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.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... SANTA FE – A Santa Fe County Republican Party official has been removed from his post for organizing an anti-Donald Trump piñata event last week, an act the county chairwoman says violated the party’s primary election neutrality rule. Ignacio Padilla said he plans to fight the vote removing him from his position as treasurer of the Santa Fe County GOP, adding that he organized the Trump piñata bashing as an individual act of free speech, not as a county party official. ADVERTISEMENTSkip “I have the right to challenge anything I see that offends me,” Padilla said in an interview Monday. But county GOP Chairwoman Jo Ann Eastham said Padilla had previously been warned not to go forward with the event. She also said an internal rule requires elected party officers to remain neutral in primary elections, or contests between members of the same party. Padilla had harsh words for Trump in a letter he submitted to the Journal last week, saying Trump has a racist attitude and blasting his “stupid insults against our Mexicans/Hispanic people, of both the United States and Mexico.” The Santa Fe County GOP executive committee voted unanimously during a Friday evening conference call – the same day Padilla held his rally on the Santa Fe Plaza – to strip Padilla of his elected position, Eastham said. Earlier Friday, Padilla hung a piñata that he had dressed and painted to look like Trump – complete with fake dollar bills lining his pockets – from a tree on the plaza and encouraged curious passers-by and tourists to take a swing at it. “We came to the conclusion this had gotten out of hand,” Eastham told the Journal on Monday, adding that many local Republicans had expressed concern over the planned event. Eastham said she has appointed Michael Gallegos to fill the county treasurer post. Trump, a billionaire businessman who is leading in the polls in a crowded field of GOP candidates, has drawn sharp criticism among some voters for comments made about Mexican immigrants and fellow Republicans, including U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Trump has been criticized for saying that McCain is a “war hero because he was captured” and that Trump likes “people that weren’t captured.” McCain, who was the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam after his plane was shot down in 1967. Meanwhile, Padilla also told the Journal that Trump “belittled” Hispanics with his remarks that many Mexican immigrants to the United States are drug traffickers and rapists. After the piñata was destroyed on Friday, Padilla said in a short speech that Trump was not a fit presidential candidate. “This man is not fit to be president of this great country of ours,” Padilla told a gathering of about 20 people. “We don’t appreciate him. We don’t want him as president – he’s out.” Although Padilla has been voted out of his Santa Fe County GOP treasurer post, he is still technically a member of the county and state Republican central committees. A separate meeting of the Santa Fe County GOP Central Committee is planned for a vote that could lead to Padilla’s removal from those bodies. |
Tony Abbott says the new name deprives the group of legitimacy, but why do its members hate it and what makes naming them so complicated? Australian PM says he'll now use Daesh instead of Isil for 'death cult' – but why? Tony Abbott has announced that from now he will refer to the Islamic State group as “Daesh”, on the grounds that the terminology deprives the group of legitimacy among Muslims. “Daesh hates being referred to by this term, and what they don’t like has an instinctive appeal to me,’’ the Australian prime minister told the Herald Sun. “I absolutely refuse to refer to it by the title that it claims for itself [Islamic State], because I think this is a perversion of religion and a travesty of governance.” Western leaders and media have struggled for a consistent terminology to identify the group, which was initially known in English as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), then the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis) and subsequently often simply as Islamic State (IS). Al-Sham is often translated as Syria but can also refer specifically to Damascus or even the entire Levant region. “Islamic State” is near enough a literal translation from the group’s name in Arabic, Al Dawla al-Islamyia, yet the original is more of a religious concept than a political one. Our translation is misleading because it implies a western conception of bureaucratic statehood. The Arabic equivalent relates to the Qur’anic ideal of a universal Islamic community or umma, united by faith and spirituality, and bound in religious terms by sharia. No matter what term the media use, English cannot adequately capture that meaning. In that light, Abbott’s insistence on “Daesh” seems like a canny workaround. He, like the French president, François Hollande, is essentially saying: you don’t get to name yourselves. It solves the problem both of legitimacy and of semantically flawed translations. Daesh is also an acronym, but of the Arabic words that mean the same as Isis: Al Dawla al-Islamyia fil Iraq wa’al Sham. As such, it loses all meaning in non-Arabic contexts. With Daesh – or Da’ish, with the emphasis on a long “e” – the Islamic association is nowhere to be found. Abbott manages to further neuter the term by mispronouncing it “Dash”. Perhaps this itself is a subtle power move. It is not just the lack of the word “Islamic” in the new term that frustrates Isis. In adopting the term Abbott joins many Arabic speakers who also use Daesh. In Arabic, the word lends itself to being snarled with aggression. As Simon Collis, the British ambassador to Iraq told the Guardian’s Ian Black: “Arabic speakers spit out the name Da’ish with different mixtures of contempt, ridicule and hostility. Da’ish is always negative.” And if that wasn’t infuriating enough for the militants, Black reports that the acronym has already become an Arabic word in its own right, with a plural – daw’aish – meaning “bigots who impose their views on others”. |
MANILA - President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday evening praised the Japanese people for their traits of sincerity and respectfulness, as well as Japan's aid to the Philippines over the years. He made the remarks at an advance celebration of the birthday of Japanese Emperor Akihito in the southern Philippine city of Davao. According to a transcript of Duterte's speech released to reporters on Friday, the president described his country's ties with the Japanese people and government as "excellent," noting the "long relations with them in industry and business" since "centuries ago." The Japanese Embassy in Manila organized the celebration for Emperor Akihito's 83rd birthday, which is on Dec. 23, with Duterte as the main guest. Japanese Ambassador Kazuhide Ishikawa was also in attendance. Duterte missed meeting the emperor during his October visit to Japan because his scheduled courtesy call was cancelled at the last minute following the death of the emperor's uncle. In his remarks, Duterte pointed out there are many Filipinos of Japanese descent in Davao because many Japanese migrated there more than a century ago. Addressing Ishikawa, he said, "Your country has done a lot for us, especially Davao. (Japan is) the number one donor (through) JICA. All the nice things you see now, part of it is actually (from the) Japanese, from planning to everything," referring to the Japan International Cooperation Agency. "I have nothing but deep respect for the Japanese people. And I also love your emperor," he continued. Describing the Japanese as "the most Oriental of all Orientals," the Philippine leader cited their "outstanding human behavior trait" of being "very sensitive" and "very sincere." In a toast he offered, Duterte wished Emperor Akihito, the Japanese people and government, and the Filipino-Japanese relationship "long life." |
The BBC wants to make videos that change to suit whoever's watching. It's exploring the idea through a research project called Visual Perceptive Media, which has set up a way to alter everything from what's in a video to what a video sounds and looks like depending on a viewer's interests. It starts with a personality quiz: an app asks questions about whether you're shy or outgoing, lazy or hardworking, and a few other basic traits. It'll also analyze your music library or ask about your music tastes. Combining that information, it'll determine what group you fit into and serve you a different cut of the video you're about to watch. Retaining interest comes at the expense of creative control For its initial demo, the BBC's experiment can change the action in a scene, who a scene focuses on, or if a scene is even present at all. It can also change the color grading and music, potentially even altering the overall feel of a movie or scene. In its example, the BBC shows how a sequence can be altered to focus more heavily on a male or female character. It also shows how a room can be altered to look pleasant or dark and grungy. It's not particularly well done in the BBC's initial demo video, but it gets the point across. The BBC is probably right that it could better retain viewer interest this way, though it presents other problems. For one, it becomes harder to tell a story as there's no longer a singular vision coming through, although the BBC would disagree. "This approach to storytelling does not remove the creative process of filmmaking," it says in a video. "Rather, it allows production teams to explore new modes of storytelling for diverse audiences." Nonetheless, the idea that a movie could add or adjust scenes could also bring out the worst in filmmaking, with sexual and degrading material left in for some audiences and taken out for others. Talking about a movie, too, would be a challenge. For now this remains an experiment inside the BBC, although it's building a prototype for release to the public. The BBC imagines that this'll be used for online video, as it could easily serve up different streams. As for whether this idea is effective or not, the BBC doesn't really know yet — or, at least, it isn't saying. It's conducted "initial research" into how effective these adaptive videos are at holding attention, but it hasn't yet released the results. |
PASSENGERS on board a flight from Ireland were escorted off the aircraft by FBI officials after the plane was at the centre of a bomb threat. PASSENGERS on board a flight from Ireland were escorted off the aircraft by FBI officials after the plane was at the centre of a bomb threat. The US Airways flight, which took off from Shannon yesterday en route to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. But it was surrounded by emergency vehicles as it landed at Philadelphia International Airport. Flight 777 was ordered to land at an isolated runway before FBI and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials escorted passengers off the aircraft and into a fleet of waiting buses. The 171 passengers and eight crew members were then brought to the terminal where they were isolated, interviewed and underwent screening. The aircraft’s hold was emptied of luggage and also screened with bomb-sniffing dogs brought in to search the plane. The aircraft was later given the all clear and authorities said the threat appeared to be “unfounded”. A spokeswoman for Philadelphia Police Department confirmed that the aircraft landed at around 2pm local time (6pm Irish time), less than half an hour after a man is reported to have phoned in a bomb threat. America is on high alert amid an al Qaeda-linked terror threat that prompted the closing of many US embassies last week and sparked a worldwide travel warning. However US police could not provide specific details of the threat to Flight 777 last night. “There was some type of threat made, but nothing specified,” said a police spokeswoman. Flight 777 left Shannon at 11.34am on it's daily scheduled seven-and-a-half hour flight to Philadelphia. The same flight continues to Pittsburgh after its regular stopover in Philadelphia. US Airways spokesman, Andrew Christie, said: “We were aware of a possible security issue with the flight and out of an abundance of caution taxied the aircraft to a remote location, where it was met by law enforcement and emergency personnel.” FBI spokeswoman Carrie Adamowski said agents were assisting in the investigation. The passengers had already undergone security screening at Shannon Airport, where US customs officials have their own screening facilities. It later emerged that the crew of the US Airways flight were left sitting on the taxiway without any instructions about what to do. Recordings of communications between the approach and tower controllers and the crew of the US Airways flight gave nothing away as to the nature of the emergency. After landing however, the aircraft was instructed where to stop but the crew told controllers they didn't know what was going on. “We want to talk to someone who'll tell us what's going on,” the pilot told a ground controller. The controller replied: “I can't tell you what's going on” and asked the pilot to contact the tower. The pilot then said: “We're the aircraft sitting over here with the trucks all around it.” The controller quickly realised what aircraft he was talking to, and told the crew to let him know if they needed anything. The pilot of flight 777 said: “We don't even know what's going on. We need to know if we're supposed to shut down (engines) here or what the heck we're doing.” The controller told the crew they could shut down their engines where they were stopped and told them make contact with their company. Soon afterwards, the passengers disembarked from the aircraft via mobile stairs while their baggage was removed and placed on the tarmac. When a threat is made against a flight, TSA officials alert the FBI and Homeland Security. Last September a Philadelphia man called in a fake report about explosives on a flight headed to Texas. The plane was turned around and brought back to Philadelphia. The man, Kenneth Smith, later pleaded guilty to charges of giving false information about an explosive on a plane. He was ordered to write a letter of apology to every person on the plane. Press Association |
Father goes the extra mile with blind daughter in marathon In 2013 and 2014, Mike Bruno ran marathons blindfolded to honor his daughter, who has been blind since birth.On Sunday, Cassie took the tether as the pair crossed the finish line at the Kids of Steel Children's Marathon in Pittsburgh. It was a change from 2016, when he pushed her in a stroller for the full 26.2 miles. “Although it was one of the most physically taxing things I've ever done, it was one of the most amazing, gratifying things to share that experience with her,” Bruno said. In 2013 and 2014, Mike Bruno ran marathons blindfolded to honor his daughter, who has been blind since birth. On Sunday, Cassie took the tether as the pair crossed the finish line at the Kids of Steel Children's Marathon in Pittsburgh. Advertisement It was a change from 2016, when he pushed her in a stroller for the full 26.2 miles. “Although it was one of the most physically taxing things I've ever done, it was one of the most amazing, gratifying things to share that experience with her,” Bruno said. AlertMe |
NEW ASKAR REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank — The 16-year-old gave clear warning that she was up to something days before she swapped her schoolbooks for a knife and headed to a nearby Israeli military checkpoint. If I am killed, Ashrakat Qattanani told her father, “Don’t cry for me, cry for Palestine.” Hadeel Awwad, 14, betrayed no such thoughts. Her brother had been shot dead by Israeli forces two years before, but that had inspired her to become a doctor, so she could save lives. But close to the second anniversary of her brother’s death, Hadeel picked up a pair of scissors and with her cousin Nourhan, 16, walked calmly to a Jerusalem market. The three teenagers are among the 15 young women who have stabbed, tried to stab or, the Israeli authorities say, intended to stab Israeli soldiers or civilians in the West Bank and Jerusalem since an uprising began in October. Where previous outbursts of Palestinian violence predominantly involved men and boys, women and girls have accounted for about 20 percent of all Palestinian attackers in the last two months. And for perhaps the first time in the patriarchal Palestinian society they are acting on their own, without consulting any male authorities. On Tuesday, a 19-year-old university student, Maram Hasouna, was shot dead after she lunged at soldiers with a knife at a military checkpoint in the northern West Bank, the Israeli military said. Another young woman was taken in for questioning after she was found near Efrat, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, with a knife in her bag, Israeli news media reported. |
Microsoft did not talk about its motion-sensing Xbox peripheral Kinect during the company's E3 briefing this week or at all during the show itself. Some fans might be wondering how committed Microsoft is to the technology considering it didn't take any time to talk about it at the year's biggest gaming show. But now, Xbox executive Aaron Greenberg has spoken out to assure fans that Kinect is here to stay. "We are absolutely continuing to support Kinect," Greenberg told GameSpot this week at E3. He went on to say that Microsoft is "innovating with Kinect in a different way," pointing out that there are features included with the new Xbox One user interface that will leverage Kinect. One of these is Cortana, Microsoft's Siri-like digital assistant, that will be available on Xbox One sometime in the future. "So we're continuing to support Kinect where it makes sense," Greenberg added. When the Xbox One launched in November 2013, all Xbox One bundles came with Kinect. But this changed a year later, when Microsoft released a Kinect-free bundle and offered the camera as an optional add-on. Greenberg stressed that consumers having a choice is an important part of the overall Xbox One strategy. "We really want Kinect to be a choice for customers. For me, I love it; I turn my Xbox One with Kinect; I use it for entertainment; I use it to do screenshots and all that," he said. "I like to be able to have my hands on the controller and use voice commands. But, frankly, a lot of people also want a better value and don't want to have to pay for it. So we're not going to force people to do that. We give people the choice." You can watch our full interview with Greenberg below. |
Earlier this week, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son announced an amazing new robot called Pepper. The most amazing feature isn’t that it will only cost $2,000, or that Pepper is intended to babysit your kids and work the registers at retail stores. What’s really remarkable is that Pepper is designed to understand and respond to human emotion. Heck, understanding human emotion is tough enough for most HUMANS. There is a new field of “affect computing” coming your way that will give entrepreneurs and marketers a real unfair advantage. That’s what this note to you is about… It’s really very powerful, and something I’m thinking a lot about. What are the unfair advantages? Recent advances in the field of emotion tracking are about to give businesses an enormous unfair advantage. Take Beyond Verbal, a start-up in Tel Aviv, for example. They’ve developed software that can detect 400 different variations of human “moods.” They are now integrating this software into call centers that can help a sales assistant understand and react to customer’s emotions in real time. Better than that, the software itself can also pinpoint and influence how consumers make decisions. For example, if this person is an innovator, you want to offer the latest and greatest product. On the other hand, if the customer is conservative, you offer him something tried and true. Talk about targeted advertising! (You can check it out and test it out here: www.beyondverbal.com). But it goes beyond advertising, more importantly, to improving quality of life. How can this improve quality of life? Mary Czerwinski is a cognitive psychologist at Microsoft Research doing pioneering work in Affect Computing. She tells a story about how she and her boyfriend were in a nasty fight. While they were bantering back and forth, a small wireless device on her wrist was monitoring her emotional ups and downs (through heart rate monitoring and electrical changes in her skin). At the peak of the argument, when she was most upset, her boyfriend received a text message saying: “Your friend Mary isn’t feeling well. You might want to give her a call.” Can you imagine? The constant monitoring of our emotional landscape and personal interactions is a bizarre concept. But it is one that could help many people. Some of her early projects were aimed at helping autistic children who can’t easily communicate their mood. Other technologies monitor how hard you’re pounding on your keyboards (another possible indicator of mood). Imagine if your computer flashed you a message: “Don’t send that e-mail!” What does it all mean? The user interface The point here is that something as subtle and powerful as human emotion is coming “digitally online.” It’s being digitized and understood and monitored and commercialized. And you should know about it. If you’d like to learn more about this, and other potentially disruptive technologies, join us in the Abundance 360 community. At Abundance 360, entrepreneurs and CEOs are constantly engaging about cutting edge technologies like this, and learning how to make them applicable and actionable today. [Images: woman’s emotion courtesy of Shutterstock] |
Atlanta is a sprawling city, making cars a top choice for getting from place to place, but Mayor Kasim Reed’s aiming for a more bikeable reputation, which may change how Atlantans view their daily commute. Last week, phase one of the city’s Relay Bike Share program rolled out with 100 bikes at 10 stations downtown, just in time for the third annual Atlanta Cycling Festival, which in previous years drew crowds of up to 3,000 cyclists. According to census data, only 4,064 metro Atlantans identify as daily bicycle commuters out of 2.6 million commuters total. The percentage of biking commuters in Portland is 10 times that of Atlanta’s percentage. That means there’s more work to be done before the mayor and the city’s first chief bicycle officer , Becky Katz, can call Atlanta one of the top 10 bikeable cities in the U.S. Connect Atlanta is a 2008 plan that calls for a 200-mile grid of bike lanes from the city’s center to most of its perimeter by 2030. Right now, only 5 percent of all roads in the city have infrastructure like bike lanes. When planners introduced striped bike lanes and reduced car lanes on part of Ponce de Leon Avenue, a thoroughfare that runs across several neighborhoods, in December 2013, road traffic rose by 4,000, but crashes dropped by 25 percent the next year. However, a similar plan for another highly trafficked street, Peachtree Road, was met with opposition from many residents and business leaders. “Change on our roads is a challenge,” Katz told Atlanta Magazine. “A lot of people have driven it a thousand times every day for the past 30 years. There’s a learning period.” The more cyclists claim space on the roads, the shorter that learning period could be. Atlanta’s new bike-share program offers price plans based on usage, ranging from $8 per hour for pay-as-you-go to $20 per month for 90 minutes per day. It’s expected to have 500 bikes at more than 50 stations by the end of the year. |
