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The Anarchists are right in everything; in the negation of the existing order and in the assertion that, without Authority there could not be worse violence than that of Authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that anarchy can be instituted by a violent revolution. But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not require the protection of governmental power and by there being more and more people who will be ashamed of applying this power. “The capitalistic organization will pass into the hands of workers, and then there will be no more oppression of these workers, and no unequal distribution of earnings.” [Marxist] “But who will establish the works; who will administer them?” [Anarchist] “It will go on of its own accord; the workmen themselves will arrange everything.” [Marxist] “But the capitalistic organization was established just because, for every practical affair, there is need for administrators furnished with power. If there be work, there will be leadership, administrators with power. And when there is power, there will be abuse of it — the very thing against which you are now striving.” [Anarchist] * * * To the question, how to be without a State, without courts, armies, and so on, an answer cannot be given, because the question is badly formulated. The problem is not how to arrange a State after the pattern of today, or after a new pattern. Neither I, nor any of us, is appointed to settle that question. But, though voluntarily, yet inevitably must we answer the question, how shall I act faced with the problem which ever arises before me? Am I to submit my conscience to the acts taking place around me, am I to proclaim myself in agreement with the Government, which hangs erring men, sends soldiers to murder, demoralizes nations with opium and spirits, and so on, or am I to submit my actions to conscience, i.e., not participate in Government, the actions of which are contrary to reason? What will be the outcome of this, what kind of a Government there will be — of all this I know nothing; not that I don’t wish to know; but that I cannot. I only know that nothing evil can result from my following the higher guidance of wisdom and love, or wise love, which is implanted in me, just as nothing evil comes of the bee following the instinct implanted in her, and flying out of the hive with the swarm, we should say, to ruin. But, I repeat, I do not wish to and cannot judge about this. In this precisely consists the power of Christ’s teaching and that not because Christ is God or a great man, but because His teaching is irrefutable. The merit of His teaching consists in the fact that it transferred the matter from the domain of eternal doubt and conjecture on to the ground of certainty. You are a man, a being rational and kind, and you know that today or tomorrow you will die, disappear. If there be a God then you will go to Him and He will ask of you an account of your actions, whether you have acted in accordance with His law, or, at least, with the higher qualities implanted in you. If there be no God, you regard reason and love as the highest qualities, and must submit to them your other inclinations, and not let them submit to your animal nature — to the cares about the commodities of life, to the fear of annoyance and material calamities. The question is not, I repeat, which community will be the more secure, the better — the one which is defended by arms, cannons, gallows or the one that is not so safeguarded. But there is only one question for a man, and on it is impossible to evade: “Will you, a rational and good being, having for a moment appeared in this world, and at any moment liable to disappear — will you take part in the murder of erring men or men of a different race, will you participate in the extermination of whole nations of so-called savages, will you participate in the artificial deterioration of generations of men by means of opium and spirits for the sake of profit, will you participate in all these actions, or even be in agreement with those who permit them, or will you not?” And there can be but one answer to this question for those to whom it has presented itself. As to what the outcome will be of it, I don’t know, because it is not given to me to know. But what should be done, I do unmistakably know. And if you ask: “What will happen?”, then I reply that good will certainly happen; because, acting in the way indicated by reason and love, I am acting in accordance with the highest law known to me. The situation of the majority of men, enlightened by true brotherly enlightenment, at present crushed by the deceit and cunning of usurpers, who are forcing them to ruin their own lives — this situation is terrible and appears hopeless. Only two issues present themselves, and both are closed. One is to destroy violence by violence, by terrorism, dynamite bombs and daggers as our Nihilists and Anarchists have attempted to do, to destroy this conspiracy of Governments against nations, from without; the other is to come to an agreement with the Government, making concessions to it, participating in it, in order gradually to disentangle the net which is binding the people, and to set them free. Both these issues are closed. Dynamite and the dagger, as experience has already shown, only cause reaction, and destroy the most valuable power, the only one at our command, that of public opinion. The other issue is closed, because Governments have already learnt how far they may allow the participation of men wishing to reform them. They admit only that which does not infringe, which is non-essential; and they are very sensitive concerning things harmful to them — sensitive because the matter concerns their own existence. They admit men who do not share their views, and who desire reform, not only in order to satisfy the demands of these men, but also in their own interest, in that of the Government. These men are dangerous to the Governments if they remain outside them and revolt against them — opposing to the Governments the only effective instrument the Governments possess — public opinion; they must therefore render these men harmless, attracting them by means of concessions, in order to render them innocuous (like cultivated microbes), and then make them serve the aims of the Governments, i.e., oppress and exploit the masses. Both these issues being firmly closed and impregnable, what remains to be done? To use violence is impossible; it would only cause reaction. To join the ranks of the Government is also impossible — one would only become its instrument. One course therefore remains — to fight the Government by means of thought, speech, actions, life, neither yielding to Government nor joining its ranks and thereby increasing its power. This alone is needed, will certainly be successful. And this is the will of God, the teaching of Christ. There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one: the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself. Leo Tolstoy 1900 Tolstoy’s point seems to be that death is inevitable and that we should not fear it |
We’re celebrating the end of the year with our most popular posts from 2013, plus a few of our favorites tossed in. Enjoy! You know all those badass ladies out there that are inexplicably single? Well, maybe it’s not so inexplicable. In a study contending for most-depressing-research-of-the-year, psychologists Kate Ratliff and Shigehiro Oishi tested how a romantic partner’s success or failure affects the self-esteem of people in heterosexual relationships. The short story: men feel bad about themselves when good things happen to their female partners. Women’s self-esteem is unaffected. Here’s some of the data. The vertical axis represents self-esteem. In this experiment, respondents were told that their partner scored high on a test of intelligence (“positive feedback”) or low (“negative feedback”). The leftmost bars show that men who were told that their partners were smart reported significantly lower self-esteem than those who heard that their partners weren’t so smart. In the second condition, respondents were asked to imagine a partner’s success or failure. Doing so had no effect on women’s self-esteem (rightmost bars). For men, however, imagining their partners’ success made them feel bad about themselves, whereas imagining their failure made them feel good. The various experiments were conducted with American and Dutch college students as well as a diverse Internet sample. The findings were consistent across populations and were particularly surprising in the context of the Netherlands, which is generally believed to be more gender egalitarian. We’ve got a long way to go. Cross-posted at The Huffington Post and Pacific Standard. |
Disruptive Innovation: Bad For Some Old Businesses, Good For Everyone Else from the also-known-as-'progress' dept Printed photos, which once came in “wallet size,” have been replaced by an endless roll of snapshots on my phone. Business cards, one of the more archaic forms of communication from the last few decades, now exist as digital rap sheets that can be shared with a click or a bump. As for cash, I rarely touch the stuff anymore. Most of the time I pay for things — lunch, gas, clothes — with a single debit card. Increasingly, there are also opportunities to skip plastic cards. At Starbucks, I often pay with my smartphone using the official Starbucks app. Other cafes and small restaurants allow people to pay with Square. You simply say your name at a register and voilá, transaction complete. But wait, what did I do with all of the other cardlike things, like my gym membership I.D., discount cards, insurance cards and coupons? I simply took digital pictures of them, which I keep in a photos folder on my smartphone that is easily accessible. Many stores have apps for their customer cards, and insurance companies have apps that substitute for paper identification. I recently joked that it felt like the main purpose of Kickstarter seemed to be to convince the world they wanted simplified wallets and fancy ink pens. If you don't spend much time on Kickstarter, you may have missed that those two categories seem to account for a somewhat-larger-than-expected percentage of projects that people find interesting. The wallets, in particular, fascinate me, because there wallets . I had no idea that the wallet market was open to such disruption.Of course, it may be open to an entirely different form of disruption. As Nick Bilton at the NYTimes recently pointed out, as his smartphone has been able to do more and more, he's beginning to think that wallets may be becoming entirely obsolete . There's almost nothing he still needs to carry on his person since nearly everything that used to be in his wallet can now be taken care of via his smartphone:It's notobsolete, but Nick makes a compelling case that it's heading in that direction. To be fair, many of the new wallets seen on Kickstarter are, in effect, responses to this trend. The most popular styles appear to be "simplified" or "minimal" wallets that shrink down what you have to carry, so that you can just take the few essential cards with you. But, it's possible that many people will be able to get by entirely without a wallet in the not-too-distant future.This, in turn, reminded me of something else: about how disruption may destroy industries while making our own lives better in the process -- but that simple economics tends to do a bad job recognizing that. I've talked about how traditional economic measures might measure the wrong thing. So, if we're looking at wallets, for example, those in the wallet-making business might claim that this move towards the digitization/smartphonification of everything is "bad" for the "wallet industry." That's obviously silly, and most people aren't too concerned about the wallet industry. But that ignores just how many industries are being totally upended by the smartphone. Think of all theyou don't need any more due to the smartphone. A few months back, the Cato Institute put together a fun chart on "dematerialization" due to the smart phone , trying to make the argument that advances in technology, such as the smartphone, might also be good for the environment, since they lead to people needing a lot fewer physical devices, since they're all packaged into that tiny device in your pocket:Of course, what this also points out is the nature ofand. Disruptive innovation, by its nature, destroys entire industries or segments of industries by making them obsolete. If you simply measure the economic impact on the fact that those industries are no longer present, or that those products are no longer being sold for hundreds of dollars, you could argue that there's a negative impact on the economy. But, if you flip it around and look at (a) how much better our lives are, in that we have access toat the touch of our finger tips in a single smartphone, and (b) that as compared to buying all those other devices, individuals actually get to(though, not necessarily in their now obsolete wallets) to be spent in more productive ways, it seems like it's actually a really good thing.But this is something that we often struggle with from a policy standpoint. While no one claims to be missing "the fax" industry, lots of industries at risk of disruption will do all sorts of things to angle policy makers into blocking that disruption, by arguing about the economic impact of their own industries, and falsely implying that, if they're disrupted away, all of that money somehow "disappears" from the economy. But the nature of innovation is that we make things obsolete by making other things better and more powerful and changing the way we do things. The end result is, generally speaking (and, yes, there are exceptions), better for everyone, enabling them to do more with less and do so more productively. Whether it's a "wallet" or the entire list of things in the graphic above, progress has an amazing way of destroying old ways of doing business, and we shouldn't fear or worry about that, we should celebrate it. Filed Under: advancement, dematerialization, disruption, economics, innovation, progress, wallets |
Vietnam's LGBT community witnesses blossoming support at gay pride parade Updated When several hundred supporters of LGBT rights took to the streets of Ho Chi Minh City last weekend, one could have been forgiven for fearing the worst. Strutting down Nguyen Hue pedestrian mall in drag and making a beeline for City Hall seemed a pretty good way to attract unwanted attention from the strip's security police. A plethora of rainbow flags threw the monotony of the city's ubiquitous hammer-and-sickle banners into sharp relief. In April, the colour and ceremony on Nguyen Hue had been for a more predictable occasion: the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the unveiling of a new statue of Vietnam's revolutionary hero, Ho Chi Minh. But fears of a crackdown quickly evaporated. Indeed, for a while, Nguyen Hue felt a bit like a LGBT Disneyland. Children pestered parents for photos with drag queens, the parade a movable pin cushion of selfie sticks, and even the green-uniformed police contingent appeared more amused than confronted. In fact, the Communist nation may well have been witnessing an expression of the new normal: just two months ago, 5,000 people converged in the same place in the wake of the US Supreme Court decision to legalise same-sex marriage. With the Philippines considering a ban on same-sex marriage, Singapore's legal system upholding a law prohibiting same-sex activities of any kind and Brunei's penal code recommending whipping and long prison sentences for same-sex couples, Vietnam, one of the region's most repressive countries, was suddenly looking, at least on one point, like one of its most progressive. "The authorities have been supportive of our events ... as well as of LGBT rights in general. ICS director Tran Khac Tung Lieu Anh Vu, a Hanoi-based human rights worker who flew into town for the march, said the event showed the extent to which Vietnam was becoming a regional leader on LGBT issues. "Such public expressions of LGBT identity are being challenged throughout South-East Asia," the 23-year-old said. "Pride events have continuously been shut down in Shanghai and Beijing, too. "What's important is that we were able to march on the street and publicly show our identity and express ourselves. "I'm proud to be living in Vietnam at this time and witnessing such a dramatic change." The Rainbow Walk, as the march was known, was the crowning event of Ho Chi Minh City's third annual Viet Pride festival, held over three days and organised by the LGBT advocacy group, Information Collecting and Sharing (ICS). The organisation also helps to coordinate similar events in 23 other provinces throughout the country. ICS director Tran Khac Tung described this year's festival as "our most successful yet", with 5,000 people attending workshops, film screenings and parties. "The authorities have been supportive of our events ... as well as of LGBT rights in general," Mr Tung said. At the beginning of this year, Vietnam abolished regulations that "prohibit marriage between people of the same sex". It means that same-sex unions can now take place without anyone being prosecuted. They attracted heavy fines until two years ago. This is not quite as groundbreaking as it sounds: the government still does not recognise same-sex marriages and there remains no legal framework for issues including the division of a couple's assets in the case of separation or death. Nevertheless, things appear to be changing in this deeply conservative society. Fifteen years ago, it was illegal for same-sex couples to co-habitate, let alone formalise their relationship, and homosexuality was still on the country's official list of mental illnesses. When it was finally removed from that list, the state-run media took to describing it as a "social evil" instead. But over the past couple of years, the rhetoric has changed. Justice Minister Ha Hung Cuong, whose department has reportedly been one of the more progressive on the issue, has stated publicly that it is "unacceptable to create social prejudice against the homosexual community". According to Mr Tung, perceptions surrounding the LGBT community are changing for the better as a result. He cited a survey conducted 18 months ago by Vietnam's Health Strategy and Policy Institute, which showed that 34 per cent of respondents supported same-sex couples' right to marry, 56 per cent their right to adopt children and 51 per cent their right to inherit property. "Urban centres are more exposed to LGBT people and younger people also tend to be more open-minded." Human rights worker Lieu Anh Vu Two years earlier, 87 per cent of respondents said they believed that homosexuality was a transmittable disease and 48 per cent that it could be cured. Mr Tung said state-media coverage of high-profile same-sex couples today — including US ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius — had helped contribute to changing attitudes. As a result of this apparent trickle-down tolerance, Mr Tung said "LGBT people feel more confident about themselves". An online survey of more than 3,000 LGBT people conducted last year revealed that 78 per cent of respondents had come out to at least one or two people. In 2008, only 2 per cent had done so. "I had been lying to my parents every time they had asked me, so one day I just decided to stop lying," Mr Vu said. "I told them the truth. My friends took it better than my family." He said it was important to remember that while acceptance was improving in a general sense, it was not uniform across all demographics. "Urban centres are more exposed to LGBT people and younger people also tend to be more open-minded," Mr Vu said. "My parents were not happy with my announcement and are still not very happy now." Some critics have argued that the government's recent moves are a cynical and self-serving play for LGBT tourism dollars. Others say they are an attempt to distract from the regime's ongoing war against dissident bloggers by pointing to the pride events as examples of freedom of speech and assembly. But Human Rights Watch LGBT advocacy director Boris Dittrich is more positive, declaring: "Vietnam is an interesting country. A respectful debate about marriage equality has started. It's also encouraging to see how active the country's civil society groups are. "Legal changes still need to take place. For instance, a non-discrimination law that includes sexual orientation and gender identity. Marriage equality has been debated, but no legislation has been proposed by the government." Dy Khoa was one of the marchers last weekend and he is aware of the debate about same sex marriage in Australia. Recently, senior Government ministers in Canberra argued that Australia should not legalise same-sex marriage because it would put the country out of step with many of our Asian neighbours. "Vietnam has only started this process," Dy Khoa said. "We still have a long way to go. But Australia? A modern country? Why are they so scared? I can't understand it." Topics: lgbt, world-politics, human-interest, human, vietnam First posted |
Our maps show how different countries would fit inside Illinois How big is Illinois? Illinois is the 25th-largest US state by area, its 57,913 square miles placing it smack dab in the middle. While its rank among the states may not be much of a surprise, its rank among the world's countries probably is: if Illinois were to declare its independence and become a country, it would rank as the 92nd largest among the 200-odd nations in existence. That means that there are roughly 109 countries smaller than Illinois. In order to illustrate how some of these countries compare in size to Illinois, we came up with a hypothetical scenario appropriate for SelfStorage.com: if Illinois were a storage unit, how would other countries fit inside? Of course, using maps to illustrate size is a tricky matter, since most 2D map projections distort size in favor of shape. This includes the Mercator Projection used by Google Maps. Fortunately, we found thetruesize.com, a tool which runs on top of Google Maps and accounts for these distortions, allowing for accurate size comparisons. Now you can see exactly how these countries would fit inside of your Illinois self storage unit. Embed this image on your site (copy the code below): |
Covering: up to December 2013. Over the past decade, there has been a growing transition in recreational drugs from natural materials (marijuana, hashish, opium), natural products (morphine, cocaine), or their simple derivatives (heroin), to synthetic agents more potent than their natural prototypes, which are sometimes less harmful in the short term, or that combine properties from different classes of recreational prototypes. These agents have been named smart drugs, and have become popular both for personal consumption and for collective intoxication at rave parties. The reasons for this transition are varied, but are mainly regulatory and commercial. New analogues of known illegal intoxicants are invisible to most forensic detection techniques, while the alleged natural status and the lack of avert acute toxicity make them appealing to a wide range of users. On the other hand, the advent of the internet has made possible the quick dispersal of information among users and the on-line purchase of these agents and/or the precursors for their synthesis. Unlike their natural products chemotypes (ephedrine, mescaline, cathinone, psilocybin, THC), most new drugs of abuse are largely unfamiliar to the organic chemistry community as well as to health care providers. To raise awareness of the growing plague of smart drugs we have surveyed, in a medicinal chemistry fashion, their development from natural products leads, their current methods of production, and the role that clandestine home laboratories and underground chemists have played in the surge of popularity of these drugs. |
The Grand Avenue Water Tower is a water tower located at the intersection of Grand Avenue and 20th street in the College Hill neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri. It is the oldest extant water tower in St. Louis, pre-dating both the Bissell Street Water Tower and the Compton Hill Water Tower.[1] History [ edit ] The tower was built in 1871 by architect George I. Barnett in the form of a Corinthian order column with brick, stone and cast iron trim. Inclusive of its base, shaft and capital, it stands 154 feet (47 m) tall. Inside was a standpipe, five feet in diameter, to hold water. In addition to being used for firefighting, the pressure in the pipe regulated water pressure in the area. In 1912, the water tower was decommissioned, and its standpipe and internal spiral staircase were removed. The staircase was replaced by a vertical ladder, and the tower was modified to include an aircraft warning light.[1] In 1998, the water tower was restored and lit by floodlights.[2] The tower is the tallest free-standing Corinthian column in the world. At 46.94 metres (154.0 ft) it is much taller than the free-standing Corinthian columns Pompey's Pillar in Alexandria (20.46 metres (67.1 ft)) or the Column of the Goths in Istanbul (18.5 metres (61 ft)), or those in colonnades at the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek which are 19.82 metres (65.0 ft) tall, the Temple of Mars Ultor in Rome at 17.74 metres (58.2 ft), and the Olympieion in Athens at 16.83 metres (55.2 ft). See also [ edit ] Notes [ edit ] a b c National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. ^ St. Louis Commerce Magazine. |
