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Monday was the first of many deadlines for MLS teams as they had to reveal which players were getting their options picked up and announcing any players that were out of contract. Atlanta United took a lot of the suspense out of this by revealing their players about a week ago. While there were not many surprises on that list, there was a noticeable omission: Jeff Larentowicz. Larentowicz came to Atlanta as a free agent at the end of the 2016 season and was expected by many to be a nice rotation piece but he took one of the defensive midfield roles and never let go. He and Carlos Carmona went on to form the most surprising part of Atlanta’s 2017 team. Larentowicz is – as of this writing – under the ‘Status to be Determined’ category and his future in Atlanta uncertain and arguments to keep or release him have their merits. Larentowicz is 34 years old and it’s always reasonable to wonder where the cliff is for players as they age. Atlanta may not want to sign him to a deal longer than one year, especially with someone like Chris Goslin waiting in the wings and he may be interested in parlaying his successful deal into one last multi-year contract. Perhaps with one of the teams in his home of Southern California. On the other hand, Larentowicz was a rock in Atlanta’s midfield and was everything Atlanta could have hoped for when dropping back into defense when the attack would get forward. His work made it possible for the likes of Garza, Walkes and Carlos Carmona to get forward with confidence, knowing there would be someone back to contribute to defense in the event of a counter. And despite his age, there really was not any indication that his age was becoming a factor. His performance was consistently good and he was an iron man during the brutal string of matches late in the season. Beyond the on-field contributions, Larentowicz can reasonably be seen as a valuable teacher for the likes of Goslin and any other young defensive midfielders or defenders that Atlanta has in the pipeline. Management’s assessment of these young players may ultimately influence what Larentowicz sees when the terms of a new deal are slid across the table. It is safe to wonder if contract discussions include any discussions about coaching once his playing days are done. The front office has been solid in its first year and there isn’t a reason to think they won’t continue to be. That said, sometimes being good at this job means making the tough choices – even if they are a bit unpopular. |
THE recent arrival of aliens and murderous youth in suburban Atlanta might seem like cause for concern. But they are merely characters in films shot at the Atlanta Media Campus and Studios, the largest complex of its kind outside California. The lot has hosted the final two instalments of “The Hunger Games” and “The Fifth Wave”, an upcoming science-fiction film. What ought to worry local residents is Georgia’s inability to produce workers who can build the sets, run the wires or manage the sound for such films. This skills shortage may endanger the $4 billion or so that Jim Jacoby, whose firm plans to redevelop the complex, reckons the film industry could bring to the state this year. Georgia offers generous tax incentives to lure production companies. They can receive a credit for up to 30% of the costs incurred while making movies, as long as they spend more than $500,000. This convinced Mathew Hayden to move his firm, Cinipix, from California to Georgia. But Mr Hayden still imports many workers from Florida and New York. “It’s a big concern,” he says. The state’s movie business will only prove as profitable as its workers prove employable. Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. Georgia’s skills shortage goes beyond the film industry. For every four tradesmen that retire just one takes their place, even though the state’s unemployment rate hovers around 7.4%, over a point higher than the national rate. But a similar problem, albeit in less acute form, is in evidence across America. More than half of the country’s tradesmen are aged over 45. According to the Department of Labour, America will need 41,700 more cement masons, 114,700 more electricians and 218,200 more carpenters by 2022. The government already spends around $17 billion a year trying to close what the president, Barack Obama, calls the “skills gap”. On July 22nd Mr Obama signed laws that he said would make job-training programmes that receive federal money “more effective, more responsive to employers and more accountable for results”. One such programme is Go Build Georgia, which teaches teenagers a trade. But efforts to train young people as plumbers or pipe-fitters run up against concern from parents. Instead of being proud to raise a future welder, “everyone wants to believe that their child will go to Harvard”, says Matthew Gambill, the director of the Georgia Association for Career and Technical Education. Despite the lower cost of a skills-based education and the solid job prospects, enrolment at technical colleges has dropped 23% since recession-stricken students clamoured for entry in 2010. Still, Georgia is pouring money into training, and targeting industries such as the movie business that are particularly short of skilled labour. It spent $24m last year on the teaching of trades in schools, while the state’s technical colleges received $318m. Some of these institutions are already collaborating with film studios to design specialist courses. Lee Thomas, the deputy commissioner of Georgia’s film, music and digital entertainment office, says a stand-alone academy is also in the works for those who wish to become stars behind the scenes. Mr Jacoby, though, is taking matters into his own hands. By next summer he wants the Atlanta Media Campus to host a school that will teach students how to work on a film set. American firms spent $162 billion training their employees in 2012. The success of Mr Jacoby’s investment in Georgia may depend on whether he can bridge its skills gap. |
HOUSTON - Police are searching for two men who robbed a motel in north Houston and viciously beat the desk clerk. The robbery happened back on Aug. 25, at 7 a.m., at the America’s Best Value Inn in the 700 block of North Sam Houston Parkway. In the video, one of the men is seen jumping over the counter and punching the clerk in the face. As the clerk was trying to protect himself, the suspect grabbed a glass jar and hit the clerk in the head with it and then continued to punch him. The man grabbed money from the cash drawer as his partner pointed a handgun at the guests from the hotel, while they were eating breakfast, and told them to stay quiet. He grabbed their cell phones. Both men ran from the motel on foot. The front desk clerk was taken to the hospital for head injuries. There’s no word on his condition. Here are the suspect descriptions from police: Suspect No. 1: Black male, 20 to 30 years old, black hoodie with Victoria Sport on back, blue pants Suspect No. 2: Black male, white hoodie, black pants If you have any information, call Houston police. Watch the video above for a closer look at one of the suspects. Copyright 2017 by KPRC Click2Houston - All rights reserved. |
Smart Dimensions We're not sure where it started, but so many sketchbooks these days are tall and thin. Out of all the things we discussed with thinkers around the world, this was one of the major gripes about today's premium sketchbooks and notebooks. Unless you're using the full spread, the tall proportions make the pages difficult to work with, especially when holding the book with one hand. So we took some of the extra vertical space and moved it over the the side. Now you can hold the book with one hand while on the train, park bench, or couch and have more breathable and usable space on a single page than ever before. Add to this the fact that our books open flat and you can understand just how fully each page is available to you. Check out the Shop > |
Meet Trelleth Matthew Carano Blocked Unblock Follow Following Mar 23, 2017 A novel approach to project funding and management using Trello and Ethereum. Created by: kingflurkel and STΞFAAN PONNΞT Written by: Matthew Carano Trelleth is a Trello Power-Up that allows anyone to create an ITO (Initial Token Offering) for every card on a project board. This gives anyone the ability to organize, communicate, and crowdfund any project and any task all from Trello. How it works A project manager logs into a Trelleth project management website to set up a new project. In Trello, boards are created and linked to the new Trelleth project. Then, the project manager may create task cards on the Trello project board. Each card is a step towards completing the overall project goal, and anyone viewing the board can easily see and conceive of the value of each step. When a card is created, a new token is created along with it. Each card also has an Ethereum address. Project investors send Ether to the card address to help fund that particular task. Card tokens will be created proportionally to the amount of Ether sent, and given to the project funder that sent Ether. That token gives the card funder(s) the right to decide when the task is done. The card token also helps express how potential project investors view the value of that card in the scope of the entire project. The more the card is funded, the more valuable the task. Then, service suppliers (including the project manager) may “claim” the task. To make sure suppliers have incentive to not spam the board by claiming a task and not completing it, suppliers are required to put a certain amount of Ether in escrow in order to be allowed to claim the task. The supplier escrow amount will be determined when the card is created. When service suppliers complete tasks, they must prove it by attaching that proof to the card itself. Project investors who hold tokens in that card may vote to approve the task completion. Once approved, the Ether is released to the supplier and project tokens are minted for the card investors. Project tokens represent stake in the overall project, and token holders benefit from “owning” a piece of the project itself. Card tokens are also useful to the card investors as a record of their investment in a successfully completed task. Example Matt is a musician and wants to source funds to record his new album. He logs into Trelleth and creates his “The Blue Album” project. Next, in Trello Matt creates a “Recording Tracks” board and assigns it to the “The Blue Album” project. On that board Matt creates a “Sing Vocals On Track 1” card. Matt’s mom has been waiting for this project to happen, and to support it, she sends 20 ETH to the card address. Matt may then claim this task, record the vocals, and post them on the card for the card token holders to approve. Matt’s mom, satisfied with the result, releases the Ether to Matt. Matt’s mom receives project tokens. On the same board, Matt now creates a card called “Guitar Solo For Track 1”. Matt is a great songwriter but doesn’t have the best guitar chops, so he definitely needs to hire someone willing to play. Now this isn’t Matt’s first album, and he has a relatively good reputation in the community for producing good content, and wouldn’t you know it, several guitar players are watching to see if this card gets funded. Matt does a very good job promoting himself, so there is definite interest in his project, and several investors add Ether to the card wallet. Matt also add Ether to the card wallet because he wants stake in this important card. Once it hits a certain funding threshold, several guitar players claim the card. This triggers communication between Matt (the card owner) and the guitar players. Matt awards the task claim to the guitarist he thinks aligns best with the project. Once the solo is complete to the satisfaction of the card investors, the Ether is released to the guitarist. The card token holders receive project tokens for helping to fund the project. Implications and Ruminations Interested parties may begin funding a project the moment a card is created. Earlier investors get proportionally more project tokens than later investors. Many times projects are funded based solely on the appeal of a White Paper. Using Trelleth, people can assess the value of a project to a much deeper level because the entire organizational framework is exposed. Governing bodies may use Trelleth to raise public funds for specific goals. A person may vote with value, giving funds directly to specific tasks they believe in, ignoring tasks they don’t. Crowdfunding is now empirically managed with no need of a central authority to provide escrow and conflict resolution services. People may participate in projects they believe in (as investors and suppliers) regardless of size and scope. Suppliers who want to participate but only have limited time may choose to work on 1 task. Investors with limited resources may contribute at the micro level. Trelleth is a completely novel approach to project management and funding that incentives investors and suppliers without a central authority, using blockchain technology for trustless, irrefutable interactions. |
Former President George H.W. Bush is not endorsing Donald Trump for president, but his Vice President Dan Quayle won’t sit on the sidelines. Quayle made the rounds on television this morning explaining his support of Trump for president, describing the presumptive nominee as a “winner.” “He knows how to win,” Quayle, who’s backing Trump, said in an interview with CNBC. “He knocked off 16 Republican and a lot of them were really good, solid people and would have been good presidents.” On CNN, Quayle admitted that he expected the usual “sorting out process” in the Republican primary, where “the cream would usually rise to the top.” “I didn’t realize Donald Trump would be the cream,” he marveled. “He got to the top. I totally misjudged his ability to win.” Quayle also reacted to the Bush family’s refusal to support Trump, reminding them that it was important to support Republican nominee. “I hope those that have said won’t support him now would reconsider, and before they cast their vote on Election day in November, would end up voting for him,” he said. “If not, don’t show up.” Quayle said on CNBC that Trump had work to do to unite Republicans on Capitol Hill, explaining that “folks in Congress, they need a lot of stroking.” During an interview with NBC’s Today show, host Savannah Guthrie pressed Quayle about Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns. “Let me just give you a little newsflash here: This is going to be different,” Quayle responded. “He’s a different candidate, gonna be a different campaign, so stay tuned. Just remember this: Expect the unexpected.” He previewed a dynamic presidential race between Trump and Hillary Clinton. “If in fact it comes down to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, that’s going to be bigger than the Super Bowl,” he said. “So stay tuned. It’s going to be a wild year.” |
S.F. plans to move entire homeless encampments into housing Two shelter workers checked out the beds in one building of the navigation center Thursday March 5, 2015. San Francisco's new "navigation center" was unveiled to the public on Mission Street, a facility that will move entire encampments from the street and get them into permanent housing. less Two shelter workers checked out the beds in one building of the navigation center Thursday March 5, 2015. San Francisco's new "navigation center" was unveiled to the public on Mission Street, a facility that ... more Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 13 Caption Close S.F. plans to move entire homeless encampments into housing 1 / 13 Back to Gallery Greg Fairrer lay facedown on the sidewalk in the Mission District on Thursday while one block away San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee was trumpeting what could be Fairrer’s salvation — a homeless-aid Navigation Center designed to move entire homeless encampments from sidewalk to permanent homes in just 10 days. Fairrer woke up in his tent as Lee was finishing his tour at the center. And, as word rippled through the nearby street camps that this new program they’ve been hearing about for some time will open in about a week, the former trucker clapped his hands. “The street counselors have been telling us about this thing for days, but it sounded too good to be true,” said Fairrer, 52, who has been homeless since losing his last job more than a year ago. “But I guess if the mayor’s saying it will open, it must be so. It can’t come soon enough. Everyone in this camp wants off this sidewalk. I want to get back into my life. “I just need the help.” That’s exactly what Lee and about a dozen nonprofit and city government agencies want to give him — not just for Fairrer’s benefit, but to clear out the estimated 400 homeless people who have been camping in the Mission District and surrounding neighborhoods and triggering complaints for the past year. The Navigation Center is one of the most innovative homeless-help experiments being undertaken in the U.S. — meaning that when it opens the week of March 16 at an old high school at 16th and Mission streets, it will be watched not just by every homeless camper in the vicinity, but by aid agencies around the nation. Never been tried One-stop help centers exist all over the U.S. — in San Francisco, there’s Project Homeless Connect, a 10-year-old effort to refer the homeless to job training, substance-abuse counseling and other programs that can pull them off the streets. But what has never been tried is moving full encampments under one roof — dogs and couples and tents and all — and housing them there until permanent housing is found. The Navigation Center will be doing this as a pilot project for eight to 18 months, depending on its success. The whole thing is a gamble of sorts, its creators admit. But for now, hopes are high. “To have a newness to this, we have to have a sense that people actually will get help,” Lee told officials who came to tour the center, which the city Public Works Department just finished building out with dormitories, a laundry, counseling rooms, and pet and storage areas. The center will be open 24 hours a day, but the idea is not just to provide an alternative spot to pitch a tent. By moving campers in as a group, the city hopes, they will trust the process more than many do in shelters, where, as Fairrer puts it, “you’re sleeping next to strangers and don’t know what to expect.” Fast track to homes This trust, planners hope, will lead to counselors being able to route people quickly into housing. “This will not be a center to just come in and out of all day,” Lee said. The center is being funded by a $2 million anonymous donation funneled through the San Francisco Interfaith Council. An additional $1 million from the same donor is being used to help create what city planners hope will be 500 new supportive housing units — housing with counseling on-site — for the homeless by the end of the year. “The status quo is not working, and as a city we can’t be afraid to break the mold and try new and innovative approaches,” said Supervisor Mark Farrell. “This is one of those approaches.” Episcopal Community Services will be the lead nonprofit agency overseeing the center with the city’s Human Services Agency. The group’s executive director, Ken Reggio, said about a dozen organizations have been enlisted so far, including the health department and Project Homeless Connect, “and we will cast the net for more as broadly as we can to look to the needs of the people we’re trying to help.” 10-day cycle As many as 75 people at a time will be housed at the center, he said, and the intent is to have about four service coordinators and four case managers on the grounds at all times. The goal is to cycle people out within 10 days. Bevan Dufty, Lee’s coordinator of homeless programs, and others, including Supervisor David Campos, have been meeting with residents for months to win community backing for the center. Most of the neighborhood schools and churches signaled approval, as has the activist San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness, but some residents are skeptical. “We’ll see, huh?” James Robinson said as he took a look at the new center. He pointed at one of the dormitories. “This is the poor,” he said, and then, waving a hand at the gentrifying Mission Street, he added, “and this out here is a lot of the new rich.” Skepticism, hope “I know how this goes. People will start complaining. That’s my concern,” Robinson said. “We need this type of thing, but how will people with money react having this around?” Peter Avila, principal of nearby Marshall Elementary School, said he thinks those types of concerns will be outweighed by the benefits. “On a daily basis, I’m having to kick homeless people off the sidewalk in front of my school,” Avila said. “They’re always back the next day. Hopefully, this will be a place where they actually come and get what they need.” Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: kfagan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KevinChron |
The family of a South Carolina teen killed by a Seneca police officer last year has settled a lawsuit against the city for $2,150,000, according to their attorneys. "Rather than endure a lengthy litigation process, both parties agree that an early resolution will allow a platform for healing for the Hammond family and the City of Seneca," the family's attorney, Eric S. Bland, said in statement to BuzzFeed News. "There will be no further legal proceedings between the parties." Seneca Police Lt. Mark Tiller was cleared of any wrongdoing in the fatal shooting, but the city settled the civil lawsuit against the family before the case went to trial. Zachary Hammond, 19, was shot and killed in the parking lot of a Hardee's restaurant on July 26 during an undercover drug sting. Dashcam video of the shooting shows Tiller running toward Hammond's car during the sting. Hammond is seen backing out of a parking spot and trying to drive away from the officer as Tiller stands near the driver's side window with his gun drawn. |