Quetta, (IANS) : A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowded hospital here on Monday killing 70 people and injuring over 100 in one of the worst terror attacks in Pakistan this year, authorities said. The Quetta media, however, put the death toll at 93. The powerful blast ripped through the emergency ward of the Civil Hospital when nearly 100 lawyers had gathered to collect the body of a prominent lawyer shot dead hours earlier in the city. The deafening explosion, heard clearly on video, instantly killed dozens, including two television cameramen. The hospital presented a ghastly scene with bloodied bodies and body parts strewn in a small area. Samaa TV said bodies were strewn on the floor, some still smoking, “amid pools of blood and shattered glass”. A bomb disposal squad said the suicide bomber had around 10 kg of explosives hidden in his vest, Xinhua news agency said. Police found the limbs of the bomber. The Pakistan Taliban faction Jamaat ur Arhar claimed responsibility. ARY News said the dead included at least 25 lawyers. As the explosion ripped through the hospital, Aaj TV cameraman Shehzad Khan could be heard on the camera reciting the “Kalma” in a groaning voice as he died. The other cameraman to get killed was Mehmood Khan of DawnNews. Quetta’s Urdu media — Daily Millat, Baaghi TV and Urdu Post — however, put the death toll at 93. In any case, doctors warned that the toll could rise because some of the injured were in a serious condition. It was the worst terrorist attack in Pakistan this year since the March 27 bombing at Gulshan-e-Iqbal park in Lahore that left 75 people dead. As Balochistan, Pakistan’s biggest province by area, declared three days of mourning, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif flew to Quetta. Army chief Raheel Sharif visited the injured in the Civil Hospital. Gen Sharif ordered intelligence agencies to initiate “special combing operations to target those involved in terror attacks”, a spokesperson for the military said. Balochistan Chief Minister Sanaullah Zehri blamed the Indian intelligence agency RAW, saying it was responsible for incidents of terror in Quetta. His comments came even before the police could say who was responsible for the horrific attack. The lawyers were at the hospital to take the body of Bilal Anwar Kasi, president of the Balochistan Bar Association who was killed earlier in the city, Dawn reported. Gunfire erupted after the explosion. A stampede too broke out, causing chaos at the hospital. Smoke filled the corridors of the emergency ward. Lawyers who survived the blast rushed out to fetch stretchers. Shocked survivors wept and comforted one another. One journalist broke down after seeing the bloodbath. Many of the dead were in black suits and ties — the lawyers’ uniform. Police and Frontier Corps surrounded the hospital. An emergency was declared in all Quetta hospitals. Many of the wounded were rushed to the Combined Military Hospital. Some were flown to Karachi. “This was a security lapse and I am having this personally investigated,” Balochistan Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti said. Prime Minister Sharif expressed his “deep grief and anguish over the loss of precious human lives”. Former Chief Minister Abdul Malik called it the “blackest day” in the history of Balochistan. Lawyers across Pakistan denounced the killings in Quetta. Lawyers in Karachi boycotted the courts. The Bar Association of Pakistan called for a three-day mourning. Lawyers have been frequently targeted in Balochistan. One lawyer, Jahanzeb Alvi, was shot dead on August 3. Bilal Kasi, who himself was shot dead on Monday, had condemned Alvi’s murder and announced a two-day boycott of courts. The principal of University of Balochistan’s law college, Barrister Amanullah Achakzai, was also shot dead in June. Balochistan has experienced violence and targeted killings for more than a decade. Balochistan is home to a low-level insurgency by Baloch separatists. Al Qaeda-linked and sectarian militants also operate in the region. Islamabad routinely blames New Delhi for the unrest in Balochistan. |
Silly white people, think their lives matter. Via Campus Reform: An Illinois college has restricted certain sections of a mandatory introductory course to black students. “While helping my son register for college at Moraine Valley Community College, we noticed that the required course College 101 has two sections limited to African-American students,” one concerned parent told The Chicago Tribune. “He wants to know why there are not two sections limited to Asian-American students? How about Native American students?” This segregation of students by race seems odd, especially considering the course’s emphasis on diversity. “[College 101] provides an opportunity to assess your purpose for college, assess your study strategies, set college and career goals, examine your values and decision-making skills, and develop an appreciation for diversity,” the course catalog states. But Jessica Crotty, Moraine’s assistant director of communications, made the case for segregation, saying the school periodically reserves certain course offerings for various demographics of students, including veterans. “Sometimes we set aside sections for specific populations, including veterans and older students,” Crotty noted. “The focus can be on specific issues they face,” she explained. “For example, veterans face a specific set of challenges. Students feel comfortable and are more likely to open up because they’re with other students who are like them.” |
Video: This prototype lunar rover is just one of many racing for a $20 million prize Video: This prototype lunar rover is just one of many racing for a $20 million prize It’s been 36 years since NASA’s last Apollo lander left the moon’s surface. But while the agency’s plans to return humans to the moon remain confused, a pack of private teams are racing to send robots to kick up lunar dust and claim the $20-million Google Lunar X Prize announced nearly two years ago. So far 19 teams have registered for the contest. To win, they must land a rover on the moon that will then drive 500 metres before turning to photograph its landing site – all before the end of 2012. The team that does it first will pick up $20 million. Second place will earn $5 million and a further $5 million in bonuses will be awarded for finding relics from past US or Soviet moon missions. See a gallery showing some of the latest robotic moon rover prototypes Private affair Like the Ansari X Prize for sending a human into space, the lunar contest is meant to stimulate commercial space exploration. Advertisement “What we’re doing is a proof of concept: that this can be done, and for less than the government would pay for the same kind of mission,” says Fred Bourgeois, head of Team Frednet, a Lunar X Prize competitor based in California. The Google Lunar X Prize teams span more than 12 countries on three continents. They’re led by students, engineers, CEOs and entrepreneurs. Each has different strategies for flying to the moon, driving around once they get there and paying for it all. Team Frednet has taken an open-source approach, meaning anyone can contribute to the wiki that is used for all the team’s business. “The power of people collaborating is so much bigger than [that of] a small company hiring people to do the job,” Bourgeois says. “You can’t get the same calibre of people that you can by finding people who are really interested in it.” (See an image of Team Frednet’s “hamster ball” rover prototype). Other teams, like Team Italia and the Romanian team ARCA, are trying whip up patriotism to give them a boost, although the contest’s rules ban governmental support. Marketing the moon Some teams are making technology that will have a use and a market beyond the contest. Team Astrobotic, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has its sights set on the Apollo 11 landing site. “We’re trying to create a robot that makes sense over the longer term so we can be part of the lunar frontier and help open it up,” says David Gump, president of the team’s parent company, Astrobotic Technology. Team Astrobotic plans to send its rover to see how the descent stage of the Apollo 11 lunar module looks after 40 years on the moon and so gain insights into how to design future lunar equipment. Astrobotic is also the only team so far to publicly set a launch date: 8 May 2011. (See an image of their rover prototype). Most teams are relying on, or hoping for, private investment. But not Synergy Moon, which is offering to take donors’ DNA to the moon for $10,000. Odyssey Moon has a similar idea. It was founded a year before the X Prize competition and its leader Bob Richards says it aims to be “a FedEx to the moon”. He hopes people will pay to deliver things to the dusty lunar surface and expects consignments of plants and even human remains. (See Odyssey Moon’s prototype hopper). Geeky business “For us it’s all about building a business case,” Richards told New Scientist. “We’re pleased and proud to be the first registered team in the competition, but what’s driving us are the customers.” Bourgeois also thinks there’s money to be made from reaching the moon’s surface and plans to have people sponsor images sent back from Team Frednet’s lander. “Wouldn’t you like to have your name come back as ‘This minute of moon video sponsored by…’?” he asks. “It’s just the geek value, you know?” See a gallery of images showing some of the latest prototypes from competing teams |
The Department of Defense announced the creation of a new medal to honor the actions of members of the military who directly affect the course of battle without physically being there—in other words, drone pilots, cyber warfare experts, and other remote warriors. The Distinguished Warfare Medal "will be awarded in the name of the secretary of defense to service members whose extraordinary achievements, regardless of their distance to the traditional combat theater, deserve distinct department-wide recognition," a spokesperson for the Department of Defense said in a release announcing the new decoration. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta authorized the new medal. "I have seen first-hand how modern tools like remotely piloted platforms and cyber systems have changed the way wars can be fought," he said in a statement. "We should also have the ability to honor extraordinary actions that make a true difference in combat operations, even if those actions are physically removed from the fight." The DWM is one notch below a Distinguished Flying Cross in terms of order of precedence. It will be awarded for "actions in any domain" that effect the outcome of a military operation not involving personal acts of bravery. |
Film London's production support schemes got another boost this week when Dartmoor Killing was greenlit for June 2014. The team behind the dark and atmospheric story of female friendship benefited from our Build Your Audience programme, as well as last year's inaugural Film London Micro-Market – a dedicated finance market for for financiers looking for great projects with a small price tag. From Build Your Audience to Micro-Market: the road to production A psychological thriller that reunites the team behind the Emmy Award-winning Pompeii and BAFTA-winning Nuremberg, Dartmoor Killing has started pre-production and will shoot in June 2014. Momentum for the project built over the autumn when the team pitched to financiers at the Film London Micro-Market, launched in 2013 alongside the established Production Finance Market. The Producers are now in advanced talks with a prominent film sales company and a number of UK distributors and strategic distribution partners. Find out more about Film London Micro-Market Addressing the rapidly changing face of feature film distribution across the globe, Build Your Audience provides participants with the skills, knowledge and networks to face the challenge of selling their film. Producer Jayne Chard and writer/director Peter Nicholson say that it: "helped us develop a 'hybrid' distribution strategy, combining traditional partnerships, innovative digital media and event screenings. For example The Barn Cinema, Dartington, has proposed a spectacular 'outdoor' drive- in screening on Dartmoor as part of the film's launch." Find out more about Build Your Audience Film London's production support Both Build Your Audience and Micro-Market are representative of Film London's approach to production support: they combine practical advice and on the ground experience with industry connections and mentoring. Deborah Sathe, Head of Talent Development and Production at Film London, said "I am delighted Dartmoor Killing will be shooting this summer. We have very much enjoyed meeting the team and developing their project through our training programmes Build Your Audience and the Micro-Market". Dartmoor Killing - a tense psychological drama Co-written by BAFTA winning writer/director Peter Nicholson and Isabelle Grey, Dartmoor Killing tells the story of inseparable friends Susan and Becky. When, on a weekend trip to Dartmoor they encounter the charismatic Chris, they are led into a web of mind games, sexual deceit and betrayal. The film has been financed through a mix of private SEIS/EIS investors and corporate equity and production partner Films@59 in Bristol. Arri Media and DUK have also given their support to the film. |
Mom gave a blood sample. Dad spit. The entire genome of their fetus was born. Researchers at the University of Washington have, for the first time, done a near-total genome sequence of a fetus in this way. Scientists published the results of this study in the journal Science Translational Medicine, suggesting that thousands of genetic diseases could be detected in children while they are still in the fetal stage. Everyone has two copies of the human genome: One inherited from their biological mother and one from the biological father. With technology that's being used for genetic sequencing these days, it's not possible to say which variants on the chromosome you inherited from which parent. Scientists also sequenced the cell-free component of the mother's blood - called the plasma - where about 10% of the DNA circulating is from the child, and the other 90% is from the mother. That introduces some difficulty, since it's hard to tell exactly what comes from the child. Currently at least some component of diagnosis for genetic disorders in certain circumstances is done using technologies such as amniocentesis, which involves taking a sample of the fluid in the sac that surrounds the fetus in the womb - the mother has to have a needle inserted into her uterus, which is a lot more complicated than a simple blood test and carries some health risks. "This might reduce the need to do invasive testing for fetuses," said Jay Shendure, associate professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington. The focus of the study was the genome of a fetus whose mother's blood sample was taken at 18 weeks. The analysis of her blood, the father's saliva and the plasma contributed to a nearly full picture of the fetus's genome. This model showed that the fetus had 39 mutations that it had not inherited from either parent. To confirm, researchers looked at the baby's umbilical cord blood after it was born. In comparing the constructed DNA (from mom & dad's samples) and this cord sample, researchers found five additional mutations that hadn't come from the mother or the father. On the whole, the baby's artificially constructed genome using material from the parents was more than 98% accurate. Researchers repeated the procedure on a different couple. This time the mother was only eight weeks pregnant when she donated her sample, and the father submitted a blood sample, which was processed in the same way that the other father's saliva was. This resulted in a fetal genome sequence that was 92% accurate. "We could have brought it higher just by sequencing her plasma more deeply," said Jacob Kitzman, lead study author and graduate research fellow at the University of Washington. There are also parts of the genome that technology available today just cannot measure very well, Kitzman says, so that's partly why there's not a 100% accuracy here. Is gender selection of a fetus ethical? Eight weeks are, however, well before mothers are able to get amniocentesis, which is often used at around 16 weeks. It took more than a month to get the results from the sequencing, which is a lot longer than would be ideal in a clinical situation, Kitzman noted. In order to become more widespread, the technique would have to be easier to administer, quicker and less expensive. So how much does this cost? Right now, in the ballpark of $50,000, Shendure says - and while that seems like a lot, keep in mind that this whole process involved sequencing the genomes of the mother and the father, separately analyzing the plasma and then double-checking the result with a sequence from the child's umbilical cord. The price tag for sequencing has dropped by 10,000 fold in the last five years, Shendure says, so he expects this fetal genome technique will also become less expensive over time. In the long-term, the technique may even help garner new insights about genetic diseases, but more immediately it would be restricted to identifying the genetic disorders that we already understand, he said. "Whether this is the sort of thing we would do on a widespread basis for all pregnancies, that’s an open question and a complex one," he said. The complexity comes, of course, from the ethical issues that arise concerning parents who would selectively abort fetuses that are predestined for certain conditions. The technology worries medical ethicist Harriet Washington, who fears parents could use genome sequencing to predict and selectively abort children that don't meet certain standards - not just for diseases, but for things like hair and eye color. “If we don’t look at the dangers, if we adopt this Pollyanna attitude and only look at the benefits, then it’s really easy to end up in a situation where we are blindsided,” Washington said. Perhaps one day, even intelligence scores or skills could be forecasted, creating a situation akin the movie "Gattaca" where babies are basically custom-created to suit the needs of parents who can afford the technology. What do you think about all this? Share your thoughts in the comments. |
Brigadier Sultan Amir Tarar, best known as Colonel Imam, (died January 2011) was a one-star rank army general in the Pakistan Army, and a former diplomat who served as the Consul-General of Pakistan at Herat, Afghanistan.[4] Amir Sultan Tarar was a Pakistan Army officer and special warfare operation specialist. He was a member of the Special Service Group (SSG) of the army, an intelligence officer of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and served as Pakistani Consul General at Herat, Afghanistan.[4] A veteran of the Soviet–Afghan War, he is widely believed to have played a key role in the formation of the Taliban, after having helped train the Afghan Mujahidin on behalf of the United States in the 1980s.[5] "Colonel Imam", as Tarar was also known, was a commando-guerrilla warfare specialist, and trained Mullah Omar and other Taliban factions and leaders. Colonel Imam remained active in Afghanistan's civil war until the 2001 United States led War on Terrorism, and supported the Taliban publicly through media.[5] Tarar was kidnapped along with fellow ISI officer Khalid Khawaja, British journalist Asad Qureshi[6] and Qureshi's driver Rustam Khan on March 26, 2010. Khawaja was killed a month later. Qureshi and Khan were released in September 2010. Amir Sultan Tarar was killed in January 2011.[7][8] Education and military career [ edit ] Amir Sultan Tarar was a graduate of Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) in Kakul (located near Abbottabad in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan), and of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, United States. After the graduation from Pakistan Military Academy, he joined the Pakistan Army's 15th Frontier Force Regiment as 2nd Lieutenant. Amir Sultan Tarar was sent to the United States in 1974, and was trained among with United States Army Special Forces. Upon his graduation from the Special Forces School, Amir Sultan Tarar was awarded American Green Beret by his training commander. Following his return to Pakistan, Amir Sultan Tarar joined the Special Service Group (SSG). In the 1980s, he participated in Soviet–Afghan War. Colonel Imam, as he became known, was increasingly involved in Afghanistan's politics even after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. After the Soviet–Afghan War, Colonel Imam supported and trained Taliban fighters independently. It was alleged even in the 2000s that he still independently supported the Taliban independence movement in Afghanistan.[9] He was a disciple of Ameer Muhammad Akram Awan, the current sheikh of silsila Naqshbandia Owaisia. Relationships with United States [ edit ] After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Amir Sultan Tarar was invited to the White House by the then President George Herbert Walker Bush, and was given a piece of the Berlin Wall with a brass plaque inscribed: "To the one who dealt the first blow."[10] In the 2000s, Western intelligence agencies believed Colonel Imam was dead among a group of renegade officers from Pakistan's ISI who continued to help the Taliban after Pakistan turned against them following the attacks of September 11, 2001.[11] Authentic knowledge about Amir Sultan Tarar [ edit ] Little is known of Amir Sultan Tarar's true history or operational profile as an agent of the ISI. Most information about 'Colonel Imam' was generated by his own admission, as well as news media speculation. Pakistan's secrecy over internal and external security, plus the code of conduct of Pakistan Armed Forces personnel serving in sensitive institutions, prevents such details from being available or verifiable. In 2010, however, Amir Sultan Tarar gave interviews to foreign and domestic journalists in Rawalpindi.[5] Tarar's initial objective, after the Mujahedin infighting after Soviet withdrawal and before his involvement with Taliban, were unclear; his objectives at that time were just to find new friends for Pakistan from where to operate later, such as Akhaundzada of Helmand who had a blood feud with Hikmatyar and was a warlord with 17000 men under command. According to Colonel Imam's own claims, Soviets when in Afghanistan had put a 200 million Afghani bounty on him. He also claimed that, when he presented operational details to Aslam Baig after General Zia's death about anti-soviet struggle, the later was surprised as to the extent. In Cathey Schofield's book Inside Pakistan Army, Colonel Imam admitted meeting Osama Bin Laden in 1986. Kidnapping and execution [ edit ] In March 2010, Colonel Imam, former ISI officer Khalid Khawaja, journalist Asad Qureshi, and Qureshi's driver Rustman Khan were abducted by an unknown militant group which called itself Asian Tigers. Khawaja's body was found near a stream in Karam Kot in April 2010 with a note attached saying he was with the CIA and ISI, about seven kilometres south of North Waziristan's main town of Mirali. Qureshi and Khan were freed in September 2010.[12] Colonel Imam was executed in captivity, as documented in a video released by Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. The video shows the group’s then-chief Hakimullah Mehsud.[13] Both the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban were purportedly against the execution.[14] Colonel Imam's captors refused to release his body to his family unless a ransom was paid. Mehsud was killed in a drone strike on November 1, 2013.[15] His captors used the name of "Asian Tigers" which was unusual for the Taliban. This has led to numerous questions. He was shot seven times, the third shot being the fatal one in the head.[16] His travelling companion's association with Red Mosque incident whose planning and funding was unknown but is believed to be significant. |
partial RSS feeds --> fulltexters --> the added value of comments and "the Statusphere" --> the need for social management of the ecosystem --> Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed. An incendiary blog post is lighting up cyberspace this morning. Steve Gillmor of TechCrunch has written an article titled, "Rest in Peace, RSS" , in which he says that "it's time to get completely off RSS and switch to Twitter".To you non-computer geeks out there, RSS is a technology that, over the past few years, has revolutionized how people get information on the Web. Before RSS, people had to type in the URL of every website they wanted to visit just to see if there was any new material posted. What RSS did was retrieve the headlines on your favorite sites for you, allowing people to harness all of their Web headlines automatically, and then organize them in one central place. In other words, it offered a way to "stop looking and switch to receiving".To see working examples of this, check out The Nerfherder's Technology Blogroll and Political Blogroll - which are RSS pages I created long ago on Netvibes.So, to RSS devotees such as myself, Gillmor's requiem is quite a shock to the system. I imagine this is what it felt like for our parents' generation after they had spent years assembling beloved record collections, only to hear that now everything was about to shift to cassettes or CDs.Can it be true? Is RSS really on death's doorstep?The answer, it's hard to admit, might indeed be yes. For starters, and as I've written about before , RSS never quite caught on with the mainstream public. Why that's the case is a matter of debate, but one thing is clear - it doesn't exactly help in preventing RSS's extinction. Meanwhile, Twitter, by contrast, seems on the verge of breaking through into the mainstream consciousness.But perhaps the most thought-provoking assessment that Gillmor provides is his framing of recent Web evolution. He conceptualizes it by tracing the historical path fromAs a result, he argues that RSS has become "a shell of its former self, casually subsumed" into the social stream.This narrative is a fascinating interpretation on recent history, and the blogosphere has been firing on all cylinders today debating its merits. I, for one, believe it to be fairly accurate, as my own experience seems to mirror Gillmor's (although I have some lingering skepticism as to whether Twitter can be a viable replacement). However, does my continued use of RSS suddenly make me a backwards-looking technologist? That seems, somehow, awfully disturbing. |
