagèë sjèëdara. ” Tetum (Lia-Tetun) “ Ema hotu hotu moris hanesan ho dignidade ho direitu. Sira hotu iha hanoin, konsiensia n'e duni tenki hare malu hanesan espiritu maun-alin. ” Dawan (Uab Metô) “ Atoni ma bife ok-okê mahonis kamafutû ma nmuî upan ma hak namnés. Sin napein tenab ma nekmeü ma sin musti nabai es nok es onlê olif-tataf. ” “ Kanan mansian mahonis merdeka ma nok upan ma hak papmesê. Sin naheun nok tenab ma nekmeû ma sin es nok es musti nfain onlê olif-tataf. ” Banjar (Bahasa Banjar) “ Sabarataan manusia diranakakan bibas mardika wan ba'isi martabat lawan jua ba'isi hak-hak nang sama. Bubuhannya sabarataan dibari'i akal wan jua pangrasa hati nurani, supaya samunyaan urang antara sa'ikung lawan sa'ikung bapatutan nangkaya urang badangsanakan. ” Lampung (Bahasa Lampung) “ Unyin Jelema dilaheʁko merdeka jama wat pi'il ʁik hak sai gokgoh. Tiyan dikaruniako akal jama hati nurani maʁai unggal tiyan dapok nengah nyampoʁ dilom semangat muaʁiyan. ” Rejangese (Baso Jang) “ Manusio kutə yo lahia mərdeka ngən punyo hak dik samo. Manusio nəlie Tuhan aka ngən atie, kərno o kəlak nə itə bəkuat do dik luyən nak ləm raso səpasuak. ” Bengkulu Malay (Bahaso Melayu Bengkulu) “ Segalo orang dilahirkan merdeka kek punyo martabat kek hak-hak yang samo. Tobonyo dikasi akal kek hati nurani supayo bekawan dalam raso cak orang besanak. ” See also [ edit ] |
We’re living in an empirical age. The most impressive intellectual feats have been achieved by physicists and biologists, and these fields have established a distinctive model of credibility. To be an authoritative figure, you want to be coolly scientific. You want to possess an arcane body of technical expertise. You want your mind to be a neutral instrument capable of processing complex quantifiable data. The people in the human sciences have tried to piggyback on this authority model. For example, the American Psychiatric Association has just released the fifth edition of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders. It is the basic handbook of the field. It defines the known mental diseases. It creates stable standards, so that insurance companies can recognize various diagnoses and be comfortable with the medications prescribed to treat them. The recent editions of this manual exude an impressive aura of scientific authority. They treat mental diseases like diseases of the heart and liver. They leave the impression that you should go to your psychiatrist because she has a vast body of technical knowledge that will allow her to solve your problems. With their austere neutrality, they leave a distinct impression: Psychiatrists are methodically treating symptoms, not people. |
By Ruth Steinhardt Under the shadow of deadly terror attacks in Istanbul and Brussels, the prime minister of Estonia visited the George Washington University on Tuesday morning to discuss another type of threat: cyber attacks. “The last few years will be written in history as years of seemingly endless conflict,” said Prime Minister Taavi Rōivas in his keynote address at the U.S.-Estonia Symposium on Cybersecurity and Defense Cooperation. “This backdrop has a lot of strategic weight in today’s seminar. We are here today with one specific goal in mind: to enhance defense industry cooperation between Estonia and the United States.” Estonia is a relatively small country. With a population estimated at approximately 1.4 million, it has about half as many people as the city of Chicago. Yet its cyber-infrastructure, commonly known as “e-Estonia,” is second to none. Estonians can access their medical records, pay taxes and even vote online. “When you think cyber, it’s synonymous with Estonia,” said moderator Frank Cilluffo, director of the GW Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, which is part of the Office of the Vice President for Research and hosted the event. Policies of openness, trust and privacy protection make these institutions possible, Mr. Rōivas said. For instance, he explained, many Estonian citizens choose to leave their medical data open to the nation’s Electronic Health Record so doctors can view patient files or track national health trends more efficiently. However, the patient will be able to see the names of every visitor to his or her file and can block unwanted visitors or lock the information. “E-Estonia is built on trust,” Mr. Rōivas said. A vicious wave of cyber attacks in 2007 served as a crisis test for all these innovations. Estonia emerged victorious—and better informed about how a digital society can defend itself. Even Estonian first-graders now learn to code. The symposium served also as a networking event with representatives from Estonian and American defense companies. John D. Harris II, CEO of Raytheon International, also spoke at the symposium about the lessons that other nations and industries could learn from Estonia’s success in the cyber realm. “In the current cyber domain every neighborhood is a tough neighborhood,” Mr. Harris said. “But time and again, Estonia has confronted these challenges with success and set an unparalleled example for safeguarding e-societies that others, quite simply, want to emulate.” Mr. Harris pointed out that as the “Internet of things” expands to more systems and devices, tying personal networks to cars, televisions and even refrigerators, the possible vectors for a cyber attack expand accordingly. “Every device, every appliance, even every car, almost everywhere—the network we rely on is growing,” he said. “It is the newest critical infrastructure.” And as cyber threats evolve, he said, one of the most pressing challenges will be to build a skilled workforce to “innovate, create and protect that network.” “[There is] a shortage of cybersecurity professionals in the U.S. and worldwide,” Mr. Harris said. “Of all the cybersecurity challenges we face, closing the gap on cyber human capital is the most significant.” |
