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by Jeff Flynt MADISON, WI (WTAQ) - Governor Scott Walker will have a primary challenge after all. The Government Accountability Board said Arthur Kohl-Riggs corrected problems with his nomination papers late Wednesday. And after being kept off the GOP ballot, he was put back on after having 182 more nominating signatures than the minimum. Kohl-Riggs is a long-time State Capitol protestor. He said he’s running in the May 8th GOP recall primary to force Republicans to vote for Walker, instead of voting in the Democratic primary to try and give the governor a weaker challenger in the general election on June 5th. As it stands now, two Republicans and five Democrats will be on the primary ballot in the governor’s contest. Michael Mangan was kept off the GOP ballot Wednesday for not having enough signatures. Kohl-Riggs originally had signatures struck because some sheets did not have the name of the person who collected them. He was given until Friday to correct the errors, but he got that done Wednesday. |
Buy Photo Former Las Cruces Police Officer Richard Garcia sits next to his attorneys, Jerome O’Connell, left, and Jess Lilley, during his trial Monday June 27, 2016. Garcia is accused of beating Ross Flynn in a police holding cell on Dec. 23, 2014. (Photo: Anayssa Vasquez / Sun-News)Buy Photo LAS CRUCES – Former Las Cruces police officers Richard Garcia and Danny Salcido, accused of beating Ross Flynn while he was handcuffed in a holding cell, will not face charges, according to documents filed late Wednesday in Third Judicial District Court. The office of Doña Ana County District Attorney Mark D’Antonio and state Attorney General Hector Balderas on Wednesday jointly filed a notice of nolle prosequi — a dismissal — with the court. The incident occurred on Dec. 23. 2014, and was captured on surveillance video. It shows Garcia and Salcido entering Flynn’s cell at the Las Cruces Police Department, where a physical struggle ensued. Flynn was pushed, kneed and slammed against a concrete wall by the officers. His skull was fractured in two places, and he sustained a brain hemorrhage. Garcia went to trial in July on charges of aggravated battery resulting in great bodily harm, but the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict, resulting in a mistrial. According to the jury votes, it appeared a majority of the jurors were in favor of acquitting Garcia. The jury foreman told Chief District Judge Fernando R. Macias, who presided over the trial, that 10 jurors had voted not guilty on the charge of aggravated battery resulting in great bodily harm. In a separate poll for the lesser charge of aggravated battery not resulting in great bodily harm, 11 jurors had voted not guilty, the foreman said. In filing the dismissal, Deputy District Attorney Davis R. Ruark cited the jury’s vote “decidedly in favor of acquittal” as a primary reason for not retrying Garcia or moving forward with Salcido’s trial. The decision was made jointly by the DA’s office and the AG’s office, the document states. “The evidence against Danny Salcido is virtually the same as was presented in the trial of Richard Garcia. Given the nature of the evidence, the State is unable to reasonably expect a different result,” the filing states. According to online court records, Salcido’s jury trial was scheduled to begin Dec. 5 with Macias presiding. The charges were dismissed without prejudice, which means they can be refiled in the future. Garcia and Salcido were fired by LCPD in May 2015 after an internal investigation. The incident began when Flynn was taken into custody after he was accused of threatening a woman with a firearm at an apartment complex in Las Cruces. He was detained after a combative encounter with several officers that culminated with him being shot with a Taser and he was later taken to LCPD headquarters. There, while still handcuffed with hands behind his back, he was placed inside a holding cell, where he made repeated complaints about back pain caused by the hand restraints. In one part of the video, Flynn, who had been outfitted with a belly chain in order to alleviate his back pain, can be seen kicking the door. Moments later, and after a brief exchange of words with Garcia and Salcido, the officers entered the cell, when the altercation ensued. In April of this year, Flynn was acquitted of the two assault charges but convicted on one misdemeanor count of resisting or evading arrest. He was sentenced in May to 364 days of supervised probation. Flynn and his Las Cruces attorneys, Jeff Lahann and Christopher Cardenas, are seeking a multimillion-dollar settlement in a federal lawsuit against LCPD, the former officers and the city of Las Cruces. Patrick Hayes, a spokesman for the DA’s office, confirmed the dismissal, but referred questions to the Attorney General’s office, which did not respond by press time. Attorneys for Flynn, Salcido and Garcia did not return calls and emails Friday seeking comment. Damien Willis may be reached at 575-541-5468, dawillis@lcsun-news.com or @damienwillis on Twitter. Read or Share this story: http://lcsun.co/2gpHIVF |
DC Comics April 2016 solicitations Credit: DC Comics Credit: DC Comics Batman writer Scott Snyder has announced that he will be leaving the title with April's #51. The writer revealed it in an interview with ComicVine discussing what readers can expect with March's Batman #50. "Just that Greg [Capullo] and I have had a blast together on this run. It’s our second to last issue together. 51 is my last issue as well on Batman," Snyder said. "For me, 50 is the quiet issue and 51 is really just a letter to the fans from us and a letter to Batman. It’s the lightest I’ve ever written. Not lightest as in happy but light as in not as many panels per page. It’s really really open. It’s a chance for Greg to draw the close before we take our break. 50 we wanted to be the opposite. We wanted it to be the most explosive, jam-packed sort of blockbuster crazed issue we’ve ever done. I hope it delivers in that regard." Snyder posted on Twitter that he's currently writing Batman #51. Truth: I've been delaying writing the last pages of Batman #51 - my final issue on the series & last comic w @GregCapullo for 6 months. — Scott Snyder (@Ssnyder1835) February 10, 2016 Capullo is leaving Batman to work on an as-yet-untitled creator-owned project with Mark Millar, but has confirmed that both he and Snyder have said they'll be working on an undisclosed DC project afterwards. |
Breaking its silence on the imposed on some 700 drugs clinically tested by Hyderabad-based GVK Biosciences, the (EU) on Friday clarified the move had neither to do with the efficiency of those drugs nor was it against the The ban, it said, was imposed due to "inaccurate data provided". "The decision concerning a on 700 generic drugs was based on scientific - and not trade - considerations, and in accordance with the advice of the scientific committee of the EMA (European Medicines Agency). Such procedures do not question the reputation of the companies or countries concerned, nor of generic medicinal products. These are integral part of a rigorous scientific assessment process," Cesare Onestini, acting head of the European Union's delegation to India, told Business Standard. He added that the scientific committee concerned had noted there was no evidence of harm or lack of effectiveness in the medicines. However, the committee believed provided "inaccurate data". QUESTION ON CREDIBILITY? EU official says scientific committee had noted there was no evidence of harm or lack of effectiveness in drugs from India had noted there was no evidence of harm or lack of effectiveness in drugs from India EU keen to continue work towards a successful conclusion of the proposed with India "This procedure is necessary for both ensuring patient safety and retaining the credibility of the robust EU marketing authorisation system… Similar necessary suspensions have occurred in different countries in the past," Onestini said. He added that the EU was keen to continue work towards a successful conclusion of its proposed (FTA) with India. On India deferring the talks between chief trade negotiators, Onestini said EU hoped "a solution will be found to the current deferral". The issue concerns an inspection of GVK Biosciences' site at Hyderabad in January this year, when French medicine agency (ANSM) had found "data manipulations of electrocardiograms (ECGs) during the conduct of some studies of generic medicines which appeared to have taken place over a period of at least five years", according to an EMA press release. Apparently, the EU did not plan to recall the medicinal products, many of which were still being sold in the European markets, another EU official said. The decision on whether a medicine is critical for patients is taken by the national authorities of EU member states. For medicines considered critical, companies are given 12 months to give additional data. The EU official, however, said the could only be lifted after a fresh round of inspection on the basis of a bioequivalence study conducted vis-à-vis the EU Reference Medicinal Product. "This means marketing authorisation holders have to conduct new bioequivalence studies, which many have already completed, so that the suspension for some will not be required, because marketing authorisation holders may have successfully completed the required bioequivalence study and therewith fulfil the conditions for lifting of the suspension. This is about reliability of some of the clinical records performed at one particular clinical trial site," the official said. India on Thursday said it was deferring the talks on with the EU because the 28-nation bloc had pointed a finger at the country's robust pharmaceutical industry. As a result, the talks that were supposed to be held here this month were indefinitely suspended. While the government has maintained that this was a negotiation round, the EU has said it is only aimed at taking stock of the negotiations that began in 2007. |
Water Cut-off in U.S. City Violates Human Rights, Say Activists UNITED NATIONS, Jun 19 2014 (IPS) - When the United Nations reaches out to resolve a water or sanitation crisis, it is largely across urban slums and remote villages in Asia, Africa or Latin America and the Caribbean. But a severe water crisis in the financially bankrupt city of Detroit in the U.S. state of Michigan has prompted several non-governmental organisations and activists to appeal for U.N. intervention in one of the world’s richest countries. “This is unprecedented,” said Maude Barlow, founder of the Blue Planet Project, a group that advocates water as a human right. “I visited the city and worked with the Detroit People’s Water Board several weeks ago and came away terribly upset,” she told IPS. "Water bills are regressive, so low-income households pay a disproportionate amount of their income for water service." -- Mary Grant, researcher at Food & Water Watch She pointed out that hundreds of thousands of people, mostly African Americans, are having their water ruthlessly turned off. Families with children, the elderly and the sick, cannot bathe, flush their toilets or cook in their own homes, she added. “This is the worst violation of the human right to water I have ever seen outside of the worst slums in the poorest countries in failed states of the global South,” said Barlow, a one-time senior advisor on water to a former President of the U.N. General Assembly. Last March, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) announced plans to shut off water service for 1,500 to 3,000 customers every week if their water bills were not paid. And on Tuesday, the City Council approved an 8.7-percent water rate increase. According to a DWSD document, more than 80,000 residential households – in a city of 680,000 people – are in arrears, with thousands of families without water, and thousands more expected to lose access at any moment. A group of NGOs has submitted a report to Catarina de Albuquerque, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, urging the United Nations to weigh in on the crisis and help restore water services and stop further cut-offs. In a joint report released Wednesday, the Detroit People’s Water Board, the Blue Planet Project, the Michigan Welfare Rights Organisation and Food and Water Watch made several recommendations, including an appeal to the state of Michigan and the U.S. government to respect the human right to water and sanitation. The report also calls on the city of Detroit to abandon its plans for further cut-offs and restore services to households that have suffered water cuts. Mary Grant, researcher at Food & Water Watch, an advocacy group based in Washington DC, told IPS people often think the United States has fully met the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and provides universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation. But as the crisis in Detroit shows, the situation is more complex and certain communities lack these essential services, she added. When the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Water visited the United States last year, Food & Water Watch wrote a report delineating violations of the human right to water and sanitation across the country, primarily in rural, Latino and immigrant, Native American and homeless communities. Grant said water shutoffs for non-payment are one way these violations are occurring. In Detroit and other cities, she pointed out, households can lose access to drinking water and wastewater service when they cannot afford to pay their water bills. The few low-income assistance programmes that exist are inadequate and fail to meet the needs of struggling households, she added. “Water bills are regressive, so low-income households pay a disproportionate amount of their income for water service. Unfortunately, water rates across the country are increasing.” She said there are many factors driving this: federal assistance for water infrastructure has been cut back by more than three-quarters since the 1970s, ageing systems are reaching the end of their lifespan, and water quality standards are getting stronger “as we learn more about the health risks of substances that contaminate our water.” Large cities, in particular, are struggling to maintain and modernise water systems without making water service unaffordable for their least well-off residents, said Grant. Food & Water Watch’s research has found that communities experience even larger water rate increases when systems are privatised. Grant said the shutoffs appear to be an attempt to make the water and sewer system more appealing to potential private investors. Over the last decade, Detroit residents have seen water rates rise by 119 percent, according to a press release Wednesday. With unemployment rates at a record high and the poverty rate at about 40 percent, Detroit water bills are unaffordable to a significant portion of the population. Many of those affected by the shut-offs were given no warning. “The infirm have been left without water and functioning toilets, children cannot bathe and parents cannot adequately prepare food for their families”, the press release said. Barlow told IPS Detroit is “the canary in the coal mine.” Through years of corruption and mismanagement, deep cuts to infrastructure and social security, the city is now bankrupt and unable to care for its people, she noted. And years of neoliberal policies such as free trade, de-regulation and privatisation have allowed the wealth to be diverted to the suburbs and jobs to move overseas. “Detroit is our collective future if we do not start re-investing in essential services, education and health care, local communities and sustainable local economic development,” said Barlow. She said, “What is happening with these cut-offs is a social crime.Here in North America we are creating failed states and punishing the most vulnerable among us with these ruthless polices of savage capitalism.” She said the city has experienced flight of wealth and business and as a result, the poorest and most vulnerable have had to pick up the tab for essential public services. “Water rates have gone through the roof and people cannot pay. Let Detroit be our wake-up call. President Barack Obama must step in,” Barlow pleaded. (END) |
The Associated Press reported just before Game 1 that Daniel Volquez, 63, had died after battling heart disease in the Dominican Republic. Yost said after the game that it wasn't his place to tell Edinson Volquez about his father — but was worried his pitcher might find out somehow given how the news was already circulating. FOX Sports did not report the death during its game broadcast out of fear Volquez might see the program while in the clubhouse, according to one of the network's reporters. A contingency plan was put in place in case Volquez couldn't pitch. Yost said he went to Chris Young — whose father died in September — and told him "to be ready" in case Volquez found out before hitting the mound. "You know how tough that can be," he explained. "It's a very, very tough thing, especially right before you're about to go out and pitch — it'd be almost impossible to do that in Game 1 of the World Series." Yost said it was hard to watch Volquez pitch six innings, knowing what only a few in the dugout were aware of. "I mean, it's his first start in a World Series game, and his dad isn't watching," Yost said, according to MLB.com. "It was hard for me to know what I knew, and to see him compete the way that he competed. It's just hard." Volquez pitched six innings — and was given the news after he left the mound, joining family members in the clubhouse. He left the stadium before the game ended, according to Yost. Most of Volquez's teammates were also in the dark, according to The Associated Press. "I found out in, I think it was the 14th inning, right before we won the game," left-fielder Alex Gordon said according to the news agency. "I was standing next to Ned and he told me, he said, 'Let's win this game for Volquez.'" The Royals defeated the Mets 5-4 in the 14th inning. |
The Slate Book Review and the Center for Cartoon Studies are proud to announce the nominees for the first Cartoonist Studio Prizes. The winner in each of our two categories will be announced on March 1; each winner will receive $1,000 and, of course, eternal glory. The shortlists were selected by Slate Book Review editor Dan Kois, the faculty and students at the Center for Cartoon Studies, and this year’s guest judge, legendary New Yorker art editor Françoise Mouly. The Cartoonist Studio Prize for Best Graphic Novel of the Year: 2012 Shortlist The 10 nominees for best graphic novel of the year include ambitious, medium-challenging work from respected comics veterans and accomplished, genre-defying comics from newcomers. These 10 books—some experimental, some traditional, and all remarkable—represent some of the best that comics had to offer in 2012 for readers of all ages. Lilli Carré for Heads or Tails, a collection of dreamy, unsettling short stories whose beautiful artwork varies from lush black and white to evocative color. Published by Fantagraphics. Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido for Blacksad: A Silent Hell, a gritty, gorgeously drawn noir set in New Orleans, where a feline detective must solve the case of a missing pianist. Published by Dark Horse. Advertisement Tom Gauld for Goliath, a deadpan retelling of the Biblical story of David that employs the cartoonist’s signature stick-figure style to tell a deceptively complex, moral tale. Published by Drawn and Quarterly. Brandon Graham for King City, a graffiti-inspired catpunk adventure in which every sci-fi frame teems with jokes, Easter eggs, and treats for the eye. Published by Image. Jesse Jacobs for By This Shall You Know Him, a visionary, funny, obscene look at the creation of the world as seen through the eyes of squabbling cosmic gods. Published by Koyama Press. Na Liu and Andres Vera Martinez for Little White Duck: A Childhood in China, an understated, clear-eyed, all-ages memoir about Liu’s life in Wuhan in the 1970s. Published by Graphic Universe. Advertisement Luke Pearson for Hilda and the Midnight Giant, a whimsical, all-ages folk tale about a plucky little girl whose family is evicted from their home by invisible elves. Published by Nobrow Press. Chris Ware for Building Stories, a hugely ambitious epic (in 14 individually bound pieces) of the life and times of a single apartment building and its residents—from the elderly landlady to a lowly bee. Published by Pantheon. Julia Wertz for The Infinite Wait and Other Stories, a bracing set of sharp-witted autobiographical strips that chronicle, among other things, her battle with systemic lupus. Published by Koyama Press. Frank M. Young and David Lasky for The Carter Family: Don’t Forget This Song, the story of the first great family of country music, whose vivid storytelling is backed up by copious historical research. Published by Abrams ComicArts. Advertisement --- The Cartoonist Studio Prize for Best Web Comic of the Year: 2012 Shortlist Advertisement The 10 nominees for best online comic of 2012 range from wildly popular online comic strips to deeply weird experimental graphic stories. All of them, though, utilize the unique properties of the Web to deepen their storytelling, whether through the accretion of detail that daily publishing allows or through innovative programming and design that could only happen online. Ryan Andrews forSarah and the Seed, an elegant, ever-surprising story of a married couple who discover, late in life, that they are pregnant. Read it here. Gabrielle Bell for Lucky, her ongoing diary comic that explores, in oft-uncomfortable detail, the ups and downs of a life lived in creative pursuits. Read it here. Boulet for Bouletcorp, his frequently updated collection of quasi-autobiographical absurdity and pop-culture quandaries, translated from the French. Read it here. Advertisement Vince Dorse for Untold Tales of Bigfoot, an engaging ongoing story “for grown-ups and kids” about a lost dog and the lonely Yeti who becomes his friend. Read it here. Patrick Farley for The First Word, a jaw-dropping comic that tells a primal story through photorealistic, technologically adept means. Read it here. Dakota McFadzean for The Dailies, a cleverly drawn daily strip that explores the boundaries of reality in quirky, occasionally shocking ways. Read it here. Randall Munroe for xkcd, his long-running strip that mixes science jokes, sharp-edged social criticism, and the occasional burst of wide-eyed wonder. Read it here. Advertisement Winston Rowntree for Subnormality, a wild and wordy ongoing comic, drawn with a level of detail and a visual energy that can strain your typical browser windows. Read it here. Noelle Stevenson for Nimona, a funny, frisky twice-weekly series about a medieval supervillain and the exasperating young woman he takes on as his sidekick. Read it here. Jillian Tamaki for SuperMutant Magic Academy, a boarding-school drama laced with the supernatural, told in a style ranging from brusque to arch and dreamy style. Read it here. Congratulations to all 20 of our nominees. We’ll announce the winners in the March issue of the Slate Book Review. |
The apparent ease with which London could be attacked by bombers was a cause of anger embarrassment for the authorities and anger among the population. The July 7th attacks were a prime example of this. By 1917, the German Zeppelins had been replaced by Gotha bombers, which were again able to spread terror and destruction around the capital. On 7 July 1917, London was attacked by 22 Gotha bombers, which arrived over the east coast, formed up over Epping Forest and proceeded to bomb the East End and the City of London – in all 57 people were killed. The raid caused great anger about the lack of proper warnings and the lack of effective defences. It prompted another big anti-German riot, just as the sinking of the Lusitania had sparked off the mass rioting and looting in May 1915. There were many different experiences of the raid. This post will take a brief look at three of them: First there were the observers – the people who watched the air but were not directly affected. In the air raids of the Great War, there were a great number of these – partly because the scale of the physical destruction was limited and because many people remained out in the street during these raids. In the 7 July 1917 raid, many people assumed that the raiders were actually British aircraft until the bombs actually started falling. Those watching saw something that looked like a flock of birds. Georgina Lee described it in her diary ‘as I turned into Berkeley Gardens the report [i.e. sound] of a gun rattled through the air followed by another and another. Looking skywards I saw a sight I shall never forget. Coming towards me from the north east, like huge brown birds, was a flock of aeroplanes.’ In their report of it the Times told its readers: As a spectacle, the raid was the most thrilling that London has seen since the air attacks began. Every phase could be followed from points many miles away without the aid of glasses [i.e. binoculars or a telescope], and hundreds of thousands of people watched the approach of the squadron, the dropping of the bombs, the shelling of the German aeroplanes [by anti-aircraft guns] and the eventual retreat The second experience is that of those on the receiving end of the raid: Neil Hanson (in his book The First Blitz) quotes a number of eyewitnesses who saw their houses and neighbourhood buildings destroyed. One report he quotes comes from the account given by an a lad working in an office near Tower Hill, who witnessed the effect of a bomb that fell a hundred yards from his office building. A described: a blinding flash, a chaos of breaking glass, and the air thick-yellow dust and fumes. Five men had been struck by bomb fragments and a boy of my own age, also hit, died in the afternoon. Outside was a terrible sight, the horses twisted and mangled (the carts had disappeared except for a few burning bits of debris), the front of the office next door, which had caught the full force, blown clean away. They brought into our building people from the ruins there and I helped to carry them – it was a relief to do something. All the unfortunates had ghastly wounds. I had never seen a dead man before and I was too dazed to realise until afterwards that they must have been stone dead. A fireman, with his axe, put the last horse out of its anguish. The curious thing is that I did not hear the bomb at all and yet I was quite deaf for three days. Another building that was hit was the General Post Office building in St Martin-le-Grand, the roof of which was set of fire (see IWM picture here). The third experience is that of the airmen who struggled – largely in vain – to fight off the raiders. Ninety-five British aircraft were apparently sent up to tackle the Gothas. The aircraft (including James McCudden the great air ace) and the anti-aircraft guns together had little impact, only managing to bring down one of the enemy machines before they escaped over the Channel The British aircraft followed them there and continued their attack but without any further success. The British, however, lost at least two aircraft and three young airmen. Among those British airmen were JER Young and CC Taylor, who together chased the Gothas out to sea but were brought down either by the combined fire of the Gothas’ gunners or by British anti-aircraft gunfire, depending whose reports you believe. John ER Young, the pilot, grew up in Streatham and went to the Grammar School there before going to work at the British Bank of Northern Commerce. He joined the Artists’ Rifles in the ranks in June 1916 and was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Flying Corps in February 1917. His body was not pulled from his crashed aeroplane before it sank, so his headstone in Southend cemetery was placed ‘in memory of’ the pilot, with an inscription noting that his body was not recovered. His observer was Cyril C Taylor, whose body was recovered from the wreck and he was buried in West Hamstead Cemetery on 14 July – suggesting that he too was a Londoner, who died in defence of his home. All in all, the event highlighted the exposure of London to raids by aeroplanes after the Zeppelins had been fought off in 1916. The expulsion of the capitals few remaining Germans was demanded by angry crowds. More practically, better defences and better warning systems were also demanded – the warning devices seen in a previous post on this blog largely came in the weeks after the 7 July 1917 air raid. ____________________ Quotations from Home Fires Burning: diary of Georgina Lee (ed Royndon) and First Blitz by Neil Hanson (which also tells the story and context of the raid well). 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A comprehensive timeline of Jonny Gomes pitching one of the greatest innings in history With the way the 2015 season has gone, you may have assumed you'd seen about all the different position player pitching archetypes there are to see. But with the Braves down big to the Yankees on Friday, we all learned a valuable lesson: You have not lived until you've seen Jonny Gomes pitch. Gomes is the Platonic ideal of the position player pitcher -- the beard, the unbuttoned jersey, the sure-why-not ethos that results from surviving five different brushes with death. And when the moment of truth finally arrived, oh man, did Jonny Gomes not disappoint. Over the course of one glorious inning, he flinched, kicked, flailed, hat-tipped and occasionally pitched his way into our hearts, and to commemorate this historic moment, we've compiled this exhaustive timeline: - The very first hitter he faced, Chris Young, promptly launched one out to left, and Gomes seemed legitimately surprised by how frightening home runs are when you aren't hitting them. Still, he remains gracious enough to tip his cap in a sign of mutual respect: - Gomes very nearly plunks the next batter, John Ryan Murphy, but narrowly avoids disaster, willing the ball back towards the plate with some body English roughly akin to being caught in a wind tunnel. - Gomes proceeds to give up consecutive doubles. - Gomes bears down, inducing two flyouts and looking to escape the jam. The man standing in his way? A pitcher -- seriously, Yankees reliever Bryan Mitchell actually came up for an at-bat. The battle waged for hours on end, with Gomes adding some aerobic exercises to help the cause: - He even went full Luis Tiant, because he is nothing if not a giant kid getting live out all of our wildest dreams and seriously, why not: And finally, just when it seemed the bizarro world struggle of position player v. pitcher would never come to an end, Gomes came through. PLAY US OFF, JONNY: There you have it. We laughed, we cried, we questioned our very existence. Petition to institute the Jonny Gomes Pitching Stimulus Package one per season. |