Late Thursday, President Trump ordered the U.S. military to fire 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the Shayrat air base outside Homs, Syria. The offensive came in response to an horrific chemical weapons attack in the Syrian province of Idlib. The planes carrying sarin had reportedly taken off from Shayrat. “On Tuesday, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians. Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack,” Trump announced Thursday evening. It was apparently nothing more than a show of strength, given that the Trump administration reportedly warned both Russia and Syria prior to the strike, and Syrian planes were said to be taking off from Shayrat less than 24 hours after the bombing, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. If that weren’t enough, Trump oversaw the attack from his vacation home at Mar-a-Lago while hosting Chinese president Xi Jinping—perhaps sending a message to China about how to handle North Korea. On Friday night, Bill Maher addressed the bombing on his HBO program Real Time with Bill Maher. And he was skeptical, to say the least—pointing out how, in the wake of the Assad regime’s 2013 chemical weapons attack on Ghouta, Syria, which claimed approximately 1,429 lives, a Republican-controlled Congress didn’t even put President Obama’s request to authorize military force against Assad to a vote. President Trump, on the other hand, bypassed Congress. “American cruise missiles blew up an airfield last night in Syria because the dictator there was using chemical weapons—which he has done many times,” said Maher. “In 2013, 98 Republicans signed a letter saying bombing Syria in response to a chemical attack was unconstitutional without congressional authorization. But this is different, because Obama was president then. That would have involved bombing while black.” Complicating matters, of course, is the fact that Putin’s Russia, which Trump can’t seem to say a bad word about, is firmly backing the Assad regime. “This is very tricky for Donald Trump, because the Syrian regime is propped up by Russia, and Russia does not want us bombing there,” said Maher. “If Trump does the wrong thing, Putin might not re-elect him. But the temptation to use his new toys was too much.” Maher then criticized cable news’ reaction to the strike, that saw even lefty newsmen like MSNBC’s Brian Williams and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria salivate over it. Williams, in true cringeworthy fashion, called images of the airstrikes “beautiful,” while Zakaria recycled a line from his colleague Van Jones in declaring that Trump “became president of the United States” that night. “In America, you’re not really president until you bomb something, you know?” said Maher. “Even the liberals were all over this last night. Everybody loves this fuckin’ thing. Cable news loves it when they show footage of destroyers firing cruise missiles at night. It’s America’s money shot.” |
Tejomay Bharat’s “facts.” (Source: Express photo) Gujarat’s new compulsory reading list for government primary and secondary students doesn’t just seek to educate students on “facts” about India’s culture, history and geography. It also has its own take on science, particularly landmark inventions. Advertising “…America wants to take the credit for invention of stem cell research, but the truth is that India’s Dr Balkrishna Ganpat Matapurkar has already got a patent for regenerating body parts…. You would be surprised to know that this research is not new and that Dr Matapurkar was inspired by the Mahabharata. Kunti had a bright son like the sun itself. When Gandhari, who had not been able to conceive for two years, learnt of this, she underwent an abortion. From her womb a huge mass of flesh came out. (Rishi) Dwaipayan Vyas was called. He observed this hard mass of flesh and then he preserved it in a cold tank with specific medicines. He then divided the mass of flesh into 100 parts and kept them separately in 100 tanks full of ghee for two years. After two years, 100 Kauravas were born of it. On reading this, he (Matapurkar) realised that stem cell was not his invention. This was found in India thousands of years ago.” — Page 92-93, Tejomay Bharat “We know that television was invented by a priest from Scotland called John Logie Baird in 1926. But we want to take you to an even older Doordarshan… Indian rishis using their yog vidya would attain divya drishti. There is no doubt that the invention of television goes back to this… In Mahabharata, Sanjaya sitting inside a palace in Hastinapur and using his divya shakti would give a live telecast of the battle of Mahabharata… to the blind Dhritarashtra”. — Page 64 “What we know today as the motorcar existed during the Vedic period. It was called anashva rath. Usually a rath (chariot) is pulled by horses but an anashva rath means the one that runs without horses or yantra-rath, what is today a motorcar. The Rig Veda refers to this…” — Page 60 Advertising The 125-page book, Tejomay Bharat, that these passages are excerpted from was recently mandated as supplementary reading by the Gujarat government for all government primary and secondary schools. Published by the Gujarat State School Textbook Board (GSSTB), the book seeks to teach children “facts” about history, science, geography, religion and other “basics”. Tejomay Bharat is to be distributed along with eight books written by Dina Nath Batra, a member of the national executive of Vidya Bharati, the educational wing of the RSS. Batra’s books, translated into Gujarati and published by the GSSTB, have also been mandated as supplementary reading by the state government. Each of these books carries a customised message from Narendra Modi, as then chief minister, while Batra’s books praise him and the GSSTB. Tejomay Bharat carries a message from Modi praising the GSSTB for republishing the book. The book has chapters such as Adhyatmik Bharat (spiritual India), Akhand Bharat (undivided India), Vigyanmay Bharat (scientific India), and Samarth Bharat (competent India). The book’s content advisor is Harshad Shah, vice-chancellor of Childrens’ University in Gandhinagar who was Gujarat chairman of Vidya Bharti till 2006. The review committee includes Ruta Parmar and Rekha Chudasama, both associated with Vidya Bharati. Shah told The Sunday Express, “Tejomay Bharat gives an insight to students about our rich culture, heritage, spiritualism and patriotism. The language has been kept simple, which is apt for students. These are to be given free of cost to all schools, while 5,000 copies priced at Rs 73 have been prepared for those other than students.” Asked how schools would reconcile the “facts” of Tejomay Bharat with the NCERT syllabus, the Deputy Commissioner, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Ahmedabad region, P Dev Kumar, said, “Being a government servant, I am here to follow and implement government policies. Though we have not been told of any change in the NCERT curriculum for this academic session, if there is any for the next year, we have to wait and watch.” Tejomay Bharat also objects to the country being called India. “We should not demean ourselves by calling our beloved Bharatbhoomi by the shudra (lowly) name ‘India’. What right had the British to change the name of this country?… We should not fall for this conspiracy and forget the soul of our country (Page 53).” Advertising “It is better to die for one’s religion. An alien religion is a source of sorrow,” the book says on Page 118. “Guru Gobind Singh had four sons — Ajit Singh, Juzar Singh, Zoravar Singh and Fateh Singh… King’s men tried hard to convince them, but they courageously replied, ‘Our grandfather Guru Tegh Bahadur gave his head for saving Hindu religion and we will also give our lives but will never leave our religion’.” |
Archive images from the Release Archive at Modern Records Collection Warwick University This year is the 50th anniversary of Release, the UK's centre of expertise on drugs and drugs law. To celebrate, they are hosting the Museum of Drug Policy in London from the 3rd to the 5th of November – a free event for which VICE is a media partner. To find out more, click here. In 1967, during the Summer of Love, Caroline Coon met fellow art student Rufus Harris after a demonstration she'd helped organise. Coon wanted to stop the News of the World distributing papers because, as she tells me 50 years later, "They were going to besmirch the character of Mick Jagger because he had been arrested for being in possession of drugs. So we lay in the street outside to stop the lorries and, at the end, found ourselves sitting under Eros in Piccadilly Circus. After a demonstration you can feel very useful, and I said to Rufus, 'Come to my studio tomorrow and let's see what we can do.'" They founded Release shortly after, a 24-hour drugs and free legal advice charity. Their accompanying hotline was the world's first, and in 2017 – half a century later – around 6,000 people a year contact Release for support from around the UK. "I knew that you could have a 24-hour emergency telephone service because, as a child of a rather dysfunctional family, I was rather depressed in my childhood and had rung the Samaritans when I had felt suicidal," says Coon. "I also knew that Release had to be 24 hours because police were busting youths in the middle of the night." Until she stepped away from Release in 1971, Coon's roles were myriad: "I was trying to articulate what we stood for to a rather hostile press. I was going out to raise money because anti-prohibition and championing the normal use of drugs was not popular. So we had to rely on progressive wealthy people to fund us [including members of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones]. What was so useful, though, was that Rufus and I were co-founders, and Rufus being male on the whole and I being female on the whole, we were like the head of this family where hundreds of distressed young people could drop in to get advice and find comfort." John Lennon and Yoko Ono's arrest sheet from when the pair were arrested for cannabis possession in 1968 and Release helped with the case. At the time, possession of even small amounts of cannabis could incur prison sentences of a few years, so if contacted by someone who'd been arrested Release would connect them with empathetic pro bono solicitors. These solicitors would then receive payment from the government in the form of legal aid. This is a service Release still provides today. Coon is keen to stress, however, that despite the perceived freewheeling nature of the 60s, Release's mission has always been focused. "Right from the start, we believed that human beings like and need to have fun and be intoxicated sometimes," she says. "We thought this was a human, social norm. We also realised that recreational drugs were an adult pleasure but that young people would always experiment, so for us the question was, 'How do we do drugs safely, causing no harm to others and the least harm to oneself?'" Throughout the 70s this mission continued at the heart of Release. Their work, however, expanded to include issues like under-age runaways, homelessness and abortion advice. Their festival outreach also became key. Bob Nightingale, who worked at Release from 1974 to 1982, tells me of his beginnings: "I was at the Windsor Festival and came across this girl crying in the middle of Windsor Great Park in the middle of the night. After talking to her it became pretty obvious she was on LSD and out of her box, so I took her to the Release tent because that was what you did. Then she wouldn't let me go – I'd become her safety blanket – so I pottered around doing stuff, and they said, 'Come back, you're useful!'" Bob Nightingale (far right) at Glastonbury Nightingale remembers how ubiquitous Release was at festivals. "We did all the Stonehenges, all the Glastonburys, Deeply Vale, Watchfield in Oxford. Any festival that was going to attract more than a few hundred, we'd have a tent," he says. "Drug overdoses weren't common, but they weren't that rare. We did save lives." With police not permitted inside most festivals back then, Release often had to deal with violent attendees themselves. "I took a knife off somebody once," says Nightingale. "He'd already stabbed two people – not to death, only jabbed them. I went over and said, 'Stop threatening people, mate,' like you do, and he looked through me and said, 'You got me on this planet, you get me off it.' So I said, 'Give me the knife and I'll get you off the planet within half an hour,' and he did. Then I stuck him in the back of an ambulance." Nightingale continues: "The bloke with the axe was better. He'd hit someone with an axe and was rampaging around, and he'd gone into this hut. We wondered how we were going to get it off him. Of course, the bloke I was with turned out to be too scared to go in, so I went in there to leap on him and he was snoring on the floor." Nightingale suddenly becomes a bit sombre. "We had a few people taking heroin then. Heroin got more as the years went on. When it got to the 80s, really it was spilling out. That wasn't the old hippie festivals. All of a sudden it was different." WATCH: How to Treat Weed Dealers, According to Weed Dealers In 1976, Release again expanded their services to include support for the burgeoning squatting movement. Christian Wolmar, who worked at Release from 1976 to 1979, was involved as their Housing Advisor. Like Nightingale, Wolmar came to Release through personal experience. "I was squatting myself in Brixton," he explains, adding that there were a "few thousand" squatters in London at the time who would ring up Release for advice, resulting in "an advisory service which still exists, that had a handbook [Squatters and the Law] that stretched to about 15 editions". In 1977, Release published a report into the use of police powers under the Misuse of Drugs Act. Tactics described in the report, like zero-tolerance policing and intensive use of stop and search, contributed to mass civil unrest across Britain in 1981, including riots between police and the impoverished black communities of Brixton, Handsworth in Birmingham, Chapeltown in Leeds and Toxteth in Liverpool. "Police would stop and search anyone they had an image of who was on drugs, so long hair or black," remembers Bob Nightingale. "When I had long hair I used to get stopped all the time. You only really notice it when it stops. I had all my hair cut off, as I got lice in Morocco, and when I got back to England shopkeepers would serve me and the police stopped stopping me in my car. Of course, if you're black you can't suddenly turn white." In the 80s, heroin ravaged Britain, along with the spread of hepatitis and HIV. This led to needle exchanges being legalised in 1986. Then, in 1988, Release received their first calls about ecstasy. "We'd sometimes get them from people who'd say, 'My mates are all going out taking E and I feel I've got to and I don't want to. I get depression, I get anxiety,'" says Claire Robbins, a drugs nurse who started at Release in 1994 and still volunteers today. "I'd help them tell their friends, or maybe pretend they'd taken an E when they hadn't, just not to feel that pressure." Robbins was also involved with Safer Clubbing, an initiative set up by Release in 1998 to provide first aid and education to a generation of partygoers. "We'd often be looking after people who'd taken far too much and just chatting with them," Robbins explains, "or taking them and dancing, helping them to enjoy their drugs rather than worrying about the mess they'd left at home. Or maybe they were having thoughts about something that'd happened in their childhood, because ecstasy does open you up, so all our volunteers would be trained to manage things like that." A Release press release from 1970 Release worked extensively with free party organisers Exodus Collective in Luton, training them to do outreach at their raves. They also provided support at other events, like fetish club nights. "People were dying from indoor venues, not from the outdoors," says Robbins, "but the illegal raves had a quite good record of looking after each other. There was much more of an idea that people looked after each other there, and in the clubs it was all about selling alcohol and not providing water." Robbins remembers the effect Release's outreach had at raves and festivals: "We were so well received by the punters at those venues. They loved us. People would spend the whole night in our tent being looked after and send us cards afterwards saying they'd had the best time. You'd think, 'The best time sitting in a chill-out tent? That's so sad.' But we'd usually have our own sound system and our own decor, and it was much more relaxed. We were much more personal with people, rather than clinical, and I think it's the personal approach that works." "It was a grassroots, organic, anarchistic way of educating," says Robbins, "rather than a psychiatrist saying someone who's using ecstasy is this or that, or has an anti-social personality disorder. It felt practical and useful." In more recent years Release has begun advising on the issue of sex work, publishing in 2005 a comprehensive booklet on the rights of women and men in the industry, Sex Workers and the Law. They also help sex workers complete such tricky tasks as declaring themselves for income tax. In 2013 they then published a report in partnership with the London School of Economics proving that very little had changed when it came to the policing of drugs. According to the report, black people were six times likelier to be stopped and searched, despite government statistics saying that white people were likelier to use. As well as that, black people received much harsher penalties. "I'm a big believer in recognising the dignity of everyone, and that our clients are often treated elsewhere in a very cavalier, disrespectful way, where their dignity and autonomy aren't respected." Release's main concern today is the skyrocketing number of drug deaths around the UK. With the figure hitting an all-time high, and with female deaths increasing by 95 percent in the last decade, Release's Executive Director Niamh Eastwood tells VICE about the devastation: "There's been a 109 percent increase in heroin-related deaths in the last four years – over 1,200 people dying of heroin or morphine-related causes in the last year alone. It now exceeds traffic fatalities, and our view is that if this was any other section of society, there'd be uproar and demands for a coordinated national public health response." This can in part be traced back to the Cameron-Clegg coalition's move away from a harm-reduction approach to recovery to an abstinence-based one in 2010. Eastwood explains the effect this ideology has and how it's enforced. "On the helpline over the last five years we've been increasingly receiving calls on a regular basis – I'm talking daily – from people who are in treatment on methadone scripts, who are being told that they have to reduce their methadone. It would appear that these are not clinical decisions but rather policy decisions; that some commissioning services are being required to demonstrate their outcomes based on the number of people exiting treatment drug-free. So if you like there's a financial motivation for treatment providers to get people out of treatment." Release have been briefing MPs on this, as well as putting forward questions to other members of government, but as shown by last year's Psychoactive Substances Act, drug policy only seems to be getting more dangerous, creating the climate that Release celebrate its 50th anniversary in. There are currently 12 employees at Release and between 20 to 25 volunteers at any one time. After 50 years, Eastwood is certain what Release's biggest achievement has been: "Fifty years… does that make sense?" She adds, "I'm incredibly proud to work with a team of people who go out and try to help people on a daily basis. The fact that we get people who are homeless housed. That we get people's benefits in place. I'm a big believer in recognising the dignity of everyone, and that our clients are often treated elsewhere in a very cavalier, disrespectful way, where their dignity and autonomy aren't respected. I love the fact that our legal services speak to that, that it's really just about realising the rights of people." To find out more about Release's free 50th anniversary event, click here. |
Look at them! All smiling and happy. Coworkers, friends, and close family members. All enjoying programming in Perl 6 version 6.c "Christmas". Great concurrency primitives, core grammars, and a fantastic object model. It sickens me! But wait a second… wait just a second. I got an idea. An awful idea. I got a wonderful, awful idea! We can ruin their "Christmas". All we need is a few tricks up our sleeves. Muahuahahaha!! Welcome to the 2017th Perl 6 Advent Calendar! Each day, from today until Christmas, we'll have an awesome blog post about Perl 6 lined up for you. Today, we'll show our naughty side and purposefully do naughty things. Sure, these have good uses, but being naughty is a lot more fun. Let's begin! But True does False Have you heard of the but operator? A fun little thing: say True but False ?? ' Tis true ' !! ' Tis false ' ; # OUTPUT: «Tis false» my $n = 42 but ' forty two ' ; say $n; # OUTPUT: «forty two» say $n + 7 ; # OUTPUT: «49» It's an infix operator that first clones the object on the left hand side and then mixes in a role provided on the right hand side into the clone: my $n = 42 but role Evener { method is-even { self %% 2 } } say $n . is-even; # OUTPUT: «True» say $n .^ name ; # OUTPUT: «Int+{Evener}» Those aren't roles in the first two examples above. The but operator has a handy shortcut: if the thing on the right isn't a role, it creates one for you! The role will have a single method, named after the .^name of the object on the right hand side, and the method will simply return the given object. Thus, this… put True but ' some boolean ' ; # OUTPUT: «some boolean» …is equivalent to: put True but role { method ::( BEGIN ' some boolean ' .^ name ) { ' some boolean ' } } # OUTPUT: «some boolean» The .^name on our string returns Str , since it's a Str object: say ' some boolean ' .^ name ; # OUTPUT: «Str» And so the role provides a method named Str , which put calls on non- Str objects to obtain a stringy value to output, causing our boolean to have an altered stringy representation. As an example, string '0' is True in Rakudo Perl 6 but is False in Pumpkin Perl 5. Using the but operator, we can alter a string to behave like Perl 5's version: role Perl5Str { method Bool { nextsame unless self eq ' 0 ' ; False } } sub perlify { $ ^ v but Perl5Str }; say so perlify ' meows ' ; # OUTPUT: «True» say so perlify ' 0 ' ; # OUTPUT: «False» say so perlify ' ' ; # OUTPUT: «False» The role provides the .Bool method that the so routine calls. Inside the method, we re-dispatch to the original .Bool method using nextsame routine unless the string is a '0' , in which case we simply return False . The but operator has a brother: an infix does operator. It behaves very similarly, except it does not clone. (N.B.: the shortcut for automatically making roles from non-roles is available in does only on bleeding edge Rakudo, version 2017.11-1-g47ebc4a and up) my $ o = class { method stuff { ' original ' } } . new ; say $ o. stuff; # OUTPUT: «original» $ o does role { method stuff { ' modded ' } }; say $ o. stuff; # OUTPUT: «modded» Some of the things in a program are globally accessible and in some implementations (e.g. Rakudo), certain constants are cached. This means we can get quite naughty in a separate part of a program and those Christmas celebrators won't even know what hit 'em! How about, we override what the prompt routine reads? They like Christmas? We'll give them some Christmas trees: $ * IN does role { method get { " 🎄 { callsame } 🎄 " } } my $ name = prompt " Enter your name: " ; say " You entered your name as: $name " ; # OUTPUT # Enter your name: (typed by user:) Zoffix Znet # You entered your name as: 🎄 Zoffix Znet 🎄 That override will work even if we stick it into a module. We can also kick it up a notch and mess with enums and cached constants, though this naughtiness likely won't be able to cross the module boundary and other implementation-specific cache invalidation: True does False ; say 42 ?? " tis true " !! " tis false " ; # OUTPUT: «tis true» So far, that didn't quite have the wanted impact, but let's try coercing our number to a Bool : True does False ; say 42 . Bool ?? " tis true " !! " tis false " ; # OUTPUT: «tis false» There we go! And now, for the final Grinch-worthy touch, we'll mess with numerical results of computations on numbers. Rakudo caches Int constants. Infix + operator also uses the internal-ish-ish .Bridge method when computing with numerics of different types. So, let's override the .Bridge on our constant to return something funky: BEGIN 42 does role { method Bridge { 12e0 } } say 42 + 15 ; # OUTPUT: «57» say 42 + 15e0 ; # OUTPUT: «27» That's proper evil, sure to ruin any Christmas, but we're only getting started… Wrapping It Up What kind of Christmas would it be without wrapped presents?! Oh, for presents we shall have and Perl 6's .wrap method provided by Routine type will let us wrap 'em up, oh so good. use soft ; sub foo { say ' in foo ' } &foo . wrap : -> | { say ' in the wrap ' ; callsame ; say ' back in the wrap ' ; } foo; # OUTPUT: # in the wrap # in foo # back in the wrap We enable use soft pragma to prevent unwanted inlining of routines that would otherwise interfere with our wrap. Then, we use a routine we want to wrap as a noun by using it with its & sigil and call the .wrap method that takes a Callable . The given Callable 's signature must be compatible with the one on the wrapped routine (or its proto if it's a multi); otherwise we'd not be able to both dispatch to the routine correctly and call the wrapper with the args. In the example above, we simply use an anonymous Capture ( | ) to accept all possible arguments. Inside the Callable we have two say calls and make use of callsame routine to call the next available dispatch candidate, which happens to be our original routine. This comes in handy, since were we to attempt to call foo by its name inside the wrapper, we'd start the dispatch over from scratch, resulting in an infinite dispatch loop. Since methods are Routine s, we can wrap them as well. We can get a hold of the Method object using the .