“I’m suggesting Mr. President, there’s a military plot to take over the Government of these United States, next Sunday...”—Col. Martin ‘Jiggs’ Casey, Seven Days in May (1964) With a screenplay written by Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone, director John Frankenheimer’s 1964 political thriller Seven Days in May is a clear warning to beware of martial law packaged as a well meaning and overriding concern for the nation’s security. Yet, incredibly enough, 50 years later, we find ourselves hostages to a government run more by military doctrine and corporate greed than by the rule of law established in the Constitution. Indeed, proving once again that fact and fiction are not dissimilar, today’s current events—ranging from the government’s steady militarization of law enforcement agencies, and its urban training exercises wherein military troops rappel from Black Hawk helicopters in cities across the country, from Miami and Chicago to Minneapolis, to domestic military training drills timed and formulated to coincide with or portend actual crises, and the Obama administration’s sudden and growing hostilities with Russia—could well have been lifted straight out of Seven Days in May, which takes viewers into eerily familiar terrain. The premise is straightforward enough: With the Cold War at its height, Jordan Lyman (played by Fredric March), an unpopular U.S. President, signs a momentous nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union. Believing that the treaty constitutes an unacceptable threat to the security of the United States and certain that he knows what is best for the nation, General James Mattoon Scott (Burt Lancaster), the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and presidential hopeful, plans a military takeover of the national government. When Gen. Scott’s aide, Col. Casey (Kirk Douglas), discovers the planned military coup, he goes to the President with the information. The race for command of the U.S. government begins, with the clock ticking off the hours until Sunday, when the military plotters plan to overthrow the President. Toward the climax of the film, President Lyman confronts Gen. Scott with knowledge of the coup, asking him to resign his position immediately. Gen. Scott refuses, insisting that his plan is necessary to ensure the future of the United States. President Lyman responds poignantly: You have such a fervent, passionate, evangelical faith in this country…why in the name of God don’t you have any faith in the system of government you’re so hell-bent to protect? You want to defend the United States of America, then defend it with the tools it supplies you with—its Constitution. You ask for a mandate, General, from a ballot box. You don’t steal it after midnight, when the country has its back turned. Unfortunately for the American people, it’s long past midnight. Indeed, the coup d’etat wresting control of our government from civilians and delivering it into the hands of the military industrial complex happened decades ago, while our backs were turned and our minds distracted. Consequently, we now find ourselves in the unenviable position of longing for an elusive peace while trying to rein in a runaway militarized government with a gargantuan and profit-driven appetite for war. Over the past half century, America has actually been at war more than we’ve been at peace. In fact, the U.S. has been involved in an average of at least one significant military action per year, “ranging from significant fighting in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan to lesser incursions in such far-flung countries as Kuwait, Bosnia, Pakistan, Libya, Grenada, Haiti and Panama… That total does not count more limited U.S. actions, such as drone strikes it now is carrying out against suspected Taliban insurgents in the Middle East.” Here’s the problem, though: what happens to all those hefty profits for the military industrial complex when you start to scale back on 50 years’ worth of wars abroad? For example, the price of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone have cost taxpayers upwards of $1.5 trillion—that breaks down to roughly $10.54 million per hour since 2001—which does not include the billions being spent this year alone on the Department of Defense ($254 billion and counting), on nuclear weapons ($9 billion), and on an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter weapons system ($4 billion and counting). If war is a business, as it has become, in order to maintain a profit margin when there are no more wars to be fought abroad, one would either have to find new enemies abroad or, as I show in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State , focus on fighting a war at home, against the American people, and that’s exactly what we’re dealing with today. (In fact, domestic “terrorists”—citizens with anti-government views—have become frequent targets in military training deals. Just recently, it was revealed that the Ohio National Guard conducted a training exercise in which Second Amendment advocates were portrayed as domestic terrorists.) This dangerous military expansion is one that outgoing president Dwight D. Eisenhower, a retired five-star Army general, warned against in his 1961 farewell address. Frankly, it’s a speech that bears re-reading for its chilling insight into the vastness of the military industrial complex, its grave warning against allowing the military to lead the way in dictating national and international policy, and its sound advice to “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex.” As Eisenhower noted: The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. Thus, the question is no longer whether the U.S. will be consumed by the military industrial complex. That happened when we failed to heed Eisenhower’s warning, and in the fifty years since, the already burgeoning military industrial complex has given rise to a security industrial complex, a.k.a. corporate surveillance state. Together, they serve as the iron-fisted right and left hands of the police state that now surrounds us and profits from us. Consequently, we now find ourselves navigating a strange new world where the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) annually hands out millions of dollars’ worth of grants to local police agencies for military weapons, vehicles, training and assistance. Virginia will