Rendering of the planned Boston Celtics practice facility at Boston Landing (Photo from NB Development Group) BOSTON (CBS) — The Boston Bruins made some news in the summer of 2014 when they announced they’d be moving into a new practice facility in the yet-to-be-built area known as Boston Landing. And now, they’ll have some company. The Celtics announced on Tuesday that they’ll be building their own “world-class” practice facility at Boston Landing in the Allston-Brighton neighborhood. Construction for the Celtics’ facility is set to begin this upcoming fall, with a scheduled completion in the spring of 2018. ”We are proud to team with New Balance Development in the creation of a best-in-class athletic training and practice facility that will provide Celtics players, coaches, and training staff with the resources, technology, and programming to compete at the highest level in an increasingly competitive NBA landscape,” said Rich Gotham, president of the Boston Celtics. “The Boston Landing location will bring us closer to our game day home at the TD Garden while providing high impact brand visibility.” The Celtics’ plans include a very green addition alongside the Mass Pike, as the team announced that the Celtics’ 17 NBA championship banners will be “highly visible” from the highway through a 40-foot glass wall enclosing the practice courts. In addition, the Celtics’ plans for the new facilities include: –Two state-of-the-art parquet floor basketball courts where the team will practice –Leading edge audio-visual technology throughout the facility –Expanded strength and conditioning, training, and recovery facilities –Best-in-class locker rooms and players’ lounge –Physical therapy areas including hydrotherapy pools –Sports science and nutrition facilities –Expanded media work room, press conference and broadcast facilities –A flexible hospitality area for guests and hosting community relations activities –Work space for the team’s coaching and basketball front office staffs The Celtics have practiced at Healthpoint in Waltham since 1999. The Bruins are set to open their practice facility in the same area this summer. |
The Boston Red Sox reportedly completed a blockbuster deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers, but that trade might not signal the end of their housecleaning. The team also has placed lefthander Jon Lester and center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury on trade waivers, according to The Boston Globe. The deal that would send first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, left fielder Carl Crawford, righthander Josh Beckett and infielder Nick Punto to the Dodgers is done, according to a Boston Herald report. At this time, Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington could turn his attention to Lester and Ellsbury. Ellsbury, 28, finished second in the AL MVP voting last season but has missed much of this season because of a shoulder injury suffered in April. In 46 games this season, he is hitting .262 with a homer, 14 RBIs, seven stolen bases and a .308 on-base percentage. He is under team control through the 2013 season and eligible for arbitration after this season. Lester, 28, has disappointed this season with an 8-10 record and 4.98 ERA in 26 starts. In the previous four seasons, he averaged 16 wins and never posted an ERA above 3.47. He will make $11.625 million next season, and his contract includes a $13 million team option for 2014. If a team claims Lester or Ellsbury, Boston would be in the same position it was in with Gonzalez and Beckett. It would have 48 hours to either trade the player to the team awarded the waiver claim, simply allow the claiming team to take the player and his remaining salary, or pull the player off waivers. If Lester and/or Ellsbury clear waivers, the Red Sox would be free to trade them to any team. |
As Frank and Sue grapple with money troubles, the Murphy kids face fresh humiliations and confusing rites of passage. 1. Heavy Sledding 27m As Frank stews over his lost job, Sue tries to lighten the mood with a family sledding trip. But the outing brings on more headaches. 2. A Girl Named Sue 26m Frank's big meeting doesn't play out quite like he expected. Fed up with plasticware parties, Sue begins to fantasize about a change. 3. The Liar's Club 27m Sue discovers a major downside of office life, Frank sucks it up for a trip to the unemployment line, and Kevin finally gets a space of his own. 4. Night Shift 27m As Frank scrambles to prove himself at a new job, Kevin and his band plot to get their song on the radio. Sue has a Plast-a-Ware brainstorm. 5. Breaking Bill 28m Kevin's dreams of rock stardom stir up trouble at home. A setback the day before hockey tryouts pushes Bill over the edge. Sue gives her big pitch. 6. This Is Not Good 28m Frank's job takes him back to the airport, with awkward results. Kevin prepares for his date with "haircut girl." Bill revels in his new outlaw ways. 7. Fight Night 26m Sue meets with the queen of Plast-a-Ware and plans a romantic night out with Frank. But a call from Maureen's school triggers a family meltdown. 8. F Is for Fixing It 25m As Sue and Frank try to hash things out, Kevin is wracked with guilt over the incident at Vic's. Bill comes face to face with his old nemesis. 9. Pray Away 28m A couple's retreat leads to a moment of truth for Frank and Sue. Bill and Phillip hatch a plan to deal with Jimmy. Surprises abound at Vic's party. |
London Court Sentences Men to 15 Years in Prison for Using Dark Web Three London men will spend a total of 15 years in prison after a court found them guilty of buying illegal guns on the dark web. Also read: Jihan Wu: Bitmain Office Vandalized by Core ‘Storm Trooper’ London Men Buy Guns on the Dark Web London’s anti-terror police force found illegal firearms owned by Abdullah and Adam Ali, and Roman Nikolajevs in November 2015. The three men pleaded guilty to charges brought against them, and the court finally sentenced them in May — each man will spend 5 years in prison. According to the Evening Standard, Adam Ali attempted to purchase a gun from the dark web, with his brother Abdullah succeeding in obtaining a firearm. Then Nikolajevs reportedly tested the gun for the brothers, becoming a partner in the brothers’ illegal activity. When anti-terror police raided the brothers’ home, the Standard reported, they found a Hungarian FEG 9mm pistol, parts of an AK47, and ammunition. According to information presented to the court, the pistol was deactivated when Abdullah purchased it from the dark web, and the three men had managed to reactivate it. In addition to the illegal weapons, police found gunpowder ingredients, a bulletproof vest and books on manufacturing guns and ammunition. Police also found digital media containing a US Army survival guide and more documentation on manufacturing weapons and explosives. Dark Web Often a Source of Supplies for Criminals Since the takedown of the Silk Road dark web market in 2013, the underground section of the internet has exploded with illicit activity. While illegal drugs and firearms seem to be the main source of business on the dark web, criminals can trade stolen information as well. For example, according to an April report by IBM Security, tax fraud increased greatly thanks to the dark web. Hackers would steal tax information — such as social security numbers and income statements — and sell them to fraudsters on the deep web. Those fraudsters then use the information to file fake tax returns, which often result in them receiving tax refunds from the IRS. Since the discovery of the original Silk Road market, law enforcement across the globe have initiated efforts to catch criminals using the deep web. Are you worried about criminals using the dark web to purchase weapons? Share your thoughts down below. Images via Pixabay, the Evening Standard |
How many marksmen does it take to kill an elephant? The Cincinnati Zoo needed two firing squads to execute Old Chief in 1890. Chief was a murderer, true, but that was part of his allure. The Zoo knew what it was getting when the John Robinson Circus convinced the Zoo to take the cantankerous pachyderm off their hands. Chief was a big draw for a solid year at the Zoo. A typical advertisement cajoled Cincinnatians to “Go Out to the ZOO To-Day and take in the new Baboon, the big bad Elephant “CHIEF” and the comical half-human chimpanzees ‘Mr. and Mrs. Rooney’.” The Zoo knew that Chief had killed his keeper in 1881 when the Robinson Circus passed through Charlotte, North Carolina. They knew that Chief often made his escape from the Robinson stables on Poplar Street, rampaging through the West End. They knew that Chief was known to throw bricks and chunks of coal at his keepers. They knew that Gil Robinson had even floated the idea to publicly electrocute the “notoriously dangerous beast.” Instead, in April 1889, Chief marched from the West End to a new home at the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens. Chief was a big draw, indeed. But Chief was too much mischief for the zoo to contain. The Cincinnati Commercial Gazette described Chief’s escalating temper. “On Monday he buried his tusks into the flooring of his quarters and ripped it up, throwing pieces around in every direction. Late in the afternoon, as his keeper passed by him, he cast a large plank at him and a few minutes after he grabbed a dog that happened to run through the quarters and hurled him up against the roof with great force.” On the evening of Tuesday, 9 December 1890, Zoo president Adam E. Burkhardt gave permission to euthanize the big elephant. Adolph Drube, a military marksman, fired eleven shots from a Springfield rifle, at point blank range, into Chief’s head. By all reports, Chief’s temperament actually improved noticeably. He was otherwise unaffected by the gaping wound in his forehead and remained very much alive. The next day, Wednesday 10 December 1890, the Zoo assembled a small firing squad of local marksmen to finish the job. Al Bandle, Hi Nieman and William Crosby, each armed with a .45 caliber Sharps military rifle, boarded an electric car with Zoo Superintendent Sol A. Stephan and raced to the elephant house. A crowd of estimated at a hundred or more gathered to watch. Stephan decided that it was too difficult to penetrate Chief’s cranium, so he painted a white circle behind the elephant’s left foreleg, indicating the general location of the heart. The three riflemen lined up, took aim and fired one volley, to no effect. They fired again, and then a third time. A fourth volley sent only two bullets into Chief’s body because one of the rifles misfired. At this point Bandle stepped closer and aimed a shot behind Chief’s ear. He fired and Chief “uttered a terrible screech.” It was, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported, “… his death yell. Those who heard it will never forget it. This shot settled him and the vicious beast fell on his left side, almost rolling onto his back, shaking the wooden building. There was a yell of triumph from the crowd.” The Commercial Gazette was disgusted. “It was a bungling piece of work all the way through and reflects no credit upon Supt. Stephan, or the Zoological Garden. The big beast was tortured unnecessarily. ” Yet Chief faced further indignities. The crowd of people filling the elephant house had to be shooed off because several tried to carve souvenirs from Chief’s ears. A full dissection was undertaken the next day under the knife of Lawrence A. Anderson. Described by the newspapers as “a well known veterinary,” Doctor Anderson was the inspector for the Queen City Mutual Live Stock Insurance Company. Charles Dury, later president of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, took measurements as he prepared the remains for taxidermy by Ward’s Natural Science Establishment. Charles E. Mirguet of Ward’s arrived later in the day to begin preservation of the skin and bones. Everyone wanted a piece of Chief. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that “There was a great rush for steaks and tenderloins and there were thirty-five baskets in Herr Schmidt’s cellar belonging to persons who desired to eat elephant meat. W.K. Limbers secured a piece of the tusk, Dr. Anderson an eye, Mr. Spaeth a tenderloin. The tenderloin measured six feet. ” On the evening of Friday, 12 December, a group of reporters from the Commercial Gazette and the Enquirer convened at S.A. Morrow’s Restaurant on Vine Street for a dinner of elephant steaks. The chef for the evening was Morrow’s manager, Colonel Jones Rockwell, noted for his experience dining on exotic animals such as rattlesnake and rat. Colonel Rockwell sliced up a five-pound steak, seasoned it well and broiled some of it before a slow fire while frying the rest. The Commercial Gazette reported: “In the cooking, the little steaks shriveled up at an alarming rate. When it was ready for the table it resembled very much a piece of well-done liver. The guests ate sparingly of Old Chief at the banquet, for it was noticeable that not more than a nibble was taken from any one steak.” The New York Times reported that the Palace Hotel also offered elephant that week: “On the bill of fare of the Palace, Cincinnati, one day last week there appeared the rather unusual dainty, “loin of elephant.” It was, in fact, a part of Chief, the vicious elephant who was shot in the Cincinnati Zoological Garden and was not bad eating as some of the force of this office can testify. It was without exception the best roast elephant that any of us had ever tasted.” Chief’s skeletal remains were reassembled and his stuffed skin prepared for display. The Cincinnati Zoological Gardens maintained the exhibit for at least a decade, a 1900 guidebook titled Studies in Zoology: Cincinnati Zoological Gardens, records that Chief was still at the zoo. Chief was later donated to the University of Cincinnati and later to the Cincinnati Museum Center. |
VANCOUVER -- There is no mistaking Annette O’Shea’s passion for the water, for healthy living, competition, progress and community interaction. The former semi-pro beach volleyball player turned competitive rower, fully embraces the work-hard, play hard-lifestyle, whether it’s steering her team’s boat in international championships, or keeping Yaletown’s Business Improvement Association on the straight and narrow as its executive director. Now in her 10th year with the not-for-profit Yaletown office, O’Shea has been part of an intriguing transition, watching as the formerly grungy warehouse district blossomed into a fashionable Vancouver neighbourhood that now boasts 900 businesses, 84 restaurants, 7,000 employees, 20,000 residents and approximately 80,000 tourist visits a year. There are critics, of course, with some suggesting on social media (where else?) that the former Expo 86 playground is over-hyped, over-priced, not fun, pretentious and the home of patronizing people with over-pampered pooches. O’Shea has heard all that, but puts more stock in feedback from worldly people who say the trendy area reminds them of Manhattan’s colourful SoHo district, how safe and well-lit Yaletown is at night and how there is much more sophistication in the area that’s filled with world-class chefs, leading fashions, farmers markets and owner-operated shops and studios. “I’m proud, and not afraid, to say that Yaletown is so far ahead of the mainstream that it would take mainstream forever just to catch up,” said O’Shea. “We’re not edgy anymore. We’re a happening place filled with talented people doing incredible things on the world stage.” Here is an edited version of our discussion: Q: With 84 restaurants in a six-block area, the competition for the consumer dollar must be intense. A: First of all, the food is great. And 84 is double the number we had six years ago. And the chefs not only compete to serve the best dishes, but they have this attitude like ‘I want you to talk about this meal and take pictures of it!’ In October, we’ll hold our 11th Taste of Yaletown and the food just keeps getting better. This year we’ll add eight new restaurants to the festival. For a lot of chefs, they look at New York, Vegas and Yaletown as the places they want on their resumes. Q: Do you think that many of your ‘upstairs’ Yaletown businesses are doing things that would surprise a lot of Vancouver residents? A: For sure. We have award-winning creative studios — Sony, MPC, United Front Games, for example — and global, leading-edge software developers who are already developing ‘the next thing.’ We also have studios where influential architects and graphic design firms, with lots of vision and energy, are also designing ‘the next thing.’ Hall of fame chefs, leading edge fashion boutiques and even Oscar-winning special effects studios call Yaletown home. Q: Does Yaletown have any shortcomings? A: Our transportation plan is in dire need of immediate attention. I was very disappointed when the recent transit referendum failed, mostly because there didn’t seem to be a Plan B. There is no late-night bus service in our area, which becomes a bigger problem during the rainy months. You look at Yaletown at night and you see all the studio lights on where creative people work. Transit needs to catch up. |
All the events and releases in Bank of England's (BOE) "Super Thursday" is done with. After lot of volatility net result is FTSE is marginally down, Gilts are up, pushing yields down and Pound is down -0.50% against Dollar. BOE governor Mark Carney's speech revealed the dilemma faced by the central bank. At one hand Bank of England (BOE) officials trying to tackle stronger Pound. Mark Carney said that Pound's strength is likely to cause downside pressure on inflation and it is likely to influence actions of the bank. On the other, BOE officials are clearly preparing market for rate hike. After last month's hawkish comments, Mr. Carney said that Sterling strength will remain a policy consideration and even considering it there are clearly need to raise rates as private sector growth remain robust. Pound is currently trading at 1.552 against Dollar. While first rate hike is likely to keep pound well bid, it will keep facing counter attack and comments from BOE officials to push it down, which might be a drag against sharp rise in Pound exchange rate. |
Spread the love Durham, NC — A chaotic scene was captured on video last week as officers broke into a home without a warrant after they smelled marijuana and assaulted the occupants. By the way the police handled the situation, one would think that they were dealing with a cult of murderers or child snatchers. However, they were merely seeking out a plant that is legal in some form in over half of the United States. As the video begins, there is screaming on both sides. One young man walks by limping, claiming that officers beat him with a club. Another man is heard claiming that an officer struck him with a gun. As officers trample throughout the house in their asinine and tyrannical search for a plant, tensions rise once again. Within seconds, the woman filming, Vera McGriff was thrown to the ground, tasered and police were drawn down on all the occupants. The sound of tasers can be heard multiple times. “We all sat in handcuffs for 4-5 hours while they waited for the search warrant …Everybody was tased, one officer hit my son in the face with his Glock 9, we were choked, kicked, thrown down on the floor,” McGriff wrote in a Facebook note accompanying the video. According to the DPD, they claim two officers were assaulted. However, this was not captured on the video. DPD public affairs manager Wil Glenn told the INDY that the officers—part of the DPD’s High Enforcement Abatement Team (HEAT) unit—were following up on a previous drug arrest at the home. When they smelled marijuana, they “secured the residence,” Glenn says. Apparently, breaking into a home and attacking people, who have caused no harm to anyone else, in search of a plant — is the proper way to “secure the residence.” According to Glenn, Khadir Cherry tried to grab an officer’s weapon and refused to obey lawful orders, and Raynell Hall struck an officer in the shoulder. Again, none of this was seen on video. The INDY reports Cherry was arrested and charged with two counts of possession with intent to manufacture, sell and/or distribute; maintaining a dwelling; two counts of assault on a government official; resisting a public officer; and possession of marijuana paraphernalia. Hall was charged with assault on a government official and resisting a public officer. Another person in the home, Jahmon Cedeno was also arrested and charged with assault on a government official. McGriff, the homeowner, was charged with maintaining a dwelling and resisting a public officer. Sadly, incidents like this one play out every hour of every day in homes across America. The people inside that Durham home had harmed no one, yet a group of armed men broke into their house, assaulted, kidnapped, and caged them — and society will refer to those men as heroes. Who, exactly, are the police officers in the video below protecting? Who is served by their actions? |
When you’re studying the behaviour of animals, it’s pointless to look for motives like “truth-seeking” and “compassion.” Animals aren’t interested in discovering the truth and Making the World a Better Place. They’re interested in survival — in eating and not being eaten. “All white women are only good for one thing…” Something similar applies when you’re studying the behaviour of liberals. Whatever they might claim, they’re not interested in truth or world-improvement: they’re interested in power — in dominating and not being dominated. As I pointed out in “The Silent Sisterhood,” feminists prefer to ignore sex-crimes committed by non-White men, because such crimes contradict their insistence on the Omnipotent Evil of the Stale Pale Male. Now more proof of feminist double-standards has arrived, because another Muslim rape-gang has hit the headlines in Brave New Britain. Newcastle, in north-east England, was the vibro-centre this time. Seventeen Muslim men from “backgrounds” of dazzling diversity — “Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, Iraqi, Iranian and Turkish” — have been found guilty of the “rape and human trafficking” of more than 200 “vulnerable women and girls.” One of those men, Badrul Hussain, is reported to have espoused a shockingly toxic mixture of racism, misogyny and male supremacism. His alleged words, addressed to a White female ticket-inspector, should have set feminist keyboards rattling right around the world. They went like this: “All white women are only good for one thing. For men like me to fuck and use like trash. That’s all women like you are worth.” “Horrific, yet tragically familiar…” It’s hard to imagine a clearer expression of Patriarchal Toxicity or a more unrepentant celebration of Rape Culture. Those words were alleged by the ticket-inspector at one of the four trials required to deal with the large gang and its many offences. Have feminists followed their own principles and believed a female witness without question? Have they been condemning Hussain’s Hate ever since it first met their appalled gaze? In fact, they’ve ignored it. After the ludicrously implausible “gang-rape on broken glass” allegations at the University of Virginia in 2014, the feminist Jessica Valenti insisted at the Guardian that “Rolling Stone’s rape story is about a person — and I believe her.” Jessica and her “This Week in Patriarchy” column haven’t bothered with Hussein’s Hate and the years of real, fully proven rape in Newcastle. Nor has the rape-fest been discussed in the Guardian’s special sections for “Women” and “Rape and Sexual Assault.” After all, the U-VA allegations were directed at Stale Pale Males. The proven rapists in Newcastle are Males of Vibrancy. It makes all the difference. But the Guardian couldn’t ignore what happened in Newcastle, because it has been reported too widely elsewhere. As the Feminist of Color Sonia Sodha lamented, “It’s a horrific, yet tragically familiar, story that has played itself out in every corner of the country, from Rotherham and Rochdale to Oxford and Bristol.” Hand-wringing vs honesty Can you feel vibrant Sonia’s concern and compassion for the non-vibrant victims in all those places? I hope so: as “chief leader writer at the Observer,” the Sunday version of the Guardian, she is an expert at hand-wringing and virtue-signalling. But I suggest she isn’t so good at logic and honesty. The headline to her piece ran like this: “Victims of child abuse gangs are the first to suffer — and the last to get our attention.” But why have the victims been ignored for so long? The Labour MP Ann Cryer could have helped Sonia answer that question. When Cryer learned “almost 15 years” ago that Muslim rape-gangs were at work in her heavily enriched constituency in Yorkshire, she tried to publicize what was going on: Once I had overcome my initial disbelief that large-scale paedophile abuse was the norm for a section of the community — in some parts of Britain, it went back to the Eighties [or the Sixties?], when it was first reported to police — and that it was an open secret, I took my concerns to West Yorkshire police and social services. I expected they would have a hard time believing the claims — but I didn’t think I’d be flatly ignored by everyone. It was as if this crime was so toxic, no one could acknowledge its existence. (How I was branded a racist — for trying to save girls from their vile abusers, The Daily Mail, 11th August 2017) But surely Britain’s foremost progressive and feminist newspaper rushed to join her campaign against the vile abuse of “vulnerable women and girls”? Unfortunately not. Cryer goes on to say this: “I couldn’t get The Guardian interested. Its reporters seemed paralysed by political correctness.” Racism and religious hate Some Guardian-readers were far from paralysed: they were among those who attacked Cryer for campaigning against the rape-gangs and against “forced marriages” among Muslims: “When I wasn’t being openly accused of racism and religious hate — my name was on the website Islamophobia Watch — I was painted as someone who didn’t understand Asian culture.” As Sonia Sodha was wringing her hands about victims being ignored, did she mention the Guardian’s prolonged refusal to help Ann Cryer and other whistle-blowers? Did she mention that Labour councils full of Guardian-readers presided over the horrors in Rotherham and Rochdale? Of course not. She couldn’t discuss the Guardian’s complicity in the crimes, let alone apologize for it, because admitting error isn’t good for those seeking to win and retain power. The victims were ignored because the authorities were applying Guardianista principles of “anti-racism” and “diversity.” Sonia Sodha condemns behaviour that her own newspaper has supported for decades: Thanks to the many independent reports into child sexual abuse in various places, we know that the disgustingly prejudiced attitudes towards the vulnerable girls who are abused are not limited to the perpetrators of these heinous crimes. In Rotherham, Alexis Jay’s report reveals police officers believed children as young as 11 capable of having consensual sex with groups of men three times their age. The police arrested young girls found in the company of older men in strange flats for drunk-and-disorderly behaviour, leaving the perpetrators free to continue their abuse. In Rochdale, three council employees expressed the view that the victims were “making choices”, as if children forced into sex by adults can be anything other than victims of abuse. (Victims of child abuse gangs are the first to suffer — and the last to get our attention, The Guardian, 10th August 2017) The police in Labour-controlled Rotherham and the council employees in Labour-controlled Rochdale were being “anti-racist” and “sex-positive.” They were celebrating diversity, facilitating inter-communal outreach, and rejecting hate-filled stereotypes about predatory non-White males preying on vulnerable White females. In short, they were doing exactly what