LYON — Marine Le Pen's presidential rocket ship is ready for lift-off. On Saturday, the French far-right leader unveiled a 144-point plan to yank her country out of the EU, tax the hiring of foreign workers and use "intelligent protectionism" to shield firms from globalization. While much of the National Front party's platform was already known, language in Le Pen's "144 presidential commitments" was broadly updated to make it smoother and less jarring. Le Pen no longer speaks of "exiting the euro zone" but of "restoring the national currency." She no longer wants to force companies to hire French workers via a policy of "national preference," but one based on the softer-sounding "national priority." Also gone from the National Front's playbook is a longstanding demand to reinstate the death penalty, which was abolished in France in 1981. Now, Le Pen wants to impose a prison sentence "in perpetuity" for the "worst crimes," beefing up an existing legal measure. There is plenty missing from the 22-page program. In particular, it does not offer much new detail on what sort of demands Le Pen would make of the European Union as part of a planned renegotiation of the terms of French membership. In addition, the candidate stops short of explaining exactly what would happen if France voted to leave the EU, making no mention of plans to maintain the euro alongside a restored "franc" currency. This vagueness is deliberate, said one Front official. By fleshing out proposals on subjects ranging from healthcare to the environment, the Front wants first and foremost wants to prove its "competence" and overcome a reputation for amateurishness, said Guy Deballe, a former socialist party member and recent Front convert. Le Pen also wants to retain as much wiggle room as possible on the most sensitive issues -- notably what to do about the euro. "The main thing here is to show that the party is working, that we have the expertise and the analytical capacity to rise to the challenges facing France," Deballe said. "What Marine is proposing mainly is a method ... On the specific details of certain proposals, she will adapt her actions according to circumstance." On the whole, he added, the plan was designed to "rebuild France" and "restore the country's greatness." Was such language inspired by U.S. President Donald Trump's promise to "Make America Great Again"? "The situations of our two countries are analogous," Deballe said. "We are totally attacked by finance and multinational companies. We both need to restore control and re-empower the people — to restore our greatness, if you will." "So yes, there are definitely a lot of parallels, even though the solutions will of course be different." Here are a few (non-exhaustive) highlights from Le Pen's plan: On leaving the EU Le Pen's plan calls for "leaving the Schengen free travel zone" in order to "restore our freedom and control over our destiny by giving the French people back their sovereignty." Negotiations with the EU are to be followed by a referendum on membership, the plan says, with the aim of "arriving at a European project that is respectful of France's independence, of national sovereignty and which serves the interests of the people." However, there is no mention of how Le Pen plans to restore the franc after a hypothetical exit from the bloc. On French power Le Pen wants to pull France out of the North Atlantic Treaty's integrated command structure so that Paris is "not dragged into wars that are not hers." She also wants to raise the national defense budget to 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), in order to build a new aircraft carrier, hire 50,000 new military personnel and progressively reintroduce compulsory military service, starting with a 3-month commitment. On 'intelligent protectionism' Le Pen details various measures to protect French firms from foreign competition, often in direct contradiction with EU rules. She wants to "free" French firms from "European constraints" and force the state to order from French companies. Foreign investment would be strictly controlled, via an "Economic Security Agency." On taxing foreign workers France would stop respecting Europe's directive on detached workers, while imposing "an additional tax on the hiring of foreign workers" — one of the few totally new proposals in the Front's playbook, likely inspired by discussion of similar measures in Britain. On immigration President Le Pen would slash the number of people entering France to 10,000 annually, down from about ten times that number currently. She would also abolish the principle of allowing immigrants to bring in family members and force asylum seekers to apply only from their home country. Most radically, she wants to end birthright access to nationality, replacing it with a hereditary principle. On welfare and the domestic economy Le Pen proposes a blend of liberal measures for small companies mixed with heavy investment in the public sector, which already accounts for about 57 percent of GDP. Small and medium sized companies would get a major tax break and "significantly reduced" bureaucratic complexity, the plan says. On the other hand, Le Pen would repeal a recently enacted reform to loosen hiring and firing rules, would maintain the 35-hour work week, beef up the social security system and increase staff in public hospitals. On 'national identity' If Le Pen is elected president, she will demand that all public buildings fly the French flag at all times, while banning the European Union's flag. The constitution would be rewritten to include the notion of "national priority" in all areas, notably via defense of the French language and teaching of the "national novel" in schools. To defend French culture, she also proposes a ban on sales of national monuments and heritage sites to foreign buyers. |
Nobody would be surprised to see the Broncos move around on draft day — they have 10 scheduled selections to choose and only 14 open roster spots. Last week, SB Nation's Dan Kadar included Denver among five teams he could see making draft day trades. Today, the Denver Post's Mike Klis speculated that Denver could move up in the first round. "I would be surprised if the Broncos' general manager doesn't go beyond his unlimited text data in an attempt to trade up from his team's No. 28 draft slot. With 10 draft picks, Elway has the ammunition to barter. And, as a team that won four consecutive division titles and is all in to win this season, the Broncos don't have 10 spots available on their roster. Why waste all those draft picks?" Klis wrote. Klis said that Denver may have to jump eight spots to select an offensive tackle before Cincinnati (No. 21), Detroit (No. 23) and Carolina (No. 25), who are all also in the market for a tackle. Denver has shown much interest in tackles leading up to the draft. Related: Click here for our 2015 Broncos Draft Coverage According to MHR's interest tracker, Denver has shown interest in 10 offensive tackles, more than any other position. Among those tackles is LSU's La'el Collins, who has been projected as high as a top 15 pick. The Broncos own selections in each of the seven rounds of the draft, including four compensatory selections. The compensatory picks cannot be traded, but their six other selections can be dealt. This year's draft will start on Thursday, April 30, and will be broadcast on ESPN and NFL Network. |
ANN ARBOR—We’ve all been there: We eat an entire sleeve of fat-free, low-calorie cookies and we’re stuffing ourselves with more food 15 minutes later. One theory to explain this phenomenon is that artificial sweeteners don’t contain the calories or energy that evolution has trained the brain to expect from sweet-tasting foods, so they don’t fool the brain into satisfying hunger. However, until now, nobody understood how organisms distinguish between real sugar and artificial sweetener. Now, a researcher at the University of Michigan has discovered how the brain of a fruit fly differentiates between the two. Because that molecular machinery is present in the guts and brains of humans on a larger scale, Monica Dus, assistant professor in the U-M Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, believes human brains will differentiate in the same way. Fruit flies and humans share about 75 percent of the same disease-causing genes, says Dus, first author on a study that outlines the findings and appears in the journal Neuron. Monica Dus“We can ask, ‘Do these genes work the same in humans, to tell real sugar from artificial sweetener?'” Dus said. “The bits and pieces are there, so it is really possible that these genes work in a similar way. Plus, we knew that the human brain could tell the difference between real and fake sugar, we just did not know how.” Dus and colleagues Greg Suh and Jason Lai of New York University School of Medicine deprived fruit flies of food for several hours and then gave them a choice between diet, non-nutritive sweeteners and real sugar. When the flies licked the real sugar, it activated a group of six neurons that released a hormone with receptors in the gut and brain. The hormone fueled digestion and allowed the fly to lick more of the nutritious food. On the other hand, when the fly licked the diet sweetener, it never produced this hormone/digestive reaction because zero-calorie sweetener has no nutritional or energy value. In every case, the flies abandoned the artificial sweetener and chose the regular sugar because the starved flies needed the energy provided by the calories in the real sugar. From an evolutionary perspective, sweet taste means sugar (traditionally from fruit or high concentrate carbohydrates) and a subsequent big energy boost. Fruit flies can’t call out for pizza—their brains expect calories if they eat something sweet, and that’s why they chose the regular sugar, Dus says. If our brains work the same way, this helps explains why diet foods don’t satiate or satisfy us, and we gain weight while dieting, she says. It’s analogous to a person eating that entire sleeve of low-calorie cookies and the body telling her she’s still hungry. She keeps snacking until she eats something with nutritional value that meets her energy needs. The fruit fly has roughly 100,000 neurons and the human brain has about 86 billion. The six neurons identified in fruit flies are in roughly the same spot in humans, which removes an immense amount of guesswork and lets researchers zero in on a location. The neurons fire only when they encounter real sugar, which provides a very elegant way for the brain to differentiate between real sugar and artificial sweeteners since they taste similar. In two previous studies, Dus and her colleagues found that flies that couldn’t taste preferred real sugar to a zero-calorie sweetener, which underscores the theory of energy preference. They also characterized a neural circuit, dubbed Cupcake+, which functions as a behavioral on/off switch for eating. Turning on the Cupcake neurons makes the fruit flies stop “feeling” hungry, Dus says. More information: |
By Kathy Patalsky Published 04/23/2013 This spin on "green goddess" dressing includes creamy homemade hummus, sweet dates and loads of green goodness from fresh romaine lettuce spears and a dreamy green dressing. Ingredients 10-12 spears of romaine lettuce, organic (the smaller the better for bite-sized pieces) 1/2 cup homemade hummus - here 1-2 Medjool dates, pitted and chopped a few pinches of smoky paprika or cayenne powder 1/2 cup of green princess dressing (ingredients below) Green Princess Dressing: 1 cup fresh basil leaves (big handful) 1/3 cup raw pumpkin seeds 1 Tbsp raw hemp seeds 2 tsp white miso paste 3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice 1 clove garlic pinch of black pepper to taste add water or more lemon juice as desired to thin out dressing Instructions Add all dressing ingredients to a blender or food processor. Blend on low until thin and textured. Slightly creamy, but more of a dressing texture than a 'pesto'. If making your own hummus, it is best to have it premade and chilled in the fridge for a few hours so it dollops well on the spears. Remove pit of date, chop into bits. Rinse romaine leaves in ice cold water to freshen. Easy set-up. Add hummus to ends of leaves and place in serving dish. Add date bit, dash with pepper and cayenne. Fill serving plate in a flower-design with hummus-topped spears. Drizzle a generous amount of dressing over top and feel free to dip the spears in leftover dressing as you eat. Enjoy! Yield: serves 1-2 Prep Time: 00 hrs. 15 mins. Total time: 15 mins. Tags: salad , appetizer , green goddess dressing , salad dressing , green , romaine , dates , hummus , raw Romaine lettuce that I picked up at the organic Farmer's Market, the market held every Saturday in Santa Monica. Oh my this romaine. I spotted it perched on a table, piled on top of ten or fifteen other glossy green lovelies just like it. Gorgeous, fluffy, sprawling leaves of spring green so crisp and fresh that you could easily munch them down leaf by leaf. No dressing required. So for this recipe I didn't want to do to much to these leaves. I couldn't even bare to chop them up!I topped each spear with fresh chive hummus. Then a bit of chopped Medjool date to sweeten each bite. Cayenne. Pepper. And I needed a homemade green dressing. And everyone does "green goddess" so I decided to do Green Princess Dressing since this plate is just so pretty. Lemon, pumpkin seeds, white miso paste and some raw hemp seeds. No oil added. Light and refreshing with spring lemon zing. I actually devoured this plate for breakfast it was so irresistible!... It all starts with a fluffy head of organic lettuce..You can use any sweet accent. Try organic raisins, chopped apricots or your favorite fresh fruit like blueberries, banana, apples or pears.I loved this dressing SO much that I made a "creamy version" of it that night for dinner...creamy version dressing includes avocado:All hail the mighty romaine leaf. (Not just All Hail Kale!!)* Romaine lettuce is rich in. It is a good source of* Iceberg lettuce has a nice dose of Vitamin K and Manganese …17 calories, 0g fat, 1g protein, 2g fiberRDA’s based on 2000 calorie diet.. 147% Vitamin A, 128% Vitamin K, 34% Folate, 40% Vitamin C, 5% Iron, 3% Calcium, 7% Potassium, 8% Manganese.14 calories, 0g fat, 1g protein, 1g fiberRDA’s based on 2000 calorie diet.. 10% Vitamin A, 30% Vitamin K, 7% Folate, 5% Vitamin C, 2% Iron, 2% Calcium, 4% Potassium, 6% Manganese.-> add 1 small avocado or 1/2 large avocado to blender!SNEAK PEEK! I paired this salad with an upcoming recipe... avocado bliss... |
Image copyright AFP/Getty Image caption The Salesman, an Iranian film nominated for an Oscar, stars Shahab Hosseini (left) and Taraneh Alidoosti Oscars organisers have said it is "extremely troubling" that the makers of an Iranian film nominated for an Academy Award may be barred from entering the US. The Salesman, from director Asghar Farhadi, is nominated for best foreign-language film. Lead actress Taraneh Alidoosti has said she will boycott the ceremony. This year's Academy Awards take place on 26 February, during the 90-day order banning Iranian nationals from the US. An Academy spokeswoman said: "As supporters of film-makers - and the human rights of all people - around the globe, we find it extremely troubling that Asghar Farhadi, the director of the Oscar-winning film from Iran A Separation, along with the cast and crew of this year's Oscar-nominated film The Salesman, could be barred from entering the country because of their religion or country of origin." The Academy said it celebrates film-making "which seeks to transcend borders and speak to audiences around the world, regardless of national, ethnic, or religious differences". Oscars 2017: Full coverage In an executive order signed on Friday, Mr Trump indefinitely blocked refugees fleeing Syria from entering America, and put a three-month ban on travellers from Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. He said the aim was to enable "extreme vetting" and to "keep radical Islamic terrorists out". The Salesman tells the story of a couple whose relationship begins to disintegrate during their performance of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Shahab Hosseini accepts the Best Actor prize for The Salesman at Cannes Film Festival in May 2016 Alidoosti, who is one of Iran's leading actresses, tweeted on Thursday: "Trump's visa ban for Iranians is racist. Whether this will include a cultural event or not, I won't attend the Academy Awards 2017 in protest." Film-maker Michael Moore, a long-standing critic of Mr Trump, wrote on Twitter: "To our Muslim neighbours in the world: I and tens of millions of others are so very sorry. The majority of Americans did not vote for this man." President Trump has faced regular opposition from Hollywood luminaries. Earlier this month, he was lambasted by three-times Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep in a speech at the Golden Globes. While picking up a lifetime achievement award, Streep condemned Mr Trump for mocking a disabled reporter, and said: "When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose". The president responded: "She is a Hillary [Clinton] flunky who lost big." |
A prominent law professor says the U.S. Defense Department is issuing questionable data on the number of Guantánamo detainees who have been released "and then returned to the battlefield" because the government "is now in a position where they have to find some bad guys even if they have to invent them by naming people who were never there." Their ultimate aim, Professor Mark Denbeaux of the Seton Hall University law school, told IPS, "is to foment fear among American voters and limit the freedom of the [Barack] Obama administration to release any of the detainees still imprisoned." Denbeaux heads the law school’s Center for Policy and Research. The center has issued a report which it says "rebuts and debunks" the most recent claim by the Department of Defense (DOD) that 61 "former Guantánamo detainees are confirmed or suspected of returning to the fight." The report is one of a series produced by the center’s faculty and law students. Professor Denbeaux says the center has determined that "DOD has issued ‘recidivism’ numbers 43 times, and each time they have been wrong this last time the most egregiously so." He told IPS, "Once again, they’ve failed to identify names, numbers, dates, times, places, or acts upon which their report relies. Every time they have been required to identify the parties, the DOD has been forced to retract their false IDs and their numbers. They have included people who have never even set foot in Guantánamo much less were they released from there." He added, "They have counted people as ‘returning to the fight’ for their having written an Op-ed piece in the New York Times and for their having appeared in a documentary exhibited at the Cannes Film Festival." Denbeaux said that the government’s numbers are also "seriously undercut by the DOD statement that ‘they do not track’ former detainees." The Seton Hall report attempts to correct what it characterizes as errors in the latest DOD report, which was issued in mid-January. That report alleged that 61 detainees have returned to the battlefield. The Seton Hall report notes that in each of its 43 attempts to provide the numbers of the recidivist detainees, the Department of Defense has given different sets of numbers that are contradictory and internally inconsistent with the Department’s own data. Previous DOD reports have said the numbers of recidivist detainees have been "one, several, some, a couple, a few, five, seven, 10, 12, 15, 12-24, 25, 29, and 30," the Seton Hall group contends. But it adds that 82 percent of DOD’s publicly made claims "contain qualifying language," including terms such as: "at least"; "somewhere on the order of"; "approximately"; "around"; "just short of"; "we believe"; "estimated"; "roughly"; "more than"; "a couple"; "a few"; "some"; "several"; and "about." Department of Defense statements about the number of recidivist detainees which do not identify the detainee, the act of recidivism, the place, or the time, are especially unreliable, Seton Hall’s report declares. It claims that in the two instances in which DOD provided written support Jul. 12, 2007 and May 20, 2008 their previous oral assertions were repudiated. For instance, the report says, in DOD’s Jul. 12, 2007 press release, "the 30 recidivists reported by DOD in April 2007 is reduced to five." DOD’s report of July 2007 identified seven prisoners by name, but the Seton Hall group says that "as many as two of those seven named were never in Guantánamo, and two of the remaining five were never killed or captured anywhere. Of the three remaining, one was killed in his apartment in Russia by Russian authorities. None of them is alleged to have left their homeland or attacked Americans on a battlefield or otherwise." Meanwhile, Newsweek magazine is reporting that the Pentagon "is preparing to declassify portions of a secret report on Guantánamo detainees that could further complicate President Obama’s plans to shut down the detention facility." The publication says that the report "will provide fresh details about 62 detainees who have been released from Guantánamo and are believed by U.S. intelligence officials to have returned to terrorist activities." One such example, involving a Saudi detainee named Said Ali al-Shihri, who was released in 2007, has already received widespread media attention when Pentagon officials publicly asserted that he has recently reemerged as a deputy commander of al-Qaeda in Yemen, Newsweek reports. Previously known publicly as Guantánamo detainee No. 372, al-Shihri is alleged to have been involved in an unsuccessful attack on the U.S. embassy in Yemen last September. Newsweek says, "The decision to release additional case studies from the report is in effect a warning shot to the new president from officials at the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies who are skeptical about some of his plans." The magazine adds, "The last thing Obama wants is for one of these guys [at Guantánamo] to get released and return to killing Americans." According to Newsweek, some counter-terrorism experts have raised questions about the significance of the Pentagon’s figures, noting that the number of so-called "recidivist" detainees represents only a small portion, about 12 percent, of the approximately 520 detainees who have been released from Guantánamo since the detention facility was opened in January 2002. This compares with recidivism rates of as high as 67 percent in state prisons in the United States, according to Justice Department figures. "There have also been concerns that Bush administration holdovers were deliberately playing up the cases in recent weeks in an effort to undercut Obama. One former senior U.S. counter-terrorism official noted to Newsweek that the Pentagon waited until the day after Obama signed his executive order mandating the closure of Guantánamo to confirm al-Shihri’s renewed al-Qaeda ties," Newsweek reports. Approximately 240 detainees remain at Guantánamo. Human rights groups and defense lawyers contend there is little or no evidence of terrorist involvement against scores of them. This is also the opinion of some federal judges who in recent weeks have ordered the Pentagon to release some of them. The Obama administration has given itself a year to shut down the facility, and is hoping that European countries including Portugal, Spain and Germany will agree to take some of these detainees. The Bush administration was able to identify only two countries willing to take released detainees Albania and Sweden. Read more by William Fisher |