receive $7.4 million in homeland security grant funding for 2014, in addition to $53 million for the areas near Washington, DC. Indiana will receive $5 million from DHS to “help it prepare for any potential terrorist attacks, major disasters or other emergencies.” Las Vegas will get $1 million out of the more than $400 million being distributed this year, while Boston will get an $18 million piece of the pie. Meanwhile, New York and its outlying metro regions will get $178 million in funding to advance its localized version of the “war on terror.” These grants also provide for law enforcement and terrorism prevention and typically include planning, training and exercises, such as the training exercises that were scheduled to take place in Boston around the same time that the Boston Marathon bomber detonated several homemade backpack bombs. Curiously enough, as the Boston Globe reported, the exercise, planned months in advance and dubbed “Operation Urban Shield” “has eerie similarities to the police investigation that led to the capture of the alleged Boston Marathon bombers.” In the training scenario, investigators participating in Urban Shield would have to track down footage of the bombers caught by street surveillance cameras and the phones of “witnesses.” They would have to call on intelligence analysts to figure out which terrorist cell might be threatening the city. In the scenario, the terrorists would flee police in stolen cars they would dump in cities outside Boston, which would compel detectives from different jurisdictions to cooperate and share intelligence. One major clue would have been the body of one of the terrorists found near a stolen car, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Believe it or not, these Live Active Shooter Drill training exercises, carried out at schools, in shopping malls, and on public transit, can and do fool law enforcement officials, students, teachers and bystanders into thinking it’s a real crisis. They come complete with their own set of professionally trained Crisis Actors playing the parts of shooters, bystanders and victims in order to help “schools and first responders create realistic drills, full-scale exercises, high-fidelity simulations, and interactive 3D films.” One Crisis Actors website, funded in part by the Dept. of Justice, even provides actors with a guide to suspicious behaviors they should study and adopt, as well as makeup recommendations, in order to better play their parts in training exercises. Now it’s easy to write off as conspiracy-minded and sensationalist any suggestion that the government could be so calculating and diabolical as to not only deliberately plan and execute a terror exercise but pass it off as an actual event. It’s easy to do so, that is, unless you’ve started to question whether your government actually exists to serve you, as growing numbers of Americans have. It’s certainly easy to do so unless you’ve started to read up on those less savory aspects of our nation’s history, the parts not included in public school textbooks, in which the government has, in fact, engaged in downright immoral and, at times, criminal behavior, including “giving hepatitis to mental patients in Connecticut, squirting a pandemic flu virus up the noses of prisoners in Maryland, and injecting cancer cells into chronically ill people at a New York hospital.” And unless you’ve reached a point where you believe that the government views you as little more than a dollar sign, and prioritizes your rights far below your monetary worth, then you may not have a hard time believing that the government, marching in lockstep with the military and security industrial complexes, sold you out long ago. So what do Seven Days in May and Ike’s farewell address have to do with the military/security-industrial complex, government grants for training exercises and terrorism preparedness, and military drills staged to look like the real thing? Instead of an answer, let’s try another series of questions. How do you get a nation to docilely accept a police state? How do you persuade a populace to accept metal detectors and pat downs in their schools, bag searches in their train stations, tanks and military weaponry used by their small town police forces, surveillance cameras in their traffic lights, police strip searches on their public roads, unwarranted blood draws at drunk driving checkpoints, whole body scanners in their airports, and government agents monitoring their communications? Try to ram such a state of affairs down their throats, and you might find yourself with a rebellion on your hands. Instead, you bombard them with constant color-coded alerts, terrorize them with shootings and bomb threats in malls, schools, and sports arenas, desensitize them with a steady diet of police violence, and sell the whole package to them as being for their best interests. And when leaders like John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lennon come about, who not only dare to challenge you by championing peace over war, but actually manage to get people to pay attention, you carry out surveillance on them, intimidate them, threaten them, and eventually do away with them, knowing full well that few will rise up to take their place. Likewise, when individuals like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, lacking followers or name recognition, rise up and shine a spotlight on your misdeeds, you label them traitors, isolate them from their friends and loved ones, and make an example of them: this is what happens to those who challenge the police state. WC: 1979 |