the Guardian wanted them to. Their “disgustingly prejudiced attitudes” were the result of decades of propaganda from the Guardian, BBC and other liberal outlets. Think Ink Sonia Sodha obviously couldn’t admit this. Nor could she admit other important things. She also wrung her hands about the “prejudiced attitudes” of the perpetrators, but she left those attitudes unexplored and didn’t mention Badrul Hussain’s Patriarchal Toxicity: “All white women are only good for one thing. For men like me to fuck and use like trash.” Badrul Hussain seemed to think that “race issues” were central to his offending, but what does he know? Sonia Sodha put race in its proper place: “by endlessly raking over this second-order question — is race or religion a factor? — we never seem to make any progress on the first-order issue: how do we prevent this from happening again?” Octopuses squirt ink when they want to evade predators. Liberals squirt ink when they want to evade hate-facts. And that’s exactly what Sonia was doing in her waffle about “second-order questions” and “first-order issues.” Is the role of mosquitoes and protozoa a “second-order question” in the “first-order issue” of preventing malaria? Of course not. Prevention depends on understanding causes. But Sonia Sodha and her fellow liberals can’t admit the causes at work in Newcastle. That’s why they squirt ink and waffle: We also need a better understanding of who perpetrates these crimes. In some places, it has predominantly been men of Pakistani origin, but in Bristol, the abusers were predominantly Somali; in Peterborough, they were also of Czech and Slovak Roma and Kurdish backgrounds. A report for the children’s commissioner in 2012 found that around a third of perpetrators were white. … In Newcastle, most of the perpetrators were second-generation immigrants, which may tell us as much about our school system as the communities and families in which they grew up. Newcastle is still majority White. If the “school system” were to blame, White offenders would outnumber non-White offenders. They don’t. And they don’t form rape-gangs. Sonia Sodha had already noted that, on official statistics, White British men are hugely under-represented and vibrant non-British men are hugely over-represented. And that’s after decades during which vibrant non-British men have been allowed to offend with impunity, thanks to “anti-racism” and other causes dear to the Guardian’s heart. Our “understanding” of the rape-gangs is already more than adequate. We could have prevented them altogether by not allowing mass immigration from the Third World. We can prevent them getting worse in future by banning Third-World immigration. Sayonara, Sarah But no more Third-World immigration would mean no more guaranteed votes for the Rainbow Alliance that unites feminists and Muslims in the fight to topple the Stale Pale Male. A ban would help “vulnerable women and girls,” but would it help liberals consolidate and increase their power? That’s the only question that matters to the Guardian. When liberals are faced with vibrant sex-crimes, their ideal is to ignore them and punish anyone who speaks out. When they can’t do that, they squirt ink and obfuscate. Happily for them, they did manage to apply the second half of their ideal after the Newcastle rape-gang hit the headlines. Sarah Champion, the Labour MP for Rotherham, was forced to resign after she published a “racist” and “Islamophobic” article in the Sun. The vibrant logician Areeq Chowdhury responded to her article like this: Sarah Champion MP, I think you’re racist. There. I said it. Does that make me politically correct? Or am I just prepared to call out this horrifying problem for what it is? If you think I am being over the top, have a quick read of the column in the Sun written by Labour’s Shadow Equalities Minister, Sarah Champion. It’s entitled “British Pakistani men ARE raping and exploiting white girls… and it’s time we faced up to it.” She inexplicably opens with the line “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls. There. I said it. Does that make me a racist? Or am I just prepared to call out this horrifying problem for what it is?” Well to answer what I’m sure was a rhetorical question Sarah, yes, it does make you a racist. … (Sarah Champion, I Think You’re Racist. There. I Said It., The Huffington Post, 14th August 2017) Chowdhury then went on to explain why Sarah Champion was a racist. By claiming that there was “a problem with British Pakistani men,” she was, according to him, claiming that “child sexual exploitation is a problem unique to the British Pakistani community.” No, she was claiming that “British Pakistani men” are overrepresented, which is clearly the case—indeed they vastly overrepresented. She didn’t say their overrepresentation was caused by their race: she merely stated a statistical fact. Vibrantia ex nihilo Alas for her, “Reality is Racist.” Chowdhury wanted her punished for speaking the truth and she has been. As the Spectator noted: “Sarah Champion’s resignation over Muslim comments bodes ill for state of debate in Labour. … [O]ther Labour MPs are now unlikely to make a similar point again.” Champion’s resignation is a perfect example of a central liberal principle at work: “Don’t debate — defenestrate!” Minorities must be worshipped, never criticized. For decades liberals have ignored the vibrancy of rape-gangs “in every corner of the country”; now that they can no longer do so, they seek to minimize that vibrancy. But when it suits them, they will manufacture vibrancy out of nothing. As part of its relentless campaign against the White British and their right to a homeland, the BBC created a “schools video” that showed “Life in Roman Britain as seen through the eyes of a typical family nearly 2000 years ago.” The parents in this typical family are a “high-ranking black Roman soldier” and his White wife. There is no evidence that anyone of high rank in Roman Britain was Black, let alone that such a family was “typical.” The BBC was conjuring vibrancy ex nihilo. When the alt-right and others criticized the video, a fatuous classical historian called Mary Beard hastened to the BBC’s defence: “One thing is for sure, the Roman empire, Britain included, was culturally and ethnically diverse, from the Syrians in Bath to Quintus Lollius Urbicus, the Ethiopian who met Septimius Severus on Hadrian’s Wall, and the wonderful couple from South Shields, Barates and Queenie [Regina], he from Palmyra, she an Essex girl. There is no doubt about that.” Prehensile tails She waffled on: “Even in the case of Septimius Severus, the first Roman emperor from Africa [Libya], we don’t actually know the colour of his skin, how far he was ‘native’, how far the descendent of Italian settler[s]. The same goes for Quintus Lollius Urbicus, often claimed to be Berber, which he may well have been, but it isn’t certain.” Professor Beard is perfectly correct: we don’t know whether Severus and Urbicus were Black, because no record of their skin-colour has come down to us. Similarly, we don’t know whether Severus and Urbicus had prehensile tails or could clear tall buildings in a single bound. History is silent on these topics too. But we can legitimately infer something from the silence and from the sharp racial distinction existing today between the Arabs and Berbers of northern Africa and the true Blacks of sub-Saharan Africa. The BBC’s “typical family” was nothing of the kind, as the BBC itself admitted by silently altering the text that introduces the video. The introduction now reads: “Life in Roman Britain as seen through the eyes of one family nearly 2000 years ago” (my emphasis). In pursuit of power, liberals will minimize vibrancy here, maximize vibrancy there. The vibrancy of non-White rape-gangs is minimized; the vibrancy of Roman Britain is maximized — indeed, manufactured from nothing. Diversity = rape + death + misery But Mary Beard and other fans of the BBC’s propaganda didn’t comment on one glaring historical fact: Diversity in Roman Britain was the result of conquest and outside control. It was imposed on the native British Celts entirely against their will and strongly to their detriment: Boudica (alternative spelling: Boudicca, also known as Boadicea) (d. AD 60 or 61) was a queen of the British Iceni tribe who led an uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire. Boudica’s husband Prasutagus ruled as a nominally independent ally of Rome and left his kingdom jointly to his daughters and the Roman emperor in his will. However, when he died his will was ignored, and the kingdom was annexed. Boudica was flogged, her daughters raped, and Roman financiers called in their loans. (Boudica at Infogalactic) What happened next is still visible beneath the streets of London in a layer of soot. Boudica led an army to sack and burn what was then the Roman capital, Londinium, before her non-vibrant rebellion was brutally suppressed by the vibrant Romans. Diversity meant rape, death and misery “nearly 2000 years ago.” It means the same today. And unlike the Romans, today’s invaders do not bring an advanced civilization with them. Newcastle is the largest city in north-east England, which was once a high centre of Christendom. Stale pale males like the Venerable Bede used the Roman legacy of literacy and architecture to create glories like the Lindisfarne Gospels and Durham Cathedral. Today Newcastle is enriched with Third-World culture instead. So are Rotherham and Cologne. That’s why they’re now remarkable for rape and misogyny, not for rood-screens and the Magnificat. Liberals promised paradise and have delivered dystopia. Mass immigration is a curse, not a blessing, and one day the native British will remove the curse. Boudica’s rebellion failed because the Romans held all the strategic advantages and were better-organized and better-equipped. That will not be the case when the native British rise once more against a hostile elite and the alien invasion it has overseen. |
What Psychology Professionals Should Know About Polyamory The Lifestyles and Mental Health Concerns of Polyamorous Individuals Geri D. Weitzman gdw@numenor.org Based on a paper presented at the 8th Annual Diversity Conference March 12th, 1999 ~ Albany, New York Table of Contents Introduction In our culture, we tend to assume that people are monogamous. People generally have relationships with only one person at a time; those who have relationships with more than one person are assumed to be "unattached and dating," or cheating. But there exists a third alternative. Polyamory is a lifestyle in which a person may have more than one romantic relationship, with consent and enthusiasm expressed for this choice by each of the people concerned. Polyamory is distinguished from infidelity by the presence of honest communication between partners and lovers about the existence of each of these relationships in their lives (Hymer & Rubin, 1982). Not much is known by the psychology field concerning polyamory. Our textbooks on family functioning don't mention it, our diversity literature doesn't incorporate it, and many members of the polyamory community have reported encounters with therapists who are uninformed at best, or biased at worst, about this lifestyle. As a polyamorous woman who is also a psychology professional, I am in a position to try and bridge this distance between the polyamorous community and the psychology profession. This paper will aim to provide psychology professionals with a general introduction to the lifestyles and concerns of polyamorous individuals. It is hoped that this will enhance psychology professionals' understanding of, and ability to provide services to, polyamorous clientele. I will begin this paper by describing the three main variations of polyamory and the benefits that polyamorous individuals reap from this lifestyle, followed by some demographic data about the prevalence of polyamory within our culture. Following this, I will present a summary of the research studies that have been conducted on polyamory to date. Therapists' views of polyamory will be examined, and empirical data on the psychological and interpersonal functioning of polyamorous individuals will be presented. A brief multicultural perspective will be included as well. Next, I will describe some of the unique concerns that polyamorous individuals may bring to therapy. The position of this paper is that polyamory is a valid and healthy lifestyle; however, just as there are stressors associated with being gay or bisexual in a heterosexual society, so are there stressors associated with being polyamorous in a monogamous society. The final section of this paper will suggest ways in which a polyamory-aware therapist can help a polyamorous client to navigate successfully through these stressors. It should of course be noted that polyamorous individuals may seek therapy for reasons that have nothing to do with their lifestyle per se; however, the knowledge that their therapist is supportive of their lifestyle as a whole will facilitate a more successful therapeutic rapport. Top Types of Polyamory There are three main variations of polyamory. In the first, "one relationship takes priority over others," as in a relationship that allows partners to include outside lovers (D. Corbett, personal communication, 3/17/99). Ties with the additional lovers are seen as a source of added joy and enrichment in the partners' lives (Peabody, 1982). There is asense that "sex and love are independent and sex should be enjoyed for its own sake" (Ramey, 1975, p. 518). The original couple considers their relationship to be their "primary" bond, and it is the relationship that they each devote the most time, energy and loyalty to. The emotional bonds with these other lovers may be close or they may be casual, but they are not as strong as the bond between the original partners. One sub-type is the 'swinging' relationship, in which two or more couples 'swap' partners for a limited time under strictly defined circumstances. Another sub-type is the 'open relationship,' in which one partner's taking a lover does not need to occur simultaneously with the other partner's doing so. The next type of polyamorous relationship is one in which two or more relationships are of comparable weight, but the person's partners do not have a strong relationship with each other. (D. Corbett, personal communication, 3/17/99). Each of these relationships are considered to be of importance in the person's life, and significant time and energy is devoted to each. The third type of polyamorous relationship is the poly-family: "an inter-relationship of 3 or more people, in which there is a strong relational commitment between all members (which may or may not include sex)" (D. Corbett, personal communication, 3/17/99). The members spend significant amounts of time together as a group, and the well-being ofeach person is a significant priority to each of the others. This is not an exhaustive list of potential polyamory configurations, but these are the main patterns upon which specific relationships are typically negotiated. What these relationships have in common is a rejection of the expectation that one partner can meet all of the other's relationship needs - emotional, social, sexual, economic, and intellectual (Peabody, 1982, p. 428). Polyamory is seen as enhancing both personal and interpersonal growth, as closer associations with people who have among them a wide variety of personality traits and personal strengths are formed. Top Benefits of Polyamory There are many benefits that polyamorous people reap from this lifestyle. Many find joy in having close relationships on both sexual and emotional planes with multiple partners and/or lovers. The couple that decides to open their relationship to include others is often highly secure in the strength of their partnership bond, and welcoming of the opportunities for personal growth that come from close associations with new and diverse people. Polyamorous families in which the partners all live together derive all the benefits of household cooperation, which include more people to share chores, watch the children, and pay the rent. The cost of living per person decreases when there are a greater number of people who pool their incomes and energies and share resources among them. Ramey (1975) notes the following positive elements to polyamory: increased personal freedom; greater depth to social relationships; the potential for sexual exploration in a non-judgmental setting; a strengthening of spousal bonds; a sense of being desired; a feeling of belongingness; added companionship; increased self-awareness; intellectualvariety; and the chance for new aspects of personality to emerge through relating to more people. To this list I would add two additional elements. First, polyamorous individuals tend to gain a lot of practice at communicating their needs and negotiating arrangements that are satisfactory to all. The ability to process what is happening between the members of a group is one which the psychology profession can well appreciate. Second, the polyamorous community is a sex-positive one, which means that the beauty and happiness of a variety of forms of sexual sharing between consenting adults are affirmed. There is considerable acceptance for bisexuality, transgenderism, and other alternative lifestyles among the polyamorous community. Despite the polyamorous community's perception of this lifestyle as one from which many benefits may be derived, this view is often contested by others. People who are in polyamorous relationships face social disapproval and legal discrimination similar to that experienced by members of the lesbian, gay and bisexual community (Peabody, 1982). Recently a legal case was heard in which a young child was removed from a polyamorous household after her grandparents petitioned for custody, on the grounds that the home environment was immoral according to the Bible. No evidence of child abuse or neglect was found, and mental health professionals found that the child was well-adjusted; but the child's family still had to fight a court battle in order to have her returned; and even then, the child was only returned on the grounds that one of the three parents move out (Cloud, 1999). Top Demographic data on polyamory While openly polyamorous relationships are relatively rare (Rubin, 1982), there are indications that private polyamorous arrangements within relationships are actually quite common. Blumstein and Schwartz (1983, cited in Rubin & Adams, 1986) noted that of 3,574 married couples in their sample, 15-28% had "an understanding that allows nonmonogamy under some circumstances. The percentages are higher among cohabitating couples (28%), lesbian couples (29%) and gay male couples (65%)" (p. 312). Top Therapists' views of polyamory Clearly, such a widespread phenomenon is an important one for mental health professionals to understand. There is a perception within the polyamorous community, however, that therapists are not well-informed about their lifestyles and needs. This limits the extent to which polyamorous individuals feel that they have access to quality mental health services (Roman, Charles & Karasu, 1978). Some polyamorous individualsreport a reluctance to seek therapy due to fear of bias. Others find it necessary to use expensive therapy sessions to educate their therapists about what polyamory is, and to convince them that a polyamorous lifestyle in itself is no more pathological than, say, a gay lifestyle. Textbooks about "normal family functioning" do not include references to polyamorous lifestyles, and this contributes further to ignorance about polyamory on the part of mainstream therapists. Hymer and Rubin (1982) conducted a study in which therapists were asked to imagine the psychological profile of a typical polyamorous person. 24% of these therapists imagined that polyamorous individuals feared commitment or intimacy, 15% of these therapists imagined that they were in marriages that were not fulfilling, and 7% hypothesized that they might have identity problems. In another study, Knapp (1975) found that 33% of her sample of therapists believed that people who pursued a polyamorous lifestyle had personality disorders and neurotic tendencies, and 20% suggested that such people might have antisocial personalities. 9-17% of the therapists "stated they would use their professional skills to try to influence clients to abandon sexually open marriages" (p.509). As these studies show, polyamorous clients who seek out therapy "are often stigmatized and penalized by the very system of human services originally set up to help them in such crises" (Sussman, 1974, cited in Roman et al., 1978, p.409). It is nortworthy that Knapp (1975) found that therapists considered people who were involved in secret extramarital affairs to be more 'normal' than those who communicated honestly with their partners about their participation in other relationships. These therapists' views are not concealed from their polyamorous clients. Rubin and Adams (1978, cited in Hymer & Rubin, 1982) "found that among those clients who had a sexually open marriage and sought therapy, 27% indicated that their therapists were nonsupportive of their nonmonogamous relationship" (p.533). Sometimes this disapproval was expressed in overt ways, and other times it was more covert. While not all therapists evidenced such biases, enough did that many clients became wary of seeking mental health services. Knapp (1975, cited in Hymer & Rubin, 1982) noted that "the three greatest fears facing prospective alternative lifestyle clients were: therapists' condemnation of their lifestyle, pressure to return to a 'healthier' form of marriage, and being diagnosed in terms of psychopathology" (p. 533). The clinical portrait that some therapists have painted of polyamorous clients is a rather negative one. Is it in fact a realistic one? The next section of this presentation examines whether the negative view of polyamorous individuals that some therapists have expressed is borne out by empirical data. Top What is known about the psychological and social functioning of polyamorous individuals? In 1976, Knapp administered a battery of standardized psychological assessment measures to a sample of polyamorous couples (Peabody, 1982). No significant differences were found between the couples in her sample and the general population norms. "That is, neither group was particularly neurotic, immature, promiscuous, maladjusted, pathological, or sexually inadequate... The response patterns suggested a modal type of individual in a sexually open marriage who was individualistic, an academic achiever, creative, nonconforming, stimulated by complexity and chaos, inventive, relatively unconventional and indifferent to what others said, concerned abut his/her own personal values and ethical systems, and willing to take risks to explore possibilities" (p. 429). Watson (1981, cited in Rubin, 1982) gave the California Psychological Inventory (Gough, 1957) to 38 sexually open individuals, and these subjects also scored within normal bounds. Additional work has been done in the area of marital adjustment. Buunk (1980, cited in Rubin, 1982) found that couples with open marriages in the Netherlands were normal in terms of marriage satisfaction, self-esteem, and neuroticism. Spanier's (1976) Dyadic Adjustment Scale was used to compare sexually open couples with sexually exclusive ones (Rubin, 1982), and no differences were found in adjustment or happiness between the two groups. "Nothing in this data argues for the view that sexual openness or exclusivity, in and of themselves, make a difference in the overall adjustment of a married couple" (p. 107). A follow-up study (Rubin & Adams, 1986) found that after several years, there was no significant difference in marital stability (i.e. breaking up vs. staying together) between those couples who had been polyamorous versus those whose marriages had been exclusive. Similar proportions of each group reported happiness versus unhappiness, compared to the earlier sample. Additionally, "the reasons given for breakup were almost never related to extramarital sex" (p. 318). When polyamorous relationships ended, common reasons given included growing apart in general interests, feeling unequal levels of attraction to one another, and dealing with the stresses of long-distance (Ramey, 1975). Another study (Peabody, 1982) found that most respondents reported feeling satisfied with their primary relationship, and felt positively about their partner having sexual relations with others. It was found that polyamorous individuals had slightly less frequent sex than the national average, emphasizing social activities, warmth, and open communication. "The continuing emphasis was a focus on warmth, acceptance, communication and friendship with the freedom to touch, caress, and have the potentialfor sexual activity if chosen" (p 429). As these studies show, "the alternative life styles chosen by individuals are not necessarily the cause nor the result of unhealthy personalities; in actuality, the alternative life style behavior may be supportive of the psychological health of the individuals" (Peabody, 1982, 426,434). Thus, therapists should not assume that polyamory is maladaptive, or that people in polyamorous unions would improve their relationships by shifting to a traditional monogamous style. Therapists who maintain that monogamy is inherently preferable to polyamory may be reflecting their own cultural biases, rather than considering what is best for their client's individual needs. In many cultures, polyamory is the norm, and many benefits of this lifestyle have been reported. For instance, in Nigeria it is said that "the sharing of responsibilities among members may greatly dilute the burden, financial or otherwise, of care for members with problems" (Makanjuola, 1987, p. 366). Venezuelan Yanomamo women who choose a polygynous lifestyle may not need to work as long on household and child-care tasks as their monogamous sisters do, due to co-operation between co-wives (Hames, 1996). In sum, many polyamorous people "are in relatively stable primary relationships and do not seem to be motivated by neurotic and pathological needs." (Peabody, 1982, p.430). Now, the polyamorous lifestyle, while not inherently pathological, can present some unique challenges. The next section of this presentation will describe some of the lifestyle-specific concerns that polyamorous individuals may present with in therapy, and that therapists can be of help with (see also Appendix A). It should be remembered, of course, that polyamorous individuals often seek therapy for reasons that have nothing to do with their lifestyle per se. Top Specific concerns of polyamorous individuals, which therapists can help with One challenge that polyamorous individuals need to contend with is the label of deviance (Knapp, 1975; Mann, 1975). They may be shunned by members of some conservative religions, and (as in the example of the triad whose custody of their daughter was challenged) they are subject to legal discrimination. Polyamorous unions are not typically recognized by church or state, and spousal health benefits are not available for one's non-married partner. Many of the discriminations that the gay community faces are concerns for the polyamorous community as well (Browning, Reynolds, & Dworkin, 1991). Often, polyamorous individuals choose not to reveal their multiple relationships to outsiders, as they perceive non-acceptance for their lifestyle from the wider society, (Peabody, 1982). Even close family members may be excluded from this knowledge (Ziskin & Ziskin, 1975). A study by Watson and Watson (1982) found that while 75% of polyamorous survey respondents wanted their children to know of their lifestyle, only 21% had actually informed their children of the full extent of their involvements withother partners. "Some incorporate their children with them in the company of their secondary partners, and indicate that they enjoy the process of modeling an alternative for their children. Other parents feel that sharing the news of their lifestyle would be too upsetting for their children, or would not be understood, or would be shared openly withneighbors and school friends" (p.54). There are many strains that accompany the keeping of so large and important a secret (Browning et al., 1991). There is the fear of being discovered and shunned by people who might disapprove. There is the stress that comes along with the lack of recognition of one's partners: for example, the partner who is not invited to family gatherings and office parties may feel excluded and devalued. If the polyamorous individual has children who are not aware of the arrangement, there is the need to arrange a time and place to meet in private, rather than in the comfort of one's home. Polyamorous individuals may seek therapy to learn ways to cope with these stressors. When the relationship is not kept secret, polyamorous individuals often feel that they need to prove to others that their lifestyle is viable (Falco, 1995). When polyamorous relationships end, it is often assumed by outsiders that the relationship structure was to blame, when in fact any number of other factors might have been behind the breakup. Fewpeople would think to ask whether a breakup of a monogamous couple was due to the couple’s choice of monogamy as a lifestyle. A polyamory-aware therapist can assist in the aftermath of a breakup by affirming that the client is not letting the polyamorous