^lookup meta method: IO ::Handle .^ lookup( ' print ' ) . wrap : my method ( | c) { my &wrapee = nextcallee; wrapee self , " 🎄 Ho-ho-ho! 🎄 " ; wrapee self , | c }; print " Hello, World! " ; # OUTPUT: # 🎄 Ho-ho-ho! 🎄 # Hello, World! Here, we grab the .print method from IO::Handle type and .wrap it. We wish to make use of self inside the method, so we're wrapping using a standalone method ( my method … ) instead of a block or a subroutine. The reason we want to have self is to be able to call the very method we're wrapping to print our Christmassy message. Because our method is detached, the callwith and related routines will need self fed to them along with the rest of the args, to ensure we continue dispatch to the right object. Inside the wrap, we use the nextcallee routine to obtain the original method.If it's a multi , we'll get the proto , not a specific candidate that best matches the original arguments, so the next candidate ordering is slightly different inside the wrap, compared to traditional routines. We grab the nextcallee in to a variable, because we want to call it more than once and calling it shifts the routine off the dispatch stack. In the first call, we print our Christmassy message and in the second call, we merely slip our Capture ( |c ) of original args, performing the call like it were originally meant to happen. Thanks to the .wrap , we can alter or even completely redefine behaviour of subroutines and methods, which is sure to be jolly fun when your friends try to use them. Ho-ho-ho! Invisibility Cloak The tricks we've played so far are wonderfully terrible, but they're just too obvious and too… visible. Since Perl 6 has superb Unicode support, I think we should search the mass of Unicode characters for some fun mischief. In particular, we're looking for invisible characters that are NOT whitespace. Just one is sufficient for our purpose, but these four are fairly invisible on my computer: [] U + 2060 WORD JOINER [Cf] [] U + 2061 FUNCTION APPLICATION [Cf] [] U + 2062 INVISIBLE TIMES [Cf] [] U + 2063 INVISIBLE SEPARATOR [Cf] Perl 6 supports custom terms and operators that can consist of any characters, except whitespace. For example, here's my patented Shrug Operator: sub infix:<¯\(°_o) / ¯ > { ($ ^ a, $ ^ b) . pick } say ' Coke ' ¯\(°_o) / ¯ ' Pepsi ' ; # OUTPUT: «Pepsi» And here's a term, made out of non-identifier characters (we could've used the actual characters in the definition as well): sub term:«\c[family: woman woman boy boy]» { ' ♫ We— are— ♪ faaaamillyyy ♬ ' } say 👩👩👦👦; # OUTPUT: «♫ We— are— ♪ faaaamillyyy ♬» With our invisible, non-whitespace characters in hand, we can make invisible operators and terms! sub infix:«\c[INVISIBLE TIMES]» { $ ^ a × $ ^ b } my \r = 42 ; say " Area of the circle is " ~ πr²; # OUTPUT: «Area of the circle is 5541.76944093239» Let's make a Jolly module that will export some invisible terms and operators. We'll then sprinkle them into our Christmassy friends' code: unit module Jolly ; sub term:«\c[INVISIBLE TIMES]» is export { 42 } sub infix:«\c[INVISIBLE TIMES]» is export { $ ^ a × $ ^ b } sub prefix:«\c[INVISIBLE SEPARATOR]» (|) is looser (&[,]) is export { say " Ho-ho-ho! " ; } We've used the same character for the term and the infix operator. That's fine, as Perl 6 has fairly strict expectation of terms being followed by operators and vice versa, so it'll know when we meant to use the term or when to use the infix operator. Here's the resultant Grinch code, along with the output it produces: say 42 ; # OUTPUT: # 1764 # Ho-ho-ho! That'll sure be fun to debug! Here's a list of characters in that line of code, for you to see where we've used our invisible goodies: . say for ' say 42; ' . uninames ; # OUTPUT: # INVISIBLE SEPARATOR # LATIN SMALL LETTER S # LATIN SMALL LETTER A # LATIN SMALL LETTER Y # SPACE # DIGIT FOUR # DIGIT TWO # INVISIBLE TIMES # INVISIBLE TIMES # SEMICOLON Ho-Ho-Ho Productivity at Christmas time drops to a standstill. People have the Holidays and the New Year on their minds. Wouldn't surprise me to see a whole bunch of TODO comments in all the codes. But what if we were able to detect and complain about them? There's nothing more Grinch-like than aborting program compilation whenever someone is feeling lazy! Perl 6 has Slangs. It's an experimental feature that currently does not have an officially supported interface, however, for our purpose, it'll do just fine. Using Slangs, it's possible to lexically mutate Perl 6's grammar and introduce language features and behaviour, just like a Perl 6 core developer would: BEGIN $ * LANG . refine_slang : ' MAIN ' , role SomeExtraGrammar { token term: sym < meow > { 'This is not a syntax error' } }, role SomeExtraActions { method EXPR ( Mu $/ ) { say " Parsed expression: " ~ $/ ; nextsame } } This is not a syntax error; say ' hehe ' # OUTPUT: # Parsed expression: This is not a syntax error # Parsed expression: 'hehe' # Parsed expression: say 'hehe' # hehe The "experimental" part of the Slangs feature largely lies in having to rely on the structure of core Grammar and core Actions; currently there's no official guarantee those will remain unchanged, which makes Slangs fragile. For our naughty, Grinchy trick, we'll be modifying behaviour of comments and if we read the code to trace what calls the comment token, we'll find it's actually part of the redefined ws token, which, as you may know from everyday Perl 6 grammars, is responsible for whitespace matching in, among other things, grammar rules . This complicates the matter slightly, as ws is such a cornerstone token that, along with comp_unit , statementlist , and statement , it can't be modified in the mainline (code outside routines and blocks). The reason is the Slang is loaded after the mainline is already being parsed using the stock version of these tokens. The tokens inside statement token can be changed even in the mainline, because statement token reblesses the grammar, but ws does not get such luxury. Since we're starting to tread far into the deep end… enough talk! Let's code: BEGIN $ * LANG . refine_slang : ' MAIN ' , role { token comment: sym < todo > { '#' \s * 'TODO' ':' ? \s + <( \N * { die " Ho-ho-ho! I think you were " ~ " meant to finish " ~ $/ } } } sub business-stuff { # TODO: business stuff } # OUTPUT: # ===SORRY!=== # Ho-ho-ho! I think you were meant to finish business stuff We use the BEGIN phaser to make the Slang modification happen at compile time, since we're trying to affect how further compilation is performed. We added a new proto token comment:sym<todo> to core Perl 6 grammar that matches content similar to what a regular comment would match, except it also looks for the TODO our Christmassy friends decided to leave around. The \N* atom captures whatever string the user typed after the TODO and the <( match capture marker tells the compiler to exclude the previously matched stuff in the token from the captured text inside the Match object stored in the $/ variable. At the end of the token, we simply use a code block to die with a message that tells the user to finish up their TODO. Quite crafty! Since we'd rather the user not notice our jolly tricks, let's stick the Slang into a module that's to be loaded by the target code. We'll just make a slight tweak to the original code: # File: ./Jolly.pm6 sub EXPORT { $ * LANG . refine_slang : ' MAIN ' , role { token comment: sym < todo > { '#' \s * 'TODO' ':' ? \s + <( \N * { die " Ho-ho-ho! I think you were " ~ " meant to finish " ~ $/ } } } Map . new } # File: ./script.p6 use lib < . >; use Jolly; sub business-stuff { # TODO: business stuff } # OUTPUT: # ===SORRY!=== # Ho-ho-ho! I think you were meant to finish business stuff We want the slang to run at the compilation time of the script, not the module, so we removed the BEGIN phaser and instead stuck the code to be inside sub EXPORT , which will run when the module is use d during script's compilation. The Map.new is just how I prefer to write {} in EXPORT sub, to indicate we do not wish to export any symbols. In our script, we now merely have to use the module and the Slang gets activated. Awesome! Conclusion Today, we started off the 2017 Perl 6 Advent Calendar by being naughty Grinches and messing with users' programs. We mutated objects using but and does operators. Wrapped methods and subroutines with our custom routines that implemented extra features. Made invisible terms and operators. And even mutated the language itself to do our bidding. Over the next 23 days, we'll see more Perl 6 Advent articles, so be sure to check back. And maybe, by the end of it all, our Grinchy hearts will grow three sizes… -Ofun |
TOKYO (Reuters) - An explosion rocked a warehouse at a U.S. military base in Sagamihara, Japan, but there were no reports of injuries, Japanese fire officials said on Monday. The local fire department said it received a call just after midnight of an explosion at a U.S. Army depot where it said “dangerous material” is stored and sent firefighters. It added that the fire had subsided and there was no danger of it spreading since there were no adjacent buildings. The cause of the fire was not immediately known, the fire department said. In Washington, U.S. Navy Commander Bill Urban said the blast was at a building at the U.S. Army Sagami General Depot in Sagamihara, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Tokyo. “There are no reports of injury, and base firefighters and first responders are currently fighting the resulting fire to prevent its spread to nearby buildings,” Urban said in an emailed statement. A U.S. Army spokesman said the building did not in fact store any hazardous material. “The building that exploded was not a hazardous material storage facility. We are in the process of determining the contents of the building. The depot does not store ammunition or radiological materials,” Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Toner told Reuters in an email. He added that no troops lived at the depot, where an estimated 200 personnel work in the daytime. |
- A story has been going around the valley about a UFO crash at the base of Squaw Peak Mountain, now Piestewa Peak in 1947. It goes on to say that the Government in an effort to hide all evidence of the crash built the dreamy draw dam over the spacecraft. There are several versions of the story, one of them is outlined in a book written in 1950 by Frank Scully called Behind the Flying Saucers. Scully wrote that in October of 1947 an alien space saucer crashed in the valley. It bounced, skipped, and landed miles away in Cave Creek or Paradise Valley. Another version says there were actually aliens on board who perishes, and their bodies were hauled away by the United States government. Dreamy Draw Dam was then allegedly built over the site to cover it up. "What I sought to do is figure out what happened at Dreamy Draw... all I could find is there were rumors, there was a witness who claimed to have seen something happen either in Cave Creek or Paradise Valley or Dreamy Draw. Unfortunately, before I could speak to this witness directly he passed away," said Alejandro Rojas. Rojas hosts Open Minds Radio and is a UFO researcher and journalist. He explores UFO phenomena from his valley office. Rojas acknowledges that the Dreamy Draw Dam UFO story has several holes the witness was said to have been an unsavory character with little credibility. The dam which was allegedly built to hide the alien crash site in 1947 was actually built in 1973 for flood control purposes. "That's a good point, and that's where the theory kind of falls apart. It was not built until 1973, and we also went out and interviewed a ranger, and he explained how the dam was made," said Rojas. He says the UFO community relies heavily on anecdotes especially from the earlier years. 1947 was a very busy year. "In 1947 there were a lot of things being seen in the sky," he said. The Dreamy Draw spaceship crash was reported in October of 1947, but a few months before on July 7, 1947, there was a picture taken by William Rhodes of Phoenix. It's one of the first and one of the best UFO pictures ever taken. Rhodes says Government agents visited him once the picture was published in the Arizona paper. "They wanted to borrow the image, or borrow the negative, and all they said was we want to make a copy of it, and we'll bring it back," said William Rhodes. Rhodes spoke to FOX 10 about it during a 1998 interview, and the agents reportedly never returned the negatives to him. The grand-daddy of all UFO occurrences, according to witnesses, was a few days later on July 8, 1947, in Roswell New Mexico. Was it a coincidence, or were extra-terrestrial visitors trying to explore the Earth and crash landed a few times in 1947. When stories and rumors persist, Rojas says there is often a shred of truth, and they continue asking questions. At Dreamy Draw Park in Phoenix, people were surprised to hear of the alien crash story, but most were open-minded. "I think it's interesting, I think anything is possible," said one visitor. "Yeah, that's pretty crazy, that's not true," said another. Many say they will continue to dig, to find the truth. There is an upcoming event for UFO believers, for more information visit: http://ufocongress.com/ |
Sonic the Hedgehog's 2013 Wii U game Sonic Lost World is coming to Steam next month, Sega announced today. And that's just one of its older games that Sega plans to port to PC, according to Sega Europe. Sonic Lost World will make the leap to Steam on Nov. 2 and is listed for $29.99. Sega is sweetening the deal by throwing in a copy of racing game Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed to those who pre-purchase Sonic Lost World. The Steam release will also include Sonic Lost World's Nightmare downloadable content. Last year, Sega brought PlayStation 3 role-playing game Valkyria Chronicles to Steam. Based on today's press release, the publisher has even more console-to-PC ports in the works. "We're delighted to be able to bring Sonic Lost World to PC," said John Clark, vice president of commercial publishing for Sega Europe in a statement. "This is the latest in a string of high quality PC ports of past Sega titles that we will be building on in the coming months and years." For more on Sonic Lost World, check out Polygon's review of the Wii U version. |
"Meet the Press" had its highest total viewer delivery since April this past Sunday, averaging 3,359,000 total viewers for David Gregory's most convincing victory in months. ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" — which was guest-hosted by Jake tapper while Stephanopoulos was on vacation — averaged 2,470,000 total viewers for a distant second place, while CBS' "Face the Nation" with Bob Schieffer averaged 2,447,000 total viewers and FOX's "FOX News Sunday" averaged 1,207,000 total viewers. Sunday's "Meet the Press" featured Rachel Maddow's debut on the show; she appeared with former House Majority Leader Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) for an in-depth look at the health care debate. "Meet the Press" hasn't seen an audience as large as Sunday's since April 19, when it featured Larry Summers and averaged 3,439,000 total viewers. Perhaps more importantly, though, it hasn't had as decisive a victory over its chief competitors — ABC's "This Week," which recently topped it for the first time since 1999, and CBS' "Face the Nation" — since the spring. |
A Kenya Wildlife Service ranger inspects and numbers a confiscated ivory consignment at the Mombasa Port on Oct 8. The Kenya Ports Authority intercepted a container with illegal ivory packed between bags of sesame seeds. [Ivan Lieman / Agence France-Presse] China Daily publishes the e-mail addresses of its reporters along with their articles, which means I receive plenty of feedback, criticism and suggestions on the various issues I write about. In most cases, I receive just a few comments, but one cover story I wrote last year on African conservation and China has prompted a continuous supply of e-mails, demonstrating the interest readers have in this topic. Many of them are from outside China, saying that I should tell the Chinese people what is happening in Africa and raise their awareness, so as to prevent poaching here. But if one can read Chinese and examine Chinese social media, one will see that public awareness and education on wildlife conservation has greatly improved, largely thanks to online social media. Last week, the Tanzanian government detained three Chinese suspects for illegally possessing a huge haul of 706 elephants tusks in their residence in Dar es Salaam. Tourism Minister Khamis Kagasheki said, "It means 353 elephants were killed to get all those tusks." That was the front page and headline news for all major media in Tanzania, and African people again became angry about the poaching and smuggling. But this time, Chinese people are getting even angrier, especially with their compatriots living and working in Africa. "I really have no idea what they are thinking about, and the image of the Chinese community is being ruined by such people,"wrote one Tanzania-based Chinese businessman on Sina Weibo, China.s version of Twitter. Since the microblog became popular in China in 2009, it has turned into a significant platform for public discussion on many social issues, as well as a means of disseminating information. By the end of 2012, more than 500 million users had registered with Sina Weibo. As soon as the news of the ivory haul had been released in Tanzania, it was translated into Chinese and posted on the Internet. The story was read by more than 10,000 users in just one day, and many netizens left messages expressing their anger over the smuggling. Some of the messages were quite extreme, such as one saying, "Their teeth should be taken away and they should be put in the zoo". Others called for prison sentences for the suspects, similar to the 31-month jail term handed down to a Chinese woman in August for smuggling ivory products in Kenya. Chinese expatriates working in Africa are probably the most disappointed and angry group, as they were normally perceived as the main buyers of ivory products, although most of them are innocent. I.m a member of an online chat group organized by Chinese expatriates in Kenya. It has around 500 members, representing almost all business communities in the country. Any member asking how to buy ivory products and take them back to China is immediately banned from the group. While the Internet has become a place for exchanging opinions, it also serves as a public education platform in terms of wildlife protection in China. Influential Chinese celebrities like former NBA star Yao Ming and actress Li Bingbing have visited Africa and learned how serious the poaching is. They have been publicizing their views within Africa and calling on their millions of followers to stop buying ivory products. According to statistics provided by weibo, the platform.s recent online discussion on the topic "Save the Elephants"generated more than 11.4 million messages. Not only has the Chinese community in Africa become more aware of anti-poaching efforts, but the younger generations in China are helping to raise awareness in their own country. Zhuo Qiang, a Chinese conservationist living in Africa, told me that a recent lecture he gave on wildlife protection was very popular with college students in China and he has helped them establish many campus associations focusing on wildlife protection and conservation across the country. But of course, this is not and should not be a unilateral effort. Zhuo, who is director of the Eastern Africa Wildlife Society, said that African governments should also collaborate with international players to stop poaching at the very start of the supply chain. The author is Li Lianxing with China Daily. |
TV Reviews All of our TV reviews in one convenient place. For its first 20 or so minutes, “Kill The Moon” is fine. There’s plenty of tension and suspense as the Doctor, Clara, Courtney, and their newfound astronaut allies explore the impossibly heavy Moon, discover the disquieting remains of the Mexican survey team, and survive attacks from bacteria the size of badgers. The episode only struggles slightly because that central mystery—seriously, how did the Moon suddenly add the ridiculous amount of extra mass needed to make its gravity equivalent to that of Earth?