“I was talking to a friend of mine, trying to figure out what to do with the place, and he said, ‘If you want to, come live with us,’” Mr. Owens said. “He’s in late 20s, and I’d be one of four. The other guys are 26, 28, 31. Then, 41. We all get along, but one of these things is not like the other.” Mr. Owens recalled that when his marriage ended, he found himself out of step with men his age. “When you first arrive here in your late 20s, you have tons of people in the same situation you’re in,” he said. “But now you ask yourself: ‘Am I going to live a 20-year-old life or a 30-year-old life? Am I supposed to be doing that at my age?’” Jon Derengowski, 31, a television script coordinator, found himself in a similar situation after a breakup. Now he lives in a rent-stabilized apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where he has lived with nine different people since 2008. But one of those people was his longtime boyfriend. When the relationship ended, after a year and a half, he had to replace his partner with a stranger who could help with the rent. “Maybe it’s not depression, but there’s definitely a bit of self-criticism that sets in,” Mr. Derengowski said of the period after his boyfriend’s departure. “You’ve hit this very defined point on the trajectory that most people agree is the right thing to be doing, and then you’re not there anymore.” Even though he gets along with his roommates, Mr. Derengowski said he does not necessarily want to see someone sitting on the couch when he gets home from work. “I have a routine,” he said. “If I just want to come home and check out and open a bottle of wine, I don’t want to feel obligated to include somebody else. The worst thing is when you walk in the door and you’ve got $30 of groceries in your hand and somebody’s got every pot and pan going in the kitchen, and you go, ‘Ugh.’ So what do you do? You wait an hour or give up and go to a restaurant.” |
Enlarge Image Beaulieu, Madeleine (SEA-WSW) Sprint is bringing on a new DJ. The nation's fourth-largest wireless carrier is adding Napster, formerly Rhapsody, as a music-streaming partner. The move follows Sprint's partnership with rival service Spotify in April 2014. It doesn't offer Sprint customers a special deal or preload Napster's app on their phones, but it combines billing onto the phone owner's mobile plan. The alliance is most meaningful for Napster, more so than for Sprint or Spotify. Napster, which is far behind Spotify in number of subscribers, gains greater access to Sprint's 60 million customers. For Sprint, the partnership may mean some beneficial tweaks in terms, but the deal doesn't break new ground. Music partnerships along these lines are standard for carriers today, leaving rival services to elbow each other out whenever a big contract comes up for grabs. In the last two years, Spotify has relied on its unique free-listening option as a powerful tool to recruit new members, rather than the carrier partnerships that propelled its early years of growth. Napster has taken up the mantle of pursuing partnerships to grow. Spotify said in September that it has 40 million paying subscribers, versus Rhapsody's 3.5 million as of last December. Under the new Napster deal, Sprint phone owners will get a month-long free trial of all-you-can-eat, on-demand tunes -- the same deal available to anyone signing up to Napster for the first time -- before being charged the regular rate of $9.99 a month through Sprint's bills. The app won't come preloaded with Sprint phones, but Napster and Sprint market themselves together and Sprint sales reps will teach customers about the Napster option. Plus, Sprint prepaid brands BoostMobile and Virgin Mobile added Napster to their data-free list. Customers using Napster can stream unlimited music without it counting against their high-speed data limits. Also Thursday, Napster announced three other partnerships. Headphone maker Even is making a high-quality-audio test for Napster's iOS app. Listening through any headphones, members hear a series of tones and sounds to figure out optimal listening levels for their particular ears and headsets. In Germany, airline technology company Lufthansa Systems and Napster will offer music and audiobooks to passengers, and retailer Aldi will continue working with Napster. Correction at 8:25 a.m. PT: Sprint is continuing to work with Spotify. An earlier version of the story said Sprint was dropping that music service. |
EVERETT – Nikita Scherbak led the way offensively with two goals and an assist to help lift the Everett Silvertips to a 4-2 victory over the Spokane Chiefs Wednesday night at XFINITY Arena. The ‘Tips are now 2-1-1-0 against the Chiefs this season and stretched their U.S. Division lead back to five points with the win. Scherbak had a hand in each of Everett’s last three goals, earning him first star of the game with his 11th multi-point game of the season. Fellow Russian Ivan Nikolishin tallied a goal and assist in the game and ranks second in team scoring with 27 points. Kohl Bauml scored his seventh goal of the season, while defenseman Kevin Davis picked up two assists. Goaltender Austin Lotz (13-4-1-1) turned away 31 of 33 shots faced to earn third star honors. In uncharacteristic play, the Silvertips took two minor penalties in the first 20 minutes. Spokane took advantage of its first opportunity with Adam Helewka scoring a powerplay goal midway through the frame. After outshooting the Chiefs 8-5 in the first 10 minutes, the period ended with shots tied at 13 and the Chiefs holding a 1-0 lead. Everett broke through offensively by outscoring Spokane 3-0 in the second period. Just over a minute into the frame, Ivan Nikolishin took a pass from Kevin Davis and sent the puck to the top corner to tie the game at one. Later in the period, Noah Juulsen fed Nikita Scherbak up the boards for a breakaway goal to give Everett its first lead of the game. The Silvertips then took a 3-1 lead after a Kohl Bauml finished a give-and-go passing sequence with Scherbak to end the second period. Shots were 25-20 for the Chiefs after 40 minutes of play. The Chiefs got one back in the third after a shot by Dominic Zwerger ricocheted off a skate in front and behind Austin Lotz. With the Silvertips holding a 3-2 lead late in the period, they received their first powerplay of the game. Kevin Davis made a diving play to poke the puck away from Adam Helewka on a shorthanded breakaway and then made a pass to Scherbak, who beat two Spokane defenders before tucking in a backhand shot for a highlight-reel goal that gave Everett a two-goal lead. The Chiefs pulled their goaltender in the final minutes, but the Silvertips held their lead for a 4-2 victory. Spokane goaltender Tyson Verheist (5-2-0-0) stopped 21 of 25 shots faced in 58 minutes in net. The Silvertips scored on their only powerplay opportunity, while Spokane went 1 for 2 on the man-advantage. Final shots were 33-25 for Spokane after 60 minutes. CLICK HERE for Box Score The ‘Tips are set to conclude a five-game homestand Friday night at 7:35 pm versus the Central Division-leading Medicine Hat Tigers. Join us early for Hockey Happy Hour prior to Friday’s game at XFINITY Arena. For more information call 425-252-5100, “like” the Everett Silvertips Hockey Club on Facebook or follow @WHLSilvertips on Twitter. |