Navi Dhanota knew she needed some help to score top grades in university but this time, she wasn’t prepared to return to a psychiatrist’s chair to get it. She didn’t think any student should have to disclose their private mental-health diagnosis for the privilege of academic accommodations like getting extra time to hand in an assignment or test. Navi Dhanota, a York University student won a precedent-setting human rights complaint against the school. She pictured near her home on a cold January day. ( Nick Kozak / For the Toronto Star ) So when York University demanded she name a specific mental-health disability to register for academic supports, Dhanota put her foot down. She had been through a similar system during undergrad at another school where she was diagnosed with six conditions just so she could write her exams in a smaller room instead of the gym, where the sounds of hundreds of people furiously writing created an enormous distraction. This time around, she decided to push for systemic change, filing a human rights complaint against York. After a two-year battle that ended with intervention from the Ontario Human Rights Commission, the sides last week announced a settlement. Dhanota worked with ARCH Disability Law Centre, the university and the commission to rewrite the university’s guidelines for accessing academic accommodations. Article Continued Below Effective immediately, Dhanota and hundreds of other students seeking supports at York won’t have to label their illness to get help. The school still requires an assessment from a licensed doctor to confirm the student has a legitimate condition that may require faculty flexibility or other supports, but the focus is now on determining how the disability affects their learning. For example, some students may need to take tests at a particular time of day because medication makes them drowsy. “From the very beginning, I knew I wanted all students to have this,” said Dhanota, who is pursuing a PhD in critical disability studies. “Students across Canada should not have to disclose.” Dhanota is part of what researchers are calling a “tidal wave” of students seeking academic accommodations for mental-health issues. Without adequate help, researchers have shown members of this group are less likely to graduate than those in other disability classifications. The number of students with mental-health disabilities registered at Ontario colleges and universities increased by nearly 70 per cent between 2006 and 2011, according to a review paper of academic accommodations published last year in the Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability. Dhanota and her lawyer Dianne Wintermute used the commission’s own policy to argue that having to accept a psychiatric label to access goods and services was not appropriate. “Having a medical professional confirm disability or taking the word of the person themselves that they have a disability should be sufficient,” Wintermute said. Human Rights Commissioner Renu Mandhane said her office will be reaching out to post-secondary institutions across the province in the hopes the settlement with York will persuade other institutions to “bring their policies in line. “The commission has enough power and influence that I think it will be taken seriously.” Article Continued Below Mandhane sees the settlement as a clear victory. “I definitely think it’s a win for students,” she said. “And it’s just one more step to destigmatizing coming forward to get help for mental health issues.” Among the new guidelines is the introduction of interim accommodation for students who are waiting to be assessed by a doctor or specialist. They can be registered for temporary accommodations pending their assessment. Marc Wilchesky, executive director of counselling and disability services at York University, said he’s worried about how the settlement will impact his department’s ability to help students. “If we don’t get the diagnosis, if students choose not to provide it, in some cases it may make it a little more difficult to come up with the appropriate accommodation,” he said. He’s worked at York since 1985 and seen the population of students with registered mental health issues grow from a handful in the early 1990s to almost 1,200 last year. “We were never about trying to put up barriers to students or trying to snoop into their personal information. But we really felt having the information would be helpful to us and the students.” Michael Condra is a psychologist and lead author of “Academic Accommodations,” which outlined ways to make campuses more accessible. His research found 70 per cent of Ontario student survey respondents had a mental health diagnosis before starting their post-secondary education. ( Greg Black ) Expert advice on mental health accommodation Lose the labels Post-secondary schools shouldn’t require students to name their disability for fair access to supports, a government-funded report advises. It’s not only about peoples’ privacy rights. A medical diagnosis is just unnecessary for schools to provide critical help, says Michael Condra, a psychologist and lead author of Academic Accommodations, which outlined ways to make campuses more accessible. Labelling a complex illness such as depression, which can manifest in many different ways, won’t do as much to help a student as a doctor noting exactly how the illness affects that person’s ability to learn, says Condra. Teach the teachers In his research, Condra surveyed more than 2,000 students, teachers, administrators, disability advisers and doctors affiliated with post-secondary schools across Ontario. A recurring theme, he said, was the need for faculty to have more information about mental health and the accommodation process. Faculty said they really do want to help students in crisis but don’t know the limits of what they’re supposed to do. Condra says it’s important to be sure faculty is educated on these issues. No paper, no problem Seventy per cent of Ontario student survey respondents in Condra’s research had a mental health diagnosis before starting their post-secondary education. Thirty per cent who sought supports for mental health issues did not. Condra’s report notes some students may wait 18 months before a specialist is able to fully and correctly assess their conditions. Students should not suffer in the interim, he says. Schools must provide temporary accommodation pending the assessment. Don’t confuse practice with policy Sometimes accommodations are complex. And they’re often complex when a student is in a professional program that involves educational or medical placements. Condra cites an example where the nature of a student’s disability prevented them from working 12-hour shifts. When the student initially asked to work fewer hours, their request was rejected. In that case, the accommodation office worked with faculty to come to a simple resolution. The student worked eight-hour shifts but had to complete extra shifts. “The question is,” Condra says, “would the student be able to get the same amount of learning working the equivalent hours in eight-hour shifts? The answer to that is, clearly, yes.” Big-picture people All post-secondary schools should set up an institution-wide advisory committee to ensure they are up to date with developments in human rights and case law. The group could also be tapped to monitor the effectiveness of any new policies or processes and gauge their impact on staff and students. Condra points to the University of Manitoba’s committee as a model for this initiative. — Diana Zlomislic Staff Reporter |
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Buoyed by the successful launch of the PSLV-C36 on Wednesday morning, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre director told TOI it marked the triumph of Isro units' indigenous development and that now the entire team's focus was on two missions in January--the launch of GSLV Mark III and PSLV-C37.“The launch of PSLV-C36 marks the success of indigenous payloads of Isro units, including the NavIC satellite navigation system, Vikram processor from semi-conductor labs and the indigenous lithium ion battery ,“ VSSC director K Sivan said.PSLV-C36, the 38th flight of PSLV , blasted off from the first launch pad at Satish Dhawan Space Centre and placed a 1,235-kg RESOURCESAT-2A satellite into 817 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO).Now, the entire team will be focussed on two missions in January--launch of GSLV-Mk III and PSLV-C37, he said.“For the launch of GSLV Mark III with indigenous cryogenic engine by January 2017, preparations have begun. It will carry the heavy 3.2-tonne GSAT-19E communication sat ellite from Sathish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota,“ he said.By Wednesday evening, scientists of the VSSC and Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre ( LPSC ) returned here after the launch of PSLV-C36.LPSC director S Somnath too indicated that the two launches were planned in January . “PSLV-C37, planned for launch next month, will be similar to the PSLV-C36, which was launched on Wednesday , yet the spacecraft will have new configuration. It is planned to carry a cluster of mini-satellites in addition to two major satellites. It will include a combination of domestic and foreign satellites,“ he said after landing at the airport here. The GSLV-Mk III to place the GSAT-19 satellite is also planned for launch next month and it will be the first developmental flight with indigenous technology , he said.GSAT-19 satellite will em ploy advanced spacecraft technologies, including bus subsystem experiments in electrical propulsion system, indigenous Li-ion battery and indigenous bus bars for power distribution.The satellite is planned to carry a geostationary radiation spectrometer payload (GRASP) to monitor and study the nature of charged particles and influence of space radiation on spacecraft and electronic components. |
From Kate Clinton The past eleven months have been an attempted white-out of the policies and programs of our first black President. There’s freshly mined coal in the nation’s stocking. No peace on earth. Forget donning the gay apparel. The endless Muzak track at the D.C. mall is Ta-rump pum pum Trump. It’s a White Supremacist Christmas. We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy (One World) by Ta-Nehisi Coates is an answer to the meta-question of the year, “What happened?” The TF is understood. The book is a chronological collection of eight essays published in The Atlantic magazine during the presidency of Barack Obama. Coates’s topics include the case for reparations, Michelle Obama’s roots in Chicago’s South Side, the Civil War, the legacy of Malcolm X, the black family in the age of incarceration, and the fear of a black President. Each chapter is preceded by an essay reflecting Coates’s development in those eight years, his self-critiques of his own writing, his mistrust of becoming the “go-to writer on race,” his self-doubt, his struggle to write the unwritten story of race in America. In the epilogue, “The First White President,” he writes, “Certainly not every Trump voter is a white supremacist . . . . But every Trump voter felt it acceptable to hand the fate of the country over to one.” Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (Nation Books) by the historian Ibram X. Kendi shows the folly of thinking that eight years of a black President would usher in a postracial world. For Kendi, a racist idea is “any concept that regards one racial group as inferior or superior to another racial group in any way.” It is a challenging page turner. Kendi examines the racist ideas rationalizing slave-trading in the fifteenth century, through the colonial era, the Reconstruction, to the war on drugs, and tough on crime era. He organizes his massive research into the construction of white supremacy around the lives and works of Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Angela Davis. And, because you’ll need it after Coates and Kendi, I can’t recommend enough the audiobook of Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, read by the author, Trevor Noah. It’s a great stocking stuffer. Kate the last Clinton standing is a humorist. From Ruth Conniff “I went abroad for the same reason everyone else does: to learn how to live,” Suzy Hansen writes at the end of her extraordinary book, Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Hansen, who describes herself as an ambitious, provincial young writer who went to New York City to make it big, moved to Istanbul shortly after September 11, 2001, in the grip of a personal crisis. “My crisis, like many other Americans’, was about my American identity,” she writes. In Istanbul, where she still lives, Hansen learned Turkish, reported on the Middle East for The New York Times Magazine, and embarked on a years-long exploration of what it means to be an American. The guiding spirit on Hansen’s journey is James Baldwin, whom she first encountered as an undergraduate, in the library stacks at the University of Pennsylvania. Baldwin left her gobsmacked with his description of the “terrible innocence” of white people in the United States. Later, Baldwin’s assertion that he felt more free as a gay, black man in 1960s Istanbul than he could ever feel in New York challenged and worried Hansen, propelling her on her path to Turkey, and ultimately launching this deeply thoughtful book. Hansen tries to understand why America is a country where, as Albert Camus observed, “everything is done to prove that life isn’t tragic.” “Because the Americans had never looked their tragic history in the face, they could delude themselves into believing that their own comparable superiority might create a better world,” she writes. Reading this book in Mexico, I understood why Hansen takes so personally the sunny ignorance with which Americans view the rest of the world. She captures the shock of realizing that you are one of the world’s rich kids, and that your feelings of boundless possibility, happiness, and freedom exist because your country has aggressively and systematically crushed the possibilities, happiness, and freedom of others. Much of the dark history of American foreign policy that Hansen uncovers—the propping up of dictators, betrayals of pro-democracy movements that looked to the United States for support, the training of foreign armies and secret police in torture techniques—will not come as a surprise to longtime readers of The Progressive. But Hansen goes deeper, provocatively connecting geopolitics to a culture that shapes us and blinds us. Donald Trump, the prototypical Ugly American, has made Hansen’s book particularly timely this year. But, she writes, “From abroad, when I used to hear President Obama say that America is the greatest country on earth . . . I felt like I did as a child, not wanting to admit to my parents I knew there was no Santa Claus.” This is a beautiful, angry, sad piece of writing that every American should read as we try to live in a world that has long known things about us that we are only now coming to understand. Ruth Conniff is living and working in Oaxaca, Mexico, this year as The Progressive’s editor-at-large. From Jules Gibbs Contemporary poetry has become necessarily political—the poetry of witness and the poetry of protest. It is a space where the most crucial, urgent issues of our day play out. We are in a very particular time, and the poetry world is responding with louder-than-Trump gusto. Is poetry necessary? Damn straight. There are some knockout poets on the scene this year with new books that ask us to reconsider our often too-easy formulations of self and nation. These poets want to make us wrestle with what we think we know, and, in an ultimately constructive way, lend language to experiences that have been largely unnamed. The most ambitious book of 2017 is Layli Long Soldier’s debut collection, Whereas (Graywolf Press), a finalist for the National Book Award. Long Soldier takes up the nation-state rhetoric of federal treaties and resolutions that have governed the complicated “domestic dependent” relationship between Native American tribes and the U.S. government. The book is a modern-day “Howl” for the indigenous voice. It at once appropriates the rhetoric of the oppressor even as it unmakes and remakes it with a new consciousness, with the assertion: “One word can be a poem believe it, one word can destroy a poem dare I. Say I am writing to penetrate the opaque but I confuse it too often. I negotiate instinct when a word of lightful meaning flips under/ buries me in the work of blankets.” Long Soldier takes up the poetry of survival and does the impossible, making it sing with love for all who have been brutalized by it. Formally dynamic, bold in subject and craft, Whereas tells a dangerous, private truth that implicates us all. The language of statehood and nationalism wounds us in these lines, but in Long Soldier’s hands is miraculously transformed. Three more poetry books of note: The January Children (University of Nebraska Press), a debut book by Safia Elhillo (see her poem in this issue, page 69) that explores a Sudanese American experience, written in English, but deeply engaged with Arabic language. Unaccompanied (Copper Canyon Press), another debut book by Javier Zamora that takes up “borderland politics, race, and immigration.” And Lessons on Expulsion (Graywolf Press) by Erika L. Sánchez, a largely autobiographical account of what it is to be the daughter of undocumented Mexican immigrants. Jules Gibbs, a poet and professor of literature at Syracuse University, is poetry editor for The Progressive. From Mrill Ingram I was lucky to see Elena Passarello give a stage performance of “Sackerson (1601),” an essay included in her 2017 book, Animals Strike Curious Poses (Sarabande Books). Otherwise, I might not have gathered that the essay, about the career arc of a bear forced to fight dogs for entertainment in seventeenth-century London (and just down the street from Shakespeare’s Globe Theater), is written entirely in iambic pentameter. Passarello is a riveting performer—and I can say as much for her writing. Eclectic, impeccably researched, and above all, unexpected, the seventeen essays in her collection explore the lives of famous animals and those humans with whom they are—often tragically—intertwined. Her collection is a blast of oxygen into our very deflated sense of the human-animal relationship. Passarello interweaves storytelling of animals’ “poses” (and yes, it’s a reference to the Prince song) with creative explorations of human history and narrative form. We learn how we might see animals if we had a smidge of the creativity that she does. She offers an essay on Jumbo the elephant and the development of the electric chair as a form of capital punishment, another on a relationship between Mozart and a starling with a wickedly catchy whistle, and a third on Darwin’s relationship with a besotted tortoise. Animals Strike Curious Poses suggests tragedy: how much animal sense we have lost between the mammoth hunter in her first essay whose “life is spent watching animals,” and the lion-hunting dentist in the final chapter who says of Cecil, “Nobody in our party knew, before or after, the name of this lion.” But Passarello’s sense of adventure and whimsy save the day. Her crafted essays will delight readers with their creative investigations of human history and how much can be revealed about us and the animals in our lives. Mrill Ingram is The Progressive’s online media editor. From Bill Lueders Dar Williams’s brilliant career as a singer-songwriter has taken her all over the country, often to smaller hamlets where she’s cultivated ardent fans, like me. In the process, she has become an expert on what makes some cities succeed as places where people want to live. This is the basis for her important new book, What I Found in a Thousand Towns: A Traveling Musician’s Guide to Rebuilding America’s Communities—One Coffee Shop, Dog Run, and Open-Mike Night at a Time (Basic Books). The special sauce is what Williams terms “positive proximity, or a state of being where living side by side with other people is experienced as beneficial.” She profiles seven U.S. cities and one region to illustrate viable community-building efforts. Some are centered on a shared appreciation of natural wonders (Moab, Utah), history (Phoenixville, Pennsylvania), culture (Carrboro, North Carolina), and food (the Finger Lakes region of New York). Others succeed because of creative partnerships and residents who serve as community “bridgers.” Williams’s book, like her music, is profound, occasionally funny, and uplifting. It should serve as a guide to hometowns everywhere. Why is the criminal justice system often an instrument of grave injustice? It’s an important question with readily identifiable answers. Blind Injustice: A Former Prosecutor Exposes the Psychology and Politics of Wrongful Convictions (University of California Press) by Mark Godsey, a former federal prosecutor who now heads the Ohio Innocence Project, examines the causes of wrongful convictions, from faulty eyewitness identifications to investigator tunnel vision, while drawing on a depressingly vast array of shocking examples. He graciously allows that the police, prosecutors, and judges whose “unreasonable and intellectually dishonest positions” have led to unjust convictions and avoidable suffering acted not out of malice but out of the abundant capacity for human error. If that’s so, then corrections can be made; blind injustice, it turns out, is a curable condition. Some people have the courage to put themselves into dangerous situations. Others have no choice in the matter, but nonetheless respond heroically. An example of the latter is Nadia Murad, author of The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State (Tim Duggan Books). In 2014, when she was twenty-one, Murad was one of hundreds of members of the Yazidi religious minority abducted from her home in northern Iraq and pressed into sexual slavery by the Islamic State. She endured, escaped, and ended up becoming an international campaigner for human rights. This is a harrowing and brave book, a testament to human resilience. Speaking of harrowing, wait until you read Mike Ervin’s review of the movie The Last of the Mohicans. It’s one of the essays included in The Progressive contributor’s slender new volume, Smart Ass Cripple’s Little Chartreuse Book. The movie came out in 1992, and Ervin is just now writing about it. Spoiler alert: He says almost nothing about the film; his focus is on what happened in the movie theater when he went to see it. And the book’s cover is black, not chartreuse. Buy it. Bill Lueders is managing editor of The Progressive. From John Nichols The 2017 conversation—political, social, and literary—was constrained by a seventy-one-year-old commander-in-chief who, one year after his election, had tweeted his way down to a 33 percent approval rating. Many fine books were written about Donald Trump and his administration. But as the year wore on I found myself drawn to books that were bigger than Trump, in their explanations of our current circumstance and in their hopes for how we might get out of it. Of the explainers, the most important was Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (Viking). The William H. Chafe professor of history and public policy at Duke University, MacLean tells the story of how the radical right worked its way from the fringe of American politics to the White House. She traces the progress—if it can be called that—of a project that began six decades ago to remove barriers to unrestrained capitalism while erecting new barriers to democracy. This is a gripping book that fills in the historical void and creates an understanding of how our discourse, our politics, and our governance has been warped to the breaking point by self-serving billionaires, academic activists, and politicians who practice what former White House counsel John Dean refers to as “conservatism without conscience.” Of the several 2017 books that might best be described as “roadmaps” for a future that renews America’s promise and extends it to all, the finest is Gar Alperovitz’s Principles of a Pluralist Commonwealth (Democracy Collaborative). A veteran Congressional aide and special assistant with the U.S. Department of State, Alperovitz is a political economist and historian who taught at the University of Maryland, College Park. He reports from the frontlines of the struggle to forge a new economy that meets individual, community, and ecological needs by breaking the bonds of corporate capitalism. And he is optimistic. Alperovitz’s book projects a politics that will go well beyond the Trump presidency. Drawing on his work with the visionary New Economics Institute and Democracy Collaborative projects, Alperovitz concludes that “a broad range of new institutions is quietly developing just below the surface of most political reporting.” Those institutions form the outlines of a next America that has nothing to do with the narrow calculations that gave us Trumpism and everything to do with the real democracy that will forge “a system robust, rigorous, and resilient enough to tackle all the hard questions.” John Nichols, the national affairs correspondent for The Nation, is a longtime contributor to The Progressive. From Ed Rampell With a post-Charlottesville “ripped-from-the-headlines” vibe, Occupy Wall Street organizer Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook (Melville House) is the latest addition to the pantheon of books opposing rightwing totalitarianism. Whereas Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom and Wilhelm Reich’s The Mass Psychology of Fascism explored the irrational mindset of fanatical followers of Hitler and others, Bray focuses on practical policies and tactics for resisting night riders in white robes, blackshirts, and brownshirts. Based on extensive research and dozens of interviews with U.S. and international anti-fascists, Bray places the resurgence of neo-Nazi-type politics within a historical, global context. A lecturer at Dartmouth College, Bray looks at how today’s anti-racist, anti-sexist militants can defeat contemporary hate speech and violence that targets refugees, LGBTQ persons, and religious and ethnic minorities. Antifa suggests the Ku Klux Klan’s post-Civil War formation down south to terrorize newly emancipated ex-slaves is fascism’s origin story. But to restate Newton’s Third Law of Physics, for every reaction there is an action, with Bray noting, “Where there was proto-fascism, however, there was also proto-anti-fascism.” Bray notes that for every fascist movement there is an opposition group, including the anti-Mussolini anarchist-founded People’s Daring Ones, the White Rose in Hitler’s Germany, and America’s Anti-Racist Action Network. Antifa ponders twenty-first-century anti-fascists’ direct action tactics, writing that from antifa’s perspective, “the safety and well-being of