community down in ending their relationship, and by assisting them in regaining the courage to pursue this type of bond again if they choose to. Members of monogamous couples sometimes seek the assistance of marriage counselors in negotiating the agreements and boundaries of their relationship; and the support of a polyamory-aware marriage therapist can be especially beneficial to polyamorous partners (Ramey, 1975; Ziskin & Ziskin, 1975). First, there are few social models for structuring a polyamorous relationship, and so polyamorous partners often find themselves charting new territories as they look for ways to meet the needs of all who are involved. Second, it is an even more complicated matter to balance the needs of multiple individuals than it is to make compromises between the members of a pair, and so the assistance of an experienced mediator might ease the process. There are several issues upon which polyamorous partners commonly negotiate (Ramey, 1975). One is the introduction of new lovers and partners. Are new relationships subject to the approval of the existing partner/s? Are any restrictions placed upon the new relationship, such as limits on the amount of time that may be spent together, or specificsexual acts that are reserved for the original couple alone? Can the bedroom that is shared by the longstanding couple be used for time spent together with new partners? Will the new relationship ever become equal in status to the existing one, or is the existing one expected to remain primary? Are outsiders to be informed of the existence of the additional relationship (Knapp, 1975)? Another area is communication (Ramey, 1975; Ziskin & Ziskin, 1975). Are one's newer partners expected to socialize with the existing ones, or are the relationships kept separate? Does an individual let their partner know when they are seeing their other partner, or is discretion preferred? Do all members talk over disputes together as a group, or are conflicts settled in pairs? A third area to be negotiated is the sharing of tasks and expenses (Ramey, 1975). Are moneys and possessions pooled for group use, or maintained individually? How are child-care duties and housework divided? A well-informed therapist can also assist a couple who is first considering a polyamorous lifestyle in considering whether this is the right choice for them (Peabody, 1982). The therapist can assist the couple in exploring how they will cope with such issues as jealousy, discrimination, setting up ground rules, preventing sexually transmitted diseases, and potential pregnancies (Ziskin & Ziskin, 1975). When it is one partner in a couple who wishes to introduce polyamory into the relationship, the therapist can help them to decide how to bring up the topic, and can assist them in preparing for the responses that the partner might have. A therapist can also help people who are in a troubled polyamorous relationship to decide whether to continue in this lifestyle, and to cope with their feelings of regret and loss if not. A therapist can let polyamorous clients know about polyamory support groups and resources in their area (see Appendix B). The polyamorous community is geographically scattered, and it does not have the same visibility that other subcultures, like the gay community, do. In large cities there may be regular social gatherings, and from time to time there are regional conferences, but one needs to know where to look in order to find these (Rubin, 1982). In the late 1990's, the polyamorous community is linked primarily by the Internet. Web pages provide pointers to local social gatherings, listservs, and chat rooms that are devoted to polyamory concerns. The polyamorous community also overlaps significantly with other subcultures in which alternative lifestyles are accepted, such as the lesbian, gay and bisexual community and science-fiction fandom. The venues of these subcultures provide additional opportunities for the polyamorous community to network. Pointers to the polyamorous community at large can be a tremendous source of support to those who come out as polyamorous. Top Future Research and Conclusions The next step in this field of research is to provide mental health practitioners with a more thorough picture of polyamorous individuals' lives and needs. As most of the extant body of research on the polyamorous community was conducted 15-25 years ago, it is important to gather information that reflects the community as it is today. This might be facilitated by a qualitative study in which polyamorous individuals are interviewed in-depth, so that they may convey to therapists in their own words what their lifestyles and needs are today. Interview topics might include: the language that polyamorous individuals use to describe their relationships; the structure of their relationships; and the ways in which they relate to the hegemonic monogamous culture. It will also be important to ask what issues they might seek therapy to address, such as: what attributes are preferred in a therapist; what their therapy experiences have been like; and what they think therapists should know about polyamory. It is hoped that this paper has provided some broader insight into the lifestyles and mental health concerns of polyamorous individuals. Clearly, the field of polyamory research is a fertile one in which there is much opportunity - and much need - for continued research and awareness. Top References Browning, C., Reynolds, A. L., & Dworkin, S. H. (1991). Affirmative Psychotherapy for lesbian women. Counseling Psychologist, 19(2), 177-196. Cloud, J. (1999). Henry & Mary & Janet & ... . Time Magazine, 154(20). Falco, K. L. (1995). Therapy with lesbians: The essentials. Psychotherapy in Private Practice, 13(4), 69-83. Hames, R. (1996). Costs and benefits of monogamy and polygyny for Yanomamo women. Ethnology and Sociobiology, 17, 181-199. Hymer, S. M., & Rubin, A. M. (1982). Alternative lifestyle clients: Therapists' attitudes and clinical experiences. Small Group Behavior, 13 (4), 532-541. Knapp, J. J. (1975). Some non-monogamous marriage styles and related attitudes and practices of marriage counselors. The Family Coordinator, 24(4), 505-514. Makanjuola, R. O. A. (1987). The Nigerian psychiatric patient and his family. International Journal of Family Psychiatry, 8(4), 363-373. Mann, J (1975). Is sex counseling here to stay? The Counseling Psychologist, 5(1), 60-63. Peabody, S. A. (1982). Alternative life styles to monogamous marriage: Variants of normal behavior in psychotherapy clients. Family Relations, 31, 425-434. Ramey, J. W. (1975). Intimate groups and networks: Frequent consequence of sexually open marriage. The Family Coordinator, 24(4), 515-530. Roman, M., Charles, E., & Karasu, T. B. (1978). The value system of psychotherapists and changing mores. Psychotherapy Theory, Research and Practice, 15 (4), 409-415. Rubin, A. M. (1982). Sexually open versus sexually exclusive marriage: A comparison of dyadic adjustment. Alternative Lifestyles, 5(2), 101-106. Rubin, A. M., & Adams, J. R. (1986). Outcomes of sexually open marriages. The Journal of Sex Research, 22(3), 311-319. Watson, J., & Watson, M. A. (1982). Children of open marriages: Parental disclosure and perspectives. Alternative Lifestyles 5(1), 54-62. Ziskin, J., & Ziskin, M. (1975). Co-marital sex agreements: An emerging issue in sexual counseling. The Counseling Psychologist, 6(1), 81-83. Top Appendix A Ways that Therapists Can Be of Help to Polyamorous Individuals and Partners - helping one partner to decide how to raise the idea of becoming polyamorous to another - helping partners to decide if polyamory is right for them - helping partners to decide what form of polyamory is best for them - helping partners to negotiate the agreements and boundaries of their relationship - helping polyamorous individuals to locate polyamorous communities in their region - pointing them to resources such as articles and books and websites on polyamory - helping polyamorous individuals to approach the coming out process - helping polyamorous individuals to cope with and combat discrimination - helping partners in a troubled relationship to negotiate solutions - raising social awareness of polyamory, and combatting stereotypes / prejudice - changing language on forms (i.e. "name of partner/s," not "name of spouse") - noting in counseling center brochures that polyamory is understood/accepted - learning more on their own about polyamory issues, using the resources listed - expanding textbooks on family psychology to include a chapter on polyamory Top Appendix B Polyamory Resources Polyamory Info, Books, Events and Group Listings Nationwide Loving More Magazine and Web Site Usenet Newsgroup alt.polyamory Email lists poly@polyamory.org Subscribe at http://poly.polyamory.org/mailman/listinfo/poly (or by sending email to listserv@polyamory.org with the body of the message reading SUB POLY firstname lastname) The Loving More Lists -- Publically accessible web and email based lists on topics such as poly discussion, poly activism, poly parenting and others. Subscribe at http://www.techmesa.com/cgi-bin/lyris.pl Web site of polyamory-aware mental health and legal professionals Top PERMISSION TO DUPLICATE Readers are welcome to print a copy of this paper for personal use, and to share with mental health professionals, provided that they leave all authorship attributions intact. Top ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank the following people for their assistance in proofreading and improving this paper: Barbara A David Corbett Johnny D Joe M Mom Hugh Stearns |
Story highlights McCain said Tuesday he is still learning more about Tillerson In 2013, Putin awarded the former ExxonMobil CEO the Order of Friendship Washington (CNN) Sen. John McCain said Tuesday that he has not decided whether he will back Rex Tillerson for secretary of state given existing concerns about his relationship with Russia. "When I see what Vladimir Putin has done in the way of literally committing war crimes intentionally -- I'm pointing out again precision weapons used in Aleppo to strike hospitals and kill innocent men, women and children, that's just an example -- then I question the recipient of a friendship award with Vladimir Putin," the Arizona Republican told CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day." McCain said he is still learning more about Tillerson. "I had another conversation with him yesterday where I think he explained better to me his relations with Vladimir Putin." Read More |
Sorry, fanficcers, he wasn’t talking about the tenderly presented friendship between Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr. What we have here is a case of the internet bringing people together… even if those people are a random commenter and the screenwriter who can immediately and authoritatively tell them they’re wrong. We begin with Alyssa Rosenberg’s essay for ThinkProgress.org, which was a lovely deconstruction of the ways in which X-Men: First Class continued the subtextual messages of all the good X-Men movies before it: Mutants as an allegory for the LGBTQ community. And honestly, who could argue with that? Even Fox News commenters have figured out what all those pinko commies at Marvel have been trying to say with the X-Men for years. But the tl;dr argument is strong with those who object to the critical or textual deconstruction of so called “lowbrow” entertainment. Yup, that’s Zack Stentz, writer behind First Class, Thor, and Fringe. Here’s the facebook page that comment linked to. Random? Yes. Awesome? Yup. Stentz even stuck around long enough to give some recommendations: The internet: bringing people together. For science comic books. (Thanks, Anon!) |
The results were what you might expect. Sanctimony, condescension, nostalgia for a time when tv news was objective and neutral and giants walked the earth and they didn’t worry about profits and it was a point of pride that they lost money and everybody trusted them and it was never about ratings and hey you kids get off my lawn. Around dinner-time tonight, the fabulous Jack Shafer at Slate dismembered the we-lost-money meme with a splendid deconstruction of the cooked books of the news operations of the ‘50s and ‘60s that I have to admit was an education even for me. By accident, Mr. Shafer presented a wonderful preamble to the point I wanted to make in tonight’s Special Comment, a point I hope you’ll permit me to present here in the form of the script from tonight’s show: When Walter Cronkite died sixteen months ago, he was rightly lionized for the quality of his work, and the impact he effected on television news. He was praised for his utter objectivity and impartiality, and implicitly – and in some cases explicitly – there was wailing that this objectivity had died with him. Yet invariably the same few clips were shown with each obituary: There was the night Cronkite devoted fourteen minutes of the thirty-minute long CBS Evening News to a report on Watergate which devastated the Nixon Administration, one so strong that the Administration pressured CBS just to shorten the next night’s follow-up to eight minutes. There was the extraordinary broadcast on Vietnam from four-and-a-half years earlier in which he insisted that nothing better than stalemate was possible and that America should negotiate its way out, “not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.” All that newscast did was convince the 36th President of the United States to not seek reelection. The deserved and heartfelt sadness at the loss of a great journalist and a great man had been turned into a metaphor for the loss of a style of utterly uninvolved, neutral “objective” reporting. Yet most of the highlights of the man’s career had been of those moments when he correctly and fearlessly threw off those shackles and said what was true, and not merely what was factual. It has been the same with every invocation of Edward R. Murrow: Murrow would never have stood for the editorializing of today in his newscasts! The Murrow radio reports from London rooftops during the Blitz of 1940 are replayed – and forever should be – and their creator is offered as a paragon of “straight” reporting. Yet it is never mentioned, that as they happened, CBS was pressured to stop those searing explosions of truth, because our political leaders believed they would unfairly influence Americans to side with the British when the nation was still officially neutral and the Republican Party was still completely convinced that there was a deal to make with the Nazis. President Roosevelt did not invite Murrow to the White House to congratulate him on his London reports because they were “fair and balanced.” Similarly, the journalism students of now seven different decades have studied the Murrow broadcasts about Senator Joseph McCarthy from 1954. These are properly lauded as some of the greatest moments not merely in the history of American Journalism; they are considered such in the history of America. The story is told that a cowering, profit-hungry press stood idly by – or even rode McCarthy’s paranoia for circulation and ratings – while the blacklist and the fear grew. And then Murrow slayed the dragon. Always left out, sadly, is the fact that within hours of speaking truth based on facts, Murrow was attacked as a partisan. The Republicans, and the Conservative newspapers, and the Conservative broadcasters described – in what they would have insisted was neutral, objective, unbiased, factual reporting – that in smearing the patriotic McCarthy, Murrow was a Democrat, a Liberal, a Socialist, a Marxist, a Communist, a traitor. Always left out, sadly, is the fact that these attacks worked. Within 12 months, Murrow’s “See It Now” program had lost its sponsor and been reduced from once a week to once a month. Within 18 months it had been shifted from every Tuesday night at 10:30 to once in awhile on Sunday afternoons at 5 -- becoming, as one CBS producer put it “See It Now And Then.” Mr. Koppel does not mention – nobody ever does – that the year in which Edward R. Murrow helped save this democracy by including his own editorial judgment in “The News,” was the last year of his life throughout which Murrow appeared on a regular prime-time news broadcast. He would be eased out of CBS entirely in seven years and would be dead in eleven. The great change about which Mr. Koppel wrings his hands is not partisanship nor tone nor analysis. The great change was the creation of the sanitized image of what men like Cronkite and Murrow – and H.V. Kaltenborn and Elmer Davis and John Charles Daly and H.R. Baukhage and Howard K. Smith and Eric Sevareid and Dan Rather and Peter Jennings and George Polk and even Ted Koppel - did. These were not glorified stenographers. These were not neutral men. These were men who did in their day what the best of journalists still try to do in this one. Evaluate, analyze, unscramble, assess – put together a coherent picture, or a challenging question – using only the facts as they can best be discerned, and their own honesty and conscience. And if the result is that this story over here is a Presidential chief of staff taking some pretty low-octane bribes and the scandal starts and ends there, you judge all the facts, and you say so. And if the result is that that other story over there is not just a third-rate burglary at a political office, but the tip of an iceberg meant to sink the two-party system in this country, you judge all the facts, and you scream so. Insist long enough that the driving principle behind the great journalism of the television era was neutrality and objectivity -- and not subjective choices and often dangerous evaluations and even commentary -- and you will eventually leave the door open to pointless worship at the temple of a false god. And once you’ve got a false god, you’re going to get false priests. And sooner rather than later, in a world where subjective analysis is labeled evil and dangerous, some political mountebank is going to see his opening and seize the very catechism of that false god, words like “objective” and “neutral” and “two-sided” and “fair” and “balanced,” and he will pervert them into a catch-phrase, a brand-name. And he can create something that is no more journalism than two men screaming at each other is a musical duet. But as long as there are two men, as long as they are fair, and balanced, is not the news consumer entranced by the screaming – and the fact that his man eventually, and always, out-screams the other – is not he convinced that he has seen true journalism, true balance, true objectivity? I have read and heard much, of late – including from Mr. Koppel in The Washington Post Sunday - about how those who succeeded his grand era of false objectivity are only in it for the money or the fame or the chance to push a political party. Mr. Koppel also implied – as others have -- that the men behind my network saw in the success of Fox News, a business opportunity to duplicate the style but change the content. Mr. Koppel implied that yesterday. In fact, nothing could be further than the truth, and the very kind of fact-driven journalism Mr. Koppel seems to be claiming he represents and I fail, would not stand for his sloppy assumptions and his false equivalence of “both sides do it.” We do not make up facts at MSNBC and when we make mistakes we correct them. Friday night I found, as we rehearsed its presentation, that a segment implying former President Bush had lifted parts of his autobiography from other works of recent history was largely based on excerpts that mostly required heavy editing and still produced only weak evidence. We killed the segment. Would Fox have? Would CNN have? A week before “Anderson Cooper 360” presented a political story in the most cataclysmic of tones. There were three guests: an on-line magazine editor, a staunch Liberal, and a staunch Conservative. They were in agreement: the story wasn’t that big a deal. The segment ran anyway. More over, while Fox may be such, we are not doctrinaire. I cannot prove it, so I’ll estimate it here and if I’m proved wrong I’ll happily correct it: but my intuition tells me I criticized President Obama more in the last week than Fox’s primetime hosts criticized President Bush in eight years. To equate this network with Fox, as Mr. Koppel did – to accuse us of having our own facts - is another manifestation of a dangerously simplified understanding of modern news. This guy says the moon is a planetary fragment orbiting the Earth; this other guy says it’s actually the body of the late Vince Foster – have them both on and let them debate. It’s fair and balanced. And to the charge that a bunch of bean-counters seized upon a business opportunity: I have been here for every moment of my network’s evolution. It began in 2003 when slowly, one fact at a time, we began to challenge the government’s rationalization for the war in Iraq. A year later I was told by the former president of this network that he did not want me, or us, to be a liberal answer to Fox News. The man whose hour followed mine then, was a conservative ex-Congressman. The year after that, I offered evidence that there seemed to be a disturbing juxtaposition of government terrorism warnings or counter-terrorism detentions with political bumps in the road for the Republican party. The woman whose hour followed mine then, had been hired by us away from Fox. The year after that, I did the first of these Special Comments and I fully expected that I might be fired it. The year after that I had to spend urging my employers to give my guest host her own show. Now there are three shows in primetime in which the content usually lines up with the small “L” liberal point-of-view even as it needles and prods and sometimes pole-axes the Democrats. And that conservative ex-Congressman is still on the air here, every day, and he has as much time as the three of us at night do, put together. If this was a business plan, it wasn’t as good as the one at the nearest kid’s lemonade stand. This network came to this place organically. And therein lies the final irony to what Mr. Koppel wrote. We got here organically in large part because of Mr. Koppel. His prominence, you will recall, came when ABC News and Sports president Roone Arledge - who never permitted business or show business to interfere in his judgments and journalistic pledge of allegiance or his decision to air “Battle Of The Network Stars” – made the subjective, and eminently correct, decision that the hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran merited half an hour or more each night of the network’s time in 1979. This was not the no-brainer retrospect may suggest. CBS and NBC and PBS certainly did not do it. Even when CNN signed on in the middle of the next year, it did not do it. Arledge made his decision just four days after the hostages were seized, and stuck with the story until it ended, defying the conventional television wisdom and constantly pressing the government and questioning the official line. And even after those hostages were freed more than a year later, the half an hour of news, now called “Nightline,” continued. And each night, for 26 years, Mr. Koppel and his producers and his employers subjectively selected which, out of a million stories, would get the attention of his slice of American television for as much as half an hour. Which story would be elevated and amplified, and which piles upon piles of stories would be postponed, or tabled, or discarded, or ignored. Just as the accounts of Mr. Murrow’s career emphasize McCarthy but not the fact that the aftermath of McCarthy buried Murrow’s career, the accounts of Mr. Koppel’s career will emphasize the light he so admirably shone on the Iran hostages. These stories will probably not emphasize that in 2002 and 2003 and 2004 and 2005 Mr. Koppel did not shine that same light on the decreasingly coherent excuses presented by the government of this nation for the war in Iraq. Fourteen consecutive months of nightly half-hours on the travesty and tragedy of 52 hostages in Irahn, but the utter falsehood and dishonesty of the process by which this country was committed to the wrong war, by which this country was committed to dishonesty, by which this country was committed to torture – about that Mr. Koppel, and everybody else in the dead “objective” television news business he so laments, about that Mr. Koppel could not be bothered to speak out. Where were they? Worshiping before the false god of utter objectivity. The bitter irony that must some day occur to Mr. Koppel and the others of his time was that their choice to not look too deeply into Iraq, before or after it began, was itself just as evaluative, just as analytically-based, just as subjective as anything I say or do on MSNBC each night. I may ultimately be judged to have been wrong in what I am doing. Mr. Koppel does not have to wait. The kind of television journalism he eulogizes, failed this country because when truth was needed, all we got were facts - most of which were lies anyway. The journalism failed, and those who practiced it failed, and Mr. Koppel failed. I don’t know that I’m doing it exactly right here. I’m trying. I have to. Because whatever that television news was before – now we have to fix it. |
Any help you can give me with this golf course problem would be greatly appreciated, Nige. Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images During a meeting with the New York Times on Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump rejected the idea that it was even possible for him to have a conflict of interest between his family’s business and his role as president of United States. This should trouble everyone who thinks America is a country of laws. Times political correspondent Maggie Haberman, tweeting from an on-the-record conversation with the president-elect at the newspaper’s headquarters, reported Trump’s claim about the presidency. Trump on his businesses/conflict q's: "The law's totally on my side, the president can't have a conflict of interest." — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 Trump has been under criticism for repeatedly appearing to seek to use his newfound office to benefit his family’s business. Trump met with Indian business partners last week, showing that the separation between preparing to govern Trump and businessman Trump was so far nonexistent. The Washington Post reported that foreign diplomats were attempting to win favor with the new president by staying at his new hotel in Washington, D.C. Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who has been a key adviser during his transition but also is set to be one of the children running Trump’s business while he’s president, joined Trump when he met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. An Argentine journalist alleged that, after he was elected president, Trump discussed permitting issues with Argentine President Mauricio Macri that were holding up a Trump building project in Buenos Aires. (Trump and Macri’s offices denied the building project was discussed on the call, but reportedly the day after the call took place—not the day after the election, the day after the call—the Trump business partner who had arranged the call announced that the project would begin in June 2017 and be completed by 2020.) Finally, he reportedly encouraged British politician and Brexit champion Nigel Farage to oppose offshore wind farms because he thought they would spoil the view at his two Scottish golf courses. On this final point, Trump appeared to acknowledge that this conversation had actually occurred. "I might have brought it up," Trump says of Farage meeting and wind farms. — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 He also indicated that his D.C. hotel was aided by his election. Trump acknowledges the DC hotel he owns is "probably a more valuable asset than it was before." Says the brand is "hotter." — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 But insisted that these things were not important to him. "My company's so unimportant to me relative to what I'm doing." Trump. — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 This was even though he refused to divest his assets, as all other modern presidents and presidential candidates have done or promised to do, and though he went so far as to argue that he could do both jobs without any issue arising. What about selling your company? “That’s a really hard thing to do, because I have real estate." — Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016 "I don't care about anything having anything to do" with something other than the U.S., Trump says. "I don't want to influence anything." — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 Trump says "in theory" he could continue signing checks at his company, but he is "phasing that out now" and giving to his kids. — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 "In theory I could run my business perfectly and then run the country perfectly. There's never been a case like this,"he says of his tangles — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 "I'd assumed that you'd have to set up some type of trust or whatever and you don't," Trump says.But he adds "I would like to do something." — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016 The fact that Trump isn’t even willing or able to acknowledge the massive conflict of interest his family’s business interests pose to his presidency is in and of itself a sign that he seems unlikely to do anything to avoid making decisions that are affected by those conflicts. Richard Painter, chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, explained in the Washington Post on Monday why this all should be so troubling, even if for some reason you don’t think you should be personally bothered that Trump might use the presidency as his own piggy bank. “There are so many diplomatic, political, even national security risks in having the president own a whole bunch of properties all over the world,” Painter told the paper. “If we’ve got to talk to a foreign government about their behavior, or negotiate a treaty, or some country asks us to send our troops in to defend someone else, we’ve got to make a decision,” Painter added. “And the question becomes: Are we going in out of our national interest or because there’s a Trump casino around?” Trump is right that the president is exempted from the sorts of conflicts of interest and ethics rules that apply to all other politicians who might violate these norms. But there is one law that he did not seem to be aware of, which would not be on his side if he even appeared to sell the powers of his office to a foreign bidder. That is the U.S. Constitution, which states “no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” On Jan. 20, Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States and he will pledge to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” While Trump doesn’t think there are any laws that can govern his many conflicts of interest, it would be good for him to note—and for the media to regularly remind him—that there is meant to be a constitutional remedy for any president who violates the one law that definitively does. |