This is an ode of the life and times of our dear friends and companions; Love and Romance, they were killed my today’s youths, by their actions and relationships with each other. Funny right? But it’s true. These days, we have lost sight of the true meaning of love and romance, having a relationship has become more physical than emotional, people go into relationships for the wrong reasons expecting the wrong things and getting the wrong results. Readers I have been around long enough to know that a relationship could make or break you, depending on how you handle it. Gone are those days when a guy would admire one girl for years and when he does get her he cherishes her and treats her like a golden egg, gone are the days when a girl would crush over a guy, would be too shy to say a word to him and when he smiles at her she blushes for days. Where have those days gone to? Last time I checked love was not just a magic four letter word generated by the adolescent mind to either get into a girls pants or a guy’s pocket, It meant so much more, It was a four letter word filled with hope and assurance for a brighter future, when a guy says I love you, It used to mean I choose you, out of the multitude of women out there, you are THE ONE and I intend to do my best to make you happy and keep you in my life because that’s where you belong. When a girl says I love you it used to mean, you are every girls dream but you are my reality, my prince charming and it has nothing to do with your pocket! These days, the reverse is the case, when a guy says I love you it means how fast can you lose your clothes and how good are you, when a girl says I love you it means, just how fat is your account and how much are you willing to drop? Too exaggerated you think? Well may be, but to an extent you know I’m right. I can’t actually blame anyone, the guys or the girls. You see I blame the extinction of true love on what I call “the cycle”. What exactly is “the cycle”? It’s a circular pathway that links every ones actions and every ones reactions together all working towards the death of romance. It all starts with a heart break at some point. Sometimes, even the people who haven’t been affected directly by the cycle hear of other people’s experiences and don’t end up doing the same thing so at the end of the day everyone is affected directly or indirectly. At the end of the day everyone loses the key ingredient in any relationship… trust. There are exception to the rules though, some guys just see it as a way of life to cheat, they think they are way too young and can’t be tied down to one girl, some girls think “there’s plenty of me to go round. Why have one when I can have a dozen”. These categories of people just lack maturity, the bitter truth is everything that looks good fades away some day, so that thing that makes them irresistible will fade at some point, by then they might be too far gone. Ever seen the movie “the notebook”, “dear John” or “the vow”? Now that is what real love and true romance is all about, true companionship and heart felt affections, in the note book he loved her even when she was to marry someone else, in dear john, distance and oppositions could not break the love that they built over one summer break and in the vow even the loss of her memory did not tear them apart. Call me crazy but I still believe we all deserve love like that, both guys and girls. The problem is that we all settle for less when we deserve much more. Does he/she make me laugh? Does he/she make me feel comfortable, can I say anything to him/her? Does he/she respect my body, mind and views? Take away his/her most beautiful attribute, would I still stay? Can we face the storm together? To be continued in the next edition. THIS ARTICLE WAS PULLED OUT FROM SEA PUBLICATION FOR THE MONTH OF AUGUST. Written by ANGELA NKAMERE Advertisements |
Published by Steve Litchfield at 7:52 UTC, January 4th 2016 When Microsoft explicitly stated that they were making new flagships for "Windows fans", they weren't kidding. With the current state of the Lumia 950 XL and 950 in terms of stability, you'd have to be a real fan, a genuine dyed-in-the-wool enthusiast with the patience of a saint to appreciate the new devices in terms of suitability for day to day use. Not for the first time, parallels to Google's Nexus line spring to mind - surely the Lumia 950 and 950 XL should have been pitched as 'developer devices' from day one? It would certainly have headed off much of the current criticism in the tech press. The current state of Windows 10 Mobile on the 950 and 950 XL is somewhat lamentable. I really do think that Christmas got in the way, and it's going to take a few weeks before momentum on the OS is regained. I reported on PocketNow's big 'No' verdict here, and the guest on my Phones Show Chat podcast this weekend, Richard Yates, was damning in his criticism of the 950 XL - which he bought with his own money and then returned because he felt so insulted by the product. He called it, "Microsoft's N97", referring to the unstable, ill-equipped ambitious mess that was the Nokia N97 about six years ago. In fact, things aren't quite that bad, I contend, since the N97's principal failings were in the under-specced hardware (slow processor, low RAM, low internal flash storage and resistive touchscreen) and no amount of software tweaks could fix those. The 950 range's hardware (a little creaking aside, fixed by the use of a Mozo back) is pretty decent in terms of component choices, the main current