With the FIA having made clear that the Halo will be mandatory from 2018, Mercedes ran the cockpit protection system for a few laps during this week's post Hungarian GP test. And although Russell said it was a bit tricky initially to get in the car, he could not believe how much he could see once he was out on track. "The Halo was surprising, I had a much better view than I ever imagined," he said. "One very funny positive was that at the end of the day, when the sun was coming down, the Halo actually blocked the sun from my eyes, so I actually saw more than I would usually see on circuit at 5.30pm when the sun is low. "To be honest, from a drivers' perspective, when you're doing a qualy lap the visibility is completely fine. The only hindrance could potentially be the start lights, but I was extremely surprised by the Halo and by what I could see." The Mercedes Halo test was the first time that Russell had sat in the car with the device fitted, and he reckoned it would take drivers a bit of getting used to before they got comfortable getting in and out of the cockpits. "It was tricky to get in and out of the car, it just takes a bit of experience, finding the right techniques, where to put your arms and stuff," he said. "I struggled initially but towards the end, after a few trial runs, I was fine getting in and out. You can hold on to the Halo as you pull yourself up. "The only thing is getting your leg into the car, it's quite high. But I think most people would just have a step to stand on to get in and out of the car." Positive test Russell completed two solid days of running for Mercedes, and although his programme did not allow him to set headline grabbing times, he was happy with how things had gone. "Most drivers want to be at the top of the timesheets, but us at this test it wasn't really about that," he said. "We had our goals set on different things, and we came away from this test learning a lot. "A couple of the other teams were focusing on low-fuel qualy runs and getting to the top of the timesheets had slightly different goals to what we had. From our point of view, we took everything away we needed to and had a productive test." |
CLOSE Detroit News reporter Chad Livengood interviews Presidential candiate Donald Trump moments after an appearance by the candidate at the Greater Faith Ministries Church in Detroit on Saturday September 3, 2016. Max Ortiz, The Detroit News Buy Photo Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Dr. Ben Carson visit with residents in the southwest Detroit neighborhood where Carson grew up after Trump's visit to Great Faith Ministries International church in Detroit on Saturday. (Photo: Chad Livengood / The Detroit News)Buy Photo Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump praised the black church Saturday at the Greater Faith Ministries International as he made his first direct appeal to African-American voters. “I will always support your church always and defend your right to worship,” said Trump, who was introduced by Bishop Wayne T. Jackson to polite applause. Standing at the front of the church holding a cordless microphone, he noted that it was from black churches “all across this land that the civil rights movement lifted up its soul and lifted up our nation. It’s from these pews that our nation has been inspired.” The New York businessman emphasized issues such as fighting for good-paying jobs, expanded school choice and a civil rights agenda in his first campaign appearance before a predominantly black audience. In recent weeks, he has appealed to African-Americans for their votes, but before mostly white audiences, including one in the Lansing area on Aug. 20 where he asked: “What the hell do you have to lose?” He acknowledged the discrimination African-Americans still face in the country and pledged to work to heal it. “We’re all brothers and sisters,” he said in measured tones, reading from notes during almost 10 minutes of remarks. “...We must love each other and support each other, and we are all in this together.” “Our nation is too divided. We talk past each other, not to each other. And those who seek office do not do enough to step into the community and learn what’s going on.” Throughout the campaign, Trump has promised to bring back jobs. Although he has decried social problems like poverty in Detroit, he vowed Saturday to help revive the Motor City. “I want to help you build and rebuild Detroit,” he said, “and we can do it that, especially with people like Bishop and Dr. Jackson. I mean that.” Trump said he was there “to learn so that we can together remedy injustice in any form. and so that we can also remedy economics, and so that the African-American community can benefit ... through jobs and income.” “I am here to listen to you, and I’m doing that,” he said. The real estate developer noted that he had seen people sitting on the street and the lack of economic inactivity in the surrounding neighborhood when he came to the church. Trump said the United States is sidelining “young black men with tremendous potential, adding that “Our entire country misses out when we are unable to harness the potential and energy of these folks.” But in typical fashion, he promised to solve the situation. “We’re going to turn it around. We’re going to turn it around, pastor,” Trump said to Bishop Jackson. The businessman outlined a broad agenda for civil rights. “I believe we need a civil rights agenda for our time, one that ensures the right to a great education ... and the right to live in safety and in peace, and to have a really, really great job, a good-paying job, and one that you love to go to every morning. And that can happen,” Trump said. “It also means the right to have a government that protects our workers and fights, really fights for our jobs. I want to help you build and rebuild Detroit, and that can happen.” He also introduced and hugged Dr. Ben Carson, the native Detroiter and retired neurosurgeon who ran against him in the Republican presidential primaries and now is an adviser. After the service, Carson took Trump on a short tour of his southwest Detroit neighborhood that included his childhood home, a bungalow on Deacon Street. They briefly spoke with the homeowner, Felicia Reese. While in the church after the service, Trump shook hands with the audience and took selfies with congregants and youngsters. He even picked up a baby for a photo opportunity. Trump sat in service with Omarosa Manigault, a villain from his “The Apprentice” reality television series whom he fired three times and his director of African-American outreach. At one point during the service, the businessman swayed to the gospel music with Omarosa, who was seated next to him. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Omarosa Manigualt, right, from his “The Apprentice” reality television series and his director of African-American outreach, during the service Saturday at Greater Faith Ministries International. (Photo: Montez Miller, Special to Detroit News) The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton attacked the Trump appearance as a sham. “Donald Trump’s visit to Detroit is tantamount to a wolf visiting a sheep farm to lead a discussion on Let Me Be Your Leader To Greener Pastures,” said the Rev. . Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit chapter of the NAACP, in a statement released by the Clinton campaign. “He is talking over, around and through black people but not to black people. He should apologize, repent, re-align and retreat from his divisive non-presidential behavior.” Trump confirmed that he was interviewed privately by Jackson before the service. The interview caused controversy when the New York Times reported Thursday that the candidate received the questions ahead of time and his campaign was going to be allowed to edit the final transcript of the interview. Jackson said in a Friday CNN interview he was changing the questions but that he didn’t know anything about letting the Trump campaign edit the transcript -- something he said wouldn’t happen. The interview is set to air Thursday on Jackson’s Impact Network. The interview and the church service were “an amazing experience,” Trump said. “I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into,” he said. Jackson introduced Trump and told his congregation that “This is the first African-American church he’s been in, y’all. Now it’s a little different from a Presbyterian church.” Trump laughed at the line, according to a pool reporter who saw him on a television monitor. The businessman prefaced his remarks by saying: “I just wrote this the other day, knowing I'd be here, and I mean it from the heart, and I'd like to just read it and I think maybe you’ll understand it better than I do.” Jackson ended the service by putting a Jewish prayer shawl around the shoulders of Trump, telling the candidate it would help him with any adversity that he would face on the campaign trail. clivengood@detroitnews.com Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/2cokxx2 |
Aided by the economic recovery, the gentrification of the part of West Berkeley once devoted to light manufacturing and warehouse space continues apace. On June 16 architect David Trachtenberg filed an application for a use permit for a 5-story mixed use building on the site at 2001 Fourth Street now occupied by Grocery Outlet, a discount retail store which is part of a more-than-200-store chain. Long-time Berkeleyans remember that the market used to be called Canned Foods. It has filled an important niche for the financially strapped West Berkeley shopper, specializing in packaged food items that had dings and dents, were close to their pull date, or were marked down for some other reason that didn’t affect safety or nutritional value. It will be sorely missed if it closes, patrons say. An obligatory large yellow sign has been hung on the back wall of the store facing University Avenue, but it lists only the architect, not the owner. Yesterday, the City of Berkeley’s Planning Department posted the full application and accompanying plans on its current zoning list. A number of variances from height and density zoning regulations are requested. The site owner is listed on the applications as RI Berkeley LLC. A Planning Department staff member told the Planet that the site is owned by Read Investments, the same owner as the adjacent Read Building. In a 2008 entry on Trachtenberg’s web site, the Read Building was described as “the first phase of a larger master plan for the entire block.” The boundaries of the square block are Fourth, University, Addison and Fifth. A second Read Investment building designed by Trachenberg is now under construction on the northeast corner of the block, the Aquatic Residences at 800 University Avenue. That one is advertised on the Read site as a 58-unit mixed-use apartment boasting “two roof top sky lounges, an outdoor bocce ball court, a high end fitness center and lush gardens.” Also on June 16, Reuters reported according to un-named sources that the Grocery Outlet chain is being offered for sale at the price of one billion dollars. The story said that “Grocery Outlet has about $100 million in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization and could sell for more than 10 times that figure….” A year ago the chain announced plans to move its headquarters from the Berkeley location to Emeryville. The San Francisco Business times reported that “Grocery Outlet was started in San Francisco, but it moved to Berkeley in 1992 to a 20,000-square-foot space at 2001 4th St. that sits above a Grocery Outlet store. The Berkeley space is owned by Read Investments LLC, a real estate firm founded by the same Read family that founded Grocery Outlet and owns real estate that the retailer leases.” In 2009, family members sold an 80% stake in Grocery Outlet to Berkshire Partners to facilitate continued expansion of Read Investments, according to the corporation’s web site. The current co-CEO of Grocery Outlet is MacGregor Read, grandson of the company’s founder, and several Read relatives are Read Investments partners and executives. Both employees and customers of the Berkeley Grocery Outlet have told the Planet that they are concerned about the store’s closing just as new apartments are adding thousands of residents to the neighborhood. The closest large food vendor is the West Berkeley Bowl, outside walking distance for most of those who live in the University avenue area. A few blocks east, the building formerly operated as a supermarket by Andronico’s, and before that by the Berkeley Co-Op, now houses a thrift store. Michael J. Caplan, the City of Berkeley’s Economic Development Director, told the Planet in an email that Office of Economic Development staff met with Grocery Outlet several times and encouraged them to stay in Berkeley, but nothing came of it. Councilmember Kriss Worthington said that he’d met several times with representatives of United Food and Commercial Workers, the union which represents Grocery Outlet employees, because of concerns that jobs would be lost if the store closes. One employee who asked not to be quoted by name said they had been promised jobs at other Grocery Outlet locations, but the sale of the chain might affect that offer. |
The Israeli Defense Ministry’s Head of Defense Export Control, Meir Shalit, resigned last week after the United States expressed anger over a decision he made to sell sensitive military equipment to China, Israeli daily Ma’ariv reported on Sunday. At the time, Shalit did not provide a reason for his resignation. Washington asserted that his authorization of the sale of a miniature cooling system for missiles was in direct violation of Israel’s preexisting obligations to the United States. The conflict came as a result of differing interpretations of defense agreements between Israel and the U.S., according to the report. Israel claimed that the highly sensitive part was actually sold to a European company as part of a separate deal, but the Americans contended that the fact that it ultimately wound up in China is a breach of long-standing arrangements between Washington and Jerusalem. Furthermore, there is fear among the Americans that this advanced technology has found its way from China to Iran. About a month ago, according to Ma’ariv, American officials confronted Israel on the issue of how the part ended up in China. At this point, Shalit assumed full responsibility and said that he would resign. Over the past weekend while on a visit to the United States, Shalit personally apologized to American officials for authorizing the sale. The cooling system is made by Ricor Systems, a worldwide leader in innovative cooler technology for the infrared, scientific instrumentation and semiconductor industries. The past year has seen a significant boon in ties between Israel and China. The development of relations between the two countries was highlighted during a visit to Israel last week by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. |
Some unusual visitors were spotted at the Mall of New Hampshire on Sunday night when two cows wandered into the parking lot after hours.Click here to view photos of the cows.Manchester police were able to corral the animals shortly after 11 p.m. Their owner, Dave Giovagnoli said their pasture was a half-mile away.Click to watch News 9's coverage."Four are here. Two of them went walking, and the other two stayed," Giovagnoli said.Giovagnoli said the cows had just been taken to the South Mammoth Road property Sunday after spending the long winter in Dunbarton at his brother's place. He said the move had one of the animals feeling homesick."The mother is here, and the calf is still in Dunbarton, so she was kind of looking for her calf, and that's why she went wandering last night," he said.The cows walked through the woods and into a Manchester neighborhood, cutting through yards as homeowners slept. They crossed Huse Road before ending their adventure in the Best Buy parking lot.Giovagnoli said the cows will soon get used to their new surroundings and stay put.12967056 Some unusual visitors were spotted at the Mall of New Hampshire on Sunday night when two cows wandered into the parking lot after hours. Click here to view photos of the cows. Advertisement Related Content Images: Cows roam around Mall of NH Manchester police were able to corral the animals shortly after 11 p.m. Their owner, Dave Giovagnoli said their pasture was a half-mile away. Click to watch News 9's coverage. "Four are here. Two of them went walking, and the other two stayed," Giovagnoli said. Giovagnoli said the cows had just been taken to the South Mammoth Road property Sunday after spending the long winter in Dunbarton at his brother's place. He said the move had one of the animals feeling homesick. "The mother is here, and the calf is still in Dunbarton, so she was kind of looking for her calf, and that's why she went wandering last night," he said. The cows walked through the woods and into a Manchester neighborhood, cutting through yards as homeowners slept. They crossed Huse Road before ending their adventure in the Best Buy parking lot. Giovagnoli said the cows will soon get used to their new surroundings and stay put. AlertMe |
As families shift from a television in every room to a screen in every hand, Comcast is trying to keep up with the increasing demand for wireless download speeds—and starting Tuesday, it will provide faster residential Internet speeds throughout the Twin Cities at no additional cost to its consumers. The increase only applies to Comcast’s most popular residential service Internet offerings; the most expensive packages will see the largest growth. The changes are: • The “Performance” tier ($64.95 a month) will increase download speeds from 15 megabits to 25 megabits and upload speed from 2 megabits to 5 megabits. • The “Blast!” tier ($74.95) will increase download speeds from 25 megabits to 50 megabits and upload speeds from 4 megabits to up to 10 megabits. • The “Extreme” tier ($114.95) will increase download speeds from 50 megabits to 105 megabits and upload speeds from 15 megabits to 20 megabits. All packages will retain their same prices. Those prices represent the cost when Internet service is standalone. According to Mary Beth Schubert, Comcast’s vice president of corporate affairs, most customers have more than one Comcast product in their homes, and bundling Internet with television or a phone line lowers the prices. Plans with slower download speeds, those between 1.5 megabits and 6 megabits, will be unchanged. In order to boost speeds, customers will need to “power cycle” their cable modems, which simply involves unplugging the device for approximately 30 seconds and plugging it back in. This is the 11th time Comcast has increased its Internet speeds—although not all upgrades have been free—as the demand for streaming, downloading, and uploading has increased exponentially over the years. Minnesota joins Comcast consumers in California and Texas, who received the download and upload speed upgrades last week. Comcast will eventually boost speeds in most other service territories as well, said Schubert. |
This all-day event will feature guests like Ed Brubaker (THE FADE OUT), Cameron Stewart (The New 52's Batgirl), Brenden Fletcher (The New 52's Batgirl), Babs Tarr (The New 52's Batgirl), Ron Wimberly (SLAVE PUNK), Howard Chaykin (SATELLITE SAM), and Nick Dragotta (EAST OF WEST), Leila del Duca (SHUTTER), Joe Harris (SNOWFALL), Rick Remender (TOKYO GHOST), Alison Sampson (GENESIS), and Jonathan Hickman (EAST OF WEST), with more guests to be announced soon. On top of that, even more surprise guests will be introduced at the show. IMAGE EXPO merchandise will also be available at the show for purchase by attendees including: BLACK ROAD #1 by Brian Wood and Garry Brown, THE FIX #1 by Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber, GRIZZLY SHARK #1 by Ryan Ottley and Ivan Plascencia, a TOKYO GHOST convention exclusive hardcover by Rick Remender and Sean Gordon Murphy, Image Firsts Compendium: Book Two, Image Comics T-shirts, and Image Comics tote bags. Tickets to the event are now available for sale. General Admission tickets are available for $25, Premium Admission tickets for $75, and tickets to the Image Comics Spring Formal (the official EXPO afterparty—with a twist!) are $15. A General Admission Ticket will grant entry to IMAGE EXPO and includes a program guide book and access to EXPO programming, but not a Spring Formal ticket. A Premium Admission Ticket will grant entry to IMAGE EXPO and includes access to EXPO programming, the program guide book, and an admission ticket to the 18+ Image Comics Spring Formal dance, a chance to mingle with creators, press, retailers, and fellow fans. In addition, Premium Admission tickets include an Image T-shirt, tote bag, EXPO exclusive variants, priority seating, and access to the Premium signing. An Image Comics Spring Formal Ticket will grant entry to the official IMAGE EXPO afterparty, held from 8 p.m. to 12 a.m., in the style and spirit of a traditional high school dance and in celebration of the industry's diversity and camaraderie. Don't miss your chance to meet creators, attend panels and signings, receive exclusive swag, and get the scoop on all that Image Comics has in store, all before ECCC. Image Comics fans can follow the latest IMAGE EXPO updates at imagecomics.com/expo. We hope to see you there! |