—is so huge, so goofy, so beyond our pitiful human comprehension that the episode can’t really snap into focus until it’s resolved. And, 20 minutes in, we get our answer, as the Doctor, joyous and awestruck in a way that we’ve so rarely seen in this incarnation, explains that what we think of as the Moon is really just the shell for the biggest egg in the universe, and that egg is hatching. This is Doctor Who at its most lovably preposterous, showing its willingness to tackle literally any concept. It’s taken a little while, but “Kill The Moon” now has its premise. The only question now is what happens next. And what happens next represents 25 of the best, most important, and most heartbreaking minutes in Doctor Who’s long history. Advertisement As soon as the Doctor finishes his monologue about the lunar egg, the audience knows a twist is coming. The first such narrative pivot is so familiar that I’ll call it the “Midnight” turn. Just as the passengers on that besieged bus responded to the 10th Doctor’s appeal to the best of the humanity with a moment’s pause and then a cold consensus that all were willing to kill the monster, so too does Hermione Norris’ astronaut break the silence by asking the Doctor how they can kill the Moon. It’s not an unexpected development, really, but it’s a necessary signal that the episode is about to get serious. The show has found a terrific moral dilemma for itself, one with plenty to say about the Doctor; after all, he’s a unique creature about to witness the birth of another unique creature, the very existence of which has clouded his knowledge of the cosmic timeline. Defending the lunar creature is just the kind of opportunity we’ve been waiting for, a real chance for this Doctor to show his idealistic bona fides and help show the astronaut a better way. It definitely wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen that on new Doctor Who. Nah. This episode has something far darker, far more controversial in mind. “Kill The Moon” is the second time this season that Doctor Who has genuinely surprised me. That fact, above all else, is why tonight’s episode and “Listen” rate as instant classics. Neither episode is flawless, and neither represents the show heading into bold new territory on a plot level. Just as “Listen” could not exist without every previous Steven Moffat-penned exploration of childhood fear, “Kill The Moon” can feel almost derivative of earlier moral dilemmas in space, most notably “Midnight” and “The Waters Of Mars.” But what both “Listen” and “Kill The Moon” do is take all that familiar material and use it to play with our most basic assumptions about what Doctor Who is. Somewhere around the halfway mark of both episodes, they take sharp turns away from what eight seasons of new Doctor Who has taught us to expect. After nearly a decade back on the air, there are only so many ways for the revived series to genuinely shock its audience. These two episodes accomplish that feat by weaponizing our own narrative expectations and turning them against us. That’s a neat storytelling trick, but then Steven Moffat’s tenure as showrunner has never been short on such cleverness. Don’t read that as too much of a backhanded swipe—I dearly love episodes like “The Wedding Of River Song,” which is pretty much exclusively narrative pyrotechnics—but what has made these two episodes so powerful and the season in general such a return to form is the renewed emphasis on character. The Doctor’s pursuit of a non-existent monster and his decision to leave the humans to solve their own crisis exist not simply to deconstruct the tropes of past Doctor Who stories, but more importantly to help us better understand who the Doctor is. And what’s really remarkable is that these two episodes, so similar in their broad approach, end up taking us in diametrically opposed directions. Both stories present the Doctor at his most alien and remote; after seven seasons spent getting to know this Time Lord, he has never felt quite so much like a stranger, nor quite so dangerous. “Listen” ultimately circled back, using the Doctor’s manic episode to reveal his all too human fears and frailties. That episode ended in a place of love and understanding. But “Kill The Moon” makes him, if not precisely the villain, then at least something as far away from a hero as he’s been in a long, long time. Advertisement We need to ease into this one, because “Kill The Moon” takes the hardest narrative left turn in Doctor Who’s 51-year history. This episode, this season, maybe the whole damn Moffat era is going to be defined by that final scene in the TARDIS, in which Clara delivers the most blistering rebuke we have ever seen any companion give the Doctor. It’s a brutal but absolutely necessary scene, one that finally articulates in uncompromising fashion what is so fundamentally troubling about the Doctor’s relationship with humanity, his favorite pet species. Again, you can see how crucial “Midnight”—before this season, easily Doctor Who’s fiercest deconstruction of itself—to this episode’s creative DNA; if “Listen” took that episode’s unseen, unknowable monster to its logical conclusion, then “Kill The Moon” takes the examination of the Doctor’s flawed, imperious relationship with humans to its breaking point. But who could have ever predicted that result at the outset of this episode? (Excluding those who read the behind-the-scenes previews and stay up to date on spoilers, that is.) Theoretically, the original point of the entire lunar exercise was to prove that young Courtney Woods was special. Or, more accurately, for the Doctor to avoid addressing whether he actually thinks Courtney is special. But then, that scene in the hallways of Coal Hill School between the Doctor and Clara is only the first scene chronologically. The actual first scene of “Kill The Moon” comes before the credits, as we see part of Clara’s desperate message to Earth. So much time elapses between the credits and the rest of the message that it’s easy to forget that the episode even begins in media res, but in retrospect that scene plays like the cruelest joke on the audience, and perhaps a bit of devious reverse psychology. After all, that pre-credits sequence tells us that Clara and Courtney must make an impossible decision, weighing the life of an innocent against the fate of all humanity, but it also tells us that the Doctor isn’t there to help. And, honestly, if you had given me a hundred guesses as to where the Doctor is during that scene, I’m not sure it would have occurred to me that the Doctor would have just left. He could have been captured, or he could have headed off on some equally important side mission to buy them some time, or he could have seemingly died, no doubt in some heroic sacrifice. But for the Doctor—even this Doctor, a far more difficult and unpredictable incarnation than most—to just abandon his friend and all humanity in their darkest hour? I never would have guessed that without seeing it happen. That’s not to say that the Doctor’s decision here has no prior precedent. The Doctor has always been maddeningly inconsistent about what he can and can’t do, and how much he is and isn’t bound by the laws of time. He repeatedly tried to leave the crewmembers of Bowie Base One to their terrible fate in “The Waters Of Mars,” and his ultimate interference remains the 10th Doctor’s gravest error. That same incarnation was all too prepared to leave the people of Pompeii to their deaths, and it was only at Donna’s insistence that he saved even four people. (Well, perhaps he just liked Caecilius’ face.) Some instances where the Doctor refused to get involved were relatively benign: Consider the 9th Doctor’s insistence that humans should be left to handle first contact by themselves in “Aliens Of London,” or the 11th Doctor’s decree that only humans and Silurians could be involved in the peace negotiations in “The Hungry Earth”/“Cold Blood.” On some level, what we’re dealing with here is the writers’ own imperfect attempts to explain why the Doctor gets involved sometimes and why he doesn’t in other instances. “Kill The Moon” has the Doctor make all the standard arguments about how his temporal vision is imperfect and how he can’t change the course of truly momentous events, though it’s hard not to think the show is purposefully undermining his point by having him repeatedly mention not killing Hitler, when that’s totally a thing he almost did. (Not that he ever meant to, but still.) Advertisement But again, “Kill The Moon” isn’t primarily interested in wrestling with abstract matters of metanarrative or whatever the hell else. The Doctor abandons Clara for reasons so obscure that even he doesn’t appear to understand them. His is not a logical decision, but it damn sure is the decision of an officer, and an aristocratic one at that. There are so many ways to analyze that final scene between Clara and the Doctor, and I’ll get to some more when in a little bit, but consider the one line that the Doctor says without a trace of confidence or certainty, as though it’s the one moment in which even he doubts his own bullshit. He tries to argue that he left because that was his way of respecting Clara. Again, we’ll come back to Clara’s response, but consider the implication of that line: If abandoning Clara was a sign of respect, what does that mean for every instance in which he stays to help? Does he ever respect Clara, let alone any human who doesn’t travel with him in the TARDIS? If he sees his default role as a kind of cosmic chaperone, then that leaves precious little room for friendship. After all, friendship implies equality. According to Doctor Who Magazine, episode writer Peter Harness—who makes one hell of a debut here—originally penned “Kill The Moon” as a story for Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor. Frankly, I find that impossible to believe. I mean, I can just about see how you could make this story work for the 11th Doctor, as he absolutely had his own dark and manipulative streak, but that was so often tempered by what Madame Vastra identified in “Deep Breath” as his desire to fit in; he might have talked a big game about just leaving, but some combination of curiosity and loneliness—and, sure, maybe compassion—would have forced him to stick with the humans. “Kill The Moon” derives so much of its power from the presence of the 12th Doctor, because this is another episode that makes good on Vastra’s promise that this is a Doctor without disguise or affectation. Every Doctor would have been tempted to do his Time Lord duty and leave the human race to its pivotal decision, but this is the first Doctor in a long time who feels him Time Lord side so keenly as to actually follow through on it, and his disinterest in human niceties means he’s particularly cruel in his goodbye to Clara. But then, a good general doesn’t motivate his troops by being nice to them. The Doctor probably does have absolute faith in Clara’s ability to make the right decision, but that’s because he has trained her well, not because he trusts his friends. As for Clara, I’ve got to admit I didn’t expect the show to pay off so immediately Danny’s concerns from “The Caretaker.” There really isn’t enough praise to be given both to Harness’ script and to Jenna Coleman’s performance in that final scene. Going back to my Clara discussion in “The Caretaker,” this is where Clara’s status as a less well-defined companion actually serves the show. From the beginning, Clara has always been defined in terms of the Doctor; this season has been far smarter about delineating why the Doctor needs her, positioning her as something between carer and psychiatrist, but she is still a character whose primary trait is her absolute belief in the Doctor. And yeah, that’s true of every companion, at least in new Doctor Who, but that defines her so much more than anything else, so it’s all the more heartbreaking when it’s she, the companion defined again and again by her absolute belief in the Doctor, whatever form he takes, whom the Doctor betrays. When Clara banishes the Doctor and calls him out for every last detail of his hypocrisy, she speaks for every companion, every insignificant human the Doctor has ever used, manipulated, or otherwise relied upon to make a difficult decision that he could not stomach doing himself. Advertisement And yet, Clara does so in a way that is uniquely her. It’s not a coincidence that Clara’s three best moments on the show—her interrogation of Skaldak in “Cold War,” her confrontation with the Half-Face Man in “Deep Breath,” and now this scene—all find her on the verge of the tears, and Doctor Who has never once suggested this is a sign of weakness or vulnerability. (Well, “Cold War” considered the possibility, but then David Warner dismissed the idea, and I’m not going to disagree with David Warner.) Clara has been hurt by the Doctor on the most fundamental level, and the fact that she never hides the depth of that hurt during the confrontation is a sign of incredible strength. What’s more, it’s a kind of strength that feels a million miles away from the “strong female character” archetype we’ve seen so often in the Moffat era; hell, it’s hard not to see some real world-parallels when Clara furiously calls out a middle-aged Scotsman for all the ways his treatment of her is thoughtless and patronizing. Whoever wrote that scene—it’s hard not to think Steven Moffat didn’t have a hand in it, at least in the rewriting phase—it plays like a much larger acknowledgment of the show’s past shortcomings, and the fact that the Doctor ultimately just has to shut up and take it is what makes it feel so revolutionary. In the meantime, I might well have been wrong in my review of “The Caretaker,” as the show just gave Clara one hell of a vital character arc to play out over the next five episodes. As I said a couple thousand words ago, “Kill The Moon” isn’t perfect. As I say, the episode is fuzzier than it strictly needs to be in the early going, and the supporting characters are underwritten, to put it mildly; Hermione Norris’ main astronaut is named Lundvik, but I’m pretty sure there’s only a single, contextually unclear mention of that before the closing credits. Lundvik is basically just Adelaide Brooke from “The Waters Of Mars” with the serial number filed off; the episode basically relies on our familiarity with this particularly Doctor Who character archetype to lend Lundvik a specificity that isn’t really present in the script. Still, writing is only half of what makes up a character, and “Kill The Moon” benefits tremendously from Norris’ performance. She hits just the right balance between steely determination, broken idealism, and occasional flashes of warmth, and it’s a clever touch to have her so immediately accept that the Doctor and Clara are time travelers; once again, this is an episode that does not engage in unnecessary obfuscation, all the better to focus on what’s really going on between the characters. Besides, just as last week’s “The Caretaker” actually worked better because Clara is less sharply drawn than previous companions, so too does “Kill The Moon” rely on archetypes. The back half of this episode is very much a morality play, and we don’t really need the characters to fulfill anything more than a trio of symbolic roles. Lundvik is the scared person willing to make the hard choice, Courtney is the innocent who cannot countenance such a transgression, and Clara is the good person trying to find the right decision. The Doctor’s own assessment of his three chosen humans fits with this reading. Compare this episode to the last time the Doctor donned that spacesuit, last year’s “Hide.” That’s an episode where the 11th Doctor repeatedly exhorts his newfound allies to action with individualized pleas; he talks of how the characters will do what they do because they are Emma Grayling and Alec Palmer and Hila Tukurian. But here, the new Doctor won’t go into more detail than saying a schoolteacher, an astronaut, and a teenager should be sufficient to find the right answer. In a particularly detached early moment, he even asks what Courtney Woods is. The Doctor has to make an effort to connect with people as individuals, and his downfall in this episode is a complete lack of effort. Advertisement Perhaps that’s too close a reading; overanalysis is often an issue with Doctor Who. But the thing about this show is that it’s almost impossible to get everything from watching an episode only once. As I discussed last year in my review of the deeply flawed but fascinating “Nightmare In Silver,” a lot of that is down to the wild variance in what a Doctor Who episode looks like week to week; almost nothing about “The Caretaker” can prepare audiences for the genre conventions and storytelling choices found in “Kill The Moon.” Sometimes, as with “Nightmare In Silver,” it takes a couple watches just to get what kind of story an episode is trying to tell. “Kill The Moon” isn’t in that territory, even if the first half of the episode is decidedly richer once you can watch again with the knowledge of what’s to come. But this is an episode that absolutely nails its plot beats, its moral dilemma, its exploration of the Doctor’s failure, and Clara’s rejection of him. Whatever minor flaws this episode has, it gets all the big-picture stuff absolutely right on the first watch, and that opens the door for thematic deep dives on subsequent viewings. I already mentioned how the pre-credits sequence becomes a bit of particularly brutal foreshadowing, but it’s also possible to fit in little, seemingly disconnected moments—like, say, Clara lecturing the Doctor on her duty of care to Courtney—to the Doctor’s own failures to humans, Clara above all. This is an episode that we’re going to be talking about for a long, long time. Even after 3,000 words, I can’t help but feel I’m only scratching the surface of all this has to say about the show and its main character. This season is already a return to form, but “Kill The Moon” could help turn it into something truly special. Stray observations: I took a break from praising Peter Capaldi this week, but yeah, he remains absolutely fantastic in the role. He’s absolutely terrifying when he tells Clara it’s time to take the stabilizers off her bike, but he’s also crucial to the success of the final scene with Clara, as he masterfully allows the Doctor’s confidence and bluster to ebb away. Oh, and his sudden onrush of knowledge about the future of humanity is really nicely done as well, as though a wave of time is washing over him. Pretty sure my three-way tie for favorite Doctor is now a four-way tie. Ellis George is also excellent as Courtney Woods. It’s so easy to misfire on these teenage brat characters, but a big point of this episode is she isn’t really a brat; yeah, she hasn’t found a place to fit in yet, and she can’t resist giving Clara some guff about wanting to have kids with Mr. Pink, but overall she shows considerable resolve in asking to come back and fight for the Moon’s right to live, even after she was understandably traumatized by her encounter with the bacteria. Speaking of Danny Pink, Samuel Anderson makes the most of his short appearance here. After being the undeniable focus of “The Caretaker,” it’s nice to see Danny shift into a supporting role here, offering some good insight about why Clara isn’t done with the Doctor, at least not yet. Also, his line about wisdom coming from a really bad day has plenty of echoes with the Doctor’s own experience. Perhaps turning his worst ever day into his best one in “The Day Of The Doctor” has actually robbed him of some hard-won wisdom. The Tumblr discussion is a really nice touch, particularly as Lundvik talks about it as something practically prehistoric. Plus, like “Russian,” “Tumblr” is a word that sounds really adorable in Jenna Coleman’s Blackpool accent, so that’s a plus. “Prat.” Truer words have never been spoken, Lundvik. Well, word. But yeah, it’s the right thing to say right there. |
67 Shares 0 67 0 0 Mohsen Abdelmoumen: You are a great American thinker converted to Islam, how do you live your faith in the US? Dr. Kevin Barrett: “Great?” I’m not sure about that, and don’t expect to see my bust on Mount Rushmore any time soon. Anyway...Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the US. But today, American Muslims are on the defensive. Neoconservative Zionists have orchestrated a huge, well-funded propaganda war on Islam, and they have succeeded in spreading Islamophobia. Today it is harder to “live your faith” in public than it was in the 1990s. I reverted to Islam in 1993. At the personal level, time pressures of the American lifestyle, and Americans’ lack of understanding, make it somewhat more difficult to pray salaat on time and fast during Ramadan than it is in Islamic countries. American Muslims have to put more effort into it, and it becomes a more serious test (imtihan). I have lived in Morocco, where it is relatively easy to pray each time you hear the adhan, and to fast along with everyone else. In the US, you have to pay more attention to the prayer times, find a way to make time for salaat even when those around you are all pressuring you to keep busy. And you have to struggle against public pressure, rather than go along with it, when you fast. It has become easier for me to practice since I moved out of the city and became self-employed. My wife, two sons, and I all pray the five daily prayers, fast together during Ramadan, pray jumuah in our small log cabin mosque in the woods, and experience relatively little exposure to alcohol and other haram behaviors. But I don’t want to completely cut myself off from socializing with my neighbors, all of whom are non-Muslim. So I watch sporting events with them in the local tavern, ordering non-alcoholic beverages (including the “Virgin Mary,” which they think is a funny name for a Muslim’s favorite drink…until I explain that Muslims revere Mary the mother of Isa just as much as Christians do). I know some Muslims would say I should stay away from taverns, period. That would definitely be true if I still had any desire for alcohol. But I don’t, alhamdullilah; my body now instinctively recognizes that it is poison. So I think it’s better to be a friendly, non-threatening neighbor and participate in local socializing and give a good impression of Islam, than to withdraw completely from everyone around me. In the long run, I think Islam will grow and become a much more prominent part of America - perhaps eventually the number one religion in America - if we engage with our neighbors, find common ground with them, and communicate with them in a positive, friendly, reasonably non-judgmental way. All the information collected near various sources leads us to the United States concerning the creation of Daesh, as it was the case with Al-Qaeda, according to the confession of Mrs. Clinton herself; if the empire destroys us with a Wahhabit, salafist, doctrine, what do we make, us, the Muslims, to protect us from conspiracies of empire? I think the Empire has been encouraging the Wahhabi and extreme-Salafist versions of Islam because those approaches actually tend to undermine Islam, in two ways: First, Wahhabism operates as a kind of neo-Khawarij school that spends most of its energy fighting other Muslims and spreading fitna within the Ummah; and second, Wahhabi-takfiri approaches to Islam tend to be rigid, ultra-puritanical, and obscurantist, and therefore alienating to a great many people (both Muslim and non-Muslim) and ill-suited to thriving and spreading in today’s world. As Muslims we need to recognize this, and find a way to neutralize these tendencies. We need to educate young people, and re-educate those who have been misled. And we might also consider trying to turn salafism in a better (or at least less dangerous) direction. The basic concept of salafism, in my opinion, is not inherently toxic. Even though I don’t identify with it personally, the idea of focusing directly on Qur’an and sunna rather than adhering to a single law school is not necessarily unreasonable in itself. It only becomes unreasonable when it is practiced from an extremist, obscurantist or takfiri perspective. So maybe we need to offer encouragement to the “reasonable salafis” and engage with them. I know such people exist, because I have met several of them. You sent me a video of one of your debates where you mentioned the thought of Mohamed Arkoun, an Algerian thinker and not Moroccan, have you met the thought of Malek Bennabi that shone throughout the Muslim world? Yes, I have read him, though not extensively, and have great respect for him. In particular, I think he is right about the need for an intellectual renaissance of ideas, not just material progress. This insight illustrates why the obscurantism of the takfiris is so dangerous and destructive. Bennabi is one of the key thinkers of the Islamic Revival and I look forward to reading more of his work insha’allah. Why, in the Muslim world, did we move away from the thought of Malek Bennabi to freeze in the Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabit, salafist, matrix of the Gulf's Bedouins which plunged us into the darkness of Daesh? That is a very good question. I think the short answer is that the Gulf Bedouins have so much oil money, and so much backing from the Empire, that they have been able to mentally colonize much of the Islamic world. Why did we let the imperialism play with our Sunni-Shiite splits, etc. and transform the Muslim ground into play-station where multinationals plunder our wealth? Is the external enemy alone guilty? Why didn't we built strong States with strong institutions which immunize us of imperialism? Today’s world, with its frenetic economic activity, spiritual emptiness, and idolatry of nation-states, is not ideally suited for a powerful state-building Islam. Dajjal has been out of the bottle for 500 years, so the tools of power in the modern world - usury, Machievellian big lies and amorality, techno-warfare that is inherently a form of terrorism, worship of the State and its rulers rather than God, and so on - are tools that devout Muslims cannot use. These shaitani tools of power are all social cancers that have created an unhealthy explosion of economic, technological and population growth that becomes less and less sustainable the bigger it gets. So I tend to agree with Shaykh Imran Hosein, who is skeptical about possibilities for strong “Islamic states” today. But despite this bleak situation, we have seen a resurgence of Islam among the people, and some successes with Islamic-state-building in Iran (and perhaps some smaller successes elsewhere). I think we should remember to celebrate the positive side, especially the resilience of Islam in a modern world overrun by dajjal, rather than just feeling bad about not having powerful states like the shaitani ones that dominate today’s ever-more-corrupt dunya. In the very interesting video which you sent me with the intervention of professor Anthony J. Hall, I found that there is a great similarity in the extermination of the indigenous peoples of America by British colonists and French colonialism who has exterminated by mass the Algerian people with the same processes. Don’t you think that the American Empire is in the historical continuity of its British and French predecessors? Absolutely. As Shaykh Imran Hosein says, the British Empire gave way to the American Empire in the 20th century; then the Zionist Empire took over from the American Empire in the coup d’état of September 11th, 2001. All three Empires have exterminated indigenous people in similar ways. (As the French did in Algeria and elsewhere.) You worked on 9/11, the stay behind and Gladio operations, Charlie Hebdo, etc. and the concept of false flag, without alternative media and with only the mass media like CNN in which you are already intervened, would we have known the truth, or at least a part of the truth about what really happened? The truth about “deep events” has been largely banned from US mainstream media for many decades. For example, the American people were not told about the coup d’état against President Roosevelt in the 1930s that was planned by America’s richest families and exposed by Gen. Smedley Butler. They only learned the truth about the 1963 JFK assassination by reading underground newspapers and magazines (such as the work of investigative journalist Warren Hinckle published in Ramparts magazine). And today, they can only learn the truth about 9/11, Operation Gladio, Charlie Hebdo and so on from the internet-based alternative media. Unfortunately, many Americans have been brainwashed to see the alternative media as less prestigious than the mainstream media. I have tried to help solve this problem by finding strategies for getting truthful information into the mainstream (such as