CLOSE A consultants' report shows how the entire five-corridor network would work, what it would look like, and where the construction and right-of-way challenges are. Wochit Before and after of what the Nashville Light Rail could look like on Gallatin Pike between 6th Street and 7th Street looking west. (Photo: Courtesy) As Mayor Megan Barry's administration pursues the first spoke of a light rail system in Nashville, a new report shows how the entire five-corridor network could work, what it might look like, and where Metro faces construction and right-of-way challenges. These details are laid out in the new "high-capacity transit briefing book" released by the Metro Transit Authority on Friday that found "no fatal flaws" in developing high-capacity along the five corridors. The report's release completes the final phase of the region's nMotion transit plan, which outlines a proposed $6 billion transit system for Middle Tennessee over the next 25 years. CLOSE Mayor Barry used her second State of Metro address, held outside Bridgestone Arena, to say she is moving forward with plans for affordable housing, transit and education. Shelley Mays/USA Today Network - Nashville Barry has already proposed moving ahead with new light rail service on Gallatin Pike and Main Street in East Nashville. She wants to hold a public referendum in May that would let voters decide whether to dedicate new tax revenue to pay for transit projects. ► More: Mayor Barry commits to light rail on Gallatin Pike, kicks off public vote for funding transit Nolensville Pike, Murfreesboro Pike and Charlotte Avenue are also identified for light rail in the nMotion plan while Dickerson Pike is targeted for bus rapid transit. "This report clearly shows that Nashville can build an effective transit system along our pikes and corridors," Barry said in a statement. "We will use this data and research to further develop a comprehensive transit plan that is equitable, sustainable, and reduces congestion by giving more transportation options to Nashville area residents." Though the report — led by the transportation planning firm Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates and HDR, Inc. — found no major issues that would prevent the construction of high-capacity transit on any of the corridors, it did identify what it calls "pinch points." ► More: What could light rail on Nashville's Gallatin Pike look like? ► More: Mayor Barry looks to May election for 2018 transit funding referendum These are challenges where transit design would require "intense collaboration" among project designers, neighborhoods, adjacent property-owners, the Tennessee Department of Transportation and other stakeholders such as the railroad CSX. "What it's intended to do is give people a broad view to say, in these corridors, here's conceptually some of the issues," MTA CEO Steve Bland said, referring to the study. "The general takeaway is there's no fatal flaw. "They're not unusual challenges," he said of construction issues highlighted in the report. "They're challenges faced by a whole bunch of other cities." ► More: Mayor Barry orders 'action agenda' for quick transportation fixes ► More: How transit-oriented development can provide affordable housing The study says that Murfreesboro Pike is currently the most equipped to handle new transit construction followed by Gallatin Pike and Charlotte Avenue. Murfreesboro Pike also has by far the fewest right-of-way issues that could pose challenges for light rail, the report says. Gallatin Pike, where Barry wants to build first, also faces limited right-of-way challenges, the report argues. Right-of-way availability no the five corridors identified for transit (Photo: Metro Transportation Authority) The study does not discuss how the high-capacity transit system would function downtown — a key consideration to making any transit system work. There are also no cost estimates attached to any of the five corridor projects. Barry has not announced a timetable on moving forward with light rail on Gallatin Pike, instead pointing to approval of the transit funding referendum as a first step. The mayor has not identified the revenue streams she hopes to target for transit. Here's what the report has to say about each corridor: Gallatin Pike The report says the initial segment of light rail on Gallatin Pike would extend 5.1 miles along Main Street, Gallatin Avenue, and Gallatin Pike, and go from downtown Nashville to Briley Parkway, stopping short of entering Madison. To make light rail work on Gallatin Pike, sidewalks in some areas would have to be narrowed, according to the study. On the stretch of Gallatin Pike that is south of Eastland Avenue, the report cites the limited space between the roadway and existing structures as a challenge for construction. Metro owns property near East Nashville High School, which could help with construction flexibility near that stretch. A before and after of what the Nashville Light Rail could look like on Gallatin Pike at Eastland Avenue looking south. (Photo: Courtesy) On the north end of Gallatin Pike, the report cites the rail bridge that crosses Gallatin Pike at Kirkland Avenue as the greatest challenge. Consultants say that while it would be possible to construct light rail within the footprint of the existing structure, doing so would require a dramatically reduced cross-section, likely a single-track light rail line, which would "compromise the performance of the entire corridor." The Main Street portion of the corridor has the least amount of available right-of-way, particularly for stations. Conversely, it says that generous setbacks between buildings and the road between Kirkland Avenue and Eastland Avenue would mean little additional right-of-way would be needed. "Gallatin Pike is densely developed between downtown and Eastland Avenue. Consequently, to minimize impacts on existing properties, sidewalks would need to be narrower than in other areas," the report states. "Beyond Eastland Avenue, where development is less dense and setbacks are wider, it would be possible to incorporate features such as wider sidewalks and landscaping." Charlotte Avenue Light rail on Charlotte Avenue would initially run 3.7 miles between downtown Nashville and White Bridge Road with approximately eight stations. It says neighborhood access points would be key, and that access points to hospitals on Charlotte Pike would require special turning locations and signal designs. Transmission poles between 40th and 33rd avenues would present several construction challenges, the report says. Highway underpasses at Interstate 40 and 440 could likely accommodate light rail, but dense business districts between 25th Avenue and I-40 would pose challenges. The report says that some additional right-of-way would be necessary in all station areas on Charlotte Pike as well as most left-turn locations. It says additional roadway would be advantageous in the area close to Richland Creek, in particular, to avoid a single-track light rail configuration. "Although Charlotte Avenue is the most densely developed corridor under consideration, light rail could be implemented without major challenges or right-of-way constraints," the report states. "In all station areas along Charlotte Avenue, some additional roadway expansion would be required to accommodate platforms and turning lanes." Before and after of what the Nashville light rail could look like on Charlotte Avenue between 47th Avenue and 48th Avenue looking west. (Photo: Courtesy) Dickerson Pike Bus rapid transit is a type of transit that operates on dedicated lanes but utilizes buses instead of rail. The plans calls for BRT to run 4.4 miles down Dickerson Pike between Briley Parkway and Interstate 24 downtown. The report says that Dickerson Pike was identified for BRT instead of light rail because of its lower residential and commercial uses and because of constrained right-of-way that present unique challenges. It says there are overall few challenges to constructing BRT on Dickerson Pike and that both center and side-running BRT will be explored. "There is sufficient right-of-way along the majority of Dickerson Pike for implementing the minimum width side-running BRT design," the report states. "Between stations, very limited additional right-of-way would be needed and there are very few structural conflicts." A before and after of what the Nashville Bus Rapid Transit route could look like on Dickerson Pike South of Maplewood Trace looking north. (Photo: Courtesy) Murfreesboro Pike Consultants have proposed the first phase of light rail on Murfreesboro Pike spanning 8.2 miles and connecting to airport terminals along an exclusive right-of-way parallel to Donelson Pike. The plan calls for eight to 10 stations and an eventual connection to freeway BRT on Interstate 24. Murfreesboro Pike presents relatively few construction challenges, the study says, but it cites the bridge over Browns Creek and the rail overpass at Menzler Road as "potential pinch points." Right-of-way needs would be minimal along Murfreesboro Pike. "Murfreesboro Pike is less developed than other potential light rail corridors featuring large setbacks from the roadway and ample surface parking," the report states. "This low-density development could facilitate corridor construction and create opportunities for transit-supportive development in the future. The airport would be an important asset for the corridor attracting riders and anchoring light rail service." Before and after renderings show what the Nashville Light Rail could look like on Murfreesboro Pike south of Thompson place looking north. (Photo: Courtesy) Nolensville Pike Light rail on Nolensville Pike would extend 5.5 miles from downtown Nashville to Harding Place and include approximately eight stations. In terms of construction, the study says light rail would operate in a couplet close to downtown when the corridor is 4th Avenue South, heading away from downtown, and 2nd Avenue South, heading into downtown. Right-of-way needs would vary significantly, the report says. There would be no additional rights-of-way needed north of Walsh Road except near station areas. It says there's enough right-of-way near the Fairgrounds Nashville to create a wider corridor cross-section with landscaping. "Light rail would pass through neighborhoods with a mix of development types requiring a variety of trade-offs," the report states. "Challenges include difficult rail crossings, dense business districts with limited right-of-way, and restrictive adjacent land uses (such as the Nashville Cemetery)." Before and after renderings show what the Nashville Light Rail could look like on Nolensville Pike between Joyner Avenue and Woodbine Street looking north. (Photo: Courtesy) Reach Joey Garrison at 615-259-8236, jgarrison@tennessean.com and on Twitter @joeygarrison. Read or Share this story: https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2017/08/11/how-light-rail-nashville-corridors-would-work-and-where-challenges/557905001/ |
What would Donald Trump do to fix the Middle East? Listening to his prescriptions, it’s not an easy question to answer. Trump sought to clarify his worldview with a prepared speech in Youngstown, Ohio, on Monday after a week of battles over his claim that President Obama “founded ISIS” and was the “MVP” of the Islamist terror group. But setting aside the debate over that rhetoric, which he did not repeat in his speech, the national security framework he described was so contradictory and filled with so many obvious falsehoods that it’s virtually impossible to tell what he would do as president. Trump’s “Obama founded ISIS” catchphrase is inflammatory, but it’s not a literal argument (even though Trump initially insisted it was). Instead he's used the term to stitch together a patchwork of more mainstream criticisms that blame Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and former President George W. Bush for creating the current Middle East crisis. “Our current strategy of nation building and regime change is a proven, absolute failure,” Trump said on Monday. Play Facebook Twitter Embed Trump Proposes 'Extreme Vetting' Screening Process 1:59 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog Under Trump’s telling, Bush committed the initial sin by destabilizing the Middle East with his 2003 invasion of Iraq. This is a version of events more common on the left, but one that exists on the right as well. Obama then made things worse with a "reckless" withdrawal of troops that created a "vacuum" for groups like ISIS to assert control. This is a frequent complaint from more neoconservative Republicans. In addition, Trump said, Clinton exacerbated the problem by supporting airstrikes against Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi's "stable" regime, which provided Islamic radicals another weak state to serve as a base. He also argued Clinton and Obama should have supported Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, rather than encouraged him to step down in the face of street protests. These too are relatively ordinary criticisms. But these arguments, while unremarkable enough on their own, say nothing about Trump's instincts or how he would govern. That’s because Trump previously supported every single foreign policy decision he now decries. Despite claiming daily that he opposed the Iraq War from the start, Trump endorsed deposing Saddam Hussein in a 2002 interview and there’s no record of him opposing the war until after it had began. As for exiting the Iraq War, he said repeatedly in 2007 and 2008 that America should withdraw immediately and later recommended the same course for Afghanistan. Turning to Libya, Trump recorded a video in 2011 demanding the Obama administration remove Gadhafi from power on humanitarian grounds. He went on to lie about his support for the Libya intervention in a Republican debate only to admit to it when confronted with footage of his old statements in a CBS interview. Finally, Trump called Mubarak’s departure “a good thing” at the time before turning against the idea years later. The result is that the only thing we know about Trump is that he’s good at criticizing decisions by other presidents in hindsight. Unfortunately, this is not a very useful skill for the person tasked with making the decisions in the first place. “He’s best when he’s making forceful retrospective critiques,” Colin Dueck, a professor at George Mason University who’s researched the history of Republican foreign policy, said when asked to describe Trump’s worldview. “But when you ask him what specifically are you proposing going forward, he doesn’t have a coherent proposal.” As Colin Powell famously cautioned George W. Bush ahead of the Iraq War, “you break it, you own it.” The consequences of military action — or inaction, in some of these cases — are irreversible. A 'Blathering Jumble of Nonsense' Trump’s chameleon-like prescription for Middle East is not consistent with any one school of thought – or with itself. Sometimes he resembles a non-interventionist in the vein of Ron Paul, like when he decried nation building and regime change in his speech on Monday. At other times, he sounds like Genghis Khan, like when he demanded in the very same speech that American troops conquer oil fields in Iraq by force and claim the profits for America. He previously suggested in 2011 that the US claim Libya's oil as well. Play Facebook Twitter Embed Donald Trump: 'We Should Have Kept The Oil' 1:18 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog “In the old days when we won a war, to the victor go the spoils,” Trump said on Monday, describing a doctrine that runs directly counter to the international regime America led the world in establishing and currently enforces. The result of this confusing mix is that Trump has alienated Republican national security minds across a range of policy schools. John Noonan, who advised Jeb Bush’s campaign on national security, said Obama’s “premature withdrawal from Iraq" was an avoidable mistake that contributed to the rise of ISIS and that Trump was accurate to point it out. But that doesn’t mean Noonan is on board with the GOP nominee — far from it. “The rest of his foreign policy is an absolutely blathering jumble of nonsense,” he told NBC News. “I can’t in good conscience sign my name to it." In March, Noonan signed onto a letter with dozens of Republican foreign policy hands disavowing Trump in part because his policies are “wildly inconsistent and unmoored in principle." Daniel Larison, a writer at the American Conservative, has spent years criticizing the Republican Party’s foreign policy for leaning too hard on military operations to advance American interests. But despite Trump’s stated opposition to “nation building” and toppling dictators by force, Larison opposes the nominee as well. “Trump has relatively few antiwar conservative friends because he is not really reliably antiwar in any meaningful sense,” Larison said. “He favors a much larger military budget, he usually has no strong objections to foreign wars when they begin, and he has little or no interest in diplomatic engagement that might avert conflict.” Trump’s views on intervention weren’t the only place where things ran off the rails. Adopting a standard GOP talking point, he decried Obama for a mythic “apology tour” on Monday and chided him for not championing feminism and gay rights abroad. But this is at odds with his stated views as well, which have long been characterized by a deep contempt for any notion of human rights that might impede raw material gains. In addition to celebrating torture and regaling audiences with apocryphal tales of Americans committing war crimes, Trump has regularly argued America’s own leaders should refrain from criticizing dictatorial regimes because America lacks the moral authority to do so. Play Facebook Twitter Embed Trump: 'I Think We Can Find Common Ground With Russia' 0:59 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog “When the world looks at how bad the United States is, and then we go and talk about civil liberties, I don’t think we’re a very good messenger,” Trump said last month when asked about concerns over a crackdown on opposition by Turkish leader Reccep Erdogan. Pressed on MSNBC’s Morning Joe last year over his praise for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin despite allegations he’s murdered journalists and rivals, Trump responded: “I think our country does plenty of killing also.” In 2013, Trump also lavished praise on Putin in multiple interviews for writing an op-ed that criticized the very concept of American exceptionalism. “You use a term like ‘American exceptionalism,’ and frankly, the way our country is being treated right now by Russia and Syria and lots of other places and with all the mistakes we've made over the years, like Iraq and so many others, it's sort of a hard term to use,” Trump said on Fox News, adding that Putin was “extremely diplomatic” for pointing this out. 'America First' a Departure From GOP Philosophy Outside of the Middle East, Trump’s “America First” foreign policy views are at least somewhat more consistent. He’s long described international relations as a zero-sum gain between strong winners and weak losers in ways that apply to both national security and trade. Trump has consistently called for new tariffs to protect workers from foreign competition and he’s cast a skeptical eye towards alliances like NATO, which he’s threatened to abandon in recent months if member states don’t pay enough for protection. Dueck compared Trump’s perspective to the original “America First” movement, which resisted foreign entanglements and sought American neutrality in World War II. “Trump’s actually been saying for decades that he thinks U.S. alliances are more of a burden than an asset, he’s been saying for decades he against free trade deals like NAFTA,” Dueck said. “He’s very volatile and contradictory day to day but he has been actually saying this for years.” All of this would be a major break from the last seven-plus decades of Republican and Democratic presidents. But at least American voters could fairly say they were warned if he implemented this approach. No one, probably not even Trump himself, knows how what he’d do about the Middle East. Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect that Donald Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. claim Libya’s oil fields was made in 2011, not during his speech Monday as first reported. |
Many things have been written about the current QB situation in Miami and I’m sure you are avidly watching as things continue to develop. As we know, there are some leading candidates (not counting numerous other Free Agent QB options such as Kyle Orton or Jason Campbell or Donovan McNabb, not to mention that Drew Brees will hit the list also). Let’s look at some possibilities and then focus more on who I believe to be the leading contender and the best fit, Matt Flynn. On the roster now, Miami is carrying possible starters Chad Henne and Matt Moore. Recently Chad Pennington signaled that he is feeling healthy again but most likely will retire (according to a report from last Thursday’s Palm Beach Post by Brian Biggane). By the way, who does Pennington think is the best choice at QB? He said pursuing Green Bay backup Matt Flynn in free agency could be the best answer for the Dolphins because it would set up a competition for the starting job between Flynn and Moore. “Now you’ve got two guys who have proven they can do it, and with them pushing each other you may get one to take the lead role,” Pennington said. “That’s not a bad situation.” |
Free Cell Phones and Airtime for Low Income Households – Truth! Summary of eRumor: A forwarded email that says cellular phones and airtime will be made available for free to low income households. The Truth: One Cellular phone and 60 minutes per month of air time will be given to low income households by Safelink Wireless. Funding came through the Lifeline government program which was established in 1984 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to assist low income famili es and update communication services in areas affected by disasters. On September 29, 2009, the prepaid cell phone provider Tracfone Wireless, Inc., announced the launch of SafeLink Wireless in Illinois. According to a September 29, 2009 Reuters article, SafeLink Wireless is the first and only completely free offering of Lifeline — a U.S. government supported program for income eligible households that ensures telephone service is available and affordable for eligible low-income households. The TracFone Wireless company is a subsidiary of América Móvil S.A.B. de C.V. based in Mexico City. The eRumor jokingly calls this an “Obama phone” but the Reuters article said that the program was based on a decision made by the FCC to “enhance its Lifeline program and keep the right to communicate in pace with technology.” The concept of providing cellular phones to low income families actually dates back before the Obama administration. According to a June 3, 2008 wirelessandmobilenews.com article, TracFone became the “first wireless provider to be designated by the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) as an eligible telecommunications carrier (ETC) for the purpose of offering Lifeline.” Click for news release. In order to qualify, families must meet certain criteria and verify income annually. This program is currently available in Alabama, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The company expects to offer the service nation wide soon. Funding for the Lifeline program is collected in the form of surcharges that are included in telephone and cellular phone bills. |
Back in 2014, an English language remake of The Raid was announced, but during early stages of development, the film became stuck in development hell. Within the process, director Patrick Hughes (Expendables 3) dropped out for reasons unknown. And Frank Grillo (Captain America: Civil War), who was also heavily associated with the project, hinted in many interviews that the remake was on again/off again, and finally off again, indefinitely. Then surprisingly in January, Grillo announced that he and filmmaker Joe Carnahan (Smokin’ Aces) were re-launching the remake from a newly revised script by Carnahan himself. Now news has emerged (via Collider) that Carnahan is not only writing the remake, but also directing it. Here’s what he had to say (via Twitter): “The Raid remake will hew closer in tone and feel to The Grey and Narc. Gareth Evans is producing alongside and has given us his full blessing.” Carnahan continued with his next message: “It’s not a remake. It’s a reimagining of the same scenario. Everybody take a deep breath. We won’t disappoint you, rabid-fanboy-from-Hell.” Evans (read our archived interview with him), the director of the original, and producer of the upcoming remake, previously expressed interest in having both Scott Adkins (Eliminators) and Michael Jai White (Falcon Rising) as potential leads. Others stars attached included Chris and Liam Hemsworth, Luke Evans, Anthony Mackie, Ethan Hawke and Taylor Kitsch. Updates: In a recent interview with Collider, Carnahan and Grillo were very vocal about their upcoming Raid remake (they say it’s not a remake, but semantics aside, it’s a remake). And here’s the most interesting tidbits from the interview: On the feel of the remake… Carnahan: If our movie felt like the knife fight between Adam Goldberg and the German in Saving Private Ryan the entirety of the movie, then we’ve done exactly what we need to do. Grillo: You want to look away but you can’t. On the “assault” pattern in cinema… Grillo: Many Americans, most Americans, have never seen The Raid before. Carnahan: By the way, Smokin’ Aces is about an assault on a penthouse with a bunch of crazy people fighting their way up to the top. That was six years before The Raid was made. So it’s not like these are things that don’t interest me. I can show you a pattern. I dig that kind of an idea. On the film’s exposure… Grillo: And I’ll tell you something that bothers me. When people say you’re doing to do “The Hollywood Version” of The Raid – Carnahan: Or whitewash it. Grillo: First of all, we’re not the Hollywood version of anything. We come through the back door all the time. I’m not Tom Cruise. I’m not the Hollywood version. I’m not knocking Tom Cruise, but he’s Tom Cruise. He gets to do whatever he wants. So my point is we don’t have to do this. We can do anything we want to do. We want to do this because there’s something we see that we want to show to American audiences, and audiences globally. Many people have not seen The Raid. On the film’s setting… Carnahan: [It’s set in] Caracas. Because Caracas is a madhouse. It’s almost like a safehouse for bad guys, like they built this block in Caracas because this is where you come to do business and no one will f*ck with you. Because it’s such a dangerous place, nobody wants to go in there. Again, it’s heightening elements of The Raid that were already there, I’m taking these story elements and kind of weaponizing them. Just giving them a shot of steroids, because again everything is about zagging—where The Raid zigged, we’ll zag. On Gareth Evans’ blessing… Grillo: We’ve had two-hour conversations with Gareth [Evans]. He says, “Go make your version. I want to see your version.” On Iko Uwais’ possible involvement… Grillo: I did a movie with Iko… We became brothers. And he’s my boy. When he heard this, he reached out to immediately and said, “Is there a place for me in the movie?”… So maybe. Joe said maybe there’s a world where he’s one of the other guys. Who knows. We’ll keep you updated as we hear more about The Raid remake. Stay tuned! |