Dean Beeby, The Canadian Press OTTAWA -- The Harper government says an internal review of how much GST Canada's banks and other financial institutions should pay will not be a tax grab. "The expectation is that any changes made as a result of the examination should be broadly revenue neutral," said Stephanie Rubec, spokeswoman for the Finance Department. "It is done as part of the department's routine examination of the tax system to ensure it is operating efficiently and to identify areas for potential improvement." The department quietly launched the wide-ranging review last summer to examine GST rules from 1991 that have failed to keep pace with the galloping complexity of new financial services in Canada and abroad. The finance sector is generally exempt from the GST or HST, but certain associated services -- called "supplies" in tax argot -- may be taxable. And as the sector evolves rapidly, there's deepening confusion about just what is owed to the Canada Revenue Agency, and on what services, for the value-added tax that is often harmonized with provincial tax as the HST. Canada's insurance industry, for example, faces a $1-billion bill for back taxes by the end of this month, a GST liability critics say has been largely obscured for the last seven years. "The GST/HST, along with other value-added tax regimes worldwide, has struggled to keep up with the pace of change in the financial sector," says one recent study commissioned by the Finance Department, obtained under the Access to Information Act. "While the exemption of financial services from GST/HST may have been politically and administratively expedient at first ... ambiguity about the scope of the exemption and about its application to new products and cross-border transactions have lead to extraordinary complexity and compliance challenges." The department created a six-member team last year that has ordered a series of in-depth studies, and has made several dozen presentations to finance industry stakeholders. KPMG was also hired to create a $170,000 database describing the myriad of "supplies" in the banking and investment sectors, for use in analyzing potential GST or HST payable. Another $73,500 report commissioned from Deloitte provides an in-depth look at value-added taxes for the financial sector in Singapore, South Africa and Japan. Yet other detailed studies look at Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and at Canada's insurance industry. Rubec says the review "is being conducted on a first-principles basis, with no pre-conceived outcome," and that the team has not been given a deadline. "This is a long-term analytical exercise, and no public output is anticipated in the near future." A University of Calgary economist, who advises the finance minister as part of an economic council, says an overhaul of the GST rule book is long overdue. "The GST is not as well-designed as it could be," Jack Mintz said in an interview. "There's a lot of exemptions. "All the special credits and preferences in the system (mean) the base is actually a lot narrower than it should be, and that actually creates some of the difficulties." Mintz says the Finance Department has started the overhaul by focusing on the financial sector because "it's the area that has gotten the most pressure from the business community." A tax partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers Canada, who has sounded alarms about revamped GST rules affecting the insurance industry, criticizes the "revenue neutral" goal. "To impose a condition that a bundle of changes for a policy upgrade be neutral is unfortunate, and precludes a best-for-Canada outcome, in my view," Michael Firth said in an interview. "It's like saying you can go white-water rafting, but only in the lounge." The review team is thus prevented from tossing out recent GST legislative changes that hit the insurance sector with back taxes, which would be revenue negative, he said. But Mintz said he supports the goal of revenue neutrality, noting that an exercise that broadens the base of goods and services taxed by the GST could allow the government to lower the current rate while maintaining existing revenues. "Let's fix problems but not try to raise revenues," he said. The Finance Department rejects any claim that its tax amendments in 2010 were a change in GST policy, saying the revisions merely restored the original intent of the 1991 regime after the government lost a 2003 tax court case because of fuzzy wording. A KPMG report for the review team says one of many complexities surrounding the GST problem is determining just where a financial transaction takes place. Consider, for example, the fictional example of a "Canadian resident ... electronically accessing his 'French' bank account balance, opened at the Paris branch of a Swiss-based bank that keeps its servers in India, from a cellphone while travelling in London." Other taxing conundrums arise with reward points on credit cards or with the services of discount brokers, neither of which were fully contemplated in 1991, when the GST was introduced. |
Ppx is a preprocessing system for OCaml where one maps over the OCaml abstract syntax tree (AST) to interpret some special syntax fragments to generate code. Ppx rewriters get to work on the same AST definition as the compiler, which has many advantages: The AST corresponds (almost) exactly to the OCaml language. This is not completely true as the AST can represent programs that you can’t write, but it’s quite close. Given that the compiler and pre-processor agree on the data-type, they can communicate between each other using the unsafe [Marshal] module, which is a relatively cheap and fast way of serializing and deserializing OCaml values. Finally, the biggest advantage for the user is that the locations in the original code are exactly preserved, which is a requirement to get usable error messages. This is not so great for the generated code, as the best one can do is reuse some locations from the original source code and hope for the best. In practice the user sometimes gets non-sensical errors, but this is a commonly accepted trade-off. There is however one drawback to all this, the compiler AST is not stable and code using it is at the mercy of its evolution. We got lucky with the 4.04 release of OCaml but the 4.03 one was quite disruptive. Even before releases, whenever the AST definition changes during a development cycle, many ppx might not be usable for a while, which make testing a lot harder. Several ideas have been flying around, such as adding a layer to convert between different versions of the AST. While this would work, it has the drawback that you need this layer for every variant of the AST. And when you want to make a patch modifying the AST, you’ll need to do the extra work of updating this layer first. In this blog post we show how we managed to solve the ppx compatiblity problem in a way that improves the user experience and lets us produce releases that don’t depend on ppx rewriters at all. We did this work while working on Base, our upcoming standard library. In the end, it’s likely we’ll use only the third of the methods described below for Base, while the others will be used to improve the user experience with the rest of our packages. What do other code generators do? Ppx is not the first system for generating code that is a mix of user-written code and machine generated code. A typical class of generators that get it right, i.e. that preserve locations and are independant from the AST definition, are lexer/parser generators, and not only the ones distributed with the compiler. Let’s take the example of lexer generators (parser generators work basically the same way). The users write a series of rules, consisting of a regular expression and an action to take if the input matches it: rule token = parse | "+" { PLUS } | "-" { MINUS } | '0'..'9'+ as s { INT (int_of_string s) } | " "* { token lexbuf (* skip blanks *) } This code is written in a .mll file and the generator then produces a .ml file with code for the lexing engine interleaved with the user written actions. In order to keep the locations of the user-written code pointing to the right place in the .mll file, the generator produces: # 42 "lexer.mll" token lexbuf (* skip blanks *) The OCaml compiler interprets the line starting with a # and updates its current location to point to the begining of line 42 in file lexer.mll . This is called a line directive. To go back into the generated code, the lexer generator produces: # 100 "lexer.ml" Where 100 correspond to the real line number in lexer.ml . With this method, when there is an error in the user-written code, it points to the lexer.mll file, while when there is an error in the generated code it points to the lexer.ml file. Even if the generated code might not be particularly easy to understand, at least you get to see the real code the compiler chokes on. Another big advantage is that when using a debugger, you can follow the execution through the generated code. Can we do the same for ppx? At first glance, it seems that ppx rewriters work in a very different way, but the result is the same: only parts of the file is generated and the rest is taken as if from what the user wrote. In fact, compared to the lexer case, most of the resulting code is user written. There is however some work to do to get the same result as with lexer generators. First you have to distinguish the generated code from the user code. If you take a ppx rewriter as a black box, then the only way is to apply some kind of tree diff between the input and the output. In our ppx framework however, we know exactly what fragments of the AST are rewritten by plugins and we know the rewriting is always local. This makes the job a lot simpler and probably faster as well, so we chose to take advantage of this information. The method It works this way: while mapping the AST, we collect all the fragments of generated code with the location of the code they replace in the original file. At the end we sort them in the order of the file and make sure there is no overlap. Every fragment is pretty printer to a string. What we end up with is a list of text substitutions: beginning position, end position, replacemen text. The next step is to simply apply these substitutions to the original file. If you read the bog post about how we switched from camlp4 to ppx, you’ll notice the resemblance here. This is what the transformation looks like: (* ----- input ----- *) type t = int [@@ deriving sexp_of ] let f x = x + 1 let g x = [% sexp_of : t ] x (* ----- output ----- *) # 1 "foo.ml" type t = int [@@ deriving sexp_of ] # 4 "foo.ml.pp" let sexp_of_t = sexp_of_int # 2 "foo.ml" let f x = x + 1 let g x = # 11 "foo.ml.pp" sexp_of_t # 5 "foo.ml" x The result for [@@deriving sexp_of] is not bad at all. For code rewritten inside expressions, the result is not as good given that it breaks those expressions up. But given than extensions are often sparse in our source files, this is still acceptable. This mode can be selected with ppx_driver based rewriter by passing the flag -reconcile . Solving the compatiblity problem With this mode, one can first generate a .ml.pp file and feed that to the compiler. Given that the concrete syntax of the language breaks much less often than the internal AST definition, a working ppx is likely to work for a very long time. We’ll soon start releasing a separate package that snapshots one version of the lexer/parser/AST/printer of the OCaml compiler. This package will have its own release schedule and will typically be updated soon after each relase of OCaml. This will give time for ppx authors to upgrade their code when it breaks while still allowing people to try out the new compiler with their favorite packages. Mode for release tarballs In addition to the mode described above, ppx_driver has a second mode -reconcile-with-comments where the result is similar to the one with line directives expect than the generated code is enclosed with comment markers: type t = int [@@ deriving sexp_of ] (* GENERATED CODE BEGIN *) let sexp_of_t = sexp_of_int (* GENERATED CODE END *) let f x = x + 1 let g x = (* GENERATED CODE BEGIN *) sexp_of_t (* GENERATED CODE END *) x This mode is intended for release tarballs. One can replace all the files in-place by the pre-processed version using =-reconcile-with-comments=. The result is readable and has the big advantage that you you don’t need to depend on the ppx rewriter, which means the package is faster to install for users. Jane Street packages will eventually move to this scheme, either for the next stable release or the one after that. One technical issue with this method is that to take full advantage of it, the runtime support libraries of the various ppx rewriters must be installable without the rewriter itself. Splitting the packages in opam is fine but splitting the repository is not desirable as often both components make strong assumption about the other. For Jane Street packages, we’ll need to update our release system so that it supports generating two opam packages from one repository. ppx as a verfication tool only While these new methods improve the ppx story in general, for Base we wanted to go even further and allow users to build Base without the need for ppx at all, both for the release and for the development versions. Not only to cut down the dependencies, but also to provide a better experience in general. For instance if you are working on a patched compiler and need the development version of Base, you shouldn’t need all the ppx rewriters that might not work for some reason. We explored various bootstrap story, and while they worked they were not very nice, especially for such an important library. Its development and build processes should be straightforward. We even looked into not using ppx at all. While this is OK for many ppx rewriters that are mostly syntactic sugars, it is more problematic for [@@deriving ...] . It’s not so much that the code is hard to write by hand, most data-structures in Base are either simple datatypes or require and written combinators anyway, but it is a pain to review. This code is very mechanical and you have to make sure that the constant strings correspond to the constructor/field names and other things where the machine can do much better than a human. In the end we found a solution to keep the best of both worlds, /i.e./ being able to build the original source code without pre-processing and avoid having to write and review this boilerplate code. The idea is to use ppx in the same way that we write expect tests; the tool only checks that what’s comes after the type-definition correspond to what the rewriters derive from it. In case of mismatch it produces a .corrected file just like expect tests. We are currently experimenting with this method for Base. It’s possible that we’ll have some marker to delimit the end of the generated code. In the end the code could look like this: type t = A | B [@@ deriving sexp_of ] let sexp_of_t = function | A -> Sexp . Atom "A" | B -> Sexp . Atom "B" [@@@ end_of_derived_code ] Given that the compiler ignores attributes it doesn’t understand, this code compiles just fine without any pre-processing. When running the ppx rewriter in this expect mode, the generated AST is matched against the source AST without taking locations into account, so that mean that you can reformat the code as you wish and even add comments. The challenge now is to update our ppx rewriters so that they produce code that we are happy to show. Until now we didn’t focus too much on that, but we have a good idea about how to do it. The plan is to move more of the logic of the various deriving system into proper functions instead of generating more code. Note that this is an improvement in general as proper functions are a lot easier to understand and maintain than code generators. Conclusion In this blog post we described a simple and clean method to decouple ppx rewriters from the release schedule of the compiler. This method has the advantage that once the ppx is written is likely to work for a long time and especially to work out of the box with development compilers. Moreover, this method has is better for users as errors point to the real code the compiler sees and when debugging they can follow the execution through generated code without trouble. |
Mylan’s ($MYL) EpiPen tornado is far from its first storm of controversy. It’s just the most mainstream. Over the past decade, its executives have caught fire for personal use of company aircraft, an unearned degree, outsized compensation and alleged conflicts of interest. They sued a newspaper for coverage of Mylan production problems to boot. Let’s rewind to 2008, when the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette discovered that now-CEO Heather Bresch, then Mylan’s COO, had earned only 22 of the 48 credits required for the MBA on her resume. West Virginia University first confirmed that Bresch hadn’t completed the Executive MBA program. Then the school backtracked and said she had--and awarded the degree retroactively. Her transcript was amended. Back and forth and back and forth ensued--Bresch, for one thing, told reporters that she had cut a deal with the MBA program’s director to sub work experience for coursework. WVU appointed a panel to investigate. The panel’s verdict? Bresch did not earn her degree and officials “acted improperly” to grant it retroactively. WVU rescinded the degree. Free Daily Newsletter Like this story? Subscribe to FiercePharma! Biopharma is a fast-growing world where big ideas come along daily. Our subscribers rely on FiercePharma as their must-read source for the latest news, analysis and data on drugs and the companies that make them. Sign up today to get pharma news and updates delivered to your inbox and read on the go. SUBSCRIBE NOW “I continue to believe that I did what I needed to do to earn my degree,” Bresch told the Wall Street Journal Health Blog at the time. “The administration allowed me to take an unconventional approach as part of what was then a program in its infancy.” She said she wouldn’t challenge WVU’s decision to take her degree back. Less than a year later, then-CEO Robert Coury made headlines for using Mylan’s company jet for personal travel. Security reasons, the company said; not an uncommon excuse, but not a perk most drugmakers provide, either. Not only that, but the company paid the taxes he would have owed on the value of that aircraft use. By 2012, Coury was catching fire for jetting his musician son to gigs all over the country: San Antonio, Cincinnati, Las Vegas, West Palm Beach. Perfectly fine, said Mylan at the time. "Mr. Coury's family members have occasionally been passengers on the corporate aircraft," spokeswoman Nina Devlin told the WSJ back then. The value of Coury’s personal aircraft use in 2011? $500,000. The company had stopped covering Coury’s tax bill for the perk, however. The next out-of-the-ordinary scandal involved Vice Chairman Rodney Piatt and some questionable land deals. Mylan paid $2.9 million for a new headquarters site in a Pittsburgh business park, one day after Piatt sold the same tract to a business partner for $1. Then, Mylan shelled out $9.2 million for another parcel that Piatt had previously sold to the same partner for $10. Mylan didn’t disclose Piatt’s role in the land sales. It didn’t tell shareholders that it hired a company linked to Piatt to oversee some of the construction, either. Securities regulators required that companies report significant transactions with “related persons,” including board members. And Mylan did disclose that the Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation into the land deals--and that the company was planning to reimburse Piatt for about $338,000 in expenses stemming from that probe. Mylan said at the time that the board didn’t decide to buy the land, though it was aware of the deals. “Mr. Piatt was not a party to either transaction, had no direct or indirect material interest in the transactions, and did not profit from the sale of these properties to Mylan,” the company told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Those were all one-time scandals. Simmering underneath them all were questions about the company’s compensation plans. As CEO, Coury totted up compensation that outranked many pay packages in Big Pharma--companies with more sales, more employees and far bigger R&D budgets. In 2011, as CEO, he boasted a $22.9 million pay package, up from just over $8 million a few years before. Even after he moved into the executive chairman role, he racked up some serious pay--$25.8 million in 2014. That figure even cropped up when Teva ($TEVA) was trying to buy Mylan--as a cultural difference that might make integration difficult. Teva’s exec pay approach "favors restraint and a pay-for-performance philosophy, a reflection of our fidelity to the interests of all stakeholders, and not just a select few," CEO Erez Vigodman wrote to Coury at the time. Meanwhile, Bresch’s pay started out at $9.6 million in 2012, her first year at the helm. By 2014? Her compensation had grown to $25.82 million. Meanwhile, the company said it would not only accelerate executives’ equity pay to help them avoid tax penalties related to Mylan’s inversion move to the Netherlands--but also cover the excise taxes top managers would owe. Shareholders, however, got no such tax protection. We recently heard from one of them. “I was one of those shareholders that experienced ‘sticker shock’ when I found out how much I owed all because of the conversion of Mylan stock when they shifted HQ from Canonsburg to the Netherlands,” the shareholder told us. “Your link to the FiercePharma article about Mylan handing out money to overpaid execs so they can pay their taxes is making me mad all over again.” Special Reports: Top 20 highest-paid biopharma CEOs of 2014 | Top 20 highest-paid biopharma CEOs of 2012 | Top 10 pharma CEO salaries of 2011 | Top 10 pharma CEO salaries of 2010 | Top 15 Big Pharma paychecks of 2008 Related Articles: Mylan chief jets to pop singer son's concerts on company aircraft Mylan shells out $32.5M to execs to handle inversion-deal excise taxes Mylan shareholders face big M&A-related taxes, especially if Teva's bid succeeds One 'cultural difference' for Teva and Mylan? Coury's $22.5M pay wouldn't fly at Teva Pharma's reputation takes another hit with Mylan's Epipen pricing debacle Mylan thought new access plans would quell the EpiPen tempest. It was wrong |