marginalized populations is the priority.” Bray reminds us that there are many restrictions on absolute, unfettered expression, from homeowners’ associations trumping First Amendment rights to kiddie porn bans and the outlawing of Holocaust denial in many European countries. Just as the Nazis called themselves “National Socialists,” Bray shrewdly observes, “Fascism Steals From Left Ideology.” The most prominent current case-in-point is the right’s campus “Free Speech Movement,” dubiously co-opting the anti-war, student rights slogan that erupted in 1964 at Berkeley. Although Bray generally defends militancy against neo-Nazism, regarding public speech prohibitions, he warns leftists that “the tables [could be] turned” against them, especially by conservative governments. In the Trump era, Bray’s Handbook is essential reading. Ed Rampell is a Los Angeles-based film historian and critic who contributes regularly to The Progressive. From Norman Stockwell I agree with John Nichols: Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America (Viking) is an important book. This meticulously researched, engaging story illuminates the quiet plan developed by economist James Buchanan, and adopted and supported by billionaire Charles Koch, to remake American politics in the twenty-first century. MacLean, a social historian, was granted unprecedented access to the late Buchanan’s archives. She paints a grim picture of how we got where we are today, from a 1956 attempt to avoid school desegregation to the current “crippling division among the people.” A useful study of the possibilities of resistance comes in Zoltán Grossman’s new book, Unlikely Alliances: Native Nations and White Communities Join to Defend Rural Lands (University of Washington Press). Grossman, a longtime Wisconsin activist and scholar who now teaches geography at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, focuses largely on his experiences in Wisconsin’s Treaty Rights and antimining coalitions. But his book reaches all the way forward to the historic alliances in 2016 against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Grossman is a cartographer, and the book is filled with maps and photos (many his own), but it is the stories and voices of activists and everyday folks that make it a powerful instruction manual to groups seeking to build unity around protecting the planet. In a year of fiftieth anniversaries, one book with appeal to anyone who was there is Danny Goldberg’s In Search of the Lost Chord: 1967 and the Hippie Idea (Akashic Books). Goldberg, a longtime music industry executive and journalist, takes the reader through the history of the year 1967 and the social transformations that led up to it. The book is full of names and references and tales that stir memories of the time. “Millions of people feel empowered today who would have felt like isolated freaks before the sixties,” he notes. The book is a tribute to a time gone by that helps us better understand who we are today. Marc Becker, who teaches Latin American Studies at Truman State University, was once listed by conservative author David Horowitz as one of the “101 most dangerous professors in America.” He continues to prove it in The FBI in Latin America: The Ecuador Files (Duke University Press), using an obscure collection of released FBI files to document the role of the Bureau in Ecuador and at the same time reveal a little-known history of leftist political movements. “Thanks to the FBI’s counterintelligence activities, we gain a better appreciation of [the left’s] activities,” Becker writes. “The lessons that they leave for future generations are invaluable.” Norman Stockwell is publisher of The Progressive. From Alexandra Tempus Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (W.W. Norton) has a way of gutting the reader with plain statements. The density of his research allows the author to be devastatingly direct. “Racial segregation in housing was not merely a project of southerners in the former slaveholding Confederacy,” Rothstein writes in the preface. “It was a nationwide project of the federal government in the twentieth century, designed and implemented by its most liberal leaders.” From that thesis, Rothstein literally maps out the case that, unlike how the Supreme Court has argued, most segregation is not the product of private citizen discrimination but has been, in fact, explicitly government sponsored. For this, he argues, and according to the court’s own logic, “the Constitution requires a remedy.” Metropolis by metropolis, Rothstein takes us on a tour of middle-class suburban America as it was made. Through personal stories and familiar twentieth-century figures—Langston Hughes, Richard J. Daley—we see the way government agencies like the Federal Housing Administration, which refused to insure mortgages on homes sold to African Americans, limited access to the so-called American Dream. We get to know black World War II defense workers with torturously long commutes in the San Francisco Bay Area, and see the creation of Ferguson, Missouri, which would later erupt in protest around the police killing of black teen Michael Brown. In one particularly eye-popping section, readers follow Rothstein across America and witness how the construction of New Deal public housing in cities from Atlanta to Cleveland not only reinforced rigid segregation but sometimes introduced it where it did not already exist. The lasting effect of these policies on my own life is astoundingly clear. I recently moved from the East Coast back to Wisconsin, where I grew up in a county that is nearly 90 percent white. I have often wondered how much freedom my partner, who is black, would have to live in the bountiful and beautiful countryside here. He remains in Essex County, New Jersey, in a dense neighborhood among other black and immigrant families. They live on the municipal boundary that separates their city from an extraordinarily wealthy, and very white, village. On the other side of that invisible border, the streetlamps shrink from utilitarian poles to old-fashioned, picturesque torches. Palatial homes sit on neatly tended lawns. My partner doesn’t have equal access to that land either, just steps from the street where he’s lived most of his life. These realities clouded my mind as I read this book, one day noticing the description for the color-coded map on the cover:“ ‘Essex County, New Jersey’ June 1st, 1939.” Alexandra Tempus is associate editor of The Progressive. From Dave Zirin This has been a remarkable year for sports as resistance, and 2018 promises an avalanche of books that deal with the questions raised by this new movement of athletes who have taken a stand by taking a knee. So consider this year’s book collection the calm before the storm—although both of my selections deal with issues that are anything but placid. My first pick is Baseball Life Advice: Loving the Game That Saved Me (McClelland & Stewart). Written by Canadian baseball columnist Stacey May Fowles, Baseball Life Advice avoids the pitfall of so many baseball books that obsess over complicated statistics. It focuses instead on the incredible characters in the game and the unique intricacies of the sport itself, what Fowles calls the “long pauses punctuated by tiny miracles.” Fowles weaves her baseball stories with her own battles to achieve mental wellness in difficult times. I love that Fowles takes quotes from players about the sport and uses their insights about this beautiful game as a compass for life. My other book pick this year has nothing to do with either sports or even a reliance on the written word. It is Devin Allen’s collection of staggering photographs from the 2015 protests following the police murder of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland. The book is called A Beautiful Ghetto (Haymarket Books) and I wish I possessed the words to match the heartbreaking poetry that Allen captures with his photographs. They weave together a story of resistance, pain, and oppression while demonstrating why struggle will always be the secret of joy. I may be biased in my affection for Allen’s work because I was in Baltimore for many of the protests he documents. While the media focused on a burned and looted CVS store, Allen captures the reality: people struggling for human dignity amidst poverty, deindustrialization, and racism. For those in your life who are in the struggle, this book is a remarkable testament to the fight. For the people you know who ignored what happened in Baltimore, this book is a necessity. Allen’s work is living proof, in the words of James Baldwin, that “not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Dave Zirin covers sports for The Nation and The Progressive. |
The federal government has approved Burger King's takeover of Tim Hortons, but with conditions intended to protect jobs at the iconic Canadian coffee and doughnut chain. The merged company becomes the third-largest fast food company in the world, with sales totalling $23-billion annually. Industry Minister James Moore issued a statement after markets closed Thursday announcing the government's approval under the Investment Canada Act. The statement said Burger King agreed to the following conditions: To keep 100 per cent of Tim Hortons employees at franchises across Canada, and to preserve all of Tim Hortons' charitable work. To accelerate the opening of new Tim Hortons restaurants, both in the United States and globally. To establish the headquarters of the new company in Oakville, Ont., and to list the company on the TSX. To manage Tim Hortons as a distinct brand, without co-branding of any locations in Canada or in the United States. To maintain the Canadian franchisee rent and royalty structure at current levels for five years. To ensure Canadians represent at least 50 per cent of the membership of the Tim Hortons brand board of directors. "The result of this transaction is this new global company, with sales of more than $23 billion annually, which will now be based in Canada,'' Moore said in the statement. "Our government is pleased to see companies like Burger King investing in Canada’s economy and looking to benefit from our low taxes and open markets." Canada's Competition Bureau approved the deal on Oct. 28, saying it is "unlikely to result in a substantial lessening or prevention of competition." Critics of the deal had argued the $14-billion offer by 3G Capital — the Brazilian private equity firm that owns Burger King — would lead to widespread layoffs at Tim Hortons and have a negative impact in Canada. Last month, Tim Hortons reported a 14 per cent drop in profit in the most recent quarter, as the chain was hit by costs related to the U.S. burger chain's deal to buy the company. The new company will now have 18,000 stores in 100 countries. |
Microsoft is gearing up to unveil the Beta development milestone of Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT) 7 in just a few months. With DaRT 7 Beta planned for release in April, early adopters interested in test driving the Build can already sign up via Microsoft Connect. For those not familiar with the Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset, DaRT is designed to streamline the PC recovery process. Obviously, this is a tool designed for IT professionals and not for end users. Brad McCabe, the product manager for DaRT reveals that with version 7, the focus was placed on deployment scenarios and remote recovery. “With DaRT 7’s remote recovery features, the help desk can have the end user boot into DaRT and enable the remote connection. The help desk person can then perform this initial diagnostic work and either repair the problem right away,” McCabe explained. In this regard, DaRT is set up to be all about the speed of recovery. Essentially, Microsoft has aimed enabling IT pros to opt for PC recovery simply because DaRT make it faster than reimagining the machine. With DaRT 7, the Redmond company has also moved past using a CD or DVD to boot into the recovery environment. In this regard, a few extra options have been added, with IT pros bound to embrace them. “In DaRT 7 we fully support loading DaRT to a USB drive or key. Similar to the CD/DVD process, this requires you to physically install the USB in the machine and boot from it,” McCabe added. “Another option that we support in DaRT 7 is PXE, or network boot, of the DaRT image. This allows the IT group to put the DaRT images on a network server and have users press F11 (or the correct key in their organization) to boot from the DaRT image on the network server instead of their local hard drive.” Yet another option for IT professionals is to make DaRT available alongside WinRE. DaRT 7 will support scenarios in which it will be provisioned right on the user’s HDD, waiting to come in handy, and available by pressing F8 during reboot. |
Pacific League manager Hideki Kuriyama and his Central League counterpart Koichi Ogata completed their rosters on Monday ahead of this month’s All-Star series. The final tally for roster spots leaves the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, a perennial PL powerhouse, and the Hiroshima Carp, the CL-leaders and defending league champs, tied with seven players each. The games will be played on July 14 at Nagoya Dome and the following day at Chiba’s Zozo Marine Stadium. Yomiuri Giants first baseman Shinnosuke Abe, added to the team through the players’ ballot, leads all players on both teams with 13 All-Star appearances. Including Kensuke Kondo — who has withdrawn after having back surgery — there are 23 first-time All Stars. Kondo, who is batting .407 this season, has been replaced by a teammate, Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters outfielder Haruki Nishikawa. Three rookies have been selected to play for their leagues, all pitchers: Yokohama BayStars lefty Haruhiro Hamaguchi and a pair of Orix Buffaloes right-handers, starter Taisuke Yamaoka and reliever Yuta Kuroki. |
In many Commonwealth jurisdictions, the phrase "peace, order, and good government" (POGG) is an expression used in law to express the legitimate objects of legislative powers conferred by statute. The phrase appears in many Imperial Acts of Parliament and Letters Patent, most notably the constitutions of Canada, Australia and formerly New Zealand and South Africa. It is often contrasted with "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", a spiritually analogous phrase found in the US Declaration of Independence. Background [ edit ] Legal documents often contain a residual clause which expresses which entity will have authority over jurisdictions that have not otherwise been delineated or are in dispute. While specific authorities are often enumerated in legal documents as well, the designation of a residual power helps provide direction to future decision-makers and in emerging issue areas. At its origin, the preferred phrase was "peace, welfare and good government," but this eventually evolved into "peace, order and good government," which soon became part of the standard phraseology used in British Colonies to denote the residual power of the government.[1] Although this phrase is used in the constitutional documents of several commonwealth countries, it has taken on a particular importance in the Canadian constitution due to repeated disputes about the natural of residual federal power in Canada. Canada [ edit ] In Canada, "peace, order and good government" (in French, "paix, ordre et bon gouvernement") is sometimes abbreviated as POGG and is often used to describe the principles upon which that country's Confederation took place. A similar phrase, "peace, welfare, and good government", had been used the Act of Union 1840 that created the Province of Canada.[2] The now familiar phrase "peace, order and good government" was originally used in the British North America Act, 1867 (now known as the Constitution Act, 1867) enacted by the Imperial Parliament, and it defines the principles under which the Canadian Parliament should legislate. Specifically, the phrase appears in section 91 of the Act, which is part of the block of sections that divide legislative powers between the federal and provincial levels of government. POGG is a head of power arising from opening words of section 91 and is distinct from the enumerated powers under that section. The broad language suggests that there is a comprehensive grant of residual legislative authority to the federal government. Although the residual nature of the clause remains, the scope of the clause has been limited by the jurisprudence of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC). The JCPC narrowed the scope of the clause to the three distinct branches which remain while also broadly interpreting the scope of provincial authority over property and civil rights under section 92(13) of the Constitution Act, 1867. The jurisprudence has been defined into three branches: Emergency Branch, Gap or Purely Residual Branch, and National Concern Branch.[3] Interpretation doctrines [ edit ] Although the text of the Act gives Parliament residuary powers to enact laws in any area that has not been allocated to the provincial governments, subsequent jurisprudence has limited the scope of the "peace, order, and good government" power. The limitation on the scope of this clause stems from the narrow interpretation of its branches and the expansive interpretation of provincial powers under section 92 of the Constitution Act, 1867. Particularly limiting is the breadth of provincial power over property and civil rights under s. 92(13). Although the Emergency Branch and the National Concern Branch may be viewed as delimited federal competencies like the enumerated clauses under section 91 (see e.g. AG Canada v AG Ontario (Labour Conventions), [1937] AC 326 (PC)), the clause remains residuary. The powers under POGG must be interpreted in light of the subsequent jurisprudence on the limitations of the clause and the expansive powers of the provinces under their enumerated heads of power. If a matter does not fall within one of the enumerated classes in section 92, section 91, or the emergency or national concern branches, then it falls within the narrowly defined residual branch of POGG. The POGG power is best understood as a narrowly defined residual power limited to the following three branches. The Gap or Purely Residual Branch [ edit ] POGG's gap-filling power covers issues such as drafting oversights and matters not within the boundaries of a province. Drafting oversights include things the drafters of the Constitution forgot to think about but would unambiguously have allocated to Parliament if they had. For instance, section 92 allocates responsibility for provincially incorporated companies to the legislatures but section 91 says nothing about federally incorporated companies: the gap branch allocates this jurisdiction to Parliament, per John Deere Plow Co v Wharton, 1915. Matters not within the boundaries of a particular province include Canadian territorial lands and waters that are within provincial boundaries such as the seabed off the coast of Newfoundland, per Reference Re Seabed and Subsoil of Continental Shelf Offshore Newfoundland, [1984] 1 S.C.R. 86. The gap branch is rarely relied on because there is so little left to default to the federal government after taking into account the enumerated provincial power over property and civil rights under section 92(13) which applies to any transaction, person or activity that is found within the province.[4] Historically new subject matters, such as aeronautics, do not necessarily fall residually to the federal government, per Johannesson v West St Paul (Rural Municipality of), 1952. The Emergency Branch [ edit ] Parliament may invoke emergency powers under the emergency branch of POGG. This began in 1882, when the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (then the supreme authority over Canadian law) ruled in Russell v. The Queen that the federal government could legislate with regard to alcohol, because even though this would probably have been considered provincial jurisdiction in ordinary circumstances, the federal government was acting to ensure order in Canada. This concept further evolved during the 1920s, when in the 1922 Board of Commerce case, it was stated that POGG could be invoked in times of war and famine, to allow Parliament to intervene in matters of provincial jurisdiction. POGG was later used this way in the Anti-Inflation Reference of 1976, when the Supreme Court of Canada allowed Parliament to regulate inflation on the grounds that it posed a considerable economic problem for Canada. In that case, a great degree of deference was exercised in accepting what the federal government deemed to be an emergency. The National Concern Branch [ edit ] The "national concern" doctrine (sometimes referred to as "national dimensions") was an alternate means of applying the POGG powers that found use in the mid 20th century. It allowed Parliament to legislate on matters that would normally fall to the provincial government when the issue became of such importance that it concerned the entire country. The doctrine originated from a statement by Lord Watson in the Local Prohibition case (1896), wherein he stated: Their Lordships do not doubt that some matters, in their origin local and provincial, might attain such dimensions as to affect the body politic of the Dominion, and to justify the Canadian Parliament in passing laws for their regulation or abolition in the interest of the Dominion. After this case the doctrine was completely ignored until 1946 when Viscount Simons brought it back in the case of Ontario v. Canada Temperance Foundation, [1946] A.C. 193 (P.C.). The test as stated in Temperance Foundation was whether the matter "goes beyond local or provincial concern or interests and must from its inherent nature be the concern of the Dominion as a whole".[5] Current approach to interpretation [ edit ] The above branches of the power are currently governed by the principles stated by Le Dain J. in R. v. Crown Zellerbach Canada Ltd.:[6] The national concern doctrine is separate and distinct from the national emergency doctrine of the peace, order and good government power, which is chiefly distinguishable by the fact that it provides a constitutional basis for what is necessarily legislation of a temporary nature; The national concern doctrine applies to both new matters which did not exist at Confederation and to matters which, although originally matters of a local or private nature in a province, have since, in the absence of national emergency, become matters of national concern; For a matter to qualify as a matter of national concern in either sense it must have a singleness, distinctiveness and indivisibility that clearly distinguishes it from matters of provincial concern and a scale of impact on provincial jurisdiction that is reconcilable with the fundamental distribution of legislative power under the Constitution; In determining whether a matter has attained the required degree of singleness, distinctiveness and indivisibility that clearly distinguishes it from matters of provincial concern it is relevant to consider what would be the effect on extra‑provincial interests of a provincial failure to deal effectively with the control or regulation of the intra‑provincial aspects of the matter. Sociological value [ edit ] Despite its technical purpose, the phrase “peace, order and good government” has also become meaningful to Canadians. This tripartite motto is sometimes said to define Canadian values in a way comparable to “liberté, égalité, fraternité” (liberty, equality, fraternity) in France or “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the United States.[7] Indeed, peace, order and good government has been used by some scholars to make broad characterisations of Canada's political culture. US sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset, for example, contrasted POGG with the American tripartite motto to conclude Canadians generally believe in a higher degree of deference to the law.[8] As Canadian historian Donald Creighton argued in his report to the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations,[9] the expression was used interchangeably in the 19th century by Canadian and Imperial officials with the expression peace, welfare and good government. The term welfare referred not to its more narrow modern echoes, but to the protection of the common wealth, the general public good. Good government referred to good public administration, on the one hand, but also had echoes of what we now talk of as good governance, which incorporates the notion of appropriate self-governance by civil society actors, since one element of good government was thought to be its limitation to its appropriate sphere of responsibility. Elsewhere in the Commonwealth [ edit ] The phrase "peace, order and good government" appears in many 19th and 20th century British Acts of Parliament, such as the New Zealand Constitution Act 1852, the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865, the British Settlements Act 1887, the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900, the South Africa Act 1909, and the West Indies Act 1962 and the Government of Ireland Act 1920. In Ibrelebbe v. The Queen [1964] AC 900, 923, the words "peace, order and good government" contained in the Ceylon Constitution Order-in-Council (1946) were said by the Privy Council to "connote, in British constitutional language, the widest law-making powers appropriate to a sovereign". However, those powers are not unlimited. In The Trustees Executors and Agency Co. Ltd v. Federal Commissioner of Taxation (1933) 49 CLR 220, Justice Evatt of the High Court of Australia wrote a separate judgement analyzing the power to make laws for the "peace, order and good government of New Zealand" under the New Zealand Constitution. His Honour held that laws dealing only with circumstances, persons or things outside of New Zealand, while not prima facie invalid could, in some cases, fail to satisfy the description of being for the peace, order and good government of New Zealand. A law that failed to satisfy that description would be beyond legislative power and invalid, but Evatt J noted that cases of this kind would be "very rare". Recently, in R. v. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, ex parte Bancoult [2000] EWHC 413, the High Court of England and Wales struck down an ordinance made in 1971 by the Commissioner of the British Indian Ocean Territory expelling the entire population of the Chagos Archipelago to make way for an American military base at Diego Garcia, purportedly under his power to legislate for the "peace, order and good government" of the territory. Lord Justice Laws, ordering the British Government to allow the inhabitants to return to their former homes, condemned the depopulation of the islands in the name of "peace, order and good government" with the words: "It was Tacitus who said: They make a desert and call it peace – Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant (Agricola 30). He meant it as an irony; but here, it was an abject legal failure." See also [ edit ] Notes [ edit ] References [ edit ] |