Microsoft will work with university faculty members in an initiative that seeks to change the financial system through the application of blockchain technology. On August 31, 2017, Microsoft announced it has joined the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3), comprised of faculty members at Cornell University, Cornell Tech, UC Berkeley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Technion. IC3 and Microsoft will work together to make the financial system more flexible, transparent, and secure by researching blockchain applications for enterprise adoption. Other industry partners include IBM, Intel, Fidelity Labs, and Digital Asset. IC3 continues to receive funding from a three-year $3 million National Science Foundation grant issued in 2015. Yorke E. Rhodes III, Global Blockchain Business Strategist at Microsoft, elaborated on the partnership. "As we continue our journey in blockchain, we have watched and read the work of the IC3 team and are impressed with their thinking and the perspective they bring to the community. We are very aligned with the approaches IC3 blockchain experts are taking to address scale, simplification, and other topics of interest for enterprise adoption. The synergies in their research fit well with our visions for enterprise scale blockchain solutions.” Ari Juels, Co-Director of IC3 and professor at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech in New York City, expressed a shared vision between Microsoft and the initiative. "IC3 was founded to advance blockchain science, technology and applications,” he said. “We’re delighted to work more closely with Microsoft’s blockchain experts, who share our vision of blockchain-based solutions for next generation financial services.” "We are excited to work more closely with IC3 through this membership,” added Rhodes. |
Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window) According to a patent application filed by Disney, a new shield throwing experience may be coming to the theme parks. Images in the patent show Captain America‘s shield attached to a rail that users slide onto their forearm. When guests make a throwing motion with their arm, the shield slides down the rail. While it does not detach from the arm piece, a virtual component kicks in to simulate a shield traveling in the direction of the user’s throw. If the user hits their target, a “boomerang” effect brings the shield back. Targets have varying degrees of difficulty, so a super villain is harder to hit than a henchman. The target element of the attraction sounds similar to Toy Story Mania at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, a virtual dart game that awards higher points for hitting the toughest targets. Physical targets may be part of the attraction as well. As the applications states, “In one embodiment, the throwing apparatus is a toy device that permits the user to play the role of a superhero who uses the projectile to attack virtual or physical targets (e.g., toys) or defend against attacks from the targets or other players in an immersive storytelling environment.” If the patent becomes a reality, the new Captain America attraction may be poised to join Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission – Breakout! in Disney’s California Adventure as part of an expanded Marvel section of the park. California Adventure is also currently home to the Avengers Training Initiative, an interactive Marvel show that’s part of the Summer of Heroes event. Take a look at the show in our video below. WATCH – AVENGERS TRAINING INITIATIVE: You can read Disney’s full patent application for the shield experience here. |
Hello Yugioh Community! YCS Indianapolis is upon us! In fact, by the time you are able to read this article the tournament should have already taken place and a winner has been determined! I have decided to try something new and write about the deck I am taking to the event, before the YCS begins, but then having it published right at the tournaments conclusion. Jeff Jones did this very thing at the last YCS in Toronto and I really liked the idea! In a best case scenario I did well and everyone is dying to see the list I used or I didn’t do so hot and people want to see what I chose to run anyway! Either way I think this is a pretty cool concept! Feel free to leave some feedback in the comments below if you like or dislike this idea. The deck I chose to use for this event is……INZEKTORS! Many duelists thought this deck had seen its last day with the restriction of Inzektor Hornet and Inzektor Dragonfly to one, but I want to try and prove everyone wrong! In this article I am going to go over the deck list I used, talk about my basic strategy with the deck. Question of the article? What deck do you think is still powerful, but most players seem to have written off? Don’t forget to answer the question of the article in the comments down below! Why did I use Inzektors? There are a few main reasons I decided to take this deck to YCS Indy. First off, running decks that are under the radar and people aren’t prepared for can be a really good idea. If your deck is good enough you can catch a whole tournament by surprise and take a lot of quick and easy wins. I also feel a lot of popular cards right now (Dimensional Prison, Thunder King Rai-Oh, Mirror Force, etc.) have gained popularity again since Inzektors aren’t around. All of the cards I named aren’t very strong against Inzektors in most cases and my opponent having deck cards can make for some easy wins. Lastly, I just really like this theme. I used them for a majority of the end of last format, was able to make a top 4 finish at YCS Chicago with the first time I used them, and have basically fell in love with them ever since. It is a very explosive deck and now with all the restrictions on the deck it takes precise plays and proper decision making to ensure victory. The Deck Monsters: 19 3 Inzektor Centipede 3 Inzektor Ladybug 2 Mystic Tomato 2 Card Trooper 2 Effect Veiler 2 Maxx “C” 1 Sangan 1 Inzektor Giga-Mantis 1 Inzektor Dragonfly 1 Inzektor Hornet 1 Dark Armed Dragon Spells: 13 3 Mystical Space Typhoon 2 Pot Of Duality 2 Inzektor Sword – Zektkaliber 1 Dark Hole 1 Monster Rebron 1 Foolish Burial 1 Heavy Storm 1 Book of Moon 1 Forbidden Lance Traps: 8 3 Call of The Haunted 2 Solemn Warning 2 Bottomless Traphole 1 Solemn Judgment Side Deck: 15 3 Gozen Match 3 Dimensional Fissure 3 Messenger of Peace 2 Level Limit Area - B 2 Royal Decree 1 Effect Veiler 1 Needle Ceiling Extra Deck: 15 2 Leviair The Sea Dragon 2 Wind-Up Zenmaines 1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon 1 Number 20 : Giga Brilliant 1 Temptempo the Percussion Djinn 1 Number 30; Acid Golem of Destruction 1 Tiras, Keeper of Genesis 1 Nubmer 12: Crimson Shadow Armor Ninja 1 Inzektor Exa-Stag 1 Photon Strike Bounzer 1 Gaia Dragon, The thunder Charger 1 Number 39: Utopia 1 Gachi Gachi Ganetsu Basic Strategies of the Deck I am not going to go into lots of details over my specific card choices, but that can be addressed in a future article depending on how I do in the main event or if it is something that you guys would like to see. What I do want to talk about is my main goal when I start every duel. PROTECT THE CENTIPEDE! This is the same goal I had with Inzektors last format and not much has changed. If I am able to summon a Centipede turn one and equip it with a Ladybug, which happens fairly often since I run three copies of both, then I am feeling pretty good. Depending on my hand I can search out Inzektor Hornet from the get go if I have an Inzektor Sword or another Inzektor in my hand. If I don’t have either, I can always just search the sword, equip it to Centipede, and outside of a couple of cards, I am pretty set. If my opponent does find a way to deal with him then he will just go back to my hand when he is sent to the grave with the Sword. When the Centipede lives, there are an insane amount of avenues I can take depending on the situation. First of all it’s a free search, and if my opponent has no back rows I can dive in for a Dragonfly and start spamming all my Inzektors and since I will back them up with Inzektor Swords they will just go back to my hand when they die! I can make the Rank 5 I need to deal with whatever spot my opponent has put me in, or I can just play conservative and hold on to it till I get enough plusses with my Centipede to finish the duel. The deck is not played like it used to be, just throwing Dragonfly after Dragonfly at my opponent; you have to take a conservative approach and just out advantage or out speed the opponent. It is true that this deck lost a lot of power with the recent forbidden and limited list, but so did the format in general. Conclusion: By the time you are reading this, YCS Indy will have taken place, and hopefully I finished in one of the top spots. I wanted to be able to share with you guys what I took to the tournament as quickly as possible and what better way to have it written a day before the event and posted as soon as the tournament ends! I decided to try and bring back Inzektors and take everyone by surprise this past weekend. Hopefully I do well, but even if I don’t get the results I want, I feel this was the right pick for me for this event. I honestly believe that Inzektors will become a deck player’s have to deal with again. The deck is still powerful and can easily win games if piloted the correct way. The most important idea I can express with this deck is PROTECT THE CENTIPEDE. This has always been a main strategy with this deck, and you need to follow it now more than ever! As I mentioned earlier in the article, I didn’t go into any big detail on my card particular card choices, but if I am successful at this event you can bet there will be an in-depth look on why I went with certain cards. Thanks for reading! I hope you guys liked my deck and the way this article was presented! Feel free to leave and feedback and answer the question of the article in the comments down below! -Billy Brake -YCS Toronto and YCS Columbus Champion Discussion comments |
The reported approach can be easily modified to fabricate different valve shapes to afford other applications such as fluid confinement. Indeed, the flexibility of this protocol also allows for modification of the thickness of the bottom layer, and thereby of the PDMS membrane, from a couple of tens to a few hundreds of microns to fulfill any application of interest. Moreover, dimensions of structures in each layer of the device can be optimized for the desired application and various heights of structures on the master molds can be simply achieved by spinning the photoresist at different velocities. Spinning the photoresist at a higher speed results in thinner structures. To better implement the protocol, a clean room environment for the fabrication of the master molds is substantially essential; otherwise, the fabrication procedure will lead to defective master molds and thereby to unusable microfluidic devices. Two critical aspects should be emphasized in this protocol: i) the constant temperature of the oven that needs to be adjusted to 80 °C and ii) the programmed time period between processes that has to be complied accurately. Any modification of temperature and time frame in the protocol might lead to non-bonded chips, and thus, to non-functional devices. The "turbulent free" conditions typically encountered in microfluidic systems have recently been employed for the generation of microstructures or molecular materials inside30 and outside single layer microfluidic chips31. In double-layer microfluidic chips, the laminar flow regime, and hence, the interface generated between continuous co-flows can be manipulated using pneumatic cages18,28. These devices also provide for effective control over the synthetic pathway, which in turn leads to precise localization and trapping on surfaces18. As mentioned earlier, pneumatic actuation in double-layer microfluidic chips has been previously employed for various applications such as cell trapping20, enzymatic activity studies21 and protein crystallization24. However, the main objective of the reported approach is to propose a platform to be used for trapping and directing the coordination pathway of a crystalline molecular material and controlling chemical reactions onto on-chip trapped structures18,25. The described method does not only allow trapping of anisotropic structures but can be used to localize particles onto surfaces. Future studies can be effectively directed towards the design of new valve shapes for additional application in biology, materials science and sensor technologies. The combination of different valve shapes as well as altered channel heights and membrane thicknesses can be employed to fulfill specific applications, such as chemical studies based on diffusional mixing and the localization of material growth. A further application of the described microfluidic platforms is in the controlled chemical doping of crystals, which can lead to a rationalized formation of interfaces in crystalline structures19. This approach also provides for a wide range of post-treatments of on-chip trapped structures; a methodology that will undoubtedly open new horizons in materials engineering. It is important to underline that the number of technologies enabling controlled chemical reactions under dynamic conditions and onto crystalline matter are very limited at present, hence making this approach very attractive in materials-related fields. However, a major limitation of this technology is the use of PDMS. PDMS elastomer is incompatible with many organic solvents, which limits the number of reactions that can be conducted inside these microfluidic chips. In future, the development of other elastomers that can tolerate and be stable against a broader number of organic solvents will be highly required in order to expand this field of research to other materials and chemistries. |
It’s that time of the season again, potential kits are being leaked online as Chelsea’s disastrous season slowly comes to an end. Following their exit from both the FA Cup and the Champions League, the Blues have all but nothing to play for, despite the small outside chance of a Europa League finish via a league position. This is not the first time that potential kits have been leaked this season, earlier in the season, before the 2016-17 season had barely got under way, images of potential kits were being shared online. This time, Voetbalshirtjes.com, are sharing images of what looks to be the front and back of the new home kit and also the front and back of the potential third kit for Antonio Conte’s first season at Stamford Bridge. There has been no official word on these kits as of yet, so take them with a pinch of salt, but what do you think of them? |
Congressional Republicans are targeting public financing of presidential campaigns, citing deficit worries and calling the current program “welfare for politicians.” Democrats, though, charge it’s an attempt by the GOP to further increase the influence of big donors. Taxpayers can now choose whether to have part of their bill go to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund -- $3 for individual income tax filers, $6 for joint returns. Ending the program would take $617 million away from candidates over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan number-crunchers at the Congressional Budget Office. The money would instead go into general revenue of the federal government. The CBO estimates that ending the program would immediately result in $195 million -- the amount left in the fund at the end of the 2008 election cycle -- going toward the ever-growing deficit. The House voted Wednesday 239-160, with 10 Democrats supporting the measure, to nix the program, which was part of a slate of reforms enacted after the Watergate scandal. Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., promptly introduced a companion bill in the Senate for consideration, saying, “In a time of exploding deficits and record debt the last thing the American people want right now is to provide what amounts to welfare for politicians.” Currently, once a candidate raises $100,000 in a primary through donations of $250 or less per donor, the candidate is eligible for matching funds, dollar for dollar. In the general election, a candidate receives a lump sum once she or he agrees to forgo private fundraising. The Presidential Election Campaign Fund is also used to help fund the national GOP and Democratic nominating conventions held every four years. The measure faces a difficult path in the Senate, if it even gets a vote. Democrats and their allies see the GOP effort as further erosion of campaign finance rules at a time when many in the party are concerned about a recent Supreme Court ruling that removed campaign spending restrictions on corporations and unions. Democrats warned that the decision would allow “secret” money into the system, potentially from overseas. “It is hard to imagine a more cynical vote than the one today by a group of Republicans to eliminate public funding of presidential campaigns. Today’s vote makes it clear that a majority of those in the House of Representatives wish to announce that they are for sale to the highest bidder,” accused Mary Kay Henry of the Service Employees International Union. Before the final vote in the House, Republicans defeated a Democratic attempt to mandate that groups paying for political ads disclose their donors, something Democrats have sought since the high court’s ruling. Calling the fund “an outdated mechanism,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., noted, “In times when government has no choice but to do more with less, voting to end the Presidential Election Campaign Fund should be a no brainer.” |
Army officer ranks are in three tiers: company grade, field grade and general. Commissioned officers are the highest ranks in the Army. These officers hold presidential commissions and are confirmed at their ranks by the Senate. Army officers in the ranks of O-1 to O-3 are called company grade officers; those in the pay grades O-4 to O-6 are known as field grade officers, and those in pay grades O-7 and above are known as general officers. Army Officer Ranks and Their Insignia Second Lieutenant (2LT)(O1) Addressed as "Lieutenant." Typically the entry-level rank for most Commissioned Officers. Leads platoon-size elements consisting of the platoon SGT and two or more squads (16 to 44 Soldiers). First Lieutenant (1LT)(O2) Addressed as "Lieutenant." A seasoned lieutenant with 18 to 24 months service. Leads more specialized weapons platoons and indirect fire computation centers. As a senior Lieutenant, they are often selected to be the Executive Officer of a company-sized unit (110 to 140 personnel). Captain (CPT)(O3) Addressed as "Captain." Commands and controls company-sized units (62 to 190 Soldiers), together with a principal NCO assistant. Instructs skills at service schools and The United States Army combat training centers and is often a Staff Officer at the battalion level. Major (MAJ)(O4) Addressed as "Major." Serves as primary Staff Officer for brigade and task force command regarding personnel, logistical and operational missions. Lieutenant Colonel (LTC)(O5) Addressed as "Lieutenant Colonel" or "Colonel." Typically commands battalion-sized units (300 to 1,000 Soldiers), with a CSM as principal NCO assistant. May also be selected for brigade and task force Executive Officer. Colonel (COL)(O6) Addressed as "Colonel." Typically commands brigade-sized units (3,000 to 5,000 Soldiers), with a CSM as principal NCO assistant. Also found as the chief of divisional-level staff agencies. Army Officer Ranks: Generals Brigadier General (BG)(O7) Addressed as "General." Serves as Deputy Commander to the commanding general for Army divisions. Assists in overseeing the staff's planning and coordination of a mission. Major General (MG)(O8) Addressed as "General." Typically commands division-sized units (10,000 to 15,000 Soldiers). Lieutenant General (LTG)(O9) Addressed as "General." Typically commands corps-sized units (20,000 to 45,000 Soldiers). General (GEN)(O10) Addressed as "General." The senior level of Commissioned Officer typically has over 30 years of experience and service. Commands all operations that fall within their geographical area. The Chief of Staff of the Army is a four-star General. General of the Army (GOA) This is only used in time of War where the Commanding Officer must be equal or of higher rank than those commanding armies from other nations. The last officers to hold this rank served during and immediately following WWII. Interested in Joining the Military? We can put you in touch with recruiters from the different military branches. Learn about the benefits of serving your country, paying for school, military career paths, and more: sign up now and hear from a recruiter near you. |
Story highlights Baby elephant tries to save man who helps care for her She shares a special bond with him (CNN) We can all agree it's basically a dream situation to be rescued by a baby elephant, especially if you didn't really need rescuing in the first place. Instead, you just end up being assured that a baby elephant loves you and wants you to be okay. The Save Elephant Foundation in Chiang Mai, Thailand, captured little Kham Lha racing to the aid of Darrick Thomson, the co-founder of the foundation and one of her favorite people ever. Thomson was calling out to her on the shore, and she interpreted his calls as distress cries (he was totally fine, though). Kham Lha charged through the water, sheltering him with her body and offering her trunk for him to hold on to. Crisis averted. Turns out, Kham Lha loves to hold hands with Thomson. Here she is leading him around the park. The Save Elephant Foundation operates the Elephant Nature Park , where these sweet videos were taken. The staff told CNN Thomson helped rescue Kham La and her mother Bai Teoy in 2015. Read More |
Nate Diaz beat UFC featherweight champion Conor McGregor once before. Perhaps it’ll take a second victory to finally get some respect at the sports books. During Saturday’s UFC 199 broadcast – and following a few months of often-bizarre public spatting – UFC officials announced and finally confirmed that McGregor and Diaz are set for a rematch. The duo is slated to meet at UFC 202, which takes place Aug. 20 and airs on pay-per-view from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. McGregor (19-3 MMA, 7-1 UFC) again moves up to welterweight to fight sometimes-lightweight, sometimes-welterweight Diaz (19-10 MMA, 14-8 UFC). They were initially slated to fight next month at UFC 200 before McGregor suddenly (but only briefly) retired from MMA. Although McGregor had a decent start in their first meeting back in March at UFC 196, Diaz, who took the fight on short notice, ultimately took control of the and scored a second-round submission victory. McGregor closed as a nearly -600 (6-1) favorite in the first meeting, and according to oddsmaker Nick Kalikas of mmaoddsbreaker.com, the Irishman has opened as a favorite – a small one, but a favorite nonetheless – in the rematch. According to the opening odds, McGregor is a -130 favorite at UFC 202. Diaz, meanwhile, is the +100 underdog. At those odds, a potential winning $100 bet on McGregor would produce a net profit of $76.92; a winning $100 bet on Diaz would earn the bettor $100 in profit. Additionally, the over-under for the bout has been set at 2.5 rounds. The “under” has opening odds of -130; the “over” is +100. McGregor has closed as the favorite in all 11 of his recently tracked fights, according to bestfightodds.com. For more on UFC 202, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site. |
A young man from Armenia, who settled in Moldova, was sentenced to eight years in jail for trafficking in persons for forced labor, IPN reports, quoting the Prosecutor General’s Office. The culprit promised 14 Moldovans jobs in the construction sector in Russia and salaries of US$1,000 a month. The men were transported to Krasnodar town, where they were deprived of passports. During about two months, the men worked in the construction sector without rest days, until late at night. They lived in freight cars without electricity, heat and water and were to pay for food out of their own pocket. They weren’t even paid for what they did. When the men returned to Moldova, they informed the police. The Buiucani Court ordered that the offender remunerate the victims for the work they did. According to statistics of the Prosecutor General’s Office, 78 victims of human trafficking for forced labor (20 women and 58 men) were identified in the first nine months of this year, as against 79 victims in the corresponding period last year. In the period, there were started 31 criminal cases over such offenses, as opposed to 27 in the first nine months of 2013. |
PRISTINA, Kosovo (RNS) Three years ago, Joshua Stanton was walking around Peja, a Balkan city where the skyline is punctured with the dainty minarets of three historic mosques, when he decided to put on his yarmulke. “I am Jewish,” he thought. “I want to put it on.” This, he explained later, was not something he would do in France, in Germany or in much of Europe, where anti-Semitism is on the rise. But as a young rabbi visiting from New Jersey, Stanton, then 27, said he felt different in this region recently engulfed in an ethnic civil war that left many dead and missing. The reaction from people in the street — most of them Muslims — astonished him. People came up to him, grabbed him by the hand, asked where he was from, welcomed him to their country. “Are you Jewish?” he remembers them asking. “We love the Jews. Israel helped us rebuild after the war.” Stanton came to Kosovo, a small, amoeba-shaped country with a population that is 97 percent Muslim, to attend Interfaith Kosovo, an annual gathering of religious and secular leaders from around the world. His experience there and on the streets of Peja were so overwhelming for Stanton, he has returned to Kosovo twice more. This year, he returned to the gathering, held in the developing nation’s capital of Pristina, with 10 companions who came as the country’s guests. All are, like Stanton, young Jews from the New York-New Jersey area who are interested in interfaith relations. Why are American Jews traveling to Kosovo, an 8-year-old nation most of them didn’t know existed before their visit, to learn how to better relate to Muslims back in the U.S.? The answer lies in the Middle East. “Interfaith dialogue in the U.S. is stuck in the framework of the Israel-Palestinian conflict,” Stanton said, referring to the 80-year-old, often deadly struggle over lands claimed by both Jews and Arabs. “This will force them to think creatively about what we can do to reframe them.” “So the hope in going to Kosovo is to give this group of young Jewish leaders a chance to imagine what Muslim-Jewish relations can be in the U.S. and then to come back and improve those relations in the New York area.” READ: “Diplomacy can undermine extremism” by Kosovo President Hashim Thaci Why Kosovo? There have been Jews in the Kosovo region since Roman times. Many more migrated to the region in the Middle Ages as they were expelled from other places, like Spain. They came, learned the local language, and became merchants, doctors and artisans. The acceptance Stanton encountered can be traced to World War II. Kosovo — then part of Albania — refused to turn over its Jews to the invading Nazis for deportation. Many were hidden by local Albanian families — Muslims, Catholics and Serbian Orthodox Christians — and sheltered by local governments. Enver Hoxhaj, Kosovo’s former minister of foreign affairs, attributes this to the Albanian code of honor called “besa.” “According to besa, when an individual offers help and takes a guest into his or her home, he or she also has a duty to protect the safety of the guest,” Hoxhaj wrote in 2013, the year Stanton first visited Kosovo. “Albanian customary law states that ‘the house of an Albanian is God’s and (a) friend’s.’” More than 2,000 Jews survived the Holocaust in Kosovo and Albania. But with the rise of communism in the region in 1946, the year Kosovo became part of Yugoslavia, many Jews departed. Today, there are fewer than 100 Jews in Kosovo, according to a 2013 report in the Forward, a U.S.-based Jewish newspaper. The Yugoslav government tore down the last synagogue in Kosovo in 1963. Today, it is the site of a new parliament building, its courtyard decorated with a memorial. “This plaque is raised in memory of Kosovo Jews that perished in Nazi camps during [the] Holocaust,” a plaque reads. “People of Kosovo will never forget them.” Then there’s the Kosovo War, a conflict between Albanians and Serbs over the land the Republic of Kosovo now encompasses that began in 1998. Neighbors killed neighbors, often targeting them for their religion or ethnic identity. Today, Kosovo’s population is overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian; Serbs have mainly immigrated to Serbia and elsewhere. The shell of a large Serbian Orthodox church stands amid weeds just a few blocks from where the Interfaith Kosovo conference took place. To some Jews, the conflict, which still percolates in Serbia’s refusal to recognize Kosovo as a nation, resonates as familiar. “Kosovo has the feel of Israel in some ways,” said Michael Sherman, a 29-year-old who works in real estate and made the trip. “It’s a young, new country that’s really eager and rightfully so since they fought for so long for independence.” ‘Books, not bombs’ The men and women who accompanied Stanton this year are all members of Tribe, a service and social group for young Jews in New York City. They range in age from their mid-20s to their early 30s and mainly identify as Conservative Jews, though not all attend synagogue regularly. Seated around a large, circular table among the 300 conference attendees from 56 countries, they listened to Shirin Ebadi of Iran and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen — both Nobel Peace Prize laureates and both Muslims — speak with urgency of Islamic fundamentalism in their homelands. “Instead of throwing bombs at them (fundamentalists), we should be throwing books at them and building schools,” the diminutive Ebadi said after her address. “Then you will see that fundamentalism will be eliminated.” Ebadi’s speech rippled across the Tribe group. Eric Oppenheimer, 26, said it prompted a late-night discussion between himself and Stanton about steps they could take back in New York. “We talked about how we could get (Muslim and Jewish) leaders to a table and talk about that,” Oppenheimer said. “That is a first step, for me at least, to understanding how this will work.” Robin Shapiro, 26, chatted with a conference attendee from Slovakia about that country’s difficulties in integrating Muslim refugees. “That is a challenge I see in America,” he said. “Is there a way for me to go home and think about that and how we can integrate all immigrant cultures in America? How can we come together?” He is returning to New York with ideas about how an interfaith soccer program could bring Muslims, Jews and others together. And Sherman, who helped Stanton recruit Tribe members for the trip, said Interfaith Kosovo bolstered his confidence in the ability of Muslims and Jews to coexist and thrive. “I am going to show some of my clients back in New York what I have learned in this region about how Muslims in the past have helped us and took us in as part of their family,” he said. “I think that can give a new perspective in the work going on in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict many of them are concerned with.” When the group returns to New York, they will meet to plan their outreach efforts to the local Muslim community. “The nerve-wracking thing for me is I don’t know the outcome,” Stanton said. “But the exciting thing is I think we’ve picked the right people. I think they are going to figure it out.” A gloomy backdrop Tribe members came to Interfaith Kosovo at the invitation of Petrit Selimi, Kosovo’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, who met and befriended Stanton three years ago, even attending a Shabbat, or Sabbath, dinner the rabbi presided over in a Pristina restaurant. For him, the link between Kosovo and New York City, between Muslims here and Jews there, is clear. “New York City is best positioned to remember terror but also to promote tolerance, cooperation and cross-faith links between peoples,” Selimi said after the conference. “Kosovo is secular and New York is secular, but we have a role to play in fortifying the communal identities and continuous interfaith dialogue.” Two weeks before Tribe members left for Kosovo, their hometown newspaper, The New York Times, published a front-page story that many felt undercut the goals of Interfaith Kosovo. “How Kosovo Was Turned Into Fertile Ground for ISIS,” the headline promised to explain. In it, reporter Carlotta Gall, who covered the Bosnian War from Kosovo in the 1990s, detailed how more than 300 Kosovars have reportedly traveled to join the Islamic State group, or ISIS — more than any other nation, per capita, in Europe. Gall described a gathering of fundamentalist Muslims near Bill Clinton Boulevard, a main thoroughfare through Pristina and only steps away from the conference. “It is unfair to judge a country by a small number of its citizens,” Kadri Veseli, speaker of Kosovo’s parliament, told the conference through a translator. “It is the time to show the extremists that religions are a value and not their tool.” Tribe members, who traveled through Kosovo and the adjacent countries of Montenegro and Serbia days before the conference, said the Times’ story did not match their impression of the region. “One thing my mom said to me a long time ago that resonates here is that other people of faith usually respect you in your faith,” said Sarah Fried, 28. “I definitely feel that here. It feels so comfortable to say, ‘I am here because I am a Jew.’ No one is judging.” |