As some of you may probably know, current Android versions give you the ability to access network signal strength by heading to the SIM Status menu in Settings. But now it looks like the information may be made optional in future. A recent piece of code committed to the Android Open Source Project reveals there are plans to give carriers the ability to hide the signal strength information. Reports say the feature was requested by carriers, and Google agreed to their demand. There's, however, no information on exactly why carriers want such a feature (which would presumably come into affect when a SIM is inserted). It's also worth mentioning that the change only affects the 'Signal strength' option that's there in the SIM Status menu. It doesn't affect the APIs that are used to fetch this information, meaning third party apps would still be able to show signal strength. Source | Via |
OTTAWA – Hitting the midway point on the House of Commons calendar, the Liberal’s legislative agenda seems lacking, critics say. "The government made some initial moves back in 2015 that I think were positive, and now it just seems to be in the doldrums," said NDP House Leader Peter Julian in an interview with CTVNews.ca Julian came back into the role after an unsuccessful leadership bid. He held the position at the start of this Parliament. He desribed the government's legislative showing "really disappointing." He said the Liberals have gotten off track from bringing forward new ideas, or initiatives focused on the problems of "regular Canadians," and are rather more concerned about what benefits them and their party. He described it as "a lack of focus." Conservative House Leader Candice Bergen told CTVNews.ca that the government has been "bogged down" in the House and unable to pass more bills because of the backlash to many of their proposals. Since forming government, the Liberals have introduced 70 pieces of government legislation. Among the key bills they’ve passed into law: a legal regime for physician-assisted death; a middle-class tax cut; protections for trans people; and the establishment of a parliamentary committee on national security oversight. They have passed 36 government bills so far. Currently moving through Parliament are a handful of other bills that act on Liberal promises, including: legalizing marijuana, amending the access to information laws; implementing an oil tanker moratorium; and establishing a new political financing regime. They have 34 government bills left to pass. The government has yet to bring forward other promised pieces of legislation, including bills on: pay equity; federal accessibility; and gun control. Government House Leader Bardish Chagger wouldn’t say if she is concerned about passing all of the legislation left, in addition to any forthcoming bills. "I am going to do the best that I can," Chagger said in an interview with CTVNews.ca. She said the pace of bills passing is attributable to the “scrutinizing” legislation is getting, though her opposition counterparts disagree. Both Julian and Bergen described the Liberals as trying to "ram through" their bills, citing their increasing use of time allocation. Bergen called their current shutting down of debate, something the previous Conservative government also did regularly, "frustrating." Time allocation is a procedural mechanism that sets a limit on how much time a bill will be debated before a vote is called to pass it to the next stage. It’s a tool both the NDP and the Liberals were highly critical of the previous Conservative government using. but now, Julian said, the Liberals are doing the same thing. The Liberals have limited debate by using time allocation around 30 times so far this Parliament. "The opposition has a job to do… they are going to do what they need to do, no differently than the government of the day is going to want to advance the mandate that Canadians gave to us," Chagger said. Bergen said the Liberal’s legislative weakness is that they are trying to pass legislation without taking into consideration the effect the bills will have. She cited marijuana legalization and changes to tax law as examples. "It’s like they can’t see what’s coming, it’s like they don’t seem to have any foresight as to the consequences of their actions," she told CTV News. Questions remain about whether a prorogation is on the horizon. A prorogation would end the current Parliamentary session, killing all current business that has not passed. It’s possible for bills and committee work to be reinstated with a motion. The procedural tool has been used in the past at the mid-mandate point by previous governments to reset, and present a new throne speech laying out the government’s agenda for the remaining time they’re in power. When asked if the Liberals are considering proroguing, Chagger said it was a question for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. "We’ll see what happens," Chagger said. |
In August 2016, an image of a Tweet ostensibly posted by 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine, in which he supposedly admitted to having an open marriage, began circulating on social media: We could not find this tweet (supposedly posted on 12 July 2015) in Kaine’s Twitter feed, however. While it has been displayed on sites such as Prntly.com, a disreputable outlet that has a penchant for publishing both fake news and spurious pro-Trump articles, a direct link to the alleged Tweet has not yet materialized. The earliest iteration of the above-displayed image we could uncover was posted to the Twitter account of Scott Ernst on 6 August 2016: Ernst’s Twitter feed, like Prntly’s content, is full of discredited stories, conspiracy theories, and pro-Trump/anti-Clinton material. Given that Senator Kaine’s Twitter feed is almost exclusively devoted to policy, it would be highly unusual for him to post such a personal message to his official account. Moreover, the sentence used in the questionable tweet was lifted verbatim from a July 2015 article by Michael Sonmore on “What Open Marriage Taught One Man About Feminism” published at the same time as the datestamp on Kaine’s putative tweet (so even if the sentence had appeared in a Kaine tweet, it would have been an obvious reference to that just-published article rather than an admission that his wife was seeking sexual partners outside their marriage): When my wife told me she wanted to open our marriage and take other lovers, she wasn’t rejecting me, she was embracing herself. When I understood that, I finally became a feminist. Tim Kaine has been married to Ann Holton since 1984. |
Nicolas Maduro has revealed a plan to combat Venezuela's food crisis by encouraging people to breed rabbits for meat, but acknowledged a "setback" when participants in a pilot project adopted the bunnies as pets. Unveiling "Plan Rabbit", the Venezuelan president described it as an "extremely good" initiative to provide an alternative source of animal protein, "because rabbits breed like... rabbits." The scheme - designed to resist the "economic war" Mr Maduro says is being waged by the "empire" - had however suffered teething difficulties. The minister for urban agriculture, Freddy Bernal, had handed out baby rabbits to 15 communities as part of a trial, Mr Maduro recounted to much laughter from assembled ministers. "When he returned, surprise! The people had the bunnies with little bows and they were keeping them as pets," he said. |
Don E. Wirtshafter moderates the most anticipated panel of Seattle Hempfest 2012, The Great I-502 Debate. Initiative 502 is on the Washington State ballot and would legalize personal possession of marijuana, with state-licensed cultivation for commercial stores. It also institutes a new per se DUID at 5ng of active THC per milliliter of blood, which is an unscientific standard for determining driver impairment. From left to right: Steve Elliott, Toke of the Town (I-502 opponent) Kari Boiter, Legislative Analyst (I-502 opponent) Keith Stroup, NORML Founder & Legal Counsel (I-502 proponent) Alison Holcomb, I-502 Campaign Director (I-502 proponent) I personally remain a believer that I-502 must be passed (as does Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn) as no law is ever perfect and to keep the cannabis reform momentum going. Every one of these panelists is clearly knowledgeable, passionate and dedicated to cannabis reform. The two I-502 opponents have countless valid points. Keith said it best during the Q&A that it’s a measure of the political success cannabis reform is now having that the finer details are being internally debated as success comes closer. Of course, a house divided can not stand, as we saw with Prop 19 in California. Seattle Hempfest 2012 – The Great I-502 Debate Video Timestamps and Highlights Intro from Don E. Wirtshafter on I-502 and how it’s divided the WA marijuana community [beginning] Introduction of panel [3:14 mark] Steve Elliott’s opening statement [4:45 mark] Keith Stroup’s opening statement [6:25 mark] Kari Boiter’s opening statement [16:10 mark] Alison Holcomb’s opening statement [22:39 mark] Question and Answer Section Can you explain the DUI Provisions in I-502? [30:57 mark] Alison – It’s no different than the current law and not a reason to vote against I- 502. [31:05 mark] – It’s no different than the current law and not a reason to vote against I- 502. [31:05 mark] Steve – He can’t support any measure these DUI provisions like this [35:20 mark] – He can’t support any measure these DUI provisions like this [35:20 mark] Keith – Educating non-cannabis users who vote against legalization is critical to dispelling the myth that legalization would create tons of new stoned and dangerous drivers. [37:50 mark] – Educating non-cannabis users who vote against legalization is critical to dispelling the myth that legalization would create tons of new stoned and dangerous drivers. [37:50 mark] Kari – She’s had her blood work done and sees how easily she’d be considered impaired 24/7 under this 5ng rule. [39:40 mark] If I-502 passes, how do you fix or relax the DUI provisions? [45:30 mark] Alison – Jan 2013 legislative session, add to medical marijuana law that proof of your test result is not adequate evidence for a conviction, you have to have additional impairment. [46:29 mark] – Jan 2013 legislative session, add to medical marijuana law that proof of your test result is not adequate evidence for a conviction, you have to have additional impairment. [46:29 mark] Kari – They have to prove impairment now. If I-502 passes, all law enforcement needs is this inappropriate scientific measure of 5ng. [51:19 mark] If I-502 passes, what does it mean to home growers, passing a joint, legal vs illegal marijuana for end users? [55:45 mark] Alison – I-502 does not distinguish between source of marijuana a person is carrying. Home growing is currently a felony, but you have an affirmative defense as a medical marijuana patient, I-502 doesn’t change that. Right now passing a joint is a felony under ‘delivery’, I-502 doesn’t change that. [56:30 mark] – I-502 does not distinguish between source of marijuana a person is carrying. Home growing is currently a felony, but you have an affirmative defense as a medical marijuana patient, I-502 doesn’t change that. Right now passing a joint is a felony under ‘delivery’, I-502 doesn’t change that. [56:30 mark] Steve – I don’t want to trust law enforcement officials to not abuse laws. Do the conclusive research on impairment before defining it. [59:39 mark] How would I-502 change things for current medical marijuana patients in WA? [61:12 mark] Kari – Yes, I-502 may give growers more protection from WA, but it’s the Feds I’m worried about and this gives them more valuable information. [61:39 mark] – Yes, I-502 may give growers more protection from WA, but it’s the Feds I’m worried about and this gives them more valuable information. [61:39 mark] Alison – I-502 doesn’t change things at all. [63:34 mark] Does I-502 change law on industrial hemp ban in WA, what would happen to black market cannabis grown outdoors if industrial hemp ban is lifted? [65:29 mark] Steve – State law of industrial hemp is meaningless against federal raids, as other states have seen.[65:49 mark] – State law of industrial hemp is meaningless against federal raids, as other states have seen.[65:49 mark] Keith – “I want to create a conflict with the federal government.” The more states that pass laws, the better. [66:29 mark] – “I want to create a conflict with the federal government.” The more states that pass laws, the better. [66:29 mark] Kari – “If you’re going to create a conflict with the Feds, you better be damn sure you can win.” Follow the alcohol model. [67:10 mark] – “If you’re going to create a conflict with the Feds, you better be damn sure you can win.” Follow the alcohol model. [67:10 mark] Alison – “17 states have medical marijuana laws… I’m glad they didn’t wait for Congress to give them permission…” [67:38 mark] How will the distribution system tax plan get implemented and be compliant under federal law per I-502? [68:16 mark] Alison – In regards to state agencies that regulate WA’s drug laws, they already have mandates to co-operate with federal agencies in enforcing drug laws. I-502 makes no changes. [68:30 mark] – In regards to state agencies that regulate WA’s drug laws, they already have mandates to co-operate with federal agencies in enforcing drug laws. I-502 makes no changes. [68:30 mark] Kari – The federal government is not sitting idly by, they’re raiding dispensaries, including Harborside. Obama has not respected states’ rights on medical marijuana. [71:35 mark] I-502 removes penalties for having marijuana paraphernalia, such as a pipe? [73:27 mark] Alison – Yes – Yes Kari – Yes Do you think juries will convict anyone after I-502 passes? [73:48 mark] Keith – Federal government doesn’t have the resources, something like 97% of all marijuana arrests are state level. The Feds can’t afford to come arrest smokers. [73:58 mark] What are the consequences if I-502 doesn’t pass? [74:58 mark] Kari – Feds are raiding everywhere regardless of what marijuana laws states are passing. [75:13 mark] – Feds are raiding everywhere regardless of what marijuana laws states are passing. [75:13 mark] Keith – The Feds have not been raiding in New Mexico. [75:28 mark] Is it true I-502 fails to have a preemption and severability clauses? [75:48 mark] Alison – No, because it amends our existing uniform controlled substances act, which already has these provisions in them [76:03 mark] If I-502 passes will it create a domino effect throughout the country [76:45 mark] Steve – If I-502 passes, it sets a bad precedent and it will green light other states to pass these same DUI provisions. [76:57 mark] – If I-502 passes, it sets a bad precedent and it will green light other states to pass these same DUI provisions. [76:57 mark] Keith – Initiatives don’t have to worry about elected officials and their worrying over re-election, they can improve the law each iteration. [78:02 mark] – Initiatives don’t have to worry about elected officials and their worrying over re-election, they can improve the law each iteration. [78:02 mark] Kari – Cites numerous studies on cannabis usage and trying to measure impairment [79:47 mark] What about the 1,000 foot rule from a school, park, etc make it extremely difficult to distribute cannabis in any metropolitan area? [81:30 mark] Alison – Yes, it will impact some locations but to broader voter support it’s a compromise to address people’s concerns for kids. [81:48 mark] – Yes, it will impact some locations but to broader voter support it’s a compromise to address people’s concerns for kids. [81:48 mark] Kari – I-502 says within 1,000 feet of a school, playground, recreational facility, child care center, game arcade, park, publicly owned property, etc. etc. Good luck finding an eligible dispensary location. [82:49 mark] If I-502 passes, how would impact WA’s compliance with international treaties? [83:55 mark] Keith – Yes, the United States could absolutely legally get out of any international provision with six months notice. Other countries in South America have stopped following. [84:05 mark] How did I-502 get into this divided political mess and how can it succeed if so? [85:28 mark] Keith – First 30 of 40 years of reform movement, we all agreed generally on legalization. Past 10 years as we get closer to our goal, we start arguing on the details and the money as probability of success increases. [85:49 mark] What does I-502 change about field and blood testing for DUI? [87:20 mark] Alison – I-502 doesn’t change any field procedures. It does create a new blood standard. [87:33 mark] Final 30 second closing comments from each panelist [91:10 mark] |
Club issues update on player ‘Retained List’ submitted to the Football League. Wigan Athletic Player contract updates announced. Contracts offered to Chris McCann and Jordan Flores. Four first team players set to leave the club. Wigan Athletic can provide the following update regarding the annual Retained List submitted to the Football League at the conclusion of 2015-16 season. FIRST TEAM SQUAD The following players are out of contract on 30 June 2016 and have been offered renewed terms: Chris McCann Jordan Flores The following players will be leaving the club at the expiry of their current playing contracts on 30 June 2016: Ryan Jennings Kevin McNaughton Leon Barnett Reece Wabara The club would like to thank them for their efforts whilst at Wigan Athletic and wish them all the best in their future careers. LOAN PLAYERS The loan agreements for Conor McAleny (Everton) and Haris Vuckic (Newcastle United) have now expired and both have returned to their parent clubs. The club also thanks them for their efforts whilst at Wigan Athletic. Stephen Warnock is due to become a Wigan Athletic player when his contract expires at Derby County at the end of this month, as announced earlier this week. The following players, who have been out on loan during the 2015-16 season, remain contracted to Wigan Athletic beyond June 2016, and are due to return to pre-season training with the rest of the squad: Emyr Huws (Huddersfield Town) Jack Hendry (Shrewsbury Town) Billy Mckay (Dundee United) Andrew Taylor (Reading) Dan Lavercombe (Torquay United) Danny Whitehead (Macclesfield Town). DEVELOPMENT SQUAD The following Development Squad players are out of contract on 30 June 2016 and have been offered renewed terms: Adam Anson Sam Cosgrove Owen Evans Liam Langford Danny O’Brien. The following Development Squad players will be leaving the club at the expiry of their current playing contracts on 30 June 2016: Matty Hamilton Adrian Purzycki Louis Robles The club thanks them for their efforts whilst at the club and will work with them as much as possible in helping them to progress in their future careers. The following 2015-16 scholars have been offered professional terms for the 2016-17 season and are in line to join the Wigan Athletic Development Squad: Kelland Absalom James Barrigan Arnie Baxendale Luke Burke Josh Gregory Alex Lingard. All players are listed in squad number order. |
“The House in Session (According to the Minority Point of View)”, by cartoonist Clifford Berryman (1908), National Archives Berryman Political Cartoons Collection. In Clifford Berryman’s classic cartoon of the 1908 House of Representatives, Speaker Joseph Cannon (R-Illinois) looks out across the chamber and only sees more Joe Cannons. Democrats had no means of challenging the Speaker’s control of the floor. Two years later, in the aftermath of an historic challenge to the Speaker, moderate Republicans and nearly every Democrat joined forces to create the House discharge rule — a tool described by the Democratic leader as “a wedge with which to weaken and finally split the Republican party wide open.” On a few occasions over the next century, the discharge rule provoked majority leaders to reluctantly bring targeted bills to the floor. When I wrote about the discharge rule earlier this week, I concluded that technical and political barriers rendered the discharge rule an unlikely tool for securing a House vote on a continuing resolution (CR) to temporarily fund the government. Many readers suggested that I prematurely dismissed the potential of the discharge rule. So back in the procedural weeds we go. First, have I underestimated the technical feasibility of using a discharge petition to dislodge a spending bill? Possibly. Several readers suggested that a discharge petition could be targeted to bills introduced earlier this spring, thus meeting the rule’s requirement that a discharge target be lingering in committee for longer than 30 days. One relevant bill (introduced by a team of GOP conservatives this past March) would create an automatic four-month CR whenever Congress fails to enact its spending bills by Oct. 1. That would be a natural target of a discharge rule, as would a special rule written and referred to the Rules Committee to bring the bill to the House floor. The special rule might also provide for additional calls of the discharge calendar, speeding up the discharge drive. So yes, there are potentially ripe measures that might be targeted to re-open the government in a more timely manner than I suggested. That said, the automatic CR bill that’s in committee differs significantly from the clean “CR” in dispute, raising the challenge of securing 60 Senate votes. As Gary Cox argues, automatic CRs affect everyone’s bargaining leverage, making them potentially controversial. Second, have I overestimated the political barriers to its success? I’m not so sure. The political challenge strikes me as pretty steep: Majority party lawmakers are typically loath to sign discharge petitions that undercut the power of party and committee leaders. We see this more generally in lawmakers’ votes on procedural matters, which exhibit much higher levels of partisanship than votes on substance in both the House and Senate. Witness how few Republican members have broken ranks with the leadership on any of the procedural votes over the past week; these moderates also fill the ranks of the members most loyal to Speaker Boehner on contested pivotal votes this year. Granted, the number of GOP who have called for a clean CR now surpasses the House GOP’s margin over the Democrats. Are those members also willing to cross the aisle and party leaders to sign a discharge petition? Perhaps, if House GOP moderates feel that they can’t escape blame for the shutdown back home. But historical patterns suggest such crossover behavior is rare. Speaker Cannon’s opponents created the discharge rule more than a century ago to undermine a recalcitrant Speaker’s grip on the House. Subsequent minority parties have faced a hard time making it work. |