failings are in the firmware, the OS and the applications. OK, so that's quite a lot, but still - it's all just bits and bytes, which means that it can all be fixed up. This is what I wrote in the conclusion to part 1 of my review of the Lumia 950: Although not perfect or bug-free yet by any stretch of the imagination, I'm giving a pass to Windows 10 Mobile - it's a known quantity and anyone who's stuck with Windows Phone so far has probably already settled on a range of applications that work well for them. And Microsoft will be patching and tweaking the OS for many months, if not years, just as on the desktop - this is Windows 10 'as a service'. So every week your phone will hopefully work better than it did the previous week! Of course, from the point of view of someone with an iPhone 6 (onwards) or Galaxy S6 (onwards) or Sony Xperia Z5 (onwards, you get the idea, I could extend this list quite a way), the Lumia 950 hardware isn't as exciting as it perhaps needs to be, plus it's absolutely true that the third party application ecosystem for Windows 10 Mobile has gaping holes in it when compared to iOS and Android. Microsoft's aim though, as already discussed, isn't to sell tens of millions of these things. The Lumia 950 XL is their 'Nexus', their demonstration device of how Windows 10 can work in a mobile context. So Office, Outlook, Continuum, Hello, and so on. The hardware itself is very capable but there's no real 'halo' effect. For the dedicated 'fan' then, the AAWP reader if you will, with the patience of a saint and probably several other phones to host their SIM if it all gets too much, there's the current woeful state of Windows 10 Mobile but there's also the excitement of weekly improvements. I can live with this, even enjoy it (in a certain macabre way), so can you, but it's a shame that Richard, PocketNow and many other publications and end users are having to suffer and deliver verdicts on what it still a 'beta' OS. What should Microsoft have done? Label Windows 10 Mobile as a 'beta', explicitly and... State that the Lumia 950 and 950 XL were developer devices (along the lines of Google's Nexus), at least for the next few months, perhaps with a sticker saying 'Preview' on every box(!) Then, when the OS, firmware and applications are all stable, marketing of the devices for the mainstream could have begun in earnest. Although first impressions have largely already been made, supply of the Lumia 950 and 950 XL to the mainstream hasn't really happened yet. We've heard of numerous retailers pushing back availability dates well into January, so I suspect that Microsoft itself has been throttling supply levels to a degree, limiting the devices to those who are really, really keen to get them, 'warts and all'. The likes of Amazon have also halted direct sales of some variants in some markets while problems are investigated and this will also work to the same end. Of course, this isn't ideal. Or unexpected. Given Microsoft's track record, that Windows 10 Mobile would arrive slightly late and with 'issues' is almost par for the course. It's too late, way too late, for dominance on mobile on its own, but Microsoft is playing the long game. I've got rather tired of batting down comments on Twitter along the lines of "Microsoft should give up on Windows Phone" - the next line, from me, is "But they did already, it's now part of the Windows 10 juggernaut, which spans down to the phone." I don't think many people in the mainstream understand this yet, but hopefully the message will sink in during 2016. Comments welcome then on my 'Preview' sticker idea - does this, and the idea of a 'beta' OS and 'developer devices' sound about right to you? PS. Thanks very much to Clove for the loan of the retail devices used in these features! |
I’m not a Democrat; I don’t much care about the scorekeeping of who has more seats in any given chamber of Congress. But I do think there are things that need fixing in this country, and one of the most important is acknowledging when things are going the right way. More to the point, we need to find a way to use our collective powers of amplification for something that helps us, instead of as a reward for distracting us. Tonight will be the President’s State of the Union address. I’m very interested in what he covers, not least because the address will be the start of a two-way dialogue, as I outlined on the Expert Labs site. I think that’s a pretty big improvement over simply addressing our elected officials. But the world I inhabit, at the intersection of tech and media, is far more obsessed with what Apple’s going to announce about its tablet. People who write about gadgets for a living gotta pay the bills, and I love cool stuff as much as the next guy. What leaves me at a loss, though, is how many otherwise sane and sensible people give their time and energy freely to help support a company like Apple that, despite its elegant designs and generally excellent products (I use many of them), certainly doesn’t need free PR from some of the most talented people on the web. Though Apple is a reasonably progressive company, they explicitly don’t give a shit about poor people. (Let’s pretend I found a nicer way to say that.) Who does need your help? I’d say the current administration does. Because the biggest difference between now and 18 months ago is not that President Obama has gotten elected; It’s that those who support his agenda have gotten lazy about helping in the effort. Remember “We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for?” Well, it seems like a lot of people got tired and gave up on themselves. What if all the energy that went into free promotion for the Apple tablet went into free promotion for what’s been achieved so far, in the hopes of encouraging more achievements in the future? The Feature List I know, I know. the conventional wisdom is “Obama ain’t done nothin’!” But that’s clearly bullshit. Obviously, political opponents are going to parrot that idea, but I’m surprised that even supporters are lazy enough to believe it without fact-checking. Perhaps everybody’s attention spans have been a little too shortened