provoking the mainstream coverage I got in 2006). And I also try to get truthful information published in books, such as We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo and ANOTHER French False Flag, in order to put the truth in a more authoritative, respectable, reasonably scholarly package. The history of humanity is made of plots and conspiracies, how do you explain that the empire and its watchdogs have the vital need to label people who propose another vision of some major events by calling them conspiracy theorists and other derogatory terms? The CIA launched the term “conspiracy theorist” in the 1960s with its Directive 1035-60, a memo to its mainstream media assets telling them to pejoratively label people who questioned the official version of the JFK assassination with this term. Since then, this “weaponized term” has become one of the Empire’s most powerful weapons against the truth. Whenever the Empire’s rulers are about to be exposed for committing a crime that their people would not tolerate, the rulers demonize the truth-tellers as “conspiracy theorists.” So the correct definition of “conspiracy theory” is “a truth that would, if it were exposed in a timely way, radically change the world." How do you explain the need for US imperialism to always designate an enemy and to condition its population to live in fear? I think this is a universal human trait, not just an American one. René Girard, one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, showed how scapegoating an “enemy” is the most basic way that societies ward off fitna and hold themselves together. And Karl Schmitt, the most influential political philosopher of the 20th century, argued that this kind of scapegoating enemies is the essence of politics. But the US does it more obviously and destructively than any other nation today except Israel. Why? Perhaps it is because the US was built on scapegoating and exterminating Native Americans, and scapegoating and enslaving or impoverishing African-Americans. Professor Anthony Hall has made this argument in his Bowl with One Spoon books. Additionally, the US has been a powerful and (until recently) growing empire, with no actual enemies capable of harming it, so it has had to work unusually hard to invent imaginary enemies. When we see the ideological matrix of Al-Qaeda or Daesh, which are branches of imperialism, can we assume that the monster will eventually turn against its creator? Does the US imperialism still have control on the hordes of islamist fascists? I agree with Shaykh Imran Hosein that there may be enough brainwashed young people joining takfiri groups so that the Empire will not, in the future, have to employ professional Special Forces type killers in its false flag events, but will be able to use actual takfiris to do the killing. In this sense the “monster will turn against its creator.” But whether Daesh or al-Qaeda will ever be able to inflict damage on the Empire that the Empire does not welcome is another question. Given the “progress” in WMD technology, such a prospect cannot be ruled out. With the horrors experienced daily by the Muslim world and the bloodshed that never ends, can we still dream of Al-Andalus (Andalusia)? After the current age of all-devouring riba, strife, out-of-control technology, and ecological disaster ends (or preferably “settles down”) we may get much closer to a new golden age along the lines of al-Andalus. By working toward that goal today, “persisting in truth, patiently persisting” we can at least know that we are doing our best in the eyes of God, the only gaze of the Other that matters. So whether or not we reach al-Andalus in this lifetime we will have an interesting journey and, insha’allah, a taste of al-nafs al-mutmainnah, the soul at peace. Interview realized by Mohsen Abdelmoumen Who is the Dr. Kevin Barrett? Dr. Kevin Barrett, a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist, holds advanced degrees in English Literature, French Literature, and African Literature, and is the author of three books including Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters (2009) which deconstructs the "war on terror" through Socratic questioning. Dr. Barrett was also the lead editor, along with John Cobb and Sandra Lubarsky, of 9/11 and American Empire v.2: Christians, Jews and Muslims Speak Out. He has taught the French and Arabic languages, African literature, English, humanities, religious studies, and folklore at colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Barrett reverted to Islam in 1993. He serves on the board of the nonprofit religious corporation Khidria, Inc. which sponsors a mosque in Madison, Wisconsin and is dedicated to "spreading the truth to build a sustainable future." He has both a scholarly and personal interest in Islamic spirituality, and wrote a Ph.D. dissertation on medieval North African saints' legends. He is a co-founder of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth and Muslims for 9/11 Truth. Blacklisted from teaching in the University of Wisconsin system since 2006, Dr. Barrett has recently worked as a talk radio host, author, public speaker, and congressional candidate (Wisconsin's 3rd District, 2008). One of the best-known critics of the War on Terror, Dr. Barrett has appeared on Fox, CNN, PBS, ABC-TV, Unavision, and Russia Today, PressTV, he his editor in Veterans Today, and he runs his website Truth Jihad. He has been the subject of op-eds and feature stories in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, and other publications. Dr. Barrett hosts two talk radio shows. He lives in McFarland, Wisconsin. |
Calls for Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-6th District) to hold a town hall meeting continued Thursday at an open door meeting with Goodlatte's staff in Broadway. Over the past several months, there have been calls for Goodlatte to hold a town hall, as opposed to in-phone or on social media. He declined a town hall invitation from Roanoke Indivisible in February. Lynlee Wastie says she has requested a facilitated public meeting with Goodlatte on every weekday since October, but has not heard back. "We don't expect him to agree with us, but we do expect him to show up and actually engage us and have a dialogue about our concerns, we feel like that's part of his job and that he's failing to live up to his responsibilities to us," said Wastie. Wastie says Goodlatte may be afraid to hold a town hall, considering the tense moments at town halls across the country. "I've always made it my priority to communicate with the people I represent, and I strive to be in communities across the district as often as possible," said Goodlatte in an emailed statement to WHSV. "I meet regularly with groups or individuals who have requested appointments, attend community events, and correspond with constituents who have contacted my office via phone, email, postal mail, and social media. In addition, I have hosted telephone town hall calls and Facebook Live events that allow me to reach thousands of people at once and take questions from constituents as they all participate." You can sign up for Goodlatte's telephone town halls through a form on his website: https://goodlatte.house.gov/ Attendees also pressed the staffers with how their concerns are given to the Congressman after open door meetings. District Representative Emily Wicht responded by saying that she does meet face-to-face with Goodlatte after the meetings. John Schaldach, who works with a civic engagement group called Indivisible Harrisonburg, says he has concerns over the American Health Care Act and wants to voice them to Goodlatte. "The bill is a massive tax giveaway to the wealthiest Americans... it's going to raise rates on elderly Americans and that many people are going to lose their coverage and what concerns me is that Goodlatte passed this and isn't willing to talk with us about this," said Schaldach. "Under the AHCA. insurers are prohibited from denying coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition. In fact the plan takes careful steps to ensure that these important protections are maintained. Furthermore, the Upton-Long Amendment strengthens the AHCA's pre-existing conditions protections by providing an additional $8 billion to help reduce premiums or out of pocket costs for those who may have a pre-existing condition." Goodlatte did stop in the Shenandoah Valley at the end of March to honor Vietnam War veterans, marking the first time he had visited the area in a while. He also spoke with WHSV's Bob Corso on March 13 about town halls and about the House's effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, which, at that time, was up in the air. |
Image copyright Thinkstock Nutella, the nutty chocolate spread, is turning 50. Last year some 365 million kilos were consumed - roughly the weight of the Empire State Building - in 160 countries around the world. Half a century ago, in a small town in northern Italy, this would have been unimaginable. In the hungry months after the end of World War Two, a young confectioner has a vision - of an affordable luxury made of a small amount of cocoa and lots of hazelnuts. His name: Pietro Ferrero. "My grandfather lived to find this formula. He was completely obsessed by it," says the current boss of the family business, Giovanni Ferrero. "He woke up my grandmother at midnight - she was sleeping - and he made her taste it with spoons, asking, 'How was it?' and 'What do you think?'" The way the family tells the story, it's a modern fairytale. Pietro was a humble man who lived in an enchanting region famed throughout the land for its delicious and abundant hazelnuts. Times were hard and chocolatey delights were not for the common people. Still, he dreamed of a magic formula that would enable everyone to enjoy his sweet treats. There's a happy ending, too. Ferrero's tiny business in the picturesque town of Alba goes on to become the fourth most important international group in the chocolate confectionery market, with an annual turnover of more than 8bn euros (£6.5bn; $11bn). Image copyright Ferrero When Pietro had his vision, the Piedmont region of Italy, and its capital Turin, was already famed for its chocolate industry. It was the birthplace of Gianduja, a creamy combination of chocolate and hazelnuts. But only the rich could think of buying it. "Chocolate was so expensive, it was really high-end, nobody could afford it, at least in Italy," says Giovanni Ferrero. Image copyright Ferrero But in 1946 his grandfather launched Giandujot, or Pasta Gianduja. Produced as loaves wrapped in aluminium foil, it was a sort of solidified Nutella that had to be cut with a knife. The first spreadable version - Supercrema - came a few years later. "This was a big success," says Giovanni. "It was the first brand that allowed people to enjoy confectionery at a very accessible price, even if it was not fully confectionery. This is how everything started." Spreadability meant that a small amount went a long way, helping to break down the perception that chocolate was, as Giovanni puts it, "only for very special occasions and celebrations like Christmas and Easter". It could also be eaten with bread, which formed a big part of the diet at the time. People who never ate chocolate got the Supercrema habit. But it was Pietro's son, Michele Ferrero, who turned it into Nutella, relaunching it with its now famously secret recipe and iconic glass jar. His father was a man obsessed, says Giovanni, just like his grandfather. "My father said, 'We can push it further, there are new technologies, there are new ways to integrate this winning recipe,'" he says. "Nutella was born the same year as I was born, 1964, so I have a small brother in the family! And it was not just an Italian success but a European success." Image copyright Poste Italiane Image caption The Italian post office has marked the anniversary with a stamp The name gave the product instant international appeal. It said nuts. It also said Italy - "-ella" being a common affectionate or diminutive ending in Italian, as in mozzarella (cheese), tagliatella (a form of pasta), or caramella (Italian for a sweet). Fifty years on, Nutella is a global phenomenon, produced in 11 factories worldwide, and accounting for one fifth of the Ferrero Group's turnover, along with other products such as Kinder and Ferrero Rocher chocolates. The company is the number one user of hazelnuts in the world, buying up 25% of the entire world production. But how did one brand of hazelnut chocolate spread manage to creep its way into so many kitchen cupboards for a full five decades? Roberta Sassatelli, associate professor of cultural sociology at Milan University and author of Consumer Culture, says initially Nutella was the epitome of a "pop lux" (popular luxury) for Italians. "Nutella was something above average, something which was not a necessity," she says. "It was something very sweet and modern and different from the classic sweets in Italy… So, to Italians it meant both modernity and the possibility of giving yourself a treat." Both characteristics are embodied in its glass jar, with a "traditional and luxurious" shape, yet a plastic cap that is "modern, cheap and functional". The marketing of Nutella, Sassatelli says, has been a triumph. "They never sold it as a surrogate, and this was very clever. They could have played on different universal values like, 'This is cheap, this is affordable, this can substitute chocolate.' No, they played upon,'This is natural, it contains nuts so it's better than those that don't contain them.'" Image copyright Alamy The images used to sell Nutella have tended to relate to children and family, she says - it may be an indulgence, but it's presented as the opposite of dangerous or decadent. What goes into Nutella? Image copyright Thinkstock 97 hazelnuts in each 750g jar Ingredients: Sugar, palm oil (non-hydrogenated), hazelnuts, low-fat cocoa, skimmed-milk powder, whey powder, emulsifier (soya lecithin), vanillin Nutritional information per 100g: 544 kcal, protein 6g, sugar 56.7g, fat 31.6g Produced in 11 factories located in Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and Australia "It allows you little forms of transgression. It's a spread so you can dirty yourself a bit, but it's just for fun. I think that in the course of the history of Nutella, this is something which has been played on a lot - Nutella as a 'polite transgression'." The company has been particularly good at marketing Nutella as a good ingredient for a nutritious breakfast, Sassatelli says, emphasising the hazelnuts and milk rather than the high content of sugar and saturated fat. It is in fact nearly 57% sugar and 32% fat - and about a third of the fat is saturated. "We all want our kids to have a balanced breakfast," said an advertisement in the UK in 2008, adding that each 400g jar contained 52 hazelnuts, the equivalent of a glass of skimmed milk and some cocoa. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled it exaggerated the spread's nutritional value. But three years later, the ASA gave a clean bill of health to another ad urging people to "Wake up to Nutella", and continuing: "Each 15g portion contains two whole hazelnuts, some skimmed milk and cocoa." Image copyright AFP Image caption As a child, Giovanni Ferrero was allowed Nutella for breakfast Nutella's three-year sponsorship of the national football team, starting in 1998, was a masterstroke, Sassatelli says. "On the one hand, this links Nutella with the Italian national sentiment. On the other hand, of course, it links it with the idea that, in the right quantities, it is healthy to the point that even athletes use it." Other Ferrero brands Kinder Chocolate Ferrero Rocher Raffaello Tic Tac Health issues will be far from the minds of Nutella fans taking part in this weekend's 50th birthday celebrations, which include a street party on Saturday in Ferrero's home town of Alba and a free concert on Sunday featuring pop star Mika in Naples' Piazza del Plebiscito. Among passionate fans celebrating Nutella's half century (and his own) is, of course, Giovanni Ferrero, although he admits its precise birthday is something of a mystery. "Legend tells us that the first jar was manufactured out of the factory 50 years ago on 20 April and the first act of consumption was the 18 May," he says. "But there's no scientific evidence!" He says he loves not only the taste, but also the "sweet memories" of his childhood. His parents allowed him to eat Nutella at breakfast, and he now allows his own two sons to do the same. The Ferreros, he says, are a family with an "intergenerational sweet tooth". |
How to Run Your Acting Career for Free If you go by the actor forums, marketing messages, and the talk on the street, one might believe that the only way to have an acting career is to buy your way in. The default message to actors is that you need to train incessantly, that as soon as you decide on which headshots to go with, it’s time to get new ones, and that you need to pay people in the industry to see your work, not to mention all the digital representations of yourself necessary to take advantage of social media. As someone who spent over $50,000 trying unsuccessfully to launch an acting career, I can say that “money can’t buy me love.” While many of these concepts seem to make sense on the surface—especially in light of the lack of a viable alternative—you simply cannot buy an acting career - assuming you are not the all powerful leader of a totalitarian regime. In truth, many of the services you feel compelled to pay for are likely to result in harming rather than helping your career. Reveal yourself before you are ready and you may only succeed in getting yourself on the list of people not to call. So, you ask yourself, how do I bypass the paid in favor of the free and still find success? You do for yourself. There is nothing someone else can do for you that you can’t do better yourself. No one else really cares about you or your career other than you. I am not suggesting you have the photographic skills to take amazing pictures, or the connections of a powerful agent, or the knowledge of casting directors with years of experience. I am suggesting you actually don’t need these things at all, especially if you are in the early stages of your acting career. You don’t need professional tools until you are a professional. In the wrong hands, a headshot can be deadly. Spread it around and see who unsuspectingly uses it and calls you in. If they do and you, um...stink, your headshot suddenly goes viral and spreads career death wherever it goes. There is no known cure. So grab a plough, a sword, a pen, or whatever, and get to work. Step 1. Accept that you are amazing. Yes you are amazing. You might not be an amazing actor yet, but you must accept that you are full of qualities in such a combination the world has never seen and never will see again, and that by developing yourself to your full potential you can change lives—millions of lives. Step 2. Decide what you want to do. As demonstrated by the atom, potential is one thing, but if your power is not carefully harnessed, it can blow up in your face. Having a clear vision for yourself is essential if you want to ensure you move forward and not in a zigzag or worse, in reverse. Clarity and specificity is the key. It’s like planning a vacation. You need to name names, times, and places, or you’re just going to the airport. Step 3. Skills acquisition. Just because you graduated from an acting school doesn’t mean you are any good. You need to make sure you are really, really, really good before you dare set foot in a casting office. Can you memorize 10 pages in an hour or so, and can you bring a scene to life so that the writer forgets the words are his or hers? If not, you’re not ready. Do you really think you can have an acting career by being “good enough?” You need to be the best you can be. And then keep practicing every day to keep getting better. Step 4. Create a plan to develop your amazingness. Without a plan, anything can sound like a good idea. That smooth talker at the bar wants to make you a star? OK! Several months or even years later, “We are so close to being funded,” and you have put everything on hold. You need to decide what you are doing or someone else will; someone who doesn’t really care about your career. Step 5. Learn how the business actually works. One of the reasons actors want to pay industry insiders is for their insights into the business. What actors often neglect to consider is that these “insiders” only tell you what they want you to hear and they tell you for their benefit, not yours. If you ask someone how you how they would like you to stay in touch, who do you think that advice is going to benefit; you or them? Do anything you can to learn how the business works. Get away from all the other starving actors and surround yourself with people who have actual jobs in the entertainment business. Fish who swim in schools get eaten. Step 6. Demonstrate your amazingness. OK, you’ve got all your proverbial ducks in a row. You have goals, skills, knowledge, and people who treat you like one of the family. Now you offer to share your wonder with them. One quick demonstration later, their eyes awash in tears or their bellies heaving in fits of laughter, and you have not only them but everyone they know as an army of fans. Step 7. Amaze yourself at how money- and pain-free that was. How to get started with this simple, yet amazing career journey? Stop doing everything right now! You can’t assimilate a new paradigm into an old one. Abandon the old failing way and choose the new winning one. Let me know what you decide. Tell me your dreams and I’ll tell you mine. Please comment below and feel free to email me your thoughts at david@hackhollywood.com. Want more advice? Check out this video: Inspired by this post? Check out our audition listings! |
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) brusquely dismissed a possible lawsuit from a nurse who was quarantined in his state after a recent trip to West Africa. "Whatever," he said Tuesday at a campaign stop in Rhode Island, according to CNN. "Get in line. I've been sued lots of times before. Get in line. I'm happy to take it on." Kaci Hickox was quarantined Friday after caring for Ebola-stricken patients in Sierra Leone on behalf of the Doctors Without Borders humanitarian organization. Although she tested negative for the deadly virus, Hickox was placed in isolation at a Newark hospital, where she spoke out against her treatment. The 33-year-old nurse was released Monday and threatened possible legal action. Christie said he had no qualms over her quarantine, which included a tent with no shower or flushable toilet. "Neither did the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], who was on the ground in University Hospital monitoring the conditions she was in," he said of the hospital environment. "She had access to the Internet and we brought her takeout food." "There's been all kinds of malarkey ... about this," he added. "She was inside the hospital in a climate-controlled area with access to her cell phone, access to the Internet, and takeout food from the best restaurants in Newark. She was doing just fine." Christie further argued he had a responsibility to protect the citizens of New Jersey. Hickox spoke out against the governor over the weekend, questioning his earlier diagnosis that she was "obviously ill" despite having no fever or symptoms of the virus. "First of all, I don't think he's a doctor," she said. "And secondly, he's never laid eyes on me. And thirdly, I have been asymptomatic since I've been here." Despite the frenzy across the country for Ebola quarantines, which public health experts don't recommend, only one American citizen currently remains infected with the virus -- a doctor who recently traveled to New York from West Africa. President Barack Obama addressed the issue offhandedly on Tuesday, urging officials to set policy in response to Ebola "based on the science" and "based on the facts." |