Dozens of people have been arrested as part of a long-term drug investigation centered in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. PHOTOS: WEBSITE and iPAD | WIRELESS Prosecutor Anthony P. Kearns, III announced the results of "Operation Day Tripper" on Monday, which targeted heroin traffickers and consumers who would allegedly travel to Newark, Trenton and Easton, Pa. for their drugs. In some cases, Kearns said, the trips would be made daily. "One or two people will travel in, or a group may actually travel in, they buy enough to support their habit and then extra to supply to others," Kearns said. The prosecutor's office released the names and photos of 49 suspects. The operation was launched after a string of burglaries in Hunterdon and Somerset counties in the beginning of 2012. The investigation revealed a link between the burglaries and drugs, Kearns said. "We had clear evidence that the effects of addictive narcotic drugs were causing an increase in other crimes across the county," Kearns said in a statement. During "Operation Day Tripper," police would conduct surveillance and arrest suspects once they returned to Hunterdon County with their drugs. The arrests occurred over a 10 month period, with 3,000 bags of heroin seized along with six vehicles and $6,000 in cash. "We also found that young people were typically getting addicted to pharmaceutical opiate drugs first and turning to heroin because it is cheaper and easier to get. A bag of heroin can sell for as little as $4-5 in the city," Kearns said in a statement. "Next thing you know, they are driving to Newark or Trenton twice a week to pick up." With help from Homeland Security officials, the operation also intercepted 6½ pounds of raw heroin smuggled from Honduras in baby food containers that was delivered to an apartment building in Flemington. "$1.25 million is the street value of when that heroin is cut down," Hunterdon County Chief of Detectives John Kuczynski said. Kearns also said that Hunterdon County is a gateway for drug distribution in New Jersey, as Interstate 78 runs right through Hunterdon and connects the ports of New York and New Jersey to the entire state and Pennsylvania. "We aren't going to sugarcoat this. This county has drug dealers, drug addicts, and street gangs, and they are affecting the quality of life here," Kearns said. Anyone with information about drug activity in Hunterdon County can submit anonymous tips by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-321-0010 or by going to www.crimestoppershunterdon.com, or text messaging "HCTIPS" plus your tip message to 274637 (CRIMES). Tipsters can also download the free mobile app "Tipsubmit" and select Hunterdon County to submit anonymous tips via text messaging. All tips are anonymous and kept confidential. Those arrested are: Wendy Miner ? Flemington ? Age 47 Tamyra Harris ? Trenton ? Age 37 Brianna Jones ? Trenton ? Age 21 Marlon Dean ? Hamilton ? Age 35 Robert Wilson ? New Hope, Pa ? Age 43 James Winrow ? Trenton ? Age 18 Timothy Farrell ? High Bridge ? Age 32 Stefan Weber ? Flemington ? Age 23 Stephen Davis ? Flemington ? Age 49 Christopher Volekas? Flemington ? Age 58 Randy Adams ? Flemington ? Age 22 Tasos Tasigiannis ? Clinton ? Age 21 Jessica Parcel ? Flemington ? Age 26 Michael Weaver ? Annandale ? Age 29 Brian Fiorello ? Annandale ? Age 23 Daniel Keane ? Annandale ? Age 22 Honora Calamonaco ? Flemington ? Age 31 James Buccos ? Raritan Township ? Age 44 Stacey Alberti ? Flemington ? Age 35 James Roach ? Flemington ? Age 51 Jamie Blevins ? Flemington ? Age 32 Edward Hala III ? Flemington ? Age 36 Stacey E. Badore ? Flemington ? Age 42 Judith Lance-Lannigan ? Flemington ? Deceased Wade McFadden Jr ? Newark ? Age 45 Emma J. Lefkowitz ? Peapack ? Age 33 Frankie Massenberg ? Flemington ? Age 44 Sharon Harris ? Flemington ? Age 43 Donald J. Luster III ? Glen Gardner ? Age 26 Danielle R. Miller ? Glen Gardner ? Age 20 Edward C. White ? Trenton ? Age 34 Angela Marino ? Trenton ? Age 19 Bryson A. Gomez ? Raritan Township ? Age 23 Amanda M. Guerra ? Stockton ? Age 24 Phillip J. Brown ? New Brunswick ? Age 27 Jermaine Grant ? Easton - Age 26 Jennifer L. Voigt ? Bethlehem, Pa ? Age 30 Meriah Bartee ? Newark ? Age 30 James E. Higgins, Jr. ? Flemington ? Age 27 Brett R. Fisher ? Raritan Township ? Age 37 Thomas Birmingham - Dunellen ? Age 24 Kathryn McFarland ? Dunellen ? Age 20 Darnell Starks ? Newark ? Age 23 Asad Majors ? East Orange ? Age 20 Frank Grigilo ? Raritan Boro ? Age 21 Matthew Lybik ? Glen Gardner ? Age 21 Lilly C. Roessner ? Trenton ? Age 19 Mark Royal ? Plainfield ? Age 31 Michael Levy ? Somerset ? Age 30 |
After what seems like an eternity, a new release of Xfce is finally just around the corner. Xfce 4.10 was released in 2012, and since then development has happened in small bursts for each project. Once a release date was set, interest spiked and development along with it. The continued development has been recorded by ToZ on the Xfce Forums, and Skunnyk in his blog (parts 1, 2, and 3). Both are worth a look to see how far Xfce has come in recent months. If you’re looking for screenshots, you’ll find a few at those links and a gallery at the end of this post. With just one week until the determined release date (February 28), string freeze is behind us and all that remains is bug fixes. If you’ve got some development skills, why not swing by the Xfce Bugzilla and provide some patches? Right now your patches have the best chance of being noticed and merged, so your hard work won’t go to waste! And development is not the only way to contribute… Areas for Contribution Check out the Xfce Contribute page for more details Fixing “easy“, “critical“, and any other bugs you never want to see again Reviewing bugs and patches: Some bugs date back to 2007 and there is a good possibility they are no longer valid. If you don’t think one applies any longer, comment on it indicating as much. Testing: With the sudden influx of fixes and new releases, we need testers more than ever. Take the new releases for a spin and let us know if you see anything… odd. Translations: Is your native language missing from Xfce? Is the choice of words not quite right? Help us out! Screenshots The following screenshots are not an exhaustive list of the new features, but rather a select list of highlights in the upcoming release. |
Meet Wodos and More of Your New Favorite Bands Share: What? You’ve never heard of Teutonic Thrash legends Wodos? Poser. I was browsing eBay for vintage metal gear, as I am wont to do, when I discovered my new favorite band. I know what you’re all thinking, “GEEZ, Thrashnkill. How are you so late to the Wodos party?” I’m sorry guys, I can’t know EVERYTHING. I checked out Dead Off Better before backtracking to Cruelty by Obsessed and Evil of the Sign the In. Suffice to say, Wodos rocks pretty hard! I decided to check out some more more older bands that I missed. If you’ve never checked them out, now is a great time to explore these bands! Passassod, Portugal’s greatest Christian metal band. Aliu, a long running technical death metal band that explores mid-century French folklore. D’Onion, the tightest Funyun themed parody thrash band Noxvs, a band of street racing toughs that live life a quarter mile at a time. It’s-a SISI, the Italian post metal band that will always trick-a you! O uuns, blistering drum machine-powered cybergrind from Hungary. Mor Diks, a crew of Sebastian Bach impersonators. h/t Boss The Ross Did you dig this? Take a second to support Toilet ov Hell on Patreon! |
BY: Follow @P_Crookston The man behind undercover videos at Planned Parenthood clinics was fined Thursday for releasing some of them against a judge's order. U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick of the Northern District of California fined David Daleiden and his lawyers $200,000 for releasing online footage Orrick had barred from release, the Associatd Press reports. Daleiden, the founder and lead investigator of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), made headlines for recording secret videos of Planned Parenthood employees discussing fetal tissue sales. Planned Parenthood denies it is guilty of profiting from fetal tissue sale, and has attempted to discredit Daleiden's videos as being illegally recorded and deceptively edited. A criminal case over whether CMP illegally invaded the privacy of Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation is ongoing. But Thursday's ruling was a civil one, based on Orrick's judgment that Daleiden and his counsel were guilty of contempt. Orrick found Daleiden and his attorneys Steve Cooley and Brentford Ferreira to be "in contempt for willfully violating the clear commands" of his preliminary injunction. CMP denied that they released videos that were not already part of the public record. "The blog was nothing more than a memorialization of public filings in the history of the case," Cooley said at the time. Orrick, however, did not think that releasing the videos was in line with his preliminary injunction. An attorney for Cooley and Ferreira said he is appealing the ruling, and Daleiden said it constitutes an attack on his rights to defend himself. Daleiden and CMP have petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States to lift the gag order on these videos imposed by California courts. They argue in their petition that the lower court's decision constitutes an unconstitutional act of "prior restraint." "The nondisclosure provisions could not reasonably be construed to extend to the informal conversations Daleiden had with other conference attendees and that a preliminary injunction would violate the First Amendment's prohibition on prior restraints," the petition reads. "The preliminary injunction in this case serves precisely the impermissible goal of protecting institutional forces against factual revelations that threaten their political and public standing." Planned Parenthood holds that Daleiden is the guilty party for "threatening the safety" of its staff and patients through the videos. "The illegally obtained and maliciously edited video smear campaign launched by anti-abortion operatives threatened the safety and health of our patients and staff," said Crystal Strait, president of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California. |
88 SHARES Share California’s 2030 climate goals will be a big step forward for the state. We’re already making good progress achieving our 2020 goals (to return to 1990 levels of carbon emissions), with the state likely to hit that goal a bit early thanks to the global recession and the plummeting price of renewables. But the 2030 goals require an additional 5% reduction per year in emissions for the 2020s, to reduce our levels 40% below 1990 emissions. That’s a tall order. By Ethan Elkind Electric utilities will be a big part of the solution, but not just because of their efforts to decarbonize the electricity supply. They’re also needed to expand the kinds of things that can run on electricity instead of petroleum or natural gas. Southern California Edison makes that case and puts numbers behind it, in a recent white paper the utility commissioned, per E&E news: SCE used an analysis from the consulting firm E3 that found the cheapest of three pathways to meeting the state’s 2030 emissions goals entails electrifying 24 percent of light-duty vehicles and 15 percent of medium-duty vehicles, in addition to reaching an 80 percent carbon-free electricity target. It also would require 30 percent of residential and commercial water and space heaters to run on electricity rather than gas. This pathway seems achievable at a reasonable cost, given the advances in battery technologies on the vehicle side. Still, we will need to keep the federal tax credit in place or find a viable substitute to keep demand for EVs strong in the short run. On the furnace and water heating side, we’ll need some new, cheaper products to wean buildings off of natural gas and onto clean electricity. But the good news is that achieving the 80% carbon-free electricity goal by 2030 may not be so daunting, given that we may be on track for 60% renewables by 2030 anyway, plus all the large hydropower that doesn’t count under the renewables mandate. As always with the future, there are plenty of variables and unknowns. But California’s progress to date on clean tech gives us a clear idea of what’s needed — and what the costs may be — to achieve the 2030 goals. Ethan Elkind directs the climate program at UC Berkeley Law, with a joint appointment at UCLA Law. His book “Railtown” was published by the University of California Press in 2014. Related |
Last week’s JK Rowling/Warner Brothers versus RDR Books trial made me very uncomfortable. On one hand, I completely support an author’s right to protect copyright. It’s time this nation (world, really) learned serious lessons about copyright — what it is, how it’s applied, fair use (yes, kids, fair use is part of copyright). But there’s something, well, chilling about how this case has played out. And, as a fan, I’m particularly bothered by this case because, well, there has to be a better way to deal with your readers than suing them. Especially after you’ve blessed the website and admittedly used it as a resource. It’s really absurd to belittle the efforts of said fan while tacitly admitting that you — the author — don’t have the same level of information readily available. At the heart of the suit are issues related to fair use, derivative works, and copyright infringement. Rowling, over the course of eight books, created a complex world filled with new concepts, new language, detailed history, and a host of characters. A website, reportedly endorsed by Rowling, created a sort of lexicon of the Potter world. The creators of the lexicon then decided to release the work in print format. Rowling wasn’t at all happy. Rowling is famously protective of her copyright, to the point that her zealousness has backfired. As Kirk Biglione noted in his “Tools of Change” presentation (download PDF), Rowling’s refusal to release an ebook version of the “Harry Potter” series due to fear of piracy (among other reasons) lead to, you guessed it!, increased piracy without a single legal alternative for consumers. Demand existed for the ebook — small demand, sure, but demand — yet only the pirates met it. Rowling says this suit isn’t about money, but it is. I do not believe it stems from greed on her part, but the heart and soul is about who profits from the Potter world (and it’s clear that the parties with the most financial interest are the author and Warner Brothers — not, you’ll note, either Bloomsbury or Scholastic). Once it was perceived that there might be money made of this derivative work, then the worries began. JK Rowling, for all her innovative thinking, has an issue with the Internet, that much is clear. She might use it, but she doesn’t get it. eBooks are one issue, but it’s clear to me that she considered the lexicon created by Steven Vander Ark to be just fine as long as it remained online. Once he ported it to (printed) book format, things got sticky. Was it the idea that books are sold in stores and make money? Would she have been as litigious if he’d made a bundle via Google AdSense on his website (did he sell ads, one too lazy to check wonders). So it’s okay for Rowling to benefit from the obsessive of a fan, but not okay for the fan to benefit as well? It’s a bit selfish, isn’t it, to support the efforts of your fans while they funnel money to you but to disregard their time and energy when it seems they might earn a little back? Over and over and over again, I see the publishing industry asking readers to give without, well, giving back in return. I digress. Rowling has stated that, at some point in time, she plans to write her own encyclopedia/lexicon. You know, a little something to tie the whole thing together. The when and if of this project are unscheduled, but you can bet your sweet bippie that Rowling’s book will skyrocket up the charts. Not only will she be able to bring intimate depth to the entire Potter oeuvre, but she’ll also present the material in her own voice. There is no way that the RDR Books lexicon will cannibalize Rowling’s sales (if there are indeed any sales by Rowling as those sales are dependent on the creation of a book that is still in the “thinking about” phase). To suggest this might be the case is no less than a classic red herring. Readers are hungry for more Harry Potter from J.K. Rowling. The brilliant Jeff Gomez draws a similar conclusion: True, it’s a different story when someone is using your exact words, repackaging them for their own profit. But if what’s being written about is instead your world, then that’s not only fair game (and fair use), but it’s good thing and not a bad thing. In Rowling’s case, her books are going to sell no matter what. But if she’s allowed to succeed in stopping RDR, think about all of the books about books (not to mention books about movies and plays and music) that won’t get written as a result. Bands could protest books being written about their songs, and directors could claim infringement when books about their movies appear. Part of the pleasure, and indeed the understanding, of art comes from putting it into context and perspective — not to mention just plain celebrating it — but if Rowling has her way nothing would exist but the works themselves. Gomez hits the point square on: if derivative works are subject to approval of copyright owners, that leads to a chilling effect on criticism. The RDR lexicon provides a perspective on Rowling’s books that, while she might disagree, reflects particular reading and understanding of the text. And, I believe, given the cultural impact of this series, it’s not unreasonable to anticipate other analysis, cataloguing, discussion — that’s what great books do. They inspire readers to build upon and explore the literary landscape. Rowling should be flattered and honored that her work created the kind of passion that went into this project. If this were truly about copyright infringement, I’d feel sympathetic to Rowling’s cause (the weird thing being that so little of the coverage indicates the level of actual copyright theft happening here). But she’s made it clear that this isn’t just about copyright — it’s about control. Rowling wants to control the conversation about her work. She lost that right a long time ago. There’s a point where she has to come to terms with the fact that it’s time to let go. Jeff Gomez compares this to sending your children out into the grown-up world. You hope they fare well, hope you did a good job, wonder about who they will influence. Rowling can continue to offer her wisdom and insight. Do I think this could have been handled better? Absolutely. Suing your fans is rarely a good public relations move. |
After a full month off for the Olympics (save for one make-up game), the National Women’s Soccer League returns in full force this weekend to begin a sprint to the playoffs. Five rounds of play remain to determine which four teams will make the postseason and fight for a trip to Houston for the NWSL Championship on Oct. 9,. The way things stand right now, we’re likely to have a new shield winner, a new champion and new finalists in that match. Let us help you shake off the rust of a month off from the league with these stories to watch: 1. The Olympians return (well, most of them) Whether the now defunct WPS or the seemingly healthier NWSL, the relationships between league, club and country have always been been a bit fragile and seemingly more complicated than they should be, considering that U.S. Soccer operates the NWSL. Unlike last year, after the U.S. women won the World Cup and largely took their time to get back to the NWSL, almost all U.S. players are expected to be available for this weekend’s matches, the first full slate of fixtures in August. Carli Lloyd is one player we know won’t be available, according to Houston Dash coach Randy Waldrum. Of course, they’ve had time off already after a shocking quarterfinal exit from the Rio 2016 Olympics, the program’s worst-ever finish at a major event. How exactly Hope Solo factors into the rest of Seattle Reign FC's season -- and how she plays, assuming she does -- after U.S. Soccer terminated her national-team contract is anyone's guess. That's bad news for a Seattle team which almost must win out (see below). There is also the business side of this. We’ve become accustomed to talking about ‘the World Cup bump’ -- WPS saw it in 2011, but the league was gone six months later (it was already nearly dead by the time the U.S. went on its roller-coaster run to second place). NWSL saw a modest bump in interest from last year’s World Cup, and we all wondered if something similar might happen post-Olympics this year. None of those predictions factored in the U.S. bombing out in the quarterfinals of the Olympics. With no gold medals to market to fans, will there be a missed opportunity for clubs? That’s an oversimplification of things, but it will be interesting to see if even a portion of historically high interest levels in the U.S. women’s national team can translate to the NWSL with no victorious tie-in. Two full seasons without any major tournament for the U.S. are on the horizon. - Jeff Kassouf 2. Repeat finalists on the brink An offseason of upheaval in the ‘Heart of America’ has left the NWSL’s two-time defending champions, FC Kansas City, lodged in the standings’ bottom half. Though there’s league-wide empathy for what one of the NWSL’s most respected coaches, Vlatko Andonovski, has had to deal with, the bottom line is a grim one. Lodged in eighth place, nine points out of a playoff spot, FCKC has not been able to overcome the losses of Lauren Holiday (retirement) and Amy Rodriguez (pregnancy). Seattle Reign FC, on the other hand, went into the season as the consensus favorite to claim a third straight regular-season title. Unfortunately for the Reign, after two dominant regular seasons, it seems the team’s been found out. Opponents are dumping the ball and then playing off the Reign, challenging Laura Harvey’s team to change how it build plays or go over-the-top. In sixth place and five points out of a playoff spot, Seattle hasn’t found the balance. Kansas City looks destined to miss the playoffs for the first time. Seattle, on the other hand, has the talent to make up its gap. Unfortunately, with five games left in the season, that makes Saturday’s game against rival Portland a practical must-win. - Richard Farley 3. Will Portland finally get a playoff game at home? All of which brings us to the Portland Thorns, a team that seemed lost in the two years after claiming the league’s first title. This season, having brought in head coach Mark Parsons and parted ways with star Alex Morgan, Portland has perpetually been among the leaders. Coming into round 16 with the league’s fewest losses (two) and least goals allowed (12), Portland is showing the benefits of a cultural revolution. The Thorns, however, are still three points back of Parsons’ former team, the Washington Spirit, and only have a three-point lead on Western New York. Still, if Portland can maintain its spot, it will accomplish a first in the history of the league’s marquee franchise: playing at home in the playoffs. Though the team has won a title, it has never earned the honor of hosting a game in the postseason, something that’s assured with a top-two-regular season finish. That has been high on the to-do list for Portland. - Richard Farley NEXT: Race for fourth, WNY's turnaround |