My latest pair of socks in Cascade 220 aqua heather. I used a very basic sock pattern and then across the top of the foot and up the leg: *K1, YO, P1, P3tog, P1, YO, K1* on every 4th row. I love toe-up socks because there is very little left-over yarn. On this pair I have 2 yards of left-overs. To get the most out of a ball: split your large ball into 2 equal balls using a gram scale. Knit a toe from each ball. When you get done with the increases, use a ruler and measure out 6 feet of yarn and tie a slip knot. Knit 1 round and then measure what is left to figure out how much yarn you are using per row. Unwind the ball and measure out how much ribbing you want at the top of the sock. 10 rows of ribbing + 2 for bind off x amount of yarn per row, for example. Tie a slip knot. Wind the ball back up and knit like crazy until you get to the slip knot. Switch to rib stitch for 10 rows. Bind off with extra stretchy bind off and have very little waste yarn. My latest pair of socks in Cascade 220 aqua heathe... ( show quote |
Embattled Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner and an attorney in the Federal Election Commission’s general counsel’s office appear to have twice colluded to influence the record before the FEC’s vote in the case of a conservative non-profit organization, according to e-mails unearthed by the House Ways and Means Committee and obtained exclusively by National Review Online. The correspondence suggests the discrimination of conservative groups extended beyond the IRS and into the FEC, where an attorney from the agency’s enforcement division in at least one case sought and received tax information about the status of a conservative group, the American Future Fund, before recommending that the commission prosecute it for violations of campaign-finance law. Lerner, the former head of the IRS’s exempt-organizations division, worked at the FEC from 1986 to 2001, and was known for aggressive investigation of conservative groups during her tenure there, too. “Several months ago . . . I spoke with you about the American Future Fund, a 501(c)(4) organization that had submitted an exemption application the IRS [sic],” the FEC attorney wrote Lerner in February 2009. The FEC, which polices violations of campaign-finance laws, is not exempted under Rule 6103, which prohibits the IRS from sharing confidential taxpayer information, but the e-mail indicates Lerner may have provided that information nonetheless: “When we spoke last July, you had told us that the American Future Fund had not received an exemption letter from the IRS,” the FEC attorney wrote. The timing of the correspondence between Lerner and the FEC suggests the FEC attorney sought information from the IRS in order to influence an upcoming vote by the six FEC commissioners. The FEC received a complaint in March 2008 from the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party alleging that the American Future Fund had violated campaign-finance law by engaging in political advocacy without registering as a political-action committee. The American Future Fund responded to that complaint in June 2008, telling the commission that it had applied for tax exemption in March of that year and was a “501(c)(4) social-welfare organization that was organized to provide Americans with a conservative and free-market viewpoint and mechanism to communicate and advocate on the issues that most interest and concern them.” According to the e-mail correspondence, a month after receiving the American Future Fund’s response, the FEC general counsel’s office — which is prohibited under law from conducting an investigation into an organization before the FEC’s six commissioners have voted to do so — contacted Lerner to investigate the agency’s tax-exempt status. Advertisement The FEC general counsel’s office, in its recommendation on the case, apparently didn’t tell the agency’s commissioners about how it had obtained the information about the group’s tax-exempt status. Recommending that the commissioners prosecute the American Future Fund, the general counsel’s office wrote, “According to its response, AFF submitted an application for tax-exempt status to the Internal Revenue Service . . . on March 18, 2008.” The footnote to that sentence reads, “The IRS has not yet issued a determination letter regarding AFF’s application for exempt status. Based on the information from the response and the IRS website, it is likely that the application is still under review.” In fact, an FEC lawyer knew that the organization had yet to obtain tax-exempt status because Lerner provided the confidential information. Advertisement Advertisement The general counsel’s report was issued in September 2008, but it was over five months before the six FEC commissioners voted, in late-February 2009, on whether to prosecute the American Future Fund for violations of campaign-finance laws. (The typical lag time between the submission of a general counsel’s recommendation and a commission vote is about a month, according to a source familiar with the workings of the commission.) As the vote approached, on February 3, 2009, the FEC lawyer went back to Lerner for an update on the status of the American Future Fund’s application. “Could you please tell me whether the IRS has since issued an exemption letter to the American Future Fund? Also if the IRS has granted American Future Fund’s exemption, would it be possible for you to send me the publicly available information and documents related to American Future Fund?” Despite the recommendations of the general counsel’s office, the six FEC commissioners split on whether to pursue the American Future Fund’s case and voted six-to-zero to close the case. Advertisement House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp and oversight-subcommittee chairman Charles Boustany are calling on the IRS, in the wake of these revelations, to provide all communications between the agency and the FEC between 2008 and 2012. “The American public is entitled to know whether the IRS is inappropriately sharing their confidential tax information with other agencies,” Camp and Boustany write in a letter they will send to acting IRS administrator Danny Werfel on Wednesday. Advertisement Advertisement The FEC enforcement attorney also inquired about the tax-exempt status of another conservative organization, the American Issues Project. “I was also wondering if you could tell me whether the IRS had issued an exemption letter to a group called the American Issues Project? The group also appears to be the successor of two other organizations, Citizens for the Republic and Avenger, Inc.” Also sought were “any information and documents that would be publicly available in relation to the American Issues Project, Citizens for the Republic, or Avenger, Inc.” Lerner was placed on paid administrative leave in late May after she revealed the IRS had inappropriately targeted conservative groups. The IRS has yet to respond to requests from lawmakers about her current employment status with the agency. Advertisement UPDATE: This piece has been amended since its initial posting. |
Why Is This Rogue Needle Exchange Handing Out Meth Pipes? The People's Harm Reduction Alliance is one of the most daring and innovative needle exchanges in the country. And it's run by users. Five years ago, they started giving out crack stems. Now they're expanding services for methamphetamine users. Shilo Murphy is the director of the People’s Harm Reduction Alliance. Kelly O On a sunny afternoon the first week of March, in an alley behind the University District post office, volunteers for the People's Harm Reduction Alliance needle exchange open the doors, set up their outreach table, and begin another afternoon's work. They greet and chat with clients while handing out clean syringes and other injection tools: little metal containers for cooking up a dose, tiny balls of cotton, strips of latex for tying off an arm or leg (as well as a non-latex option). They also offer kits of naloxone, a drug that can be administered via needle or nasal spray to reverse the effects of an overdose. Two young volunteers from the Hepatitis Education Project encourage people to go inside for free hepatitis C testing. A nearby shelf holds dozens of pamphlets on subjects like proper vein care, which parts of the body are safer for injection than others, what to do if you're with someone who overdoses, HIV and hepatitis C information, a "bad date list" by sex workers about johns who are known to be difficult or dangerous, and so on. The clients who approach the table seem to come from all over the place: innocuous-looking people in midrange cars, scruffy older gentlemen with baggy clothes and gentle voices, a few cackling, wise-cracking ladies, the occasional jagged and angry young man, and one very young woman who looks painfully timid as she approaches the table. "We love you and respect you," a volunteer reassures her. This is one of the meth pipes PHRA started passing out earlier this month. Kelly O It was the kind of afternoon you might expect at any needle exchange, but the People's Harm Reduction Alliance (PHRA) is a little different than most needle exchanges. As an independent operation, not run by any government agency, it offers services you won't find elsewhere. They're willing to hand out many syringes at once, for example, instead of the traditional "one-for-one" policy. And they're willing to hand out more than just needles and naloxone. That afternoon in the alley, volunteers give clients small glass stems for smoking crack and bubble-ended pipes used to smoke methamphetamine. Syringes, crack pipes, and meth pipes are all technically drug paraphernalia, and handing out drug paraphernalia is technically illegal, though Washington State courts have given public-health officers broad powers to do what it takes to prevent the spread of disease. Even within the context of lenient local harm-reduction policy, PHRA—which took over the University District needle exchange in 2007—has earned a national reputation for being rogues and experimenters. They pioneer new ideas, like trying to bring crack and methamphetamine users into the fold, and letting them know there are services and health-care options for them, not just the more traditionally accepted services for heroin users. Because of the HIV crisis in the 1980s, says PHRA director Shilo Murphy, heroin injectors have gotten decades' worth of attention from the public-health community that has passed other drug users by. Five years ago, PHRA began handing out glass stems to crack users to help prevent the spread of hepatitis C. The thin glass tubes used to smoke crack get very hot, sometimes blistering users' lips, and blisters on lips make shared stems a potential vector for infection. Murphy says this was a controversial move, but PHRA did it anyway. They let local law enforcement know what they were up to, but the police never interfered. “People who inject meth would come to the table and say, ‘I’m only grabbing these needles because I don’t have access to a pipe,’” Murphy says. Brendan Kiley After PHRA took the initiative, other needle exchanges around the country began to follow suit—although the effectiveness of the crack-pipe program is still unknown. A 2008 study by the National Institutes of Health concluded that transmission of hepatitis via crack stems "seems possible," but a 2012 study published in the Journal of Public Health found no significant connection between sharing crack pipes and hepatitis. (Both studies also said there needs to be more research.) PHRA provides crack stems anyway—not because of some robust data anyone in the organization could point to, but because the local community of crack users asked for them. Public-health-run needle exchanges are still too timid to do this work. You can imagine what Fox News would do if it got wind of a government-funded agency handing out crack pipes. PHRA cofounder Tom Fitzpatrick, a medical student, says the crack-stem program has had one undeniable effect: It's diversified PHRA's client base. The community they served used to be "very, very white," he says. "Whether it's correlation or causation I don't know, but since we began handing out crack pipes, the percentage of people who come here and identify as white has decreased every year." (PHRA conducts annual surveys and elections, where users can vote on what they'd like the organization to do differently—like hand out crack pipes.) A few weeks ago, PHRA quietly launched its latest project: providing pipes to methamphetamine users. Meth can be consumed several different ways, but injecting it is said to pack the most punch. (Preparing a meth injection is similar to preparing a heroin injection—the drug is mixed with water, but isn't heated.) Smoking is generally considered a safer way to take any drug than injecting it, especially if there's a risk that you're injecting with a needle that has been used by somebody else. But handing out meth pipes has another more long-term benefit: starting a conversation with meth users. As Allan Clear, executive director of the Harm Reduction Coalition in New York City, puts it, "If you want to engage with drug users and build their trust, you have to provide something meaningful to them. A stem or a pipe helps build that relationship... it makes it more likely that they'll return for advice or medical care if you have provided them with something useful in your first interaction—something you didn't have to give them." In the alley behind the post office, Murphy, the PHRA director, makes the point a little more strongly: "Drug users need more respect and love," he says. "Why is it always us that has to step up? Because we're drug-user run instead of run by bureaucrats?" PHRA, like some other independent needle exchanges, is "peer run"—meaning that the board, staff, and volunteer base include active narcotics users. Just then, Murphy calls out to a client as she steps away with a new meth pipe: "We love you! We love you just the way you are!" Shilo Murphy came out as an active opiate and cocaine user in 2011 at a national harm-reduction conference in Austin. While sitting on a panel, he told the stunned audience that "heroin saved my life" and that he had no intention of quitting. The reaction was swift and strong, especially among harm-reduction experts who see needle exchanges as a short-term solution to a long-term problem, and treatment and abstinence as the eventual goal. One renowned needle-exchange leader told Murphy he'd set the harm-reduction world back 25 years. But Murphy maintains an unapologetically activist stance. Shortly before his watershed moment in Austin, he'd founded the first chapter of the Urban Survivors' Union (also called the "users' union"), an advocacy group for people who use more stigmatized drugs such as heroin and methamphetamine. To become a member of the USU, you have to be a user—marijuana doesn't count. The idea for the users' union occurred to Murphy after a PHRA member described him as a hero. He didn't think that label could possibly apply to him. "I thought, 'Heroes don't use heroin,'" Murphy says. "The union came out of my own inner struggle." "Our program is run by drug users for drug users," Murphy says about PHRA. "Our program is a reaction to our community's needs... we don't provide a service that's pretty, we provide a service that's necessary." Then he repeats his frequent refrain: "I'm a drug user and I'm proud." The meth-pipe project could be PHRA's most controversial move yet. Unlike crack pipes, meth pipes are not suspected to have any more infectious potential than marijuana pipes. Murphy thinks PHRA is the first group to distribute meth pipes in North America—and he's proud to be doing it. Usually, Canada beats the United States to the punch on harm reduction for hard-drug users. Clear, of the Harm Reduction Coalition in New York City, says he isn't 100 percent certain that PHRA is the first to pass out meth pipes. Regardless, he says the organization has certainly "taken the leadership role on this." Just like the crack stems, PHRA is offering meth pipes primarily because its clients have said they want them. "People who inject meth would come to the table and say, 'I'm only grabbing these needles because I don't have access to a pipe,'" Murphy says. "Eventually, I was handing them needles and I'm like, 'This is dumb.'" He points out that men who have sex with men and inject methamphetamine have the highest rates of HIV infection in King County. Why not give them the option to smoke instead? Kris Nyrop—who ran the University District's needle exchange before PHRA, back when it was under the aegis of a group called Street Outreach Services—says smoking drugs is generally preferable to shooting them, and not just because of the potential for infection. "Every time you put a needle in your arm, you run the risk of hitting an artery and losing a finger or thumb or a whole appendage," Nyrop says. "As part of the general public-health, harm-reduction thing, I would encourage people to smoke their drugs instead of inject them." But not everyone agrees that handing out meth pipes will have a significant impact on public health. Susan Kingston, who worked with King County's HIV/AIDS prevention program from 2002 to 2008 (a high-water mark of meth use among gay men), says she's a little perplexed by PHRA's meth-pipe initiative. Kingston knows better than anyone that men who have sex with men and inject meth have high rates of HIV. But she says that's because of the sex, not the meth: "The primary mode of transmission was not the injection, but unprotected sex while high on methamphetamine—and lots of it." Methamphetamine injectors, she says, use relatively few needles, injecting once a day or even once a weekend. Regular opiate users, on the other hand, tend to inject several times a day. In her mind, giving out pipes isn't really addressing a major, population-wide health concern and burns up resources that could be used to address more urgent problems. During our interview, she even questions the newsworthiness of this article, saying the pressing harm-reduction story right now is about pharmaceutical companies "jacking up" prices for naloxone just as opiate-overdose-prevention programs are finally getting more traction with the public and demand for the drug is increasing. "I guess that's just capitalism and entrepreneurialism at its best," she says. (For the record, King County public health officials say the naloxone price hikes have not affected their access to naloxone because the county qualifies for a federal program to provide medications to the public at significantly reduced rates—but, they admit, things are unstable and could change at any time.) "Smoking would, in theory, reduce your risks," Kingston says. "I'm all for providing drug users, if they're not going to quit, any measure to make their drug use safer." But she questions the logic behind devoting resources to any program, such as the distribution of meth pipes, that isn't going to show a statistically significant return on the investment. "I don't dismiss this as a potential harm-reduction strategy that would have a benefit for individuals," she says. "But on a larger scale, I don't think it's going to have a big impact." That difference between the PHRA approach and Kingston's approach—give the people what they want versus give the people what the data says they need—reveals a difference between user-union needle exchanges and government-run needle exchanges. "Harm-reduction programs, the activist ones, begin work in an environment where what they're doing isn't strictly authorized," says Clear. The very first needle exchanges in the country were committing crimes by distributing drug paraphernalia, but the HIV crisis led 27 states—including Washington—to carve out explicit exemptions for them. Crack stems and meth pipes do not enjoy similar legal protection. Clear argues that independent operations like PHRA are vital for staking out new territory that is not officially sanctioned (yet) and widening the bandwidth for what government-run programs might be able to get away with in the future. It's not unlike the old conventional wisdom of politics—radicals make extreme demands to broaden the political field, giving mainstream parties more room to maneuver while still appearing moderate. We need people at the fringes to change what mainstream culture will eventually consider acceptable. Activist needle exchanges in New York are starting to experiment with supervised-injection sites, which aren't legal but could reduce the number of deaths and infections associated with opiate injections. (The only legal supervised-injection site in North America, called Insite, is located in Vancouver, Canada.) "If you run a syringe exchange and do it indoors, you spend an awful amount of time figuring out how to patrol the bathrooms," Clear says. "People swear they're not going to inject drugs in there, but then they do. So switch it around: If people are already injecting, how do we make it safer?" One New York program, he says, has installed a countertop (a more sanitary place to prepare an injection than a toilet seat) and an intercom to check on people if they've disappeared for a worryingly long period of time. Independent activist groups can get away with that—and take the political heat, when it comes—without jeopardizing their jobs, their funding, or the services they provide to their clients. While organizations like PHRA are occasionally accused of being reckless, they have the luxury of operating without the same degree of fear. King County doesn't provide funding to PHRA, although it does provide some in-kind support, including roughly 40 percent of PHRA's syringe stock. PHRA is funded primarily by foundations and private individuals who support its work, even if it pushes at the boundaries of what's legal or considered acceptable. "That's the history of harm-reduction movements in the US," Clear says. "Those activist programs, underground programs, are in the vanguard. They make the connections, do the outreach, do the HIV and hepatitis C prevention. Then they see if they can get health departments to do something about it afterward." In many parts of the country, underground and user-union exchanges are all people have. In Greensboro, North Carolina, government-run syringe exchanges don't exist, because they're against the law. "Things that are accepted as totally okay in Seattle are illegal in North Carolina," says Louise Vincent of the Urban Survivors' Union. The organization was founded in Seattle but went national in 2013. Vincent is now the president of the USU Greensboro chapter. She admits she's been arrested many times for her own drug offences, but also says she's been arrested several times for simply doing harm-reduction work. On one occasion, she was charged with heroin possession for having used syringes in a biohazard container, she says. (Robert BB Childs of the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition confirmed the risks of running a syringe exchange there, saying, "There have been arrests in North Carolina related to syringe exchanges.") "North Carolina is conservative," Vincent says. "We are backward." And being "backward" comes with real costs. According to a 2011 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Greensboro area has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the United States—and is number one for HIV infection among women. King County, on the other hand, has one of the lowest rates for HIV infection among injection-drug users in the country. Vincent says that when she learned about the harm-reduction movement 10 years ago, "I really felt like I'd found something wonderful—something that made sense, was based in science, and was compassionate." Users are among the most likely people to be cut out of social-services programs, she says. "If you can't abstain or won't abstain, you are told to leave treatment until you're ready," she says. "Basically, 'Come back when you're well.' It's outrageous, when you think about it." Regg Thomas, current president of the USU Seattle chapter and former volunteer with PHRA, says the stigma against drug users is more dangerous than the drugs themselves—the shame, the furtiveness, and the cycle of incarceration make users' lives unnecessarily perilous. Thomas speaks from firsthand experience: He's 48, has been using methamphetamine off and on since his early 20s, and has been to prison several times. "The users' union is all about undoing the stigma against drug users laid out by the war on drugs," he says. "Of course, we don't have any problem with people abstaining, but if you're going to use, I want you to be the safest user you can be." He says activist and user-union-type programs like PHRA are on the front lines of changing attitudes that could eventually change legislation. Michael Hanrahan, who manages King County's HIV/STD prevention program, cautions against thinking there's any significant schism between independent and government-run needle exchanges. "I don't think there's any more tension there than there is among alternative newspapers," he says. "Weekly newspapers have different approaches, but they have more in common than differences." He points to the origin of King County's syringe-exchange program in 1989 as an example—that was a collaboration between public health officials and activists from ACT UP, who pushed for an exchange while the county worked to align support from the mayor, the police, the county executive, and the city and county councils. Within three months of ACT UP's start date for the syringe exchange, the county public-health department was able to assume responsibility for the program. Hanrahan also points out that King County has supported PHRA for a long time—like the syringes it donates—and that independent needle exchanges aren't the only ones that respond to clients' needs. "We talk to our clients with quite a bit of regularity," Hanrahan says. "Suggestions and requests that people make pretty often find a way into the program." But Clear says the partnerships between activists and government-run needle exchanges aren't always so amicable. "I've been in that position, I've been really frustrated with health departments, and I've done my share of screaming and yelling," he says. "And there are a fair number of idiots working in public health—just like there are a fair amount of idiots in activism and harm reduction. We can be shrill and annoying." Out behind the post office in the University District, Murphy talks about trying to reverse the lack of solidarity in the drug community. "When we first had crack pipes, injectors would ask why," Murphy says. Five years later, he thinks the heroin injectors and crack smokers are getting closer to seeing themselves as part of the same constituency. Moving the organization to become more inclusive of methamphetamine users is the logical next step. PHRA's work is not just about preventing infections and overdoses, and not just about getting new faces to the table to see what other programs might be available to them. "It's about creating a community," Murphy says. "Our thing is that whoever you are, you should be the best damn drug user you can be." |