by chasing the next Apple rumor, because the facts are obvious. In one year, here’s what I caught (you might have your own list): The last U.S. Marines are leaving Iraq. Credit card companies can no longer charge interest on fees, and can’t retroactively raise your interest rate on existing balances. We know who visits the White House, and who they’re affiliated with. There’s a quarter billion dollars more funding for National Parks, and $50 million more for the National Endowment for the Arts. We responded, imperfectly but with heart and sincere effort, to the disaster in Haiti. Just as we wish we had after Katrina. Leadership matters most in emergencies. Our current President readily admits when he’s made mistakes, respects the validity of arguments that he disagrees with, and has members of the opposing party in his cabinet. The Department of Homeland Security now allocates its security spending according to threats, not by spending the same amount of money on Montana as it does on New York. My 401k is up 30% since the current President took office. Our President asked both corporations and individuals to reduce their electricity consumption. He asked politely. Trains. There’s a plan to build more rails and more trains for transporting actual humans around the country. The Matthew Shepard hate crime bill was passed. Now, that’s just my list. These matter to me. Maybe you have your own list. Or maybe there’s only have a wishlist of features for an Apple tablet. The difference is this: Our current President is listening to what your requests are, and wants to hear them. Steve Jobs doesn’t give a fuck about you. I promise. I’m typing this on an Apple keyboard hooked up to a MacBook, and I don’t use Windows anymore, but I guarantee you that Steve Jobs is not going to get those last Marines out of Iraq. And I know, I know, people will piss and moan about the stuff this administration hasn’t gotten done yet. So my question is this: What did you do to help? Did you do 1/10 as much as you did to get these folks elected? Did you do as much, today, as you did to help Apple sell billions of dollars of products that you get no stake in, that don’t help make life better for you and your friends and neighbors? What are you waiting for, somebody to ask nicely? I’m asking nicely: Please find a cause you care about, and beat the drum to stir up public sentiment to support it. Make it your wallpaper on your new tablet. I’m not scolding you; I’m scolding me. I had to ask myself these questions. Sure, I’ve got a bunch of tweets about Apple features that I want to request, and of course I’ll watch the Stevenote as rapt as when I watch the State of the Union. But we all have a choice to make about how we invest our time, attention, and passion. And I’ll bet in eight years, today’s tablet is gonna look an awful lot like a first-generation iPod looks today. Some efforts age better than others. My goal here isn’t to browbeat anybody, or to lecture. I’m in the same boat as everybody else who loves technology. But my personal reckoning has just shown me that a bunch of libertarian-leaning geeks in Silicon Valley who refuse to engage with government and civic society at all are never going to make an impact on most of the things that actually make a difference in our lives. Everybody in Silicon Valley will tell you they have a gay friend, but they couldn’t stop Prop 8 or get the hate crimes bill passed. Probably everybody at Apple thinks “We should do more to support the arts!” but they weren’t funding the NEA. There will be no iTrain. Right now there are a lot of hopeful, and possibly deluded, people in the old-line media businesses who hope that an Apple tablet will prop up their failing magazine, newspaper or television businesses. Those of us who are digitally savvy are probably having a chuckle at their expense, snickering at their wishful thinking. But Apple will invest a lot more in saving any given book publisher than they ever will in saving civic society, in protecting individuals’ rights, or in engaging in diplomacy to neutralize the threat of violent extremists. I’m gonna try to spend at least as much time advocating for issues I care about as I do for the purchase of new gadgets. I hope that even those who disagree with me on those issues do the same. Maybe there’ll be an app for that. Update: Gawker reposted this piece, kicking off an interesting conversation. William Saletan in Slate writes about politics vs. technology, choosing the “or” option when I think he could have focused on “and”. Finally, Alex Balk has a little darker take with Barack Obama Is Your New iPad over on the Awl, which is definitely worth a look too. Note: This article is also available in Belarusian for those interested. |
A wall of photos at the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum in Massachusetts The family of Sen. Edward Kennedy announced his death around 1:20 a.m. Wednesday morning. Within hours, news organizations had posted full-length obituaries complete with quotes from friends, family, and political experts about his life. How far in advance do newspapers prepare obituaries? It depends on the person. The vast majority of obituaries are written after someone dies, not before. But news organizations prepare so-called “advancers” in one of three situations: The subject is so famous that the paper would be embarrassed not to have an immediate package in the event of an untimely death; the subject is old or sick; or the subject is “at risk”—i.e., he’s a drug addict or a stunt biker. The first category is rarified: world leaders such as Barack Obama or Gordon Brown. The second category includes Sen. Kennedy and other figures over the average life expectancy of 75 or 80. (Even before Kennedy announced that he had brain cancer in May 2008, newspapers were preparing obituary packages.) Likewise, TheNewsHour With Jim Lehrer had an obit ready for Pope John Paul II a full two years before his death. Into the third category fall stars like Michael Jackson and Britney Spears. When Jackson died at 50, the Los Angeles Times already had an obituary ready because he had a spotty health record. In 