DYLD_PRINT_TO_FILE privilege-escalation vulnerability in OS X Yosemite, hackers have their hands on another zero-day bug in its operating system that allows hackers to gain root privileges to Mac computers. Few days after Apple patched thein OS X Yosemite, hackers have their hands on another zero-day bug in its operating system that allows hackers to gain root privileges to Mac computers. Luca Todesco (two unknown zero-day vulnerabilities in Apple's Mac OS X operating system that could potentially be exploited to gain remote access to a Mac computer. Italian teenager @qwertyoruiop ) has discoveredoperating system that could potentially be exploited to gain remote access to a Mac computer. Github repository, as well as software to mitigate the vulnerability. The 18-year-old self-described hacker has also posted details of his finding with source code for an exploit on the, as well as software to mitigate the vulnerability. OS X Zero-Day Exploit in the Wild The hacker's exploit makes use of two system flaws (which he dubbed 'tpwn') in order to cause a memory corruption in OS X's kernel. Due to memory corruption, it's possible to circumvent the space layout randomization of the kernel address, therefore bypassing the toughest level of security meant to keep out attackers away. The attacker then gains a root shell access to the Mac computer, allowing them to: Install malicious programs Create users Delete users Trash the system Many more... ...even without the Mac owner's permission. Todesco said he had reported the issue to Apple, but did not contact the company prior to the publication of the vulnerabilities. Todesco faced criticism for contacting Apple only a few hours before publishing his findings online and not giving the company enough time to release a security fix. No Way Out for Mac Users The vulnerability affects Mac OS X version 10.9.5 through version 10.10.5, the latest official build of Apple's operating system. Good news for Mac users who are running the latest beta of OS X El Capitan (also known as Mac OS X 10.11), as it appears that they aren't affected by the zero-day flaws. NullGuard. Until Apple patches these critical flaws, you don't have any good options to prevent a skilled hacker from installing malware on your Mac computers, beyond using a third-party patch created by Todesco himself, called However, installing a patch from a third party developer can be risky. Therefore, we advise you to thoroughly investigate the patch before installing, or it’s better to wait for an official patch certified by Apple. |
Jeremy Corbyn has been pictured having dinner with a political activist who supports President Assad and denies the genocide at Srebrenica, it has emerged. The Labour leader was joined at a popular North London pizza restaurant by Marcus Papadopoulos, who has also made controversial comments on Twitter about Russia, Israel and the West. A picture posted on Twitter by a member of staff at Pizza Pappagone near Finsbury Park, in Mr Corbyn's constituency, showed Mr Corbyn enjoying a meal but Mr Papadopoulos had been cropped out. However another photo later emerged showing the two men together in a photo thought to have been taken on Monday evening. Mr Papadopoulos captioned the image of the two men smiling at a table: "I'm having a wonderful dinner and discussion with hopefully the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom..." He added that the pair had "spent the evening" together. Mr Corbyn has previously found himself in hot water over comments he made before he was leader of the Labour party about the West's intervention in foreign conflicts. However Mr Papadopoulos is famously outspoken on the subject of intervention abroad, particularly on the UK and America's record. He has previously tweeted: "There was no siege of #Sarajevo, there was no genocide at #Srebrenica and there was no massacre at #Aleppo. Discard what Western media says". Other recent messages include: "#Israel is not - and never has been - in the fight against al-Qaeda. After all, Israeli hospitals treat wounded al-Qaeda fighters from Syria." And: "President Assad, the guardian of Christians in #Syria, celebrating Easter. I stand with him 100%..." As well as: "We stand with Syria against US aggression. And No to Western-backed Islamist terrorism. #Syria." The decision to spend time with Mr Papadopoulos is likely to prompt concern from Labour MPs, particularly the majority who consider the actions of President Assad against his own people in Syria to be war crimes. The Srebrenica massacre, the anniversary of which is today, was the genocide of more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniaks, mainly men and boys, in and around the town Srebrenica. It happened in 1995 during the Bosnian war. A Labour spokesman said: "Jeremy Corbyn had dinner with friends from Cypriots for Labour, during which they were joined briefly by Mr Papadopolous, who asked to be photographed with Jeremy. "Photographs of Jeremy with members of the public do not mean he endorses their views, as is the case on this occasion too." |
1st stage of SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket newly equipped with landing legs and now scheduled for launch to the International Space Station on March 16, 2014 from Cape Canaveral, FL. Credit: SpaceX/Elon Musk Story updated[/caption] The next commercial SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that’s set to launch in March carrying an unmanned Dragon cargo vessel will also be equipped with a quartet of landing legs in a key test that will one day lead to cheaper, reusable boosters, announced Elon Musk, the company’s founder and CEO. The attachment of landing legs to the first stage of SpaceX’s new and more powerful, next-generation Falcon 9 rocket counts as a major step towards the firm’s eventual goal of building a fully reusable rocket. Before attempting the use of landing legs “SpaceX needed to gain more confidence” in the new Falcon 9 rocket, Musk told me in an earlier interview. Blastoff of the upgraded Falcon 9 on the Dragon CRS-3 flight is currently slated for March 16 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida on a resupply mission to bring vital supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) in low Earth orbit for NASA. “Mounting landing legs (~60 ft span) to Falcon 9 for next month’s Space Station servicing flight,” Musk tweeted, along with the up close photos above and below. “SpaceX believes a fully and rapidly reusable rocket is the pivotal breakthrough needed to substantially reduce the cost of space access,” according to the firm’s website. SpaceX hopes to vastly reduce their already low $54 million launch cost when a reusable version of the Falcon 9 becomes feasible. Although this Falcon 9 will be sprouting legs, a controlled soft landing in the Atlantic Ocean guided by SpaceX engineers is still planned for this trip. “However, F9 will continue to land in the ocean until we prove precision control from hypersonic thru subsonic regimes,” Musk quickly added in a follow-up twitter message. In a prior interview, I asked Elon Musk when a Falcon 9 flyback would be attempted? “It will be on one of the upcoming missions to follow [the SES-8 launch],” Musk told me. “What we need to do is gain more confidence on the three sigma dispersion of the mission performance of the rocket related to parameters such as thrust, specific impulse, steering loss and a whole bunch of other parameters that can impact the mission.” “If all of those parameters combine in a negative way then you can fall short of the mission performance,” Musk explained to Universe Today. When the upgraded Falcon 9 performed flawlessly for the SES-8 satellite launch on Dec 3, 2013 and the Thaicom-6 launch on Jan. 6, 2014, the path became clear to attempt the use of landing legs on this upcoming CRS-3 launch this March. Atmospheric reentry engineering data was gathered during those last two Falcon 9 launches to feed into SpaceX’s future launch planning, Musk said. That new data collected on the booster stage has now enabled the approval for landing leg utilization in this March 16 flight. SpaceX engineers will continue to develop and refine the technology needed to accomplish a successful touchdown by the landing legs on solid ground back at the Cape in Florida. Extensive work and testing remains before a land landing will be attempted by the company. Ocean recovery teams will retrieve the 1st stage and haul it back to port much like the Space Shuttle’s pair of Solid Rocket Boosters. This will be the second attempt at a water soft landing with the upgraded Falcon 9 booster. The two stage Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo carrier are currently in the final stages of processing by SpaceX technicians for the planned March 16 night time liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 at 4:41 a.m. that will turn night into day along the Florida Space Coast. “All four landing legs now mounted on Falcon 9,” Musk tweeted today, Feb. 25. SpaceX has carried out extensive landing leg and free flight tests of ever increasing complexity and duration with the Grasshopper reusable pathfinding prototype. SpaceX is under contract to NASA to deliver 20,000 kg (44,000) pounds of cargo to the ISS during a dozen Dragon cargo spacecraft flights over the next few years at a cost of about $1.6 Billion. To date SpaceX has completed two cargo resupply missions. The last flight dubbed CRS-2 blasted off a year ago on March 1, 2013. The Falcon 9 and Dragon were privately developed by SpaceX with seed money from NASA in a public-private partnership. The goal was to restore the cargo up mass capability the US completely lost following the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle orbiters in 2011. SpaceX along with Orbital Sciences Corp are both partnered with NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services program. Orbital Sciences developed the competing Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo spacecraft. This extra powerful new version of the Falcon 9 dubbed v1.1 is powered by a cluster of nine of SpaceX’s new Merlin 1D engines that are about 50% more powerful compared to the standard Merlin 1C engines. The nine Merlin 1D engines 1.3 million pounds of thrust at sea level rises to 1.5 million pounds as the rocket climbs to orbit. The Merlin 1 D engines are arrayed in an octaweb layout for improved efficiency. Therefore the upgraded Falcon 9 can boost a much heavier cargo load to the ISS, low Earth orbit, geostationary orbit and beyond. The next generation Falcon 9 is a monster. It measures 224 feet tall and is 12 feet in diameter. That compares to a 130 foot tall rocket for the original Falcon 9. Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, commercial space, Orion, Chang’e-3, LADEE, Mars rover, MAVEN, MOM and more planetary and human spaceflight news – and upcoming launch coverage at Cape Canaveral & the Kennedy Space Center press site. Ken Kremer |
I used that term — it’s probably not original, but who knows? — in a recent post about the increasingly obscure meaning of the money supply. The best example would surely be Ron Paul, who’s now going to have oversight over the Fed. If you read his stuff, it’s very clear: money is a well-defined quantity that the Fed controls, and inflation comes from — indeed is defined as — increases in that quantity. What he means, I guess, is monetary base. Here’s the actual relationship between monetary base and inflation: It’s also worth nothing that in normal times (not now), monetary base consists overwhelmingly of currency (bank reserves are normally very small), and the majority of US currency isn’t even being held in the United States. It’s kind of terrifying, in a way, to realize that the politically dominant faction in America right now has a view of money, what it is, and how it works that hasn’t been true since the early 19th century, if it ever was. |
WASHINGTON—In the wake of Prime Minister David Cameron’s announcement that he would leave office following the United Kingdom’s vote to exit the European Union, tens of millions of Americans expressed their confusion to reporters Friday about a system of government in which a leader would resign after making a terrible decision. “Wait, so he made a really awful choice with far-reaching negative consequences and now he’s just stepping down to let someone else take over? What?” said Colorado Springs, CO resident Evan Austin, echoing the sentiments of citizens across the United States who were left struggling to understand why a democratically elected head of government would relinquish control simply because they had been shown to have made a spectacularly bad judgment call. “So he jeopardized the future of his country, and instead of spending the next several years remaining in power while trying to paper over his mistakes, he’s just gone? Where’s the part where he denies any wrongdoing or tries to blame somebody else? This is absolutely crazy.” The American public noted, however, that they completely understood the part where voters who had made a demonstrably terrible decision continued to double down on it. Advertisement |
My super generous gifter made sure the whole exchange went perfectly from beginning to end. They first and foremost got me a humble bundle for Steam to make the wait go quicker. Then, they ordered in some custom made laser-etched dice from the Netherlands, paying shipping from there to Arizona, and then again from Arizona to New Zealand (where I am). Also included with the dice were some Arizona themed candies and a postcard. Specifically, some delicious jelly chews made from prickly pear cactus and a huge red sucker with a SCORPION on the inside. My daughter grabbed the lolly and asked if she could have it, so I told her to look inside it and ask me then. She totally freaked out, asking was it a real bug, was it alive, all kinds of questions. A perfect little gift. I want to thank my gifter for being generally awesome, tailoring a gift perfectly to their giftee, and for taking the time and effort to ship stuff literally around the world to make sure my arbitrary day was a special one. Thank you sir! I hope you had a great swap too. By the way I actually recognised the cat in the picture: http://redd.it/ig12r , awesome! |
Visit our Re-post guidelines This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo LLC, 2013 Our aging skin is the target of billions of dollars worth of marketing, the object of a continual stream of cosmetics, drugs and 'nutraceuticals' promising to deliver age-defying results. But what really works? What does the scientific evidence say? In this article we discuss three proven natural interventions that are generally considered safe, affordable and effective. Pine Bark Extact (Pycnogenol) A 2012 study involving 112 women found pine bark extract (PBE) safe and effective in significantly improving skin color and reducing pigmentation of age spots due to mild to moderate photoaging.[1] Before (left) and 6 months after (right) treatment of photodamaged skin with oral pine bark extract. Image Source The women were randomized to either a 12-week open trial regimen of 100 mg pine bark extract supplementation once daily or to a parallel-group trial regimen of 40 mg PBE supplementation once daily. The researchers reported, "A significant decrease in clinical grading of skin photoaging scores was observed in both time courses of 100 mg daily and 40 mg daily PBE supplementation regimens." Aloe Vera Gel A 2009 study of 30 healthy female subjects over the age of 45, and who received 2 different oral doses (low-dose: 1,200 mg/d, high-dose: 3,600 mg/d) of aloe vera gel supplementation for 90 days, saw remarkable results. The researchers measured clinical signs and biochemical changes of aging skin before and after supplementation and found that "After aloe gel intake, the facial wrinkles improved significantly (p<0.05) in both groups, and facial elasticity improved in the lower-dose group." They concluded: "Aloe gel significantly improves wrinkles and elasticity in photoaged human skin."[2] Read More: Research: A Teaspoon of Aloe a Day Reverses Signs of Skin Aging. Smoking Cessation A 2010 study evaluated the benefits on the skin obtained by cessation of smoking in a sample of 64 Italian women who smoke, and who, over a period of 9 months, were followed by a team of dermatologists, psychologists and nutritionists.[3] Each participant was given a clinical score to measure each of several criteria of skin health and appearance. Participants' skin was assessed on the basis of presence of lines, vascular and pigmentation state, elasticity, brightness, and texture. These measurements were then used to determine a biological age of the skin. At the beginning of the study the average biological age of participants was 9 years older than their chronologic age. Amazingly, after 9 months after cessation of smoking, the average reduction of the biological age of the patient's skin was 13 years. Read More: Skin Aging Reversed 13 Years in Just 9 Months By Doing This. Concluding Remarks The health and quality of our skin reflects what's going on inside. No magic supplement will reverse the age-accelerating effects of a poor diet, a chronically stress-producing lifestyle, chemical exposures, etc. The point of the studies above is that simple nutritional interventions, e.g. a teaspoon of aloe vera, a concentrated antioxidant source, the cessation of a daily chemical exposure, will support truly regenerative processes within the body that are operating all the time and are best supported through organically produced, lovingly prepared food. For additional research view: 84 Natural Substances for Aging Skin. [1] Minao Furumura, Noriko Sato, Nobutaka Kusaba, Kinya Takagaki, Juichiro Nakayama. Oral administration of French maritime pine bark extract (Flavangenol(®)) improves clinical symptoms in photoaged facial skin. Clin Interv Aging. 2012 ;7:275-86. Epub 2012 Jul 27. PMID: 22956863 [2] Soyun Cho, Serah Lee, Min-Jung Lee, Dong Hun Lee, Chong-Hyun Won, Sang Min Kim, Jin Ho Chung. Dietary Aloe Vera Supplementation Improves Facial Wrinkles and Elasticity and It Increases the Type I Procollagen Gene Expression in Human Skin in vivo. Ann Dermatol. 2009 Feb;21(1):6-11. Epub 2009 Feb 28. PMID: 20548848 [3] Riccarda Serri, Maria Concetta Romano, Adele Sparavigna. "Quitting smoking rejuvenates the skin": results of a pilot project on smoking cessation conducted in Milan, Italy. Skinmed. 2010 Jan-Feb;8(1):23-9. PMID: 20839421 |
A proposed Subversion vision and roadmap From: "C. Michael Pilato" <cmpilato-AT-collab.net> To: Subversion Development <dev-AT-subversion.apache.org> Subject: Subversion Vision and Roadmap Proposal Date: Fri, 02 Apr 2010 11:28:30 -0400 Archive-link: Article, Thread Last week, five of Subversion's developers -- myself, Hyrum Wright (who helped me author this lengthy mail), Greg Stein, Stefan Sperling, and Karl Fogel ("we", henceforth) -- met in New York City to evaluate Subversion's current trajectory as a project and to jointly develop suggestions for any course correction deemed necessary. The unfortunate impetus for the meeting was feedback from representatives of some very large installations of Subversion that, from where they sat, the Subversion project was stagnating. This is a somewhat fair assertion. It's not that the community is or has ever been in danger of doing nothing. But even when we march in step towards a goal, we don't do a good job of communicating outwardly about that fact, leading to the appearance of inactivity. And lately, our ongoing efforts have been less like a team of folks working in concert towards a common vision, and more like the individual piddlings common to mature open source software. Make no mistake: Subversion is mature open source software. It works well for open source projects and -- in one of the biggest software coups of the last decade -- we've found that it's also good enough to supplant other well-established version control systems, open-source or otherwise, inside the highly structured walls of the enterprise. Unfortunately, "good enough" still leaves the enterprise user base frustrated at the most inopportune times (like, say, when managing branches near releases). And if you judge success by mindshare, it's now clear the DVCS tools have rendered our "good enough" somewhat obsolete when it comes to serving many open source projects, even. VISION Subversion has no future as a DVCS tool. Let's just get that out there. At least two very successful such tools exist already, and to squeeze another horse into that race would be a poor investment of energy and talent. What's more, huge classes of users remain categorically opposed to the very tenets on which the DVCS systems are based. They need centralization. They need control. They need meaningful path-based authorization. They need simplicity. In short, they desperately need Subversion. It's this class of user -- the corporate developer -- that stands to benefit hugely from what Subversion brings to the party. And it's that class of user which we believe Subversion should cater to, ideally without ostracizing the open source volunteers who remain our largest source of development investment. Corporate developers come in all shapes and sizes, from self-administering 10-person teams to geographically-distributed organizations of thousands of developers on hundreds of teams serviced by dedicated IT departments. Subversion can't be all things to all people, but it can be a well-defined subset of things to most people. It shouldn't sacrifice its trademark simplicity when growing the features most likely to be used in large-scale deployments; it shouldn't optimize for the large enterprise in a way that will alienate the long tail composed of much smaller deployments. By defining the subset of things Subversion is and those it is not, we recognize our own boundaries and prevent years of wandering through the proverbial wilderness of feature creep. Someone wiser than I once said, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." So recognizing the benefits that Subversion already offers, and projecting a bit into the future what we'd like to see Subversion become, we offer the following vision statement for your review: Subversion exists to be universally recognized and adopted as an open-source, centralized version control system characterized by its reliability as a safe haven for valuable data; the simplicity of its model and usage; and its ability to support the needs of a wide variety of users and projects, from individuals to large-scale enterprise operations. A shorter, business-card-sized motto (offered as a replacement to the obsolete "A compelling replacement for CVS") might be: "Enterprise-class centralized version control for the masses". ROADMAP With that vision in mind, we identified a number of high-value improvements which Subversion should gain in coming releases. Then we took a casual pass at assigning some technical "plumbing" dependencies for each of these. Here's what we came up with, in the form "FEATURE: [DEPENDENCY ...]", where "FS-NG" = major FS backend overhaul, "WC-NG" = WC-NG, and "Ev2" = svn_editor_t: * Obliterate: FS-NG * Shelve/Checkpoint: WC-NG * Repository-dictated Configuration: WC-NG (?) * Rename Tracking: WC-NG, Ev2, FS-NG (?) * Improved Merging: WC-NG * Improved Tree Conflict Handling: WC-NG, Ev2, Rename Tracking * Enterprise Authentication Mechanisms: * Forward History Searching: FS-NG (?) * Log Message Templates: Repository-dictated Configuration By examining this dependency chain, factoring in the development momentum which will exist around WC-NG, and admitting that some of the major plumbing overhauls not currently underway may prove to be just as costly as the WC-NG work (if not more so), we believe that the following feature roadmap is one which will serve Subversion users well: 1.7: WC-NG; HTTPv2; 'svn patch'; typical slew of various bug fixes 1.8: repository-dictated configuration; tree conflicts improvements; WC-NG-enabled stuff (rename tracking, compressed pristines, shelving/checkpointing, ...) 1.9: Editor v2 (for server->client rename handling improvements) [...] 2.0: FS-NG (ideally a parallelized task), with some (to-be-identified) FS-NG enabled features. That last item is likely to be contentious, so it bears explaining. We believe that our current two filesystem offerings are stifling innovation. On the one hand we have the BDB backend which is a breeze to develop for but is only occasional used; on the other is the far-more-popular FSFS backend whose fundamental principles so constrain the system as to destroy much hope of serious design overhaul; and in the middle lies the feature parity requirement we've been living under thus far which binds Subversion to the union of the two backends' weaknesses. We confidently assert that to break system-wide compatibility with a so-called 2.0 release will be Subversion's great overall detriment, both from the perspective of efficient use of development energy and in user adoption. So we propose that an as-yet-fictional Subversion 2.0 be allowed to break compatibility with the 1.x line only in ways which can be mitigated using the RA layer as a compatibility shim. Additionally, we believe that merely releasing a 2.0 with a new FS backend but without new user-visible features enabled by that overhaul will be ill-received. COMMUNITY We also discussed matters of communication and community. Subversion has historically had a very tight-knit community of developers, and we've provided a resource for communicating with users through the various mailing lists. With the increase in corporate involvement, and the changing roles (and employers!) of committers, the Subversion ecosystem can at times seems a bit fractured. To an enterprise manager responsible for thousands of users, and millions of dollars of investment, and billions of bytes of data, this fracturing appears as a liability when considering an investment in Subversion. Most corporations understand the open source nature of Subversion's development method (indeed, this very thing has driven Subversion adoption), but they still want a unified face when it comes to communication, planning, and project feedback. One proposed solution is a Subversion "planet", to be hosted at a re-purposed subversion.org. The planet would aggregate feeds from individual contributors, as well as the various corporate entities interested in Subversion development. While various commercial interests (CollabNet, WANdisco, elego, etc.) may compete in some areas, they are all committed to improving Subversion as a whole. Enterprise users need to see this unity across Subversion's corporate sponsors, and a communication stream which interleaves these corporate voices works toward that end. Whatever the solution, we need a defined plan which we then communicate to the end users and customers who are deploying Subversion installations. But communication alone isn't enough. We need to find ways to grow our developer community itself. Attendance at the recent Subversion Corporation Annual Members Meeting was low (by design and recommendation, of course), but a startling realization was made there. When the agenda item for voting new full committers into membership was on the table, there were no candidates. Think about that: no new full committers for Subversion in the past year. This is a bad thing. We need to find a way to embrace and empower would-be Subversion contributors. Telling them to troll through the issue tracker looking for bite-sized issues is not the way to do that -- it communicates "we can't be bothered to mentor you". When somebody wants to start making contributions, our community must recognize the value of that contributor and mentor him or her toward full committership, for the good of that contributor and of the community. Further, our public roadmap needs to highlight the items that we really wish we could be working on but lack the manpower to handle. This would provide those looking for ways to accelerate Subversion's roadmap with some cues for doing that in harmony with the Big Picture. SUMMARY I've covered a lot of ground here, but decisions in this community have always been and will be made on this mailing list, and they deserve to be made with as much information as possible. You now know where a small contingent of developers stand on these issues. I'd like to publicize on our project website a *community-endorsed* vision and roadmap ASAP, and then get to the business of moving Subversion forward along those lines. So what say you? -- C-Mike, for the NYC conference attendees -- C. Michael Pilato <cmpilato@collab.net> CollabNet <> www.collab.net <> Distributed Development On Demand |