CLOSE DONT SLEEP and the family of Aaron Bailey, an unarmed man who was shot and killed by IMPD officers hold a joint press conference near shooting scene on Thursday, August 10, 2017. Michelle Pemberton Buy Photo Erica Bailey, the daughter of Aaron Bailey who was shot and killed by IMPD officers is comforted during a press conference by Founder and President of Don't Sleep, Dominic Dorsey near the site of Bailey's shooting, Thursday, August 10, 2017. Bailey, an unarmed African American man drove away from a traffic stop and was shot four times through the back of his vehicle by IMPD officers after a short chase which ended in a crash on June 29, 2017. (Photo: Michelle Pemberton/IndyStar)Buy Photo The family of Aaron Bailey said Thursday that an autopsy report shows the unarmed motorist killed by two Indianapolis police officers was shot in the back four times. Bailey, 45, was unarmed when he was shot and killed by Indianapolis Metropolitan Police officers following a short pursuit that ended in a crash near 23rd and Aqueduct streets on the city's north side in the early morning hours of June 29. During a Thursday news conference, Bailey's sister, Kimberly Brown, and his daughter, Erica Bailey, joined Dominic Dorsey and Satchuel Cole of social justice advocacy organization DONT SLEEP to discuss some of the details of Bailey's autopsy report. The family said they believe nearly a dozen bullets struck the car. They highlighted the autopsy report, describing four gunshot wounds in Bailey's back. Autopsy reports are not public record in Indiana. Sitting near the site of the crash, Brown cried. "I know I have to be strong, but it’s hard sitting here because I know that’s where my brother’s life ended," Brown said. "And it’s not fair." Cole, vice president of DONT SLEEP, said 42 days is far too long to go without hearing a statement from the officers. “There is zero transparency from IMPD," she said. "Absolutely none." ► More: Officials still don't know why 2 IMPD officers shot Aaron Bailey ► More:FBI opens civil rights investigation into police shooting of Aaron Bailey ► More: After police shooting of unarmed man, IMPD to change use-of-force policy IMPD and the Marion County prosecutor's office are conducting parallel investigations of the incident. The officers involved, Michal P. Dinnsen and Carlton J. Howard, have been placed on administrative leave pending the results of those investigations. In the weeks following the shooting, IMPD Chief Bryan Roach and Mayor Joe Hogsett have maintained the city would be as transparent as possible during the investigation. IMPD also has asked the FBI to conduct a separate investigation of the incident. The agency has since opened a civil rights investigation. The officers' contact with Aaron Bailey began during a traffic stop about 1:45 a.m. June 29 near Burdsal Parkway and East Riverside Drive, according to police. This is how authorities described the incident: NEWSLETTERS Get the Breaking News newsletter delivered to your inbox We're sorry, but something went wrong Urgent developments you should know now, not later. Please try again soon, or contact Customer Service at 1-888-357-7827. Delivery: varies Invalid email address Thank you! You're almost signed up for Breaking News Keep an eye out for an email to confirm your newsletter registration. More newsletters About 10 minutes after the officers stopped Bailey's car, Bailey and his passenger, 26-year-old Shiwanda Ward, suddenly took off. A police chase ensued, but after about a minute, Bailey crashed his sedan into a fence near the intersection of 23rd and Aqueduct streets. Both officers approached the car, and both officers subsequently fired their weapons. Bailey was pronounced dead at Eskenazi Hospital 30 minutes later. Ward was uninjured. A warrant recently had been issued for Bailey's arrest after he violated the terms of his release on a pending theft case filed in early February. It remains unclear why Bailey was pulled over, why he drove away from officers and what he and the officers said to one another during their contact. What prompted the shooting remains unclear. IndyStar sent IMPD a list of 13 questions Thursday night on matters such as the number of times Bailey was hit, how many shots each officer fired and where the officers were in relation to the car. A department spokesman said those details remain part of the ongoing investigation. The department then issued a statement: “Aaron Bailey’s death continues to be a tragic incident for our community and our department. IMPD is committed to being as transparent as the law allows, and upon completion of the ongoing criminal investigation by the Marion County prosecutor’s office, we are prepared to move expeditiously with our own internal review." ► More: After police shooting of Aaron Bailey, Indy promises change. The community remains skeptical. Dorsey again called for the officers' termination, for charges to be brought without a grand jury and for a special prosecutor. Because the facts in police-involved shootings are often disputed, Prosecutor Terry Curry uses citizen grand juries to make charging decisions in those cases. In Indianapolis, no police officer in recent years has been charged with a crime in connection with an officer-involved shooting. It can take months before a grand jury hears the evidence to determine whether probable cause exists to move forward with a trial. The prosecutor's office issued a statement Friday saying they had received the coroner's report and the investigation was moving forward: "Our office has received IMPD’s investigation and just this week received the Coroner’s report on the death of Mr. Aaron Bailey. In addition, Prosecutor Curry has directed investigators assigned to our office to follow up on information which may be pertinent to the investigation. This matter remains a priority for our office. More information will be provided on the anticipated next steps in the process as the investigative phase concludes." Messages left with the president of the Fraternal Order of Police were not immediately returned Thursday evening. Dorsey, president of DONT SLEEP, said photos of the car show shattered back windows and bullet holes in the car's trunk. “Once you see this footage, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that they abused their power and they saw fit to kill a man, to shoot him, to murder him," Dorsey said. "While his back was turned. I can’t think of a much more cowardly act." Cole noted how quickly charges were brought against Jason Brown, the 28-year-old charged with murder in the July 27 shooting death of Southport Police Lt. Aaron Allan. But still, more than a month later, Cole said the family has yet to see a police report detailing the incident. "When you’re wearing a blue uniform, justice comes swift, and it’s very, very, very stern," Cole said. "But when you have black or brown skin, it comes never at all." Both Dinnsen and Howard joined the department in 2014. Dinnsen is white. Howard is biracial. Erica Bailey and Brown said they had reached a place where they could forgive the officers if they could just get answers. "I serve a God that sits high and looks low," Brown said. "And while I’m sitting here, looking at what they did to my brother at the site where it all happened, I can still forgive." Still, the lack of closure and what they call the lack of action by IMPD and the prosecutor's office hurts. "I’m very upset, I’m very mad, I’m very hurt," Bailey said, breaking into tears. "I don’t sleep at night like I used to and my life is not the same anymore." Aaron Bailey's death is the first fatal police shooting of the year. IMPD recorded three fatal police shootings in 2016, eight in 2015 and four in 2014. Call IndyStar reporter Holly Hays at (317) 444-6156. Follow her on Twitter: @hollyvhays. Read or Share this story: http://indy.st/2wNpIfZ |
Steve Bannon’s departure from the White House is dominating all headlines and cable news coverage, as it was always fated to since the supposed Svengali of the chaos president first captivated the media last year. Bannon, the former (and future?) Breitbart mogul, was one of several Donald Trump acolytes singularly obsessed over, his status in Trumplandia an unending focus of journalistic firepower. We knew the end was coming, even if it still seems stunning that a figure so close to Trump’s id would be shown the door. Political reporters have devoted much of their existence to telling us whether Bannon was staying or going, why Reince Priebus was in trouble, why Anthony Scaramucci understood Trump until he didn’t. Like alt-Shakespeare, with the press doubling as theater critics and a rapacious audience, these White House characters swallowed airtime and countless front pages. This is a genre of peppy Washington reporting that has found new life in Trump’s White House, where palace intrigue, for much of the reporter class, is just about the only intrigue. “Who’s up and who’s down?” this reporting must ask, always. Journalists wonder, hunched over laptops, stuffing in as many juicy anonymous quotes and anecdotes that capture the unprecedented instability of this administration. For those who obsess over personnel change, these are truly the greatest of times. Gossip reigns eternal. But the tropes of DC journalism, where process will almost always trump policy, are especially ill-suited for today, and distract from what is happening now. It doesn’t much matter if Bannon is canned, if staffers can’t just waltz into the Oval Office now that John Kelly runs the show, or that Hope Hicks is such a fantastic survivor. What matters, as always, is what Trump is actually doing – and what he still hopes to accomplish as long as he clings to power. What much reporting on the president leaves out is the real-world relevance and impact. If you’re stuck in an underfunded housing project, living in an economically-crushed town, or just trying to keep your health coverage, the state of Trump’s motley muddle of advisers and hangers-on means little to you. The argument that certain power figures in the administration deserve coverage because they impact policy is somewhat valid, but reporting brainpower should be spent trying to explain what this policy is and why, in most cases, it harms the country’s most vulnerable people. Bannon’s departure won’t change the fundamental reality of a Trump White House that will always – until it’s driven from office by an election, a scandal or term-limits – have a retrograde approach to race relations and remain a beacon for white supremacists. It probably won’t change what’s coming next. Remember when the Times was lauded, at least in reporting circles, for a July sit-down interview they scored with Trump that made the headline-grabbing news that he was angry at his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and thinking about dumping him? The news cycle was consumed with a story it could easily digest: would Sessions stay or go? The idea that he was an early and ardent Trump supporter attracted an extra dollop of intrigue. Meanwhile, Sessions hasn’t gone anywhere. He is actively dismantling the Justice Department’s protections of civil rights and civil liberties. His mandate that prosecutors pursue the most serious possible charges in every case remains. He is drastically reducing the Justice Department’s oversight of police departments. On other matters, Trump’s White House is chugging along. His EPA administrator, the climate change-denying Scott Pruitt, has stripped numerous environmental regulations. An executive order already rewrote major parts of Barack Obama’s clean power plan. In June, Pruitt moved to scrap laws that protect waterways that provide drinking water for about a third of the population. In New York City, a vast system of public housing – sheltering more people than the entire city of Boston – faces devastating budgets cut from a Trump administration determined to make America as socially Darwinian as it can. All of these things, at some point or another, drew coverage, but nothing on the scale of the media’s unrelenting desire to turn people like Bannon, Kelly, Scaramucci and Spicer into household celebrities. These are the easy stories, less intellectually taxing and more likely to get a traffic or ratings spike. You don’t have to be a criminal justice or housing policy expert to write about why Joshua Green’s new book about Bannon is rubbing a narcissistic president the wrong way. Just as relevant for a media class encountering an ever more distrustful public, documenting the machinations of a palace on fire allows journalists to avoid taking sides in a fight that matters. It continues the comfortable fiction of journalists as neutral, unbiased arbiters, with views somehow unruffled by the currents raging around them. Journalists don’t have to own their biases. They can play pretend. They can keep your eyes and ears glued to the palace, sniffing for scoops. It’s safer there. |
Exclusive by Marios Papaloizou Islam is officially Manchester’s fastest growing religion and is expanding at more than double the rate of Christianity, MM can reveal. University of Manchester data analysed by MM revealed that Islam is out-growing every other religion in the city. According to the data 12.5% of those identifying themselves as Muslim in the 2011 census were aged between 0-4. This is more than double the 5.6% of Christians aged 0-4 and significantly larger those of no religion at 6.8% Ludi Simpson, Professor of population studies at the University of Manchester, said that while the stats do indicate a much faster growth they only tell part of the story. “Immigrants tend to be young adults and have children in the few years after they come to Britain, but don’t get old enough to die at the same rate for many decades,” he told MM. “Of course it might also be that some adults are happy to say their children are brought up as religion X, and others are not. “In Northern Ireland most children are catholic or protestant whether they like it or not!” Dr Hassan Alkatib director Manchester Islamic Centre told MM that Muslim’s tend to bring up children within the religion which can differ from modern European ways of bringing up kids. “Islam does not allow people to have sex outside marriage,” he said. “So people get married into the religion and then their children are brought up in it. “The size of Muslim families in general is double that of the European family and we have waves of Muslim immigrants coming to the UK.” This explanation was echoed by Professor Simpson: “Maybe Christian parents consider religion as something their children will choose later, while Muslim parents consider their religion as an identity of origin, that their children have without choice,” he said. According to Dr Alkatib the prospects available to immigrants in Manchester mean that the trend of rapid growth for Islam will continue. “Islam has a positive message and I think there is a duty on Muslims to promote the message which helps the religion to grow,” he said. “There are more job opportunities in Manchester just like in London which makes it an appealing place to go to. “I think because of this the trend will continue.” While Islam is rapidly growing the numbers of young Christians is, comparatively, rather small. Reverend Jane Barraclough, minister of Cross Street Chapel, believes that this is due to the fast-pace of city life that has diminished the power of religion. “Traditional ways of worshipping are not suited to modern life,” she said. “We draw a lot of students and young post-graduates who are a mobile population; they don’t come to church every Sunday so it’s a different model. “You can’t deny the reality, you have to deal with it and be imaginative and creative.” However, while the growth of Islam is largely down to large-scale immigration, Reverend Andy Braunston of the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester believes that the growth of Islam is accentuated by people of western backgrounds converting to the religion. “Sometimes it is people who were raised Christian that convert and sometimes from people with no real religious background,” he said. “This isn't too surprising as there are many areas of agreement between the two faiths. “Add to this the contemporary search for authentic spirituality which wants more than nominal religion and Islam provides that. “Islam can affect how you dress, how you eat, how, and when you pray and gives a framework of certainty – for some – in a very uncertain world." Image courtesy of Ranoush, with thanks For more on this story and many others, follow Mancunian Matters on Twitter and Facebook. |
Christmas Live Event Story (December 2015) : Epilogue 2 The story is done! Merry Christmas Eve, everybody!! Wow, that was a great story all around.. I hope you guys enjoyed it too! See you guys for the… Christmas Live Event Story (December 2015) : Epilogue 1 These illustrations are precious... This story is precious... Everything is precious.... Christmas Live Event Story: Epilogue 1 [Chapter… Christmas Live Event Story (December 2015) : Star Chart - Chapter 4 Somebody get out the "heavy baggage" stickers, this chapter is over the emotional weight limit. Tetora.... I hope you were joking. Christmas… Christmas Live Event Story (December 2015) : Star Chart - Chapter 3 That's some deep baggage you got there, Hinata.... Don't like Hinata? Warning: This chapter will make you have feels for Hinata anyway. Unless… Christmas Live Event Story (December 2015) : Star Chart - Chapter 2 Character developmennnnnnt, plot movinggggg.....! Chiaki might be a spaz, but he sure is a good senpai... This chapter is Daddy Chiaki and Mummy… Christmas Live Event Story (December 2015) : Star Chart - Chapter 1 Chiaki, you ADHD child, you forgot the rest of the roll call... you only got through two members. A two-person unit that isn't 2wink.... Is… Christmas Live Event Story (December 2015) : Line to Line - Chapter 4 No, stop it. Stop!! Don't talk about this! >____< Not... "next year"! Anything but that..... I'm gunna go cry now.… Christmas Live Event Story (December 2015) : Line to Line - Chapter 3 Poor Chiaki... Nobody wants him to mediate. Christmas Live Event Story: Line to Line - Chapter 3 [Park Live Stage] (Hinata appears,… |
Killing processes willy-nilly is not a smooth move: data can be lost, poorly-designed apps can break themselves in subtle ways that cannot be fixed without a reinstall.. but it completely depends on knowing what is and what is not safe in a given situation. and what would be at risk. The user should have some idea what a process is, or should be, doing and what it's constraints are (disk IOPS, rss/swap) and be able to estimate how much time a long-running process should take (say a file copy, mp3 reencoding, email migration, backup, [your favorite timesink here].) Furthermore, sending SIGKILL to a pid is no guarantee of killing it. If it's stuck in a syscall or already zombied ( Z in ps ), it may continue to be zombied. This is often the case of ^Z a long running process and forgetting to bg before trying to kill -9 it. A simple fg will reconnect stdin/stdout and probably unblock the process, usually then followed by the process terminating. If it's stuck elsewhere or in some other form of kernel deadlock, only a reboot may be able to remove the process. (Zombie processes are already dead after SIGKILL is processed by the kernel (no further userland code will run), there's usually a kernel reason (similar to being "blocked" waiting on a syscall to finish) for the process not terminating.) Also, if you want to kill a process and all of its children, get into the habit of calling kill with the negated PID, not just the PID itself. There's no guarantee of SIGHUP , SIGPIPE or SIGINT or other signals cleaning up after it, and having a bunch of disowned processes to cleanup (remember mongrel?) is annoying. |
“Don’t you ever put that baby down?” “Aren’t you going to spoil him?” “Start teaching him to self-soothe now, before it’s too late.” Yup, these were things actually said to me when my babies were newborns. Nope, not even when they were a few months old. When they were itty-bitty babies fresh out of the womb, I had strangers, family members — and yes, even doctors — question whether I was going to spoil my babies by holding them all the time. Looking back, I know how absurd these statements were. My boys are 4 and 9 now, and whiz by me so fast I have to beg them to sit down and cuddle in my lap like they did all those years ago. At the time, though, I didn’t know for sure that my babies would be totally independent eventually, so the critique definitely got under my skin. The thing is, holding my babies almost 24 hours a day like I did in those months was not exactly a choice. It was a necessity. If I put my babies down, they wailed their little heads off. Maybe I could have let them do that, and maybe they would have learned to soothe themselves somehow, but every instinct in my body told me that if my baby was crying, he needed to be picked up. And I went with those instincts, despite the fact that I sometimes received dirty looks and judgment. Turns out, my instincts were absolutely correct. Babies do need to be held whenever they fuss — and not just because they’re sweet and cuddly and their hair smells like heaven. It turns out there’s a ton of research out there to back up the claim that you literally cannot spoil a baby. In fact, holding babies is actually vital for their health and development. A study recently came out in Pediatrics that looked at the effects of skin-to-skin contact on premature infants. It took the long view, looking not just at the immediate effects of holding preemies against your skin in their early weeks, but also how it affected these babies 20 years down the road. The preemies who experienced skin-to-skin had higher IQs, significantly larger areas of gray matter in the brain, and even earned higher wages at their jobs than those who did not experience skin-to-skin care. The skin-to-skin cohort also showed less propensity toward hyperactivity and aggression in school and were less likely to experience school absences. |
Advertisement Trooper gets ARD in teen's pepper spray punishment case Trooper Ernest Boatright was accused of shooting pepper spray into bedroom of girlfriend's son in Menallen Township, Fayette County Share Shares Copy Link Copy A Pennsylvania state trooper will serve six months' probation in a first offenders' program on charges he pepper-sprayed his girlfriend's 13-year-old son because the boy stayed in bed instead of going to school. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports a Fayette County judge accepted 49-year-old Ernest Boatright, of Pittsburgh, into the program on Monday. The program does not require defendants to plead guilty and they can petition the court to expunge their record if they complete the probation without incident.Boatright told investigators he had pepper sprayed two cats on an enclosed porch. But the boy told investigators that Boatright sprayed the chemical into his room in April 2013, and had sprayed him with the substance before. Boatright's defense attorney says the trooper maintains his innocence and hopes to get off unpaid suspension and return to work soon. |
You have until June 15 to send in your application to be Malaysia’s first Mouseketeer for Disney Channel’s ‘Mickey Mouse Club’. — Picture courtesy of Disney Channel KUALA LUMPUR, May 9 — Attention Mousketeers, Disney Channel is actually bringing the iconic variety show Mickey Mouse Club to our shores for the very first time! And that’s not all, Disney is also looking for one boy and one girl aged between 11 and 16 to be Malaysia’s first Mouseketeers — the talented hosts that are a central of the Mickey Mouse Club (think former Mousketeers such as Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera and Ryan Gosling). Created by Walt Disney in 1955, Mickey Mouse Club brings the whole family together through music, comedy, games and celebrity guest appearances. It has been revived, reformatted and reimagined over the decades in order to remain relevant to audiences. “The Mickey Mouse Club Star Search to find Malaysia’s Mouseketeers will uncover the next generation of young stars who will inspire and excite kids and families across Malaysia,” said vice president and general manager of Media Networks, The Walt Disney Company Southeast Asia, Amit Malhotra. “This will be a refreshed, modern take on Mickey Mouse Club, focusing on local content that is entertaining and relevant for the whole family. We are thrilled to be working exclusively with Astro in Malaysia to bring this iconic variety show to Disney fans.” Those looking to send in an application (can do so from now till June 15, at www.MickeyMouseClub.my. Remember, your application has to be a video audition of yourself singing, dancing and acting. On-ground auditions will also be held in Kuala Lumpur (May 13 and 14), Johor Bahru (May 20), and Penang (May 21). Besides the variety show on Disney Channel, there will also be engaging digital content on Astro and Disney’s social platforms, social media campaigns and competitions for fans to enjoy an engaging multi-platform experience. The series will launch later in September on the Disney Channel (Astro Channel 615). |
Heckler & Koch has applied to the German government for permission to sell a new civilian-legal version of the H&K G36, one that is much truer to the original than the sporterized HK SLR. In Europe the gun will be called the HK243 and in the USA it will be marketed as the HK293. The rifle is made with parts from the G36, but the bolt and the .223-chambered barrel design are unique. The reason for this is that gun companies in Germany cannot sell “weapons of war” to civilians. This gun has been sufficiently changed that it cannot be easily converted to a military-stye fully-automatic G36. The rifle will feature a quad rail and a STANAG magazine well that accepts standard AR-15 magazine. Four different types of stocks will be offered, a short fixed stock, a long fixed stock (hunting/SLR style?) and two types of adjustable stocks. There will be four different model (Compact, Kurtz (Short), Sporter and Long) which vary by barrel length from 8.9″ – 18.8″. It is not clear if H&K actually plan on selling the shorter barrel (SBR) versions in the USA, or if they are just apply for approval in case they ever wish to in the future. The compact (C) model will be classified as a handgun in Germany and so is the only version not legal for hunting. Many thanks to our German source for the documents and to Axel for the english translation. |