Muddle-headed desk jockeys out there in media-land ranting about "birthers" are missing the point. Tony Abbott's refusal to comply with an FOI request is about respecting the LAW, says a cranky Noely Neate. I HAVE NOT paid a lot of attention to the call for PM Tony Abbott to declare when he renounced his UK citizenship. You know – life, going to war – and I won’t even start on how many aspects of the budget have absorbed my attention, so this one has sort of passed me by, until today that is. A bloke called Grant Wyeth has written an article in The Drum entitled 'The 'birther' barrier is holding Parliament back'. If he thought his high and mighty attitude of “Let's hope this silly undertaking of "gotcha" journalism provides momentum to remove Article 44(i) from our laws” would make this “ridiculous” (his word not mine) campaign go away, he is sorely mistaken. Instead, it actually made me look into it further and I say "Rulz is Rulz Mr Abbott". For starters, the pompous use of the word “birther” by this writer and other journalists who've trotted it out on Twitter is muddle-headed and off the mark. As law expert, Ingrid Matthews, wrote recently in Independent Australia: “Comparisons with the birthers should be dismissed out of hand as weak analogy.” This chart gives a sense of how much web traffic Ross Jones' story on Tony Abbott's citizenship sent IA's way: pic.twitter.com/xb1TBL3JV8 — Dave Donovan (@davrosz) September 6, 2014 (Nothing like a lot of traffic going IA's way to put a few noses out of joint!) This is nothing like the hysterical rubbish that Barack Obama went through. Hell, those nutters were still trying to say his passport was forged and all sorts of weird stuff after he did address the issue. To compare me and others to the likes of a Palin, or U.S. Fox News' hyperventilating viewers, is just insulting. Most importantly, no-one is questioning Mr Abbott’s "birth". We all know where he was born. So let's just sheet that silly "birther" term right back to the likes of Mr Wyeth and others who are promoting such ridiculous terminology, not the punters. Or, is lumping those questioning the blocking of the FOI request by the PM's office into "birthers", some kind of childish grudge because "non-mainstream" Independent Australia has been raising this issue? .@sexenheimer So when did Abbott renounce his British citizenship? Why did Sen Nigel Scullion go to so much trouble? https://t.co/hFjtAqs34Z — Team (Tim) Jones (@forthleft) September 10, 201 (Listen from 22:15 mark on video about Scullion having to go to London for a RN1 form to revoke UK citizenship 5 days before election) Mr Wyeth seems to infer that, as we are a multicultural nation, Article 44(i) of the Constitution is no longer required. So the very questioning of the PM renouncing his U.K. citizenship is pretty much a "who cares" drama that we shouldn't bother paying attention to. Well, Article 44(i) might be outdated. Hell, most of our Constitution is a bit long in the tooth. Just ask members of our Indigenous family. On that I agree, though not necessarily in regard to that particular article. As someone said to me, what if Mr Abbott had dual citizenship with Iraq? Would that affect what is currently happening at the moment with us rocking in to take on the nasty ISIL extremists? Would the spin be different maybe? Would we as a nation be questioning his motives? Would the media themselves be asking different questions of the PM? On this issue, the jury is out for me. I know it doesn't fit with certain people's black and white, left v. right beliefs. BUT, just because you believe that your elected representatives should make their legal responsibility to their electorate and nation a priority, it does not make you a nutter ready to sport a southern cross tattoo and drunkenly start a race riot under the guise of overzealous patriotism. My issue here upon looking into this campaign is the LAW. There are a shipload of laws that we all think are rather redundant and should probably be tossed off the books. Doesn’t matter. We can still be charged under them an have to abide by them. Our MPs are not above the law - so why dodge and block the FOI request? How often have we had to cop examples like a particular MP popping into a school for a flying visit just so they can claim the whole weekend in a resort town to attend a party fundraiser, wedding and/or sporting event courtesy of the taxpayer? We all complain about it, but it is "technically" legal for them to do so. Therefore, on more than one occasion, we have been told "all travel was undertaken within the parliamentary entitlements rules". Now, if any laws needed a serious shake-up, it would be the parliamentary entitlements rules. In the private sector, you would get the sack for abusing your expense account to the degree we often see our MPs do. MPs do not have the right to pick and choose which rules they decide to follow. Journalists are always telling us to check the source of our information. Then verify that source independently. They also tell us that they don’t have an opinion, they just report. Yet it seems that many in the media have "decided" this is a non-issue, without any checking of facts at all. In all likelihood, it is just arrogance from the PM’s office that they feel they are not answerable to punters. Point is, verification is a simple thing to do, isn't it, so why the arrogance? When you put your hand up to represent your electorate, you sign a legal document with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). If you lie on that document, there are legal ramifications, as there should be. The fact that maybe some of that law is outdated has nothing to do with this issue and is just a distraction. If Mr Abbott formally renounced his dual citizenship with the U.K. High Commission (as I am led to believe is the process for U.K. citizens) prior to 26 March 1994 when he signed his Candidate Nomination Form, then all is good. There should be no issue showing us the paperwork, huh? I mean, there is a process and it does involve official paperwork, the sort of paperwork you do tend to keep on file. Instead, an FOI request for this information has been denied. I don’t know about you but I find this insulting. An Australian citizen should not be denied proof of the legal status of an MP’s citizenship. There is no good reason for it, no security issue or commercial confidence issue. This FOI denial alone is what keeps this issue alive. This "distraction" can quite easily disappear into the ether by providing a copy of the paperwork renouncing of U.K. citizenship AND a copy of the AEC Candidate Nomination form when Mr Abbot first sought to win a seat in Parliament. @davrosz @YaThinkN An excellent article & worth a read & R/T. The particular section of the 'Constitution' shld remain. Break it, Gaol time! — Keith Mansfield (@53keithm) September 16, 2014 I am starting to think that when Mr Abbott promised us a “ grown up ” government, instead of "responsible adult" government he actually meant he would treat us citizens like children, responding to unwanted scrutiny with that most hated parent refrain, “” that will drive a kid to their bedroom in fury and frustration, normally with bonus door slamming. That is just not good enough. It is not "ridiculous" to want proof and be assured that our Prime Minister – be it this one or any MP in future who aspires to the top job in our nation while Article 44(i) of the Constitution is on the books – is a "law-abiding" citizen who legally deserves to be in the position of Prime Minister of this nation. I might be only a punter but I try to teach my kids that Rulz is Rulz! — whether you are Joe Blow, Jill Dill or Prime Minister of Australia. Cheers, Noely (Author's note: it's bloody hard going but you can read Australia's Constitution here and tell us what YOU think!) This piece was originally published on yathink.com.au and has been republished with permission. You can follow Meta Cranky Noely on Twitter @yathinkn. .@geekruiz & I reckon Noely Neate (@YaThinkN) is a citizen journalist. 2 pieces now on AFHP - http://t.co/9C3fyP3z & http://t.co/uaCZb77q — Margo Kingston (@margokingston1) January 8, 2013 (image by John Graham) Buy John Graham originals from IA's online store. 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Imagine: You’re skimming your Twitter feed and notice a stream of sad tweets from a college friend. Without a moment’s thought, you send a funny GIF across the digital divide, content that you’ve cheered up your friend and made a positive mark on their day. But, wait: You can’t quite remember where they’re living these days, or what they do for work. Did you miss their birthday? Chances are, you pop over to Facebook and check, reassure yourself that you’re caught up on their milestones, then go about your day. Are you still friends, even though you haven’t seen each other in years, or spoken in a non-digital medium? Are all those tools for staying connected actually making you a worse friend? New Yorker Gary Johnson, 38, isn’t on Facebook and doesn’t get those daily nudges to “help [insert name here] celebrate.” “My friend told me that our other friend recently got engaged, and so I called him and he really appreciated it,” Johnson told The Post. For Johnson, joining countless others in boycotting social media brings peace of mind when it comes to keeping up with the lives of “friends.” “It doesn’t matter to me whether people know about my personal milestones or not,” Johnson continued. “My real friends typically call me on those occasions, and that’s all that matters to me. Not Facebook congrats and birthday wishes.” And contrary to popular belief, even millennials can find the expectation of remembering online acquaintances’ events exhausting. “I feel really lazy that I can’t remember any events or phone numbers” without online reminders, 27-year-old Nathalie Devin, who lives in London, said at first. But on second thought, she explained that she “doesn’t really feel bad about it because it’s the norm these days.” Could it be possible that given enough time, those who choose to forgo an online presence are fast forgotten? For Devin, it’s their loss. “I can’t even think of all the friends I used to have who aren’t online,” she reminisced. “I don’t remember any of their names at this point.” Human interaction online tends to reflect real-life, centuries-old customs, according to Karen North, professor of digital social media and director of the Annenberg Program on Online Communities at USC Annenberg School. “Humans, by nature, have always been social animals,” North explained. “The only difference is that these days, the socializing is being done more online than face to face.” In this day and age, people are not very likely to care what your source of information is, North noted. “There’s more of an expectation that people know about major life events because they’ve been announced on large public forums.” According to North, it used to be that you either heard about something from a friend or didn’t. “It was sort of on the announcer to reach all the groups when something good or bad happens in their life.” People who’ve opted out of social media often miss these important — and admittedly, sometimes mundane — announcements. “They have to recognize that they are missing out,” North said. This is because these days, the issue is that the people online don’t usually feel obligated to reach out and announce things in any other way after posting about it. For some, the result of not being an internet voyeur has daunting consequences. “That’s the one thing I do wish I had social media as a tool for,” said 28-year-old James Wetter, who lives in Melbourne, Australia. “I feel bad that I don’t contact friends or family more often.” For Wetter, “On the one hand, I don’t want to be on social media for privacy reasons,” he explained. “But I miss out on certain conveniences when it comes to keeping up with people, and I feel guilty about that.” But perhaps people offline don’t have as much to worry about as they think. Online shortcut tools are well and good, but according to North, some studies have shown there is actually a reduction in communication and contact. “The problem is that people will ‘reach out’ by clicking on a friend’s page and reading through their posts, and that way they feel engaged even though the engagement was one-sided,” North noted. “So the relationship doesn’t actually get furthered, it’s just peering into each other’s lives.” And then there’s the question: Is being a supportive online friend even enough? “Even when they see something good happening to someone and you ‘RT’ or ‘Like’ something, it’s not always seen as enough,” North explained. So, for things like birthdays, people write “Happy birthday” on Facebook, but don’t necessarily get a lot of credit for jumping on the bandwagon. “This is because there is social capital involved,” North said. “Social interactions are now valued on two different levels: One is the public, easy response on social media, and the other is the much more valued one: private contact.” In other words, human nature indicates that calling a friend to congratulate them on the baby news will always gain you more points than just double-tapping their pregnancy reveal on Instagram. And because of the social capital involved, most people’s efforts — whether a quick G-chat message or a bouquet of flowers — are deeply felt. As North puts it, when you wish a friend a happy birthday on their wall instead of in person or on the phone, that friend typically makes a mental note of your online interaction vs. a personalized one-to-one wish. “Humans are known to keep tabs on friends and family’s interactions,” North explained. “And so, when you put in the bare minimal effort, it really does show.” So perhaps you’re not necessarily labeled a “bad friend” for opting for a quick social media thumbs up to a friend’s life event, but in the long run, the friendship tends to be affected by your lack of “real” effort. “The social rules are more complicated these days because we don’t have the real-life social cue to tell us if someone is appreciative of our connections or not,” North said. Brian Solis, who is interested in “digital anthropology,” said the possibility of being a so-called “bad friend” for opting to go mainly digital is something people are still adapting to. “We are getting lazier, and so putting something on a wall is checked off as a personal interaction for most people,” he said. “But we’re learning the hard way, through experience — so there really is no answer to the ‘bad friend’ notion. It’s all user-defined.” As for those who keep off social media, Brendesha Tynes — an expert on social media and adolescent development online and an associate professor of educational psychology at the USC Rossier School of Education — told The Post: “People who aren’t on social find other ways to communicate.” They may not be wishing everyone they’ve ever met, like their college roommate’s cousin they met at a party that one time, a happy birthday on Facebook, but they’ll catch the important milestones if they put in the effort. “The relationships can be just as rich as if the person were on social media.” Non-social media denizen Johnson, for example, prefers to take a loose approach and trust things to work out. “I like to leave things up to fate,” Johnson said. “If I’m meant to cross paths with someone and wish them ‘happy anniversary,’ it will happen without social media.” And when it comes to getting a free pass on keeping up with friends’ lives, Johnson put it simply: “Everyone’s lost these days — people forgive me because I’m not on social media.” |
Support the campaign for EU citizens to have the right to vote in referendums. The Dark Roots of the “Brussels EU” This article highlights the birth place of the "Brussels EU" on the drawing boards of the Nazi/IG Farben-coalition for a post-war Europe under their control. It is an excerpt of the speech by Dr. Rath on the occasion of receiving the "Relay of Life" award from survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The corporate preparations for World War II started as early as 1925, when Bayer, BASF, Hoechst and other German multinationals formed a cartel called “IG Farben Industry”. The declared goal of this cartel was to obtain control of the global markets in the key industrial sectors of chemistry, pharmaceuticals and petrochemicals. Already in 1925, when this cartel was founded, its corporate value surpassed 11 billion Reichsmark and it employed more than 80,000 people. One of the strategic industries for which IG Farben sought global control was the pharmaceutical “investment business”. They knew that the pharmaceutical industry is not primarily a health industry, but an investment business that defines the human body as its marketplace. While presenting itself as the purveyor of health, the entire existence of this investment industry has been based on the continuation and expansion of diseases as multibillion dollar markets for patented drugs. The precondition for establishing a global monopoly for this investment business with patented drugs was the attempt to systematically eliminate all non-patentable natural therapies. In 1933 IG Farben became the largest financier of the Nazis rise to power. And in the following years this German chemical/pharmaceutical cartel became the corporate accomplices in the preparations for the military conquest of Europe. The records of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal document that Bayer, BASF and Hoechst gave more than 80 million Reichsmark to the Nazis and their sub-organizations. In return for this “investment” IG Farben took over the chemical, pharmaceutical and petrochemical industries in the countries occupied during WWII with the ultimate goal to create and dominate a “European Market” form Lisbon to Sofia. This document from the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, a letter written by IG Farben director Knieriem to the Nazi government on July 20, 1940 - shortly after the victory over France - outlines the tools by which IG Farben intended to cement its key role in Europe . The IG Farben letter specifies a common European currency, common European law, and even a European court system – all of that under the control of the Nazi/IG Farben coalition. In Auschwitz , IG Farben built the largest industrial complex in Europe to produce the chemicals and explosives for the WWII Eastern front. This 24 square kilometer industrial complex - as well as the massive expansion of the nearby concentration camps as a reservoir of slave labor - was financed with credits of almost one billion Reichsmark by Deutsche Bank. Bayer’s pharmaceutical division was using the thousands of prisoners in deadly experiments to test their patented chemicals as “chemotherapy.” During the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal 24 managers of IG Farben Industry were tried for crimes against humanity and many of them were sentenced. US Prosecutor Telford Taylor summarized the role of this chemical cartel during the Nuremberg Tribunal in the following way: without IG Farben, the Second World War would not have been possible. For six long decades the records of the Nuremberg Tribunal against the managers of the IG Farben Cartel were hidden away in archives. In July this year, our foundation got access to these files and published over 40,000 pages of this important tribunal on the Internet. From now on, everyone, school children and adults alike, can read and study these important documents online anywhere in the world. With the beginning of the Cold War, some of the IG Farben executives that stood trial in Nuremberg were reinstated into the highest positions of German industry. Karl Wurster, chairman of Degesch - the manufacturer of Cyclone B for the gas chambers of Auschwitz - became chief executive of BASF. Fritz ter Meer, the Bayer and IG Farben director convicted in Nuremberg for genocide and slavery crimes committed here in Auschwitz , was released from prison after only four years. 