Bethesda Softworks have announced that media outlets will only receive copies of their upcoming games on the day prior to release. In a blog post on their website, Bethesda announced the move in light of the critical and commercial success of DOOM, which also followed the same policy and drew criticism and concern over the quality of the game as a result. Bethesda are no strangers to a run in with the mainstream gaming media. In 2013, gossip site Kotaku ran an article detailing leaks from a casting call for the then in production Fallout 4, including sections of the games opening script, which resulted in the site being blackballed from future media coverage. The company have reasoned that they wish for content producers, irrespective of their medium, to be able to produce coverage for their game starting at the same time. Response to the move has inevitably been divisive, with certain sections of the media claiming that “the best advice for gamers would probably be to not be attracted to preorder bonuses and bundles.” This claim seems like a bit of a smoke screen however, given the quality of the games that Bethesda release and the relatively low value and scarcity of pre-order incentives provided by them for games such as Skyrim, Fallout 4, Wolfenstein and DOOM. Simply put, aside from a completion or collectors standpoint, there is little to no reason to pre-order Bethesda games, but people will do so based on the strength of the franchises and fan commitment. Media sites will tend not to risk biting the hand that feeds them, and given the high levels of animosity over the past few years between media, developer and consumer alike, I find it unlikely that this new policy, if applied solely by Bethesda, will make much of a difference to consumer trust. The first game to be affected by the new policy, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Special Edition, will be released on the 28th of October 2016. Advertisements |
A Canadian National Railway Co. conductor is dead after an incident at rail yard in Saskatoon on Thursday night. The Transportation Safety Board said it is investigating the accident, but had few details to share on Friday and was referring calls to CN. "A CN conductor was killed while performing his duties. The situation is under assessment right now," the TSB's Julie Leroux said by phone. Story continues below advertisement "This is a tragic occurrence and our thoughts are with the employee's family and friends. All circumstances surrounding this incident are under investigation," said CN spokesman Patrick Waldron. In an e-mail, he said no further details were available. CN's safety record has come under the scrutiny of the federal government after the two recent fiery derailments in Northern Ontario. The company's board also withheld a portion of CEO Claude Mongeau's bonus for 2014, citing a "deterioration" in the Montreal-based railway's safety record in 2014. Meanwhile, the TSB said CN has reported a grain train derailment in Irricana, northeast of Calgary. Twenty-five of 104 cars are off the tracks, and the TSB said it is determining if the derailment is severe enough to send investigators. |
By this time next week, Radiant Entertainment will be settled in our new, more spacious digs. We’ve been growing – enough that our current office is no longer enough to hold our two game teams, a few assorted other people, and all our stuff. (Human bodies + many computers + smallish office = it’s quite stuffy and warm.) So we’re packing up (Embark!) and moving a few blocks away into something much roomier. Our workers, carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, and weavers are busily building out the new office, abetted by some specialized crafters from the small village of IT. Among other nice new things, we’ll actually have a dedicated streaming studio (not a closet, not shared with storage space, yay) to support our rapidly growing Twitch schedule. In addition to our 3X weekly Stonehearth streams, we’ll soon be adding Rising Thunder streams as well (check risingthunder.com for the upcoming announcement). Alas, the pretty new studio will not be ready in time for our 100th Twitch stream, which is… tonight! We’ll be live at 6 pm PDT. Rather than our usual peek into what we’re working on, we’re going to celebrate you — our community. It’s your creations, your imagination, and your support that have helped make Stonehearth what it is. So we’re going to take a look at some of your most impressive creations; revisit some stream “greatest hits;” and even unveil a couple of surprises… don’t miss it! We’ll be streaming as usual the rest of this week. But because of the move, there will not be a stream next Tuesday (October 20). We hope to be up and running in our new studio on Wednesday, October 21. Time to go do some more packing. See you on Stream 100 tonight! (Dress is formal.) |
I’m pretty familiar with the LARP world. I run a game that’s been around for a while now (Eldaraenth), and I’ve been writing a LARP blog off and on f or about six months. I myself have been part an active participant in LARP culture for about twelve years, and was surrounded by it before that. I’ve played a lot of different games ranging from pure combat boffer and re-enactment style games to paper-rock-scissors playing vampires. I’ve even airsofted it up from time to time. For some people, the idea of a LARPer is a joke to be mocked. It’s why you laugh at Augie the first time you see him in Role Models. That’s okay. For the majority of the world, we’re just those weird guys with foam swords and funny costumes in the park. You can laugh at us. But, for me, there is more to all of this than just the jokes you see in movies. There is a culture. A thriving community of people that come together for the love of a mutual hobby and escape. It’s about camaraderie. It’s about honor. It’s about learning how to be more than the world’s punching bag. It’s something I take seriously. Which in and of itself is pretty damned funny: Enter LARPers I’ll admit, I was a bit awestruck when I was contacted by the guys behind LARPers. I wasn’t entirely familiar with what they were doing at the time, but it only took me a quick look into their website to gain the kind of excitement that is rare in my life. In my mind I knew what they were doing was going to be huge and golden. I felt a little bit like I was being given the chance to go back in time and talk to Felicia Day or Sandeep Parikh just a few months before The Guild took off. I just had the impression that these guys are going to be HUGE names in the Geek Culture. Then, I got an opportunity I wasn’t expecting and I just about pee’d myself with joy. They asked me to do a write up on their show, and even gave me and some of my LARP friends a chance to ask them a few questions on their Twitter feed. It was like a dream. Their official Press Release Reads: Immersed in a world where knights still battle foes, witches still craft spells, and everyday people can still imagine, “LARPers” is a comedic foray into the world of Live Action Role-Playing. Observed from the outside perspective of a documentary crew, the show follows a handful of colorful characters in their not so day-to-day lives as they don homemade armor and venture forth on imaginary quests while still dealing with very real problems. Each episode covers a single day within the context of an extended LARPing event in which participants from different walks of life have come together to spend a couple weeks playing as their characters. The camera crew focuses on a small group of central characters that find themselves banded together as a team. Throughout the event they must work together to accomplish their quests and advance their characters. As the event progresses this becomes increasingly difficult. Real-life relationships, grudges, and motives begin to permeate the line between reality and fantasy. While on the surface, “LARPers” appears to just be an observation of a some-what obscure, yet quirky activity and the out of the ordinary people who participate in it, its true focus is something really much more universal. Beneath the cardboard armor and war paint lies a common want – to be something more than what they are. While these characters aren’t literally looking to be elves or witches or dwarves (well, most of them, anyway) they are looking to be courageous, powerful, loved, or feared in a way that they cannot be in their regular lives. At its core, the show is not about pretend battles between knights and wizards, but rather the struggle between who these people wish they could be and who they really are. The creators of this show are self-proclaimed geeks. We live geek life, are well versed in geek culture, and understand geek psychology. It takes a special kind of writer to immerse himself in a particular sub-culture and then bridge the gap back to mainstream audiences. We do that in every episode of LARPers. Our setting borders on the surreal, but our characters prove to be touching, funny, and most of all real. This show captures a big part of who we are and we put a piece of ourselves in every character, scene, and line. We can make this show because we can live this show. I admit, on the surface it sounds a bit like a LARP take on The Office, but as I started to get into the press they had available and talk to them on twitter, I began to get more and more excited. Yes, it’s a comedy that makes fun of LARP players. That’s just how comedy works, but here are guys that aren’t so much focused on making fun of the culture as spreading the inside jokes we all share to the masses. They don’t want to mock my most beloved hobby, the want to humanize it. They want to take the world of Live Action Role Playing from the geeky backburner of things that even other geeks make fun of and turn it to the forefront as it’s own standing culture. They plan to do that with some laughs along the way. Questions and Answers When the guys over at LARPers asked me if I had any questions about their show, they caught me off guard. I wasn’t really ready for an interview and as far as I was concerned my main question was, “Why haven’t you been picked up for network syndication yet?” I scrambled, and they were gracious. They love what they’re doing, and it shows in how they interact with their fans and followers. Me: Do you guys have a particular system you’re based on, or are you making it up as you go along for the benefit of the story? LARPersTV: We draw inspiration from NERO but we modify it to fit our story. We wanted to use a familiar system, but mold it into our own. M: Will the show focus more on the overall culture of LARPers or the On Site behavior? LTV: We will show LARPers on site and in game for most of the show. We want to show relationships and the subtle comedy of LARPing M: What type of audience rating are you planning on the show having? Like Primetime TV or more mature? LTV:There is no hard profanity, but situations can get a bit racy. We are hoping for a wide audience of people who like to laugh. M: What type of audience rating are you planning on the show having? Like Primetime TV or more mature? LTV: It depends on the situation and character. We’ve scripted some intense fights and some silly ones. M: Do you guys have a Facebook or G+ page I can send my followers to as well? LTV: Not as of yet. However, everything we post is on our indiegogo http://t.co/Wb4RoUN6 We will be exploring G+ and FB M: What would you really like your audience to know about the show, above anything else? LTV: We care about LARPing and about our show. We think that will mean characters and situations you’ll care about too. Give them Your Money LARPers is going to be huge, but they can’t do it without funding. Right now, they are running an Indie-Go-Go campaign trying to raise the dough to get this show off the ground. I know that it will take off once it’s in production, and I know that all of you will watch it and laugh. I’m sure that by the end of the first season, my guys will be sitting around the campfire at events laughing and quoting this show. None of that happens without a bit of help from all of use though. So, if you have a dollar or five, or five grand, head over to their site and donate. You won’t be disappointed, and I’ll love you forever. Every little bit helps, so please, spread the word. |
Airplanes are parked at the Sao Paulo International airport, which is under renovation, in Guarulhos, Brazil, Tuesday, May 20, 2014. AP Photo/Andre Penner Football legend Ronaldo, a member of Brazil's World Cup organizing committee, said only 30 percent of the infrastructure projects undertaken for the tournament would be completed. Brazil promised a host of projects in conjunction with the World Cup to improve its roads, airports and urban transport networks. But the country has struggled to finish even essential ones such as stadiums, and has shelved much of the rest. "I think we're missing an opportunity. A series of investments were promised that won't be delivered. Only 30 percent will be delivered," two-time World Cup winner Ronaldo told a forum organized by newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo. He also elaborated on remarks last week in which he said he was "ashamed" of the delays in preparing for the tournament, which kicks off June 12. "My shame is for the people, who were hoping for major investments, that's the great legacy of the Cup for us. They were expecting a lot and they're the ones most hurt by the situation," he said. The former Real Madrid and Barcelona star also joked about Brazil's tense relationship with FIFA. The world football governing body has sharply criticized the host country's delays. "I don't think FIFA are going to want to organize another Cup here. They're going to be traumatized," he said. Ronaldo, who this week endorsed opposition Senator Aecio Neves for presidential polls in October, voiced sympathy with protesters angry over the more than $11 billion being spent on the tournament, but called for them to refrain from violence. "Protests are always valid. But as soon as there are vandals taking part, people in masks, the security forces have to contain the offenders," he said. Brazil was shaken by sometimes violent demonstrations that drew a million people into the streets last year during the Confederations Cup, a World Cup dress rehearsal. New strikes and protests have erupted as the World Cup approaches, though they have been smaller than last year's. |
By Brian Fallow* The days of bipartisan consensus on trade policy, when it was thought politics should end at the water’s edge, are gone. The crucial issue, says Labour’s trade spokesman David Parker, is to secure the right of a future Government to ban the sale of existing residential properties to overseas buyers, “other than our closest neighbours like Australia where we have a close relationship and reciprocal rights.” It is part of its suite of policies to address the housing crisis. “We say if you have the right to live here, you have the right to buy here, but not otherwise. In this world of rapidly increasing wealth inequality we do not want 1 percenters from overseas to be able to outbid New Zealanders for our homes or farms,” Parker says. National’s trade spokesman Todd McClay, the current minister, says such a ban would force New Zealand to renegotiate many hard-won trade agreements. “We would be likely to lose some trade access as a result of renegotiations, which would harm New Zealand companies and Kiwi jobs.” Underpinning the arcane arguments about national treatment and most favoured nation clauses in trade agreements lies a fundamental ideological difference. The neoliberal view is that trade and access to international capital are essential national interests for New Zealand. We have limited negotiating coin when it comes to combating entrenched agricultural protectionism and if conceding the right for foreign investors to buy residential property or farm land is what that takes, so be it. The opposing view is that the land beneath our feet is not just another asset class. It is where we live. Governments need to preserve the ability to regulate the housing market. We are at risk of becoming, in John Key’s phrase, tenants in our own country. And at a pace determined by such external factors as whether Beijing is minded to tighten or loosen capital controls. A most favoured nation clause Parker says that under the free trade agreement negotiated by the last Labour Government any future New Zealand Government could ban the sale of houses or farm land to Chinese investors, and China had reciprocal rights. But the China FTA also has a most favoured nation clause which requires New Zealand to treat China no less favourably than it does other countries in any subsequent agreements. Both the Korean FTA and the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement do that, in effect ratcheting up Chinese rights too. South Korea’s FTA with Australia, concluded a year before ours, allows Australia to ban the sale of their homes to Koreans, Parker says. “Even more absurd is the fact that South Korea can ban house sales to New Zealanders under that FTA, though New Zealand can’t do the reverse.” Nevertheless McClay describes the idea that Korea will be interested in reopening what is quite a recent agreement as fanciful, especially as the Trump Administration wants to renegotiate the US-Korea FTA. Parker says the most pressing issue is to “fix” the TPP. Officials meet again in Japan on Thursday and Friday to try to hammer out a deal to put to ministers of the remaining 11 TPP countries on the sidelines of an Apec ministerial meeting Vietnam in November. The existing text does have a carveout of sorts for New Zealand attached to the investment chapter: “New Zealand reserves the right to adopt or maintain any taxation measure with respect to the sale, purchase or transfer of residential property.” But the possibility of imposing a stamp duty on foreign buyers does not afford enough protection, Parker believes. Many would simply pay it. “It is our last chance to stand up for New Zealanders’ right to decide who can buy a house here.” Several TPP countries want to suspend or freeze provisions in the agreement which the United States insisted on, given that the US has pulled out of the agreement, until and unless it relents. That is likely to include provisions fostering the interests of Big Pharma, which public health advocates have long opposed. Auckland University law professor Jane Kelsey says New Zealand, Australia and Japan have been strongly pushing that none of the market access schedules in the agreement can be reopened. “For Labour it is the schedule to the investment chapter that is the issue.” 'Constitutionally improper' The Government, in a departure from past practice during pre-election caretaker government periods, has taken an “it’s none of your business” approach to opposition parties’ concerns about the TPP talks even though there is at least a non-trivial chance of a change of government. It has not make its mandate to the trade officials public but it is a fair bet that it does not seek to insert a right to ban foreign purchases of residential property, of the kind that Australia has preserved. National’s refusal to even consult with opposition parties is constitutionally improper, Parker says. Kelsey and Greens trade spokesman Barry Coates agree. They might have a point, McClay says, if anything was going to be decided before the election. But there will likely need to be another round of officials’ talks next month. In any case it is for ministers to conclude an agreement and then for their governments to decide whether to ratify it. Labour leader Jacinda Ardern in a video interview with The New Zealand Herald said she was prepared to be bloody-minded over TPP. But Kelsey says Labour’s only firm position is an objection to a single, very specific provision in the entire 30-chapter deal – forgoing the right to discriminate against foreign purchasers of residential property. “Does Labour really intend to agree to the TPPA-11 if that minor matter is changed, as it has been in a leaked copy I have of New Zealand’s proposed schedule to the now-suspended Trade in Services Agreement negotiations?” The Greens have more fundamental problems with the TPP agreement, in particular the investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions which allow foreign investors to sue a government in an international tribunal, seeking compensation if they have suffered expropriation, direct or indirect. The fact that something a government does has an adverse effect on the economic value of the investment does not of itself establish that indirect expropriation has occurred. The Greens say that so long as the ISDS provisions remain in place, TPP-11 undermines New Zealand’s ability to protect the environment and national sovereignty. The provisions were included largely at the insistence of the United States, and now that it has withdrawn from the pact, they should be dropped. Coates says exporters can buy political risk insurance, if they consider they need it. “It’s not expensive.” Parker says, “We had an ISDS provision in the China FTA. We don’t see ISDS as necessary when dealing with countries with a decent legal system. And we are uncomfortable with the idea that foreign investors have more rights than New Zealand ones. But the most important issue for us is land.” 'Risk of throwing out the trade baby with the sovereignty bathwater' That issue of land regulation is preventing Labour from supporting the broader trade-enhancing aspects of TPP, says NZIER trade economist John Ballingall. “We can’t go back and change history and there is little value in lamenting a decision by New Zealand negotiators or politicians that was made presumably as part of an overall negotiating package,” Ballingall says. “There is a very real risk of throwing out the trade baby with the sovereignty bathwater here.” McClay was asked by Radio NZ’s Guyon Espiner last week what is the good bit about allowing people who don’t live in New Zealand to buy houses here. All he could come up with was that New Zealand is an open economy. The reality is that openness to foreign money in the property market is good for people who currently own some and are potential sellers, and correspondingly bad for local people who aspire to ownership and are potential buyers. In the end the politics of it is as simple, and as vexing, as that. --------------------------------- *Brian Fallow is a former long serving economics editor at The NZ Herald. This is the last article in an election year issues-based analytical series on economic policies he has written for interest.co.nz. His first article is here. His second article is here. His third article is here. His fourth article is here. His fifth article is here. His sixth article is here. His seventh article is here. His eighth article is here. His ninth article is here. His tenth article is here. His eleventh is here. His twelfth is here. His thirteenth is here. |