This is the respectful debate. The ABC has put a caller to air who said that one of the two things Adolf Hitler got right was the murder of gay people in concentration camps — the second thing was building the autobahn. The man, identified as Don, called ABC 774’s Mornings with Jon Faine to complain about Faine’s studio guest, Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commissioner Kristen Hilton. Don said that Hilton, who was advocating a Yes vote in the upcoming postal survey on marriage equality, was out of line and should remain neutral on such contentious social issues. Caller to Jon Faine 774 today said Hitler got it right when he exterminated gays. Does being offended by that make you spineless senator? https://t.co/9raBmexKzG — Barrie Cassidy (@barriecassidy) September 11, 2017 “I think it’s disgusting that she gets out and says ‘we are going to support the Yes vote’, instead of saying ‘we haven’t got an opinion one way or the other’,” Don said. Hilton explained that it’s the commission’s duty to promote equality and reduce discrimination in Victoria. “The commission has taken this very deliberate and positive support in marriage equality, because we believe… that the current restrictions on same-sex couples being allowed to marry constitutes discrimination,” she said. The conversation continued for around a minute until Faine attempted to wrap it up, before Don asked to say one more thing. “Hitler had put all those kind of people in their own concentration camps – it’s one of the two good things he did,” Don said. A disbelieving Faine then asked Don to repeat himself, which he did twice, before Faine ended the call. ABC Defends Call Procedure “ABC Radio Melbourne presenter, Jon Faine, put to air a call this morning from a person identified as ‘Don’. The call lasted just under three minutes and was civil until the caller made a highly offensive remark referencing Hitler. Once Jon had clarified what the caller had said, the call was immediately terminated,” an ABC spokesperson told Junkee. When asked why the call wasn’t “dumped” so that the offensive comment wouldn’t make it to air, the spokesperson said the call was dumped “as soon as it became obvious that the caller was being offensive”. “For most of the three minutes the call wasn’t deemed to be offensive,” the spokesperson said. The in the day, the ABC tweeted audio of the call in its entirety. Junkee has chosen not to embed the call in this article. We strongly recommend you don’t go and seek it out. Tiernan Brady, the Executive Director of the Equality Campaign, told Junkee the call was a reminder of the need for respectful debate. “This type of comment is repugnant to almost every Australian and the values of respect and fairness that have underpinned our nation,” he said. “We must never forget that this is a survey about real people’s lives. It is about the members of our families, our friends, neighbours and workmates who just happen to be gay and simply wish to have the same status and dignity in law. The Equality Campaign will not be provoked. We remain totally committed to a campaign of respect and dignity that aims to unite Australians not divide them. The call came on the same day that former Resources Minister Matt Canavan said people concerned about the tenor of the marriage debate should “grow a spine”, and the federal government’s National Mental Health Commission released a statement expressing concern for LGBTQI+ Australians’ mental health. — If you’d like to talk to someone after reading this (or at any point during the marriage equality campaign), QLife is a national counselling service for LGBTQI+ people, which operates between 3pm and midnight AEST every day. You can get in touch with them by calling 1800 184 527, or visiting their website if you’d prefer or require a text-based chat. Read about your other options here. |
An American Airlines flight from Miami to Chicago was grounded Tuesday afternoon due to a mechanical issue caused by, of all things, a spilled soda. None of the roughly 150 people aboard the Boeing 737 was hurt when the plane landed at Jacksonville International Airport about 4:45 p.m., aviation officials said. The city fire department had units on standby after receiving an alert about the unexpected stop but the plane landed without incident, according to department spokesman Tom Francis. In a statement provided by a spokesman, the airline said the flight crew made an emergency landing after a soft drink splashed on a power outlet to a seat in the main cabin The incident is under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration. It left passengers stranded at the airport until their journey was expected to resume about 10 p.m. The airline attributed the spill to a passenger, but passenger Preston Wake doesn’t remember it happening that way. Wake, 43, said he was seated in row 7 on the flight taking him home to Chicago when a flight attendant fumbled a soft drink and inadvertently drenched him. "I can’t really tell you how far it went, but I was soaked," said Wake. "I had to change my clothes and everything." The next thing he knew, Wake said the crew was preparing to land in Jacksonville. Despite the inconvenience, he praised airport staff for their hospitality and said passengers were treated to snacks while they waited. "They’ve been taking care of everybody and I’m very pleased with that," Wake said. Garrett Pelican: (904) 359-4385 |
Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com Senator Joe Manchin, one of the most centrist Democrats in Congress, thinks that it’s time for members of his party to move on from their anger at Donald Trump‘s victory for the sake of the country. On FBN today, Neil Cavuto asked him about “efforts still afoot to deny Donald Trump the victory.” Manchin said, “People just gotta get over it and move on… Let’s get on with governing this country.” “We’ve all got to get behind our president,” he said, “whether you voted for him or not, and work with him and try to make him successful.” Manchin says he wants to be able to work with President-elect Trump and be a “go-between” of sorts between the administration and Congress. He believes that Democrats should be able to “move good policy, not just be basically blocking something because we’re on different sides.” Watch above, via Fox Business Network. [image via screengrab] — — Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com |
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives. Getty Images US President Donald Trump's Twitter account exists for him to express displeasure at anyone who crosses him. On Friday, a federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked Trump's executive order that, among other things, prevented immigration to the States from seven Muslim-majority countries. This is the order that many tech companies have opposed on both business and moral grounds. The president, however, isn't fond of contradiction. So he turned to Twitter on Saturday morning to offer his views. First, he said: "When a country is no longer able to say who can, and who cannot , come in & out, especially for reasons of safety &.security - big trouble!" Big trouble is the sort no one wants. The president, however, is bigly troubled that Judge James Robart should have disagreed with his sense of security. "The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!" Trump tweeted. This latest outburst from Trump might remind some readers of an earlier instance in which the president took aim at a judge who didn't toe the line. When Judge Gonzalo Curiel was presiding over a case involving Trump and former students of the now president's so-called university, Trump suggested Curiel "had an absolute conflict" because he is "of Mexican heritage." Trump had been promising to build a wall between the US and Mexico. In this latest instance, though, openly questioning a judge's credibility might send shivers down many spines. On Twitter, wits took to wondering if Trump might suddenly be labeled our "so-called president." Judge Robart's office didn't respond to a request for comment. Those deeply embedded in the tech world might remember that Robart, appointed in 2003 by George W. Bush, presided over a 2013 patent case between Microsoft and Motorola. He sided largely with Microsoft. I can find no record of Motorola referring to him as a "so-called judge" or accusing him of bias because he's based in Seattle. The president offered a couple more tweets on Saturday morning. One returned to a favorite target of his: The New York Times. "After being forced to apologize for its bad and inaccurate coverage of me after winning the election, the FAKE NEWS @nytimes is still lost!" he tweeted. Oddly, this coincided with the Times announcing record growth in online subscribers. The president did, however, end his Saturday morning Twittering on a positive note. "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" he tweeted. I can hear many mutter, "Yes, please, let's." CNET Magazine: Check out a sampling of the stories you'll find in CNET's newsstand edition. Batteries Not Included: The CNET team shares experiences that remind us why tech stuff is cool. |
Catholic brother says one person was killed and two injured when police shot at villagers who refused to cut hair and beards One person is said to have been killed and at least two others injured on Monday when Indonesian riot police opened fire on civilians in Waghete, West Papua. Spokesperson for the Papuan provincial police Sulistyo Pudjo told Guardian Australia that the shooting occurred when police tried to disperse a mob that was attacking them. "There were provocateurs who were throwing rocks at the police and military. One military person was wounded," he said. However, according to Father Santon Tekege, a Catholic brother who lives in the capital Jayapura but hails from the remote village in West Papua's Deiyai regency, the victims were targeted because they refused to cut their long hair and beards during a random police search operation. Tekege told Guardian Australia that the Indonesian police's mobile brigade (Brimob) was carrying out a "sweeping" operation at the local market on Monday when the incident occurred. "Brimob had scissors to cut people's long hair and beards," Tekege said. "The police always stigmatise those with long hair, dreadlocks and long beards as being separatists." West Papuans have been agitating for independence from Indonesia since the province was acquired with a sham ballot in 1969. "[The police] were also sweeping for nukens (traditional dillybags) that had designs of the Morning Star flag or had 'Papua' written on them," Tekege said. "Mobile phones were confiscated and Brimob was checking the songs on people's mobile phones." When locals refused to comply with police they were shot, he said. Alpius Mote, 20, was killed, another was seriously injured, and a third person shot in the arm, according to Tekege. He said police also arrested two people, one of whom had since been released. Pudjo confirmed a shooting had occurred and that people were arrested, but denied the unrest began as an argument over long hair. "Market day must have security and it just so happened there were lots of drunken people there and people gambling. Our officers reminded them not to get drunk at the market or they would disturb the traders. "The people besieged the police and army," he said. After the incident, Tekege said the regional government "put out a letter to the citizens urging them to be calm and not to carry out actions in retaliation". When Guardian Australia spoke to him on Tuesday, he said: "Today things are still tense. Community members are at their offices as usual but civilians are scared to go out from their homes because Brimob, soldiers and police are still on number one [maximum] alert. "All activities at the local community markets have stopped. They are still guarding the area." Benny Giay, the moderator of West Papua's Kingmi Church who has family in Waghete, told Guardian Australia from Jayapura: "[The Indonesian authorities] think that Papuans who have long hair are uncivilised so they go around and try to cut their hair. They did this in the 1980s as well. "The man who was killed [on Monday] tried to raise his objections and he got shot. It was the actions of the police [that started the unrest] – they were going around with big scissors and cutting hair. If there was [a riot] it was a response to what the police were doing," he said. |
SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 11, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The CCIX consortium today announced that it has tripled its membership and has released the specification to consortium members. Founding members, AMD, ARM, Huawei, IBM, Mellanox Technologies, Qualcomm Technologies Inc., and Xilinx, Inc., welcome new members representing silicon providers and ecosystem partners in design, verification, software, and systems: Amphenol Corp. Arteris Inc. Avery Design Systems Atos Cadence Design Systems, Inc. Cavium, Inc. Integrated Device Technology, Inc. Keysight Technologies, Inc. Micron Technology, Inc. NetSpeed Systems Red Hat Inc. Synopsys, Inc. Teledyne LeCroy Texas Instruments TSMC CCIX allows processors based on different instruction set architectures to extend their cache coherency to accelerators, interconnect, and I/O. These highly capable accelerators become a key component in the processor system. The availability of the CCIX technology gives system designers the flexibility to choose the right combination of heterogeneous components from multiple vendors and address their specific system needs. Through close collaboration, the member companies have aligned to a CCIX specification release that addresses the need for datacenter connectivity by utilizing the prevalent ecosystem that exists today and enhancing it to enable higher bandwidth, lower latency, and full coherency. In addition, the CCIX consortium has chosen to use the PCI Express architecture as its first transport layer with additional higher speeds of 25Gbps and beyond. CCIX anticipates additional transport layers to be added in the future. Using the PCI Express standard to transport the CCIX coherency protocol eases the implementation of CCIX in processors and accelerators. It also eases the deployment of CCIX technology in servers by leveraging the existing hardware and software infrastructure. Availability The CCIX specification is available immediately to the consortium members. Initial products based on CCIX technology are expected in 2017. About CCIX Consortium The CCIX consortium includes a broad representation of industry leaders, working together to develop a single interconnect technology specification that will ensure that processors using different instruction set architectures (ISA) can coherently share data with accelerators and enable efficient heterogeneous computing – significantly improving compute efficiency for servers running data center workloads and embedded applications like 5G wireless and mobile edge computing. Member companies include: AMD (NASDAQ: AMD), Amphenol Corp., ARM, Arteris Inc., Avery Design Systems, Atos, Cadence Design Systems, Inc., Cavium, Inc. (NASDAQ: CAVM), Huawei, Integrated Device Technology, Inc., IBM (NYSE: IBM), Keysight Technologies, Inc., Mellanox Technologies (NASDAQ: MLNX), Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MU), NetSpeed Systems, Qualcomm Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM), Red Hat Inc., Synopsys, Inc., Teledyne LeCroy, Texas Instruments (NASDAQ: TXN), TSMC, and Xilinx (NASDAQ: XLNX). To learn more visit www.ccixconsortium.com. #1639 #AAB850 Media Contacts: AMD Gary Silcott 512-602-0889 garysilcott@amd.com ARM Alex Harrod +44 7795 363057 PR Manager, Europe and US, ARM alexandra.harrod@arm.com Andy Winstanley +44 1223 405244/ +44 7788 249712 Director of External Communications, US and EMEA, ARM andy.winstanley@arm.com Arteris Inc. Kurt Shuler, Vice President of Marketing 408 470-7300 kurt.shuler@arteris.com IBM Kristin Bryson, Corporate Communications 203-241-9190 kabryson@us.ibm.com IDT Dean Solov, Public Relations Manager 408-284-2608 dean.solov@idt.com Mellanox Technologies Allyson Scott McGrath/Power Public Relations and Communications 408-727-0351 allysonscott@mcgrathpower.com Sharon Levin Gelbart Kahana Investor Relations +972-3-6070567 sharonl@gk-biz.com NetSpeed Systems Pauline Shulman +1-415-375-0303 pauline@pshulman.com Qualcomm Pete Lancia, Corporate Communications 858-845-5959 corpcomm@qualcomm.com John Sinnott, Investor Relations 858-658-5431 ir@qualcomm.com Xilinx Silvia E. Gianelli (408) 626-4328 silvia.gianelli@xilinx.com CCIX Consortium Quote Sheet "AMD welcomes the first release of the CCIX specification, as well as the new members joining to establish CCIX as an open standard for local interconnect to cache-coherent accelerators," said Gerry Talbot, AMD corporate fellow and vice president of I/O and circuit technologies. "As a committed supporter of open standards, AMD looks forward to supporting the ongoing, broad collaboration on the specification and adoption of the standard within the ecosystem." "ARM was one of the founders of the Cache Coherence Interconnect for Accelerators (CCIX) consortium and we welcome the new members as evidence of the group's growing importance," said Vincent Korstanje, vice president of marketing systems and software, ARM. "This open standard multichip coherency protocol will enable new innovative, flexible, performant and efficient infrastructure solutions." "Exploding data center requirements are driving our industry to create system architectures that more efficiently process data using combinations of heterogeneous processing elements including CPUs, GPUs and custom hardware accelerators," said Kurt Shuler, vice president of marketing at Arteris. "Arteris is excited to participate in the development of heterogeneous cache coherent interconnect protocol standards that will ease the creation of these new architectures and improve system scalability and flexibility." "Atos is looking forward to contributing to CCIX. For many years we have been offering accelerated servers as part of our Bull HPC offer, even before accelerated solutions proliferated for big data analytics and deep learning. We set a great store on openness, and the CCIX framework will be capital to move to the next generation of open accelerated solutions," explains Jean-Pierre Panziera, chief technology director for Extreme Computing at Atos. "CCIX is the latest interface standard for data center accelerators, and we are committed to making this part of our broad portfolio of design and verification IP," said Dino Bekis, vice president, product marketing, IP Group at Cadence. "As an early member of the CCIX consortium, Cadence is actively working to deliver IP that will speed the availability of CCIX-compliant products in the marketplace." "The CCIX consortium is driving the standardization of coherent interconnect technology for accelerators," said Gopal Hegde, VP/GM Data Center Processor Group at Cavium. "Cavium ThunderX® has led the industry by being the first ARM®v8-based server processor to market with dual socket cache coherency and integrated accelerators for targeted Hyperscale Data Center workloads. We are pleased to participate in this multi-vendor collaboration and we look forward to playing an active role." "IBM continues its commitment to openness and to participation in industry wide collaboration that results in meaningful choice for our clients." said Brad McCredie, IBM fellow and vice president of POWER Development. "Being part of multiple industry bus initiatives adds to the technology options that can be leveraged to meet the various demands of our clients. We confirmed the industry's interest in coherency over PCIe on POWER8 with our CAPI protocol, and joined CCIX to contribute to this technology and enable its integration into a future generation of IBM microprocessor." "IDT's strategy in data center is to provide all of the essential low-latency interconnect, high-speed memory interfaces, power management and timing solutions around accelerators and processors needed to make real-time and time-bound applications work seamlessly," said Sean Fan, IDT's vice president for the Computing and Communications Division. "As members of CCIX, we intend to contribute IDT technical and product expertise from over two decades in PCI, PCIe, RapidIO and memory technologies to enable the formulation of CCIX-based systems to solve systems problems in an open industry collaborative framework." "The CCIX consortium mission is to enable greater data center performance and efficiency, levering existing and well established eco-systems," said Gilad Shainer, vice president of marketing at Mellanox Technologies. "We are happy to see and take part in this large vendor collaborations, and excited to see the fast pace of the specification development. We plan to incorporate the CCIX specification, to bring standard cache coherency, faster data speeds and lower data latency for the data center, in our future smart interconnect solutions." "While memory has always been an essential building block for computing, it is quickly becoming the critical technology to unlocking next-generation performance." said Tom Eby, vice president and GM of Micron's compute and networking business. "Because open standards present the best opportunity for rapid innovation, the CCIX consortium is an important step in ensuring that developing architectures can quickly adapt to capitalize on the dramatic benefits provided by new memory technologies." "As a leader in providing on-chip cache coherent interconnect solutions, NetSpeed is delighted to be working with CCIX to extend coherency across chips to enable next generation high performance solutions to customers in data center, cloud and hyperscale segments." said Sundari Mitra, CEO and co-founder of NetSpeed Systems. "Open architectures and open standards drive innovation in the industry," said Chris Bergen, Senior Director of Product Management at Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies. "We look forward to next generation solutions enabled by the intersection of leading edge processing and acceleration technologies." "Red Hat's drive for standardization across all tiers of the datacenter makes CCIX a great convergence point for enabling community-powered open source innovation using a coherent interconnect, running across several processor architectures," said Tim Burke, vice president, Platform Engineering, Red Hat. "Combining multiple consortia efforts under CCIX helps to lower adoption barriers and chart a path towards open and innovative solutions based on workload acceleration technologies. Red Hat looks forward to driving the convergence of open source infrastructure layers allowing bare metal, virtualized and container workloads to generically capitalize on a variety of hardware accelerators." "New standards such as CCIX support industry-wide interoperability while enabling designers to use standards-based IP to reduce their time-to-market," said John Koeter, vice president of marketing for IP and prototyping at Synopsys. "As a contributor to the CCIX working group, Synopsys is helping to drive the first generation of this new, high-performance specification. With more than ten years of PCI Express leadership, we our leveraging our expertise to develop a CCIX IP solution that will enable designers to improve the bandwidth, latency and coherency of their cloud computing SoCs." "Xilinx is delighted by the enthusiastic response to the CCIX effort by the industry. We welcome the new members who are further energizing the consortium as we create a full ecosystem to enable the design and deployment of upcoming CCIX based systems," said Gaurav Singh, vice president of Architecture at Xilinx and CCIX Chair. "Accelerators are becoming ubiquitous in the data center and CCIX will unleash their full capabilities while complementing the processor's performance." SOURCE CCIX Consortium Related Links http://www.ccixconsortium.com |
In a setback to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to install yellow LED streetlights across the city. The Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) has floated tenders and will award a contract soon. Advertising In January last year, the BJP and alliance partner Shiv Sena had locked horns, with the civic body initiating installation of white LED lights in place of the sodium vapour lamps along the iconic Marine Drive. The Shiv Sena said the white lights had “stolen the charm” of the Queen’s Necklace. With the Sena, which controls the BMC, opposing the move to install white LED lights and the Mumbai Heritage Conversation Committee also objecting to it, the BJP’s initiative for the white lights was stalled. Civic officials said the decision to install LEDs in place of the old sodium vapour lamps along the streets was taken earlier this year. “We constituted a three-member technical committee, which had one member each from BMC and BEST and one expert. We then took a decision to install LEDs. Wherever there are yellow streetlights, yellow LEDs will be installed, and white LEDs in place of white streetlights,” said Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta. Nearly 90 per cent of street lamps in the city are yellow, said officials. Officials said bids have been invited for installation of yellow LEDs. “We have floated tenders for installing LED lights in the city. At the moment, we are changing only 10 per cent of the lights and the remaining will be changed in a phased manner,” said Jagdish Patil, general manager of BEST. Patil added that tenders have been floated after receiving directions from the BMC. “LEDs will be installed across the city but we will first assess how much we are saving by changing only 10 per cent to LEDs,” explained the official. Avkash Jadhav, nominated Shiv Sena corporator, welcomed the BEST’s decision to install yellow LEDs. “This is a big victory for all of us. We are not against LEDs but we wanted the heritage character of the city to remain intact. The civic body must install LEDs across the city only through tendering,” said Jadhav, who had protested against the white LEDs along Marine Drive. Following directions from the heritage panel, the lights along Marine Drive were changed back to yellow. Advertising Last year, there had also been opposition to the move to allot work to Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), an undertaking of the Union power ministry, without calling for tenders in violation of civic procurement norms. |
Product Description “Don’t you remember me? After all we’ve been through…” What do you want to be when you grow up? Paul thought his life would be set after college, but at 22 he’s toiling away in a job he doesn’t like and coming home to an empty apartment every night. He doesn’t know who he is, where he’s going, or how he fits into his world. But then on one dark and stormy night, a mysterious woman appears to him, and everything changes… The Beard in the Mirror is a throwback to when adventure games came in giant cardboard boxes and if you didn’t have the hintbook, that was it; you were stuck on that puzzle for the rest of your life. It’s a labor of love from a husband-and-wife team from two different worlds (she’s a Sierra fangirl, and he’s a LucasArts diehard) who have been working on it together since before they even started dating. Features: |
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