10 years after he was sentenced as a war criminal in Nuremberg he was chairman of the supervisory board of Bayer again. Hans Globke had been co-author of the Nuremberg racial laws and had also been responsible for writing the new laws of the Greater European “Reich” in the countries occupied by the Nazis during World War II. After the Second World War Globke became minister of the Chancellery in German Chancellor Adenauer’s office. As the “gray eminence” and outside of any parliamentary supervision, he controlled essentially all aspects of political life in postwar West-Germany from the Secret Service to the continuation of the plans of the oil and drug cartel to conquer Europe under the newly constructed EU. Walter Hallstein, a prominent law professor under the Nazis stated in a speech in 1939: “One of the most important laws (in occupied European countries) is the ‘Protection Law of German Blood and Honor’….” In 1957 the same “blood and honor” lawyer became the key architect of the European Union’s basic structure and the first head of the “European Commission” – the executive body of the EU designed from the beginning to rule Europe outside any democratic control. In summary, Nazi and IG Farben men designed the European Commission as the “Politburo” of the Pharma Cartel’s postwar rule over Europe . As a direct result of the influence of these interests, the decisions of the European Parliament have little, if any, influence on the laws and on the so-called “EU directives” imposed by the “EU Commission” on the lives of 400 million people in Europe . At the same time, the elections for the European Parliament are little more than a masquerade, deceiving the people of Europe by portraying the EU structure as a democratic system. The basis of any democracy is the power of the people. If the executive power is no longer controlled by the will of the people, democracy turns into a dictatorship. Today, the shadows of IG Farben are still lingering over Europe . The goals of the IG Farben successors are today joined by oil and drug multinationals from other European countries. But their goals remain the very same as those of IG Farben during WWII: to establish and control a European market from “ Lisbon to Sofia ” with patented pharmaceutical drugs and other patentable high-tech products. The vast areas for which these corporate interests seek control today cover ever more areas of society and touch every life on our continent. They include patents on genes - in order to gain control over the very molecules of inheritance and life - and patents on genetically modified plants with the goal to gain control of our daily nutrition. The most well-known among those industries that seek control over our lives is the pharmaceutical “business with disease”. As mentioned before, this industry is based on the promise of health, but its entire existence depends on promoting diseases as markets. We know today that cardiovascular disease, cancer, immune deficiencies and other diseases are largely preventable. Their deliberate perpetuation for corporate gain of the pharmaceutical drug business is a crime. As a result of the unethical business practice of this industry, the number of victims of this fraudulent business model has exceeded one billion people and has surpassed the number of victims from all wars of mankind taken together. Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, the very same EU Commission has just issued a directive that will turn Europe into on “Orwellian continent”. According to this EU-directive, from now on all telephone numbers you will call, all Email addresses you will contact will be stored. And not only from you, but for 400 million people across Europe. It is not hard to understand what these tools mean in the hands of those interest groups that have so often abused their power in the past. |
Pigs are mammals in the genus Sus. They include the domestic pig and its ancestor, the common Eurasian wild boar (Sus scrofa), and other species. Pigs are in the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Related, but outside the genus, are the babirusa and the warthog. Pigs, like all suids, are native to the Old World. Baby pigs are called piglets.[1] Pigs are omnivores and are very social and intelligent animals.[2] The flesh of domestic pigs is eaten as food and is called pork. The Jewish and Muslim religions, and some Christian denominations, believe eating pork is wrong. Pig farmers take care that the animals do not get diseases or parasites which might harm humans. A pet domestic pig laying down on a rug Domestic pigs come in different colours, shapes and sizes. They are usually pink, but little pigs kept as pets (pot-bellied pigs) are sometimes other colours. Pigs roll in mud to protect themselves from sunlight. Many people think that pigs are dirty and smell. In fact, they roll around in the mud to keep bugs and ticks away from their skin. This also helps to keep their skin moist and lower their body temperature on hot days. They are omnivores, which means that they eat both plants and animals. Pigs are intelligent animals. They are even able to learn how to play video games.[3] Pigs are commonly used as working animals. They are used to hunt for truffles, pull carts and sniff out landmines.[3] Pig races exist. Pigs need a warm, clean area under a roof to sleep, and they should not be crowded. They need to be checked for sickness regularly. Pigs need lots of water. Over half their body weight is made up of water.[4] Pigs should be given all the feed they will eat, which is usually four to five pounds a day for adult pigs.[5] Corn is a good food for pigs, but they should also have protein supplements as well. Pigs can be found throughout the world living on farms and in the wild, and they are also popular pets. Pigs are kept and slaughtered for their flesh, pork. |
As a resident of Hollywood, CA, I didn't exactly see crying in the streets, but I did "feel their pain," as the saying goes. According to (where else?) Variety, the local entertainment industry went in big time in support of Jon Ossoff, the jejune sometime documentarian, in his quest to win the election in Georgia's sixth congressional district. Rosie O’Donnell [ je suis shockay], Jane Fonda, Jessica Lange, Sean Daniel, Connie Britton, Sam Waterston and Kyra Sedgwick are among those who have donated to Democrat Jon Ossoff’s campaign, while others have been participating in phone banks to get out the vote and a few, like actress Alyssa Milano, have volunteered to go door to door in the suburban Atlanta district. Will these moral narcissists talk with Ossoff again, now that he has lost by a solid margin, more than predicted, failing to do any better than Hillary against their Public Enemy #1 (Donald J. Trump) despite having by far the largest war chest in American congressional history, nine times bigger than his opponent's? I would think not. These celebs have better things to do behind the walls of their twenty-million-dollar mansions, especially now that, thanks to Trump, although they would never acknowledge it in a million years, their already fat stock market portfolios have grown roughly 17% since Donald was elected. How much money has Hanoi Jane made from Trump? Fonda's net worth is said to be $200 million. If half that is invested in stock, she has made roughly seventeen million off Trump. If one quarter is in stock... well you do the math. Rosie's net worth is estimated at $120 million. Deprivation! No wonder she's so angry at Donald. He didn't earn enough for her. It's easy to make fun of these celebrities who sit in the lap of luxury while mouthing liberal, even Marxist, pieties. But the truth is, forget Georgia, they are living in a city with a mammoth homeless problem. The L.A. Times is reporting that as of 2017 Los Angeles has a staggering 57,794 homeless, up from 44,359 in 2015. I see them every day with "mine own eyes." Everywhere you drive in this city you see tent encampments under the freeways, as if the City of the Angels had turned into Calcutta. Surely these Hollywood grandees have seen it too, unless they never go out of the house. If they seriously wanted to do something substantive with their largesse, other than political virtue signaling, they would contribute to dealing with this catastrophic, rapidly growing problem. They should also examine what it is about Donald Trump that actually makes them so angry. The tweets? That he opposes radical Islamic terrorism? That he is colluding with Russia? (The idea of that being of concern to Fonda, who actually did collude with North Vietnam in the most obvious way, is hilarious.) What specifically? Not gay marriage. He supported that long before Obama or Hillary came around. |
British police have agreed to pay £425,000 (US$682,000) in damages to a woman who was tricked into having a sexual relationship with one of their undercover agents and raised his child. The officer used his alias to infiltrate activist groups. The payment comes after a legal battle fought by a number of women who say they were tricked into relationships with officers who were in fact spying on them and their political activities. Scotland Yard said it “unreservedly apologizes for any pain and suffering,” the BBC reports, while adding that police “never had a policy that officers can use sexual relations for the purposes of policing.” When the child, a boy, was two years old in 1987, the man disappeared and returned to his original identity, wife, and children. The woman, known only as Jacqui, said she had received psychiatric care after she discovered the man’s real identity in 2012. Bob Robinson was in fact Bob Lambert – an undercover police officer who went on a five-year mission to infiltrate environmentalist and animal rights groups. Initially, Scotland Yard refused to confirm whether Lambert was an undercover agent, although he admitted it to journalists. “The legal case is finished but there is no closure for me,” said Jacqui. “There is the money, but there is no admission by the police that what they did was wrong, there is no meaningful apology and most importantly there are no answers. “My world fell apart on 14th June 2012 when, after 24 years, I discovered that my first true love, and the father of my first child, was a police officer paid to spy on me and my friends. “I don’t know why I was singled out by the police to be duped into an intimate sexual relationship with Bob Lambert. We lived together for three years. I don’t know if he was paid overtime to be with me during the 14 hours of labor I went through giving birth to our son; or whether he was later ordered to abandon me to raise our son alone. I feel violated.” The Metropolitan Police said in a statement, “The MPS unreservedly apologizes for any pain and suffering that the relationship with Bob Lambert, an undercover officer, has had on this woman. We recognize the impact that the revelation that he was an undercover police officer must have had both on her and her son. “The MPS has never had a policy that officers can use sexual relations for the purposes of policing.” Police potentially face further claims from women similarly tricked into intimate relationships with spies. Police Spies Out of Lives, a support group for women’s legal action against undercover policing, said, “We extend our solidarity to all those affected by the deep intrusions and abuse of lives perpetrated by undercover police officers. The women taking this case are doing so to highlight and prevent the continuation of psychological, emotional and sexual abuse of campaigners and others by undercover police officers.” |
Based on a look at the Terminus map from last night's episode of AMC's The Walking Dead, titled "Inmates," it appears as though the as-yet-unseen story location is set in Macon, Georgia. You can see the map from last night, side-by-side with a map of the state of Georgia, above. Click through for a larger version. The map itself looks quite a bit like any one of a number of historical railroad maps of the state you can find online (Google Cram's Railroad Maps of Georgia). Many of those maps use counties over cities as the larger designations, so Bieb would be featured more prominently than Macon--and there's a Macon county that's just close enough to the city to be confusing for out-of-state travelers--so that could explain the need for an alternate designation for the site. The west side of Georgia has a very specific outline where it borders Alabama. You can see that outline in the image above (Georgia in its entirety seems to be shaded somewhat more darkly, although that could be just because there's more detail in that portion of the map) and based on the location of Terminus relative to the border, Macon is the only city that seems to fit. You can see this, particularly, when you look at the little inward point (almost like a nose on a face in profile) directly south of Columbus. In the season premiere, "30 Days Without an Accident," Daryl referred to the Macon area as "seventy miles of walkers [where Michonne] might run into a few un-neighborly types," and discouraged her from heading that way to look for The Governor. Needless to say, if the sanctuary being offered here is actually by...err...The Sanctuary from the comics, the un-neighborly types will be waiting for whoever reaches terminus, indeed. |
The Union government spied on relatives of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose for nearly two decades, according to two intelligence files that were recently declassified. The files, which were sent from the West Bengal government’s intelligence branch to the Intelligence Bureau, show that several members of Bose's family were kept under surveillance between 1948 and 1968. The files were sent to the National Archives after being declassified in 2012. Anuj Dhar, the author of “India's Biggest Cover-Up”, a book on the mystery surrounding Netaji’s reported death in a 1945 plane crash, found the two intelligence files at the National Archives a few months ago. “These files were declassified by mistake. When there is a large-scale declassification of files, some files come out by mistake,” Dhar told Hindustan Times. The files show that West Bengal’s intelligence branch mounted surveillance on two Bose family homes in Kolkata at 1 Woodburn Park and 38/2 Elgin Road. Sleuths also intercepted and copied letters written by Bose's kin and kept tabs on who they met and what they discussed. Source: National Archives Among the Intelligence Bureau officials who were kept informed about the surveillance of the Bose family were R N Kao, who went on to found the Research and Analysis Wing, and M M L Hooja, who later became the head of the domestic spy agency. Much of the surveillance focussed on Netaji’s nephews Sisir Kumar Bose and Amiya Nath Bose, the sons of Sarat Chandra Bose. Both nephews were considered to be very close to Netaji. The files contain many handwritten records of telephone messages regarding the movements of Amiya Nath Bose in Kolkata and Indian other cities such as Delhi as well as his foreign trips. The sleuths intercepted letters from Netaji’s German wife Emilie Schenkl to Sisir Kumar Bose and others in Japan, Europe and America, such as historian Leonard Gordon. These letters were opened and copied. Source: National Archives In a letter sent to his aunt Emilie in July 1955, Sisir wrote: “If you were in India today, you will get the feeling that in India’s struggle two men mattered – Gandhi and Nehru. The rest were just extras.” “Even ten years after Netaji’s reported death, a report from the intelligence branch referred to Emilie Schenkl as his ‘wife’. These files have very precise information, they are meticulously written,” said Dhar. “The BJP had said before coming to power that they would declassify all the Netaji files. But now they are acting just like the Congress. The BJP must fulfil its promise about declassifying these files,” he said. Source: National Archives Bose was the president of the Indian National Congress in 1939 but quit following differences with Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. He escaped from India, and travelled to Germany and Japan, where he built up the Indian National Army to take the fight to the British in India. Bose reportedly died in a mysterious air crash in Taiwan on August 18, 1945 at the age of 48 but this has been disputed by members of his family and others. There are also reports about Netaji being spotted in the erstwhile USSR many years after the plane crash. Source: National Archives The government has refused to declassify more than 100 secret files for decades, saying that making them public would cause law and order problems, especially in West Bengal, and affect relations with friendly countries. First Published: Apr 10, 2015 12:27 IST |
Friday night’s Adelaide United vs Melbourne City Hyundai A-League 2016 Semi Final at Coopers Stadium, has officially sold out. Adelaide United’s Head Coach, Guillermo Amor, reacted to the news of the match being officially sold out by saying: “This is a fantastic result for us and it will help our team a lot during the game. “We are preparing for a very tough match, but having Coopers Stadium filled with our supporters will make our task a little easier. “We are happy the game has sold out and we are very excited for this match.” Fox Sports will have live coverage of the Hyundai A-League 2016 Semi Final from Coopers Stadium starting at 7pm (AEST), with SBS TV providing free-to-air coverage on a one-hour delay. The match kicks off at 7.15pm local time (7.45pm AEST). Hyundai A-League 2016 Semi Final 1 – SOLD OUT Adelaide United (1st) v Melbourne City (4th) Friday 22 April 2016 Coopers Stadium, Adelaide 7:15pm kick off (7.45pm AEST) |
A few days before today's Democratic primary in New York City, Michael Bloomberg apparently deigned to leave his palatial estate in Bermuda and his $20 million home in London and fly back to the Big Apple. During that most recent trip to the city he rules in partial absentia, the billionaire CEO mayor granted an interview in which he offered up a farewell summary of his economic agenda. In the process, he provided a reminder that for all the political obituaries written about Mitt Romney, the plutocratic politics of berating the so-called 47 percent still persists. In his now-famous interview with New York magazine, Bloomberg's whiney ode to Romney's "47 percent" line came when he dissed Democrat Bill de Blasio's crusade against economic inequality. Bloomberg said (emphasis added): Advertisement: (De Blasio's) whole campaign is that there are two different cities here. And I’ve never liked that kind of division. The way to help those who are less fortunate is, number one, to attract more very fortunate people. They are the ones that pay the bills. The people that would get very badly hurt here if you drive out the very wealthy are the people he professes to try to help. Tearing people apart with this “two cities” thing doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s a destructive strategy for those you want to help the most. He’s a very populist, very left-wing guy, but this city is not two groups, and if to some extent it is, it’s one group paying for services for the other. Just as Romney's "47 percent" comment expressed a "makers versus takers" hostility toward the plight of those in need, Bloomberg seems angry at the poor for being poor and resentful that the rich pay more into public coffers. Likewise, just as Romney's "47 percent" comment evinced an ignorance of the problem of inequality, so does Bloomberg seem unaware of his city's economics. Meanwhile, in continuing the tradition of depicting the filthy rich as persecuted saviors, both of them seem unable to comprehend the basic connection between inequality and taxes. More specifically, they seem unable to understand that while many middle-class Americans pay a higher tax rate than the rich, the total amount of tax revenue from the poor is less than from the rich because in this new Gilded Age, the rich possess a disproportionate share of the economy's total cash. Indeed, to the extent that Bloomberg is mathematically correct in suggesting the wealthy contribute more to New York City's tax coffers than the non-wealthy, that reality is not because the city's poor are tax scofflaws. It is because a comparatively small group of rich New Yorkers possess the lion's share of the city's total cash supply that could be devoted to the public coffers. In New York City, that mathematical reality should be especially obvious because the Big Apple is the most economically unequal city in one of the most unequal states in one of the most unequal countries in the industrialized world. And Bloomberg's personal class war has only made that situation worse. Yes, it is more than a bit rich (pun obviously intended) for a billionaire to at once decry class warfare and then make veiled reference to his own class war aimed at replacing New York's poor with his fellow aristocrats. And that's almost certainly what Bloomberg was referencing with his "attract more very fortunate people" line. After all, despite his Bermuda and London jet-setting, Bloomberg hasn't been a disengaged dilettante passively presiding over the Big Apple's Dickensian cataclysm. He's been an ideologically motivated plutocrat who has diligently worked in New York to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted. For instance, Bloomberg's tax- and budget-cutting agenda has been defined by evictions of the poor from low-income housing, big cuts to social services for the indigent and a P.R. campaign against proposals to raise his fellow millionaires' taxes. On the spending side of the Bloomberg agenda, there has been the closest thing in America to a Banishment Program -- a Bloomberg initiative to exile the homeless by giving them one-way tickets out of the city. There has also been ongoing massive taxpayer subsidies to Wall Street banks and other corporations. And, of course, there has been Bloomberg's regulatory and enforcement agenda -- stuff like banning food donations to shelters and deploying police force disproportionately against low-income communities. The predictable result is that Bloomberg's mayoral tenure has coincided with an epic rise in inequality and destitution, to the point where almost half of all New York City residents live at or near the poverty line. From a social engineering perspective, that has no doubt served the mayor's goal. He has at once made it better than ever to be rich and more painful than ever to be poor -- a reality that no doubt makes New York more attractive to the rich. Advertisement: If Bloomberg's embittered crusade against the indigent was an isolated skirmish, it could be dismissed as an anomaly. But the direct line between his posture, Romney's campaign language and the right's intensifying blame-the-poor rhetoric suggests this is all part of a larger and ongoing class war that unfortunately is not ending. Just as the 2008 and 2012 elections seemed to promise a deescalation of plutocrats' class war and then delivered nothing of the sort, so too does today's vote in New York promise a real opportunity, but not a concrete conclusion. Sure, it is good news that Bloomberg's economic record has been exposed and humiliated over the course of New York City's Democratic mayoral primary. And sure, Bloomberg leaving City Hall definitely opens up the possibility for an emboldened counteroffensive against that war in the Big Apple -- especially if an economic populist like de Blasio becomes mayor. But this is hardly the end. Under the best circumstances, it is merely a victory auguring a possible beginning of a progressive counter offensive. The end of this class war is still a long way away for New York and for the country as a whole. |