Margaret Hamburg "bought" her way into the FDA with financial contributions to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, alleges the lawsuit Horrible side effects from the drug destroyed the lives of countless victims Highlights of the complaint (NaturalNews) The former head of the FDA, Margaret Hamburg, used the federal agency to run a massive conspiracy of racketeering and fraud in order to generate millions of dollars in drug company profits for her husband's hedge fund firm, alleges a damning lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia The lawsuit alleges that while acting as FDA commissioner, Margaret Hamburg engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy to approve an extremely dangerous drug known to cause severe (and even deadly) side effects, in order to financially benefit her husband's hedge fund which held very large financial positions in Johnson & Johnson, makers of the drug. "Defendants, each and every one of them, operated a criminal conspiracy at least between the years 2009 to 2015 to fraudulently suppress warnings about the devastating effects of Levaquin," says the complaint."This Amended Complaint sets forth allegations that involve a conspiracy by Defendants, each and every one of them, to reap large financial returns by failing to disclose to Plaintiffs and the public at large the full extent of the devastating, life-threatening, and deadly effects of a highly dangerous pharmaceutical drug named Levaquin," reads the opening of the lawsuit. The conspiracy complaint also alleges thatas a result of Hamburg's conspiracy cover-up at the FDA:"Both Alkermes and Johnson & Johnson stock value increased significantly during Hamburg's tenure," reports The Daily Caller A fascinating finding in the lawsuit alleges that Margaret Hamburg bribed her way into the top position at the FDA by making large financial contributions to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama:From what we now know about the Clinton Foundation's deep financial ties to Big Pharma and Wall Street hedge funds, none of this comes as any sort of surprise. In fact, while these allegations may have been easily dismissed as a "conspiracy theory" in 2008, so much more awakening has happened among the American public that they are now likely to be understood as an "actual conspiracy" being carried out among the political and financial eliteFrom the lawsuit:You can read the complaint here , posted by the Daily Caller News Foundation. I've extracted some of the highlights of the complaint for reference, shown below. |
While reports have been made on an unofficial Commodities Futures Trading Commission inquiry into Coinbase, neither party has corroborated this finding. On October 2, 2017, sources indicated that the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) had submitted a letter of inquiry to Coinbase Inc. regarding a flash crash in the Ethereum market that took place on its Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX) on June 21, 2017. This occurred when a multimillion-dollar sell order initiated a trading cascade that caused the price of Ethereum to temporarily plummet. Contrary to these reports, details of the actual letter sent by the CFTC are scarce; Coinbase did not provide a copy of it, and neither has the CFTC made it public. ETHNews reached out and received this response from a Coinbase spokesperson: "As a regulated financial institution, Coinbase complies with regulations and fully cooperates with regulators. After the GDAX market event in June 2017, we proactively reached out to a number of regulators, including the CFTC. We also decided to credit all customers who were impacted by this event. We are unaware of a formal investigation." Initial reports say the letter stems from the CFTC's desire to find out what role leverage and margin trading may have played in June’s market crash. The now-historic event transpired when a single Ether sell order to the tune of $12.5 million initiated a domino effect, emptying the exchange’s order book and causing the price of Ether to sink from over $317 to a mere 10 cents. Markets may have recovered relatively quickly (in a matter of seconds) but not without raising the call for scrutiny of exchange practices. Originally, Coinbase made no indication that it would reimburse users, but quickly pivoted and refunded those who had losses as a result of the incident. Prior to the crash, Coinbase had offered margin trading to customers beginning March 2017 and, during its short run, the option had only been available to those who demonstrated to Coinbase that they had investment capital in excess of $5 million. After the crash, margin services were discontinued by Coinbase. According to a CFTC spokesperson that ETHNews has been in contact with, the commission will “decline to comment” on the possible unofficial investigation of Coinbase relative to the flash crash in June. ETHNews will provide additional coverage and updates to this story as tangible facts emerge. |
Mocking the GOP while standing up for the US Constitution and secular values, President Barack Obama declares that religious liberty never justifies denying an American their constitutional rights. Speaking at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in New York this weekend, Obama said: We affirm that we cherish our religious freedom and are profoundly respectful of religious traditions. But we also have to say clearly that our religious freedom doesn’t grant us the freedom to deny our fellow Americans their constitutional rights. And that even as we are respectful and accommodating genuine concerns and interests of religious institutions, we need to reject politicians who are supporting new forms of discrimination as a way to scare up votes. That’s not how we move America forward. Obama also mocked the GOP for being behind the times on same-sex marriage, chiding the party and its presidential candidates for continuing to hold out against marriage equality, even though a majority of the country now supports it, noting: The good news is they probably won’t use marriage equality as a wedge issue like they did in 2004 because the country has come too far. In fact, America has left the leaders of the Republican Party behind. Associated Press reports Obama’s remarks were interrupted by repeated applause and cheers. Huffington Post reports Obama celebrated his policy achievements that benefited LGBT Americans at the Democratic fundraiser, including his decision to overturn the military’s ban on openly gay soldiers, his executive order banning workplace discrimination against LGBT individuals employed by the federal government and federal contractors, as well as this year’s Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing gay marriage nationwide. During his remarks Obama noted that it will take time for some Americans to embrace LGBT rights, while showing scorn towards Republicans who cite religious freedom as a motive to deny rights to LGBT citizens. An optimistic Obama declared: Time after time, the cynics told us that we were foolish to keep believing, that we were naïve to hope, that change was too messy or not possible at all. And if you admit it, there were some in this room here who were skeptical that everything that needed to happen would happen. The cynics were wrong. Tonight, we live in an America where ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is something that ‘don’t exist.’ We live in an America where a growing share of older generations recognize that love is love, and younger generations don’t even know what all the fuss was about. And tonight, thanks to the unbending sense of justice passed down through generations of citizens who never gave up hope that we could bring this country closer to our founding ideals — that all of us are created equal — we now live in America where our marriages are equal as well. Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff in Obergefell v. Hodges, the legal case that led the Supreme Court in June to rule narrowly in favor of gay marriage, introduced Obama at the fundraiser. |
A retired NYPD detective was busted last night for posing as the director of a city agency in order to score free entry to a $1,100-a-seat awards dinner at a swank Midtown hotel, authorities said. Allen Caplan, 52, allegedly told officials at the Institutional Investor Magazine’s Second Annual U.S. Investment Management Awards, being held at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, that he was “David Kanovitz,” director of the Financial Information Services Agency (FISA). The evening honors financial professionals for their achievements in the investment field. There was just one big glaring hole in Caplan’s story: there is no “Kanovitz” at FISA and the agency had no reason to attend the ritzy gala, authorities said. Caplan, a 25-year vet who served from January 1984 through February 2009, was spied at the event by an undercover investigator identifying himself as “Kanovitz,” and sporting an ID badge with the same name on his jacket pocket. Caplan was so committed to the ruse that under questioning he allegedly told the undercover he was from the “City of New York.” Prior to the event, Caplan had sent an organizer an email identifying himself as “Kanovitz,” authorities said. Event officials reached out to FISA, who in turn notified the city’s Department of Investigation. Caplan was arrested early this morning and charged with attempted grand larceny and criminal impersonation. “The defendant fraudulently used the name of a City agency to gain free access to an expensive, private sector financial awards dinner, according to the criminal complaint. Impersonating a City official can have a variety of problematic consequences, which is why it is a crime,” said DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn. |
You know you are taking off in the Bolivia of President Evo Morales when the leaflet with the safety instructions pictures a woman with the quintessential Andean indigenous combination of pigtails and a flouncy skirt. Welcome on board Boliviana de Aviacion (BoA), Bolivia’s state-run airline. eTN Chatroom: Discuss with readers from around the world: “The aim is to democratize air travel, make it affordable for the majority of the people of this impoverished country,” explains Captain Juan Carlos Escobar at the cockpit of one of BoA’s four Boeing 737-300s – an aircraft known as the ‘money-maker’. A former flight commander in Lloyd Aereo Boliviano (LAB), which was the Andean country’s flagship airline until it went bankrupt in 2006, Escobar feels proud about flying for BoA. “We are showing the world that if a state-owned company is well-run, it can definitely be sustainable,” Captain Escobar says. Since taking office in January 2006, the left-wing Mr Morales has nationalised several utilities and commodities companies. The success of this increasingly state-run economy has been limited. There have been a number of management fiascos, most importantly at the state-run energy company, YPFB, and the economy is struggling to secure foreign investment. Against this backdrop, BoA seems a bright light. ‘Social responsibility’ Since its first flight in March 2009, BoA has taken on board several people that were part of LAB, an airline that in the 1970s and 1980s was highly regarded all over the world. Then LAB was partly privatised and mismanagements and accidents provoked its downfall. “After the fall of LAB we saw that the market had not only been monopolised but also drawn into a bad quality of service, with irrational prices. So we felt there was a problem, a need and that Bolivia needed some fairness,” Ronald Casso, BoA’s general manager tells the BBC. “We saw a business opportunity, one that would particularly benefit passengers. We took on the task of increasing the number of users through forms of social responsibility,” he says. “Basically by allowing air transport to be available for people who had never had the chance of flying, for people in a country with high levels of poverty who might be in desperate need of air transport – today it is crystal clear that more people are flying in Bolivia,” he says. And that is very evident at the arrivals gate. A first-time air traveller, Gavina Ortega, dressed in an indigenous outfit of bowler hat and thick skirt, emerges from the Cochabamba-La Paz flight and says that she is happy that BoA is in operation. “I now have an opportunity to fly, BoA is good and affordable. There is no other service of its kind here in Bolivia,” she says. More routes South America’s airline industry is marked by the examples of Chile’s Lan and Argentina’s Aerolineas. Lan offers an example of a path that a state-run airline can follow in order to become a world-class one. Aerolineas is an example of what not to do: it has fallen on hard times (and lost face) on several occasions in the recent past. BoA admits that it is sandwiched between those two examples. But that has not stopped it from deciding to add more aircraft and routes. It has recently started flying to Buenos Aires. It will soon start operations to Sao Paulo, with Lima to follow soon after. There is a possibility that flights to Miami and Madrid will follow. BoA started with only $15m (£9.8m) and with the aim of occupying the middle ground between low-cost airlines and regular commercial airlines with their excellent levels of service. Its managers say that, on the cost side, they closely followed the examples of Easyjet in the UK and Brazil’s Azul and, in terms of service, British Airways. BoA offers no business class, something that fits within its concept of democratising air travel in what is one of South America’s poorest countries. “For long flights, I do see the point [of business class]. In the case of short flights, business class is a form of discrimination, for some people to show off and others to feel inferior when the curtain in front of them closes off,” Mr Casso says. Before BoA took to the skies in March 2009, 1.2 million travellers passed through Bolivian airports a year. The entrance of BoA has opened 900,000 more seats. ‘Evo Airlines’ This transformation has caused a great deal of friction. BoA’s main rival, the privately-owned Aerosur (which BoA has accused of acting like a monopolist in the past) has been crying foul since BoA started operating. “BoA has put a lot of new seats into a market that does not need them. It has forced down prices by setting fares that are below costs thanks to government funding. That is called dumping and it is illegal. But because it is owned by this particular government, no one can say a thing,” says Gerardo Lopez, one of Aerosur’s senior managers. “What BoA is doing is to prostitute the market. And it is aimed at monopolising the market, personally by the president and its allies… This is a political battle because this government cannot stand private business,” he adds, explaining how the government’s watchdogs monitor them closely. Echoing Mr Lopez’s comments, some ironically refer to BoA as ‘Evo Airlines’. However, others see BoA as a necessity and an airline that is bound to grow. Among those is Nathalie Calenge, one of BoA’s air stewards and a former employee of Korean Air and Air France. “If we think that the country’s capital airport [located in the satellite city of El Alto] is crowned at just over 4,000m above sea level, Bolivia is very close to the sky,” she says. “So for BoA the sky cannot be the limit; the limit is far beyond.” |
The open-source Linux operating system contains a serious security flaw that can be exploited to gain superuser rights on a target system. The vulnerability, in the Linux implementation of the Reliable Datagram Sockets (RDS) protocol, affects unpatched versions of the Linux kernel, starting from 2.6.30, where the RDS protocol was first included. According to VSR Security, the research outfit that discovered the security hole, Linux installations are only vulnerable if the CONFIG_RDS kernel configuration option is set, and if there are no restrictions on unprivileged users loading packet family modules, as is the case on most stock distributions. Because kernel functions responsible for copying data between kernel and user space failed to verify that a user-provided address actually resided in the user segment, a local attacker could issue specially crafted socket function calls to write arbritrary values into kernel memory. By leveraging this capability, it is possible for unprivileged users to escalate privileges to root. The company has released a proof-of-concept exploit to demonstrate the severity of the vulnerability. The folks at The H Security tested the exploit on Ubuntu 10.04 (64-bit) and successfully opened a root shell. A fix for this issue has been committed by Linus Torvalds. VSR Security recommends that users install updates provided by downstream distributions or apply the committed patch and recompile their kernel. |
A retired refugee specialist with the Catholic Diocese of London is concerned an inaccurate email circulating since 2014 is leading to incidents of hate in Windsor and Essex County. The email falsely claims that refugees earn more each year than Canadian seniors living on pension income. Immigration Canada has refuted the claims, but Sister Helen Petrimoulx told several people at a meeting in Windsor Monday night that she had seen signs in Essex County perpetuating the falsehood. "Their yearly income for a single refugee is $6,960. A far cry from the $28,920 in these emails," she explained. Petrimoulx discussed the email during an event sponsored by Assumption University at the Hospice of Windsor and Essex County. Refugee cap a barrier to generosity She also spoke out against the federal government's new 1,000-person a cap on privately sponsored refugee applications. The director of the Refugee Ministry of the London Diocese in Windsor said his organization already has 401 applications, but will only be allowed to process 157 this year because of the new limit. "The cap is a barrier to the generosity of Canadians and the refugees that have come before and who badly wanted to be joined by the loved ones who were left behind in the same conditions they were in," said Gilbert Iyamuremye. The director added the refugee ministry has received four times more sponsored refugee claims last year than they do in a typical year. |
THE BELLWETHER SYNDICATE is the musical project of William Faith (of March Violets, Faith and the Muse, formerly of Christian Death, Shadow Project, Mephisto Walz, Sex Gang Children, etc.) and Sarah Rose Faith (aka DJ Scary Lady Sarah). In March of 2012, we launched our first Kickstarter to produce our debut EP The Night Watch. The Kickstarter was a major success for us, reaching our stretch goal of $11,000. The EP came out in February of 2013, and was followed by shows and touring in the U.S., as well as appearances in the UK and Germany. It was a blast. For quite some time now (years, actually), many of you have been asking when we would be doing a new album. We've always believed in producing music only when we have something to say. Now is that time -- and It's time to step it up. We're ready to do a new album. There are a few pieces of gear we want to add to our studio rig to make the recording better, and we're currently looking at a few different engineers to mix the album. We're excited by the new song ideas we have and can't wait to share them with you (including small runs of vinyl and CDs). We also want to back it up with some proper touring here at home, in Europe, Central and South America and beyond. We have a whole new show we want to take out on the road -- there's nothing we love more than connecting with you directly by playing live. It's why we do what we do. Our sincere thanks and deepest gratitude for your support -- you are the ones who make all this possible! All the love, William & Sarah ∞ P.S. - If you have any questions about any of the rewards, please contact us at info@thebellwethersyndicate.com -- What does your pledge go toward? • Gear: A few pieces of studio equipment to put the polish on our recording. • Mixing: We are currently looking at a few different options, but will ultimately select the person we feel can best express the ideas behind the songs. • Mastering: The album will be mastered by the best in the business, Joe Gastwirt in Oak Park, CA. • Artwork: Again, examining several options, but will go with the person who truly understands what we're conveying with this album. • Vinyl Pressing/Compact Disc duplication: Manufacture of short-run vinyl and CDs of album. • T-Shirts/Buttons/Stickers: Manufacture of merchandise. • Beyond... If we are fortunate enough to meet our goal, anything above and beyond that amount will go toward promotion of the album as well as further development of our live show and more touring. -- TIMELINE: • Friday, May 5: Our Kickstarter deadline hits. • May - December, 2017: We are in the studio working on this new album. • December 25, 2017: Everyone who pledged to our Kickstarter receives a digital download of the album, nearly 2 months ahead of the album release date of February 14, 2018 • December 31, 2017: We perform a New Year's Eve concert event here in Chicago, IL. • January, 2018: All physical product rewards go out, a month or more ahead of the album release date of February 14, 2018. • February 14, 2018: Official street/release date of our new album. Touring and events to follow. |
The best football talent Hong Kong’s youth has to offer will face the ultimate test as Manchester United Academy (MUA) is in town. Their U16 team will face the Hong Kong District All-Stars and the Hong Kong Football Academy U17 squad for friendly matches on August 16th and August 19th, respectively at Tsing Yi Sports Ground. MUA is one of the world’s premier football schools that has produced some of the sport’s greatest legends, including Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and David Beckham. So, the Hong Kong boys certainly have a tall task in front of them. The matches are part of the week-long Hong Kong Jockey Club Youth Football Academy Summit, where the MUA players will also train with their opponents and engage in cultural workshops; including a dumpling cooking lesson, lion dance and peak tram tour. It is the first time in Hong Kong for MUA coach Neil Ryan and co-captains Mason and Ben, whose full names cannot be released for legal reasons. They spoke to Young Post after a training session with the district all-stars. “When I found out we were coming here a few months ago, I was buzzing,” says Ben, a 16-year-old central defender. “To come here and represent Manchester United is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It’s hot and humid here, but it’s beautiful. I’m really enjoying it.” 16-year-old Mason says that, despite the language barrier, he enjoys training with Hong Kong’s local talent. “Everyone understands the language of football, so there was no trouble communicating with them on the pitch. I’d say they were good players, high-quality players and it was good to mix it up with them.” Training ends with a scrimmage to improve teamwork. Photo: Ben Young/SCMP He adds, however, that he believes MUA has the more disciplined squad. “I’d say we have a lot of focus, and we know what we’re doing in terms of positions and everything. I’m not sure about them.” It’s no secret that MUA will be the heavy favourites going into both matches. “As long as the game is competitive, I will be happy,” explains Sam Bensley, coach of the district all-stars. “These lads have dreamed of playing against Manchester United since they were young boys. They know it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I’m sure they will be up for the challenge.” Bensley adds that the team has been playing against Hong Kong’s senior teams to prepare for the MUA, whose players are much bigger and physically stronger. But coach Ryan has been around long enough to know you should never underestimate an opponent. “There’s no such thing as a ‘friendly’ match,” he says. “Our boys grew up knowing that every game we play, the opposition wants to get a win. It’s going to be high level opponents. We believe we’re going to have a tough test tomorrow, but we’re looking forward to it.” District all-stars captain, 17-year-old Chong Cheuk Wai confirmed that his team has every intention of winning. “Of course we want to beat Manchester United,” he said. “That was our objective 4 weeks ago and, since then our coaches and players have put in a lot of effort to improve the team’s chemistry and ability. So, our objective is still the same, to beat Manchester United.” Ben, who says he is fascinated by Hong Kong culture, has some advice for young aspiring footballers: “Whenever you step out onto the football pitch, go out there to impress yourself, and you’ll impress others,” he says. “You’ll keep getting a little better each time until eventually, you reach the top.” |
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