Activist Erica Garner Hospitalized After Heart Attack Enlarge this image toggle caption Andrew Burton/Getty Images Andrew Burton/Getty Images Erica Garner, a 27-year-old activist whose father's dying words became a rallying cry for protest against police brutality, has been hospitalized in serious condition after a heart attack, according to multiple reports. Eric Garner, a black man who died in 2014 after a white NYPD officer put him in a chokehold, was recorded repeatedly telling the officer, "I can't breathe." A grand jury did not indict any officers over his death, a decision that prompted protests across the country. Eric Garner's oldest daughter, Erica, was a major force behind protests for justice for her father. In the years since she has continued to advocate more broadly, against police brutality and in support of racial equality. Now she is hospitalized on life support, her mother, Esaw Snipes-Garner, told The New York Daily News. Snipes-Garner told the Daily News that Garner suffered asthma-induced cardiac arrest on Saturday night. Garner, a mother of two, gave birth to her youngest child in August and the pregnancy put a strain on her heart, Snipes-Garner told the paper. Garner is in a medically induced coma, Snipes-Garner told the New York Times on Monday. Garner's family posted on her Twitter account on Monday, to thank people for their prayers and support. "At this moment there are no updates," the family said. In the years since her father's death, Erica Garner has remained active as a protester and speaker. She made headlines in February when she endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. Garner told NPR's Rachel Martin that she was impressed by Sanders' record. "He's been, basically, a protester his whole career. He's not scared to go up against the systematic racism that exists in America today," Garner said. "I want our young people, especially our protesters that's putting [their] bodies on the line to bring racial issues to the forefront, to know that their vote matters," she said. |
Foxboro Hot Tubs is a garage rock side project of Green Day, formed in 2007.[1][2] The band includes all members of Green Day, touring members Jason White and Jason Freese, and Kevin Preston of Prima Donna[3] Their first album Stop Drop and Roll!!! was released on April 22, 2008. The name "Foxboro Hot Tubs" is the alias Green Day uses to book secret shows. When performing as Foxboro Hot Tubs, Billie Joe Armstrong and Jason White go by the names Reverend Strychnine Twitch and Frosco Lee respectively.[4][5] History [ edit ] Background and Stop Drop and Roll!!! (2007-2009) [ edit ] The band was brought to the attention of Green Day fans through messages sent to a select few members of the Idiot Club (Green Day's fan club)[6] in December 2007, with three songs on their website. They formed with the idea that they "love to play music and be spontaneous, and after a few late night jams and a few too many bottles of wine, we were inspired to record some rockin' eight-track recordings".[7] While the band's history is, as yet, unknown, they comprise the official and backing members of Green Day (with the exception of Preston), who are performing "garage" music under a nom de plume. As speculation started to peak, Green Day confirmed that they were the Foxboro Hot Tubs, with Billie Joe Armstrong stating, "The only similarity between Foxboro Hot Tubs and Green Day is that we are the same band".[7] He also went on to explain where the name "Foxboro Hot Tubs" came from, "The Foxboro Hot Tubs were a place we used to sneak booze and chicks into late at night. But most of the time it was just 'dude soup'." Foxboro is a housing development located in Hercules, California. On December 8, 2007, Green Day site released six tracks, in streaming and downloadable mp3 formats, free of charge to the listener. Five days later, on December 13, the MP3s were taken off the site, which then displayed just a clock. The MP3s were reinstated on December 16, but were again removed and replaced with the clock; later the website was changed to simply redirect to the band's MySpace. All the tracks (apart from Highway 1) were included on the band's debut album Stop Drop and Roll!!!, with the samples at the beginning removed. Soon after, the song "Mother Mary" became a hit on alternative rock radio, hitting No. 16 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. "The Pedestrian" was released as the second single off the album. The band made their television debut on Last Call with Carson Daly, with a week dedicated to Green Day, with them performing at the end of every show on the week beginning June 15, 2009, and Green Day played on June 19, 2009. During this performance they played "Stop Drop and Roll" and "Mother Mary", bridging the two songs together.[8] On April 23, 2010, the band played their first new song since 2008 at a show in New York City called "Fuck Time". On October 31, 2009 during the 21st Century Breakdown World Tour as Green Day, the band performed a brief set as Foxboro Hot Tubs before the support band as a Halloween surprise at the Manchester MEN Arena. On June 14, 2012, Green Day released a trailer for their upcoming album ¡Uno!. An erase board with new song titles featured the Foxboro Hot Tubs song "Fuck Time" which had only been played live so far, indicating that it would be released on Green Day's upcoming album trilogy; the song would later be used for the trailer of the album ¡Dos!. On August 22, 2012, in an interview on BBC Radio One, Armstrong, confirmed that the song would appear on ¡Dos! and stated that it could be a possible single.[9] In various interviews promoting Green Day's upcoming trilogy of albums called ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré!, they have stated that the album ¡Dos! would have "a Foxboro Hot Tubs-garage kind of feel", even going so far to call it "the second Foxboro Hot Tubs album".[10][11] On October 26, 2013, The Foxboro Hot Tubs played a secret show at Eli's Mile High Club in Oakland, California. Along with performing a majority of their album, they performed several songs from Green Day's album ¡Dos!. On March 14, 2014, the band performed for the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas at Brazos Hall. Band members [ edit ] Current members Discography [ edit ] Studio album Stop Drop and Roll!!! (2008; No. 21 US, No. 37 UK) Singles "Mother Mary" (2008; No. 16 US Modern Rock, No. 137 UK) "The Pedestrian" (2008) "Stop, Drop and Roll" (2008) |
Muslim protestors shout slogans during a protest against Turkish daily newspaper Cumhuriyet on Jan. 14, 2015 in Istanbul. Photo by Ozan Kose for Agence France-Presse. A Turkish court on Wednesday ordered a block on websites featuring the controversial front cover of the first issue of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo since the massacre at its offices, as anger grew in the Islamic world over the edition. The court in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, responding to a petition brought by a single lawyer, ordered the block on websites displaying the cover which shows the Muslim Prophet Mohammed, the state Anatolia news agency reported. In the front-page cartoon the prophet sheds a tear and holds a sign with the viral slogan “Je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”), after the killing of 12 people last week in an attack by Islamist gunmen on Charlie Hebdo’s offices. Earlier, Turkish daily Cumhuriyet, which strongly opposes President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic-leaning rule, was the sole publication in a majority Muslim country to reproduce in print cartoons and articles from the special Charlie Hebdo issue. But it stopped short of publishing the controversial cover in the four page pull-out issue, with the image appearing in smaller form to illustrate two columns by commentators. Cairo’s Al-Azhar university, Sunni Islam’s most prestigious centre of learning, had warned that new Mohammed cartoons will only serve to “stir up hatred” while there was also an angry reaction from Iran and Islamic State (IS) jihadists. The government in mainly Muslim Senegal also banned distribution of the editions of Charlie Hebdo and the French daily Liberation, which also put the cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed on its front page. Few Turkish websites published the cover but among those who did was the opposition website T24.tr. Access to the picture was still unfiltered Wednesday evening despite the court ruling. “Words, writing, cartoons and publications denigrating religious values and the prophet is regarded an insult to the followers of that faith,” the court ruling said. – ‘Maximum respect’ – Cumhuriyet editor-in-chief Utku Cakirozer described the printing of the four-page pull-out as a display of solidarity with Charlie Hebdo, recalling that several reporters from his paper had been murdered in the past. “We took care to show the maximum respect for religious sensibility and freedom of belief in our society, not just among Muslims, but Christians, Jews, and those who don’t believe,” he told a news conference in Istanbul. The publication triggered a Turkish Twitter hashtag #UlkemdeCharlieHebdoDagitilamaz (Charlie Hebdo may not be distributed in my country). The paper said police had conducted a check on the print run of the paper at the press during the night. But after the issue was referred to prosecutors, deliveries were allowed to go ahead. Dozens of Muslims staged an angry protest against the paper late evening in Istanbul, brandishing slogans like “Our dear Prophet, don’t be upset, Muslims are with you” and “Cumhuriyet will be brought to account”. They set alight copies of Cumhuriyet amid a heavy riot police presence. Five people were arrested, Anatolia reported. Cumhuriyet, founded in 1924 at the behest of the founder of modern Turkey Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, considers itself to be a staunch upholder of the secular values he championed and which the opposition now fears Erdogan is eroding. – ‘Insulting and provocative’ – Many Muslims consider images of the prophet, not least ones satirising him, to be blasphemous under Islam. The new issue has already caused controversy within the Islamic world, raising fears of a repeat of the violent 2006 protests over the cartoons of Mohammed printed in Danish daily Jyllands-Posten. In the Philippines around 1,500 people packed the main square in the Muslim-majority city of Marawi, some raising their fists in the air as a Charlie Hebdo poster was burnt. Several hundred also protested in the streets of the Mauritanian capital. Meanwhile Iran’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said the cartoon “provokes the emotions of Muslims and hurts their feelings around the world, and could fan the flames of a vicious circle of extremism.” While Turkey has condemned last week’s deadly Islamist attacks in France that left a total of 17 people dead it has not shied away from warning Europe about a growing “Islamophobia” on the continent. Without referring directly to Charlie Hebdo, Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan on Wednesday denounced publications which he said were insulting the sacred values of Muslims by publishing images of Mohammed. “We condemn provocations, attacks and defamation against the Muslims and Islamic symbols the same way as we denounced the Paris attacks,” he wrote on Twitter. |
Flint State Representative Sheldon Neeley would like to hear Governor Snyder commit to spend part of a budget surplus to address Flint’s water crisis during his State of the State address. Last week, state budget officials estimated Michigan will have a $575 million, one-time revenue surplus this year. Neeley knows where he would like the money to be used: Flint’s water emergency. “The governor himself declared this is an emergency,” says Neeley. “An emergency means something. It means direct and immediate action. And so if we have a surplus, all other needs of the state need to take a back seat to what has been declared as an emergency.” President Obama signed an emergency declaration for Flint and Genesee County. The declaration frees up some federal funding and brings FEMA into the mix. The governor is expected to discuss Flint’s water crisis in his State of the State address tomorrow. In addition to Flint’s water crisis, there are calls to spend the one-time budget surplus on fixing Michigan’s roads and to some away in the state’s rainy day fund. |
21st Century Fox Inc. and the National Geographic Society are expanding their 18-year partnership with a new, for-profit company that will own the society’s cable TV channels, 127-year-old magazine, maps and other products. Fox will own 73 percent of the new media company, called National Geographic Partners, with the non-profit organization holding the rest, under the accord announced Wednesday. The parties valued the deal at $725 million and said it will increase the society’s endowment to $1 billion. Declan Moore, a 20-year veteran of National Geographic, was appointed chief executive officer. The proceeds, along with the continued ownership stake in the nature-oriented cable networks, will give the non-profit National Geographic Society added financial stability and double its resources for investments in science, research and education, according to the statement. Fox, based in New York, gains a majority interest in the organization’s studios, digital media, children’s media and other businesses. The film and TV company already had majority ownership of National Geographic’s cable channels. “We believe in the society’s mission of bringing the world to audiences through science, education and exploration,” James Murdoch, CEO of 21st Century Fox, said in the statement. With the proceeds, the society plans to create the National Geographic Grosvenor Center for Education to improve the geographic skills of high school students, and establish centers of excellence in cartography, journalism and photography. “It’s a virtuous cycle," Gary Knell, the society’s current president and CEO, said in the statement. He will become the first chairman of National Geographic Partners under a shared governance arrangement with Fox. |
The Advanced Turbine Engine Company (ATEC) joint venture (JV) comprising Honeywell and Pratt & Whitney has received a contract to design a new engine for the US Army's Black Hawk and Apache helicopter fleets. The contract has been awarded as part of the army's improved turbine engine (ITE) programme. Under the two-year contract, the JV will provide preliminary designs of the HPW3000 turbine engine, which will improve performance over the current engine powering the helicopters. "With the extensive improvements in helicopter performance it brings, the HPW3000 will mean greater mission success and safety for US warfighters." The army is looking for a new engine that is 50% more powerful, 25% more fuel-efficient and provide 20% longer engine life over the current engine, while also meeting stringent performance goals in high altitude and hot conditions at 6,000ft and 95°F. ATEC president Craig Madden said: "The HPW3000 underscores our dedication to developing an engine that will support Army Aviation superiority over potential adversaries. "We are very confident in the engine design and in the results we've seen in testing so far. With the extensive improvements in helicopter performance it brings, the HPW3000 will mean greater mission success and safety for US warfighters." Two HPW3000 demonstrator engines have recently underwent testing, during which they have validated various programme requirements. Featuring 3,000shp and a dual-spool architecture, the HPW3000 uses latest gas turbine engine technologies. ATEC said that the engine's dual-spool architecture offers optimised engine efficiency, decreased maintenance costs, extended engine life, and greater power growth capability. Using HPW3000, the army will be able to generate $1bn in savings. |
New reports from the Wall Street Journal say that people familiar with the deliberations between President-elect Donald Trump and former Governor Mitt Romney that occurred on Tuesday. The meeting took place over 90 minutes, and by the end of it sources say that Trump was leaning toward the one time Republican presidential candidate. The New York businessman views Mr. Romney as the prototypical choice to be the nation’s top diplomat, and a group of advisers inside the transition are pushing him to select the 2012 Republican presidential nominee. Two people said Mr. Trump is inclined to select Mr. Romney. This may be surprising news to many. Mitt Romney was actively against Donald Trump's nomination as the Republican presidential candidate, and not only slammed him in a blistering speech, but encouraged everyone to vote instead for Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx.). While some in his staff would prefer selecting Romney, not everyone agrees. Namely, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has stated that he would rather see former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani as secretary of state. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, speaking to reporters after meeting with Mr. Trump on Monday, said “there are huge advantages to Rudy Giuliani frankly, I think that, if you want someone who is going to go out and be a very tough negotiator for America and represent American interest in the way that Trump campaigned, I think that probably Rudy is a better pick and has the right temperament.” As it stands, Romney's spokesman has not returned requests for comments, and according to Trump spokesman Jason Miller, “absolutely no decision has been made” in regards to the position of secretary of state. Watch the latest video at <a href="http://video.foxnews.com">video.foxnews.com</a> |
8 of the Most Ridiculous Sports Losses of All Time Of course there have always been bad losses in sports. However, sometimes the loss is so bad, and the story behind it so ridiculous, that it transcends the realm of terrible or even unfortunate into bat-shit crazy. Here are eight examples. 1. College Football: Stanford vs. Berkeley The score: 25-20 The rivalry between the Stanford Cardinal and the UC Berkeley Bears is one of the fiercest in college football history. Not content vying with each other for academic greatness they have staged the “Big Game” for over 100 years now. The winner gets the prestige of…well they get the “Axe”, an axe head mounted on a wooden board. But it’s a big deal apparently. The 1982 Big Game looked to be a lock for Stanford. They led by 1 point with only four seconds left. Somehow, the Berkeley players managed to run the ball down the field, complete with five lateral passes, the final player actually running through the Stanford band in order to score a touchdown. The band assumed that when the clock ran out the game was over, not realizing it continued until the end of the play. A trombone player was knocked down, and chaos ensued. In the end, the refs ruled that Cal had scored. Stanford lost on of the closest games in history, thanks to their band. Link 2. Cricket: Two unknown Australian teams The Score: 286 runs declared in one over. (This is similar to 50 runs being scored on one hit in baseball. It shouldn’t be possible.) In 1894 two teams were playing an official game of cricket in Western Australia. A batsman named Cogg hit the ball into a nearby tree. The umpire ruled that since the ball was still in view and had not touched the ground it was still in play. The batsmen started running. Fielders tried climbing the tree to get the ball but the lower branches broke and they crashed to the ground. The batsmen kept running. An axe was called for but a search proved futile. The batsmen kept running. The search had however turned up a gun, which was then used to blast away at the tree, hopefully one that was koala free. By this point the batsmen had stopped running, most likely out of pure exhaustion, after scoring 286 runs. Link 3. Hockey: Bulgarian Women’s team just sucked The score: 82-0 During an international tournament in 2008 the Bulgarian women’s hokey team managed the most amazing losing streak in the history of the sport. One wonders if the team was comprised of the only women in Bulgaria willing to play, regardless of their talent. After losses of 41-0 (to Italy) and 39-0 (to Latvia) Bulgaria managed the worse lose in hockey history. After the first period in their game against Slovakia, Bulgaria were already losing by 33 points. After two periods they were down 55-0 (making it their most successful period, with only 22 goals given up). The final score was a record breaking 82-0. It’s good to know they did much better in their next game, only losing 30-1. They even managed to score! One thing that is positive: the Bulgarian goalie should be in the record books for most saves during a game, with 57. Unfortunately, the international governing body refused to acknowledge it due to the completely farcical nature of the game. Still, it looks like the goalie was the best player on that team. Link 4. NFL: Bears Vs. Redskins The score: 73-0 Trash talking between coaches is a big part of sports. If you break the other teams’ coach or manager you have a better chance of breaking the other team. Sometimes the opposite can happen. That was the case with the 1940 Championship game between the Chicago Bears and the Washington Redskins. The coaches George Halas and George Preston Marshall hated each other from way back. Before the game Marshall called the Bears quitters and cry babies. He also sent Halas a telegram saying how happy he was the Bears had made it to the final so the Redskins would have another chance to beat them. You see, shortly before the championship game the Bears had lost to the Redskins 7-3. Halas was pissed and worked his team up into a winning frenzy. Less than a month later they would deliver a 73-0 thrashing, all thanks to Marshall’s trash talk. Link 5. Golf: Roberto de Vicenzo’s score card fail The score: 3 not 4 There are a lot of chokes in golf. It’s a stressful and precise sport that requires absolute concentration. Let your guard down for one minute and your previously perfect drives are now deep in the rough. However, most golfers can be expected to mark their scores correctly. Not Roberto de Vicenzo though! A world class player, he managed to lose the 1968 Masters by signing off on a score card that had the wrong score on it. His playing partner had written 4 instead of 3 (which he actually shot) for the 17th hole and de Vicenzo approved it without checking it. That gaff left him one behind the leader. Had the score been marked correctly, he would have gone into a playoff and possibly won. It was then he made the famous remark, “What a stupid I am!” Link 6. Tennis: the world #1 losses badly, twice The score: a loss to the world #226 It takes a lot to topple a William’s sister from the top spot in tennis. However, Russian Dinara Safina managed to do just that in April 2009. She held on to her ranking for a mere 6 months, before her until then unknown ability to crash and burn reared its ugly head. First she lost to the world #132 in Tokyo. Only a week later, she became the first #1 to even lose to a player ranked below #200, when she choked against a wild card entrant in Beijing, ranked at #226. And it wasn’t even close. Zhang Shuai beat the Russian in straight sets. Commentators blame a flawed ranking system for making Safina the #1 player in the first place when she clearly wasn’t. Regardless, even if she should “only” be in the top 10 or so, crashing out to wild-card nobodies is not something somebody of her talent should be doing. Link 7. Soccer: AS Adema vs. Stade Olympique l’Emyrne In 2002, two Malagasy teams were playing the last match of the season when the referee made a call that the manager of l’Emyrne disagreed with. The manager then told his team to score at will…on their own goal. Spectators said they scored own goals immediately after every kickoff. When news of this insane defeat reached Europe, FIFA, the governing body of soccer, refused to believe it could be true saying, "We think this may be foolish...we don't think it happened". FIFA would eventually declare the match null and void. Link 8. College Football: Georgia Tech vs. Cumberland College The Score: 222-0 This game never should have happened. Cumberland College ended their football program after the previous season which meant they had no team. They hadn’t recruited anyone, trained anyone, held any practices, nothing. However, their rivals Georgia Tech, still bitter about a recent thrashing they took in a baseball game against Cumberland, insisted they play their previously scheduled game. If CC turned it down they would have been fined what would be over $58,000 today, a lot for a small college. Cumberland put together a last minute team composed mostly of frat boys and gamely gave it their all. Unfortunately their all led to the worst loss in college football history. Link Written by Kathy Benjamin – Copyrighted © www.weirdworm.com |
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