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on Tuesday that a Russian court's 2014 conviction of opposition leader Alexei Navalny had been "arbitrary" and ordered the Russian government to pay Navalny compensation. "We have won. Thanks everyone for support," Navalny wrote in a Twitter post after the verdict. The 41-year-old Yale-educated lawyer, a leading critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, later wrote on his website: "We proved that this case was a fabricated one, and that this ugly buffoonery in the courtroom in 2014 had nothing to do with a fair legal proceeding." 'Ambiguous' court decision Navalny received a suspended sentence of three and half years and his brother Oleg a prison sentence of the same length in December 2014 after the court found them guilty of money laundering and fraud. Both men issued a complaint with the ECHR in Strasbourg, France, in January 2015, saying the decision was based on "such broad and ambiguous terms" that it misapplied Russian law. Watch video 00:46 Share Navalny and hundreds of protesters detained in Russia Send Facebook google+ Whatsapp Tumblr linkedin stumble Digg reddit Newsvine Permalink https://p.dw.com/p/2eYuz Navalny and hundreds of protesters detained in Russia ECHR judges on Tuesday unanimously agreed with that interpretation and ordered the Russian government to pay the two men €83,000 ($98,000) in compensation. Russia's ECHR representative, Mikhail Galperin, reportedly told Russian news agency TASS that Moscow has three months to lodge an appeal against the ruling. But even if the appeal fails, the government could avoid the payment by ignoring the court's decision. President Putin signed a law in 2015 that allows the government to ignore an order from an international court. Navalny 2018? The 2014 court case was neither the first nor the most recent for Navalny. In February, a Russian court gave him a five-year suspended sentence for embezzlement in a case that began in 2013. Russian authorities have since said that case, which required a retrial after the ECHR had declared the first trial unfair, barred Navalny from running in the 2018 presidential election. Navalny has claimed the sentencing was politically motivated to prevent him from running. More recently, a Russian court gave Navalny a 20-day jail sentence on October 2 for calling an unsanctioned rally in St. Petersburg. He had previously served two other jail sentences for organizing unauthorized protests in Moscow. 'A true, fair court' Navalny was relieved after the ECHR's Tuesday ruling. "When thieves and swindlers in power declare that I cannot run (for president) because of 'the law', 'the sentence', because (I am) 'a criminal' and 'recidivist', we can show them with confidence what they will never have -- a decision by a true, fair court," he wrote on his personal website. "It is clearly written there that the law and the right are on our side. It's them who are criminals, not me." amp/se (Reuters, AFP, dpa) |
About This Content Expansion Features: Playable Contestant Settsu is a former soldier joining the roster in a powerful mech suit. The suit is equipped with a Jetpack and a Pulse Rifle that uses a new ammo mechanic. 22 Cards added. Including cards with the new keyword Dismantle . . A whole new Drone world is added. Time to go to space! The Mentor's Maze Show is a brand new way to play Forced Showdown. R3-KT is a new Boss that can be found in the maze. A fight that will challenge even the most skilled contestants. 10 Drone enemies each with unique attacks and abilities. 10 Boss Cards added. The titans of the show have grown a little... weirder. 10 Modifiers will spice things up and give you new tricks and treats. 18 Quests to complete in the Mentor's Maze. ... and more. New Contestant - Settsu New World & Enemies - Drone Zone New Campaign- The Mentor's Maze New Keyword - Dismantle New Cards Forced Showdown is a challenging bullet hell brawler! Each character is a unique experience: Choose a deck of unlockable cards to boost you in new ways every battle - "My whirlwind shoots fireballs!?". Battle hordes of brutal foes to become a superstar in C-SAR’s ever-changing game show.Settsu is badass champion in a powerful mech suit. The pulse-action assault rifle has a 6-round magazine that charges up to a final rail beam. The rifle is also fitted with a plasma ball launcher that requires cooling. Shooting pulse ammunition into the plasma ball will result in a big explosion - a useful combination in the field. The suit is equipped with a jet pack that has limited flight capabilities. The landing impact can be used to destroy objects (or enemies) in a close proximity.The Drones are invading all the shows. Their high tech arenas and weaponry will make sure that the shows will be an entertaining hell of bullets.Explore The Mentor's Maze and find hidden treasure, bonus points and portals. Try and reach the mysterious mentor R3-KT. Lives are on the line and modifiers are hidden, so be prepared when you try to become the superstar of the maze.Dismantle cards will burn another card for a powerful effect, that is then multiplied by the dismantled card's cost. Clever deck-building and strategic planning will greatly increase the value of Dismantle.Over 20 new cards added for you to collect and add to your decks. Get ready to cast cards that use drone technology and upgrade the champions in new and spectacular ways. |
Japanese officers respond to a report of a small explosion outside of a Yokota Air Base gate that forced a lockdown of the facility Saturday, Sept. 7, 2013. YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — A small explosion outside a Yokota Air Base gate led the U.S. military to put the facility on lockdown Saturday morning and raise the alert level to Delta, the highest in the four-stage system. No injuries or damage were reported. Base officials and Japanese National Police are investigating the cause of the incident, which occurred around 9 a.m. Youth soccer league games were abruptly canceled, and parents were told to take their children off the field. The alert level was relaxed to Alpha around 11 a.m., and traffic in and out of the base resumed. “We determined there was no threat to the base,” Col. Mark August, 374th Airlift Wing commander, told AFN radio. August said the explosion was of “unknown origin.” Two Japanese police cars remained parked on Route 16 outside the Supply gate, where the explosion was reported to have occurred and which is normally closed on weekends. About 25 police officers were milling around the scene, communicating with base security personnel through the gate. A spokesman said they had found no sign of a blast. "As a precautionary measure, we have increased our security posture and are coordinating closely with our Japanese partners to ensure the safety and security of base personnel and the local community," August said. news@stripes.com |
30th July 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine At approximately 1 pm on July 28th, international volunteers made giant bubbles with Palestinian children to celebrate Eid, in Tel Rumeida, al-Khalil (Hebron). Several settlers passed by in their cars and were visibly annoyed, and two stopped to complain to the Israeli soldiers present. At 1:30 pm, a group of settler youth started pushing Palestinian children who were playing on Tel Rumeida hill. Several Palestinian women stepped in to prevent the violence. Shortly after this, more setter children and a settler woman, who identified herself as Tzippi, came down from the illegal settlement of Tel Rumeida and began aggressively photographing Palestinians. Tzippi claimed that her children had been assaulted. She pushed several Palestinians and put her camera extremely close to several of their faces. One Palestinian girl tried to run away and Tzippi chased her up the street. Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers pushed Palestinians an attempted to force some of them into their houses. Eventually, Tzippi chased the Palestinian girl into her own garden. She was then joined by more settlers. An international volunteer blocked her path, by standing with his back to her with his arms outstretched. Soldiers then rushed into the garden and started shouting at Tzippi. After a short time the Israeli police arrived. The settlers wrongly accused several Palestinians and the international activist of pushing them. These lies were contradicted by several videos that showed what happened and were shown to the police. Nevertheless, five Palestinians and the international volunteer were arrested by the Israeli police. They were held for around seven hours, and interrogated. One of the Palestinians remained in handcuffs and leg chains throughout his detention. Meanwhile, the settlers wandered around the police station pointing out Palestinians who they claimed had assaulted them. These Palestinians were all together in a room with no other Palestinians, and were either in chains or behind an interrogation desk in connection with this case. The “identification” process was therefore of no evidential value. During his interrogation, the police told the international activist that the settlers were very angry and had filed a complaint about the bubbles. The police officer said that he was not taking that particular complaint further because, “it is not illegal for Palestinian children to play.” The police also accepted his account of the incident. However, they police nevertheless took the fingerprints and DNA of those who had been arrested and only released them subject to strict conditions. |
11 Million Cigarettes Wash Ashore in Maersk Container on UK Beach By MarEx 2014-02-24 10:33:00 A Maersk shipping container has washed ashore near Axmouth, containing 11 million cigarettes. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) was informed that a number of containers were lost from a Maersk cargo ship as it crossed the northern stretches of the Bay of Biscay in stormy conditions on Friday, February 14. Most of the containers were empty and are believed to have sunk approximately 75 nautical miles south west of Lands End in French waters. The MCA's aerial surveillance aircraft has been searching UK waters, and ships passing through the English Channel have been warned and asked to report any sightings. Simon Porter, MCA Counter Pollution and Salvage Officer, says: "We have been carrying out extensive searches over the last four days and spotted three containers, one of which has since come ashore and the other two are mid-Channel. We are now working closely with Maersk to ensure they recover their containers, which are their property." Hundreds of people showed up at the beach after the container washed up on Sunday. Mr. Porter continued: "The Beer Coastguard Rescue Team, police and council officials are currently on scene at Axmouth beach and the container has been cordoned off. The public is reminded that all wreck material found in the UK has to be reported to the MCA's Receiver of Wreck. Those who don't declare items are breaking the law and could find themselves facing hefty fines and paying the owner twice the value of the item recovered." |
So just an update. Downgraded my Verizon Note 4 from lollipop to N910VVRU1ANJ5. (if you bootloop after this go into maintenance mode and wipe your data) Then installed KingRoot. Kingroot installs and Roots fine. I then installed Adfree and it asked for root privileges and installed fine. Then installed Titanium Backup. It gives a warning about using the kingroot supersu binary instead of supersu. Then I froze the IMDB app with Titanium. Froze successfully. (Is no longer in the app draw and no longer in the full app list in the application manager.) Then I did a manual reboot. You lose root. However IMDB is still frozen. Not sure if Adfree is working at all.... I still get Ads rooted or not rooted. I have rerooted 4 times now. After manually restarting. No issue. My device has not froze or restarted on its own. Also I have the logcat logs after restart. I am willing to PM them to a Dev or Mod. |
Meteorologist Joe Bastardi takes down fake Nobelist Michael Mann’s lame effort in the Guardian to link climate with Hurricane Harvey. By Joe Bastardi August 29, 2017, Reprinted with the permission of Weatherbell.com Dr. Mann at PSU has outdone himself. Back when New England had their famed February with snow and cold, he made the claim a warm eddy some 350 miles ESE of New England was enhancing water vapor and leading to extra snow. But: If he plotted trajectories from the storms he would see that the air from that source could not get back over New England since the mean flow would lead to enhanced snows in the Canadian Maritimes. Convective feedback from such warm eddies would act to PULL STORMS OUT TO SEA. The mean water vapor surface to 700 mb was BELOW NORMAL in New England in Feb 2015. The extra snow was high ratio snow with great crystal growth soundings because of the cold! This is why climatologists should be forced to forecast for a year, so they can get an appreciation of what the weather does, not what they think it does based on their “research.” But he may have outdone himself here. I was emailed this quote, supposedly from him. It’s making the rounds in the skeptic community. It was in the Guardian The stalling is due to very weak prevailing winds, which are failing to steer the storm off to sea, allowing it to spin around and wobble back and forth. This pattern, in turn, is associated with a greatly expanded subtropical high pressure system over much of the US at the moment, with the jet stream pushed well to the north. This pattern of subtropical expansion is predicted in model simulations of human-caused climate change. He unwittingly describes THE EXACT OPPOSITE EFFECT to what is going on. He could not have even looked at the 5 day means! There was no expansive subtropical high. Quite the contrary there was a well forecast MJO phase 2, with a major cool trough in the 5 day means trapping the hurricane. Out to sea? In August? In Texas? When does anyone see that? They move northwest or west through the state. BECAUSE NORMALLY THERE IS NOT A MAJOR TROUGH THAT FAR SOUTH TO STOP THE STORM! When has anyone given the coast of Texas seen a storm move “out to sea” what does it turn around and head back southeast? Look at the 500 mb means and 5k temps, This is what is a ridge? There is a major ridge in the west like we see when there are a lot of storms. It’s warm in the west cool in the east, but there is no subtropical ridge trapping this storm. It’s caught in trough. That is the five-day mean. Here are the temps at 5K. Which looks a lot like the phase 2 MJO I have been drooling about for over a week to set all this up. And it lights up the tropics. Here is the other little ditty he is blissfully unaware of. If it was just caught in a subtropical ridge, it would HAVE NO BAROCLINIC FORCING which enhanced the rain. The cooling from the trough while the storm was stalled and STILL bringing in warm moist air clearly helped amounts. Take a storm inland with a uniform temperature gradient as in an enhanced subtropical ridge, they die. So what apparently he is describing is a ridge position enhanced that means the storms moves slow. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS THE OPPOSITE? THIS IS A MAJOR TROUGH TOO FAR SOUTH. The same thing that caught Elena in 1985 except it was over the gulf. It Caught Dennis in 1999. But Dennis was over the water before he came back. You want really crazy? Look at Esther in 1961. Major cool shots, not the kind of blocking ridge that you get occasionally like… let’s say Ginger in 1971 or Dora in 1964. Both storms that had major ridges to the north, which do happen sometimes steering them in. But amplitude happens. It always has and always will. I usually do not get involved with the climatariat. But I set this pattern up from Spring. As soon as the cool started coming in July I said here we go. This phase 2 had me chomping at the bit (still does). So when I got emailed this tonight, I had to comment. The gentler side of me understands he could not have looked at the major cold trough in the means when he accused the expansion of the subtropical ridge as the cause. The gentler side of me understands that he did not think about the implication of a storm trapped over land in a mainly barotropic atmosphere vs one where baroclinic processes are also going on (e.g., heavy rains on troughward side of recurving hurricanes) The gentle side would like to say, brother you should forecast for a year where something is on the line so you can understand what the heck you are saying. That would be my suggestion, but that quote, given the actual reasons for what set this up and what occurred is about as opposite as you can get. And if someone wants to suggest the highly amplified pattern, which is what phase 2 in hurricane season does, where its hot in the west is the reason, then fine, quit talking about coast to coast heat cause it means there will be a whole lotta cooling going on. Now if it’s me, I would be talking about the warmth of the oceans. (You see I know what they should be arguing.) And how in a phase 2 with all the cool in the US, that favors big storms near our coast. (You may see another next week, and whether named or not, this system tomorrow will have tropical storm conditions from NC to South Jersey). If the Atlantic was colder, it wouldn’t be as likely. But instead, to justify these nonsensical models, we get a quote when the actual set up reveals there is no abnormal subtropical ridge. IT’S OPPOSITE. THERE IS A BIG TROUGH OVER THE EAST. In fact Mann does not even understand that a stronger than normal SE US ridge generally means less impact on the US such as 2007. Our preseason idea showed how warmth may be distorting patterns so that it leads to less hits but this year we felt it would be different.Look at what has been going on, its been cool over the last month. Perhaps Mann is even unaware of that. Let me tell you folks something, Harvey is horrible. For that area of Texas the rain is unprecented. Other areas have had it. But its not climate change, unless climate change means cooler than normal temps across much of the United states in one of the best growing season summers we have seen since the summers of 2013-2015 — even last year. But what is despicable is what I see coming out. If Dr. Mann was out on a limb before the season showing what he thought, or even earlier this week, that is one thing, But this is an example of what will be a relentless tirade of statements Say nothing, make no forecast you can actually be held accountable for, then come out after and grab headlines with stuff like this. And if he wants to debate me on what caused this storm to act the way it did, given what I have shown, I’m right here, bring your stalled subtropical ridge but you wil have to glo look over Afrida cause tis not over the US And if he wants to tell me that the expansion of the subtropical ridgen now means a trough that catches and stops a tropical cyclone and enhances baroclinic processes in warm tropical air, I would love to see that explanation, that below normal heights and temps are a sign the subtropical ridge is stornger than normal, at an AMS conference with just operational mets looking on. Would be worth the price of admission Get ready for more of this. We had a high impact, major hit drought ending hurricane season specifically targeting the northwest gulf in our preseason forecast with all the reasons. It’s why this year was different from the past 12, where by the way, because of it warming more in the north than over the tropics may be leading to a reduction of storms. You can read the why before what, having nothing to do with climate change, here. It’s from MAY! The only thing I updated was the ace to a normal range in June and there have been no updates since. This is really starting to get nuts. They sit and hide and only come out after the fact. Let’s see him you make a forecast for the season or even 5 days out when this was nothing. Fat chance. But its not going to stop and its only going to get worse. In 10 days or so, another major impact event could threaten the southeast. Why? because that is the pattern we are in and it was predictable and still is. Nothing to do with CO2 or an agenda. For further reading on why Dr. Mann’s claims have no credibility, one only needs to read this book: You can order it on Amazon here, . |