2008, when Spears’ antics were regularly featured in the tabloids, the Associated Press prepared her obituary despite the fact that she was only 26 years old. The obituary assignment process also depends on the subject. Big papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post have regular beat reporters write obituaries whenever possible. (For example, a Times political reporter wrote Kennedy’s obit.) The rest are written by a designated obituary team consisting of an editor and a handful of writers. Sometimes those writers have expertise in a particular area, like sports or Hollywood, in which case they’ll cover those subjects. But for the most part, obit writers are generalists. Obituary writers have various ways of keeping tabs on who just died and who’s near death. They peruse other papers and Web sites for death news and sometimes set up Google News Alerts for the phrase dies at, as in “Edward Kennedy dies at 77.” Another simple strategy is to pump beat reporters at their own paper for information about which of their sources or frequent subjects might be kicking the bucket soon. Writers also communicate with the subject’s friends and family. The Washington Post, for example, checked in periodically with Kennedy’s circle about the senator’s health. Occasionally, a news organization will set up a pre-interview with the subject for use in his or her obituary. In fact, in 2007, the New York Times began recording such interviews for use after the subject’s death. Other times, the subject will approach the newspaper. For example, notorious lobbyist Edward von Kloberg III, who spent his career representing dictators like Saddam Hussein and the military regime in Burma, phoned the Post about an interview months in advance of his death. How many obits do papers keep in the can? Depends on the organization’s size and resources. The New York Times claims to have 1,200 “advancers” ready, the oldest written back in 1982. The Washington Post has about 150 prepped. Occasionally, this practice leads to embarrassment. Advance obituaries sometimes slip out, like when CNN mistakenly posted mock-ups of its obituary page for Dick Cheney in 2003. In 1998, the Associated Press mistakenly reported Bob Hope’s death, which was then announced on the Senate floor. Other times, the subject outlives the author: By the time Gerald Ford died in December 2006, his obituary writer had been dead for 11 months. The quickening news cycle makes obituary writing tricky. In the past, the worst time for someone to die was after your newspaper’s 5 p.m. deadline, since writers would have to rush to get an obit in the next day’s paper. But these days, just about any time is inconvenient, since news organizations are expected to have a profile ready hours after someone’s death. Got a question about today’s news? Ask the Explainer. Explainer thanks Adam Bernstein of the Washington Post; Marilyn Johnson, author of The Dead Beat; and Claire Noland of the Los Angeles Times. |
by FCK LDN Note: originally published 19th May, 2015 – and updated 27th May and 1st June. When we launched FCK LDN about 18 months ago, Vice UK posted an advert on JournoGrads a few weeks later looking for new contributors in all the same cities that we were looking for contributors. We shrugged it off at the time. We were a bit flattered, if anything. Now, Vice offshoot Noisey has come up with a very original idea. It’s trailed a series of stories about music scenes and culture outside the capital. They’re calling it Fuck London. And we’re a bit upset. * The real FCK LDN is a small start-up with just a handful of contributors. None of us makes any money from what we do. In fact, we’re losing money on web hosting, advertising and time spent creating content. Vice – on the other hand – is a global brand with bureaus in every continent.They have a film production company, a record label, and a publishing imprint as well as localised websites and subsidiaries. In their Fuck London series of pieces, noisey.vice.com is using the same USP as us – which is that we cover culture everywhere in the UK but London. That part, to be honest, isn’t what’s bugging us. FCK LDN was set up in January 2014 to encourage more coverage of culture in our regions. But they are also using near identical branding to do it – and that’s out of order. It’s beyond cynical. Please share this among your music and culture loving chums everywhere to let them know what’s going on – but to also let them know that FCK LDN exists. We will continue to champion you and review your gigs and records, the festivals you go to and the culture you love. We will continue to represent views and values outside London long after Noisey and Vice have moved on to something else. We don’t say “Fuck London” as an ironic, edgy aside. We mean it. Love always, FCK LDN * UPDATE 27/05/2015 – It turns out that it’s worse. Noisey launched a sporadic column called “Fuck London”, covering the same territory as us, in March of 2014 – publishing 8 stories with this branding since then. (We’ve since discovered that items were tagged “Fuck London” retroactively and the branding was applied recently.) We launched in January of 2014, starting our search for contributors on social media before posting our first content in April of 2014. Suddenly, that advert in JournoGrads makes a lot more sense… We reached out to Noisey via email on the 22nd of May. They have yet to reply. The new series of Fuck London stories has yet to appear. * UPDATE 01/06/2015 – Noisey UK launched their Fuck London “hub” on the 1st of June. * UPDATE 01/06/2015 – It now appears that some of the articles tagged Fuck London on Noisey were tagged retroactively… Here’s the earliest piece – a feature about lovely Manchester band James as it appears today. Notice the prominent “Fuck London” branding. This was originally published on 21st of March – the same day our Twitter account was born. And here it is three days after it was originally published. Thanks to the Wayback Machine we can actually see what the article looked like on the 24th of March 2014. No “Fuck London” branding… |
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