A growing grassroots movement of teachers threatened "civil disobedience" on Saturday in protest at education reforms. Classroom teachers at the National Union of Teachers' annual conference in Liverpool told the Observer their profession had reached a turning point in its relations with Michael Gove, the education secretary, and calls for radical action were widespread. Last week the Association of Teachers and Lecturers overwhelmingly carried a motion of no confidence in Gove, in the first motion of its kind against an education secretary in its history. NUT members will vote on a similar motion on Sunday. Teachers have described Gove as showing "abject failure to improve education or treat teachers, parents and pupils with respect". They claim that for almost three years, since the coalition government came to power, they have been subjected to unprecedented levels of criticism and repeatedly been undermined. Teachers also argue that Gove is trying to change everything about their jobs, from the curriculum to exams and league table measurements, and from pay structures to their pensions and the way inspectors judge them. There is fierce resentment that, as staff grapple with the changes and put in extra hours, ministers describe them as "enemies of promise". "We've just had enough," said Alison Palmer, a primary school teacher from Camden, north London. "We are committed people who try to do the best we can for children and Gove just tells us we are rubbish. There has to be a limit to what teachers will put up with." Stephen Pickles, a primary school teacher from Bradford, said there was a "growing feeling among teachers that they would be unhappy if their own children were in their classes because of what teachers are expected to teach and the tests they have to administer". Pickles, who has been a teacher for 34 years, said he has never seen the profession this "fed up" and ready to do something about it. "It feels like things are coming to a head," he said. Alasdair Smith, a history teacher at a secondary school in Islington, north London, said he and his colleagues were ready for "civil disobedience". He disapproves so strongly of a draft version of the new history curriculum issued by the Department for Education that he intends to refuse to teach it. "I am just not going to teach a curriculum that leaves children less aware of their world and will turn them off history," he says. "I think there is a growing sense of why should we do this and agreement that we need to have some civil disobedience." He said he objected to the lists of facts he said the new national curriculum required children to learn by heart. Pupils need a "concept of what evidence is and how to interpret history, and I will continue to teach this regardless," he said. Ofsted judgments are too harsh and data-driven, teachers have warned. They are calling for a boycott of the inspectorate – a step that would be illegal. Liam Conway, a teacher from Nottinghamshire, said the inspection regime was now so tough teachers were "literally being torn to bits". "We owe it to all our teachers to boycott Ofsted," he said. Hundreds of thousands of teachers have vowed to stage a series of strikes from June. The NUT and the NASUWT teaching union, whose joint membership comes to more than 400,000, have said they will begin a rolling programme of strikes starting in north-west England. At the conference, teachers have been queuing up to fill out posters that start: "My message to Michael Gove is ..." The union is recording some teachers with their posters and will send them to Gove's office. "We don't want to go on strike, but we want Gove to listen," said Amanda Gray, a primary school teacher from Essex. "He doesn't trust us as professionals. We just want Gove to listen and ask us how we think we should be teaching." A DfE spokeswoman said the government had "significantly reduced bureaucracy, given more autonomy to schools than ever before ... ensured good teachers are better recognised through the pay system". "For too long other countries have been outpacing us. Our reforms are giving teachers more freedom, increasing choice for parents so every child can go to a good local school, and ensuring we have an education system that matches the world's best. This ambition is surely something the NUT should support. "Industrial action will simply disrupt pupils' education, hugely inconvenience parents and damage the profession's reputation in the eyes of the public at a time when our reforms are improving standards in schools across the country." |
New York City is about to get higher than a skyscraper! DETAILS: Up In Smoke! NYC Gov’s Marijuana Bill Gets Burnt Up! In his State of the City address today, Mayor Michael Bloomberg fully supported Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to make a small marijuana infraction a violation rather than a misdemeanor. If passed, it would reduce the legal consequences for a common crime, and make a lot of people happy and hungry. Bloomberg also announced another significant marijuana-related change that will be implemented immediately in New York City – instead of being held overnight in jail, those arrested for possessing small quantities of marijuana will instead receive only a desk appearance ticket for their court date. WHAT?! “But we know that there’s more we can do to keep New Yorkers, particularly young men, from ending up with a criminal record. Commissioner Kelly and I support Governor Cuomo’s proposal to make possession of small amounts of marijuana a violation, rather than a misdemeanor and we’ll work to help him pass it this year. But we won’t wait for that to happen. “Right now, those arrested for possessing small amounts of marijuana are often held in custody overnight. We’re changing that. Effective next month, anyone presenting an ID and clearing a warrant check will be released directly from the precinct with a desk appearance ticket to return to court. It’s consistent with the law, it’s the right thing to do and it will allow us to target police resources where they’re needed most. DETAILS: Not So Fast! White House Considers Legal Action Against Weed States Well damn! Times are changing, huh? SOURCE: Business Insider Also On Global Grind: |
Dodgers catcher Yasmani Grandal left Sunday's game against the Nationals in the sixth inning after taking a foul tip off his catcher's mask. Michael Taylor was batting and got a piece of a 1-0 pitch from Zack Greinke to open the bottom of the sixth inning. The ball caromed directly off Grandal's mask seemingly in the jaw area, prompting the catcher to call for team trainers from the dugout. After a few minutes of discussion with director of medical services Stan Conte, Grandal walked off the field and into the clubhouse, pointing to his temples along the way. Yasmani Grandal had X-ray for possible broken jaw. Negative. Will have further exam tomorrow. #Dodgers — Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) July 19, 2015 Grandal x-rays negative. No broken jaw. Scan tomorrow — J.P. Hoornstra (@jphoornstra) July 19, 2015 Grandal will have more CT tests done tomorrow, luckily his jaw isn't broken which is what was he thought initially — David Vassegh (@THEREAL_DV) July 19, 2015 A.J. Ellis entered the game for Grandal behind the plate. Grandal missed six games in May on the seven-day concussion disabled list after taking a couple shots to the head in a May 22 game against the Padres. This has been a breakout season for Grandal, hitting .280/.399/.518 with 14 home runs, and made his first All-Star team earlier this week. He has started 63 of 93 games behind the plate this season. |
Media playback is not supported on this device Torstein Horgmo 22nd Winter Olympics Venue: Sochi, Russia Date: 7-23 February Coverage: Live on BBC TV, Red Button, BBC Sport website, Connected TVs, mobiles, BBC Sport app and Radio 5 live Olympic organisers said they would act after being asked to make changes to the slopestyle course in Sochi. A number of competitors demanded a meeting with officials after training at the Rosa Khutor "Extreme Park" for the first time on Monday. It's been a bit scary getting used to hitting the jumps Billy Morgan British snowboarder Norwegian medal prospect Torstein Horgmo, 26, crashed and broke his collarbone during the session. Snowboard slopestyle qualification begins on Thursday ahead of Friday's opening ceremony. Slopestylers raised concerns about the proximity of the rails at the beginning of the course and want the height of three jumps lowered. Horgmo, who was taken to hospital with his neck in a brace following his accident on the rails, has now been ruled out of the Games. However, International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) organisers blamed his injury on the jump he was attempting rather than the course. British snowboarder Billy Morgan is among those calling for changes. "It's been a bit scary getting used to hitting the jumps," he told BBC Sport. "The jumps weren't raked properly, which hopefully they can sort tomorrow so they are smoother and not as intense to land." Finnish snowboarder Roope Tonteri echoed Morgan's concerns, arguing the course was "not really safe" because of the size of the jumps, while Britain's Jenny Jones said a number of competitors were far from happy. "People are a little bit concerned about the speed," said 33-year-old Jones, who has won three X Games gold medals during her career. Media playback is not supported on this device Sochi: Guide to snowboard slopestyle "I think the take-off isn't ideal from the jump, so that needs adjusting. We have voiced our opinions and everyone's in agreement with what needs to be tweaked." American Charles Guildemond, who set up a snowboarders' union in 2011, described the jumps on the course as being similar to "dropping out of the sky." "The last jump I did has a lot of impact in it and the take-off is really long. Some of the guys and girls are intimidated," he told reporters. FIS technical delegate Bill van Gilder told BBC Sport that there would be action. "It's a common process that the athletes come to a venue and have concerns after the first day of training," he said. "Today's features were super-good, they just need a few tweaks to make them even better and the feeling I have is that everyone's 'stoked' with the course." Slopestyle is appearing at an Olympic Games for the first time. The course design, which was made public last August, was put together with help from officials who worked on the X Games. Warm weather in Sochi is believed to have stopped some heavy machinery used to maintain the slopes from being used on the course. It is hoped cooler conditions will allow more work to take place, with officials planning to reduce the three jumps by a total of six feet (1.82m). |
When the National Security Agency’s ANT division catalog of surveillance tools was disclosed among the myriad of Snowden revelations, its desire to implant malware into the BIOS of targeted machines was unquestionable. While there’s little evidence of BIOS bootkits in the wild, the ANT catalog and the recent disclosure of the Equation Group’s cyberespionage platform, in particular module NLS_933W.DLL that reprograms firmware from most major vendors, leave little doubt that attacks against hardware are leaving the realm of academics and white hats. Tomorrow at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, researchers Corey Kallenberg and Xeno Kovah, formerly of MITRE and founders of startup LegbaCore, will deliver research on new BIOS vulnerabilities and present a working rootkit implant into BIOS. “Most BIOS have protections from modifications,” Kallenberg told Threatpost. “We found a way to automate the discovery of vulnerabilities this space and break past those protections.” Kallenberg said an attacker would need to already have remote access to a compromised computer in order to execute the implant and elevate privileges on the machine through the hardware. Their exploit turns down existing protections in place to prevent re-flashing of the firmware, enabling the implant to be inserted and executed. The devious part of their exploit is that they’ve found a way to insert their agent into System Management Mode, which is used by firmware and runs separately from the operating system, managing various hardware controls. System Management Mode also has access to memory, which puts supposedly secure operating systems such as Tails in the line of fire of the implant. Tails is a privacy-focused operating system that runs off removable media, such as USB stick, and whose aim is privacy and anonymity. “The idea is that if the OS is compromised by an implant, it’s OK to use Tails for communication (all Internet connections are made through the Tor browser) because it’s shielded from the malware that hit the main operating system,” Kallenberg said. “What the implant does is it waits for Tails to boot and scrapes sensitive data out of memory and exfiltrates it out. Our agent listens in the background, Tails doesn’t see it.” Their implant, the researchers said, is able to scrape the secret PGP key Tails uses for encrypted communication, for example. It can also steal passwords and encrypted communication. The implant survives OS re-installation and even Tails’ built-in protections, including its capability of wiping RAM. “We store data in a non-volatile area and it’s not erased,” Kallenberg said. “The idea is to make it obvious that these secure boot disk style things are architecturally vulnerable to attackers who come at you from the BIOS level space.” Kovah said that architectural changes to the BIOS successor UEFI introduced modularity in order to simplify development. But that modularity, which is spelled out in the open source reference implementation of UEFI, is what can be abused. It’s also what many vendors have based their code on. Kovah explained that common code exists in the BIOS variants from different vendors, and that code makes it possible to reliably install implants across the different makes and models. “The open source reference implementation explains how data is passed and there are well-defined locations where to transfer internally to the BIOS,” Kovah said. “You can look at the open source reference to look for patterns and see where the same data exists in closed source versions. Those common reference points define hook locations.” An attacker may place code at those locations, Kovah said, and that up to 100 models from five vendors all share the same code or variants of the same code. “Because of that, you can reliably automate the search of strings for hooking, place hooks, and insert code,” Kovah said. Kovah said an attacker, criminal or nation-state, can also infect the BIOS with physical access to a computer, such as at a border crossing. In a demo shared with Threatpost, using a DediProg flash programmer, Kovah was able to physically clip a connector cable onto the BIOS and download an implant that way. “This can be used at a border crossing, in an Evil Maid attack, or other physical interdiction attacks,” he said. “If you have access, it takes about two minutes once you find the BIOS. The idea is to give this to the unskilled, give them a target, open the computer, connect and press start. It takes about 50 seconds to re-flash the chip. “The point here is that even if you think you’re doing strong op-sec by using Tails or not carrying a hard drive, it doesn’t matter,” Kovah said. “Two minutes of physical access and you can own any OS.” The situation isn’t entirely bleak. The researchers said that vendors do a solid job of patching vulnerabilities that are reported to them, but need to improve secure coding practices and put more effort into vulnerability mitigations. “As time goes on and the cost of exploitation gets higher because more bugs get killed off and new techniques make it harder to exploit, I think that attacking BIOS will be more appealing because of the persistence on that system,” Kallenberg said. |
For a media software package to survive these days, it has to be able to run pretty much anywhere and just recently Plex added the Kindle Fire to its list of supported platforms, uploading its Android client onto Amazon's Appstore. The team hasn't stopped there either, delivering updates across a slew of products starting with its Media Server v0.9.5.2 which added autoupdate and start on login features, while the Media Center package has reached 9.5.2, with support for refresh rate switching as well as a number of other tweaks and fixes. The various clients haven't been forgotten either, with a brand new alpha available for Linux users, individual apps for Android and Google TV, and a new v2.1 for iOS that supports myPlex cloud streaming without the need for users to run the Plex server software locally. Hit the source links for changelogs and more details or just check an app store near you where updated software is no doubt residing for your picture, music, and video streaming pleasure. |
Valverde unwilling to change style Athletic Bilbao coach Ernesto Valverde insists he will not alter his team's style of play despite their poor start to the season. The Basques were beaten 1-0 by former coach Joaquin Caparros' Granada last weekend and head to Rayo Vallecano with just three points from their opening four games. As a result of the poor start, Valverde is all too aware of the need to turn things around quickly. "We're going there in need of the points because we got no points in our last game and after four weeks the league table starts to tell you something," Valverde told a press conference. "We are near the bottom of the table and we want what every team near the bottom wants, and that's nothing else but to win." Valverde also called for a sense of perspective, pointing out that his side had a last-minute equaliser against Malaga ruled out in their opening game, and that an error by Ander Iturraspe gifted Granada the only goal of Saturday's match. "We haven't always deserved the results we have got, because we lost in certain circumstances in Malaga and it was our own error that cost us against Granada," he said. "We are in September and we recently knocked Napoli out of the Champions League. I have no doubts at all about a style of play which has given us so much." Forward Ibai Gomez has been ruled out of the trip to Vallecas but Aymeric Laporte, one of six players to be left out of the starting line-up against Granada, returns from injury. Rayo boss Paco Jemez welcomes back Jonathan Pereira and Javier Aquino to his side after the two forwards missed the 4-2 defeat at Villarreal due to contractual issues, and the coach is now just missing defender Antonio Amaya and goalkeeper David Cobeno, who are both injured. Rayo are still without a win this season but Jemez insists he sees encouraging signs in his team. "We are doing many things well but we are all frustrated because we should have won a game by now," he told a press conference. "We have to search for a way to concede fewer goals, because we are doing fine in attack and have scored six goals in four games. Once we find that balance, I'm sure we're going to start to win games." |
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter stands to be the most sophisticated jet in the Air Force’s arsenal once ready for combat — but the Pentagon wants to first see how the state-of-the-art aircraft performs against its old standby, the A-10 “Warthog.” Top brass in the Department of Defense said they’re preparing for exercises that will compare the capabilities of the F-35, its fifth-generation fighter still in the final stages of development, with those of the A-10, a close-air support jet that’s been used since the first Gulf War. “The comparison tests on the close-air support mission will reveal how well the F-35 performs and whether there are gaps, or improvements in capability, compared to the A-10,” J. Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation, told reporters last week. There will “absolutely” be differences between how the F-35 and the A-10 conduct close air support missions, Mr. Gilmore said, and comparison tests will help the Air Force understand the strengths and weaknesses of either aircraft before the Joint Strike Fighter is officially entered into combat. The F-35 program is slated to ultimately cost the U.S. military $1.5 trillion, but the Air Force doesn’t expect the jet to be ready until 2021. A series of setbacks have already created obstacles for the program along the way, and Defense Department officials aren’t certain that the aircraft will be able to replace the A-10 in every aspect of air-to-ground combat. “I do not doubt that there will be some areas in maybe a permissive environment where the A-10 may be able to do certain things that the F-35 at that stage of its development may not be able to,” Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, the Air Force’s deputy assistant secretary for acquisition, said during a Aug. 27 event at the Pentagon, Defense News reported. “We will utilize all of the resources that we have to be able to meet that CAS requirement if we find out that the F-35 is unable to do that at that point.” The tests are currently slated to occur in 2018, at which point the Air Force expects the software that supports the F-35’s fighting capability to be 100 percent complete. According to the Air Force, 99.9 percent of the required software for the aircraft has so far been coded — leaving about 10,000 lines of code out of more than 8 million to be written. Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission. |
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